Leon.--As a joke-- Jadwiga.--At which one cannot laugh always. If our century was not sceptical I should think myself wild, romantic, trying to drown despair. But the romantic times have passed away, therefore, frankly speaking, I only try to fill up a great nothing. I also spin out my ball, although not always with pleasure. Sometimes I seem to myself so miserable and my life so empty that I rush to my prayer-desk, left by my mother. I weep, I pray--and then I laugh again at my prayers and tears. And so it goes on--round and round. Do you know that they gossip about me? Leon.--I do not listen to the gossip. Jadwiga.--How good you are! I will tell you then why they gossip. A missionary asked a negro what, according to his ideas, constituted evil? The negro thought a while, and then said: "Evil is if some one were to steal my wife." "And what is good?" asked the missionary. "Good is when I steal from some one else." My husband's friends are of the negro's opinion. Every one of them would like to do a good deed and steal some one's wife. Leon.--It depends on the wife. Jadwiga.--Yes, but every word and every look is a bait. If the fish passes the bait, the fisherman's self-love is wounded. That is why they slander me (after a while). You great people--you are filled with simplicity. Then you think it depends on the wife? Leon.--Yes, it does. Jadwiga.--_Morbleu!_ as my husband says, and if the wife is weary? Leon.--I bid you good-bye. Jadwiga.--Why? Does what I say offend you? Leon.--It does more than offend me. It hurts me. Maybe it will seem strange to you, but here in my breast I am carrying some flowers--although they are withered--dead for a long time. But they are dear to me and just now you are trampling on them. Jadwiga (with an outburst).--Oh, if those flowers had not died! Leon.--They are in my heart--and there is a tomb. Let us leave the past alone. Jadwiga.--Yes, you are right. Leave it alone. What is dead cannot be resuscitated. I wish to speak calmly. Look at my situation. What defends me--what helps me--what protects me? I am a young woman, and it seems not ugly, and therefore no one approaches me with an honest, simple heart, but with a trap in eyes and mouth. What opposition have I to make? Weariness? Grief? Emptiness? In life even a man must lean on something, and I, a feeble woman, I am like a boat without a helm, without oar and without light toward which to sail. And the heart longs for happiness. You must understand that a woman must be loved and must love some one in the world, and if she lacks true love she seizes the first pretext of it--the first shadow. Leon (with animation).--Poor thing.