What--what is the matter? Oh, you frightened me so!
_Michaelis turns away without answering._
_Collecting her thoughts with difficulty._
I thought it was morning; the sun had risen, and--and you were out there, in the midst of the crowd.
You don't want me to know that, in your dream, I failed.
Perhaps this is not the time. Perhaps you are not ready.
_Gazing at the map, with mystic conviction._
_He paces the room. She stops him, pointing toward the hall door._
_He hesitates. She repeats the words anxiously._
_He shakes his head gloomily for answer._
I am weighed in the balance and found wanting!
You cannot hang the whole issue and meaning of your life upon so slight a thread.
The whole issue and meaning of the world hang on threads as slight. If this one is slight. To the mother it is not slight, nor to the God who put into her eyes, as she looked at me, all the doubt and question of the suffering earth.
You must remember that it is only a little child. Its mind is not open. You cannot influence it--can you?
Once that little life in my hand would have been as clay in the hands of the potter. If I cannot help now, it is because my ministry has been taken from me and given to another, who will be strong where I am weak, and faithful where I am unfaithful.
Tell me this. Speak plainly to me. Is it because of me that your weakness and unfaith have come upon you? Is it because of me?
Before creation, beyond time, God not yet risen from His sleep, you stand and call to me, and I listen in a dream that I dreamed before Eden.
You must not say such things to me.--You must not think of me so.--You must not!
All my life long I have known you, and fled from you, I have heard you singing on the hills of sleep and have fled from you into the waking day. I have seen you in the spring forest, dancing and throwing your webs of sunlight to snare me; on moonlit mountains, laughing and calling; in the streets of crowded cities, beckoning and disappearing in the crowd--and everywhere I have fled from you, holding above my head the sign of God's power in me, my gift and my mission.--What use? What use? It has crumbled, and I do not care!
Oh, don't speak such words, I beseech you. Let me go. This must not, shall not be!