HUSBAND ... Who....
WIFE. ... Have no sense of shame whatever.
HUSBAND. Yes, so you say. But will you please tell me why you hate me?
WIFE. I don't hate you. I simply despise you! Why? Probably for the same reason that makes me despise all men as soon as they—what do you call it?—are in love with me. I am like that, and I can't tell why.
HUSBAND. So I have observed, and my warmest wish has been that I might hate you, so that you might love me. Woe is the man who loves his own wife!
WIFE. Yes, you are to be pitied, and so am I, but what can be done?
HUSBAND. Nothing. We have roved and roamed for seven years, hoping that some circumstance, some chance, might bring about a change. I have tried to fall in love with others, and have failed. In the meantime your eternal contempt and my own continued ridiculousness have stripped me of all courage, all faith in myself, all power to act. Six times I have run away from you—and now I shall make my seventh attempt. [He rises and picks up the travelling-bag.
WIFE. So those little trips of yours were attempts to run away?
HUSBAND. Futile attempts! The last time I got as far as Genoa. I went to the galleries, but saw no pictures—only you. I went to the opera, but heard nobody—only your voice back of every note. I went to a Pompeian café, and the one woman that pleased me looked like you—or seemed to do so later.
WIFE. [Revolted] You have visited places of that kind?