HUSBAND. I never know anything about my own fate after having placed it in the hands of another person.
BARONESS. Will you pardon me a momentary impertinence, Mr. Brunner?
HUSBAND. That depends.... You are very friendly with my wife, are you not?
BARONESS. As friendly as two women can be with each other. But my age, my experience of life, my temperament.... [She checks herself abruptly] However—I have seen that you are unhappy, and as I have suffered in the same way myself, I know that nothing but time will cure your disease.
HUSBAND. Is it really I who am diseased? Is not my behaviour quite normal? And is not my suffering caused by seeing other people behave abnormally or—pathologically?
BARONESS. I was married to a man whom I loved.... Yes, you smile! You think a woman cannot love because.... But I did love him, and he loved me, and yet—he loved others, too. I suffered from jealousy so that—so that—I made myself insufferable. He went into the war—being an officer, you know—and he has never returned. I was told that he had been killed, but his body was never found, and now I imagine that he is alive and bound to another woman.—Think of it! I am still jealous of my dead husband. At night I see him in my dreams together with that other woman.... Have you ever known torments like that, Mr. Brunner?
HUSBAND. You may be sure I have!—But what makes you think that he is still alive?
[He begins to arrange his things in the travelling-bag.
BARONESS. A number of circumstances combined to arouse my suspicions at one time, but for years nothing happened to revive them. Then you came here four months ago, and, as a strange fate would have it, I noticed at once a strong resemblance between you and my husband. It served me as a reminder. And as my dreams took on flesh and blood, so to speak, my old suspicions turned into certainty, and now I really believe that he is alive? I am in a constant torment of jealousy—and that has enabled me to understand you.
HUSBAND. [Becoming attentive, after having listened for a while with apparent indifference] You say that I resemble your husband.—Won't you be seated, Baroness?