THE LAWYER: Look at these walls. Does it not look as if the wall-paper itself had been soiled by every conceivable sin? Look at these documents into which I write tales of wrong. Look at myself -- No smiling man ever comes here; nothing is to be seen here but angry glances, snarling lips, clenched fists -- And everybody pours his anger, his envy, his suspicions, upon me. Look -- my hands are black, and no washing will clean them. See how they are chapped and bleeding -- I can never wear my clothes more than a few days because they smell of other people's crimes -- At times I have the place fumigated with sulphur, but it does not help. I sleep near by, and I dream of nothing but crimes -- Just now I have a murder case in court -- oh, I can stand that, but do you know what is worse than anything else? -- That is to separate married people! Then it is as if something cried way down in the earth and up there in the sky -- as if it cried treason against the primal force, against the source of all good, against love-- And do you know, when reams of paper have been filled with mutual accusations, and at last a sympathetic person takes one of the two apart and asks, with a pinch of the ear or a smile, the simple question: what have you really got against your husband?--or your wife?--then he, or she, stands perplexed and cannot give the cause. Once--well, I think a lettuce salad was the principal issue; another time it was just a word--mostly it is nothing at all. But the tortures, the sufferings--these I have to bear-- See how I look! Do you think I could ever win a woman's love with this countenance so like a criminal's? Do you think anybody dares to be friendly with me, who has to collect all the debts, all the money obligations, of the whole city?-- It is a misery to be a man!