JAMES: I didn’t mean to be. I’d no idea what love was in those days. I was the wrong man to make a deathbed marriage. Nothing mattered. If I slept with you, what did it matter? We were all going to be as dead as last year’s dog. Now, when I look at you, I see someone who will never die forever. (Pause. She makes no response.) Sara, you never believed I wanted you and you were right. Your kiss was always a question, and I hadn’t got an answer. I couldn’t love you any more than you can love a tree, a glass of wine, a cat.

SARA: People love cats.

JAMES: Then they don’t know the meaning of the word.

SARA: But James, I wasn’t kissing anyone immortal when I was kissing you. There were no cosmic messages. I was only saying, “I have remembered to order the steaks. And I’ll be here tonight and tomorrow night and the night after.” I don’t want eternity, James. I’m bored with eternity, going on and on like a long litany on a wet day.

JAMES: It’s time that bores us, interminable time. I move my hand. It moves in space and time. When there’s no time there’ll be no movement any more. When we think, we think one thing after another. Time, again. When there’s no time we shan’t think any more.

SARA: A frightening world.

JAMES: I’ve been there and I’m not frightened.

SARA: But time is all I know.

JAMES: Oh, I love time too. I’m not impatient for eternity. It’s the same as when you love a woman. If you are going to see her in a few hours, you love the hours. They have her importance.

SARA: Darling, please try to understand. Even if there was a miracle, I want to forget it.

JAMES: Like my father?

SARA: Not like your father. I love you. But I hate big things—Everest and the Empire State Building. I don’t want to be important. I don’t like important people. They’re—antiaphrodisiac to me.

JAMES: Everest exists.

SARA: I wish you’d brought something back to prove it, then. Like the lover in the story—one out-of-season flower. Dear, I’m scared. Suppose—

JAMES: Yes?

SARA: Suppose this time I failed you. No, don’t speak. You’ve got to understand me. I don’t want to lose you again, but I’d rather lose you than fail you—and if you’re looking for someone important, I won’t come up to the specifications, that’s all.

JAMES: Sara—

SARA: We don’t have to convince each other. I don’t want to share a faith—only understand. Give me a little time. Time to think. (She goes toward the door.)

JAMES: Don’t go away.