shell and a little black dust.  I wanted to run away from you, but I couldn’t.  You were always on hand like a snake with your black eyes to charm me—­I felt how my wings beat the air only to drag me down—­I was in the water, with my feet tied together, and the harder I worked with my arms, the further down I went—­down, down, till I sank to the bottom, where you lay in wait like a monster crab to catch me with your claws—­and now I’m there!  Shame on you!  How I hate you, hate you, hate you!  But you, you just sit there, silent and calm and indifferent, whether the moon is new or full; whether it’s Christmas or mid-summer; whether other people are happy or unhappy.  You are incapable of hatred, and you don’t know how to love.  As a cat in front of a mouse-hole, you are sitting there!—­you can’t drag your prey out, and you can’t pursue it, but you can outwait it.  Here you sit in this corner—­do you know they’ve nicknamed it “the mouse-trap” on your account?  Here you read the papers to see if anybody is in trouble, or if anybody is about to be discharged from the theatre.  Here you watch your victims and calculate your chances and take your tributes.  Poor Amelia!  Do you know, I pity you all the same, for I know you are unhappy—­unhappy as one who has been wounded, and malicious because you are wounded.  I ought to be angry with you, but really I can’t—­you are so small after all—­ and as to Bob, why that does not bother me in the least.  What does it matter to me anyhow?  If you or somebody else taught me to drink chocolate—­what of that? [Takes a spoonful of chocolate; then sententiously] They say chocolate is very wholesome.  And if I have learned from you how to dress—­tant mieux!—­it has only given me a stronger hold on my husband—­and you have lost where I have gained.  Yes, judging by several signs, I think you have lost him already.  Of course, you meant me to break with him—­as you did, and as you are now regretting—­but, you see, I never would do that.  It won’t do to be narrow-minded, you know.  And why should I take only what nobody else wants?  Perhaps, after all, I am the stronger now.  You never got anything from me; you merely gave—­and thus happened to me what happened to the thief—­I had what you missed when you woke up.  How explain in any other way that, in your hand, everything proved worthless and useless?  You were never able to keep a man’s love, in spite of your tulips and your passions—­and I could; you could never learn the art of living from the books—­as I learned it; you bore no little Eskil, although that was your father’s name.  And why do you keep silent always and everywhere—­ silent, ever silent?  I used to think it was because you were so strong; and maybe the simple truth was you never had anything to say—­because you were unable to-think! [Rises and picks up the slippers] I’m going home now—­I’ll take the tulips with me—–­your tulips.  You couldn’t learn anything from others; you couldn’t bend and so you broke like a dry stem—­and I didn’t.  Thank you, Amelia, for all your instructions.  I thank you that you have taught me how to love my husband.  Now I’m going home—­to him! [Exit.]