“You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither; if I continue in this service, you must case me in leather.”
When the man had gone Luciana rebuked her sister for her impatience, saying that probably her husband was kept by business. But Adriana would not be soothed. She was full of jealous anger, declaring that she stayed at home neglected, while her husband amused himself abroad with merry companions; he was certainly tired of her, and had found some one he liked better.
“Self-harming jealousy! Fie, beat it hence!” said Luciana; but Adriana paid no heed to her wise counsels, preferring to make herself unhappy with groundless jealousy.
Antipholus of Syracuse, on reaching the Centaur Inn, found that his gold was perfectly safe, but he was still extremely annoyed with Dromio for his ill-timed jesting, and when the slave appeared, he asked him what he meant by behaving in such a fashion. Was he mad that he had answered him so madly?
Dromio, of course, replied that he had never seen his master since he parted from him until that moment; and he further asked, what did his master mean by such a jest? Enraged by this apparent fresh impudence on the part of his slave, Antipholus began to beat him soundly.
“How comes it that you
are thus estranged?”
But both master and man were to be still further bewildered, for at this moment up came two ladies, one of whom addressed Antipholus as if he were her husband, and began to reproach him for his unkind behaviour.
“Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown!” she said. “Some other lady has your sweet expression; I am not Adriana nor your wife. The time was once when you would vow that never words were music to your ear, that never object was pleasing to your eye, that never touch was welcome to your hand, that never meat was savoury to your taste, unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved it to you. How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, that you are thus estranged from yourself? Ah, do not tear yourself away from me!”