_For several seconds, while the slamming of doors is heard and the sound of people running up and down the stairs, LOTH paces the room. Then he sits down in the arm-chair in the foreground, right. HELEN slips in and throws her arms about LOTH, who has not observed her coming from, behind._ LOTH [_Looking around and embracing her in turn._] Nellie! [_He drams her down upon his knee in spite of her gentle resistance. HELEN weeps under his kisses._] Don't cry, Nellie! Why are you crying so? HELEN Why? Oh, if I knew!... I keep thinking that I won't find you here. Just now I had such a fright ... LOTH But why? HELEN Because I heard you go out of your room--Oh, and my sister--we poor, poor women!--oh, she's suffering too much! LOTH The pain is soon forgotten and there is no danger of death. HELEN Oh, but she is praying so to die. She wails and wails: Do let me die!... The doctor! [_She jumps up and slips into the conservatory._ DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG [_On entering._] I do really wish now that that little woman upstairs would hurry a bit! [_He sits down beside the table, takes out his cigar case again, extracts a cigar from it and lays the latter down on the table._] You'll come over to my house afterward, won't you? I have a necessary evil with two horses standing out there in which we can drive straight over. [_He taps his cigar against the edge of the table._] Oh, the holy state of matrimony! O Lord! [_Striking a match._] So you're still pure, free, pious and merry? LOTH You might better have waited a few more days with that question. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG [_His cigar is lit now._] Oho! I see!--[_laughing_]--so you've caught on to my tricks at last! LOTH Are you still so frightfully pessimistic in regard to women? DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG _Fright_fully! [_Watching the drifting smoke of his cigar._] In other years I was a pessimist, so to speak, by presentiment.... LOTH Have you had very special experiences in the meantime? DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG That's just it. My shingle reads: Specialist for Diseases of Women.--The practice of medicine, I assure you, makes a man terribly wise ... terribly ... sane ...; it's a specific against all kinds of delusions. LOTH [_Laughing._] Well, then we can fall back into our old tone at once. I want you to know ... I haven't caught on to your tricks at all. Less than ever now ... But I am to understand, I suppose, that you've exchanged your old hobby? DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG Hobby? LOTH The question of woman was in those days in a certain way your pet subject. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG I see! And why should I have exchanged it? LOTH If you think even worse of women than ... DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG