SHAKESPEARE. For when did I use you ill? ANNE. Go on! SHAKESPEARE. What need? All’s in a word--your ever-presence here As if you’d naught in life to do but watch me-- ANNE. Go on! SHAKESPEARE. All this, I say, I bore, because at heart I did believe you loved me. Well--it’s gone! And I go with it--free, a free man, free! Anne! for that word I could forgive you all And go from you in peace. ANNE [_catching at his arm_]. You shall not go! SHAKESPEARE. Shall not? This burr--how impudent it clings! ANNE. You have not heard me-- SHAKESPEARE. Let me go, I say! My purse, my papers-- ANNE. Will! SHAKESPEARE. Talk to the walls, For I hear nothing! ANNE. Why, a murderess Has respite in my case--and I--and I-- What have I done but love you, when all’s said? You will not leave me now, now when that lie Is certain truth at last, and in me sleeps Like God’s forgiveness? For I felt it stir When you were angry--I was angry too, My fault, all mine--but I was sick and faint And frightened, so I railed, because no word Matched with the strong need in me suddenly For gentlest looks and your beloved arms About this body changed and shaking so; But why I knew not. But my mother knew And told me. SHAKESPEARE. O wise mother! ANNE. Will, it’s true! SHAKESPEARE. Practice makes perfect, as we wrote at school! ANNE. I swear to you-- SHAKESPEARE. As then you swore to me. Not twice, not twice, my girl! ANNE. O God, God Son! Pitiful God! If there be other lives, As I have heard him say, as his books say, In other bodies, for Your Mother’s sake And all she knows (God, ask her what she knows!) Let me not be a woman! Let me be Some twisting worm on a hook, or fish they catch And fling again to catch another year, Or otter trapped and broiled in the sun three days, Or lovely bird whose living wing men tear From its live body, or of Italy Some peasant’s drudge-horse whipped upon its eyes, Or let me as a heart-burst, screaming hare Be wrenched in two by slavering deaths for sport; But let me not again be cursed a woman Surrendered to the mercy of her man! _She sinks down in a crouching heap by the hearth. There has been a sound of many voices drawing nearer, and as she ceases speaking, the words of a song become clear._