ELEONORA. I? Not I! How should I dare to be? I, I? [She goes to the stove, opens it, and takes out several torn pieces of white letter paper and puts them on the dining table.]
BENJAMIN. [Rises and looks at the pieces of paper which Eleonora is putting together.]
ELEONORA [To herself]. That people should be so thoughtless as to leave their secrets in the stove! Whenever I come I always go right to the stove! But I don't do it maliciously--I wouldn't do anything like that, for then I should feel remorse.
BENJAMIN. It is from Peter, who writes and asks Christine to meet him. I have been expecting that for a long time.
ELEONORA [Putting her hands over the bits o f paper]. Oh, you, what have you been expecting? Tell me, you evil minded being, who believes nothing but bad of people. This letter could not mean anything wrong to me, for I know Christine, who is going to be my sister sometime. And that meeting will avert misfortune for brother Elis. Will you promise me to say nothing of this, Benjamin?
BENJAMIN. I don't exactly think I should like to talk much about it!
ELEONORA. People who are suspicious become so unjust. They think they are so wise, and they are so foolish!--But what is all this to me!
BENJAMIN. Yes, why _are_ you so inquisitive?
ELEONORA. You see that is my illness--that I must know all about everything or else I become restless--
ELEONORA. That is a fault which I cannot overcome. And I even know what the birds say.
ELEONORA. Haven't you heard birds that people have taught to talk?
BENJAMIN. Oh, yes--that people have taught to talk!
ELEONORA. That is to say they can talk. And we find those that have taught themselves or are like that instinctively--they sit and listen without our knowing it and then they repeat these things afterward. Just now as I was coming along I heard two magpies in the walnut tree, who sat there gossiping.
BENJAMIN. How funny you are! But what were they saying?
ELEONORA. "Peter," said one of them, "Judas," said the other. "The same thing," said the first one. "Fie, Fie, Fie," said the other. But have you noticed that the nightingales only sing in the grounds of the deaf and dumb asylum here?
BENJAMIN. Yes, they do say that's so. Why do they do that?