WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN.

A DRAMATIC EPILOGUE.

CHARACTERS.

PROFESSOR ARNOLD RUBEK, a sculptor. 
MRS. MAIA RUBEK, his wife. 
THE INSPECTOR at the Baths. 
ULFHEIM, a landed proprietor. 
A STRANGER LADY. 
A SISTER OF MERCY.

Servants, Visitors to the Baths, and Children.

The First Act passes at a bathing establishment on the
coast; the Second and Third Acts in the
neighbourhood of a health resort, high
in the mountains.

ACT FIRST.

[Outside the Bath Hotel.  A portion of the main building can be seen
   to the right.  An open, park-like place with a fountain, groups
   of fine old trees, and shrubbery.  To the left, a little pavilion
   almost covered with ivy and Virginia creeper.  A table and chair
   outside it.  At the back a view over the fjord, right out to sea,
   with headlands and small islands in the distance.  It is a calm,
   warm and sunny summer morning.

[PROFESSOR RUBEK and MRS. MAIA RUBEK are sitting in basket chairs
   beside a covered table on the lawn outside the hotel, having just
   breakfasted.  They have champagne and seltzer water on the table,
   and each has a newspaper.  PROFESSOR RUBEK is an elderly man of
   distinguished appearance, wearing a black velvet jacket, and
   otherwise in light summer attire.  MAIA is quite young, with
   a vivacious expression and lively, mocking eyes, yet with a
   suggestion of fatigue.  She wears an elegant travelling dress.

MAIA.

[Sits for some time as though waiting for the PROFESSOR to say something, then lets her paper drop with a deep sigh.] Oh dear, dear, dear—–!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Looks up from his paper.] Well, Maia?  What is the matter with you?

MAIA.

Just listen how silent it is here.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Smiles indulgently.] And you can hear that?

MAIA.

What?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

The silence?

MAIA.

Yes, indeed I can.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Well, perhaps you are right, mein Kind.  One can really hear the silence.

MAIA.

Heaven knows you can—­when it’s so absolutely overpowering as it is here—–­

PROFESSOR RUBEK.