Heard last night. When I was on my way, in the evening, to measure the old miller for his last abode, I heard two good friends of yours railing against you. So I said to myself “Leonard, at any rate, hasn’t broken his neck!” I got particulars at the dead man’s house from the sexton, who had arrived there before me, to console the widow, and to get drunk at the same time.
Leonard.
And yet you let Clara wait till I told her?
Anthony.
If you weren’t in a hurry to give her the pleasure, why should I be? I don’t light any candles in my house except my own. Then I know that nobody can come and blow them out, just when we’re enjoying them.
Leonard.
You surely don’t think that I——
Anthony.
Think? About you? About anybody? I shape planks with my tools, I’ll admit, but never a man with my thoughts. I got over that sort of folly long ago. When I see a tree in leaf, I say to myself: It’ll soon be in bloom. And when it’s in bloom: Now it’ll bear fruit. I don’t get taken in there, so I stick to the old custom. But I think nothing about men, nothing at all, neither bad nor good. So that when they disappoint first my fears and then my hopes, I don’t need to go red and white in turn. I simply get knowledge and experience out of them, and I take the cue from my pair of eyes. They can’t think either, they just see. I thought I knew all about you already, but now you’re here again, I have to admit that I only half knew you.
Leonard.