SCHWARZ. (As if seized with a horrible suspicion.) And then when her husband died?
SCHÖN. You married half a million!!
SCHWARZ. (Wailing.) O, to have stayed where I was! To have died of hunger!
SCHÖN. (Superior.) Do you think, then, that I make no compromises? Who is there that does not compromise? You have married half a million. You are to-day one of the foremost artists. That can't be done without money. You are not the man to sit in judgment on her. You can't possibly treat an origin like Mignon's according to the notions of bourgeois society.
SCHWARZ. (Quite distraught.) Who are you speaking of?
SCHÖN. Of her father! You're an artist, I say: your ideals are on a different plane from those of a wage-worker.
SCHWARZ. I don't understand a word of all that.
SCHÖN. I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out of which, thanks to her good management, the girl has developed into what she is!
SCHWARZ. Who?
SCHÖN. Who? Your wife.