Mathilde. Because--oh, because-- (Turns away.)

Axel. But what has made you so unkind? (MATHILDE stops for
a moment, as though she were going to answer; then goes hurriedly
out.) What on earth is the matter with her? Has anything gone
wrong between her and Laura? Or is it something about the house
that is worrying her? She is too level-headed to be disturbed by
trifles.--Well, whatever it is, it must look after itself; I have
something else to think about. If the one of them _can't_
understand me, and the other _won't_, and the old couple neither
can nor will, I must act on my own account--and the sooner the
better! Later on, it would look to other people like a rupture.
It must be done now, before we settle down to this state of
things; for if we were to do that, it would be all up with us. To
acquiesce in such an unnatural state of affairs would be like
crippling one's self on purpose. I am entangled hand and foot
here in the meshes of a net of circumspection. I shall have to
sail along at "dead slow" all my life--creep about among their
furniture and their flowers as warily as among their habits. You
might just as well try to stand the house on its head as to alter
the slightest thing in it. I daren't move!--and it is becoming
unbearable. Would it be a breach of a law of nature to move this
couch a little closer to the wall, or this chair further away
from it? And has it been ordained from all eternity that this
table must stand just where it does? _Can_ it be shifted? (Moves
it.) It actually can! And the couch, too. Why does it stand so
far forward? (Pushes it back.) And why are these chairs
everlastingly in the way? This one shall stand there--and this
one there. (Moves them.) I will have room for my legs; I