(A simply furnished room in a farmhouse. The door and the windows in the
background open on a landscape. In the middle of the room stands a
big dining-table, covered at one end by books, writing materials,
and antiquities; at the other end, by a microscope, insect cases, and
specimen jars full of alchohol.)
(On the left side hangs a bookshelf. Otherwise the furniture is that of
a well-to-do farmer.)
(MR. Y. enters in his shirt-sleeves, carrying a butterfly-net and a
botany-can. He goes straight up to the bookshelf and takes down a book,
which he begins to read on the spot.)
(The landscape outside and the room itself are steeped in sunlight. The
ringing of church bells indicates that the morning services are just
over. Now and then the cackling of hens is heard from the outside.)
(MR. X. enters, also in his shirt-sleeves.)
(MR. Y. starts violently, puts the book back on the shelf upside-down,
and pretends to be looking for another volume.)
MR. X. This heat is horrible. I guess we are going to have a
thunderstorm.
MR. Y. What makes you think so?
MR. X. The bells have a kind of dry ring to them, the flies are sticky,
and the hens cackle. I meant to go fishing, but I couldn't find any
worms. Don't you feel nervous?
MR. Y. [Cautiously] I?--A little.
MR. X. Well, for that matter, you always look as if you were expecting
thunderstorms.
MR. Y. [With a start] Do I?
MR. X. Now, you are going away tomorrow, of course, so it is not to be
wondered at that you are a little "journey-proud."--Anything new?--Oh,
there's the mail! [Picks up some letters from the table] My, I have
palpitation of the heart every time I open a letter! Nothing but debts,
debts, debts! Have you ever had any debts?
MR. Y. [After some reflection] N-no.
MR. X. Well, then you don't know what it means to receive a lot of
overdue bills. [Reads one of the letters] The rent unpaid--the landlord
acting nasty--my wife in despair. And here am I sitting waist-high in
gold! [He opens an iron-banded box that stands on the table; then both
sit down at the table, facing each other] Just look--here I have
six thousand crowns' worth of gold which I have dug up in the last
fortnight. This bracelet alone would bring me the three hundred and
fifty crowns I need. And with all of it I might make a fine career for
myself. Then I could get the illustrations made for my treatise at once;
I could get my work printed, and--I could travel! Why don't I do it, do
you suppose?
MR. Y. I suppose you are afraid to be found out.
MR. X. That, too, perhaps. But don't you think an intelligent fellow
like myself might fix matters so that he was never found out? I am alone
all the time--with nobody watching me--while I am digging out there in
the fields. It wouldn't be strange if I put something in my own pockets
now and then.
MR. Y. Yes, but the worst danger lies in disposing of the stuff.
MR. X. Pooh! I'd melt it down, of course--every bit of it--and then I'd
turn it into coins--with just as much gold in them as genuine ones, of
course---
MR. Y. Of course!
MR. X. Well, you can easily see why. For if I wanted to dabble in
counterfeits, then I need not go digging for gold first. [Pause] It is a
strange thing anyhow, that if anybody else did what I cannot make myself
do, then I'd be willing to acquit him--but I couldn't possibly acquit
myself. I might even make a brilliant speech in defence of the thief,
proving that this gold was res nullius, or nobody's, as it had been
deposited at a time when property rights did not yet exist; that even
under existing rights it could belong only to the first finder of it, as
the ground-owner has never included it in the valuation of his property;
and so on.
MR. Y. And probably it would be much easier for you to do this if
the--hm!--the thief had not been prompted by actual need, but by a
mania for collecting, for instance--or by scientific aspirations--by the
ambition to keep a discovery to himself. Don't you think so?
MR. X. You mean that I could not acquit him if actual need had been the
motive? Yes, for that's the only motive which the law will not accept in
extenuation. That motive makes a plain theft of it.
MR. Y. And this you couldn't excuse?
MR. X. Oh, excuse--no, I guess not, as the law wouldn't. On the other
hand, I must admit that it would be hard for me to charge a collector
with theft merely because he had appropriated some specimen not yet
represented in his own collection.
MR. Y. So that vanity or ambition might excuse what could not be excused
by need?
MR. X. And yet need ought to be the more telling excuse--the only
one, in fact? But I feel as I have said. And I can no more change this
feeling than I can change my own determination not to steal under any
circumstances whatever.
MR. Y. And I suppose you count it a great merit that you
cannot--hm!--steal?
MR. X. No, my disinclination to steal is just as irresistible as the
inclination to do so is irresistible with some people. So it cannot be
called a merit. I cannot do it, and the other one cannot refrain!--But
you understand, of course, that I am not without a desire to own this
gold. Why don't I take it then? Because I cannot! It's an inability--and
the lack of something cannot be called a merit. There!
[Closes the box with a slam. Stray clouds have cast their shadows on the
landscape and darkened the room now and then. Now it grows quite dark as
when a thunderstorm is approaching.]
MR. X. How close the air is! I guess the storm is coming all right.
[MR. Y. gets up and shuts the door and all the windows.]
MR. X. Are you afraid of thunder?
MR. Y. It's just as well to be careful.
(They resume their seats at the table.)
MR. X. You're a curious chap! Here you come dropping down like a bomb
a fortnight ago, introducing yourself as a Swedish-American who is
collecting flies for a small museum---
MR. Y. Oh, never mind me now!
MR. X. That's what you always say when I grow tired of talking about
myself and want to turn my attention to you. Perhaps that was the reason
why I took to you as I did--because you let me talk about myself? All at
once we seemed like old friends. There were no angles about you against
which I could bump myself, no pins that pricked. There was something
soft about your whole person, and you overflowed with that tact which
only well-educated people know how to show. You never made a noise when
you came home late at night or got up early in the morning. You were
patient in small things, and you gave in whenever a conflict seemed
threatening. In a word, you proved yourself the perfect companion! But
you were entirely too compliant not to set me wondering about you in the
long run--and you are too timid, too easily frightened. It seems almost
as if you were made up of two different personalities. Why, as I sit
here looking at your back in the mirror over there--it is as if I were
looking at somebody else.
(MR. Y. turns around and stares at the mirror.)
MR. X. No, you cannot get a glimpse of your own back, man!--In front you
appear like a fearless sort of fellow, one meeting his fate with bared
breast, but from behind--really, I don't want to be impolite, but--you
look as if you were carrying a burden, or as if you were crouching to
escape a raised stick. And when I look at that red cross your suspenders
make on your white shirt--well, it looks to me like some kind of emblem,
like a trade-mark on a packing-box--