been standing silently witnessing the scene, and now
approaches PAUL). What does this mean, Paul?

PAUL (about to go, frigidly). A woman whom I knew in the old days!...
Good-by. (He leaves her and goes out at the right with the guests.)

HELLA (partly to herself, partly calling after him). Paul! What _does_
this mean?... Paul!

ACT IV

Afternoon, two days later. The banquet hoard and oleanders have been
removed, every trace of the funeral has been carefully obliterated.
Clear sunlight comes in from the garden windows in the background and
lights up the spacious, sombre hall. The bushes and trees of the garden
are coated with ice. The fire is burning as usual. Toward the end of
the act the sunlight gradually vanishes and a light, gray dusk fills
the hall. AUNT CLARA stands at the fireplace with her arms folded over
her waist, and looks into the fire.

PAUL (who has been pacing the floor, stops and passes his hand over his
hair nervously). So no letter has come, Aunt Clara?

AUNT CLARA (looking up). No, no, my boy.

PAUL (impatiently). And no messenger either?

AUNT CLARA. From where do you expect one?

PAUL (in agony). Great God, from where? From where? From anywhere? Some
tiding! Some word! A letter! (Paces the floor again excitedly.)

AUNT CLARA. Why I can't tell. Are you expecting anything from some
source or other?

PAUL (impetuously). Would I be _asking_, Aunt Clara?

[Silence.]

PAUL (violently agitated, partly to himself). Incomprehensible!
Incomprehensible! Two days without news! Two full days!

AUNT CLARA (sadly). I do not comprehend you either, my boy!

PAUL (takes a few steps without heeding her). This stillness! This
death-like stillness!

AUNT CLARA (sits down). Isn't it good, when peace prevails?

PAUL. As you look at it. Certainly it is good! But first of all one
must be at peace himself! Must have become calm and clear about the
matters that concern one. Know what one wants to do and is expected to
do and what one is here for in this world.

AUNT CLARA. But every one knows that, Paul.

PAUL (without listening to her, rather to himself). Uncanny, this
silence all around one. Doubly and three-fold one feels, how it seethes
and boils within, without one's getting anywhere. One can hear himself
_think_! (He stops, then in a changed voice, as he looks up.) No no,
Aunt Clara, people who have closed their account, belong in the
country. Others do not! (AUNT CLARA looks at