TEKLA. But that's what everybody thinks.
ADOLPH. And I am beginning to suspect that he—your former husband—was not so much of an idiot after all.
TEKLA. Heavens! Are you beginning to sympathise with—him?
ADOLPH. Yes, not far from it,
TEKLA. Well, well! Perhaps you would like to make his acquaintance and pour out your overflowing heart to him? What a striking picture! But I am also beginning to feel drawn to him, as I am growing more and more tired of acting as wetnurse. For he was at least a man, even though he had the fault of being married to me.
ADOLPH. There, you see! But you had better not talk so loud—we might be overheard.
TEKLA. What would it matter if they took us for married people?
ADOLPH. So now you are getting fond of real male men also, and at the same time you have a taste for chaste young men?
TEKLA. There are no limits to what I can like, as you may see. My heart is open to everybody and everything, to the big and the small, the handsome and the ugly, the new and the old—I love the whole world.
ADOLPH. Do you know what that means?