Gustav. Done with him? Do you still love him?
Thekla. [Goes over to him toward the left.] Yes.
Gustav. And a minute ago you loved me? Is that really so?
Thekla. It is.
Gustav. Do you know what you are, then?
Thekla. You despise me?
Gustav. No, I pity you. It’s a characteristic—I don’t say a defect, but certainly a characteristic—that is very fatal, by reason of its results. Poor Thekla! I don’t know—but I almost think that I’m sorry for it, although I’m quite innocent—like you. But anyway, it’s perhaps all for the best that you’ve now got to feel what I felt then. Do you know where your husband is?
Thekla. I think I know now. [She points to the right.] He’s in your room just here. He has heard everything, seen everything, and you know they say that he who looks upon his vampire dies.
SCENE VIII
[ADOLF appears, on the right, deadly pale, a streak of blood on his left cheek, a fixed expression in his eyes, white foam on his mouth.]
Gustav. [Moves back.] No, here he is—settle with him now! See if he’ll be as generous to you as I was. Good-bye. [He turns to the left, stops after a few steps, and remains standing.]
Thekla. [Goes toward ADOLF with outstretched arms.] Adolf! [ADOLF sinks down in his chair by the table on the left. THEKLA throws herself over him and caresses him.] Adolf! My darling child, are you alive? Speak! Speak ! Forgive your wicked Thekla! Forgive me ! Forgive me! Forgive me! Little brother must answer. Does he hear? My God, he doesn’t hear me! He’s dead! Good God! O my God! Help! Help us!
Gustav. Quite true, she loves him as well—poor creature!
[Curtain]
THE STRONGER WOMAN
MRS. X., actress, married.
MISS Y., actress, unmarried.
A nook in a ladies’ café; two small tables, a red plush sofa and some chairs.
MRS. X. enters in winter dress, in a hat and cloak, with a light Japanese basket over her arm.
MISS Y. sits in front of an unfinished bottle of beer and reads an illustrated, paper, which she subsequently exchanges for another.
Mrs. X. How are you, my dear Millie? You look awfully lonely, at this gay time of year, sitting here all by yourself, like a poor bachelor girl.
Miss Y. [Looks up from her paper, nods and continues her reading.]
Mrs. X. It makes me really quite sorry to look at you. All alone at a café when all the rest of us are having such a good time of it! It reminds me of how I felt when I saw a wedding party once, in a Paris restaurant, and the bride sat and read a comic paper while the bridegroom played billiards with the witnesses. If they begin like this, I said to myself, how will they go on, and how will they end? Fancy! He was playing billiards on the night of his wedding—and she was reading an illustrated paper! Oh, well, but you are not quite in the same box! [Waitress enters, puts a cup of chocolate in front of MRS. X., and exit.] I say, Millie, I’m not at all sure that you wouldn’t have done better to have kept him. If you come to think of it, I was the first to ask you to forgive him at the time. Don’t you remember? Why, you could have been married now, and have had a home! Do you remember how delighted you were at
Christmas when you stayed with your fiance’s people in the country? You were quite enthusiastic over domestic happiness and quite keen on getting away from the theater. After all, my dear Amelia, there’s nothing like home, sweet home—after the profession, of course!—and the kids. Isn’t it so? But you couldn’t understand that!
Miss Y. [Looks contemptuous.]
Mrs. X. [Drinks some spoonfuls of chocolate out of her cup, then opens the basket and looks at the Xmas presents.] There, let me show you what I’ve bought for my little chicks. [Takes up a doll.] Just look at this! That’s for Lisa. Just look, it can roll its eyes and waggle its neck. What? And here’s Maja’s cork pistol. [Loads and shoots at MISS Y.]
Miss Y. [Gives a start.]
Mrs. X. Are you frightened? Did you think I wanted to shoot you, dear? Upon my word, I’d never have thought you’d have thought that. I’d have been much less surprised if you’d wanted to shoot me, for getting in your way (I know that you can never forget anything), although I was absolutely innocent. You believed of course that I worked it to get you out of the Grand Theater, but I didn’t do that. I didn’t do it, although you think I did. But it makes no odds my saying all this, for you always think it was me…. [Takes out a pair of embroidered slippers.] These are for my hubby, with tulips on them which I embroidered myself. I can’t stand tulips, you know, but he’s awfully keen on the rrv
Miss Y. [Looks up ironically and curiously from her paper.]
Mrs. X. [Holds a slipper up in each hand.] Just look what small feet Bob has. Eh! You should just see, dear, how well he carries himself. But of course, you’ve never seen him in slippers, have you, dear?
Miss Y. [Laughs loudly.]
Mrs. X. Look, you must see. [She walks the slippers upon the table.]
Miss Y. [Laughs loudly.]
Mrs. X. Just see here. This is the way he always stamps about whenever he’s out of sorts, like this. “Eh, that damned girl will never learn how. to make coffee! Ugh! And now the confounded idiot has trimmed the lamp wrong!” The next minute there’s a draught and his feet get cold. “Oof, how cold it is, and that blighted fool can never manage to keep the fire going.” [She rubs the soles of the slippers one against the other.]
Miss Y. [Laughs out loud.]
Mrs. X. And this is how he goes on when he comes home and looks for his slippers, which Mary puts under the chest of drawers. Oh, but it’s a shame for me to sit here and give my husband away. He’s a good sort, at any rate, and that’s something, I can tell you… Yes, you should have a husband like that, Amelia; yes, you, my dear. What are you laughing at? Eh? Eh? And I’ll tell you how I know that he’s faithful! I am sure of it, for he told me so of his own accord… what are you giggling at? Why, when I went for a trip in Norway that ungrateful Frederique ran after him and tried to seduce him—can you think of anything so disgraceful! [Pause.] I’d have scratched the eyes out of the creature’s head, that I would, if she’d come playing around when I was on the scene! [Pause.] It was lucky that Bob told me of his own accord so that I didn’t get to hear of it first from a lot of sneaking scandalmongers. [Pause.] But Frederique was not the only one, you may say. I didn’t know it, but the women are absolutely crazy over my husband. They think he is awfully influential in getting engagements just because he holds an official position! It may be that you, too, have tried to run after him—I don’t trust you more than need be—anyway, I know that he doesn’t bother about you, and that you seem to have a grudge against him, and consequently against me, the whole time! [Pause; they look at each other with embarrassment.] Come round and see us tonight, dear, just to show that you don’t feel badly about us, or at any rate, about me! I don’t know why, but somehow I feel that it would be particularly ungracious of me to be unfriendly toward you of all people. It may be because I cut you out. [Speaking more slowly.] Or—or—I can’t tell the reason.