"That is well enough, but what place have your ambiguities in society?"
"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The question is not why we say them, but how we say them. It would be rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a sexless Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what she is and is going to be. It is really a comical situation, considering how indelicate, stiff and guilty society is, to be an innocent girl."
"That reminds me of the famous Buffo, who, while he was always making others laugh, was so sad and solemn himself."
"Society is a chaos which can be brought into harmonious order only by wit. If one does not jest and toy with the elements of passion, it forms thick masses and darkens everything."
"Then there must be passion in the air here, for it is almost dark."
"Surely you have closed your eyes, lady of my heart! Otherwise the light in them would brighten the whole room."
"I wonder, Julius, who is the more passionate, you or I?"
"Both of us are passionate enough. If that were not so, I should not want to live. And see! That is why I could reconcile myself to jealousy. There is everything in love—friendship, pleasant intercourse, sensuality, and even passion. Everything must be in it, and one thing must strengthen, mitigate, enliven and elevate the other."
"Let me embrace you, darling."
"But only on one condition can I allow you to be jealous. I have often felt that a little bit of cultured and refined anger does not ill-become a man. Perhaps it is the same way with you in regard to jealousy."