er, you
understand.

Rosmer. Well, you succeeded in carrying your scheme through, too.

Rebecca. I believe I could have carried anything through--at that time.
For then I still had the courage of a free will. I had no one else to
consider, nothing to turn me from my path. But then began what has
broken down my will and filled the whole of my life with dread and
wretchedness.

Rosmer. What--began? Speak so that I can understand you.

Rebecca. There came over me--a wild, uncontrollable passion--Oh, John--!

Rosmer. Passion? You--! For what?

Rebecca. For you.

Rosmer (getting up). What does this mean!

Rebecca (preventing him). Sit still, dear. I will tell you more about
it.

Rosmer. And you mean to say--that you have loved me--in that way!

Rebecca. I thought I might call it loving you--then. I thought it was
love. But it was not. It was what I have said--a wild, uncontrollable
passion.

Rosmer (speaking with difficulty). Rebecca--is it really you--you--who
are sitting here telling me this?

Rebecca. Yes, indeed it is, John.

Rosmer. Then it was as the outcome of this--and under the influence of
this--that you "acted," as you called it.

Rebecca. It swept over me like a storm over the sea--like one of the
storms we have in winter in the north. They catch you up and rush you
along with them, you know, until their fury is expended. There is no
withstanding them.

Rosmer. So it swept poor unhappy Beata into the mill-race.

Rebecca. Yes--it was like a fight for life between Beata and me at that
time.

Rosmer. You proved the strongest of us all at Rosmersholm--stronger
than both Beata and me put together.

Rebecca. I knew you well enough to know that I could not get at you in
any way until you were set free--both in actual circumstances and in
your soul.

Rosmer. But I do not understand you, Rebecca. You--you yourself and
your whole conduct--are an insoluble riddle to me. I am free now--both
in my soul and my circumstances. You are absolutely in touch with the
goal you set before yourself from the beginning. And nevertheless--

Rebecca. I have never stood farther from my goal than I do now.

Rosmer. And nevertheless, I say, when yesterday I asked you--urged
you--to become my wife, you cried out that it never could be.

Rebecca. I cried out in despair, John.

Rosmer. Why?

Rebecca. Because Rosmersholm has unnerved me. All the courage has been
sapped out of my will here--crushed out! The time ha