MARTHA--Can you possibly think, Thea, what Mama meant by that? THEA--Not I-- Can you, Wendla? WENDLA--I would simply have asked her. MARTHA--I lay on the floor and shrieked and screamed. In comes Papa. Rip!--Off with the chemise! Out of the door with me! There now! Maybe I’d like to go down on the street like that, eh?... WENDLA--Oh, Martha, that just can’t be true! MARTHA--I froze. I told all about it. Well, I must sleep in the sack the whole night. THEA--Never in my life could I sleep in a sack! WENDLA--I really wish I could sleep in your sack =for= you sometime. MARTHA--If only you’re not beaten---- THEA--But don’t you smother in it? MARTHA--Your head stays out. It’s tied under your chin. THEA--And then do they beat you? MARTHA--No. Only when there’s something special. WENDLA--What do they beat you =with=, Martha? MARTHA--Oh, what--with anything handy.--Does your mother think it’s “disreputable” to eat a piece of bread in bed? WENDLA--No, no. MARTHA--I do believe they enjoy it, though, even if they never speak of that.--When once I have children I’ll let them grow up like the weeds in our flower-garden. No one bothers himself about =them=, and they stand so high, so thick!--while the roses in the beds are flowering worse and worse each summer. THEA--When _I_ have children I’ll dress them all in rosy pink--pink hats, pink dresses, pink shoes. Only their stockings--their stockings will be black as night! Then when I go walking I’ll have them march ahead of me.--And you, Wendla? WENDLA--How do you two know that you’ll have any? THEA--Well, why shouldn’t we have some? MARTHA--It’s true Aunt Euphemia hasn’t any. THEA--Silly! That’s because she’s not married! WENDLA--Aunty Bauer was married three times, and hasn’t got one. MARTHA--If you have any, Wendla, which would you rather--boys or girls? WENDLA--Boys! Boys! THEA--Me too--boys! MARTHA--Me too--better twenty boys than three girls. THEA--Girls are tiresome. MARTHA--If I weren’t a girl already, I surely wouldn’t want to be one any more! WENDLA--That’s a matter of taste, I guess, Martha. I’m glad every day that I’m a girl. I wouldn’t exchange with a prince, believe me.--But that’s why I’d only want boys. THEA--But that’s nonsense, Wendla, rank nonsense! WENDLA--But look here, child,--mustn’t it be a thousand times more uplifting to be loved by a man than by a girl? THEA--But you wouldn’t say that forest-inspector Pfälle loved Melitta more than she loves him! WENDLA--Yes, I would, too, Thea.--Pfälle is proud. Pfälle is proud of being forest-inspector, for he has nothing else.--Melitta is =happy=, because she gets ten thousand times more than she is. MARTHA--Aren’t you proud of =yourself=, Wendla? WENDLA--That would be silly. MARTHA--How proud I wish I could be, in your place! THEA--Only see how she puts her feet down, how straight ahead she looks, how she holds herself, Martha! If that isn’t pride--