right--but you know what it was I always disliked about your
scribbling, and you know that it's a very personal thing.

MARGARET. Well, there are women who in my situation at that time would
have done worse things than write poetry.

CLEMENT. But such poetry! (He picks up a little book on the
mantelpiece.) That's the whole question. I can assure you, every time I
see it lying there, everytime I even think of it, I'm ashamed to think
it's yours.

MARGARET. You simply don't understand it. No, you mustn't be vexed with
me; if you had just that one thing more, you'd be perfect--and that
probably is not to be. But what is it that disturbs you in the verses?
You surely know that I haven't experienced anything like that.

CLEMENT. I hope not!

MARGARET. You know it's all imagination.

CLEMENT. But then I can't help asking myself ... how comes a lady to
have such an imagination? (Reads.)

"So, drunk with bliss, I hang upon thy neck
And suck thy lips' drained sweetness ..."

(Shakes his head.) How can a lady write such stuff, or allow it to be
printed? Everybody who reads it must call up a picture of the authoress
and the neck and ... the intoxication.

MARGARET. When I give you my word that such a neck has never existed
...

CLEMENT. No, I can't believe that it has. Lucky for me that I
can't--and ... for you too, Margaret. But how did you ever come by such
fancies? All these glowing emotions can't possibly be referred to your
first husband--you told me yourself he never understood you.

MARGARET. Of course he didn't--that's why I got a divorce from him. You
know all about that. I simply couldn't exist by the side of a man who
had no ideas beyond eating and drinking and cotton.

CLEMENT. Yes, I know. But all that's three years ago--and you wrote the
verses later.

MARGARET. Yes ... But just think of the position in which I found
myself ...

CLEMENT. What sort of a position? You hadn't any privations to put up
with, had you? From that point of view your husband, to give him his
due, behaved really very well. You weren't forced to earn your own
living. And even if they gave you a hundred florins for a poem--they
certainly wouldn't give more--you weren't obliged to write a book like
that.

MARGARET. Clement, dear, I didn't mean the word "position" in a
material sense; I meant the position in which my soul was. Haven't you
any conception ...? When you first met me, it was much better--to a
certain e