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 you 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 weakness 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 wasp’s 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 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 afterward, 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.