ALLMERS. Has Asta told you anything?

RITA. No. But you said yourself it was for Asta's sake that--that we came together.

ALLMERS. Yes, but you, you yourself, have bound me to you--by our life together.

RITA. Oh, in your eyes I am not--I am not--entrancingly beautiful any more.

ALLMERS. The law of change may perhaps keep us together, none the less.

RITA. [Nodding slowly.] There is a change in me now--I feel the anguish of it.

ALLMERS. Anguish?

RITA. Yes, for change, too, is a sort of birth.

ALLMERS. It is--or a resurrection. Transition to a higher life.

RITA. [Gazing sadly before her.] Yes--with the loss of all, all life's happiness.

ALLMERS. That loss is just the gain.

RITA. [Vehemently.] Oh, phrases! Good G.o.d, we are creatures of earth after all.

ALLMERS. But something akin to the sea and the heavens too, Rita.

RITA. You perhaps. Not I.

ALLMERS. Oh, yes--you too, more than you yourself suspect.

RITA. [Advancing a pace towards him.] Tell me, Alfred--could you think of taking up your work again?

ALLMERS. The work that you have hated so?

RITA. I am easier to please now. I am willing to share you with the book.

ALLMERS. Why?

RITA. Only to keep you here with me--to have you near me.

ALLMERS. Oh, it is so little I can do to help you, Rita.

RITA. But perhaps I could help you.

ALLMERS. With my book, do you mean?

RITA. No; but to live your life.

ALLMERS. [Shaking his head.] I seem to have no life to live.

RITA. Well then, to endure your life.

ALLMERS. [Darkly, looking away from her.] I think it would be best for both of us that we should part.

RITA. [Looking curiously at him.] Then where would you go? Perhaps to Asta, after all?

ALLMERS. No--never again to Asta.

RITA. Where then?

ALLMERS. Up into the solitudes.

RITA. Up among the mountains? Is that what you mean?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. But all that is mere dreaming, Alfred! You could not live up there.

ALLMERS. And yet I feel myself drawn to them.

RITA. Why? Tell me!

ALLMERS. Sit down--and I will tell you something.

RITA. Something that happened to you up there?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. And that you never told Asta and me?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. Oh, you are so silent about everything. You ought not to be.

ALLMERS. Sit down there--and I will tell you about it.

RITA. Yes, yes--tell me!

[She sits on the bench beside the summer-house.]

ALLMERS. I was alone up there, in the heart of the great mountains. I came to a wide, dreary mountain lake; and that lake I had to cross. But I could not--for there was neither a boat nor any one there.

RITA. Well? And then?

ALLMERS. Then I went without any guidance into a side valley. I thought that by that way I could push on over the heights and between the peaks--and then down again on the other side of the lake.

RITA. Oh, and you lost yourself, Alfred!

ALLMERS. Yes; I mistook the direction--for there was no path or track.