Very vaguely. They were quite humble people, were they not? JULIAN Yes. (_He has taken a big portfolio from one of the shelves_) It ought to be in this portfolio. (_He puts it on the writing desk and opens it; then he sits down in front of it_) FELIX (_stands behind him, looking over his shoulder_) JULIAN Here is the house in which they lived--your grandparents and your mother. (_He goes through the sketches, one by one_) And here is a view of the valley seen from the cemetery. FELIX In Summer.... JULIAN Yes.--And here is the little inn at which your father and I used to stop.... And here.... (_He looks in silence at the sketch; both remain silent for a long while_) FELIX (_picking up the sketch_) How old was my mother at the time? JULIAN (_who remains seated_) Eighteen. FELIX (_going a few steps away and leaning against the bookcase in order to get better light on the picture_) A year before she was married, then. JULIAN It was done that very year. (_Pause_) FELIX What a strange look that meets me out of those eyes.... There's a smile on her lips.... It's almost as if she were talking to me.... JULIAN What was it your mother told you--that last evening? FELIX Not very much. But I feel as if I knew more than she had told me. What a queer thought it is, that as she is now looking at me out of this picture, so she must have been looking at you once. It seems as if there was a certain timidity in that look. Something like fear almost.... In such a way you look at people out of another world, for which you long, and of which you are afraid nevertheless. JULIAN At that time your mother had rarely been outside the village. FELIX She must have been different from all other women you have met, wasn't she?--Why don't you say anything? I am not one of those men who cannot understand--who won't understand that their mothers and sisters are women after all. I can easily understand that it must have been a dangerous time for her--and for somebody else as well. (_Very simply_) You must have loved my mother very much? JULIAN You have a curious way of asking questions.--Yes, I did love her. FELIX And those moments must have been very happy ones, when you sat in that little garden with its overgrown fence, holding this canvas on your knees, and out there on the bright meadow, among all those red and white flowers, stood this young girl with anxiously smiling eyes, holding her straw hat in one hand. JULIAN Your mother talked of those moments that last evening? FELIX Yes.--It is childish perhaps, but since then it has seemed impossible to me that any other human being could ever have meant so much to you as this one?