ADOLF [_covers the figure on the small table with a cloth_]. It was my wife's wish to have it nursed outside the house. GUSTAV. The motive? Don't be afraid. ADOLF. Because when the kid was three years old she thought it began to look like her first husband. GUSTAV. Re-a-lly? Ever seen the first husband? ADOLF. No, never. I just once cast a cursory glance over a bad photograph, but I couldn't discover any likeness. GUSTAV. Oh, well, photographs are never like, and besides, his type of face may have changed with time. By the by, didn't that make you at all jealous? ADOLF. Not a bit. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was traveling when I met Thekla, here--in this watering-place--in this very house. That's why we come here every summer. GUSTAV. Then all suspicion on your part was out of the question? But so far as the intrinsic facts of the matter are concerned you needn't be jealous at all, because it not infrequently happens that the children of a widow who marries again are like the deceased husband. Very awkward business, no question about it; and that's why, don't you know, the widows are burned alive in India. Tell me, now, didn't you ever feel jealous of him, of the survival of his memory in your own self? Wouldn't it have rather gone against the grain if he had just met you when you were out for a walk, and, looking straight at Thekla, said "We," instead of "I"? "We." ADOLF. I can't deny that the thought has haunted me. GUSTAV [_sits down opposite Adolf on the sofa on the left_]. I thought as much, and you'll never get away from it. There are discords in life, you know, which never get resolved, so you must stuff your ears with wax, and work. Work, get older, and heap up over the coffin a mass of new impressions, and then the corpse will rest in peace. ADOLF. Excuse my interrupting you--but it is extraordinary at times how your way of speaking reminds me of Thekla. You've got a trick, old man, of winking with your right eye as though you were counting, and your gaze has the same power over me as hers has. GUSTAV. No, really? ADOLF. And now you pronounce your "No, really?" in the same indifferent tone that she does. "No, really?" is one of her favorite expressions, too, you know. GUSTAV. Perhaps there is a distant relationship between us: all men and women are related of course. Anyway, there's no getting away from the strangeness of it, and it will be interesting for me to make the acquaintance of your wife, so as to observe this remarkable characteristic. ADOLF. But just think of this, she doesn't take a single expression from me; why, she seems rather to make a point of avoiding all my special tricks of speech; all the same, I have seen her make use of one of my gestures; but it is quite the usual thing in married life for a husband and a wife to develop the so-called marriage likeness. GUSTAV. Quite. But look here now. [_He stands up._] That woman has never loved you. ADOLF. Nonsense.