[_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._]