remember one night we'd been talking in a cafe for many hours. When
it was nearly ten o'clock, she begged me to go home and not to
drink any more. We parted, after we'd said goodnight. A few days
later I heard she'd left me only to go to a large party, where she
drank till morning. Well, I said, as in those days I looked for all
that was good in women, she meant well by me, but had to pollute
herself for business reasons.

TEMPTER. That's well thought out; and, as a view, can be defended.
She wanted to make you better than herself, higher and purer, so
that she could look up to you! But you can find an equally good
explanation for that. A wife's always angry and out of humour with
her husband; and the husband's always kind and grateful to his
wife. He does all he can to make things easy for her, and she does
all she can to torture him.

STRANGER. That's not true. Of course it may sometimes appear to be
so. I once had a woman friend who shifted all the defects that she
had on to me. For instance, she was very much in love with herself,
and therefore called me the most egoistical of men. She drank, and
called me a drunkard; she rarely changed her linen and said I was
dirty; she was jealous, even of my men friends, and called me
Othello. She was masterful and called me Nero. Niggardly and called
me Harpagon.

TEMPTER. Why didn't you answer her?

STRANGER. You know why very well! If I'd made clear to her what she
really was, I'd have lost her favour that moment--and it was
precisely her favour I wanted to keep.