ELFRIEDE--I have never sat on a man’s knee. CASTI-PIANI--Give me a kiss. [_She kisses him._] Thanks. [_Holding her off._] You’d like to know what marriage is?--Tell me, which is stronger: a man who has =one= dog or a man who has =none=? ELFRIEDE--The man who has the dog is stronger. CASTI-PIANI--And now tell me again, which is stronger: a man who has one dog or a man who has =two= dogs? ELFRIEDE--I guess the man who has one dog is stronger, for of course, two dogs couldn’t very well help getting jealous of each other. CASTI-PIANI--That would be the least consideration. But he would have to feed =two= dogs or else they’d run away, while =one= dog takes care of himself and also if there is need protects his master from robbers. ELFRIEDE--And by this abominable comparison you would explain the unselfish inseparable union of man and wife? Merciful God, what a life you must have had! CASTI-PIANI--The man with one wife is economically stronger than if he had none; but he is also economically stronger than if he had to take care of two or more wives. That is the cornerstone of marriage. Woman would never have dreamt of this ingenious device! ELFRIEDE--You poor pitiable man! Did you ever know a home and family? Did you ever have a mother to nurse you when you were sick, to read you stories when you were convalescing, for you to confide in when there was something in your heart, and who helped you always and always, even when you had thought for the longest time that there was no more help for you on God’s earth? CASTI-PIANI--What I lived through as a child no human creature could live through without having his will and energy broken and ruined. Can you imagine yourself a young man of sixteen and still whipped because the logarithm of Pi won’t go into his head? And the man who whipped me was my father! And I whipped back! I beat my father to death! He died after I’d beaten him once.--But these are trifles. You see what sort of creatures I live with here. I have never heard among these creatures the insults that were my mother’s share all through my childhood and which her spitefulness earned afresh for her each day. But those are trifles. The slaps, blows and kicks with which father, mother and a dozen teachers vied with one another to demean my defenseless body, were trifling in comparison with the slaps, blows and kicks with which the vicissitudes of life have vied with one another to degrade my defenseless =soul=. ELFRIEDE--[_Kisses him._] If you could guess how much I love you for all those frightful experiences!