FORESTER.

And all the way back I heard her walking behind me.

SOPHY.

On your way back--

FORESTER.

Whenever I walked, I heard her behind me; whenever I stood still, she also stood still, but I did not look around.

SOPHY (_relieved_).

You did not look around?

FORESTER.

Why, I knew it was nothing. I have a feeling as though even now she were still standing behind me.

SOPHY (_wishes to divert him from the subject_).

Did you shoot anything? Is it outside?

FORESTER (_shuddering involuntarily_).

Outside?

SOPHY.

Before the door. What a strange look you give me! What is that on your clothes?

FORESTER (_turns away involuntarily_).

What is it?

SOPHY.

A spot--

FORESTER.

What you see--

SOPHY.

Why will you not let me see it?

FORESTER.

It is nothing.

[_Turns to the table at the right, takes down his gun_.]

Is the soup warm? My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.

SOPHY (_takes a plate and spoon from the closet, goes to the stove where she pours out the soup_).

If he should look into the room! What I ask, I ask only in anxiety to have him forget about Mary.

[_She puts the soup before the_ FORESTER _on the table to the right; listens_.]

Isn't there a noise in the room?

[_Walks about the_ FORESTER'S _chair, so as to distract him_.]

Ulrich, don't you think that Robert could still restore the old friendly relations?

[FORESTER _makes a movement_.]

SOPHY.

Why do you start so?

FORESTER.

Don't wake up Mary! Wasn't there some one at the window?

SOPHY.

That is the old rose-bush outside, which is always nodding so anxiously and knocking at the window, as if it had to prevent a catastrophe, and n.o.body paid any attention to it.

[_Pause; aside_.]

It is so still. I must keep on talking, otherwise he can hear me breathing, and will notice my anxiety--and also that he may not hear Mary when she climbs in at the window.

[_Listening repeatedly_.]

The whole evening I have been thinking about it. Only yesterday Robert said to me--

FORESTER.

Always Robert--

SOPHY (_has seated herself by his side_).

We were walking along the willows, where the pine-thicket is, under the rock, in the Dell--

FORESTER (_violently_).