ADOLPH.  There, you see!  But you had better not talk so loud—­we might be overheard.

TEKLA.  What would it matter if they took us for married people?

ADOLPH.  So now you are getting fond of real male men also, and at the same time you have a taste for chaste young men?

TEKLA.  There are no limits to what I can like, as you may see.  My heart is open to everybody and everything, to the big and the small, the handsome and the ugly, the new and the old—­I love the whole world.

ADOLPH.  Do you know what that means?

TEKLA.  No, I don’t know anything at all.  I just feel.

ADOLPH.  It means that old age is near.

TEKLA.  There you are again!  Take care!

ADOLPH.  Take care yourself!

TEKLA.  Of what?

ADOLPH.  Of the knife!

TEKLA. [Prattling] Little brother had better not play with such dangerous things.

ADOLPH.  I have quit playing.

TEKLA.  Oh, it’s earnest, is it?  Dead earnest!  Then I’ll show you that—­you are mistaken.  That is to say—­you’ll never see it, never know it, but all the rest of the world will know It.  And you’ll suspect it, you’ll believe it, and you’ll never have another moment’s peace.  You’ll have the feeling of being ridiculous, of being deceived, but you’ll never get any proof of it.  For that’s what married men never get.

ADOLPH.  You hate me then?

TEKLA.  No, I don’t.  And I don’t think I shall either.  But that’s probably because you are nothing to me but a child.

ADOLPH.  At this moment, yes.  But do you remember how it was while the storm swept over us?  Then you lay there like an infant in arms and just cried.  Then you had to sit on my lap, and I had to kiss your eyes to sleep.  Then I had to be your nurse; had to see that you fixed your hair before going out; had to send your shoes to the cobbler, and see that there was food in the house.  I had to sit by your side, holding your hand for hours at a time:  you were afraid, afraid of the whole world, because you didn’t have a single friend, and because you were crushed by the hostility of public opinion.  I had to talk courage into you until my mouth was dry and my head ached.  I had to make myself believe that I was strong.  I had to force myself into believing in the future.  And so I brought you back to life, when you seemed already dead.  Then you admired me.  Then I was the man—­not that kind of athlete you had just left, but the man of will-power, the mesmerist who instilled new nervous energy into your flabby muscles and charged your empty brain with a new store of electricity.  And then I gave you back your reputation.  I brought you new friends, furnished you with a little court of people who, for the sake of friendship to me, let themselves be lured into admiring you.  I set you to rule me and my house.  Then I painted my best pictures, glimmering with reds and blues on backgrounds of gold, and there was not