Posting this for the second time because I can’t stop thinking about how good it is.
Frederic. Julia’s good. She mustn’t be hurt! Jeanette. And I know that my hurt is too new, it doesn’t carry the same weight. I know it’s my memory that must fade like an old photograph, getting fainter and fainter day after day. I know there’s got to come a day when you won’t remember any more exactly what my eyes are like- you’ve hardly looked at them. And then another day, the day Julia’s first son is born, or perhaps the day of the christening, when you’ll forget them altogether. Frederic. [with a muffled cry] No. Jeanette. Yes. That’s why I dare say all this. I’m talking the way people talk when they’re going to die. Not for a good cause, but shamefully, with nobody much to regret them. Frederic. I shall go away with Julia in a little while, and marry her, I know. But I shall never forget you. Silence. Jeanette. [softly, with eyes closed] I must say thank you, mustn’t I, like poor people have to?
