Then why do you wear a sword?
The Painter.
Because I choose to.
The Marshal.
You are a coward.
The Painter.
(Controlling himself, with a smiling bow.) And you are a hero! (In the meanwhile the door at the centre is opened. The Marquises put their heads in, listening. The Painter observes it and takes his sword from the table where he has just laid it.) See! As the traveller uses the staff to defend himself against dogs, so I must wield it. Such people are to be found at all doors where small men work and lie in wait and play the parasite. (The Marquises draw back. The door at the centre is suddenly closed.) Yet ever to bare the sword against you, with whom, out of a timid trustfulness, a bond, a splendid bond of pride, entwined me; whom of all the incompletely great men, I admiringly called the only great man--if ever I were to be guilty of such ignominy, I should not find my small share of peace even in the shade of the most beautiful church-yard lindens.
The Marshal.
Are you still young?
The Painter.