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 you 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.
GUSTAV. Take a turn across the floor!
ADOLPH. I cannot!
GUSTAV. Do what I say, or I'll strike you!
ADOLPH. [Straightening himself up] What are you saying?
GUSTAV. I'll strike you, I said.
ADOLPH. [Leaping backward in a rage] You!
GUSTAV. That's it! Now you have got the blood into your head, and your
self-assurance is awake. And now I'll give you some electriticy: where
is your wife?
ADOLPH. Where is she?
GUSTAV. Yes.
ADOLPH. She is--at--a meeting.
GUSTAV. Sure?
ADOLPH. Absolutely!
GUSTAV. What kind of meeting?
ADOLPH. Oh, something relating to an orphan asylum.
GUSTAV. Did you part as friends?
ADOLPH. [With some hesitation] Not as friends.
GUSTAV. As enemies then!--What did you say that provoked her?
ADOLPH. You are terrible. I am afraid of you. How could you know?
GUSTAV. It's very simple: I possess three known factors, and with their
help I figure out the unknown one. What did you say to her?
ADOLPH. I said--two words only, but they were dreadful, and I regret
them--regret them very much.
GUSTAV. Don't do it! Tell me now?