MOTHER. I'll put food for them on the table for the poor. Do you
mind that?
OLD MAN. No.
MOTHER. Shall I give them cider?
OLD MAN. Yes. And you can light the fire; they'll be cold.
MOTHER. There's hardly time. But I will, if you wish it, Father.
OLD MAN (looking out of the window). I think you'd better.
MOTHER. What are you looking at?
OLD MAN. The river; it's rising. And I'm asking myself, as I've
done for seventy years--when I shall reach the sea.
MOTHER. You're sad to-night, Father.
OLD MAN. ... et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui laetificat
juventutem meam. Yes. I do feel sad. ... Deus, Deus meus: quare
tristis es anima mea, et quare conturbas me.
MOTHER. Spera in Deo. ...
(The Maid comes in, and signs to the MOTHER, who goes over to her.
They whisper together and the maid goes out again.)
OLD MAN. I heard what you said. O God! Must I bear that too!
MOTHER. You needn't see them. You can go up to your room.
OLD MAN. No. It shall be a penance. But why come like this: as
vagabonds?
MOTHER. Perhaps they lost their way and have had much to endure.
OLD MAN. But to bring her husband! Is she lost to shame?
MOTHER. You know Ingeborg's queer nature. She thinks all she does
is fitting, if not right. Have you ever seen her ashamed, or suffer
from a rebuff? I never have. Yet she's not without shame; on the
contrary. And everything she does, however questionable, seems
natural when she does it.
OLD MAN.
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