ELEONORA. Yes, I mean that I am. So much so that if you should speak wickedly about God, my benefactor, I would not sit at the same table with you.
BENJAMIN. How old are you?
ELEONORA. For me there is no time nor space. I am everywhere and whensoever. I am in my father's prison, and in my brother's school-room. I am in my mother's kitchen and in my sister's little shop far away. When all goes well with my sister and she makes good sales I feel her gladness, and when things go badly with her I suffer—but I suffer most when she does anything dishonest. Benjamin, your name is Benjamin, because you are the youngest of my friends; yes, all human beings are my friends, and if you will let me adopt you, I will suffer for you too.
BENJAMIN. I don't quite understand the words you use, but I think I catch the meaning of your thoughts. And I will do whatever you want me to.
ELEONORA. Will you begin then by ceasing to judge human beings, even when they are convicted criminals—
BENJAMIN. Yes, but I want to have a reason for it. I have read philosophy, you see.
ELEONORA. Oh, have you! Then you shall help me explain this from a great philosopher. He said, "Those that hate the righteous, they shall be sinners."
BENJAMIN. Of course all logic answers that in the same way, that one can be doomed to commit crime—.
ELEONORA. And that the crime itself is a punishment.
BENJAMIN. That is pretty deep! One would think that that was Kant or Schopenhauer.