AXEL. Between ourselves, yes, but the world won't know unless you go and tell it yourself.
BERTHA. Oh, the world knows that already. But tell me, why don't you suffer when a comrade, a man comrade, is accepted, although he has less merit than you?
AXEL. I'll have to think about that. You see our feeling toward you women has never been critical—we've taken you as a matter of course, and so I've never thought about our relations as against each other. Now when the shoe pinches, it strikes me that we are not comrades, for this experience makes me feel that you women do not belong here. [Indicating the studio.] A comrade is a more or less loyal competitor; we are enemies. You women have been lying down in the rear while we attacked the enemy. And now, when we have set and supplied the table, you pounce down upon it as if you were in your own home!
BERTHA. Oh, fie, have we ever been allowed in the conflict?
AXEL. You have always been allowed, but you have never wanted to take part, or haven't been able to do so in our domain, where you are now breaking in. Technic had to be put through its whole development and completion by us before you entered. And now you buy the centurions' work for ten francs an hour in a studio, and with money that we have acquired by our work.
BERTHA. You are not honorable now, Axel.
AXEL. When was I honorable? When I allowed you to use me like an old shoe? But now you are my superior—and now I can't strive to be honorable any longer. Do you know that this adversity will also change our economic relations? I cannot think of painting any more, but must give up my life's dream and become a pot-boiler in earnest.
BERTHA. You needn't do that; when I can sell, I will support myself.
AXEL. For that matter, what sort of an alliance have we gone into? Marriage should be built on common interests; ours is built on opposing interests.
BERTHA. You can work all that out by yourself; I'm going out for dinner now,—are you coming?