TEKLA. I grew tired of him!
ADOLPH. And if you should tire of me also?
TEKLA. But I won't!
ADOLPH. If somebody else should turn up--one who had all the qualities
you are looking for in a man now--suppose only--then you would leave me?
TEKLA. No.
ADOLPH. If he captivated you? So that you couldn't live without him?
Then you would leave me, of course?
TEKLA. No, that doesn't follow.
ADOLPH. But you couldn't love two at the same time, could you?
TEKLA. Yes! Why not?
ADOLPH. That's something I cannot understand.
TEKLA. But things exist although you do not understand them. All persons
are not made in the same way, you know.
ADOLPH. I begin to see now!
TEKLA. No, really!
ADOLPH. No, really? [A pause follows, during which he seems to struggle
with some--memory that will not come back] Do you know, Tekla, that your
frankness is beginning to be painful?
TEKLA. And yet it used to be my foremost virtue In your mind, and one
that you taught me.
ADOLPH. Yes, but it seems to me as if you were hiding something behind
that frankness of yours.
TEKLA. That's the new tactics, you know.
ADOLPH. I don't know why, but this place has suddenly become offensive
to me. If you feel like it, we might return home--this evening!
TEKLA. What kind of notion is that? I have barely arrived and I don't
feel like starting on another trip.
ADOLPH. But I want to.
TEKLA. Well, what's that to me?--You can go!
ADOLPH. But I demand that you take the next boat with me!
TEKLA. Demand?--What are you talking about?
ADOLPH. Do you realise that you are my wife?
TEKLA. Do you realise that you are my husband?
ADOLPH. Well, there's a difference between those two things.
TEKLA. Oh, that's the way you are talking now!--You have never loved me!
ADOLPH. Haven't I?
TEKLA. No, for to love is to give.
ADOLPH. To love like a man is to give; to love like a woman is to
take.--And I have given, given, given!
TEKLA. Pooh! What have you given?
ADOLPH. Everything!
TEKLA. That's a lot! And if it be true, then I must have taken it. Are
you beginning to send in bills for your gifts now? And if I have taken
anything, this proves only my love for you. A woman cannot receive
anything except from her lover.
ADOLPH. Her lover, yes! There you spoke the truth! I have been your
lover, but never your husband.
TEKLA. Well, isn't that much more agreeable--to escape playing chaperon?
But if you are not satisfied with your position, I'll send you packing,
for I don't want a husband.
ADOLPH. No, that's what I have noticed. For a while ago, when you began
to sneak away from me like a thief with his booty, and when you began to
seek company of your own where you could flaunt my plumes and display my
gems, then I felt, like reminding you of your debt. And at once I became
a troublesome creditor whom you wanted to get rid of. You wanted to
repudiate your own notes, and in order not to increase your debt to me,
you stopped pillaging my safe and began to try those of other people
instead. Without having done anything myself, I became to you merely the
husband. And now I am going to be your husband whether you like it or
not, as I am not allowed to be your lover any longer.
TEKLA. [Playfully] Now he shouldn't talk nonsense, the sweet little
idiot!
ADOLPH. Look out: it's dangerous to think everybody an idiot but
oneself!
TEKLA. But that's what everybody thinks.
ADOLPH. And I am beginning to suspect that he--your former husband--was
not so much of an idiot after all.
TEKLA. Heavens! Are you beginning to sympathise with--him?
ADOLPH. Yes, not far from it,
TEKLA. Well, well! Perhaps you would like to make his acquaintance and
pour out your overflowing heart to him? What a striking picture! But I
am also beginning to feel drawn to him, as I am growing more and more
tired of acting as wetnurse. For he was at least a man, even though he
had the fault of being married to me.
ADOLPH. There, you see! But you had better not talk so loud--we might be
overheard.
TEKLA. What would it matter if they took us for married people?
ADOLPH. So now you are getting fond of real male men also, and at the
same time you have a taste for chaste young men?
TEKLA. There are no limits to what I can like, as you may see. My heart
is open to everybody and everything, to the big and the small, the
handsome and the ugly, the new and the old--I love the whole world.
ADOLPH. Do you know what that means?
TEKLA. No, I don't know anything at all. I just FEEL.
ADOLPH. It means that old age is near.
TEKLA. There you are again! Take care!
ADOLPH. Take care yourself!
TEKLA. Of what?
ADOLPH. Of the knife!
TEKLA. [Prattling] Little brother had better not play with such
dangerous things.
ADOLPH. I have quit playing.
TEKLA. Oh, it's earnest, is it? Dead earnest! Then I'll show you
that--you are mistaken. That is to say--you'll never see it, never know
it, but all the rest of the world will know It. And you'll suspect it,
you'll believe it, and you'll never have another moment's peace. You'll
have the feeling of being ridiculous, of being deceived, but you'll
never get any proof of it. For that's what married men never get.
ADOLPH. You hate me then?
TEKLA. No, I don't. And I don't think I shall either. But that's
probably because you are nothing to me but a child.
ADOLPH. At this moment, yes. But do you remember how it was while the
storm swept over us? Then you lay there like an infant in arms and just
cried. Then you had to sit on my lap, and I had to kiss your eyes to
sleep. Then I had to be your nurse; had to see that you fixed your hair
before going out; had to send your shoes to the cobbler, and see that
there was food in the house. I had to sit by your side, holding your
hand for hours at a time: you were afraid, afraid of the whole world,
because you didn't have a single friend, and because you were crushed by
the hostility of public opinion. I had to talk courage into you until my
mouth was dry and my head ached. I had to make myself believe that I
was strong. I had to force myself into believing in the future. And so I
brought you back to life, when you seemed already dead. Then you admired
me. Then I was the man--not that kind of athlete you had just left, but
the man of will-power, the mesmerist who instilled new nervous energy
into your flabby muscles and charged your empty brain with a new store
of electricity. And then I gave you back your reputation. I brought you
new friends, furnished you with a little court of people who, for the
sake of friendship to me, let themselves be lured into admiring you.
I set you to rule me and my house. Then I painted my best pictures,
glimmering with reds and blues on backgrounds of gold, and there was not
an exhibition then where I didn't hold a place of honour. Sometimes you
were St. Cecilia, and sometimes Mary Stuart--or little Karin, whom King
Eric loved. And I turned public attention in your direction. I compelled
the clamorous herd to see you with my own infatuated vision. I plagued
them with your personality, forced you literally down their throats,
until that sympathy which makes everything possible became yours at
last--and you could stand on your own feet. When you reached that far,
then my strength was used up, and I collapsed from the overstrain--in
lifting you up, I had pushed myself down. I was taken ill, and my
illness seemed an annoyance to you at the moment when all life had just
begun to smile at you--and sometimes it seemed to me as if, in your
heart, there was a secret desire to get rid of your creditor and the
witness of your rise. Your love began to change into that of a grown-up
sister, and for lack of better I accustomed myself to the new part of
little brother. Your tenderness for me remained, and even increased, but
it was mingled with a suggestion of pity that had in it a good deal of
contempt. And this changed into open scorn as my talent withered and
your own sun rose higher. But in some mysterious way the fountainhead
of your inspiration seemed to dry up when I could no longer replenish
it--or rather when you wanted to show its independence of me. And at
last both of us began to lose ground. And then you looked for somebody
to put the blame on. A new victim! For you are weak, and you can never
carry your own burdens of guilt and debt. And so you picked me for a
scapegoat and doomed me to slaughter. But when you cut my thews, you
didn't realise that you were also crippling yourself, for by this time
our years of common life had made twins of us. You were a shoot sprung
from my stem, and you wanted to cut yourself loose before the shoot had
put out roots of its own, and that's why you couldn't grow by yourself.
And my stem could not spare its main branch--and so stem and branch must
die together.
TEKLA. What you mean with all this, of course, is that you have written
my books.
ADOLPH. No, that's what you want me to mean in order to make me out
a liar. I don't use such crude expressions as you do, and I spoke
for something like five minutes to get in all the nuances, all the
halftones, all the transitions--but your hand-organ has only a single
note in it.
TEKLA. Yes, but the summary of the whole story is that you have written
my books.
ADOLPH. No, there is no summary. You cannot reduce a chord into a single
note. You cannot translate a varied life into a sum of one figure. I
have made no blunt statements like that of having written your books.
TEKLA. But that's what you meant!
ADOLPH. [Beyond himself] I did not mean it.