Live from Lincoln Center1976

Desiree Armfeldt:
Shall I tell you why I really invited you here? When we met again and we made love, I thought, "Maybe here it is at last. A chance to turn back, to find some sort of coherent existence after so many years of muddle." Of course, there is your wife... but I thought perhaps - just perhaps, you might be in need of rescue, too?

Frederik Egerman:
When my eyes are open, and I look at you, I see a woman that I have loved for a long time, who entranced me all over again when I came to her rooms, who gives me such genuine pleasure, that, in spite of myself, I came here for the sheer delight of being with her again. A woman who could rescue me? Of course. But when my eyes are not open, which is most of the time, all I see is a girl in a pink dress teasing a canary, running through a sunlit garden to hug me at the gate, as if I'd come from Timbuktu, instead of the municipal courthouse three blocks away!

[the music begins. Desiree sings "Send In The Clowns." Just before the last verse, Frederik speaks]

Frederik Egerman:
Desiree, I'm sorry. I never should have come. To flirt with rescue when one has no intention of being saved... Do try to forgive me.

[He leaves her. Desiree sings the last verse in spotlight. The light fades out on her weeping quietly]