CHARACTERSDoña Laura.Petra[her maid].Don Gonzalo.Juanito[his servant].
Time:The Present.
Published by special arrangement with Mrs. Lucretia Xavier Floyd and Mr. John Garrett Underhill, the Society of Spanish Authors. Applications for permission to produce this play must be made to the Society of Spanish Authors, Room 62, 20 Nassau Street, New York.
A Comedy
By Serafin and Joaquin Alvarez Quintero
[Scene laid in a retired part of a park in Madrid, Spain. A bench at right. Bright, sunny morning in autumn. Doña Laura, a handsome old lady of about 70, with white hair and of very refined appearance, although elderly, her bright eyes and entire manner prove her mental facilities are unimpaired. She enters accompanied by her maid Petra, upon whose arm she leans with one hand, while the other holds a parasol which she uses as a cane.]
Doña Laura.I am so glad we have arrived. I feared my seat would be occupied. What a beautiful morning!
Petra.The sun is rather hot.
Doña Laura.Yes, to you who are only 20 years old. [She sits down on the bench.] Oh, I feel more tired to-day than usual. [Noticing Petra, who seems impatient.] Go, if you wish to chat with your guard.
Petra.He is not my guard, Señora; he belongs to the park.
Doña Laura.He belongs more to you than to the park. Go seek him, but remain within calling distance.
Petra.I see him over there waiting for me.
Doña Laura.Do not remain away more than ten minutes.
Petra.Very well, Señora. [Walks toward right, but is detained.]
Doña Laura.Wait a moment.
Petra.What does the Señora wish?
Doña Laura.You are carrying away the bread crumbs.
Petra.Very true. I don't know where my head is.
Doña Laura[smiling]. I do. It is where your heart is—with your guard.
Petra.Here, Señora. [She hands Doña Laura a small bag. Exit Petra.]
Doña Laura.Adios. [Glancing toward trees.] Here come the rogues. They know just when to expect me. [She rises, walks toward right, throws three handfuls of bread crumbs.] These are for the most daring, these for the gluttons, and these for the little ones which are the biggest rogues. Ha, ha. [She returns to her seat and watches with a pleased expression, the pigeons feeding.] There, that big one is always the first. That little fellow is the least timid. I believe he would eat from my hand. That one takes his piece and flies to that branch. He is a philosopher. But from where do they all come? It seems as if the news had been carried. Ha, ha. Don't quarrel. There is enough for all. To-morrow I'll bring more.
[Enter Don Gonzalo and Juanito. Don Gonzalo is an old gentleman over 70, gouty and impatient. He leans upon Juanito's arm and drags his feet along as he walks. He displays ill temper.]
Don Gonzalo.Idling their time away. They should be saying Mass.
Juanito.You can sit here, Señor. There is only a lady.
[Doña Laura turns her head and listens to the dialogue.]
Don Gonzalo.I won't, Juanito. I want a bench to myself.
Juanito.But there is none.
Don Gonzalo.But that one over there is mine.
Juanito.But there are three priests sitting there.
Don Gonzalo.Let them get up. Have they gone, Juanito?
Juanito.No, indeed. They are in animated conversation.
Don Gonzalo.Just as if they were glued to the seat. No hope of their leaving. Come this way, Juanito. [They walk toward birds.]
Doña Laura[indignantly]. Look out!
Don Gonzalo[turning his head]. Are you talking to me, Señora?
Doña Laura.Yes, to you.
Don Gonzalo.What do you wish?
Doña Laura.You have scared away the birds who were feeding on bread crumbs.
Don Gonzalo.What do I care about the birds.
Doña Laura.But I do.
Don Gonzalo.This is a public park.
Doña Laura.Then why do you complain that the priests have taken your bench?
Don Gonzalo.Señora, we have not been introduced to each other. I do not know why you take the liberty of addressing me. Come, Juanito. [Both exit.]
Doña Laura.What an ill-natured old man. Why must some people get so fussy and cross when they reach a certain age? I am glad. He lost that bench, too. Serves him right for scaring the birds. He is furious. Yes, yes; find a seat if you can. Poor fellow! He is wiping the perspiration from his face. Here he comes. A carriage would not raise more dust than he does with his feet.
[Enter Don Gonzalo and Juanito.]
Don Gonzalo.Have the priests gone yet, Juanito?
Juanito.No, indeed, Señor. They are still there.
Don Gonzalo.The authorities should place more benches here for these sunny mornings. Well, I suppose I must resign myself and sit on the same bench with the old lady. [Muttering to himself, he sits at the extreme end of Doña Laura's bench and looks at her indignantly. Touches his hat as he greets her.] Good morning.
Doña Laura.What, you here again?
Don Gonzalo.I repeat that we have not been introduced.
Doña Laura.I am responding to your greeting.
Don Gonzalo.Good morning should be answered by good morning, and that is what you should have said.
Doña Laura.And you should have asked permission to sit on this bench which is mine.
Don Gonzalo.The benches here are public property.
Doña Laura.Why, you said the one the priests occupied was yours.
Don Gonzalo.Very well, very well. I have nothing more to say. [Between his teeth.] Doting old woman. She should be at home with her knitting and counting her beads.
Doña Laura.Don't grumble any more. I'm not going to leave here just to please you.
Don Gonzalo[brushing the dust from his shoes with his handkerchief]. If the grounds were sprinkled more freely it would be an improvement.
Doña Laura.What an idea, to brush your shoes with your handkerchief.
Don Gonzalo.What?
Doña Laura.Do you use a shoe brush as a handkerchief?
Don Gonzalo.By what right do you criticize my actions?
Doña Laura.By the rights of a neighbor.
Don Gonzalo.Juanito, give me my book. I do not care to hear any more nonsense.
Doña Laura.You are very polite.
Don Gonzalo.Pardon me, Señora, but if you did not interfere with what does not concern you.
Doña Laura.I generally say what I think.
Don Gonzalo.And say more than you should. Give me the book, Juanito.
Juanito.Here it is, Señor. [Juanito takes book from pocket, hands it to Don Gonzalo; then exits.]
[Don Gonzalo, casting indignant glances at Doña Laura, puts on an enormous pair of glasses, takes from his pocket a reading-glass, adjusts both to suit him, opens his book.]
Doña Laura.I thought you were going to take out a telescope now.
Don Gonzalo.What, again?
Doña Laura.Your sight must be fine.
Don Gonzalo.Many times better than yours.
Doña Laura.Yes, it is very evident.
Don Gonzalo.Many hares and partridges could bear testimony to my words.
Doña Laura.Do you hunt?
Don Gonzalo.I did, and even now—
Doña Laura.Oh, yes, of course.
Don Gonzalo.Yes, Señora. Every Sunday I take my gun and dog, you understand, and go to one of my properties near Aravaca, just to kill time.
Doña Laura.Yes, to kill time. That is all you can kill.
Don Gonzalo.Do you think so? I could show you a wild boar's head in my study—
Doña Laura.Yes, and I could show you a tiger's skin in my boudoir. What an argument!
Don Gonzalo.Very well, Señora, please allow me to read. I do not feel like having more conversation.
Doña Laura.Well, keep quiet then.
Don Gonzalo.But first I shall take a pinch of snuff. [Takes out snuff box.] Will you have some? [Offers box to Doña Laura.]
Doña Laura.If it is good?
Don Gonzalo.It is of the finest. You will like it.
Doña Laura[taking pinch of snuff]. It clears my head.
Don Gonzalo.And mine.
Doña Laura.Do you sneeze?
Don Gonzalo.Yes, Señora, three times.
Doña Laura.And so do I. What a coincidence!
[After taking the snuff, they await the sneezes, making grimaces, and then sneeze alternately three times each.]
Don Gonzalo.There, I feel better.
Doña Laura.So do I. [Aside.] The snuff has made peace between us.
Don Gonzalo.You will excuse me if I read aloud?
Doña Laura.Read as you please; you will not disturb me.
Don Gonzalo[reading]. "All love is sad, but sad and all, it is the best thing that exists." That is from Campoamor.
Doña Laura.Ah!
Don Gonzalo[reading]. "The daughters of the mothers I once loved, kiss me now as they would kiss a wooden image." Those lines are in the humorous vein.
Doña Laura[laughing]. So I see.
Don Gonzalo.There are some beautiful poems in this book. Listen: "Twenty years have passed. He returns."
Doña Laura.You cannot imagine how it affects me to see you reading with all those glasses.
Don Gonzalo.Can it be possible that you read without requiring any?
Doña Laura.Certainly.
Don Gonzalo.At your age? You must be jesting.
Doña Laura.Pass me the book, please. [takes book, reads aloud.] "Twenty years have passed. He returns. And each upon beholding the other exclaims—Can it be possible that this is he? Merciful heavens, can this be she?"
[Doña Laura returns book to Don Gonzalo.]
Don Gonzalo.Indeed, you are to be envied for your wonderful eyesight.
Doña Laura[aside]. I knew the lines from memory.
Don Gonzalo.I am very fond of good verse, very fond. I even composed some in my youth.
Doña Laura.Good ones?
Don Gonzalo.Of all kinds. I was a great friend of Espronceda, Zorrilla, Becquer and others. I first met Zorrilla in America.
Doña Laura.Why, have you been in America?
Don Gonzalo.Several times. The first time I went I was only six years old.
Doña Laura.Columbus must have carried you in one of his caravels.
Don Gonzalo[laughing]. Not quite as bad as that. I am old, I admit, but I did not know Ferdinand and Isabella. [They both laugh.] I was also a great friend of Campoamor. I met him in Valencia. I am a native of that city.
Doña Laura.You are?
Don Gonzalo.I was brought up there and there I spent my early youth. Have you ever visited that city?
Doña Laura.Yes, Señor. Not far from Valencia there was a mansion that if still there, should retain memories of me. I spent there several seasons. This was many, many years ago. It was near the sea, concealed among lemon and orange trees. They called it—let me see, what did they call it?—"Maricela."
Don Gonzalo[startled]. Maricela?
Doña Laura.Maricela. Is the name familiar to you?
Don Gonzalo.Yes, very familiar. If my memory serves me right, for we forget as we grow old, there lived in that mansion the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I assure you I have seen a few. Let me see—what was her name? Laura—Laura—Laura Lorente.
Doña Laura[startled]. Laura Lorente?
Don Gonzalo.Yes. [They look at each other strangely.]
Doña Laura[recovering herself]. Nothing. You reminded me of my best friend.
Don Gonzalo.How strange!
Doña Laura.It is strange. She was called "The Silver Maiden."
Don Gonzalo.Precisely, "The Silver Maiden." By that name she was known in that locality. I seem to see her as if she were before me now, at that window of the red roses. Do you remember that window?
Doña Laura.Yes, I remember. It was that of her room.
Don Gonzalo.She spent many hours there. I mean in my days.
Doña Laura[sighing]. And in mine, too.
Don Gonzalo.She was ideal. Fair as a lily, jet black hair and black eyes, with a very sweet expression. She seemed to cast a radiance wherever she was. Her figure was beautiful, perfect. "What forms of sovereign beauty God models in human sculpture!" She was a dream.
Doña Laura[aside]. If you but knew that dream was now by your side, you would realize what dreams are worth. [Aloud.] She was very unfortunate and had a sad love affair.
Don Gonzalo.Very sad. [They look at each other.]
Doña Laura.You know of it?
Don Gonzalo.Yes.Doña Laura[aside]. Strange are the ways of Providence! This man is my early lover.
Don Gonzalo.The gallant lover, if we refer to the same affair—
Doña Laura.To the duel?
Don Gonzalo.Precisely, to the duel. The gallant lover was—my cousin, of whom I was very fond.
Doña Laura.Oh, yes, a cousin. My friend told me in one of her letters the story of that love affair, truly romantic. He, your cousin, passed by on horseback every morning by the rose path under her window, and tossed up to her balcony a bouquet of flowers which she caught.
Don Gonzalo.And later in the afternoon, the gallant horseman would return by the same path, and catch the bouquet of flowers she would toss him. Was it not so?
Doña Laura.Yes. They wanted to marry her to a merchant whom she did not fancy.
Don Gonzalo.And one night, when my cousin watched under her window to hear her sing, this new lover presented himself unexpectedly.
Doña Laura.And insulted your cousin.
Don Gonzalo.There was a quarrel.
Doña Laura.And later a duel.
Don Gonzalo.Yes, at sunrise, on the beach, and the merchant was badly wounded. My cousin had to conceal himself for a few days and later to fly.
Doña Laura.You seem to know the story perfectly.
Don Gonzalo.And so do you.
Doña Laura.I have told you that my friend related it to me.
Don Gonzalo.And my cousin to me. [Aside.] This woman is Laura. What a strange fate has brought us together again.
Doña Laura[aside]. He does not suspect who I am. Why tell him? Let him preserve his illusion.
Don Gonzalo[aside]. She does not suspect she is talking to her old lover. How can she? I will not reveal my identity.
Doña Laura.And was it you, by chance, who advised your cousin to forget Laura?
Don Gonzalo.Why, my cousin never forgot her for one instant.
Doña Laura.How do you account, then, for his conduct?
Don Gonzalo.I will explain. The young man first took refuge in my house, fearful of the consequences of his duel with that man, so much beloved in that locality. From my home he went to Seville, then came to Madrid. He wrote to Laura many letters, some in verse. But, undoubtedly, they were intercepted by her parents, for she never answered them. Gonzalo then, in despair, and believing his loved one lost to him forever, joined the army, went to Africa, and there, in a trench, met a glorious death, grasping the flag of Spain and repeating the name of his beloved—Laura—Laura—Laura.
Doña Laura[aside]. What an atrocious lie!
Don Gonzalo[aside]. I could not have killed myself in a more glorious manner.
Doña Laura.Such a calamity must have caused you the greatest sorrow.
Don Gonzalo.Yes, indeed, Señora. As great as if it were a brother. I presume though, that on the contrary, Laura in a short time was chasing butterflies in her garden, indifferent to everything.
Doña Laura.No, Señor, no indeed.
Don Gonzalo.It is usually a woman's way.
Doña Laura.Even if you consider it a woman's way, the "Silver Maiden" was not of that disposition. My friend awaited news for days, months, a year, and no letter came. One afternoon, just at sunset, and as the first stars were appearing, she was seen to leave the house, and with quick steps, wend her way toward the beach, that beach where her beloved had risked his life. She wrote his name on the sand, then sat upon a rock, her gaze fixed upon the horizon. The waves murmured their eternal monologue and slowly covered the rock where the maiden sat. Shall I tell you the rest?—The tide rose and carried her off to sea.
Don Gonzalo.Good heavens!
Doña Laura.The fishermen of that sea-coast who tell the story, affirm that it was a long time before the waves washed away that name written on the sand. [Aside.] You will not get ahead of me in inventing a romantic death.
Don Gonzalo[aside]. She lies more than I do.
Doña Laura.Poor Laura!
Don Gonzalo.Poor Gonzalo!
Doña Laura[aside]. I will not tell him that in two years I married another.
Don Gonzalo[aside]. I will not tell her that in three months I went to Paris with a ballet dancer.
Doña Laura.What strange pranks Fate plays! Here you and I, complete strangers, met by chance, and in discussing the romance of friends of long ago, we have been conversing as we were old friends.
Don Gonzalo.Yes, it is strange, considering we commenced our conversation quarreling.
Doña Laura.Because you scared away the birds.
Don Gonzalo.I was in a bad temper.
Doña Laura.Yes, that was evident. [Sweetly.] Are you coming to-morrow?
Don Gonzalo.Most certainly, if it is a sunny morning. And not only will I not scare away the birds, but will also bring them bread crumbs.
Doña Laura.Thank you very much. They are very interesting and deserve to be noticed. I wonder where my maid is? [Doña Laura rises; Don Gonzalo also rises.] What time can it be? [Doña Laura walks toward left.]
Don Gonzalo.It is nearly twelve o'clock. Where can that scamp Juanito be? [Walks toward right.]
Doña Laura.There she is talking with her guard. [Signals with her hand for her maid to approach.]
Don Gonzalo[looking at Laura, whose back is turned. Aside]. No, no, I will not reveal my identity. I am a grotesque figure now. Better that she recall the gallant horseman who passed daily under her window and tossed her flowers.
Doña Laura.How reluctant she is to leave him. Here she comes.
Don Gonzalo.But where can Juanito be? He has probably forgotten everything in the society of some nursemaid. [Looks toward right and signals with his hand.]
Doña Laura[looking at Gonzalo, whose back is turned. Aside]. No, I will not tell him I am Laura. I am too sadly altered. It is better he should remember me as the blackeyed girl who tossed him flowers as he passed through the rose path in that garden.
[Juanito enters by right: Petra by left. She has a bunch of violets in her hand.]
Doña Laura.Well, Petra, I thought you were never coming.
Don Gonzalo.But, Juanito, what delayed you so? It is very late.
Petra[handing violets to Doña Laura]. My lover gave me these violets for you, Señora.
Doña Laura.How very nice of him. Thank him for me. They are very fragrant. [As she takes the violets from her maid, a few loose ones drop to the ground.]
Don Gonzalo.My dear Señora, this has been a great honor and pleasure.
Doña Laura.And it has also been a pleasure to me.
Don Gonzalo.Good-by until to-morrow.
Doña Laura.Until to-morrow.
Don Gonzalo.If it is a sunny day.
Doña Laura.If it is a sunny day. Will you go to your bench?
Don Gonzalo.No, Señora, I will come to this, if you do not object?
Doña Laura.This bench is at your disposal. [Both laugh.]
Don Gonzalo.And I will surely bring the bread crumbs. [Both laugh again.]
Doña Laura.Until to-morrow.
Don Gonzalo.Until to-morrow.
[Laura walks away on her maid's arm toward right. Gonzalo, before leaving with Juanito, trembling and with a great effort, stoops to pick up the violets Laura dropped. Just then, Laura turns her head and sees him pick up flowers.]
Juanito.What are you doing, Señor?
Don Gonzalo.Wait, Juanito, wait.
Doña Laura[aside]. There is no doubt. It is he.
Don Gonzalo[walks toward left. Aside]. There can be no mistake. It is she.
[Doña Laura and Don Gonzalo wave farewells to each other from a distance.]
Doña Laura.Merciful heavens! This is Gonzalo.
Don Gonzalo.And to think that this is Laura.
[Before disappearing they give one last smiling look at each other.]
[Curtain.]
PERSONSThelka.Adolf[her husband, a painter].Gustav[her divorced husband].Two Ladies, a Waiter.
A Play
By August Strindberg
[Scene:A small watering-place. Time, the present. Stage directions with reference to the actors.
A drawing-room in a watering-place; furnished as above.
Door in the middle, with a view out on the sea; side doors right and left; by the side door on the left the button of an electric bell; on the right of the door in the center a table, with a decanter of water and a glass. On the left of the door in the center a what-not; on the right a fireplace in front; on the right a round table and arm-chair; on the left a sofa, a square table, a settee; on the table a small pedestal with a draped figure—papers, books, arm-chairs. Only the items of furniture which are introduced into the action are referred to in the above plan. The rest of the scenery remains unaffected. It is summer, and the day-time.]
Scene I.
[Adolf sits on the settee on the left of the square table; his stick is propped up near him.]
Adolf.And it's you I've got to thank for all this.
Gustav[walks up and down on the right, smoking a cigar]. Oh, nonsense.
Adolf.Indeed, I have. Why, the first day after my wife went away, I lay on my sofa like a cripple and gave myself up to my depression; it was as though she had taken my crutches, and I couldn't move from the spot. A few days went by, and I cheered up and began to pull myself together. The delirious nightmares which my brain had produced, went away. My head became cooler and cooler. A thought which I once had came to the surface again. My desire to work, my impulse to create, woke up. My eye got back again its capacity for sound sharp observation. You came, old man.
Gustav.Yes, you were in pretty low water, old man, when I came across you, and you went about on crutches. Of course, that doesn't prove that it was simply my presence that helped so much to your recovery: you needed quiet, and you wanted masculine companionship.
Adolf.You're right in that, as you are in everything else you say. I used to have it in the old days. But after my marriage it seemed unnecessary. I was satisfied with the friend of my heart whom I had chosen. All the same I soon got into fresh sets, and made many new acquaintances. But then my wife got jealous. She wanted to have me quite to herself; but much worse than that, my friends wanted to have her quite to themselves—and so I was left out in the cold with my jealousy.
Gustav.You were predisposed to this illness, you know that.
[He passes on the left behind the square table and comes to Adolf's left.]
Adolf.I was afraid of losing her—and tried to prevent it. Are you surprised at it? I was never afraid for a moment that she'd be unfaithful to me.
Gustav.What husband ever was afraid?
Adolf.Strange, isn't it? All I troubled about was simply this—about friends getting influence over her and so being able indirectly to acquire power over me—and I couldn't bear that at all.
Gustav.So you and your wife didn't have quite identical views?
Adolf.I've told you so much, you may as well know everything—-my wife is an independent character. [Gustav laughs.] What are you laughing at, old man?
Gustav.Go on, go on. She's an independent character, is she?
Adolf.She won't take anything from me.
Gustav.But she does from everybody else?
Adolf[after a pause]. Yes. And I've felt about all this, that the only reason why my views were so awfully repugnant to her, was because they were mine, not because they appeared absurd on their intrinsic merits. For it often happened that she'd trot out my old ideas, and champion them with gusto as her own. Why, it even came about that one of my friends gave her ideas which he had borrowed direct from me. She found them delightful; she found everything delightful that didn't come from me.
Gustav.In other words, you're not truly happy.
Adolf.Oh yes, I am. The woman whom I desired is mine, and I never wished for any other.
Gustav.Do you never wish to be free either?
Adolf.I wouldn't like to go quite so far as that. Of course the thought crops up now and again, how calmly I should be able to live if I were free—but she scarcely leaves me before I immediately long for her again, as though she were my arm, my leg. Strange. When I'm alone I sometimes feel as though she didn't have any real self of her own, as though she were a part of my ego, a piece out of my inside, that stole away all my will, all myjoie de vivre. Why, my very marrow itself, to use an anatomical expression, is situated in her; that's what it seems like.
Gustav.Viewing the matter broadly, that seems quite plausible.
Adolf.Nonsense. An independent person like she is, with such a tremendous lot of personal views, and when I met her, what was I then? Nothing. An artistic child which she brought up.
Gustav.But afterwards you developed her intellect and educated her, didn't you?
Adolf.No; her growth remained stationary, and I shot up.
Gustav.Yes; it's really remarkable, but her literary talent already began to deteriorate after her first book, or, to put it as charitably as possible, it didn't develop any further. [He sits down opposite Adolf on the sofa on the left.] Of course she then had the most promising subject-matter—for of course she drew the portrait of her first husband—you never knew him, old man? He must have been an unmitigated ass.
Adolf.I've never seen him. He was away for more than six months, but the good fellow must have been as perfect an ass as they're made, judging by her description—you can take it from me, old man, that her description wasn't exaggerated.
Gustav.Quite; but why did she marry him?
Adolf.She didn't know him then. People only get to know one another afterwards, don't you know.
Gustav.But, according to that, people have no business to marry until—Well, the man was a tyrant, obviously.
Adolf.Obviously?
Gustav.What husband wouldn't be? [Casually.] Why, old chap, you're as much a tyrant as any of the others.
Adolf.Me? I? Well, I allow my wife to come and go as she jolly well pleases!
Gustav[stands up]. Pah! a lot of good that is. I didn't suppose you kept her locked up. [He turns round behind the square table and comes over to Adolf on the right.] Don't you mind if she's out all night?
Adolf.I should think I do.
Gustav.Look here. [Resuming his earlier tone.] Speaking as man to man, it simply makes you ridiculous.
Adolf.Ridiculous? Can a man's trusting his wife make him ridiculous?
Gustav.Of course it can. And you've been so for some time. No doubt about it.
[He walks round the round table on the right.]
Adolf[excitedly]. Me? I'd have preferred to be anything but that. I must put matters right.
Gustav.Don't you get so excited, otherwise you'll get an attack again.
Adolf[after a pause]. Why doesn't she look ridiculous when I stay out all night?
Gustav.Why? Don't you bother about that. That's how the matter stands, and while you're fooling about moping, the mischief is done.
[He goes behind the square table, and walks behind the sofa.]
Adolf.What mischief?
Gustav.Her husband, you know, was a tyrant, and she simply married him in order to be free. For what other way is there for a girl to get free, than by getting the so-called husband to act as cover?
Adolf.Why, of course.
Gustav.And now, old man, you're the cover.
Adolf.I?
Gustav.As her husband.
Adolf[looks absent].
Gustav.Am I not right?
Adolf[uneasily]. I don't know. [Pause.] A man lives for years on end with a woman without coming to a clear conclusion about the woman herself, or how she stands in relation to his own way of looking at things. And then all of a sudden a man begins to reflect—and then there's no stopping. Gustav, old man, you're my friend, the only friend I've had for a long time, and this last week you've given me back all my life and pluck. It seems as though you'd radiated your magnetism over me. You were the watchmaker who repairs the works in my brain, and tightened the spring. [Pause.] Don't you see yourself how much more lucidly I think, how much more connectedly I speak, and at times it almost seems as though my voice had got back the timbre it used to have in the old days.
Gustav.I think so, too. What can be the cause of it?
Adolf.I don't know. Perhaps one gets accustomed to talk more softly to women. Thekla, at any rate, was always ragging me because I shrieked.
Gustav.And then you subsided into a minor key, and allowed yourself to be put in the corner.
Adolf.Don't say that. [Reflectively.] That wasn't the worst of it. Let's talk of something else—where was I then—I've got it. [Gustav turns round again at the back of the square table and comes to Adolf on his right.] You came here, old man, and opened my eyes to the mysteries of my art. As a matter of fact, I've been feeling for some time that my interest in painting was lessening, because it didn't provide me with a proper medium to express what I had in me; but when you gave me the reason for this state of affairs, and explained to me why painting could not possibly be the right form for the artistic impulse of the age, then I saw the true light and I recognized that it would be from now onwards impossible for me to create in colors.
Gustav.Are you so certain, old man, that you won't be able to paint any more, that you won't have any relapse?
Adolf.Quite. I have tested myself. When I went to bed the evening after our conversation I reviewed your chain of argument point by point, and felt convinced that it was sound. But the next morning, when my head cleared again, after the night's sleep, the thought flashed through me like lightning that you might be mistaken all the same. I jumped up, and snatched up a brush and palette, in order to paint, but—just think of it!—it was all up. I was no longer capable of any illusion. The whole thing was nothing but blobs of color, and I was horrified at the thought. I could never have believed I could convert any one else to the belief that painted canvas was anything else except painted canvas. The scales had fallen from my eyes, and I could as much paint again as I could become a child again.
Gustav.You realized then that the real striving of the age, its aspiration for reality, for actuality, can only find a corresponding medium in sculpture, which gives bodies extension in the three dimensions.
Adolf[hesitating]. The three dimensions? Yes—in a word, bodies.
Gustav.And now you want to become a sculptor? That means that you were a sculptor really from the beginning; you got off the line somehow, so you only needed a guide to direct you back again to the right track. I say, when you work now, does the great joy of creation come over you?
Adolf.Now, I live again.
Gustav.May I see what you're doing?
Adolf[undraping a figure on the small table]. A female figure.
Gustav[probing]. Without a model, and yet so lifelike?
Adolf[heavily]. Yes, but it is like somebody; extraordinary how this woman is in me, just as I am in her.
Gustav.That last is not so extraordinary—do you know anything about transfusion?
Adolf.Blood transfusion? Yes.
Gustav.It seems to me that you've allowed your veins to be opened a bit too much. The examination of this figure clears up many things which I'd previously only surmised. You loved her infinitely?
Adolf.Yes; so much that I could never tell whether she is I, or I am her; when she laughed I laughed; when she cried I cried, and when—just imagine it—our child came into the world I suffered the same as she did.
Gustav[stepping a little to the right]. Look here, old chap, I am awfully sorry to have to tell you, but the symptoms of epilepsy are already manifesting themselves.
Adolf[crushed]. In me? What makes you say so.
Gustav.Because I watched these symptoms in a younger brother of mine, who eventually died of excess.
[He sits down in the arm-chair by the circular table.]
Adolf.How did it manifest itself—that disease, I mean?
[Gustav gesticulates vividly; Adolf watches with strained attention, and involuntarily imitates Gustav's gestures.]
Gustav.A ghastly sight. If you feel at all off color, I'd rather not harrow you by describing the symptoms.
Adolf[nervously]. Go on; go on.
Gustav.Well, it's like this. Fate had given the youngster for a wife a little innocent, with kiss-curls, dove-like eyes, and a baby face, from which there spoke the pure soul of an angel. In spite of that, the little one managed to appropriate the man's prerogative.
Adolf.What is that?
Gustav.Initiative, of course; and the inevitable result was that the angel came precious near taking him away to heaven. He first had to be on the cross and feel the nails in his flesh.
Adolf[suffocating]. Tell me, what was it like?
Gustav[slowly]. There were times when he and I would sit quite quietly by each other and chat, and then—I'd scarcely been speaking a few minutes before his face became ashy white, his limbs were paralyzed, and his thumbs turned in towards the palm of the hand. [With a gesture.] Like that! [Adolf imitates the gesture.] And his eyes were shot with blood, and he began to chew, do you see, like this. [He moves his lips as though chewing; Adolf imitates him again.] The saliva stuck in his throat; the chest contracted as though it had been compressed by screws on a joiner's bench; there was a flicker in the pupils like gas jets; foam spurted from his mouth, and he sank gently back in the chair as though he were drowning. Then—
Adolf[hissing]. Stop!
Gustav.Then—are you unwell?
Adolf.Yes.
Gustav[gets up and fetches a glass of water from the table on the right near the center door]. Here, drink this, and let's change the subject.
Adolf[drinks, limp]. Thanks; go on.
Gustav.Good! When he woke up he had no idea what had taken place. [He takes the glass back to the table.] He had simply lost consciousness. Hasn't that ever happened to you?
Adolf.Now and again I have attacks of dizziness. The doctor puts it down to anæmia.
Gustav[on the right of Adolf]. That's just how the thing starts, mark you. Take it from me, you're in danger of contracting epilepsy; if you aren't on your guard, if you don't live a careful and abstemious life, all round.
Adolf.What can I do to effect that?
Gustav.Above all, you must exercise the most complete continence.
Adolf.For how long?
Gustav.Six months at least.
Adolf.I can't do it. It would upset all our life together.
Gustav.Then it's all up with you.
Adolf.I can't do it.
Gustav.You can't save your own life? But tell me, as you've taken me into your confidence so far, haven't you any other wound that hurts you?—some other secret trouble in this multifarious life of ours, with all its numerous opportunities for jars and complications? There is usually more than onemotifwhich is responsible for a discord. Haven't you got a skeleton in the cupboard, old chap, which you hide even from yourself? You told me a minute ago you'd given your child to people to look after. Why didn't you keep it with you?
[He goes behind the square table on the left and then behind the sofa.]
Adolf[covers the figure on the small table with a cloth]. It was my wife's wish to have it nursed outside the house.
Gustav.The motive? Don't be afraid.
Adolf.Because when the kid was three years old she thought it began to look like her first husband.
Gustav.Re-a-lly? Ever seen the first husband?
Adolf.No, never. I just once cast a cursory glance over a bad photograph, but I couldn't discover any likeness.
Gustav.Oh, well, photographs are never like, and besides, his type of face may have changed with time. By the by, didn't that make you at all jealous?
Adolf.Not a bit. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was traveling when I met Thekla, here—in this watering-place—in this very house. That's why we come here every summer.
Gustav.Then all suspicion on your part was out of the question? But so far as the intrinsic facts of the matter are concerned you needn't be jealous at all, because it not infrequently happens that the children of a widow who marries again are like the deceased husband. Very awkward business, no question about it; and that's why, don't you know, the widows are burned alive in India. Tell me, now, didn't you ever feel jealous of him, of the survival of his memory in your own self? Wouldn't it have rather gone against the grain if he had just met you when you were out for a walk, and, looking straight at Thekla, said "We," instead of "I"? "We."
Adolf.I can't deny that the thought has haunted me.
Gustav[sits down opposite Adolf on the sofa on the left]. I thought as much, and you'll never get away from it. There are discords in life, you know, which never get resolved, so you must stuff your ears with wax, and work. Work, get older, and heap up over the coffin a mass of new impressions, and then the corpse will rest in peace.
Adolf.Excuse my interrupting you—but it is extraordinary at times how your way of speaking reminds me of Thekla. You've got a trick, old man, of winking with your right eye as though you were counting, and your gaze has the same power over me as hers has.
Gustav.No, really?
Adolf.And now you pronounce your "No, really?" in the same indifferent tone that she does. "No, really?" is one of her favorite expressions, too, you know.
Gustav.Perhaps there is a distant relationship between us: all men and women are related of course. Anyway, there's no getting away from the strangeness of it, and it will be interesting for me to make the acquaintance of your wife, so as to observe this remarkable characteristic.
Adolf.But just think of this, she doesn't take a single expression from me; why, she seems rather to make a point of avoiding all my special tricks of speech; all the same, I have seen her make use of one of my gestures; but it is quite the usual thing in married life for a husband and a wife to develop the so-called marriage likeness.
Gustav.Quite. But look here now. [He stands up.] That woman has never loved you.
Adolf.Nonsense.
Gustav.Pray excuse me, woman's love consists simply in this—in taking in, in receiving. She does not love the man from whom she takes nothing: she has never loved you.
[He turns round behind the square table and walks to Adolf's right.]
Adolf.I suppose you don't think that she'd be able to love more than once?
Gustav.No. Once bit, twice shy. After the first time, one keeps one's eyes open, but you have never been really bitten yet. You be careful of those who have; they're dangerous customers.
[He goes round the circular table on the right.]
Adolf.What you say jabs a knife into my flesh. I've got a feeling as though something in me were cut through, but I can do nothing to stop it all by myself, and it's as well it should be so, for abscesses will be opened in that way which would otherwise never be able to come to a head. She never loved me? Why did she marry me, then?
Gustav.Tell me first how it came about that she did marry you, and whether she married you or you her?
Adolf.God knows! That's much too hard a question to be answered offhand, and how did it take place?—it took more than a day.
Gustav.Shall I guess?
[He goes behind the round table, toward the left, and sits on thesofa.]
Adolf.You'll get nothing for your pains.
Gustav.Not so fast! From the insight which you've given me into your own character, and that of your wife, I find it pretty easy to work out the sequence of the whole thing. Listen to me and you'll be quite convinced. [Dispassionately and in an almost jocular tone.] The husband happened to be traveling on study and she was alone. At first she found a pleasure in being free. Then she imagined that she felt the void, for I presume that she found it pretty boring after being alone for a fortnight. Then he turned up, and the void begins gradually to be filled—the picture of the absent man begins gradually to fade in comparison, for the simple reason that he is a long way off—you know of course the psychological algebra of distance? And when both of them, alone as they were, felt the awakening of passion, they were frightened of themselves, of him, of their own conscience. They sought for protection, skulked behind the fig-leaf, played at brother and sister, and the more sensual grew their feelings the more spiritual did they pretend their relationship really was.
Adolf.Brother and sister! How did you know that?
Gustav.I just thought that was how it was. Children play at mother and father, but of course when they grow older they play at brother and sister—so as to conceal what requires concealment; they then discard their chaste desires; they play blind man's bluff till they've caught each other in some dark corner, where they're pretty sure not to be seen by anybody. [With increased severity.] But they are warned by their inner consciences that an eye sees them through the darkness. They are afraid—and in their panic the absent man begins to haunt their imagination—to assume monstrous proportions—to become metamorphosed—he becomes a nightmare who oppresses them in that love's young dream of theirs. He becomes the creditor [he raps slowly on the table three times with his finger, as though knocking at the door] who knocks at the door. They see his black hand thrust itself between them when their own are reaching after the dish of pottage. They hear his unwelcome voice in the stillness of the night, which is only broken by the beating of their own pulses. He doesn't prevent their belonging to each other, but he is enough to mar their happiness, and when they have felt this invisible power of his, and when at last they want to run away, and make their futile efforts to escape the memory which haunts them, the guilt which they have left behind, the public opinion which they are afraid of, and they lack the strength to bear their own guilt, then a scapegoat has to be exterminated and slaughtered. They posed as believers in Free Love, but they didn't have the pluck to go straight to him, to speak straight out to him and say, "We love each other." They were cowardly, and that's why the tyrant had to be assassinated. Am I not right?
Adolf.Yes; but you're forgetting that she trained me, gave me new thoughts.
Gustav.I haven't forgotten it. But tell me, how was it that she wasn't able to succeed in educating the other man—in educating him into being really modern?
Adolf.He was an utter ass.
Gustav.Right you are—he was an ass; but that's a fairly elastic word, and according to her description of him, in her novel, his asinine nature seemed to have consisted principally in the fact that he didn't understand her. Excuse the question, but is your wife really as deep as all that? I haven't found anything particularly profound in her writings.
Adolf.Nor have I. I must really own that I too find it takes me all my time to understand her. It's as though the machinery of our brains couldn't catch on to each other properly—as though something in my head got broken when I try to understand her.
Gustav.Perhaps you're an ass as well.
Adolf.No, I flatter myself I'm not that, and I nearly always think that she's in the wrong—and, for the sake of argument, would you care to read this letter which I got from her to-day?
[He takes a letter out of his pocketbook.]
Gustav[reads it cursorily]. Hum, I seem to know the style so well.
Adolf.Like a man's, almost.
Gustav.Well, at any rate I know a man who had a style like that. [Standing up.] I see she goes on calling you brother all the time—do you always keep up the comedy for the benefit of your two selves? Do you still keep on using the fig leaves, even though they're a trifle withered—you don't use any term of endearment?
Adolf.No. In my view, I couldn't respect her quite so much if I did.
Gustav[hands back the letter]. I see, and she calls herself "sister" so as to inspire respect.
[He turns around and passes the square table on Adolf's right.]
Adolf.I want to esteem her more than I do myself. I want her to be my better self.
Gustav.Oh, you be your better self; though I quite admit it's less convenient than having somebody else to do it for you. Do you want, then, to be your wife's inferior?
Adolf.Yes, I do. I find pleasure in always allowing myself to be beaten by her a little. For instance, I taught her swimming, and it amuses me when she boasts about being better and pluckier than I am. At the beginning I simply pretended to be less skillful and courageous than she was, in order to give her pluck, but one day, God knows how it came about, I was actually the worse swimmer and the one with less pluck. It seemed as though she's taken all my grit away in real earnest.
Gustav.And haven't you taught her anything else?
Adolf.Yes—but this is in confidence—I taught her spelling, because she didn't know it. Just listen to this. When she took over the correspondence of the household I gave up writing letters, and—will you believe it?—simply from lack of practice I've lost one bit of grammar after another in the course of the year. But do you think she ever remembers that she has to thank me really for her proficiency? Not for a minute. Of course, I'm the ass now.
Gustav.Ah, really? You're the ass now, are you?
Adolf.I'm only joking, of course.
Gustav.Obviously. But this is pure cannibalism, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? Well, the savages devour their enemies so as to acquire their best qualities. Well, this woman has devoured your soul, your pluck, your knowledge.
Adolf.And my faith. It was I who kept her up to the mark and made her write her first book.
Gustav[with facial expression]. Re-a-lly?
Adolf.It was I who fed her up with praise, even when I thought her work was no good. It was I who introduced her into literary sets, and tried to make her feel herself in clover; defended her against criticism by my personal intervention. I blew courage into her, kept on blowing it for so long that I got out of breath myself. I gave and gave and gave—until nothing was left for me myself. Do you know—I'm going to tell you the whole story—do you know how the thing seems to me now? One's temperament is such an extraordinary thing, and when my artistic successes looked as though they would eclipse her—her prestige—I tried to buck her up by belittling myself and by representing that my art was one that was inferior to hers. I talked so much of the general insignificant rôle of my particular art, and harped on it so much, thought of so many good reasons for my contention, that one fine day I myself was soaked through and through with the worthlessness of the painter's art; so all that was left was a house of cards for you to blow down.
Gustav.Excuse my reminding you of what you said, but at the beginning of our conversation you were asserting that she took nothing from you.
Adolf.She doesn't—now, at any rate; now there is nothing left to take.
Gustav.So the snake has gorged herself, and now she vomits.
Adolf.Perhaps she took more from me than I knew of.
Gustav.Oh, you can reckon on that right enough—she took without your noticing it. [He goes behind the square table and comes in front of the sofa.] That's what people call stealing.
Adolf.Then what it comes to is that she hasn't educated me at all?
Gustav.Rather you her. Of course she knew the trick well enough of making you believe the contrary. Might I ask how she pretended to educate you?
Adolf.Oh—at first—hum!
Gustav.Well? [He leans his arms on the table.]
Adolf.Well, I—
Gustav.No; it was she—she.
Adolf.As a matter of fact I couldn't say which it was.
Gustav.You see.
Adolf.Besides, she destroyed my faith as well, and so I went backward until you came, old chap, and gave me a new faith.
Gustav[he laughs]. In sculpture?
[He turns round by the square table and comes to Adolf's right.]
Adolf[hesitating]. Yes.
Gustav.And you believed in it?—in that abstract, obsolete art from the childhood of the world. Do you believe that by means of pure form and three dimensions—no, you don't really—that you can produce an effect on the real spirit of this age of ours, that you can create illusions without color? Without color, I say. Do you believe that?
Adolf[tonelessly]. No.
Gustav.Nor do I.
Adolf.But why did you say you did?
Gustav.You make me pity you.
Adolf.Yes, I am indeed to be pitied. And now I'm bankrupt, absolutely—and the worst of it is I haven't got her any more.
Gustav[with a few steps toward the right]. What good would she be to you? She would be what God above was to me before I became an atheist—a subject on which I could lavish my reverence. You keep your feeling of reverence dark, and let something else grow on top of it—a healthy contempt, for instance.
Adolf.I can't live without some one to reverence.
Gustav.Slave!
[He goes round the table on the right.]
Adolf.And without a woman to reverence, to worship.
Gustav.Oh, the deuce! Then you go back to that God of yours—if you really must have something on which you can crucify yourself; but you call yourself an atheist when you've got the superstitious belief in women in your own blood; you call yourself a free thinker when you can't think freely about a lot of silly women. Do you know what all this illusive quality, this sphinx-like mystery, this profundity in your wife's temperament all really comes to? The whole thing is sheer stupidity; why, the woman can't distinguish between A.B. and bull's foot for the life of her. And look here, it's something shoddy in the mechanism, that's where the fault lies. Outside it looks like a fifty-guinea hunting watch, open it and you find it's tuppenny-halfpenny gun-metal. [He comes up to Adolf.] Put her in trousers, draw a mustache under her nose with a piece of coal, and then listen to her in the same state of mind, and then you'll be perfectly convinced that it is quite a different kettle of fish altogether—-a gramaphone which reproduces, with rather less volume, your words and other people's words. Do you know how a woman is constituted? Yes, of course you do. A boy with the breasts of a mother, an immature man, a precocious child whose growth has been stunted, a chronically anæmic creature that has a regular emission of blood thirteen times in the year. What can you do with a thing like that?
Adolf.Yes—but—but then how can I believe—that we are really on an equality?
Gustav[moves away from him again towards the right]. Sheer hallucination! The fascination of the petticoat. But it is so; perhaps, in fact you have become like each other, the leveling has taken place. But I say. [He takes out his watch.] We've been chatting for quite long enough. Your wife's bound to be here shortly. Wouldn't it be better to leave off now, so that you can rest for a little?
[He comes nearer and holds out his hand to say good-by. Adolf grips his hand all the tighter.]
Adolf.NO, don't leave me. I haven't got the pluck to be alone.
Gustav.Only for a little while. Your wife will be coming in a minute.
Adolf.Yes, yes—she's coming. [Pause.] Strange, isn't it? I long for her and yet I'm frightened of her. She caresses me, she is tender, but her kisses have something in them which smothers one, something which sucks, something which stupefies. It is as though I were the child at the circus whose face the clown is making up in the dressing-room, so that it can appear red-cheeked before the public.