seems almost as if I had deposited with her that centre of
vitality of which the anatomical books tell us.

GUSTAV. Perhaps, when we get to the bottom of it, that is just
what has happened.

ADOLPH. How could it be so? Is she not an independent being, with
thoughts of her own? And when I met her I was nothing--a child of
an artist whom she undertook to educate.

GUSTAV. But later you developed her thoughts and educated her,
didn't you?

ADOLPH. No, she stopped growing and I pushed on.

GUSTAV. Yes, isn't it strange that her "authoring" seemed to fall
off after her first book--or that it failed to improve, at least?
But that first time she had a subject which wrote itself--for I
understand she used her former husband for a model. You never knew
him, did you? They say he was an idiot.

ADOLPH. I never knew him, as he was away for six months at a time.
But he must have been an arch-idiot, judging by her picture of
him. [Pause] And you may feel sure that the picture was correct.

GUSTAV. I do!--But why did she ever take him?

ADOLPH. Because she didn't know him well enough. Of course, you
never DO get acquainted until afterward!