Gustav[leaning on the arm of Adolf's chair]. I'm sorry for you, old man. Although I'm not a doctor I am in a position to tell you that you are a dying man. One only has to look at your last pictures to be quite clear on the point.
Adolf.What do you say—what do you mean?
Gustav.Your coloring is so watery, so consumptive and thin, that the yellow of the canvas shines through. It is just as though your hollow ashen white cheeks were looking out at me.
Adolf.Ah!
Gustav.Yes, and that's not only my view. Haven't you read to-day's paper?
Adolf[he starts]. No.
Gustav.It's before you on the table.
Adolf[he gropes after the paper without having the courage to take it]. Is it in here?
Gustav.Read it, or shall I read it to you?
Adolf.No.
Gustav[turns to leave]. If you prefer it, I'll go.
Adolf.NO, no, no! I don't know how it is—I think I am beginning to hate you, but all the same I can't do without your being near me. You have helped to drag me out of the slough which I was in, and, as luck would have it, I just managed to work my way clear and then you knocked me on the head and plunged me in again. As long as I kept my secrets to myself I still had some guts—now I'm empty. There's a picture by an Italian master that describes a torture scene. The entrails are dragged out of a saint by means of a windlass. The martyr lies there and sees himself getting continually thinner and thinner, but the roll on the windless always gets perpetually fatter, and so it seems to me that you get stronger since you've taken me up and that you're taking away now with you, as you go, my innermost essence, the core of my character, and there's nothing left of me but an empty husk.
Gustav.Oh, what fantastic notions; besides, your wife is coming back with your heart.
Adolf.No; no longer, after you have burnt it for me. You have passed through me, changing everything in your track to ashes—my art, my love, my hope, my faith.
Gustav[comes near to him again]. Were you so splendidly off before?
Adolf.No, I wasn't, but the situation might have been saved; now it's too late. Murderer!
Gustav.We've wasted a little time. Now we'll do some sowing in the ashes.
Adolf.I hate you! I curse you!
Gustav.A healthy symptom. You've still got some strength, and now I'll screw up your machinery again. I say. [He goes behind the square table on the left and comes in front of the sofa.] Will you listen to me and obey me?
Adolf.Do what you will with me, I'll obey.
Gustav.Look at me.
Adolf[looks him in the face]. And now you look at me again with that other expression in those eyes of yours, which draws me to you irresistibly.
Gustav.Now listen to me.
Adolf.Yes, but speak of yourself. Don't speak any more of me: it's as though I were wounded, every movement hurts me.
Gustav.Oh no, there isn't much to say about me, don't you know. I'm a private tutor in dead languages and a widower, that's all. [He goes in front of the table.] Hold my hand.
[Adolf does so.]
Adolf.What awful strength you must have, it seems as though a fellow were catching hold of an electric battery.
Gustav.And just think, I was once quite as weak as you are. [Sternly.] Get up.
Adolf[gets up]. I am like a child without any bones, and my brain is empty.
Gustav.Take a walk through the room.
Adolf.I can't.
Gustav.You must; if you don't I'll hit you.
Adolf[stands up]. What do you say?
Gustav.I've told you—I'll hit you.
Adolf[jumps back to the circular table on the right, beside himself.] You!
Gustav[follows him]. Bravo! That's driven the blood to your head, and woken up your self-respect. Now I'll give you an electric shock. Where's your wife?
Adolf.Where's my wife?
Gustav.Yes.
Adolf.At—a meeting.
Gustav.Certain?
Adolf.Absolutely.
Gustav.What kind of a meeting?
Adolf.An orphan association.
Gustav.Did you part friends?
Adolf[hesitating]. Not friends.
Gustav.Enemies, then? What did you say to make her angry?
Adolf.You're terrible. I'm frightened of you. How did you manage to know that?
Gustav.I've just got three known quantities, and by their help I work out the unknown. What did you say to her, old chap?
Adolf.I said—only two words—but two awful words. I regret them—I regret them.
Gustav.You shouldn't do that. Well, speak!
Adolf.I said, "Old coquette."
Gustav.And what else?
Adolf.I didn't say anything else.
Gustav.Oh yes, you did; you've only forgotten it. Perhaps because you haven't got the pluck to remember it. You've locked it up in a secret pigeonhole; open it.
Adolf.I don't remember.
Gustav.But I know what it was—the sense was roughly this: "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be always flirting at your age. You're getting too old to find any more admirers."
Adolf.Did I say that—possibly? How did you manage to know it?
Gustav.On my way here I heard her tell the story on the steamer.
Adolf.To whom?
Gustav[walks up and down on the left]. To four boys, whom she happened to be with. She has a craze for pure boys, just like—
Adolf.A perfectly innocentpenchant.
Gustav.Quite as innocent as playing brother and sister when one is father and mother.
Adolf.You saw her, then?
Gustav.Yes, of course; but you've never seen her if you didn't see her then—I mean, if you weren't present—and that's the reason, don't you know, why a husband can never know his wife. Have you got her photograph?
Adolf[takes a photo out of his pocketbook. Inquisitively]. Here you are.
Gustav[takes it]. Were you present when it was taken?
Adolf.No.
Gustav.Just look at it? Is it like the portrait you painted? No, the features are the same, but the expression is different. But you don't notice that, because you insist on seeing in it the picture of her which you've painted. Now look at this picture as a painter, without thinking of the original. What does it represent? I can see nothing but a tricked-out flirt, playing the decoy. Observe the cynical twist in the mouth, which you never managed to see. You see that her look is seeking a man quite different from you. Observe the dress isdécolleté, the coiffure titivated to the last degree, the sleeves finished high up. You see?
Adolf.Yes, now I see.
Gustav.Be careful, my boy.
Adolf.Of what?
Gustav[gives him back the portrait]. Of her revenge. Don't forget that by saying she was no longer attractive to men you wounded her in the one thing which she took most seriously. If you'd called her literary works twaddle she'd have laughed, and pitied your bad taste, but now—take it from me—if she hasn't avenged herself already it's not her fault.
Adolf.I must be clear on that point.
[He goes over to Gustav, and sits down in his previous place. Gustav approaches him.]
Gustav.Find out yourself.
Adolf.Find out myself?
Gustav.Investigate. I'll help you, if you like.
Adolf[after a pause]. Good. Since I've been condemned to death once—so be it—sooner or later it's all the same what's to happen.
Gustav.One question first. Hasn't your wife got just one weak point?
Adolf.Not that I know of. [Adolf goes to the open door in the center]. Yes. You can hear the steamer in the Sound now—she'll be here soon. And I must go down to meet her.
Gustav[holding him back]. No, stay here. Be rude to her. If she's got a good conscience she'll let you have it so hot and strong that you won't know where you are. But if she feels guilty she'll come and caress you.
Adolf.Are you so sure of it?
Gustav.Not absolutely. At times a hare goes back in the tracks, but I'm not going to let this one escape me. My room is just here. [Points to the door on the right and goes behind Adolf's chair.] I'll keep this position, and be on the look-out, while you play your game here, and when you've played it to the end we'll exchange parts. I'll go in the cage and leave myself to the tender mercies of the snake, and you can stand at the keyhole. Afterwards we'll meet in the park and compare notes. But pull yourself together, old man, and if you show weakness I'll knock on the floor twice with a chair.
Adolf[getting up]. Right. But don't go away: I must know that you're in the next room.
Gustav.You can trust me for that. But be careful you aren't afraid when you see later on how I can dissect a human soul and lay the entrails here on the table. It may seem a bit uncanny to beginners, but if you've seen it done once you don't regret it. One thing more, don't say a word that you've met me, or that you have made any acquaintance during her absence—not a word. I'll ferret out her weak point myself. Hush! She's already up there in her room. She's whistling—then she's in a temper. Now stick to it. [He points to the left.] And sit here on this chair, then she'll have to sit there [He points to the sofa on the left.], and I can keep you both in view at the same time.
Adolf.We've still got an hour before dinner. There are no new visitors, for there has been no bell to announce them. We'll be alone together—more's the pity!
Gustav.You seem pretty limp. Are you unwell?
Adolf.I'm all right; unless, you know, I'm frightened of what's going to happen. But I can't help its happening. The stone rolls, but it was not the last drop of water that made it roll, nor yet the first—everything taken together brought it about.
Gustav.Let it roll, then; it won't have any peace until it does. Good-by, for the time being.
[Exit on the right. Adolf nods to him, stands up for a short time, looking at the photograph, tears it to pieces, and throws the fragments behind the circular table on the right; he then sits down in his previous place, nervously arranges his tie, runs his fingers through his hair, fumbles with the lapels of his coat, etc. Thekla enters on the left.]
Scene II.
Thekla[frank, cheerful and engaging, goes straight up to her husband and kisses him]. Good-day, little brother; how have you been getting on?
[She stands on his left.]
Adolf[half overcome but jocularly resisting]. What mischief have you been up to, for you to kiss me?
Thekla.Yes, let me just confess. Something very naughty—I've spent an awful lot of money.
Adolf.Did you have a good time, then?
Thekla.Excellent. [She goes to his right.] But not at the Congress. It was as dull as ditch-water, don't you know. But how has little brother been passing the time, when his little dove had flown away?
[She looks around the room, as though looking for somebody or scenting something, and thus comes behind the sofa on the left.]
Adolf.Oh, the time seemed awfully long.
Thekla.Nobody to visit you?
Adolf.Not a soul.
Thekla[looks him up and down and sits down on the sofa]. Who sat here?
Adolf.Here? No one.
Thekla.Strange! The sofa is as warm as anything, and there's the mark of an elbow in the cushion. Have you had a lady visitor?
[She stands up.]
Adolf.Me? You're not serious?
Thekla[turns away from the square table and comes to Adolf's right]. How he blushes! So the little brother wants to mystify me a bit, does he? Well, let him come here and confess what he's got on his conscience to his little wife.
[She draws him to her. Adolf lets his head sink on her breast; laughing.]
Adolf.You're a regular devil, do you know that?
Thekla.No, I know myself so little.
Adolf.Do you never think about yourself?
Thekla[looking in the air, while she looks at him searchingly]. About myself? I only think about myself. I am a shocking egoist, but how philosophical you've become, my dear.
Adolf.Put your hand on my forehead.
Thekla[playfully]. Has he got bees in his bonnet again? Shall I drive them away? [She kisses him on the forehead.] There, it's all right now? [Pause, moving away from him to the right.] Now let me hear what he's been doing to amuse himself. Painted anything pretty?
Adolf.No; I've given up painting!
Thekla.What, you've given up painting!
Adolf.Yes, but don't scold me about it. How could I help it if I wasn't able to paint any more?
Thekla.What are you going to take up then?
Adolf.I'm going to be a sculptor. [Thekla passes over in front of the square table and in front of the sofa.] Yes, but don't blame me—just look at this figure.
Thekla[unwraps the figure on the table]. Hallo, I say. Who's this meant to be?
Adolf.Guess!
Thekla[tenderly]. Is it meant to be his little wife? And he isn't ashamed of it, is he?
Adolf.Hasn't he hit the mark?
Thekla.How can I tell?—the face is lacking.
[She drapes the figure.]
Adolf.Quite so—but all the rest? Nice?
Thekla[taps him caressingly on yhe cheek]. Will he shut up? Otherwise I'll kiss him.
[She goes behind him; Adolf defending himself.]
Adolf.Look out, look out, anybody might come.
Thekla[nestling close to him]. What do I care! I'm surely allowed to kiss my own husband. That's only my legal right.
Adolf.Quite so; but do you know the people here in the hotel take the view that we're not married because we kiss each other so much, and our occasional quarreling makes them all the more cocksure about it, because lovers usually carry on like that.
Thekla.But need there be any quarrels? Can't he always be as sweet and good as he is at present. Let him tell me. Wouldn't he like it himself? Wouldn't he like us to be happy?
Adolf.I should like it, but—
Thekla[with a step to the right]. Who put it into his head not to paint any more?
Adolf.You're always scenting somebody behind me and my thoughts. You're jealous.
Thekla.I certainly am. I was always afraid some one might estrange you from me.
Adolf.You're afraid of that, you say, though you know very well that there isn't a woman living who can supplant you—that I can't live without you.
Thekla.I wasn't frightened the least bit of females. It was your friends I was afraid of: they put all kinds of ideas into your head.
Adolf[probing]. So you were afraid? What were you afraid of?
Thekla.Some one has been here. Who was it?
Adolf.Can't you stand my looking at you?
Thekla.Not in that way. You aren't accustomed to look at me like that.
Adolf.How am I looking at you then?
Thekla.You are spying underneath your eyelids.
Adolf.Right through. Yes, I want to know what it's like inside.
Thekla.I don't mind. As you like. I've nothing to hide, but—your very manner of speaking has changed—you employ expressions. [Probing.] You philosophize. Eh? [She goes toward him in a menacing manner.] Who has been here?
Adolf.My doctor—nobody else.
Thekla.Your doctor! What doctor?
Adolf.The doctor from Strömastad.
Thekla.What's his name?
Adolf.Sjöberg.
Thekla.What did he say?
Adolf.Well—he said, among other things—that I'm pretty near getting epilepsy.
Thekla[with a step to the right]. Among other things! What else did he say?
Adolf.Oh, something extremely unpleasant.
Thekla.Let me hear it.
Adolf.He forbade us to live together as man and wife for some time.
Thekla.There you are. I thought as much. They want to separate us. I've already noticed it for some time.
[She goes round the circular table toward the right.]
Adolf.There was nothing for you to notice. There was never the slightest incident of that description.
Thekla.What do you mean?
Adolf.How could it have been possible for you to have seen something which wasn't there if your fear hadn't heated your imagination to so violent a pitch that you saw what never existed? As a matter of fact, what were you afraid of? That I might borrow another's eye so as to see you as you really were, not as you appeared to me?
Thekla.Keep your imagination in check, Adolf. Imagination is the beast in the human soul.
Adolf.Where did you get this wisdom from? From the pure youths on the steamer, eh?
Thekla[without losing her self-possession]. Certainly—even youth can teach one a great deal.
Adolf.You seem for once in a way, to be awfully keen on youth?
Thekla[standing by the door in the center]. I have always been so, and that's how it came about that I loved you. Any objection?
Adolf.Not at all. But I should very much prefer to be the only one.
Thekla[coming forward on his right, and joking as though speaking to a child]. Let the little brother look here. I've got such a large heart that there is room in it for a great many, not only for him.
Adolf.But little brother doesn't want to know anything about the other brothers.
Thekla.Won't he just come here and let himself be teased by his little woman, because he's jealous—no, envious is the right word.
[Two knocks with a chair are heard from the room on the right.]
Adolf.No, I don't want to fool about, I want to speak seriously.
Thekla[as though speaking to a child]. Good Lord! he wants to speak seriously. Upon my word! Has the man become serious for once in his life? [Comes on his left, takes hold of his head and kisses him.] Won't he laugh now a little?
[Adolf laughs.]
Thekla.There, there!
Adolf[laughs involuntarily]. You damned witch, you! I really believe you can bewitch people.
Thekla[comes in front of the sofa]. He can see for himself, and that's why he mustn't worry me, otherwise I shall certainly bewitch him.
Adolf[springs up]. Thekla! Sit for me a minute in profile, and I'll do the face for your figure.
Thekla.With pleasure.
[She turns her profile toward him.]
Adolf[sits down, fixes her with his eyes and acts as though he were modeling]. Now, don't think of me, think of somebody else.
Thekla.I'll think of my last conquest.
Adolf.The pure youth?
Thekla.Quite right. He had the duckiest, sweetest little mustache, and cheeks like cherries, so delicate and soft, one could have bitten right into them.
Adolf[depressed]. Just keep that twist in your mouth.
Thekla.What twist?
Adolf.That cynical insolent twist which I've never seen before.
Thekla[makes a grimace]. Like that?
Adolf.Quite. [He gets up.] Do you know how Bret Harte describes the adulteress?
Thekla[laughs]. No, I've never read that Bret What-do-you-call-him.
Adolf.Oh! she's a pale woman who never blushes.
Thekla.Never? Oh yes, she does; oh yes, she does. Perhaps when she meets her lover, even though her husband and Mr. Bret didn't manage to see anything of it.
Adolf.Are you so certain about it?
Thekla[as before]. Absolutely. If the man isn't able to drive her very blood to her head, how can he possibly enjoy the pretty spectacle?
[She passes by him toward the right.]
Adolf[raving]. Thekla! Thekla!
Thekla.Little fool!
Adolf[sternly]. Thekla!
Thekla.Let him call me his own dear little sweetheart, and I'll get red all over before him, shall I?
Adolf[disarmed]. I'm so angry with you, you monster, that I should like to bite you.
Thekla[playing with him]. Well, come and bite me; come.
[She holds out her arms towards him.]
Adolf[takes her by the neck and kisses her]. Yes, my dear, I'll bite you so that you die.
Thekla[joking]. Look out, somebody might come.
[She goes to the fireplace on the right and leans on the chimneypiece.]
Adolf.Oh, what do I care if they do. I don't care about anything in the whole world so long as I have you.
Thekla.And if you don't have me any more?
Adolf[sinks down on the chair on the left in front of the circular table]. Then I die!
Thekla.All right, you needn't be frightened of that the least bit; I'm already much too old, you see, for anybody to like me.
Adolf.You haven't forgotten those words of mine?—I take them back.
Thekla.Can you explain to me why it is that you're so jealous, and at the same time so sure of yourself?
Adolf.No, I can't explain it, but it may be that the thought that another man has possessed you, gnaws and consumes me. It seems to me at times as though our whole love were a figment of the brain—a passion that had turned into a formal matter of honor. I know nothing which would be more intolerable for me to bear, than for him to have the satisfaction of making me unhappy. Ah, I've never seen him, but the very thought that there is such a man who watches in secret for my unhappiness, who conjures down on me the curse of heaven day by day, who would laugh and gloat over my fall—the very idea of the thing lies like a nightmare on my breast, drives me to you, holds me spellbound, cripples me.
Thekla[goes behind the circular table and comes on Adolf's right]. Do you think I should like to give him that satisfaction, that I should like to make his prophecy come true?
Adolf.No, I won't believe that of you.
Thekla.Then if that's so, why aren't you easy on the subject?
Adolf.It's your flirtations which keep me in a chronic state of agitation. Why do you go on playing that game?
Thekla.It's no game. I want to be liked, that's all.
Adolf.Quite so; but only liked by men.
Thekla.Of course. Do you suggest it would be possible for one of us women to get herself liked by other women?
Adolf.I say. [Pause.] Haven't you heard recently—from him?
Thekla.Not for the last six months.
Adolf.Do you never think of him?
Thekla[after a pause, quickly and tonelessly]. No. [With a step toward the left.] Since the death of the child there is no longer any tie between us. [Pause.]
Adolf.And you never see him in the street?
Thekla.No; he must have buried himself somewhere on the west coast. But why do you harp on that subject just now?
Adolf.I don't know. When I was so alone these last few days, it just occurred to me what he must have felt like when he was left stranded.
Thekla.I believe you've got pangs of conscience.
Adolf.Yes.
Thekla.You think you're a thief, don't you?
Adolf.Pretty near.
Thekla.All right. You steal women like you steal children or fowl. You regard me to some extent like his real or personal property. Much obliged.
Adolf.No; I regard you as his wife, and that's more than property: it can't be made up in damages.
Thekla.Oh yes, it can. If you happen to hear one fine day that he has married again, these whims and fancies of yours will disappear. [She comes over to him.] Haven't you made up for him to me?
Adolf.Have I?—and did you use to love him in those days?
Thekla[goes behind him to the fireplace on the right]. Of course I loved him—certainly.
Adolf.And afterwards?
Thekla.I got tired of him.
Adolf.And just think, if you get tired of me in the same way?
Thekla.That will never be.
Adolf.But suppose another man came along with all the qualities that you want in a man? Assume the hypothesis, wouldn't you leave me in that case?
Thekla.No.
Adolf.If he riveted you to him so strongly that you couldn't be parted from him, then of course you'd give me up?
Thekla.No; I have never yet said anything like that.
Adolf.But you can't love two people at the same time?
Thekla.Oh yes. Why not?
Adolf.I can't understand it.
Thekla.Is anything then impossible simply because you can't understand it? All men are not made on the same lines, you know.
Adolf[getting up a few steps to the left]. I am now beginning to understand.
Thekla.No, really?
Adolf[sits down in his previous place by the square table]. No, really? [Pause, during which he appears to be making an effort to remember something, but without success.] Thekla, do you know that your frankness is beginning to be positively agonizing? [Thekla moves away from him behind the square table and goes behind the sofa on the left.] Haven't you told me, times out of number, that frankness is the most beautiful virtue you know, and that I must spend all my time in acquiring it? But it seems to me you take cover behind your frankness.
Thekla.Those are the new tactics, don't you see.
Adolf[after a pause]. I don't know how it is, but this place begins to feel uncanny. If you don't mind, we'll travel home this very night.
Thekla.What an idea you've got into your head again. I've just arrived, and I've no wish to travel off again.
[She sits down on the sofa on the left.]
Adolf.But if I want it?
Thekla.Nonsense! What do I care what you want? Travel alone.
Adolf[seriously]. I now order you to travel with me by the next steamer.
Thekla.Order? What do you mean by that?
Adolf.Do you forget that you're my wife?
Thekla[getting up]. Do you forget that you're my husband?
Adolf[following her example]. That's just the difference between one sex and the other.
Thekla.That's right, speak in that tone—you have never loved me.
[She goes past him to the right up to the fireplace.]
Adolf.Really?
Thekla.No, for loving means giving.
Adolf.For a man to love means giving, for a woman to love means taking—and I've given, given, given.
Thekla.Oh, to be sure, you've given a fine lot, haven't you?
Adolf.Everything.
Thekla[leans on the chimneypiece]. There has been a great deal besides that. And even if you did give me everything, I accepted it. What do you mean by coming now and handing the bill for your presents? If I did take them, I proved to you by that very fact that I loved you. [She approaches him.] A girl only takes presents from her lover.
Adolf.From her lover, I agree. There you spoke the truth. [With a step to the left.] I was just your lover, but never your husband.
Thekla.A man ought to be jolly grateful when he's spared the necessity of playing cover, but if you aren't satisfied with the position you can have yourcongé. I don't like a husband.
Adolf.No, I noticed as much, for when I remarked, some time back, that you wanted to sneak away from me, and get a set of your own, so as to be able to deck yourself out with my feathers, to scintillate with my jewels, I wanted to remind you of your guilt. And then I changed from your point of view into that inconvenient creditor, whom a woman would particularly prefer to keep at a safe distance from one, and then you would have liked to have canceled the debt, and to avoid getting any more into my debt; you ceased to pilfer my coffers and transferred your attention to others. I was your husband without having wished it, and your hate began to arise; but now I'm going to be your husband, whether you want it or not. I can't be your lover any more, that's certain!
[He sits down in his previous place on the right.]
Thekla[half joking, she moves away behind the table and goes behind the sofa]. Don't talk such nonsense.
Adolf.You be careful! It's a dangerous game, to consider every one else an ass and only oneself smart.
Thekla.Everybody does that more or less.
Adolf.And I'm just beginning to suspect that that husband of yours wasn't such an ass after all.
Thekla.Good God! I really believe you're beginning to have sympathy—for him?
Adolf.Yes, almost.
Thekla.Well, look here. Wouldn't you like to make his acquaintance, so as to pour out your heart to him if you want to? What a charming picture! But I, too, begin to feel myself drawn to him somehow. I'm tired of being the nurse of a baby like you. [She goes a few steps forward and passes by Adolf on the right.] He at any rate was a man, even though he did make the mistake of being my husband.
Adolf.Hush, hush! But don't talk so loud, we might be heard.
Thekla.What does it matter, so long as we're taken for man and wife.
Adolf.So this is what it comes to then? You are now beginning to be keen both on manly men and pure boys.
Thekla.There are no limits to my keenness, as you see. And my heart is open to the whole world, great and small, beautiful and ugly. I love the whole world.
Adolf[standing up]. Do you know what that means?
Thekla.No, I don't know, I only feel.
Adolf.It means that old age has arrived.
Thekla.Are you starting on that again now? Take care!
Adolf.You take care!
Thekla.What of?
Adolf.Of this knife.
[Goes towards her.]
Thekla[flippantly]. Little brother shouldn't play with such dangerous toys.
[She passes by him behind the sofa.]
Adolf.I'm not playing any longer.
Thekla[leaning on the arm of the sofa]. Really, he's serious, is he, quite serious? Then I'll jolly well show you—that you made a mistake. I mean—you'll never see it yourself, you'll never know it. The whole world will be up to it, but you jolly well won't, you'll have suspicions and surmises and you won't enjoy a single hour of peace. You will have the consciousness of being ridiculous and of being deceived, but you'll never have proofs in your hand, because a husband never manages to get them. [She makes a few steps to the right in front of him and toward him.] That will teach you to know me.
Adolf[sits down in his previous place by the table on the left]. You hate me.
Thekla.No, I don't hate you, nor do I think that I could ever get to hate you. Simply because you're a child.
Adolf.Listen to me! Just think of the time when the storm broke over us. [Standing up.] You lay there like a new-born child and shrieked; you caught hold of my knees and I had to kiss your eyes to sleep. Then I was your nurse, and I had to be careful that you didn't go out into the street without doing your hair. I had to send your boots to the shoe-maker. I had to take care there was something in the larder. I had to sit by your side and hold your hand in mine by the hour, for you were frightened, frightened of the whole world, deserted by your friends, crushed by public opinion. I had to cheer you up till my tongue stuck to my palate and my head ached; I had to pose as a strong man, and compel myself to believe in the future, until at length I succeeded in breathing life into you while you lay there like the dead. Then it was I you admired, then it was I who was the man; not the athlete like the man you deserted, but the man of psychic strength, the man of magnetism, who transferred his moral force into your enervated muscles and filled your empty brain with new electricity. And then I put you on your feet again, got a small court for you, whom I jockeyed into admiring you, as a sheer matter of friendship to myself, and I made you mistress over me and my home. I painted you in my finest pictures, in rose and azure on a ground of gold, and there was no exhibition in which you didn't have the place of honor. At one moment you were called St. Cecelia, then you were Mary Stuart, Karm Mansdotter, Ebba Brahe, and so I succeeded in awakening and stimulating your interests and so I compelled the yelping rabble to look at you with my own dazzled eyes. I impressed your personality on them by sheer force. I compelled them until you had won their overwhelming sympathy—so that at last you have the freeentrée. And when I had created you in this way it was all up with my own strength—I broke down, exhausted by the strain. [He sits down in his previous place. Thekla turns toward the fireplace on the right.] I had lifted you up, but at the same time I brought myself down; I fell ill; and my illness began to bore you, just because things were beginning to look a bit rosy for you—and then it seemed to me many times as though some secret desire were driving you to get away from your creditor and accomplice. Your love became that of a superior sister, and through want of a better part I fell into the habit of the new rôle of the little brother. Your tenderness remained the same as ever, in fact it has rather increased, but it is tinged with a grain of pity which is counterbalanced by a strong dose of contempt, and that will increase until it becomes complete, even as my genius is on the wane and your star is in the ascendant. It seems, too, as though your source were likely to dry up, when I leave off feeding it, or, rather, as soon as you show that you don't want to draw your inspiration from me any longer. And so we both go down, but you need somebody you can put in your pocket, somebody new, for you are weak and incapable of carrying any moral burden yourself. So I became the scapegoat to be slaughtered alive, but all the same we had become like twins in the course of years, and when you cut through the thread of my longing, you little thought that you were throttling our own self. You are a branch from my tree, and you wanted to cut yourself free from your parent stem before it had struck roots, but you are unable to flourish on your own, and the tree in its turn couldn't do without its chief branch, and so both perish.
Thekla.Do you mean, by all that, that you've written my books?
Adolf.No; you say that so as to provoke me into a lie. I don't express myself so crudely as you, and I've just spoken for five minutes on end simply so as to reproduce all the nuances, all the half-tones, all the transitions, but your barrel organ has only one key.
Thekla[walking up and down on the right]. Yes, yes; but the gist of the whole thing is that you've written my books.
Adolf.No, there's no gist. You can't resolve a symphony into one key; you can't translate a multifarious life into a single cipher. I never said anything so crass as that I'd written your books.
Thekla.But you meant it all the same.
Adolf[furious]. I never meant it.
Thekla.But the result—
Adolf[wildly]. There's no result if one doesn't add. There is a quotient, a long infinitesimal figure of a quotient, but I didn't add.
Thekla.You didn't, but I can.
Adolf.I quite believe you, but I never did.
Thekla.But you wanted to.
Adolf[exhausted, shutting his eyes]. No, no, no—don't speak to me any more, I'm getting convulsions—be quiet, go away! You're flaying my brain with your brutal pinchers—you're thrusting your claws into my thoughts and tearing them.
[He loses consciousness, stares in front of him and turns his thumbs inwards.]
Thekla[tenderly coming towards him]. What is it, dear? Are you ill? [Adolf beats around him. Thekla takes her handkerchief, pours water on to it out of the bottle on the table right of the center door, and cools his forehead with it.] Adolf!
Adolf[he shakes his head]. Yes.
Thekla.Do you see now that you were wrong?
Adolf[after a pause]. Yes, yes, yes—I see it.
Thekla.And you ask me to forgive you?
Adolf.Yes, yes, yes—I ask you to forgive me; but don't talk right into my brain any more.
Thekla.Now kiss my hand.
Adolf.I'll kiss your hand, if only you won't speak to me any more.
Thekla.And now you'll go out and get some fresh air before dinner.
Adolf[getting up]. Yes, that will do me good, and afterwards we'll pack up and go away.
Thekla.No.
[She moves away from him up to the fireplace on the right.]
Adolf.Why not? You must have some reason.
Thekla.The simple reason that I've arranged to be at the reception this evening.
Adolf.That's it, is it?
Thekla.That's it right enough. I've promised to be there.
Adolf.Promised? You probably said that you'd try to come; it doesn't prevent you from explaining that you have given up your intention.
Thekla.No, I'm not like you: my word is binding on me.
Adolf.One's word can be binding without one being obliged to respect every casual thing one lets fall in conversation; or did somebody make you promise that you'd go? In that case, you can ask him to release you because your husband is ill.
Thekla.No, I've no inclination to do so. And, besides, you're not so ill that you can't quite well come along too.
Adolf.Why must I always come along too? Does it contribute to your greater serenity?
Thekla.I don't understand what you mean.
Adolf.That's what you always say when you know I mean something which you don't like.
Thekla.Re-a-lly? And why shouldn't I like it?
Adolf.Stop! stop! Don't start all over again—good-by for the present—I'll be back soon; I hope that in the meanwhile you'll have thought better of it.
[Exit through the central door and then toward the right. Thekla accompanies him to the back of the stage. Gustav enters, after a pause, from the right.]
Scene III.
[Gustav goes straight up to the table on the left and takes up a paper without apparently seeing Thekla.]
Thekla[starts, then controls herself]. You?
[She comes forward.]
Gustav.It's me—excuse me.
Thekla[on his left]. Where do you come from?
Gustav.I came by the highroad, but—I won't stay on here after seeing that—
Thekla.Oh, you stay—Well, it's a long time.
Gustav.You're right, a very long time.
Thekla.You've altered a great deal, Gustav.
Gustav.But you, on the other hand, my dear Thekla, are still quite as fascinating as ever—almost younger, in fact. Please forgive me. I wouldn't for anything disturb your happiness by my presence. If I'd known that you were staying here I would never have—
Thekla.Please—please, stay. It may be that you find it painful.
Gustav.It's all right as far as I'm concerned. I only thought—that whatever I said I should always have to run the risk of wounding you.
Thekla[passes in front of him toward the right]. Sit down for a moment, Gustav; you don't wound me, because you have the unusual gift—which always distinguished you—of being subtle and tactful.
Gustav.You're too kind; but how on earth can one tell if—your husband would regard me in the same light that you do.
Thekla.Quite the contrary. Why, he's just been expressing himself with the utmost sympathy with regard to you.
Gustav.Ah! Yes, everything dies away, even the names which we cut on the tree's bark—not even malice can persist for long in these temperaments of ours.
Thekla.He's never entertained malice against you—why, he doesn't know you at all—and, so far as I'm concerned, I always entertained the silent hope that I would live to see the time in which you would approach each other as friends—or at least meet each other in my presence, shake hands, and part.
Gustav.It was also my secret desire to see the woman whom I loved more than my life in really good hands, and, as a matter of fact, I've only heard the very best account of him, while I know all his work as well. All the same, I felt the need of pressing his hand before I grew old, looking him in the face, and asking him to preserve the treasure which providence had entrusted to him, and at the same time I wanted to extinguish the hate which was burning inside me, quite against my will, and I longed to find peace of soul and resignation, so as to be able to finish in quiet that dismal portion of my life which is still left me.
Thekla.Your words come straight from your heart; you have understood me, Gustav—thanks.
[She holds out her hand.]
Gustav.Ah, I'm a petty man. Too insignificant to allow of your thriving in my shadow. Your temperament, with its thirst for freedom, could not be satisfied by my monotonous life, the slavish routine to which I was condemned, the narrow circle in which I had to move. I appreciate that, but you understand well enough—you who are such an expert psychologist—what a struggle it must have cost me to acknowledge that to myself.
Thekla.How noble, how great to acknowledge one's weaknesses so frankly—it's not all men who can bring themselves to that point. [She sighs.] But you are always an honest character, straight and reliable—which I knew how to respect,—but—
Gustav.I wasn't—not then, but suffering purges, care ennobles and—and—I have suffered.
Thekla[comes nearer to him]. Poor Gustav, can you forgive me, can you? Tell me.
Gustav.Forgive? What? It is I who have to ask you for forgiveness.
Thekla[striking another key]. I do believe that we're both crying—though we're neither of us chickens.
Gustav[softly sliding into another tone]. Chickens, indeed! I'm an old man, but you—you're getting younger every day.
Thekla.Do you mean it?
Gustav.And how well you know how to dress!
Thekla.It was you and no one else who taught me that. Do you still remember finding out my special colors?
Gustav.No.
Thekla.It was quite simple, don't you remember? Come, I still remember distinctly how angry you used to be with me if I ever had anything else except pink.
Gustav.I angry with you? I was never angry with you.
Thekla.Oh yes, you were, when you wanted to teach me how to think. Don't you remember? And I wasn't able to catch on.
Gustav.Not able to think, everybody can think, and now you're developing a quite extraordinary power of penetration—at any rate in your writings.
Thekla[disagreeably affected, tries to change the subject quickly]. Yes, Gustav dear, I was really awfully glad to see you again, especially under circumstances so unemotional.
Gustav.Well, you can't say at any rate that I was such a cantankerous cuss: taking it all round, you had a pretty quiet time of it with me.
Thekla.Yes; if anything too quiet.
Gustav.Really? But I thought, don't you see, that you wanted me to be quiet and nothing else. Judging by your expressions of opinion as a bride, I had to come to that assumption.
Thekla.How could a woman know then what she really wanted? Besides, mother had always drilled into me to make the best of myself.
Gustav.Well, and that's why it is that you're going as strong as possible. There's such a lot always doing in artist life—your husband isn't exactly a home-bird.
Thekla.But even so one can have too much of a good thing.
Gustav[suddenly changing his tone]. Why, I do believe you're still wearing my earrings.
Thekla[embarrassed]. Yes, why shouldn't I? We're not enemies, you know—and then I thought I would wear them as a symbol that we're not enemies—besides, you know that earrings like this aren't to be had any more.
[She takes one off.]
Gustav.Well, so far so good; but what does your husband say on the point?
Thekla.Why should I ask him?
Gustav.You don't ask him? But that's rubbing it in a bit too much—it could quite well make him look ridiculous.
Thekla[simply—in an undertone]. If it only weren't so pretty.
[She has some trouble in adjusting the earring.]
Gustav[who has noticed it]. Perhaps you will allow me to help you?
Thekla.Oh, if you would be so kind.
Gustav[presses it into the ear]. Little ear! I say, dear, supposing your husband saw us now.
Thekla.Then there'd be a scene.
Gustav.Is he jealous, then?
Thekla.I should think he is—rather!
[Noise in the room on the right.]
Gustav[passes in front of her toward the right]. Whose room is that?
Thekla[stepping a little toward the left]. I don't know—tell me how you are now, and what you're doing.
[She goes to the table on the left.]
Gustav.You tell me how you are. [He goes behind the square table on the left, over to the sofa.—Thekla, embarrassed, takes the cloth off the figure absent-mindedly.] No! who is that? Why—it's you!
Thekla.I don't think so.
Gustav.But it looks like you.
Thekla[cynically]. You think so?
Gustav[sits down on the sofa]. It reminds one of the anecdote: "How could your Majesty say that?"
Thekla[laughs loudly and sits down opposite him on the settee]. What foolish ideas you do get into your head. Have you got by any chance some new yarns?
Gustav.No; but you must know some.
Thekla.I don't get a chance any more now of hearing anything which is really funny.
Gustav.Is he as prudish as all that?
Thekla.Rather!
Gustav.Never different?
Thekla.He's been so ill lately.
[Both stand up.]
Gustav.Well, who told little brother to walk into somebody else's wasps' nest.
Thekla[laughs]. Foolish fellow, you!
Gustav.Poor child! do you still remember that once, shortly after our engagement, we lived in this very room, eh? But then it was furnished differently, there was a secretary for instance, here, by the pillar, and the bed [With delicacy.] was here.
Thekla.Hush!
Gustav.Look at me!
Thekla.If you would like me to.
[They keep their eyes looking into each other's for a minute.]
Gustav.Do you think it is possible to forget a thing which has made so deep an impression on one's life?
Thekla.No; the power of impressions is great, particularly when they are the impressions of one's youth.
[She turns toward the fireplace on her right.]
Gustav.Do you remember how we met for the first time? You were such an ethereal little thing, a little slate on which your parents and governess had scratched some wretched scrawl, which I had to rub out afterwards, and then I wrote a new text on it, according to what I thought right, till it seemed to you that the slate was filled with writing. [He follows her to the circular table on the right.] That's why, do you see, I shouldn't like to be in your husband's place—no, that's his business. [Sits down in front of the circular table.] But that's why meeting you has an especial fascination for me. We hit it off together so perfectly, and when I sit down here and chat with you it's just as though I were uncorking bottles of old wine which I myself have bottled. The wine which is served to me is my own, but it has mellowed. And now that I intend to marry again, I have made a very careful choice of a young girl whom I can train according to my own ideas. [Getting up.] For woman is man's child, don't you know; if she isn't his child, then he becomes hers, and that means that the world is turned upside down.
Thekla.You're going to marry again?
Gustav.Yes. I'm going to try my luck once more, but this time I'll jolly well see that the double harness is more reliable and shall know how to guard against any bolting.
Thekla[turns and goes over toward him to the left]. Is she pretty?
Gustav.Yes, according to my taste, but perhaps I'm too old, and strangely enough—now that chance brings me near to you again—I'm now beginning to have grave doubts of the feasibility of playing a game like that twice over.
Thekla.What do you mean?
Gustav.I feel that my roots are too firmly embedded in your soil, and the old wounds break open. You're a dangerous woman, Thekla.
Thekla.Re-a-lly? My young husband is emphatic that is just what I'm not—that I can't make any more conquests.
Gustav.That means he's left off loving you.
Thekla.What he means by love lies outside my line of country.
[She goes behind the sofa on the left. Gustav goes after her as far as the table on the left.]
Gustav.You've played hide and seek so long with each other that the "he" can't catch the she, nor the she the "he," don't you know. Of course it's just the kind of thing one would expect. You had to play the little innocent, and that makes him quite tame. As a matter of fact a change has its disadvantages—yes, it has its disadvantages.
Thekla.You reproach me?
Gustav.Not for a minute. What always happens, happens with a certain inevitability, and if this particular thing hadn't happened something else would, but this did happen, and here we are.
Thekla.You're a broad-minded man. I've never yet met anybody with whom I liked so much to have a good straight talk as with you. You have so little patience with all that moralizing and preaching, and you make such small demands on people, that one feels really free in your presence. Do you know I'm jealous of your future wife?
[She comes forward and passes by him toward the right.]
Gustav.And you know I'm jealous of your husband.
Thekla.And now we must part! Forever!
[She goes past him till she approaches the center door.]
Gustav.Quite right, we must part—but before that, we'll say good-by to each other, won't we?
Thekla[uneasily]. No.
Gustav[dogging her]. Yes, we will; yes, we will. We'll say good-by; we will drown our memories in an ecstasy which will be so violent that when we wake up the past will have vanished from our recollection forever. There are ecstasies like that, you know. [He puts his arm around her waist.] You're being dragged down by a sick spirit, who's infecting you with his own consumption. I will breathe new life into you. I will fertilize your genius, so that it will bloom in the autumn like a rose in the spring, I will—
[Two lady visitors appear on the right behind the central door.]
Scene IV.
[The previous characters; the Two Ladies.]
[The ladies appear surprised, point, laugh, and exeunt on the left.]
Scene V.
Thekla[disengaging herself]. Who was that?
Gustav[casually, while he closes the central door]. Oh, some visitors who were passing through.
Thekla.Go away! I'm afraid of you.
[She goes behind the sofa on the left.]
Gustav.Why?
Thekla.You've robbed me of my soul.
Gustav[comes forward]. And I give you mine in exchange for it. Besides, you haven't got any soul at all. It's only an optical illusion.
Thekla.You've got a knack of being rude in such a way that one can't be angry with you.
Gustav.That's because you know very well that I am designated for the place of honor—tell me now when—and where?
Thekla[coming toward him]. No. I can't hurt him by doing a thing like that. I'm sure he still loves me, and I don't want to wound him a second time.
Gustav.He doesn't love you. Do you want to have proofs?