AUGUST

I don't despise no one in this world.

ROSE

But I do! All of 'em ... all ... all!

AUGUST

Those is dark words to me that you're speakin'.

ROSE

Dark? Yes! I know it. The world's dark! An' you hear the roarin' o' wild beasts in it. An' then, later, it gets brighter ... but them are the flames o' h.e.l.l that make it bright.--Martha....

BERND

[_Who has been listening a little, arises and frees MARTHEL'S wrist from ROSE'S grasp._] Don't poison the little la.s.s's mind. Take your hand away!--March off to bed! [_MARTHEL goes weeping._] A man would like to be deaf, to be blind! A man'd like to be dead.

[_He becomes absorbed again in his Bible._

ROSE Father!--I'm alive!--I'm sittin' here!--That's somethin'!--Yes, that's something when you considers!--I think, father, you might understand that! This is a world ...! n.o.body can never do nothin' more to me! O Jesus, my Saviour--! All o' you, all o' you--you live together in a bit o' chamber an' you don't know what goes on outside in the world! I know it now ... I've learned it in bitterness an' wailin'! I had to get out o' that little chamber! An' then--somehow--the walls gave way, one wall an' another ... an' there I stood, outside, in the storm ... an'

there--was nothin' under me an' nothin' above me ... nothin'. You're all like children compared to me.

AUGUST

[_Frightened._] But, Rose, if it's true what Streckmann says, then you've committed perjury!...

ROSE

[_Laughing bitterly._] I don't know. 'Tis possible ... I can't just remember this moment. The world is made up o' lies an' deception.

BERND

[_Sighs._] O G.o.d ... my refuge evermore.

AUGUST

Is it so easy that you take the swearin' o' false oaths?

ROSE

That's nothin'! Nothin'! How could that be anythin'? There's somethin'

that lies, out there, under a willow ... That's ... somethin' ... The rest don't concern me! There ... there ... I wanted to look up at the stars! I wanted to cry out an' to call out! No heavenly Father stirred to help me.

BERND

[_Frightened, trembling._] You're blasphemin' our heavenly Father? Has it gone so far with you? Then I don't know you no more!

ROSE

[_Approaching him on her knees._] 'Tis gone so far! But you know me anyhow, father! You cradled me on your knees, an' I've stood by you too many a time.--Now somethin' has come over us all--I've fought against it and struggled against it....

BERND

[_Deeply perplexed._] What is it?

ROSE

I don't know ... I don't know!

[_Trembling and kneeling, she crouches and stares at the floor._

AUGUST

[_Overwhelmed and taken out of himself by the pity of the sight._] Rosie, get up! I won't desert you! Get up, I can't bear to see you lyin' there!

We're all sinners together! An' anyone who repents so deep, is bound to be forgiven. Get up, Rose, Father, raise her up! We're not among them that condemns--not I, at least. There's nothin' in me o' the Pharisee! I see how it goes to her heart! Come what will, I'll stand by you! I'm no judge ... I don't judge. Our Saviour in Heaven didn't judge neither.

Truly, he bore our sickness for us, an' we thought he was one that was tortured an' stricken, by G.o.d! Maybe we've all been guilty of error. I don't want to acquit myself neither. I've been thinkin'. Before the la.s.s hardly knew me, she had to say her yea an' amen! What do I care about the world? It don't concern me.

ROSE

August, they clung to me like burrs ... I couldn't walk across the street safe ... All the men was after me!... I hid myself ... I was that scared!

I was so afraid o' men!... It didn't help! 'Twas worse an' worse! After that I fell from one snare into another, till I hardly came to my senses no more.

BERND

You used to have the strictest notion o' such things. You condemned the Leichner girl an' despised the Kaiser wench! You boasted--you'd like to see someone come across your path! You struck the miller's journeyman in the face! A girl as does that, you said, don't deserve no pity; she can go an' hang herself! An' now you speak o' snares.

ROSE

I know better now.

AUGUST

Come what will, I'll stand by you, Rose. I'll sell my land! We'll go out into the world! I have an uncle in Brazil, across the ocean. We'll get our bit o' livin' somehow--one way or t'other. Maybe 'tis only now that we're ripe an' ready to take up our life together.

ROSE

O Jesus, Jesus, what did I do? Why did I go an' creep home? Why didn't I stay with my little baby?

AUGUST

With whom?

ROSE

[_Gets up._] August, it's all over with me! First there was a burnin' in my body like flames o' fire! Then I fell into a kind o' swoon! Then there came one hope: I ran like a mother cat with her kitten in her mouth! But the dogs chased me an' I had to drop it....