USTAV. Pardon me for recalling what you said at the beginning of
our talk--that she had never taken anything from you.

ADOLPH. She doesn't nowadays. Because there is nothing more to
take.

GUSTAV. The snake being full, it vomits now.

ADOLPH. Perhaps she has been taking a good deal more from me than
I have been aware of?

GUSTAV. You can be sure of that. She took when you were not
looking, and that is called theft.

ADOLPH. Perhaps she never did educate me?

GUSTAV. But you her? In all likelihood! But it was her trick to
make it appear the other way to you. May I ask how she set about
educating you?

ADOLPH. Oh, first of all--hm!

GUSTAV. Well?

ADOLPH. Well, I--

GUSTAV. No, we were speaking of her.

ADOLPH. Really, I cannot tell now.

GUSTAV. Do you see!

ADOLPH. However--she devoured my faith also, and so I sank further
and further down, until you came along and gave me a new faith.

GUSTAV. [Smiling] In sculpture?

ADOLPH. [Doubtfully] Yes.

GUSTAV. And have you really faith in it? In this abstract,
antiquated art that dates back to the childhood of civilisation?
Do you believe that you can obtain your effect by pure form--by
the three dimensions--tell me? That you can reach the practical
mind of our own day, and convey an illusion to it, without the use
of colour--without colour, mind you--do you really believe that?

ADOLPH. [Crushed] No!

GUSTAV. Well, I don't either.

ADOLPH. Why, then, did you say you did?

GUSTAV. Because I pitied you.

ADOLPH. Yes, I am to be pitied! For now I am bankrupt! Finished!--
And worst of all: not even she is left to me!

GUSTAV. Well, what could you do with her?

ADOLPH. Oh, she would be to me what God was before I became an
atheist: an object that might help me to exercise my sense of
veneration.

GUSTAV. Bury your sense of veneration and let something else grow
on top of it. A little wholesome scorn, for instance.

ADOLPH. I cannot live without having something to respect--

GUSTAV. Slave!

ADOLPH.--without a woman to respect and worship!

GUSTAV. Oh, HELL! Then you had better take back your God--if you
needs must have something to kow-tow to! You're a fine atheist,
with all that superstition about woman still in you! You're a fine
free-thinker, who dare not think freely about the dear ladies! Do
you know what that incomprehensible, sphinx-like, profound
something in your wife really is? It is sheer stupidity!--Look
here: she cannot even d