was the reason why I took to you as I did--because you let me
talk about myself? All at once we seemed like old friends. There
were no angles about you against which I could bump myself, no
pins that pricked. There was something soft about your whole
person, and you overflowed with that tact which only well-educated
people know how to show. You never made a noise when you came home
late at night or got up early in the morning. You were patient in
small things, and you gave in whenever a conflict seemed
threatening. In a word, you proved yourself the perfect companion!
But you were entirely too compliant not to set me wondering about
you in the long run--and you are too timid, too easily frightened.
It seems almost as if you were made up of two different
personalities. Why, as I sit here looking at your back in the
mirror over there--it is as if I were looking at somebody else.

(MR. Y. turns around and stares at the mirror.)

MR. X. No, you cannot get a glimpse of your own back, man!--In
front you appear like a fearless sort of fellow, one meeting his
fate with bared breast, but from behind--really, I don't want to
be impolite, but--you look as if you were carrying a burden, or as
if you were crouching to escape a raised stick. And when I look at
that red cross your suspenders make on your white shirt--well, it
looks to me like some kind of emblem, like a trade-mark on a
packing-box--

MR. Y. I feel as if I'd choke--if the storm doesn't break soon--

MR. X. It's coming--don't you worry!--And your neck! It looks as
if there ought to be another kind of face on top of it, a face