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 has gone for me to dare risk anything whatever. I have lost all power of action, John.
Rosmer. Tell me how that has come about.
Rebecca. It has come about through my living with you.
Rosmer. But how? How?
Rebecca. When I was alone with you here--and you had really found yourself--Rosmer. Yes, yes?
Rebecca. For you never really found yourself as long as Beata was Alive--Rosmer. Alas, you are right in that.
Rebecca. When it came about that I was living together with you here, in peace and solitude--when you exchanged all your thoughts with me unreservedly--your every mood, however tender or intimate--then the great change happened in me. Little by little, you understand. Almost imperceptibly--but overwhelmingly in the end, till it reached the uttermost depths of my soul.
Rosmer. What does this mean, Rebecca?
Rebecca. All the other feeling--all that horrible passion that had drowned my better self--left me entirely. All the violent emotions that had been roused in me were quelled and silenced. A peace stole over my soul--a quiet like that of one of our mountain peaks up under the midnight sun.
Rosmer. Tell me more of it--all that you can.
Rebecca. There is not much more to tell. Only that this was how love grew up in my heart--a great, self-denying love--content with such a union of hearts as there has been between us two.
Rosmer. Oh, if only I had had the slightest suspicion of all this!
Rebecca. It is best as it is. Yesterday, when you asked me if Iwould be your wife, I gave a cry of joy--Rosmer. Yes, it was that, Rebecca, was it not! I thought that was what it meant.
Rebecca. For a moment, yes-I forgot myself for a moment. It was my dauntless will of the old days that was struggling to be free again. But now it has no more strength--it has lost it for ever.
Rosmer. How do you explain what has taken place in you?
Rebecca. It is the Rosmer attitude towards life-or your attitude towards life, at any rate--that has infected my will.
Rosmer. Infected?
Rebecca. Yes, and made it sickly--bound it captive under laws that formerly had no meaning for me. You--my life together with you--have ennobled my soul--Rosmer. Ah, if I dared believe that to be true!
Rebecca. You may believe it confidently. The Rosmer attitude towards life ennobles. But-(shakes her head)-but-but--Rosmer. But? Well?
Rebecca. But it kills joy, you know.
Rosmer. Do you say that, Rebecca?
Rebecca. For me, at all events.
Rosmer. Yes, but are you so sure of that? If I asked you again now--? Implored you--?
Rebecca. Oh, my dear--never go back to that again! It is impossible. Yes, impossible--because I must tell you this, John.
I have a--past behind me.
Rosmer. Something more than you have told me?
Rebecca. Yes, something more and something different.
Rosmer (with a faint smile). It is very strange, Rebecca, but--do you know--the idea of such a thing has occurred to me more than once.
Rebecca. It has? And yet--notwithstanding that, you--?
Rosmer. I never believed in it. I only played with the idea-nothing more.
Rebecca. If you wish, I will tell you all about it at once.
Rosmer (stopping her). No, no! I do not want to hear a word aabout it. Whatever it is, it shall be forgotten, as far as I am concerned.
Rebecca. But I cannot forget it.
Rosmer. Oh, Rebecca--!
Rebecca. Yes, dear--that is just the dreadful part of it-that now, when all the happiness of life is freely and fully offered to me, all I can feel is that I am barred out from it by my past.
Rosmer. Your past is dead, Rebecca. It has no longer any hold on you--has nothing to do with you--as you are now.
Rebecca. Ah, my dear, those are mere words, you know. What about innocence, then? Where am I to get that from?
Rosmer (gloomily). Ah, yes--innocence.
