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He's gone crazy today. What's possessed the man? (Resumes her cleaning.)

I'll not beat you. (Clutching her slender throat with his fingers.) If I had only twisted your neck for you, like this, before you ever grew up, it would have been better for you, and for me. . . But don't be afraid. I won't harm you. It's not for your sins that God has punished us. No. It's for ours. I guarded you like the apple of my eye. I had a Holy Scroll written for you. I placed it in your room and prayed to it for days and nights at a time. "Shield my child from evil! Visit your punishment upon me! On her mother! But spare my daughter!" You'd grow up, I planned, and I'd make a fine match for you. I'd get you a respectable young man for a husband. I 'd keep you both here with me, at my expense. You would both live. ..

There's plenty of time for me to marry. I'm not so old.

And she has the impudence to argue with him!