cease contention, Fanny! I am sensible how hard for you it is. I know you idolize him, because he suits so perfectly your gifted temperament. But be stronger than yourself. Show yourself for once at last unselfish toward your son! MRS. GABOR--God help me, how can I prevail against that!--One must be a =man=, to be able to say such things! One must be a man to let oneself be so blinded by the dead letter! One must be a man to close his eyes to what stares him in the face!--I have acted toward Melchior conscientiously and carefully from the first day I found him susceptible to impressions from his environment. Are we responsible for =accident=? =You= may be struck down to-morrow by a falling tile, and along will come your friend, your father, and instead of tending your wounds set his foot upon your head!--I will not let my child be ruined before my very eyes! Would I be his mother if I did?--It is unthinkable! It is utterly out of the question. What in the world did he write then, after all? Isn’t it the most blatant proof of his innocence, of his ignorance, of his childish immaturity, that he =can= write such things?--You can have no inkling of knowledge of human nature, you must be an utterly soulless bureaucrat, or unbelievably narrow, to smell out moral corruption here!--Say what you like: if you put Melchior in the House of Correction, we must separate--and then let me see if nowhere in the world I can find help and means to snatch my child from his downfall! MR. GABOR--You will have to reconcile yourself to it--if not to-day, to-morrow. To discount misfortune comes hard to everybody. I will stand by you, and when your courage threatens to fail I will spare no pains, no sacrifice, to ease your heart. I see the future so lowering, so gloomy,--it only lacked that you too should yet be lost to me. MRS. GABOR--I shall never see him again; I shall never see him again. He will never stand the degradation, he will never come to terms with filth. He will break the constraint put on him: the terrible example is fresh before his eyes.--And if I do see him again--O God, O God!--that happy, spring-like heart, his ringing laugh,--everything, everything,--his child-like resolution to battle manfully for right and good,--oh, that unspoiled spirit like the morning sky, as I have cherished it in him, clear and pure, as my highest good....--Hold =me= to account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold =me= to account! Do what you will with me! _I_ bear the blame!--But keep your fearful hands off the child! MR. GABOR--It is =he= who has gone wrong. MRS. GABOR--=He has not gone wrong!=