ASENATH. I think you are not well. You are behaving queerly. You must have been working too hard. How are your nerves?
She approaches him solicitously.
JOSEPH. (retreating around the table) Leave me alone, I tell you! Even in my own room can I have no peace? Must I be dogged even in my dreams by shameless and unscrupulous females? Oh, unfortunate youth that I am!
ASENATH. (setting her candle down on the table) Now I know what is the matter with you, Joseph! You have an obsession.
JOSEPH. What is an obsession?
ASENATH. Don't you know what an obsession is? (She sits down on the stool at the end of the table). Haven't you heard of the great wizard in the land of the barbarians who explains everything by a new magic?
JOSEPH. Is he the author of that popular new dream-book?
ASENATH. Yes. All Egypt is mad on the subject of dreams. Everybody, from Pharaoh to the fiddler's wife, is telling about his latest dream, or listening to some one else tell his.
JOSEPH. (sitting down on the other stool) Speaking of dreams, I had a curious one just before you came in.
ASENATH. Did you, Joseph? Tell it to me.