"How do you know?"
"I feel it."
"You and your premonitions! But after all, it wasn't so difficult to guess. Don't you think she deserves it? Have they a better Ophelia in the whole company?"
"No, I admit that! Do you like your part?"
"Oh! It's splendid!"
"It's extraordinary how opinions differ."
"What do you think?"
"I think that he is the greatest rascal at the whole court; he says Yes to everything: 'Yes, my prince; yes, my good prince.' If he were really Hamlet's friend, he would sometimes say No, and not always agree with him like any other sycophant."
"Are you going to overthrow another of my ideals?"
"I will overthrow all your false idols! How can you—as long as you look upon all paltry creations of man as great and splendid—strive after the eternal? If you see perfection and excellence in everything here below, how can you yearn for the really perfect? Believe me, pessimism is the truest idealism! It is a Christian doctrine too, if that will salve your conscience, for Christianity teaches us that the world is a vale of tears from which death will deliver us!"