CHRISTINE. I don't want to know anything—
JULIA. You must listen to me—
CHRISTINE. What is it about? Is it about this nonsense with Jean?
Well, I don't care about it at all, for it's none of my business.
But if you're planning to get him away with you, we'll put a stop
to that!
JULIA. [Extremely nervous] Please try to be quiet, Christine, and listen to me. I cannot stay here, and Jean cannot stay here—and so we must leave—-
CHRISTINE. Hm, hm!
JULIA. [Brightening. up] But now I have got an idea, you know. Suppose all three of us should leave—go abroad—go to Switzerland and start a hotel together—I have money, you know—and Jean and I could run the whole thing—and you, I thought, could take charge of the kitchen—Wouldn't that be fine!—Say yes, now! And come along with us! Then everything is fixed!—Oh, say yes!
[She puts her arms around CHRISTINE and pats her.]
CHRISTINE. [Coldly and thoughtfully] Hm, hm!
JULIA. [Presto tempo] You have never travelled, Christine—you must get out and have a look at the world. You cannot imagine what fun it is to travel on a train—constantly new people—new countries—- and then we get to Hamburg and take in the Zoological Gardens in passing—that's what you like—and then we go to the theatres and to the opera—and when we get to Munich, there, you know, we have a lot of museums, where they keep Rubens and Raphael and all those big painters, you know—Haven't you heard of Munich, where King Louis used to live—the king, you know, that went mad—And then we'll have a look at his castle—he has still some castles that are furnished just as in a fairy tale—and from there it isn't very far to Switzerland—and the Alps, you know—just think of the Alps, with snow on top of them in the middle of the summer—and there you have orange trees and laurels that are green all the year around—
[JEAN is seen in the right wing, sharpening his razor on a strop which he holds between his teeth and his left hand; he listens to the talk with a pleased mien and nods approval now and then.]
JULIA. [Tempo prestissimo] And then we get a hotel—and I sit in the office, while Jean is outside receiving tourists—and goes out marketing—and writes letters—That's a life for you—Then the train whistles, and the 'bus drives up, and it rings upstairs, and it rings in the restaurant—and then I make out the bills—and I am going to salt them, too—You can never imagine how timid tourists are when they come to pay their bills! And you—you will sit like a queen in the kitchen. Of course, you are not going to stand at the stove yourself. And you'll have to dress neatly and nicely in order to show yourself to people—and with your looks—yes, I am not flattering you—you'll catch a husband some fine day—some rich Englishman, you know-—for those fellows are so easy [slowing down] to catch—and then we grow rich—and we build us a villa at Lake Como—of course, it is raining a little in that place now and then—- but [limply] the sun must be shining sometimes—although it looks dark—and—then—or else we can go home again—and come back—here—- or some other place—
CHRISTINE. Tell me, Miss Julia, do you believe in all that yourself?
JULIA. [Crushed] Do I believe in it myself?
CHRISTINE. Yes.
JULIA. [Exhausted] I don't know: I believe no longer in anything. [She sinks down on the bench and drops her head between her arms on the table] Nothing! Nothing at all!
CHRISTINE. [Turns to the right, where JEAN is standing] So you were going to run away!
JEAN. [Abashed, puts the razor on the table] Run away? Well, that's putting it rather strong. You have heard what the young lady proposes, and though she is tired out now by being up all night, it's a proposition that can be put through all right.
CHRISTINE. Now you tell me: did you mean me to act as cook for that one there—?
JEAN. [Sharply] Will you please use decent language in speaking to your mistress! Do you understand?
CHRISTINE. Mistress!
JEAN. Yes!
CHRISTINE. Well, well! Listen to him!
JEAN. Yes, it would be better for you to listen a little more and talk a little less. Miss Julia is your mistress, and what makes you disrespectful to her now should snake you feel the same way about yourself.
CHRISTINE. Oh, I have always had enough respect for myself—
JEAN. To have none for others!
CHRISTINE. —not to go below my own station. You can't say that the count's cook has had anything to do with the groom or the swineherd. You can't say anything of the kind!
JEAN. Yes, it's your luck that you have had to do with a gentleman.
CHRISTINE. Yes, a gentleman who sells the oats out of the count's stable!
JEAN. What's that to you who get a commission on the groceries and bribes from the butcher?
CHRISTINE. What's that?
JEAN. And so you can't respect your master and mistress any longer!
You—you!
CHRISTINE. Are you coming with me to church? I think you need a good sermon on top of such a deed.
JEAN. No, I am not going to church to-day. You can go by yourself and confess your own deeds.
CHRISTINE. Yes, I'll do that, and I'll bring back enough forgiveness to cover you also. The Saviour suffered and died on the cross for all our sins, and if we go to him with a believing heart and a repentant mind, he'll take all our guilt on himself.
JULIA. Do you believe that, Christine?
CHRISTINE. It is my living belief, as sure as I stand here, and the faith of my childhood which I have kept since I was young, Miss Julia. And where sin abounds, grace abounds too.
JULIA. Oh, if I had your faith! Oh, if—-
CHRISTINE. Yes, but you don't get it without the special grace of
God, and that is not bestowed on everybody—
JULIA. On whom is it bestowed then?
CHRISTINE. That's just the great secret of the work of grace, Miss Julia, and the Lord has no regard for persons, but there those that are last shall be the foremost—
JULIA. Yes, but that means he has regard for those that are last.
CHRISTINE. [Going right on] —and it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to get into heaven. That's the way it is, Miss Julia. Now I am going, however-—alone—- and as I pass by, I'll tell the stableman not to let out the horses if anybody should like to get away before the count comes home. Good-bye! [Goes out.]
JEAN. Well, ain't she a devil!—And all this for the sake of a finch!
JULIA. [Apathetically] Never mind the finch!—Can you see any way out of this, any way to end it?
JEAN. [Ponders] No!
JULIA. What would you do in my place?
JEAN. In your place? Let me see. As one of gentle birth, as a woman, as one who has—fallen. I don't know—yes, I do know!
JULIA. [Picking up the razor with a significant gesture] Like this?
JEAN. Yes!—But please observe that I myself wouldn't do it, for there is a difference between us.
JULIA. Because you are a man and I a woman? What is the difference?
JEAN. It is the same—as—that between man and woman.
JULIA. [With the razor in her hand] I want to, but I cannot!—My father couldn't either, that time he should have done it.
JEAN. No, he should not have done it, for he had to get his revenge first.
JULIA. And now it is my mother's turn to revenge herself again, through me.
JEAN. Have you not loved your father, Miss Julia?
JULIA. Yes, immensely, but I must have hated him, too. I think I must have been doing so without being aware of it. But he was the one who reared me in contempt for my own sex—half woman and half man! Whose fault is it, this that has happened? My father's—my mother's—my own? My own? Why, I have nothing that is my own. I haven't a thought that didn't come from my father; not a passion that didn't come from my mother; and now this last—this about all human creatures being equal—I got that from him, my fiancé—whom I call a scoundrel for that reason! How can it be my own fault? To put the blame on Jesus, as Christine does—no, I am too proud for that, and know too much—thanks to my father's teachings—And that about a rich person not getting into heaven, it's just a lie, and Christine, who has money in the savings-bank, wouldn't get in anyhow. Whose is the fault?—What does it matter whose it is? For just the same I am the one who must bear the guilt and the results—
JEAN. Yes, but—
[Two sharp strokes are rung on the bell. MISS JULIA leaps to her feet. JEAN changes his coat.]
JEAN. The count is back. Think if Christine— [Goes to the speaking-tube, knocks on it, and listens.]
JULIA. Now he has been to the chiffonier!
JEAN. It is Jean, your lordship! [Listening again, the spectators being unable to hear what the count says] Yes, your lordship! [Listening] Yes, your lordship! At once! [Listening] In a minute, your lordship! [Listening] Yes, yes! In half an hour!
JULIA. [With intense concern] What did he say? Lord Jesus, what did he say?
JEAN. He called for his boots and wanted his coffee in half an hour.
JULIA. In half an hour then! Oh, I am so tired. I can't do anything; can't repent, can't run away, can't stay, can't live—- can't die! Help me now! Command me, and I'll obey you like a dog! Do me this last favour—save my honour, and save his name! You know what my will ought to do, and what it cannot do—now give me your will, and make me do it!
JEAN. I don't know why—but now I can't either—I don't understand—- It is just as if this coat here made a—I cannot command you—and now, since I've heard the count's voice—now—I can't quite explain it-—but—Oh, that damned menial is back in my spine again. I believe if the count should come down here, and if he should tell me to cut my own throat—I'd do it on the spot!
JULIA. Make believe that you are he, and that I am you! You did some fine acting when you were on your knees before me—then you were the nobleman—or—have you ever been to a show and seen one who could hypnotize people?
[JEAN makes a sign of assent.]
JULIA. He says to his subject: get the broom. And the man gets it.
He says: sweep. And the man sweeps.
JEAN. But then the other person must be asleep.
JULIA. [Ecstatically] I am asleep already—there is nothing in the whole room but a lot of smoke—and you look like a stove—that looks like a man in black clothes and a high hat—and your eyes glow like coals when the fire is going out—and your face is a lump of white ashes. [The sunlight has reached the floor and is now falling on JEAN] How warm and nice it is! [She rubs her hands as if warming them before a fire.] And so light—and so peaceful!
JEAN. [Takes the razor and puts it in her hand] There's the broom! Go now, while it is light—to the barn—and— [Whispers something in her ear.]
JULIA. [Awake] Thank you! Now I shall have rest! But tell me first—- that the foremost also receive the gift of grace. Say it, even if you don't believe it.
JEAN. The foremost? No, I can't do that!—But wait—Miss Julia—I know! You are no longer among the foremost—now when you are among the—last!
JULIA. That's right. I am among the last of all: I am the very last. Oh!—But now I cannot go—Tell me once more that I must go!
JEAN. No, now I can't do it either. I cannot!
JULIA. And those that are foremost shall be the last.
JEAN. Don't think, don't think! Why, you are taking away my strength, too, so that I become a coward—What? I thought I saw the bell moving!—To be that scared of a bell! Yes, but it isn't only the bell—there is somebody behind it—a hand that makes it move—- and something else that makes the hand move-but if you cover up your ears—just cover up your ears! Then it rings worse than ever! Rings and rings, until you answer it—and then it's too late—then comes the sheriff—and then—
[Two quick rings from the bell.]
JEAN. [Shrinks together; then he straightens himself up] It's horrid! But there's no other end to it!—Go!
[JULIA goes firmly out through the door.]
(Curtain.)
THE STRONGER
INTRODUCTION
Of Strindberg's dramatic works the briefest is "The Stronger." He called it a "scene." It is a mere incident—what is called a "sketch" on our vaudeville stage, and what the French so aptly have named a "quart d'heure." And one of the two figures in the cast remains silent throughout the action, thus turning the little play practically into a monologue. Yet it has all the dramatic intensity which we have come to look upon as one of the main characteristics of Strindberg's work for the stage. It is quivering with mental conflict, and because of this conflict human destinies may be seen to change while we are watching. Three life stories are laid bare during the few minutes we are listening to the seemingly aimless, yet so ominous, chatter of Mrs. X.—and when she sallies forth at last, triumphant in her sense of possession, we know as much about her, her husband, and her rival, as if we had been reading a three-volume novel about them.
Small as it is, the part of Mrs. X. would befit a "star," but an actress of genius and discernment might prefer the dumb part of Miss Y. One thing is certain: that the latter character has few equals in its demand on the performer's tact and skill and imagination. This wordless opponent of Mrs. X. is another of those vampire characters which Strindberg was so fond of drawing, and it is on her the limelight is directed with merciless persistency.
"The Stronger" was first published in 1890, as part of the collection of miscellaneous writings which their author named "Things Printed and Unprinted." The present English version was made by me some years ago—in the summer of 1906—when I first began to plan a Strindberg edition for this country. At that time it appeared in the literary supplement of the New York Evening Post.
THE STRONGER A SCENE 1890
PERSONS
MRS. X., an actress, married.
MISS Y., an actress, unmarried.
THE STRONGER
SCENE
[A corner of a ladies' restaurant; two small tables of cast-iron, a sofa covered with red plush, and a few chairs.]
[MRS. X. enters dressed in hat and winter coat, and carrying a pretty Japanese basket on her arm.]
[MISS Y. has in front of her a partly emptied bottle of beer; she is reading an illustrated weekly, and every now and then she exchanges it for a new one.]
MRS. X. Well, how do, Millie! Here you are sitting on Christmas Eve as lonely as a poor bachelor.
[MISS Y. looks up from the paper for a moment, nods, and resumes her reading.]
MRS. X. Really, I feel sorry to find you like this—alone—alone in a restaurant, and on Christmas Eve of all times. It makes me as sad as when I saw a wedding party at Paris once in a restaurant—the bride was reading a comic paper and the groom was playing billiards with the witnesses. Ugh, when it begins that way, I thought, how will it end? Think of it, playing billiards on his wedding day! Yes, and you're going to say that she was reading a comic paper— that's a different case, my dear.
[A WAITRESS brings a cup of chocolate, places it before MRS. X., and disappears again.]
MRS. X. [Sips a few spoonfuls; opens the basket and displays a number of Christmas presents] See what I've bought for my tots. [Picks up a doll] What do you think of this? Lisa is to have it. She can roll her eyes and twist her head, do you see? Fine, is it not? And here's a cork pistol for Carl. [Loads the pistol and pops it at Miss Y.]
[MISS Y. starts as if frightened.]
MRS. X. Did I scare you? Why, you didn't fear I was going to shoot you, did you? Really, I didn't think you could believe that of me. If you were to shoot me—well, that wouldn't surprise me the least. I've got in your way once, and I know you'll never forget it—but I couldn't help it. You still think I intrigued you away from the Royal Theatre, and I didn't do anything of the kind— although you think so. But it doesn't matter what I say, of course— you believe it was I just the same. [Pulls out a pair of embroidered slippers] Well, these are for my hubby-—tulips—I've embroidered them myself. Hm, I hate tulips—and he must have them on everything.
[MISS Y. looks up from the paper with an expression of mingled sarcasm and curiosity.]
MRS. X. [Puts a hand in each slipper] Just see what small feet Bob has. See? And you should see him walk—elegant! Of course, you've never seen him in slippers.
[MISS Y. laughs aloud.]
MRS. X. Look here—here he comes. [Makes the slippers walk across the table.]
[MISS Y. laughs again.]
MRS. X. Then he gets angry, and he stamps his foot just like this: "Blame that cook who can't learn how to make coffee." Or: "The idiot—now that girl has forgotten to fix my study lamp again." Then there is a draught through the floor and his feet get cold: "Gee, but it's freezing, and those blanked idiots don't even know enough to keep the house warm." [She rubs the sole of one slipper against the instep of the other.]
[MISS Y. breaks into prolonged laughter.]
MRS. X. And then he comes home and has to hunt for his slippers— Mary has pushed them under the bureau. Well, perhaps it is not right to be making fun of one's own husband. He's pretty good for all that—a real dear little hubby, that's what he is. You should have such a husband—what are you laughing at? Can't you tell? Then, you see, I know he is faithful. Yes, I know, for he has told me himself—what in the world makes you giggle like that? That nasty Betty tried to get him away from me while I was on the road—- can you think of anything more infamous? [Pause] But I'd have scratched the eyes out of her face, that's what I'd have done if I had been at home when she tried it. [Pause] I'm glad Bob told me all about it, so I didn't have to hear it first from somebody else. [Pause] And just think of it, Betty was not the only one! I don't know why it is, but all women seem to be crazy after my husband. It must be because they imagine his government position gives him something to say about the engagements. Perhaps you've tried it yourself—you may have set your traps for him, too? Yes, I don't trust you very far—but I know he never cared for you—and then I have been thinking you rather had a grudge against him.
[Pause. They look at each other in an embarrassed manner.]
MRS. X. Amèlia, spend the evening with us, won't you? Just to show that you are not angry—not with me, at least. I cannot tell exactly why, but it seems so awfully unpleasant to have you—you for an enemy. Perhaps because I got in your way that time [rallentando] or—I don't know—really, I don't know at all—
[Pause. MISS Y. gazes searchingly at MRS. X.]
MRS. X. [Thoughtfully] It was so peculiar, the way our acquaintance— why, I was afraid of you when I first met you; so afraid that I did not dare to let you out of sight. It didn't matter where I tried to go—I always found myself near you. I didn't have the courage to be your enemy—and so I became your friend. But there was always something discordant in the air when you called at our home, for I saw that my husband didn't like you—and it annoyed me just as it does when a dress won't fit. I tried my very best to make him appear friendly to you at least, but I couldn't move him—not until you were engaged. Then you two became such fast friends that it almost looked as if you had not dared to show your real feelings before, when it was not safe—and later—let me see, now! I didn't get jealous—strange, was it not? And I remember the baptism—you were acting as godmother, and I made him kiss you—and he did, but both of you looked terribly embarrassed—that is, I didn't think of it then—or afterwards, even—I never thought of it—-till—now! [Rises impulsively] Why don't you say something? You have not uttered a single word all this time. You've just let me go on talking. You've been sitting there staring at me only, and your eyes have drawn out of me all these thoughts which were lying in me like silk in a cocoon—thoughts—bad thoughts maybe—let me think. Why did you break your engagement? Why have you never called on us afterward? Why don't you want to be with us to-night?
[MISS Y. makes a motion as if intending to speak.]
MRS. X. No, you don't need to say anything at all. All is clear to me now. So, that's the reason of it all. Yes, yes! Everything fits together now. Shame on you! I don't want to sit at the same table with you. [Moves her things to another table] That's why I must put those hateful tulips on his slippers—because you love them. [Throws the slippers on the floor] That's why we have to spend the summer in the mountains—because you can't bear the salt smell of the ocean; that's why my boy had to be called Eskil—because that was your father's name; that's why I had to wear your colour, and read your books, and eat your favourite dishes, and drink your drinks—this chocolate, for instance; that's why—great heavens!— it's terrible to think of it—it's terrible! Everything was forced on me by you—-even your passions. Your soul bored itself into mine as a worm into an apple, and it ate and ate, and burrowed and burrowed, till nothing was left but the outside shell and a little black dust. I wanted to run away from you, but I couldn't. You were always on hand like a snake with your black eyes to charm me—I felt how my wings beat the air only to drag me down—I was in the water, with my feet tied together, and the harder I worked with my arms, the further down I went—down, down, till I sank to the bottom, where you lay in wait like a monster crab to catch me with your claws—and now I'm there! Shame on you! How I hate you, hate you, hate you! But you, you just sit there, silent and calm and indifferent, whether the moon is new or full; whether it's Christmas or mid-summer; whether other people are happy or unhappy. You are incapable of hatred, and you don't know how to love. As a cat in front of a mouse-hole, you are sitting there!—you can't drag your prey out, and you can't pursue it, but you can outwait it. Here you sit in this corner—do you know they've nicknamed it "the mouse-trap" on your account? Here you read the papers to see if anybody is in trouble, or if anybody is about to be discharged from the theatre. Here you watch your victims and calculate your chances and take your tributes. Poor Amèlia! Do you know, I pity you all the same, for I know you are unhappy—unhappy as one who has been wounded, and malicious because you are wounded. I ought to be angry with you, but really I can't—you are so small after all— and as to Bob, why that does not bother me in the least. What does it matter to me anyhow? If you or somebody else taught me to drink chocolate—what of that? [Takes a spoonful of chocolate; then sententiously] They say chocolate is very wholesome. And if I have learned from you how to dress—tant mieux!—it has only given me a stronger hold on my husband—and you have lost where I have gained. Yes, judging by several signs, I think you have lost him already. Of course, you meant me to break with him—as you did, and as you are now regretting—but, you see, I never would do that. It won't do to be narrow-minded, you know. And why should I take only what nobody else wants? Perhaps, after all, I am the stronger now. You never got anything from me; you merely gave—and thus happened to me what happened to the thief—I had what you missed when you woke up. How explain in any other way that, in your hand, everything proved worthless and useless? You were never able to keep a man's love, in spite of your tulips and your passions—and I could; you could never learn the art of living from the books—as I learned it; you bore no little Eskil, although that was your father's name. And why do you keep silent always and everywhere— silent, ever silent? I used to think it was because you were so strong; and maybe the simple truth was you never had anything to say—because you were unable to-think! [Rises and picks up the slippers] I'm going home now—I'll take the tulips with me—-your tulips. You couldn't learn anything from others; you couldn't bend and so you broke like a dry stem—and I didn't. Thank you, Amèlia, for all your instructions. I thank you that you have taught me how to love my husband. Now I'm going home—to him! [Exit.]
(Curtain.)
CREDITORS
INTRODUCTION
This is one of the three plays which Strindberg placed at the head of his dramatic production during the middle ultra-naturalistic period, the other two being "The Father" and "Miss Julia." It is, in many ways, one of the strongest he ever produced. Its rarely excelled unity of construction, its tremendous dramatic tension, and its wonderful psychological analysis combine to make it a masterpiece.
In Swedish its name is "Fordringsägare." This indefinite form may be either singular or plural, but it is rarely used except as a plural. And the play itself makes it perfectly clear that the proper translation of its title is "Creditors," for under this aspect appear both the former and the present husband of Tekla. One of the main objects of the play is to reveal her indebtedness first to one and then to the other of these men, while all the time she is posing as a person of original gifts.
I have little doubt that Strindberg, at the time he wrote this play—and bear in mind that this happened only a year before he finally decided to free himself from an impossible marriage by an appeal to the law—believed Tekla to be fairly representative of womanhood in general. The utter unreasonableness of such a view need hardly be pointed out, and I shall waste no time on it. A question more worthy of discussion is whether the figure of Tekla be true to life merely as the picture of a personality—as one out of numerous imaginable variations on a type decided not by sex but by faculties and qualities. And the same question may well be raised in regard to the two men, both of whom are evidently intended to win our sympathy: one as the victim of a fate stronger than himself, and the other as the conqueror of adverse and humiliating circumstances.
Personally, I am inclined to doubt whether a Tekla can be found in the flesh—and even if found, she might seem too exceptional to gain acceptance as a real individuality. It must be remembered, however, that, in spite of his avowed realism, Strindberg did not draw his men and women in the spirit generally designated as impressionistic; that is, with the idea that they might step straight from his pages into life and there win recognition as human beings of familiar aspect. His realism is always mixed with idealism; his figures are always "doctored," so to speak. And they have been thus treated in order to enable their creator to drive home the particular truth he is just then concerned with.
Consciously or unconsciously he sought to produce what may be designated as "pure cultures" of certain human qualities. But these he took great pains to arrange in their proper psychological settings, for mental and moral qualities, like everything else, run in groups that are more or less harmonious, if not exactly homogeneous. The man with a single quality, like Molière's Harpagon, was much too primitive and crude for Strindberg's art, as he himself rightly asserted in his preface to "Miss Julia." When he wanted to draw the genius of greed, so to speak, he did it by setting it in the midst of related qualities of a kind most likely to be attracted by it.
Tekla is such a "pure culture" of a group of naturally correlated mental and moral qualities and functions and tendencies—of a personality built up logically around a dominant central note. There are within all of us many personalities, some of which remain for ever potentialities. But it is conceivable that any one of them, under circumstances different from those in which we have been living, might have developed into its severely logical consequence—or, if you please, into a human being that would be held abnormal if actually encountered.
This is exactly what Strindberg seems to have done time and again, both in his middle and final periods, in his novels as well as in his plays. In all of us a Tekla, an Adolph, a Gustav—or a Jean and a Miss Julia—lie more or less dormant. And if we search our souls unsparingly, I fear the result can only be an admission that—had the needed set of circumstances been provided—we might have come unpleasantly close to one of those Strindbergian creatures which we are now inclined to reject as unhuman.
Here we have the secret of what I believe to be the great Swedish dramatist's strongest hold on our interest. How could it otherwise happen that so many critics, of such widely differing temperaments, have recorded identical feelings as springing from a study of his work: on one side an active resentment, a keen unwillingness to be interested; on the other, an attraction that would not be denied in spite of resolute resistance to it! For Strindberg does hold us, even when we regret his power of doing so. And no one familiar with the conclusions of modern psychology could imagine such a paradox possible did not the object of our sorely divided feelings provide us with something that our minds instinctively recognise as true to life in some way, and for that reason valuable to the art of living.
There are so many ways of presenting truth. Strindberg's is only one of them—and not the one commonly employed nowadays. Its main fault lies perhaps in being too intellectual, too abstract. For while Strindberg was intensely emotional, and while this fact colours all his writings, he could only express himself through his reason. An emotion that would move another man to murder would precipitate Strindberg into merciless analysis of his own or somebody else's mental and moral make-up. At any rate, I do not proclaim his way of presenting truth as the best one of all available. But I suspect that this decidedly strange way of Strindberg's—resulting in such repulsively superior beings as Gustav, or in such grievously inferior ones as Adolph—may come nearer the temper and needs of the future than do the ways of much more plausible writers. This does not need to imply that the future will imitate Strindberg. But it may ascertain what he aimed at doing, and then do it with a degree of perfection which he, the pioneer, could never hope to attain.
CREDITORS A TRAGICOMEDY 1889
PERSONS
TEKLA
ADOLPH, her husband, a painter
GUSTAV, her divorced husband, a high-school teacher (who is
travelling under an assumed name)
SCENE
(A parlor in a summer hotel on the sea-shore. The rear wall has a door opening on a veranda, beyond which is seen a landscape. To the right of the door stands a table with newspapers on it. There is a chair on the left side of the stage. To the right of the table stands a sofa. A door on the right leads to an adjoining room.)
(ADOLPH and GUSTAV, the latter seated on the sofa by the table to the right.)
ADOLPH. [At work on a wax figure on a miniature modelling stand; his crutches are placed beside him]—and for all this I have to thank you!
GUSTAV. [Smoking a cigar] Oh, nonsense!
ADOLPH. Why, certainly! During the first days after my wife had gone, I lay helpless on a sofa and did nothing but long for her. It was as if she had taken away my crutches with her, so that I couldn't move from the spot. When I had slept a couple of days, I seemed to come to, and began to pull myself together. My head calmed down after having been working feverishly. Old thoughts from days gone by bobbed up again. The desire to work and the instinct for creation came back. My eyes recovered their faculty of quick and straight vision—and then you showed up.
GUSTAV. I admit you were in a miserable condition when I first met you, and you had to use your crutches when you walked, but this is not to say that my presence has been the cause of your recovery. You needed a rest, and you had a craving for masculine company.
ADOLPH. Oh, that's true enough, like everything you say. Once I used to have men for friends, but I thought them superfluous after I married, and I felt quite satisfied with the one I had chosen. Later I was drawn into new circles and made a lot of acquaintances, but my wife was jealous of them—she wanted to keep me to herself: worse still—she wanted also to keep my friends to herself. And so I was left alone with my own jealousy.
GUSTAV. Yes, you have a strong tendency toward that kind of disease.
ADOLPH. I was afraid of losing her—and I tried to prevent it. There is nothing strange in that. But I was never afraid that she might be deceiving me—
GUSTAV. No, that's what married men are never afraid of.
ADOLPH. Yes, isn't it queer? What I really feared was that her friends would get such an influence over her that they would begin to exercise some kind of indirect power over me—and that is something I couldn't bear.
GUSTAV. So your ideas don't agree—yours and your wife's?
ADOLPH. Seeing that you have heard so much already, I may as well tell you everything. My wife has an independent nature—what are you smiling at?
GUSTAV. Go on! She has an independent nature—
ADOLPH. Which cannot accept anything from me—
GUSTAV. But from everybody else.
ADOLPH. [After a pause] Yes.—And it looked as if she especially hated my ideas because they were mine, and not because there was anything wrong about them. For it used to happen quite often that she advanced ideas that had once been mine, and that she stood up for them as her own. Yes, it even happened that friends of mine gave her ideas which they had taken directly from me, and then they seemed all right. Everything was all right except what came from me.
GUSTAV. Which means that you are not entirely happy?
ADOLPH. Oh yes, I am happy. I have the one I wanted, and I have never wanted anybody else.
GUSTAV. And you have never wanted to be free?
ADOLPH. No, I can't say that I have. Oh, well, sometimes I have imagined that it might seem like a rest to be free. But the moment she leaves me, I begin to long for her—long for her as for my own arms and legs. It is queer that sometimes I have a feeling that she is nothing in herself, but only a part of myself—an organ that can take away with it my will, my very desire to live. It seems almost as if I had deposited with her that centre of vitality of which the anatomical books tell us.
GUSTAV. Perhaps, when we get to the bottom of it, that is just what has happened.
ADOLPH. How could it be so? Is she not an independent being, with thoughts of her own? And when I met her I was nothing—a child of an artist whom she undertook to educate.
GUSTAV. But later you developed her thoughts and educated her, didn't you?
ADOLPH. No, she stopped growing and I pushed on.
GUSTAV. Yes, isn't it strange that her "authoring" seemed to fall off after her first book—or that it failed to improve, at least? But that first time she had a subject which wrote itself—for I understand she used her former husband for a model. You never knew him, did you? They say he was an idiot.
ADOLPH. I never knew him, as he was away for six months at a time. But he must have been an arch-idiot, judging by her picture of him. [Pause] And you may feel sure that the picture was correct.
GUSTAV. I do!—But why did she ever take him?
ADOLPH. Because she didn't know him well enough. Of course, you never do get acquainted until afterward!
GUSTAV. And for that reason one ought not to marry until— afterward.—And he was a tyrant, of course?
ADOLPH. Of course?
GUSTAV. Why, so are all married men. [Feeling his way] And you not the least.
ADOLPH. I? Who let my wife come and go as she pleases—
GUSTAV. Well, that's nothing. You couldn't lock her up, could you?
But do you like her to stay away whole nights?
ADOLPH. No, really, I don't.
GUSTAV. There, you see! [With a change of tactics] And to tell the truth, it would only make you ridiculous to like it.
ADOLPH. Ridiculous? Can a man be ridiculous because he trusts his wife?
GUSTAV. Of course he can. And it's just what you are already—and thoroughly at that!
ADOLPH. [Convulsively] I! It's what I dread most of all—and there's going to be a change.
GUSTAV. Don't get excited now—or you'll have another attack.
ADOLPH. But why isn't she ridiculous when I stay out all night?
GUSTAV. Yes, why? Well, it's nothing that concerns you, but that's the way it is. And while you are trying to figure out why, the mishap has already occurred.
ADOLPH. What mishap?
GUSTAV. However, the first husband was a tyrant, and she took him only to get her freedom. You see, a girl cannot have freedom except by providing herself with a chaperon—or what we call a husband.
ADOLPH. Of course not.
GUSTAV. And now you are the chaperon.
ADOLPH. I?
GUSTAV. Since you are her husband.
(ADOLPH keeps a preoccupied silence.)
GUSTAV. Am I not right?
ADOLPH. [Uneasily] I don't know. You live with a woman for years, and you never stop to analyse her, or your relationship with her, and then—then you begin to think—and there you are!—Gustav, you are my friend. The only male friend I have. During this last week you have given me courage to live again. It is as if your own magnetism had been poured into me. Like a watchmaker, you have fixed the works in my head and wound up the spring again. Can't you hear, yourself, how I think more clearly and speak more to the point? And to myself at least it seems as if my voice had recovered its ring.
GUSTAV. So it seems to me also. And why is that?
ADOLPH. I shouldn't wonder if you grew accustomed to lower your voice in talking to women. I know at least that Tekla always used to accuse me of shouting.
GUSTAV. And so you toned down your voice and accepted the rule of the slipper?
ADOLPH. That isn't quite the way to put it. [After some reflection] I think it is even worse than that. But let us talk of something else!—What was I saying?—Yes, you came here, and you enabled me to see my art in its true light. Of course, for some time I had noticed my growing lack of interest in painting, as it didn't seem to offer me the proper medium for the expression of what I wanted to bring out. But when you explained all this to me, and made it clear why painting must fail as a timely outlet for the creative instinct, then I saw the light at last—and I realised that hereafter it would not be possible for me to express myself by means of colour only.
GUSTAV. Are you quite sure now that you cannot go on painting— that you may not have a relapse?
ADOLPH. Perfectly sure! For I have tested myself. When I went to bed that night after our talk, I rehearsed your argument point by point, and I knew you had it right. But when I woke up from a good night's sleep and my head was clear again, then it came over me in a flash that you might be mistaken after all. And I jumped out of bed and got hold of my brushes and paints—but it was no use! Every trace of illusion was gone—it was nothing but smears of paint, and I quaked at the thought of having believed, and having made others believe, that a painted canvas could be anything but a painted canvas. The veil had fallen from my eyes, and it was just as impossible for me to paint any more as it was to become a child again.
GUSTAV. And then you saw that the realistic tendency of our day, its craving for actuality and tangibility, could only find its proper form in sculpture, which gives you body, extension in all three dimensions—
ADOLPH. [Vaguely] The three dimensions—oh yes, body, in a word!
GUSTAV. And then you became a sculptor yourself. Or rather, you have been one all your life, but you had gone astray, and nothing was needed but a guide to put you on the right road—Tell me, do you experience supreme joy now when you are at work?
ADOLPH. Now I am living!
GUSTAV. May I see what you are doing?
ADOLPH. A female figure.
GUSTAV. Without a model? And so lifelike at that!
ADOLPH. [Apathetically] Yes, but it resembles somebody. It is remarkable that this woman seems to have become a part of my body as I of hers.
GUSTAV. Well, that's not so very remarkable. Do you know what transfusion is?
ADOLPH. Of blood? Yes.
GUSTAV. And you seem to have bled yourself a little too much. When I look at the figure here I comprehend several things which I merely guessed before. You have loved her tremendously!
ADOLPH. Yes, to such an extent that I couldn't tell whether she was I or I she. When she is smiling, I smile also. When she is weeping, I weep. And when she—can you imagine anything like it?— when she was giving life to our child—I felt the birth pangs within myself.
GUSTAV. Do you know, my dear friend—I hate to speak of it, but you are already showing the first symptoms of epilepsy.
ADOLPH. [Agitated] I! How can you tell?
GUSTAV. Because I have watched the symptoms in a younger brother of mine who had been worshipping Venus a little too excessively.
ADOLPH. How—how did it show itself—that thing you spoke of?
[During the following passage GUSTAV speaks with great animation, and ADOLPH listens so intently that, unconsciously, he imitates many of GUSTAV'S gestures.]
GUSTAV. It was dreadful to witness, and if you don't feel strong enough I won't inflict a description of it on you.
ADOLPH. [Nervously] Yes, go right on—just go on!
GUSTAV. Well, the boy happened to marry an innocent little creature with curls, and eyes like a turtle-dove; with the face of a child and the pure soul of an angel. But nevertheless she managed to usurp the male prerogative—
ADOLPH. What is that?
GUSTAV. Initiative, of course. And with the result that the angel nearly carried him off to heaven. But first he had to be put on the cross and made to feel the nails in his flesh. It was horrible!
ADOLPH. [Breathlessly] Well, what happened?
GUSTAV. [Lingering on each word] We might be sitting together talking, he and I—and when I had been speaking for a while his face would turn white as chalk, his arms and legs would grow stiff, and his thumbs became twisted against the palms of his hands—like this. [He illustrates the movement and it is imitated by ADOLPH] Then his eyes became bloodshot, and he began to chew— like this. [He chews, and again ADOLPH imitates him] The saliva was rattling in his throat. His chest was squeezed together as if it had been closed in a vice. The pupils of his eyes flickered like gas-jets. His tongue beat the saliva into a lather, and he sank—slowly—down—backward—into the chair—as if he were drowning. And then—
ADOLPH. [In a whisper] Stop now!
GUSTAV. And then—Are you not feeling well?
ADOLPH. No.
GUSTAV. [Gets a glass of water for him] There: drink now. And we'll talk of something else.
ADOLPH. [Feebly] Thank you! Please go on!
GUSTAV. Well—when he came to he couldn't remember anything at all. He had simply lost consciousness. Has that ever happened to you?
ADOLPH. Yes, I have had attacks of vertigo now and then, but my physician says it's only anaemia.
GUSTAV. Well, that's the beginning of it, you know. But, believe me, it will end in epilepsy if you don't take care of yourself.
ADOLPH. What can I do?
GUSTAV. To begin with, you will have to observe complete abstinence.
ADOLPH. For how long?
GUSTAV. For half a year at least.
ADOLPH. I cannot do it. That would upset our married life.
GUSTAV. Good-bye to you then!
ADOLPH. [Covers up the wax figure] I cannot do it!
GUSTAV. Can you not save your own life?—But tell me, as you have already given me so much of your confidence—is there no other canker, no secret wound, that troubles you? For it is very rare to find only one cause of discord, as life is so full of variety and so fruitful in chances for false relationships. Is there not a corpse in your cargo that you are trying to hide from yourself?— For instance, you said a minute ago that you have a child which has been left in other people's care. Why don't you keep it with you?
ADOLPH. My wife doesn't want us to do so.
GUSTAV. And her reason? Speak up now!
ADOLPH. Because, when it was about three years old, it began to look like him, her former husband.
GUSTAV. Well? Have you seen her former husband?
ADOLPH. No, never. I have only had a casual glance at a very poor portrait of him, and then I couldn't detect the slightest resemblance.
GUSTAV. Oh, portraits are never like the original, and, besides, he might have changed considerably since it was made. However, I hope it hasn't aroused any suspicions in you?
ADOLPH. Not at all. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was abroad when I first met Tekla—it happened right here, in this very house even, and that's why we come here every summer.
GUSTAV. No, then there can be no cause for suspicion. And you wouldn't have had any reason to trouble yourself anyhow, for the children of a widow who marries again often show a likeness to her dead husband. It is annoying, of course, and that's why they used to burn all widows in India, as you know.—But tell me: have you ever felt jealous of him—of his memory? Would it not sicken you to meet him on a walk and hear him, with his eyes on your Tekla, use the word "we" instead of "I"?—We!
ADOLPH. I cannot deny that I have been pursued by that very thought.
GUSTAV. There now!—And you'll never get rid of it. There are discords in this life which can never be reduced to harmony. For this reason you had better put wax in your ears and go to work. If you work, and grow old, and pile masses of new impressions on the hatches, then the corpse will stay quiet in the hold.
ADOLPH. Pardon me for interrupting you, but—it is wonderful how you resemble Tekla now and then while you are talking. You have a way of blinking one eye as if you were taking aim with a gun, and your eyes have the same influence on me as hers have at times.
GUSTAV. No, really?
ADOLPH. And now you said that "no, really" in the same indifferent way that she does. She also has the habit of saying "no, really" quite often.
GUSTAV. Perhaps we are distantly related, seeing that all human beings are said to be of one family. At any rate, it will be interesting to make your wife's acquaintance to see if what you say is true.
ADOLPH. And do you know, she never takes an expression from me. She seems rather to avoid my vocabulary, and I have never caught her using any of my gestures. And yet people as a rule develop what is called "marital resemblance."
GUSTAV. And do you know why this has not happened in your case?—
That woman has never loved you.
ADOLPH. What do you mean?
GUSTAV. I hope you will excuse what I am saying—but woman's love consists in taking, in receiving, and one from whom she takes nothing does not have her love. She has never loved you!
ADOLPH. Don't you think her capable of loving more than once?
GUSTAV. No, for we cannot be deceived more than once. Then our eyes are opened once for all. You have never been deceived, and so you had better beware of those that have. They are dangerous, I tell you.
ADOLPH. Your words pierce me like knife thrusts, and I fool as if something were being severed within me, but I cannot help it. And this cutting brings a certain relief, too. For it means the pricking of ulcers that never seemed to ripen.—She has never loved me!—Why, then, did she ever take me?
GUSTAV. Tell me first how she came to take you, and whether it was you who took her or she who took you?
ADOLPH. Heaven only knows if I can tell at all!—How did it happen? Well, it didn't come about in one day.
GUSTAV. Would you like to have me tell you how it did happen?
ADOLPH. That's more than you can do.
GUSTAV. Oh, by using the information about yourself and your wife that you have given me, I think I can reconstruct the whole event. Listen now, and you'll hear. [In a dispassionate tone, almost humorously] The husband had gone abroad to study, and she was alone. At first her freedom seemed rather pleasant. Then came a sense of vacancy, for I presume she was pretty empty when she had lived by herself for a fortnight. Then he appeared, and by and by the vacancy was filled up. By comparison the absent one seemed to fade out, and for the simple reason that he was at a distance—you know the law about the square of the distance? But when they felt their passions stirring, then came fear—of themselves, of their consciences, of him. For protection they played brother and sister. And the more their feelings smacked of the flesh, the more they tried to make their relationship appear spiritual.
ADOLPH. Brother and sister? How could you know that?
GUSTAV. I guessed it. Children are in the habit of playing papa and mamma, but when they grow up they play brother and sister—in order to hide what should be hidden!—And then they took the vow of chastity—and then they played hide-and-seek—until they got in a dark corner where they were sure of not being seen by anybody. [With mock severity] But they felt that there was one whose eye reached them in the darkness—and they grew frightened— and their fright raised the spectre of the absent one—his figure began to assume immense proportions—it became metamorphosed: turned into a nightmare that disturbed their amorous slumbers; a creditor who knocked at all doors. Then they saw his black hand between their own as these sneaked toward each other across the table; and they heard his grating voice through that stillness of the night that should have been broken only by the beating of their own pulses. He did not prevent them from possessing each other but he spoiled their happiness. And when they became aware of his invisible interference with their happiness; when they took flight at last—a vain flight from the memories that pursued them, from the liability they had left behind, from the public opinion they could not face—and when they found themselves without the strength needed to carry their own guilt, then they had to send out into the fields for a scapegoat to be sacrificed. They were free-thinkers, but they did not have the courage to step forward and speak openly to him the words: "We love each other!" To sum it up, they were cowards, and so the tyrant had to be slaughtered. Is that right?
ADOLPH. Yes, but you forget that she educated me, that she filled my head with new thoughts—
GUSTAV. I have not forgotten it. But tell me: why could she not educate the other man also—into a free-thinker?
ADOLPH. Oh, he was an idiot!
GUSTAV. Oh, of course—he was an idiot! But that's rather an ambiguous term, and, as pictured in her novel, his idiocy seems mainly to have consisted in failure to understand her. Pardon me a question: but is your wife so very profound after all? I have discovered nothing profound in her writings.
ADOLPH. Neither have I.—But then I have also to confess a certain difficulty in understanding her. It is as if the cogs of our brain wheels didn't fit into each other, and as if something went to pieces in my head when I try to comprehend her.
GUSTAV. Maybe you are an idiot, too?
ADOLPH. I don't think so! And it seems to me all the time as if she were in the wrong—Would you care to read this letter, for instance, which I got today?
[Takes out a letter from his pocket-book.]
GUSTAV. [Glancing through the letter] Hm! The handwriting seems strangely familiar.
ADOLPH. Rather masculine, don't you think?
GUSTAV. Well, I know at least one man who writes that kind of hand—She addresses you as "brother." Are you still playing comedy to each other? And do you never permit yourselves any greater familiarity in speaking to each other?
ADOLPH. No, it seems to me that all mutual respect is lost in that way.
GUSTAV. And is it to make you respect her that she calls herself your sister?
ADOLPH. I want to respect her more than myself. I want her to be the better part of my own self.
GUSTAV. Why don't you be that better part yourself? Would it be less convenient than to permit somebody else to fill the part? Do you want to place yourself beneath your wife?
ADOLPH. Yes, I do. I take a pleasure in never quite reaching up to her. I have taught her to swim, for example, and now I enjoy hearing her boast that she surpasses me both in skill and daring. To begin with, I merely pretended to be awkward and timid in order to raise her courage. And so it ended with my actually being her inferior, more of a coward than she. It almost seemed to me as if she had actually taken my courage away from me.
GUSTAV. Have you taught her anything else?
ADOLPH. Yes—but it must stay between us—I have taught her how to spell, which she didn't know before. But now, listen: when she took charge of our domestic correspondence, I grew out of the habit of writing. And think of it: as the years passed on, lack of practice made me forget a little here and there of my grammar. But do you think she recalls that I was the one who taught her at the start? No—and so I am "the idiot," of course.
GUSTAV. So you are an idiot already?
ADOLPH. Oh, it's just a joke, of course!
GUSTAV. Of course! But this is clear cannibalism, I think. Do you know what's behind that sort of practice? The savages eat their enemies in order to acquire their useful qualities. And this woman has been eating your soul, your courage, your knowledge—
ADOLPH. And my faith! It was I who urged her to write her first book—
GUSTAV. [Making a face] Oh-h-h!
ADOLPH. It was I who praised her, even when I found her stuff rather poor. It was I who brought her into literary circles where she could gather honey from our most ornamental literary flowers. It was I who used my personal influence to keep the critics from her throat. It was I who blew her faith in herself into flame; blew on it until I lost my own breath. I gave, gave, gave—until I had nothing left for myself. Do you know—I'll tell you everything now—do you know I really believe—and the human soul is so peculiarly constituted—I believe that when my artistic successes seemed about to put her in the shadow—as well as her reputation— then I tried to put courage into her by belittling myself, and by making my own art seem inferior to hers. I talked so long about the insignificant part played by painting on the whole—talked so long about it, and invented so many reasons to prove what I said, that one fine day I found myself convinced of its futility. So all you had to do was to breathe on a house of cards.
GUSTAV. Pardon me for recalling what you said at the beginning of our talk—that she had never taken anything from you.
ADOLPH. She doesn't nowadays. Because there is nothing more to take.
GUSTAV. The snake being full, it vomits now.
ADOLPH. Perhaps she has been taking a good deal more from me than
I have been aware of?
GUSTAV. You can be sure of that. She took when you were not looking, and that is called theft.
ADOLPH. Perhaps she never did educate me?
GUSTAV. But you her? In all likelihood! But it was her trick to make it appear the other way to you. May I ask how she set about educating you?
ADOLPH. Oh, first of all—hm!
GUSTAV. Well?
ADOLPH. Well, I—
GUSTAV. No, we were speaking of her.
ADOLPH. Really, I cannot tell now.
GUSTAV. Do you see!
ADOLPH. However—she devoured my faith also, and so I sank further and further down, until you came along and gave me a new faith.
GUSTAV. [Smiling] In sculpture?
ADOLPH. [Doubtfully] Yes.
GUSTAV. And have you really faith in it? In this abstract, antiquated art that dates back to the childhood of civilisation? Do you believe that you can obtain your effect by pure form—by the three dimensions—tell me? That you can reach the practical mind of our own day, and convey an illusion to it, without the use of colour—without colour, mind you—do you really believe that?
ADOLPH. [Crushed] No!
GUSTAV. Well, I don't either.
ADOLPH. Why, then, did you say you did?
GUSTAV. Because I pitied you.
ADOLPH. Yes, I am to be pitied! For now I am bankrupt! Finished!—
And worst of all: not even she is left to me!
GUSTAV. Well, what could you do with her?
ADOLPH. Oh, she would be to me what God was before I became an atheist: an object that might help me to exercise my sense of veneration.
GUSTAV. Bury your sense of veneration and let something else grow on top of it. A little wholesome scorn, for instance.
ADOLPH. I cannot live without having something to respect—
GUSTAV. Slave!
ADOLPH.—without a woman to respect and worship!
GUSTAV. Oh, HELL! Then you had better take back your God—if you needs must have something to kow-tow to! You're a fine atheist, with all that superstition about woman still in you! You're a fine free-thinker, who dare not think freely about the dear ladies! Do you know what that incomprehensible, sphinx-like, profound something in your wife really is? It is sheer stupidity!—Look here: she cannot even distinguish between th and t. And that, you know, means there is something wrong with the mechanism. When you look at the case, it looks like a chronometer, but the works inside are those of an ordinary cheap watch.—Nothing but the skirts-that's all! Put trousers on her, give her a pair of moustaches of soot under her nose, then take a good, sober look at her, and listen to her in the same manner: you'll find the instrument has another sound to it. A phonograph, and nothing else—giving yon back your own words, or those of other people— and always in diluted form. Have you ever looked at a naked woman— oh yes, yes, of course! A youth with over-developed breasts; an under-developed man; a child that has shot up to full height and then stopped growing in other respects; one who is chronically anaemic: what can you expect of such a creature?
ADOLPH. Supposing all that to be true—how can it be possible that
I still think her my equal?
GUSTAV. Hallucination—the hypnotising power of skirts! Or—the two of you may actually have become equals. The levelling process has been finished. Her capillarity has brought the water in both tubes to the same height.—Tell me [taking out his watch]: our talk has now lasted six hours, and your wife ought soon to be here. Don't you think we had better stop, so that you can get a rest?
ADOLPH. No, don't leave me! I don't dare to be alone!
GUSTAV. Oh, for a little while only—and then the lady will come.
ADOLPH. Yes, she is coming!—It's all so queer! I long for her, but I am afraid of her. She pets me, she is tender to me, but there is suffocation in her kisses—something that pulls and numbs. And I feel like a circus child that is being pinched by the clown in order that it may look rosy-cheeked when it appears before the public.
GUSTAV. I feel very sorry for you, my friend. Without being a physician, I can tell that you are a dying man. It is enough to look at your latest pictures in order to see that.
ADOLPH. You think so? How can you see it?
GUSTAV. Your colour is watery blue, anaemic, thin, so that the cadaverous yellow of the canvas shines through. And it impresses me as if your own hollow, putty-coloured checks were showing beneath—
ADOLPH. Oh, stop, stop!
GUSTAV. Well, this is not only my personal opinion. Have you read to-day's paper?
ADOLPH. [Shrinking] No!
GUSTAV. It's on the table here.
ADOLPH. [Reaching for the paper without daring to take hold of it]
Do they speak of it there?
GUSTAV. Read it—or do you want me to read it to you?
ADOLPH. No!
GUSTAV. I'll leave you, if you want me to.
ADOLPH. No, no, no!—I don't know—it seems as if I were beginning to hate you, and yet I cannot let you go.—You drag me out of the hole into which I have fallen, but no sooner do you get me on firm ice, than you knock me on the head and shove me into the water again. As long as my secrets were my own, I had still something left within me, but now I am quite empty. There is a canvas by an Italian master, showing a scene of torture—a saint whose intestines are being torn out of him and rolled on the axle of a windlass. The martyr is watching himself grow thinner and thinner, while the roll on the axle grows thicker.—Now it seems to me as if you had swelled out since you began to dig in me; and when you leave, you'll carry away my vitals with you, and leave nothing but an empty shell behind.
GUSTAV. How you do let your fancy run away with you!—And besides, your wife is bringing back your heart.
ADOLPH. No, not since you have burned her to ashes. Everything is in ashes where you have passed along: my art, my love, my hope, my faith!
GUSTAV. All of it was pretty nearly finished before I came along.
ADOLPH. Yes, but it might have been saved. Now it's too late— incendiary!
GUSTAV. We have cleared some ground only. Now we'll sow in the ashes.
ADOLPH. I hate you! I curse you!
GUSTAV. Good symptoms! There is still some strength left in you. And now I'll pull you up on the ice again. Listen now! Do you want to listen to me, and do you want to obey me?
ADOLPH. Do with me what you will—I'll obey you!
GUSTAV. [Rising] Look at me!
ADOLPH. [Looking at GUSTAV] Now you are looking at me again with that other pair of eyes which attracts me.
GUSTAV. And listen to me!
ADOLPH. Yes, but speak of yourself. Don't talk of me any longer: I am like an open wound and cannot bear being touched.
GUSTAV. No, there is nothing to say about me. I am a teacher of dead languages, and a widower—that's all! Take my hand.
ADOLPH. What terrible power there must be in you! It feels as if I were touching an electrical generator.
GUSTAV. And bear in mind that I have been as weak as you are now.—
Stand up!
ADOLPH. [Rises, but keeps himself from falling only by throwing his arms around the neck of GUSTAV] I am like a boneless baby, and my brain seems to lie bare.