Adolph.  Rather masculine, don’t you think?

Gustav.  Well, I know at least one man who writes that kind of hand—­She addresses you as “brother.”  Are you still playing comedy to each other?  And do you never permit yourselves any greater familiarity in speaking to each other?

Adolph.  No, it seems to me that all mutual respect is lost in that way.

Gustav.  And is it to make you respect her that she calls herself your sister?

Adolph.  I want to respect her more than myself.  I want her to be the better part of my own self.

Gustav.  Why don’t you be that better part yourself?  Would it be less convenient than to permit somebody else to fill the part?  Do you want to place yourself beneath your wife?

Adolph.  Yes, I do.  I take a pleasure in never quite reaching up to her.  I have taught her to swim, for example, and now I enjoy hearing her boast that she surpasses me both in skill and daring.  To begin with, I merely pretended to be awkward and timid in order to raise her courage.  And so it ended with my actually being her inferior, more of a coward than she.  It almost seemed to me as if she had actually taken my courage away from me.

Gustav.  Have you taught her anything else?

Adolph.  Yes—­but it must stay between us—­I have taught her how to spell, which she didn’t know before.  But now, listen:  when she took charge of our domestic correspondence, I grew out of the habit of writing.  And think of it:  as the years passed on, lack of practice made me forget a little here and there of my grammar.  But do you think she recalls that I was the one who taught her at the start?  No—­and so I am “the idiot,” of course.

Gustav.  So you are an idiot already?

Adolph.  Oh, it’s just a joke, of course!

Gustav.  Of course!  But this is clear cannibalism, I think.  Do you know what’s behind that sort of practice?  The savages eat their enemies in order to acquire their useful qualities.  And this woman has been eating your soul, your courage, your knowledge—–­

Adolph.  And my faith!  It was I who urged her to write her first book—–­

Gustav. [Making a face] Oh-h-h!

Adolph.  It was I who praised her, even when I found her stuff rather poor.  It was I who brought her into literary circles where she could gather honey from our most ornamental literary flowers.  It was I who used my personal influence to keep the critics from her throat.  It was I who blew her faith in herself into flame; blew on it until I lost my own breath.  I gave, gave, gave—­until I had nothing left for myself.  Do you know—­I’ll tell you everything now—­do you know I really believe—­and the human soul is so peculiarly constituted—­I believe that when my artistic successes seemed about to put her in the shadow—­as