What do you mean by that?

LEONARD.

You know how to compose yourself.

ANTONY.

I wear a mill-stone as a cravat sometimes, instead of going to the river with it.  That gives one a strong back.

LEONARD.

Let him who can imitate you.

ANTONY.

He who has such a gallant fellow to help him bear it, as I seem to have found in you, ought to be able to dance under the burden.  You have grown quite pale.  I call that sympathy!

LEONARD.

I hope you don’t misunderstand me!

ANTONY.

Certainly not!

[He drums on a dresser.]

That wood is not transparent, is it?

LEONARD.

I do not understand you!

ANTONY.

How foolish it was of our grandfather Adam to take Eve, when she was naked and destitute, and did not even bring a fig-leaf with her.  We two, you and I, would have scourged her out of Paradise as a tramp!  What do you think?

LEONARD.

You are exasperated with your son.—­I have come to you regarding your daughter—­

ANTONY.

You had better be careful!—­Perhaps I’ll not say no!

LEONARD.

I hope you will not.  And I will tell you what I think:  The patriarchs themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women.  Jacob loved Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and sheep that he earned in her father’s service.  That, I think, was not to his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him to the blush.  I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me.  If a girl brings her bed in her trunk, then she will not have to card wool and spin yarn.  In this case it will not be so, but what of it?  We’ll make a Sunday dinner out of Lenten fare, and a Christmas feast out of Sunday’s roast.  In that way we’ll make out all right!

ANTONY (offers him his hand).

You talk well, and God smiles on your words.  Well, I will forget that for fourteen days at tea-time my daughter put a cup on the table for you in vain.  And now that you are to be my son-in-law, I will tell you where the thousand thalers are!

LEONARD (aside).

So they are gone then!  Well, I shall not have to go out of my way to please the old werewolf, even if he is my father-in-law!

ANTONY.

Things went hard with me in my early years.  I was no more of a bristly hedgehog than you when I came into the world, but I have gradually grown to be one.  At first all the quills in my case pointed inward, and people found pleasure in pricking and pinching my soft smooth skin, and were amused to see me flinch when the points penetrated into my very heart and bowels.  But the thing did not appeal to me; I turned my skin inside out and then the quills pricked their fingers and I had peace.