Adolf [covers the figure on the small table with a cloth]. It was my wife's wish to have it nursed outside the house.
Gustav. The motive? Don't be afraid.
Adolf. Because when the kid was three years old she thought it began to look like her first husband.
Gustav. Re-a-lly? Ever seen the first husband?
Adolf. No, never. I just once cast a cursory glance over a bad photograph, but I couldn't discover any likeness.
Gustav. Oh, well, photographs are never like, and besides, his type of face may have changed with time. By the by, didn't that make you at all jealous?
Adolf. Not a bit. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was traveling when I met Thekla, here—in this watering-place—in this very house. That's why we come here every summer.
Gustav. Then all suspicion on your part was out of the question? But so far as the intrinsic facts of the matter are concerned you needn't be jealous at all, because it not infrequently happens that the children of a widow who marries again are like the deceased husband. Very awkward business, no question about it; and that's why, don't you know, the widows are burned alive in India. Tell me, now, didn't you ever feel jealous of him, of the survival of his memory in your own self? Wouldn't it have rather gone against the grain if he had just met you when you were out for a walk, and, looking straight at Thekla, said "We," instead of "I"? "We."
Adolf. I can't deny that the thought has haunted me.
Gustav [sits down opposite Adolf on the sofa on the left]. I thought as much, and you'll never get away from it. There are discords in life, you know, which never get resolved, so you must stuff your ears with wax, and work. Work, get older, and heap up over the coffin a mass of new impressions, and then the corpse will rest in peace.