Scene: same as in the Prelude. The day after the play to which Estella, in the Prelude, invited her friend to accompany her. SOPHIA: Forgive me, dear Estelle, for keeping you waiting. I had to attend to something for the children. ESTELLA: Here I am back again with you already. I long for your sympathy, whenever anything stirs me deeply. SOPHIA: Well, you know that I shall always sympathize most warmly with you in your interests. ESTELLA: This play, of which I spoke to you, Outcasts from Body and from Soul touched me so deeply. Does it seem to you odd when I say that there were moments when all I had ever known of human sorrow stood before me? With highest artistic force the work not only gives the outer mischances, met with by so many people, but also points out with wonderful penetration the deepest agonies of the soul. SOPHIA: One cannot, I fear, form a proper conception of a work of art by simply hearing of its contents. But I would like you to tell me what stirred you so. ESTELLA: The construction of the play was admirable. The artist wished to show how a young painter loses all his creative desire, because he begins to doubt his love for a woman. She had endowed him with the power to develop his promising talents. Pure enthusiasm for his art had produced in her the most beautiful love of sacrifice. To her he owed the fullest development of his abilities in his chosen field. He blossomed, as it were, in the sunshine of his benefactress. Constant association with this woman developed his gratitude into passionate love. This caused him to neglect, more and more, a poor creature who was faithfully devoted to him, and who finally died of grief, because she had to confess to herself that she had lost the heart of the man she loved. When he heard of her death, the news did not seriously disturb him, for his heart belonged entirely to his benefactress. Yet he grew ever more and more certain that her noble feeling of friendship for him would never turn to passionate love. This conviction drove all creative joy from his soul, and his inner life grew constantly more desolate. In this condition of life the poor girl, whom he had forsaken, came again into his mind, and a wrecked life was all that resulted from a hopeful and promising man. Without prospect of a single ray of light he pined away. All this is portrayed with intense dramatic vividness. SOPHIA: I can easily see how the play must have worked upon your feelings. As a girl you always suffered intensely at the destiny of such people, who had been driven to bitterness by heavy misfortunes in their life.