This is not the time for such a thought. You know it!
HENRY. Dearest . . .
OCEANA. [Passionately.] Ah, don't put it all on me! Don't make it too
hard for me!
HENRY. But if I only knew . . .
OCEANA. You will know before long. Ah, Hal, see how I'm situated. I've
broken all the laws. I've no precedent to help me . . . I have to work
it all out for myself. I shall have to bear the scorn of the world;
and oh, think if I had to bear the scorn of my own conscience! Don't
you see?
HENRY. Yes, I see. But . . .
OCEANA. I have chosen a certain course. I have forced myself to be
calm, to think it out in the cold light of reason, to decide what is
right for me to do. And now I must keep to my resolution. You would
not want our love to lead me into shame!
HENRY. No!
OCEANA. Do you read Nietzsche, Henry?
HENRY. He is a mere name to me.
OCEANA. I will give you some lines of Nietzsche's. "Canst thou give
thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy will above thee as thy
law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and avenger of thy law? Fearful is
it to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy law. So is a
stone flung out into empty space and into the icy breath of
isolation."
HENRY. That's all right . . . but if you expect Letitia to face this
problem in any such way, you will be sadly disappointed.
OCEANA. That's none of my affair. All I have to do is to give her a
chance. If she cannot face the facts, she has passed sentence upon
herself.
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