Thekla. All right, you needn't be frightened of that the least bit; I'm already much too old, you see, for anybody to like me.
Adolf. You haven't forgotten those words of mine?—I take them back.
Thekla. Can you explain to me why it is that you're so jealous, and at the same time so sure of yourself?
Adolf. No, I can't explain it, but it may be that the thought that another man has possessed you, gnaws and consumes me. It seems to me at times as though our whole love were a figment of the brain—a passion that had turned into a formal matter of honor. I know nothing which would be more intolerable for me to bear, than for him to have the satisfaction of making me unhappy. Ah, I've never seen him, but the very thought that there is such a man who watches in secret for my unhappiness, who conjures down on me the curse of heaven day by day, who would laugh and gloat over my fall—the very idea of the thing lies like a nightmare on my breast, drives me to you, holds me spellbound, cripples me.
Thekla [goes behind the circular table and comes on Adolf's right]. Do you think I should like to give him that satisfaction, that I should like to make his prophecy come true?
Adolf. No, I won't believe that of you.
Thekla. Then if that's so, why aren't you easy on the subject?
Adolf. It's your flirtations which keep me in a chronic state of agitation. Why do you go on playing that game?
Thekla. It's no game. I want to be liked, that's all.
Adolf. Quite so; but only liked by men.