From Strindberg's "The Dance of Death"


ALICE. Riddles! Riddles! But do you notice that there is peace in the house now? The wonderful peace of death. Wonderful as the solemn anxiety that surrounds the coming of a child into the world. I hear the silence -- and on the floor I see the traces of the easy-chair that carried him away -- And I feel that now my life is ended, and I am starting on the road to dissolution! Do you know, it's queer, but those simple words of the Lieutenant -- and his is a simple mind -- they pursue me, but now they have become serious. My husband, my youth's beloved -- yes, perhaps you laugh! -- he was a good and noble man -- nevertheless!

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