stranger was standing close by, and I was
nervous and did not know what else to do."

"Except to be rude in your awkwardness."

"Forgive me! I plead guilty. You know how embarrassed I am with you in
society. It always hurts me to talk with you in the presence of
others."

"How nicely he manages to excuse himself!"

"The next time do not pass it over! Look out and be strict with me.
But see what you have done! Isn't it a desecration? Oh no! It isn't
possible, it is more than that. You will have to confess it--you were
jealous."

"All the evening you rudely forgot about me. I began to write it all
out for you today, but tore it up."

"And then, when I came?"

"Your being in such an awful hurry annoyed me."

"Could you love me if I were not so inflammable and electric? Are you
not so too? Have you forgotten our first embrace? In one minute love
comes and lasts for ever, or it does not come at all. Or do you think
that joy is accumulated like money and other material things, by
consistent behavior? Great happiness is like music coming out of the
air--it appears and surprises us and then vanishes again."

"And thus it was you appeared to me, darling! But you will not vanish,
will you? You shall not! I say it!"

"I will not, I will stay with you now and for all time. Listen! I feel
a strong desire to hold a long discourse with you on jealousy. But
first we ought to conciliate the offended gods."

"Rather, first the discourse and afterward the gods."

"You are right, we are not yet worthy of them. It takes you a long
time to get over it after you have been disturbed and annoyed about
something. How nice it is that you are so sensitive!"

"I am no more sensitive than you are--only in a different way."

"Well then, tell me! I am not jealous--how does it happen that you
are?"

"Am I, unless I have cause to be? Answer me that!"

"I do not know what you mean."

"Well, I am not really jealous. But tell me: What were you talking
about all yesterday evening?"

"So? It is Amalia of whom you are jealous? Is it possible? That
nonsense? I did not talk about anything with her, and that was the
funny part of it. Did I not talk just as long with Antonio, whom a
short time ago I used to see almost every day?"

"You want me to believe that you talk in the same way with the
coquettish Amalia that you do with the quiet, serious Antonio. Of
course! It is nothing more than a case of clear, pure friendship!"

"Oh no, you