Didn't I have to go an' promise my wife ... SIEBENHAAR. ------?--Oh, yes!!--You mean the girl--Hanne?-- [_Pause._] HENSCHEL I been thinkin' an' thinkin'. There's no use in denyin' it. When I wakes up during the night, I can't sleep for a couple o' hours sometimes. I got to be thinkin' of it all the time. I can't get over it any way!--The girl's a good girl. She's a bit young for an old fellow like me, but she c'n work enough for four men. An' she's taken very kindly to Gustel; no mother could do more'n she. An' the girl's got a head on her, that's sure, better'n mine. She c'n do sums better'n I can. She might go an' be a calculator. She knows a bit o' business to the last farthing, even if six weeks have come an' gone since. I believe she could make a fool o' two lawyers. SIEBENHAAR Well, if you're so thoroughly convinced of all that ...! HENSCHEL There wouldn't be no better wife for me! An' yet ... an' yet! I can't get over it. [_Pause._] SIEBENHAAR I do remember quite dimly now what you mean. It was quite at the end of her life.--But I confess to you quite frankly: I didn't take that matter so very seriously. Your wife was in a very excited condition. And that was caused largely by her illness.--I can't think that that is the main question. The real question must finally be whether Hanne is really suitable for you! She has her advantageous qualities: no doubt about that. There are things about her that I like less. However: who hasn't some faults. People say that she has a child. HENSCHEL That she has. I've inquired. Well, even so. I don't care nothin' about that. Was she to wait for me, eh? She didn't know nothin' about me when that happened. She's hot-blooded; all right. That'll come out somehow. When the pears is ripe, they falls to the ground. On that account--no, that don't trouble me none. SIEBENHAAR Well, then! The other matter is trivial. Perhaps not trivial exactly. I can well understand how it's taken hold of you. Still, one must get free of it. To be bound by it, in spite of one's saner thought--that's clearly folly, Henschel. HENSCHEL I've said that to myself ten times over. You see, my wife she didn't never want anythin' but what was for my best good. I mean, in the days when she was well. She wouldn't want to stand in my way. Wherever she is, maybe, she'd want to see me get along. SIEBENHAAR Assuredly. HENSCHEL Well, I went out to her grave to-day. The missis had a wreath put there too. I thought to myself I'd better go there, that's what I thought. Maybe she'll be sendin' you some message. Mother, I said in my thoughts, give me a sign. Yes or no! Anyway you answers, that way it'll be! An' I stood, there half an hour.--I prayed, too, an' I put it all to her--just to myself, o' course--about the child an' the inn an' that I don't know what to do in my business--but she didn't give me no sign.