Part 3 (1/2)

Axel. You won't share any more confidences with me? (Takes her hand.) You used to--

Mathilde (drawing back her hand and moving away from him). Yes, I used to.

Axel. Why won't you any longer? (Goes up to her.) What is changed?

Mathilde. You. You are married now.

Axel. No, that is just what I am not.

Mathilde. Indeed.

Axel. You have sharp eyes. You must have seen that.

Mathilde. I thought it was all just as you wished.

Axel. You are giving me very abrupt answers. Have I offended you?

Mathilde. What makes you ask that?

Axel. Because lately you have avoided me. Remember how kind you were to me once--indeed, that I owe you everything. It was through you, you know, that I got at her. I had to make a.s.signations with you, in order to meet her. I had to offer you my arm so as to be able to give her the other, and to talk to you so that she might hear my voice. The little darling thought she was doing you a service--

Mathilde. When as a matter of fact it was I that was doing her one--

Axel. Yes, and without suspecting it! That was the amusing part of it.

Mathilde. Yes, that was the amusing part of it.

Axel. But soon people began to say that you and I were secretly engaged, and that we were making a stalking-horse of Laura; so for her sake I had to bring matters to a head rather quickly.

Mathilde. Yes, you took a good many people by surprise.

Axel. Including even yourself, I believe--not to mention the old folk and Laura. But the worst of it is that I took my own happiness by surprise, too.

Mathilde. What do you mean?

Axel. Of course I knew Laura was only a child; but I thought she would grow up when she felt the approach of love. But she has never felt its approach; she is like a bud that will not open, and I cannot warm the atmosphere. But you could do that--you, in whom she has confided all her first longings--you, whose kind heart knows so well how to sacrifice its happiness for others. You know you are to some extent responsible, too, for the fact that the most important event in her life came upon her a little unpreparedly; so you ought to take her by the hand and guide her first steps away from her parents and towards me--direct her affections towards me--

Mathilde. I? (A pause.)

Axel. Won't you?

Mathilde. No--

Axel. But why not? You love her, don't you?

Mathilde. I do; but this is a thing--

Axel.--that you can do quite well! For you are better off than the rest of us--you have many more ways of reaching a person's soul than we have.

Sometimes when we have been discussing something, and then you have given your opinion, it has reminded me of the refrains to the old ballads, which sum up the essence of the whole poem in two lines.