passion has left me a burned-out shell,
would you leave me here? You are taking my life with you, Oscar! Then
take with you as well this flesh and blood which has been yours, or it
will perish!

GERARDO. Helen ...!

HELEN. Contracts! What are contracts to you! Why, there's not a
contract made that one cannot get around in some way! What do people
make contracts for? Don't use your contract as a weapon with which to
murder me. I am not afraid of your contracts! Let me go with you,
Oscar! We'll see if he as much as mentions a breach of contract. He
won't do it or I am a poor judge of human nature. And if he does
object, it will still be time for me to die.

GERARDO. But we have no right to possess each other, Helen! You are
as little free to follow me as I am to assume such a responsibility. I
do not belong to myself; I belong to my art ...

HELEN. Oh don't talk to me of your art! What do I care for your art.
I've clung to your art merely to attract your attention. Did Heaven
create a man like you to let you make a clown of yourself night after
night? Are you not ashamed of boasting of it? You see that I am willing
to overlook your being an artist. What wouldn't one overlook in a
demigod like you? And if you were a convict, Oscar, I could not feel
differently toward you. I have lost all control over myself! I should
still lie in the dust before you as I am doing now! I should still
implore your mercy as I am doing now! My own self would still be
abandoned to you as it is now! I should still be facing death as I am
now!

GERARDO (laughing). Why, Helen, you and facing death! Women so richly
endowed for the enjoyment of life as you are do not kill themselves.
You know the value of life better than I. You are too happily
constituted to cast it away. That is left for others to do--for stunted
and dwarfed creatures, the stepchildren of nature.

HELEN. Oscar, I did not say that I was going to shoot myself. When did
I say that? How could I summon the courage? I say that I shall die if
you do not take me with you just as one might die of any ailment
because I can live only if I am with you! I can live without anything
else--without home, without children, but not without you, Oscar! I can
_not_ live without _you_!

GERARDO (uneasy). Helen--if you do not calm yourself now, you will
force me to do something terrible! I have just ten minutes left. The
scene you are making here won't be accepted as a legal excuse for my
bre