Why?... It shouldn"t, Johanna. It is in hours like those we know, that we have lost nothing, and that in reality we cannot lose anything.
JOHANNA
Oh, I wish you had lost and forgotten everything, so that I might be everything to you!
SALA (_somewhat astonished_)
Johanna....
JOHANNA (_pa.s.sionately_)
I love you. (_Pause_)
SALA
In a few days I shall be gone, Johanna. You know it--you have known it right along.
JOHANNA
I know. Why do you repeat it? Do you think, perhaps, that all at once I may begin to clutch at you like a love-sick thing, dreaming of eternities?--No, that isn"t my way--oh, no!... But I want to tell you once at least that I am fond of you. May I not for once?--Do you hear?
I love you. And I wish that sometime later on you may hear it just as I am saying it now--at some other moment no less beautiful than this--when we two shall no longer be aware of each other.
SALA
Indeed, Johanna, of one thing you may be sure: that the sound of your voice shall never leave me.--But why should we talk of parting forever?
Perhaps we shall meet again sooner or later ... in three years ... or in five.... (_With a smile_) Then you have become a princess perhaps, and I may be the ruler of some buried city.... Why don"t you speak?
JOHANNA (_pulls the cape more closely about her_)
SALA
Do you feel cold?
JOHANNA
Not at all.--But now I must go.
SALA
Are you in such a hurry?
JOHANNA
It is getting late. I must be back before my father gets home.
SALA
How strange! To-day you are hurrying home, fearful of being too late, lest your father get worried. And in a couple of days....
JOHANNA
Then he will no longer be waiting for me. Farewell, Stephan.
SALA
Until to-morrow, then.
JOHANNA
Yes, until to-morrow.
SALA
You"ll come through the garden gate, of course?
JOHANNA
Wasn"t that a carriage that stopped before the house?
SALA
The doors are locked. n.o.body can get out into the garden.
JOHANNA
Good-by, then.
SALA
Until to-morrow.
JOHANNA
Yes. (_She is about to go_)
SALA
Listen, Johanna.--If I should say to you now: stay!
JOHANNA
No, I must go now.
SALA
That was not what I meant.
JOHANNA