Laura. Mathilde--does it really say that?
Laura (takes the book and looks at it, then lays it down). It is almost our own story, word for word. I would give anything to know who has written it.
Laura. No, some wicked wretch has seen something like this--some creature that is heartless enough to be able to mock at a parent's love; it must be some one who either is worthless himself or has had worthless parents!
Mathilde. Why, Laura, how seriously you take it!
Laura. Yes, it irritates me, this libelling of all fidelity. What is fidelity, if it does not mean that a child should be true to its parents?
Mathilde. But I was just reading to you about that. (Reads.) "The object of fidelity changes, as we ourselves change. The child's duty is to be true to its parents; the married, to one another; the aged, to their children--"
Laura. Don't read any more! I won't hear any more! Its whole train of thought offends me. (After a pause.) What a horrid book! (Indifferently.) What happens to them in the end?
Mathilde (still in an indifferent tone). It doesn't end happily. (A pause.)
Laura (looking up). Which of them suffers?
Laura (beginning to sew again). She, I should think--because she is unhappy already.
Mathilde. You have guessed right. She falls in love.
Mathilde. Yes. Sometime or other, love is awakened in the heart of every woman; and then, if she cannot love her husband, in the course of time she will love some one else.
Laura. That is horrible! (Begins to sew, then lays her hand down on the table, then begins to sew again.) And what happens to him?
Mathilde. He falls ill, very ill. And then some one finds him out and comforts him--a woman.
Laura (looking up). How does that happen?
Mathilde. His heart is like an empty house, in an atmosphere of sadness and longing. Little by little she--the woman who comforts him--creeps into it; and so in time there comes the day when he can say he is happy. (A pause.)
Mathilde. One of those poor-spirited creatures that can be content with the aftermath of love.
Laura (after a pause, during which she has been looking fixedly at MATHILDE). Could you be that?
Mathilde. No!--I must be first or nothing!
Mathilde. Directly she realises that love for another has taken possession of her husband, she turns towards him with all her heart; but it is too late then. (LAURA sits absorbed for a few moments; then gets up hurriedly and goes to a little work-table that is standing at the end of the couch on the left, opens it, looks for something in it, stops to think, then looks in it again.) What are you looking for?