A poor appetite means a bad conscience. Well, we shall see. Or was there poison in the soup, as I dreamed last night, a bit of wild hemlock that was plucked with the other herbs by mistake? That would be a wise thing for you to do. CLARA. Almighty God! ANTHONY. Forgive me, I----To the devil with that pale, suffering look of yours, stolen from the Mother of Christ! Young people should look rosy. There’s only one man who has the right to parade a face like that, and he doesn’t do it. Ho! A box on the ears for every man that says “Uh” when he cuts his finger. Nobody has the right to now, for here’s a man that----Self-praise is no recommendation, but what did I do, when our neighbour was going to nail the lid on your mother’s coffin? CLARA. You snatched the hammer from him and did it yourself, and said, “This is my masterpiece.” The choir-master, who was singing the funeral-hymn at the door with the choristers, thought you’d gone mad. ANTHONY. Mad! (_Laughs._) Mad! Ay, ay, it’s a wise man that cuts his own throat when the time comes. Mine seems to be too tough, or else----A man lives in his corner of the world, and imagines he’s sitting by the fireside in a comfortable inn, when suddenly some one puts a light on the table, and behold, he’s in a robber’s den, and it goes bang! bang! on all sides. But no matter. Luckily my heart’s made of stone. CLARA. So it is, father. ANTHONY. What do you know about it? Do you think you have any right to join your curses to mine, because that clerk of yours left you in the lurch? Some one else will take you for a walk on Sunday afternoons, some one else will tell you that your cheeks are red and your eyes are blue, some one else will make you his wife, if you deserve it. But when you’ve borne your burden honourably for thirty years, without complaining, when you’ve patiently endured suffering and bereavement and all manner of misfortune, and then your son, who should be making a soft pillow for you in your old age, comes and heaps disgrace on you, till you feel like calling to the earth, “Swallow me, if you can stomach me, for I am more foul than you”--_then_ you may pour out all the curses that I am holding back; then you may tear your hair and beat your breast. That’s the privilege you shall have over me, since you’re a woman. CLARA. Oh, Karl! ANTHONY.