human
I got a letter from your mother this morning,
gpt
I did not know you corresponded with her.
human
Nor did I know that your correspondence was as peculiar as I have found it,
gpt
You are opening this subject again.
human
I am: I have to: your mother confirms everything that I have charged you with.
gpt
My mother hates me, said the woman,
human
She is your mother.
gpt
Oh no, she is not! When I ceased to be a child she ceased to be a mother. We are only two women who are so well acquainted that we can be enemies without any shame of each other.
human
Are you not talking nonsense?
gpt
I have committed a crime against her. She will never forgive me for being younger than she is, and for being pretty in her own fashion. She left my father because he said I was good-looking.
human
All that...!
gpt
As to what she would do against me, you should know it well enough considering the things she told you before we were married.
human
You admitted that they were not all lies.
gpt
Some of the facts were true, all of the colouring was false--they are the things a loving mother says about her daughter! but that is an old story now, or I had fancied so.
human
One forgets the old story until the new story drags it to memory,
gpt
I begin to find these conversations tiresome.
human
I can understand that.... With her letter your mother enclosed some other letters from her friends--they insist on the facts, and add others.
gpt
Are they letters, or copies of letters?
human
They are copies.
gpt
Of course my mother has forbidden you to disclose the fact that she forwarded her friends' private correspondence to you.
human
Naturally.
gpt
Very naturally; the reason being that she wrote these letters herself to herself. There are no originals of these copies.
human
Again you are talking nonsense.
gpt
I know her better than you do, better than she knows herself.
human
There are some things I cannot do,
gpt
I cannot search in unclean places for unclean information,
human
You do not say anything!
gpt
This seems to be so entirely your business,
human
You cannot divorce yourself from me with such ease. This is our business, and we must settle it between us.