t you said yourself it was for Asta's sake that--that we
came together.

ALLMERS. Yes, but you, you yourself, have bound me to you--by our life
together.

RITA. Oh, in your eyes I am not--I am not--entrancingly beautiful any
more.

ALLMERS. The law of change may perhaps keep us together, none the less.

RITA. [Nodding slowly.] There is a change in me now--I feel the anguish
of it.

ALLMERS. Anguish?

RITA. Yes, for change, too, is a sort of birth.

ALLMERS. It is--or a resurrection. Transition to a higher life.

RITA. [Gazing sadly before her.] Yes--with the loss of all, all life's
happiness.

ALLMERS. That loss is just the gain.

RITA. [Vehemently.] Oh, phrases! Good God, we are creatures of earth
after all.

ALLMERS. But something akin to the sea and the heavens too, Rita.

RITA. You perhaps. Not I.

ALLMERS. Oh, yes--you too, more than you yourself suspect.

RITA. [Advancing a pace towards him.] Tell me, Alfred--could you think
of taking up your work again?

ALLMERS. The work that you have hated so?

RITA. I am easier to please now. I am willing to share you with the
book.

ALLMERS. Why?

RITA. Only to keep you here with me--to have you near me.

ALLMERS. Oh, it is so little I can do to help you, Rita.

RITA. But perhaps I could help you.

ALLMERS. With my book, do you mean?

RITA. No; but to live your life.

ALLMERS. [Shaking his head.] I seem to have no life to live.

RITA. Well then, to endure your life.

ALLMERS. [Darkly, looking away from her.] I think it would be best for
both of us that we should part.

RITA. [Looking curiously at him.] Then where would you go? Perhaps to
Asta, after all?

ALLMERS. No--never again to Asta.

RITA. Where then?

ALLMERS. Up into the solitudes.

RITA. Up among the mountains? Is that what you mean?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. But all that is mere dreaming, Alfred! You could not live up
there.

ALLMERS. And yet I feel myself drawn to them.

RITA. Why? Tell me!

ALLMERS. Sit down--and I will tell you something.

RITA. Something that happened to you up there?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. And that you never told Asta and me?

ALLMERS. Yes.

RITA. Oh, you are so silent about everything. You ought not to be.

ALLMERS. Sit down there--and I will tell you about it.

RITA. Yes, yes--tell me!

[She sits on the bench beside the summer-house.]

ALLMERS. I was alone up there, in the heart of the great mountains. I
came to a wide, dreary mountain