Princess Lilue

A man and a woman are sitting in a restaurant arguing about the age-old topic of male-female relationships.

The man, having been in several relationships that did not work out, observed that it was difficult to make a woman happy, saying, "...it has happened to me many times that a lady has told me that I was making her unhappy, and that she wished that she and I were dead, at a time when I have tried hardest to make her happy. It is so many years now since Adam and Eve were first together in the garden, that it seems a great pity that we have not learned better how to please another."

After pondering over what the gentleman had said, this is what the woman replied, to help shed some light on the gentleman's perplexing, though not unique, situation.

"Now God," she said, "when he created Adam and Eve, arranged it so that man takes, in these matters, the part of a guest, and woman that of a hostess. Therefore man takes love lightly, for the honour and dignity of his house is not involved therein. And you can also, surely, be a guest to many people to whom you would never want to be a host. Now, tell me, Count, what does a guest want?"

"I believe," said the man when he had thought for a moment, "that if we do, as I think we ought to here, leave out the crude guest, who comes to be regaled, takes what he can get, and goes away, a guest wants first of all to be diverted, to get out of his daily monotony or worry. Secondly the decent guest wants to shine, to expand himself and impress his own personality upon his surroundings. And thirdly, perhaps, he wants to find some justification for his existence altogether. But since you put it so charmingly, Signora, please tell me now; What does a hostess want?"

"The hostess," said the young lady, "wants to be thanked."

Taken from The Roads Round Pisa by Isak Dinesen in her collection of short stories, Seven Gothic Tales.