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 made 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! For ever! [She goes past him till she approaches the center door.]
Gustav. Quite right, we must part—but before that, we’ll say good-bye to each other, won’t we?
Thekla. [Uneasily.] No.
Gustav. [Dogging her.] Yes, we will; yes, we will. We’ll say good-bye; 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 round 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?
Thekla. How can you give me them?
Gustav. [Takes up from the floor the fragments of photograph behind the circular table on the right.] Here, look at yourself! [He gives them to her.]
Thekla. Oh, that is shameful!
Gustav. There, you can see for yourself—well, when and where?
Thekla. The false brute!
Gustav. When?
Thekla. He goes away to-night by the eight o’clock boat.
Gustav. Then
Thekla. At nine. [A noise in the room on the right.] Who’s in there making such a noise?
Gustav. [Goes to the right to the keyhole.] Let’s have a look—the fancy table has been upset and there’s a broken water-bottle on the floor, that’s all. Perhaps someone has shut a dog up there. [He goes again toward her.] Nine o’clock, then?
Thekla. Right you are. I should only like him to see the fun—such a piece of deceit, and what’s more, from a man that’s always preaching truthfulness, who’s always drilling into me to speak the truth. But stop—how did it all happen? He received me in almost an unfriendly manner—didn’t come to the pier to meet me—then he let fall a remark over the pure boy on the steamboat, which I pretended not to understand. But how could he know anything about it? Wait a moment. Then he began to philosophize about women —then you began to haunt his brain—then he spoke about wanting to be a sculptor, because sculpture was the art of the present day—just like you used to thunder in the old days.
Gustav. No, really? [THEKLA moves away from GUSTAV behind the sofa on the left.]
Thekla. “No, really.” Now I understand. [To GUSTAV.] Now at last I see perfectly well what a miserable scoundrel you are. You’ve been with him and have scratched his heart out of his body. It’s you —you who’ve been sitting here on the sofa. It was you who’ve been suggesting all these ideas to him: that he was suffering from epilepsy, that he should live a celibate life, that he should pit himself against his wife and try to play her master. How long have you been here?
Gustav. Eight days.
Thekla. You were the man, then, I saw on the steamer?
Gustav. [Frankly.] It was I.
Thekla. And did you really think that I’d fall in with your little game?
Gustav. [Firmly.] You’ve already done it.
Thekla. Not yet.
Gustav. [Firmly.] Yes, you have.
Thekla. [Comes forward.] You’ve stalked my lamb like a wolf. You came here with a scoundrelly plan of smashing up my happiness and you’ve been trying to carry it through until I realized what you were up to and put a spoke in your precious wheel.