So he lives there?

IRENE.

[Shrugs her shoulders.] Lives? Lives? In reality I have killed him--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Start.] Killed--!

IRENE.

Killed him with a fine sharp dagger which I always have with me in bed--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Vehemently.] I don't believe you, Irene!

IRENE.

[With a gentle smile.] Indeed you may believe it, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Looks compa.s.sionately at her.] Have you never had a child?

IRENE.

Yes, I have had many children.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

And where are your children now?

IRENE.

I killed them.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Severely.] Now you are telling me lies again!

IRENE.

I have killed them, I tell you--murdered them pitilessly. As soon as ever they came into the world. Oh, long, long before. One after the other.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Sadly and earnestly.] There is something hidden behind everything you say.

IRENE.

How can I help that? Every word I say is whispered into my ear.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I believe I am the only one that can divine your meaning.

IRENE.

Surely you ought to be the only one.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Rests his hands on the table and looks intently at her.] Some of the strings of your nature have broken.

IRENE.

[Gently.] Does not that always happen when a young warm-blooded woman dies?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Oh Irene, have done with these wild imaginings--! You are living!

Living--living!

IRENE.

[Rises slowly from her chair and says, quivering.] I was dead for many years. They came and bound me--laced my arms together behind my back--.

Then they lowered me into a grave-vault, with iron bars before the loop-hole. And with padded walls--so that no one on the earth above could hear the grave-shrieks--. But now I am beginning, in a way, to rise from the dead.