Chapter XVI: Part 16

THEKLA. Won't he just come here and let himself be teased by his little woman, because he's jealous--no, envious is the right word.

[_Two knocks with a chair are heard from the room on the right._]

ADOLF. No, I don't want to fool about, I want to speak seriously.

THEKLA [_as though speaking to a child_]. Good Lord! he wants to speak seriously. Upon my word! Has the man become serious for once in his life? [_Comes on his left, takes hold of his head and kisses him._] Won't he laugh now a little?

[_Adolf laughs._]

THEKLA. There, there!

ADOLF [_laughs involuntarily_]. You damned witch, you! I really believe you can bewitch people.

THEKLA [_comes in front of the sofa_]. He can see for himself, and that's why he mustn't worry me, otherwise I shall certainly bewitch him.

ADOLF [_springs up_]. Thekla! Sit for me a minute in profile, and I'll do the face for your figure.

THEKLA. With pleasure.

[_She turns her profile toward him._]

ADOLF [_sits down, fixes her with his eyes and acts as though he were modeling_]. Now, don't think of me, think of somebody else.

THEKLA. I'll think of my last conquest.

ADOLF. The pure youth?

THEKLA. Quite right. He had the duckiest, sweetest little mustache, and cheeks like cherries, so delicate and soft, one could have bitten right into them.

ADOLF [_depressed_]. Just keep that twist in your mouth.

THEKLA. What twist?

ADOLF. That cynical insolent twist which I've never seen before.

THEKLA [_makes a grimace_]. Like that?

ADOLF. Quite. [_He gets up._] Do you know how Bret Harte describes the adulteress?

THEKLA [_laughs_]. No, I've never read that Bret What-do-you-call-him.

ADOLF. Oh! she's a pale woman who never blushes.

THEKLA. Never? Oh yes, she does; oh yes, she does. Perhaps when she meets her lover, even though her husband and Mr. Bret didn't manage to see anything of it.

ADOLF. Are you so certain about it?

THEKLA [_as before_]. Absolutely. If the man isn't able to drive her very blood to her head, how can he possibly enjoy the pretty spectacle?

[_She passes by him toward the right._]

ADOLF [_raving_]. Thekla! Thekla!

THEKLA. Little fool!

ADOLF [_sternly_]. Thekla!

THEKLA. Let him call me his own dear little sweetheart, and I'll get red all over before him, shall I?

ADOLF [_disarmed_]. I'm so angry with you, you monster, that I should like to bite you.

THEKLA [_playing with him_]. Well, come and bite me; come.

[_She holds out her arms towards him._]

ADOLF [_takes her by the neck and kisses her_]. Yes, my dear, I'll bite you so that you die.

THEKLA [_joking_]. Look out, somebody might come.

[_She goes to the fireplace on the right and leans on the
chimneypiece._]

ADOLF. Oh, what do I care if they do. I don't care about anything in the whole world so long as I have you.

THEKLA. And if you don't have me any more?

ADOLF [_sinks down on the chair on the left in front of the circular table_]. Then I die!

THEKLA. All right, you needn't be frightened of that the least bit; I'm already much too old, you see, for anybody to like me.

ADOLF. You haven't forgotten those words of mine?--I take them back.

THEKLA. Can you explain to me why it is that you're so jealous, and at the same time so sure of yourself?

ADOLF. No, I can't explain it, but it may be that the thought that another man has possessed you, gnaws and consumes me. It seems to me at times as though our whole love were a figment of the brain--a passion that had turned into a formal matter of honor. I know nothing which would be more intolerable for me to bear, than for him to have the satisfaction of making me unhappy. Ah, I've never seen him, but the very thought that there is such a man who watches in secret for my unhappiness, who conjures down on me the curse of heaven day by day, who would laugh and gloat over my fall--the very idea of the thing lies like a nightmare on my breast, drives me to you, holds me spellbound, cripples me.

THEKLA [_goes behind the circular table and comes on Adolf's right_]. Do you think I should like to give him that satisfaction, that I should like to make his prophecy come true?

ADOLF. No, I won't believe that of you.

THEKLA. Then if that's so, why aren't you easy on the subject?

ADOLF. It's your flirtations which keep me in a chronic state of agitation. Why do you go on playing that game?

THEKLA. It's no game. I want to be liked, that's all.

ADOLF. Quite so; but only liked by men.

THEKLA. Of course. Do you suggest it would be possible for one of us women to get herself liked by other women?

ADOLF. I say. [_Pause._] Haven't you heard recently--from him?

THEKLA. Not for the last six months.

ADOLF. Do you never think of him?

THEKLA [_after a pause, quickly and tonelessly_]. No. [_With a step toward the left._] Since the death of the child there is no longer any tie between us. [_Pause._]

ADOLF. And you never see him in the street?

THEKLA. No; he must have buried himself somewhere on the west coast. But why do you harp on that subject just now?

ADOLF. I don't know. When I was so alone these last few days, it just occurred to me what he must have felt like when he was left stranded.

THEKLA. I believe you've got pangs of conscience.

ADOLF. Yes.

THEKLA. You think you're a thief, don't you?

ADOLF. Pretty near.

THEKLA. All right. You steal women like you steal children or fowl. You regard me to some extent like his real or personal property. Much obliged.

ADOLF. No; I regard you as his wife, and that's more than property: it can't be made up in damages.

THEKLA. Oh yes, it can. If you happen to hear one fine day that he has married again, these whims and fancies of yours will disappear. [_She comes over to him._] Haven't you made up for him to me?

ADOLF. Have I?--and did you use to love him in those days?

THEKLA [_goes behind him to the fireplace on the right_]. Of course I loved him--certainly.

ADOLF. And afterwards?

THEKLA. I got tired of him.

ADOLF. And just think, if you get tired of me in the same way?

THEKLA. That will never be.

ADOLF. But suppose another man came along with all the qualities that you want in a man? Assume the hypothesis, wouldn't you leave me in that case?

THEKLA. No.

ADOLF. If he riveted you to him so strongly that you couldn't be parted from him, then of course you'd give me up?

THEKLA. No; I have never yet said anything like that.

ADOLF. But you can't love two people at the same time?

THEKLA. Oh yes. Why not?

ADOLF. I can't understand it.

THEKLA. Is anything then impossible simply because you can't understand it? All men are not made on the same lines, you know.

ADOLF [_getting up a few steps to the left_]. I am now beginning to understand.

THEKLA. No, really?

ADOLF [_sits down in his previous place by the square table_]. No, really? [_Pause, during which he appears to be making an effort to remember something, but without success._] Thekla, do you know that your frankness is beginning to be positively agonizing? [_Thekla moves away from him behind the square table and goes behind the sofa on the left._] Haven't you told me, times out of number, that frankness is the most beautiful virtue you know, and that I must spend all my time in acquiring it? But it seems to me you take cover behind your frankness.

THEKLA. Those are the new tactics, don't you see.

ADOLF [_after a pause_]. I don't know how it is, but this place begins to feel uncanny. If you don't mind, we'll travel home this very night.

THEKLA. What an idea you've got into your head again. I've just arrived, and I've no wish to travel off again.

[_She sits down on the sofa on the left._]

ADOLF. But if I want it?

THEKLA. Nonsense! What do I care what you want? Travel alone.

ADOLF [_seriously_]. I now order you to travel with me by the next steamer.

THEKLA. Order? What do you mean by that?

ADOLF. Do you forget that you're my wife?

THEKLA [_getting up_]. Do you forget that you're my husband?

ADOLF [_following her example_]. That's just the difference between one sex and the other.

THEKLA. That's right, speak in that tone--you have never loved me.

[_She goes past him to the right up to the fireplace._]

ADOLF. Really?

THEKLA. No, for loving means giving.

ADOLF. For a man to love means giving, for a woman to love means taking--and I've given, given, given.

THEKLA. Oh, to be sure, you've given a fine lot, haven't you?

ADOLF. Everything.

THEKLA [_leans on the chimneypiece_]. There has been a great deal besides that. And even if you did give me everything, I accepted it. What do you mean by coming now and handing the bill for your presents? If I did take them, I proved to you by that very fact that I loved you. [_She approaches him._] A girl only takes presents from her lover.

ADOLF. From her lover, I agree. There you spoke the truth. [_With a step to the left._] I was just your lover, but never your husband.

THEKLA. A man ought to be jolly grateful when he's spared the necessity of playing cover, but if you aren't satisfied with the position you can have your _conge_. I don't like a husband.

ADOLF. No, I noticed as much, for when I remarked, some time back, that you wanted to sneak away from me, and get a set of your own, so as to be able to deck yourself out with my feathers, to scintillate with my jewels, I wanted to remind you of your guilt. And then I changed from your point of view into that inconvenient creditor, whom a woman would particularly prefer to keep at a safe distance from one, and then you would have liked to have canceled the debt, and to avoid getting any more into my debt; you ceased to pilfer my coffers and transferred your attention to others. I was your husband without having wished it, and your hate began to arise; but now I'm going to be your husband, whether you want it or not. I can't be your lover any more, that's certain!

[_He sits down in his previous place on the right._]

THEKLA [_half joking, she moves away behind the table and goes behind the sofa_]. Don't talk such nonsense.

ADOLF. You be careful! It's a dangerous game, to consider every one else an ass and only oneself smart.

THEKLA. Everybody does that more or less.

ADOLF. And I'm just beginning to suspect that that husband of yours wasn't such an ass after all.

THEKLA. Good God! I really believe you're beginning to have sympathy--for him?

ADOLF. Yes, almost.

THEKLA. Well, look here. Wouldn't you like to make his acquaintance, so as to pour out your heart to him if you want to? What a charming picture! But I, too, begin to feel myself drawn to him somehow. I'm tired of being the nurse of a baby like you. [_She goes a few steps forward and passes by Adolf on the right._] He at any rate was a man, even though he did make the mistake of being my husband.

ADOLF. Hush, hush! But don't talk so loud, we might be heard.

THEKLA. What does it matter, so long as we're taken for man and wife.

ADOLF. So this is what it comes to then? You are now beginning to be keen both on manly men and pure boys.

THEKLA. There are no limits to my keenness, as you see. And my heart is open to the whole world, great and small, beautiful and ugly. I love the whole world.

ADOLF [_standing up_]. Do you know what that means?

THEKLA. No, I don't know, I only feel.

ADOLF. It means that old age has arrived.

THEKLA. Are you starting on that again now? Take care!

ADOLF. You take care!

THEKLA. What of?

ADOLF. Of this knife.

[_Goes towards her._]

THEKLA [_flippantly_]. Little brother shouldn't play with such dangerous toys.

[_She passes by him behind the sofa._]

ADOLF. I'm not playing any longer.

THEKLA [_leaning on the arm of the sofa_]. Really, he's serious, is he, quite serious? Then I'll jolly well show you--that you made a mistake. I mean--you'll never see it yourself, you'll never know it. The whole world will be up to it, but you jolly well won't, you'll have suspicions and surmises and you won't enjoy a single hour of peace. You will have the consciousness of being ridiculous and of being deceived, but you'll never have proofs in your hand, because a husband never manages to get them. [_She makes a few steps to the right in front of him and toward him._] That will teach you to know me.

ADOLF [_sits down in his previous place by the table on the left_]. You hate me.

THEKLA. No, I don't hate you, nor do I think that I could ever get to hate you. Simply because you're a child.

ADOLF. Listen to me! Just think of the time when the storm broke over us. [_Standing up._] You lay there like a new-born child and shrieked; you caught hold of my knees and I had to kiss your eyes to sleep. Then I was your nurse, and I had to be careful that you didn't go out into the street without doing your hair. I had to send your boots to the shoe-maker. I had to take care there was something in the larder. I had to sit by your side and hold your hand in mine by the hour, for you were frightened, frightened of the whole world, deserted by your friends, crushed by public opinion. I had to cheer you up till my tongue stuck to my palate and my head ached; I had to pose as a strong man, and compel myself to believe in the future, until at length I succeeded in breathing life into you while you lay there like the dead. Then it was I you admired, then it was I who was the man; not the athlete like the man you deserted, but the man of psychic strength, the man of magnetism, who transferred his moral force into your enervated muscles and filled your empty brain with new electricity. And then I put you on your feet again, got a small court for you, whom I jockeyed into admiring you, as a sheer matter of friendship to myself, and I made you mistress over me and my home. I painted you in my finest pictures, in rose and azure on a ground of gold, and there was no exhibition in which you didn't have the place of honor. At one moment you were called St. Cecelia, then you were Mary Stuart, Karm Mansdotter, Ebba Brahe, and so I succeeded in awakening and stimulating your interests and so I compelled the yelping rabble to look at you with my own dazzled eyes. I impressed your personality on them by sheer force. I compelled them until you had won their overwhelming sympathy--so that at last you have the free _entree_. And when I had created you in this way it was all up with my own strength--I broke down, exhausted by the strain. [_He sits down in his previous place. Thekla turns toward the fireplace on the right._] I had lifted you up, but at the same time I brought myself down; I fell ill; and my illness began to bore you, just because things were beginning to look a bit rosy for you--and then it seemed to me many times as though some secret desire were driving you to get away from your creditor and accomplice. Your love became that of a superior sister, and through want of a better part I fell into the habit of the new role of the little brother. Your tenderness remained the same as ever, in fact it has rather increased, but it is tinged with a grain of pity which is counterbalanced by a strong dose of contempt, and that will increase until it becomes complete, even as my genius is on the wane and your star is in the ascendant. It seems, too, as though your source were likely to dry up, when I leave off feeding it, or, rather, as soon as you show that you don't want to draw your inspiration from me any longer. And so we both go down, but you need somebody you can put in your pocket, somebody new, for you are weak and incapable of carrying any moral burden yourself. So I became the scapegoat to be slaughtered alive, but all the same we had become like twins in the course of years, and when you cut through the thread of my longing, you little thought that you were throttling our own self. You are a branch from my tree, and you wanted to cut yourself free from your parent stem before it had struck roots, but you are unable to flourish on your own, and the tree in its turn couldn't do without its chief branch, and so both perish.

THEKLA. Do you mean, by all that, that you've written my books?

ADOLF. No; you say that so as to provoke me into a lie. I don't express myself so crudely as you, and I've just spoken for five minutes on end simply so as to reproduce all the nuances, all the half-tones, all the transitions, but your barrel organ has only one key.

THEKLA [_walking up and down on the right_]. Yes, yes; but the gist of the whole thing is that you've written my books.

ADOLF. No, there's no gist. You can't resolve a symphony into one key; you can't translate a multifarious life into a single cipher. I never said anything so crass as that I'd written your books.

THEKLA. But you meant it all the same.

ADOLF [_furious_]. I never meant it.

THEKLA. But the result--

ADOLF [_wildly_]. There's no result if one doesn't add. There is a quotient, a long infinitesimal figure of a quotient, but I didn't add.

THEKLA. You didn't, but I can.

ADOLF. I quite believe you, but I never did.

THEKLA. But you wanted to.

ADOLF [_exhausted, shutting his eyes_]. No, no, no--don't speak to me any more, I'm getting convulsions--be quiet, go away! You're flaying my brain with your brutal pinchers--you're thrusting your claws into my thoughts and tearing them.

[_He loses consciousness, stares in front of him and turns his
thumbs inwards._]

THEKLA [_tenderly coming towards him_]. What is it, dear? Are you ill? [_Adolf beats around him. Thekla takes her handkerchief, pours water on to it out of the bottle on the table right of the center door, and cools his forehead with it._] Adolf!

ADOLF [_he shakes his head_]. Yes.

THEKLA. Do you see now that you were wrong?

ADOLF [_after a pause_]. Yes, yes, yes--I see it.

THEKLA. And you ask me to forgive you?

ADOLF. Yes, yes, yes--I ask you to forgive me; but don't talk right into my brain any more.

THEKLA. Now kiss my hand.

ADOLF. I'll kiss your hand, if only you won't speak to me any more.

THEKLA. And now you'll go out and get some fresh air before dinner.

ADOLF [_getting up_]. Yes, that will do me good, and afterwards we'll pack up and go away.

THEKLA. No.

[_She moves away from him up to the fireplace on the right._]

ADOLF. Why not? You must have some reason.

THEKLA. The simple reason that I've arranged to be at the reception this evening.

ADOLF. That's it, is it?

THEKLA. That's it right enough. I've promised to be there.

ADOLF. Promised? You probably said that you'd try to come; it doesn't prevent you from explaining that you have given up your intention.

THEKLA. No, I'm not like you: my word is binding on me.

ADOLF. One's word can be binding without one being obliged to respect every casual thing one lets fall in conversation; or did somebody make you promise that you'd go? In that case, you can ask him to release you because your husband is ill.

THEKLA. No, I've no inclination to do so. And, besides, you're not so ill that you can't quite well come along too.

ADOLF. Why must I always come along too? Does it contribute to your greater serenity?

THEKLA. I don't understand what you mean.

ADOLF. That's what you always say when you know I mean something which you don't like.

THEKLA. Re-a-lly? And why shouldn't I like it?

ADOLF. Stop! stop! Don't start all over again--good-by for the present--I'll be back soon; I hope that in the meanwhile you'll have thought better of it.

[_Exit through the central door and then toward the right. Thekla
accompanies him to the back of the stage. Gustav enters, after a
pause, from the right._]

SCENE III.

[_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._]

SCENE IV.

[_The previous characters; the Two Ladies._]

[_The ladies appear surprised, point, laugh, and exeunt on the
left._]

SCENE V.

THEKLA [_disengaging herself_]. Who was that?

GUSTAV [_casually, while he closes the central door_]. Oh, some visitors who were passing through.

THEKLA. Go away! I'm afraid of you.

[_She goes behind the sofa on the left._]

GUSTAV. Why?

THEKLA. You've robbed me of my soul.

GUSTAV [_comes forward_]. And I give you mine in exchange for it. Besides, you haven't got any soul at all. It's only an optical illusion.

THEKLA. You've got a knack of being rude in such a way that one can't be angry with you.

GUSTAV. That's because you know very well that I am designated for the place of honor--tell me now when--and where?

THEKLA [_coming toward him_]. No. I can't hurt him by doing a thing like that. I'm sure he still loves me, and I don't want to wound him a second time.

GUSTAV. He doesn't love you. Do you want to have proofs?

THEKLA. How can you give me them?

GUSTAV [_takes up from the floor the fragments of photograph behind the circular table on the right_]. Here, look at yourself!

[_He gives them to her._]

THEKLA. Oh, that is shameful!

GUSTAV. There, you can see for yourself--well, when and where?

THEKLA. The false brute!

GUSTAV. When?

THEKLA. He goes away to-night by the eight-o'clock boat.

GUSTAV. Then--

THEKLA. At nine. [_A noise in the room on the right._] Who's in there making such a noise?

GUSTAV [_goes to the right at the keyhole_]. Let's have a look--the fancy table has been upset and there's a broken water-bottle on the floor, that's all. Perhaps some one has shut a dog up there. [_He goes again toward her._] Nine o'clock, then?

THEKLA. Right you are. I should only like him to see the fun--such a piece of deceit, and what's more, from a man that's always preaching truthfulness, who's always drilling into me to speak the truth. But stop--how did it all happen? He received me in almost an unfriendly manner--didn't come to the pier to meet me--then he let fall a remark over the pure boy on the steam-boat, which I pretended not to understand. But how could he know anything about it? Wait a moment. Then he began to philosophize about women--then you began to haunt his brain--then he spoke about wanting to be a sculptor, because sculpture was the art of the present day--just like you used to thunder in the old days.

GUSTAV. No, really?

[_Thekla moves away from Gustav behind the sofa on the left._]

THEKLA. "No, really?" Now I understand. [_To Gustav._] Now at last I see perfectly well what a miserable scoundrel you are. You've been with him and have scratched his heart out of his body. It's you--you who've been sitting here on the sofa. It was you who've been suggesting all these ideas to him: that he was suffering from epilepsy, that he should live a celibate life, that he should pit himself against his wife and try to play her master. How long have you been here?

GUSTAV. Eight days.

THEKLA. You were the man, then, I saw on the steamer?

GUSTAV [_frankly_]. It was I.

THEKLA. And did you really think that I'd fall in with your little game?

GUSTAV [_firmly_]. You've already done it.

THEKLA. Not yet.

GUSTAV [_firmly_]. Yes, you have.

THEKLA [_comes forward_]. You've stalked my lamb like a wolf. You came here with a scoundrelly plan of smashing up my happiness and you've been trying to carry it through until I realize what you were up to and put a spoke in your precious wheel.

GUSTAV [_vigorously_]. That's not quite accurate. The thing took quite another course. That I should have wished in my heart of hearts that things should go badly with you is only natural. Yet I was more or less convinced that it would not be necessary for me to cut in actively; because, I had far too much other business to have time for intrigues. But just now, when I was loafing about a bit, and happened to run across you on the steamer with your circle of young men, I thought that the time had come to get to slightly closer quarters with you two. I came here and that lamb of yours threw himself immediately into the wolf's arms. I aroused his sympathy by methods of reflex suggestion, into details of which, as a matter of good form, I'd rather not go. At first I experienced a certain pity for him, because he was in the very condition in which I had once found myself. Then, as luck would have it, he began unwittingly to probe about in my old wound--you know what I mean--the book--and the ass--then I was overwhelmed by a desire to pluck him to pieces and to mess up the fragments in such a tangle that they could never be put together again. Thanks to the conscientious way in which you have cleared the ground, I succeeded only too easily, and then I had to deal with you. You were the spring in the works that had to be taken to pieces. And, that done, the game was to listen for the smash-up. When I came into this room I had no idea what I was to say. I had a lot of plans in my head, like a chess player, but the character of the opening depended on the moves you made; one move led to another, chance was kind to me. I soon had you on toast--and now you're in a nice mess.

THEKLA. Nonsense.

GUSTAV. Oh yes; what you'd have prayed your stars to avoid has happened: society, in the persons of two lady visitors--I didn't commandeer their appearance because intrigue is not in my line--society, I say, has seen your pathetic reconciliation with your first husband, and the penitent way in which you crawled back into his faithful arms. Isn't that enough?

THEKLA [_she goes over to him toward the right_]. Tell me--you who make such a point of being so logical and so intellectual--how does it come about that you, who make such a point of your maxim that everything which happens happens as a matter of necessity, and that all our actions are determined--

GUSTAV [_corrects her_]. Determined up to a certain extent.

THEKLA. It comes to the same thing.

GUSTAV. No.

THEKLA. How does it come about that you, who are bound to regard me as an innocent person, inasmuch as nature and circumstances have driven me to act as I did, could regard yourself as justified in revenging yourself on me.

GUSTAV. Well, the same principle applies, you see--that is to say, the principle that my temperament and circumstances drove me to revenge myself. Isn't it a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other? But do you know why you've got the worst of it in this struggle? [_Thekla looks contemptuous._] Why you and that husband of yours managed to get downed? I'll tell you. Because I was stronger than you, and smarter. It was you, my dear, who was a donkey--and he as well! So you see that one isn't necessarily bound to be quite an ass even though one doesn't write any novels or paint any pictures. Just remember that!

[_He turns away from her to the left._]

THEKLA. Haven't you got a grain of feeling left?

GUSTAV. Not a grain--that's why, don't you know, I'm so good at thinking, as you are perhaps able to see by the slight proofs which I've given you, and can play the practical man equally well, and I've just given you something of a sample of what I can do in that line.

[_He strides round the table and sofa on the left and turns again to
her._]

THEKLA. And all this simply because I wounded your vanity?

GUSTAV [_on her left_]. Not that only, but you be jolly careful in the future of wounding other people's vanity--it's the most sensitive part of a man.

THEKLA. What a vindictive wretch! Ugh!

GUSTAV. What a promiscuous wretch. Ugh!

THEKLA. Do you mean that's my temperament?

GUSTAV. Do you mean that's my temperament?

THEKLA [_goes over toward him to the left_]. You wouldn't like to forgive me?

GUSTAV. Certainly, I have forgiven you.

THEKLA. You?

GUSTAV. Quite. Have I ever raised my hand against you two in all these years? No. But when I happened to be here I favored you two with scarce a look and the cleavage between you is already there. Did I ever reproach you, moralize, lecture? No. I joked a little with your husband and the accumulated dynamite in him just happened to go off, but I, who am defending myself like this, am the one who's really entitled to stand here and complain. Thekla, have you nothing to reproach yourself with?

THEKLA. Not the least bit--the Christians say it's Providence that guides our actions, others call it Fate, aren't we quite guiltless?

GUSTAV. No doubt we are to a certain extent. But an infinitesimal something remains, and that contains the guilt, all the same, and the creditors turn up sooner or later! Men and women may be guiltless, but they have to render an account. Guiltless before Him in whom neither of us believes any more, responsible to themselves and to their fellow-men.

THEKLA. You've come, then, to warn me?

GUSTAV. I've come to demand back what you stole from me, not what you had as a present. You stole my honor, and I could only win back mine by taking yours--wasn't I right?

THEKLA [_after a pause, going over to him on the right_]. Honor! Hm! And are you satisfied now?

GUSTAV [_after a pause_]. I am satisfied now.

[_He presses the bell by the door L. for the Waiter._]

THEKLA [_after another pause_]. And now you're going to your bride, Gustav?

GUSTAV. I have none--and shall never have one. I am not going home because I have no home, and shall never have one.

[_Waiter comes in on the lef._]

SCENE VI.

[_Previous characters--Waiter standing back._]

GUSTAV. Bring me the bill--I'm leaving by the twelve-o'clock boat.

[_Waiter bows and exit left._]

SCENE VII.

THEKLA. Without a reconciliation?

GUSTAV [_on her left_]. Reconciliation? You play about with so many words that they've quite lost their meaning. We reconcile ourselves? Perhaps we are to live in a trinity, are we? The way for you to effect a reconciliation is to put matters straight. You can't do that alone. You have not only taken something, but you have destroyed what you took, and you can never put it back. Would you be satisfied if I were to say to you: "Forgive me because you mangled my heart with your claws; forgive me for the dishonor you brought upon me; forgive me for being seven years on end the laughing-stock of my pupils, forgive me for freeing you from the control of your parents; for releasing you from the tyranny of ignorance and superstition; for making you mistress over my house; for giving you a position and friends, I, the man who made you into a woman out of the child you were? Forgive me like I forgive you? Anyway, I now regard my account with you as squared. You go and settle up your accounts with the other man.

THEKLA. Where is he? What have you done with him? I've just got a suspicion--a--something dreadful!

GUSTAV. Done with him? Do you still love him?

THEKLA [_goes over to him toward the left_]. Yes.

GUSTAV. And a minute ago you loved me? Is that really so?

THEKLA. It is.

GUSTAV. Do you know what you are, then?

THEKLA. You despise me?

GUSTAV. No, I pity you. It's a characteristic--I don't say a defect, but certainly a characteristic--that is very fatal, by reason of its results. Poor Thekla! I don't know--but I almost think that I'm sorry for it, although I'm quite innocent--like you. But anyway it's perhaps all for the best that you've now got to feel what I felt then. Do you know where your husband is?

THEKLA. I think I know now. [_She points to the right._] He's in your room just here. He has heard everything, seen everything, and you know they say that he who looks upon his vampire dies.

SCENE VIII.

[_Adolf appears on the right, deadly pale, a streak of blood on
his left cheek, a fixed expression in his eyes, white foam on his
mouth._]

GUSTAV [_moves back_]. No, here he is--settle with him now! See if he'll be as generous to you as I was. Good-by.

[_He turns to the left, stops after a few steps, and remains
standing._]

THEKLA [_goes toward Adolf with outstretched arms_]. Adolf! [_Adolf sinks down in his chair by the table on the left. Thekla throws herself over him and caresses him._] Adolf! My darling child, are you alive? Speak! Speak! Forgive your wicked Thekla! Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive me! Little brother must answer. Does he hear? My God, he doesn't hear me! He's dead! Good God! O my God! Help! Help us!

GUSTAV. Quite true, she loves him as well--poor creature!

[_Curtain._]

AUTUMN FIRES

A COMEDY

BY GUSTAV WIED
TRANSLATED BY BENJAMIN F. GLAZER.

Copyright, 1920, by Benjamin F. Glazer.
All rights reserved.

PERSONS

HELMS, }
KRAKAU, }
HANSEN, }
JOHNSTON, } [_Old Men, inmates of an old men's home_].
HAMMER, }
BUFFE, }
BOLLING, }
KNUT [_An eighteen-year-old boy_].

The professional and amateur stage rights are reserved by the
translator, Mr. Benjamin F. Glazer, Editorial Department, _The Press_,
Philadelphia, Pa., to whom all requests for permission to produce the
play should be made.

AUTUMN FIRES

A COMEDY IN ONE ACT BY GUSTAV WIED

[_The room of Helms and Krakau in the Old Men's Home. The time
is afternoon of a late September day. There is a window at right
looking out on the street and another at left overlooking a
courtyard. There is a single door back center which opens into a
corridor on both sides of which are similar doors in long regular
rows and at the end of which is a stairway from the lower floors._

_An imaginary line divides the room into two equal parts. Helms
lives on the street side and Krakau on the side nearest the
courtyard. In each division there is a bed, chiffonier, a
cupboard, a table, a sofa and several chairs. The stove is on
Krakau's side, but by way of compensation Helms has an upholstered
arm chair with a tall back. A lamp hangs in the exact center of
the ceiling._

_Though there is a low screen which can be used as partial
partition between the two divisions it is now folded and standing
against the back wall, and the two tables are placed down center,
end to end, so that the place is for all present purposes a single
room._

_Helms' side is conspicuously ill kept and in disorder; Krakau's
side is spick and span. On Helms' table there is a vase filled
with flowers and near it a pair of gray woolen socks and a pair of
heavy mittens. There is also a photograph of a boy in a polished
nickel standing-frame._

_Helms, his spectacles on his nose, sits in his great arm chair at
the table and reads a newspaper._

_Krakau sits next to him working out a problem on a chess board._

_There is a short pause after the curtain rises._]

KRAKAU. There, I've done it again.

HELMS [_without looking up from his paper_]. It's easy enough if one cheats.

KRAKAU. Who cheats?

HELMS. Well, year after year you work out the same problem. Anybody can do that.

KRAKAU [_rearranging the chessmen_]. You can't.

HELMS. Just try another problem once, then see how smart you are.

KRAKAU. I'm quite satisfied with this one. [_Moves a piece._] Going to have chocolate to-day?

HELMS [_contemptuously_]. Chocolate! What for?

KRAKAU. I thought on account of it being your birthday--

HELMS. Chocolate! That's a drink for women. On my birthday I serve wine.

KRAKAU. Hmmm! Wine, eh? Who's coming?

HELMS. Just one floor.

KRAKAU. Bolling too?

HELMS. I suppose Buffe will bring him along.

KRAKAU. And he won't have a word to say.

HELMS. He never has a word to say.

KRAKAU. No, never.

HELMS. Must you rattle those pieces like that?

KRAKAU. Can I help it if they are heavy? [_Moves them more carefully._] You are always complaining about noise. You only do it to remind me how well you can hear.

HELMS. Your hearing has gotten a good deal worse this year, hasn't it? Hansen says so, too.

KRAKAU. Hansen! A lot he knows! [_Moves a piece._] Is there anything about you in the paper?

HELMS. Nonsense! What should there be?

KRAKAU. Your eightieth birthday. They put all kinds of foolishness in the papers these days.

HELMS. Didn't you hear what I said? There is nothing.

KRAKAU. I heard you.

HELMS [_regards him distrustfully over his spectacles_]. Have you been reading this paper while I was out?

KRAKAU [_loftily_]. I always read the paper at night, you know. Newspaper ought to be read by lamplight.

HELMS. Boasting about your eyesight again.

KRAKAU. Yes, I have excellent eyes. [_Knocks solemnly on wood._]

HELMS. Did you read the "personal notes"?

KRAKAU [_indignantly_]. I told you I haven't touched your old paper.

HELMS. My son-in-law has been appointed postal inspector.

KRAKAU. Postal Inspector! That's not a very high office. I suppose that is why Knut hasn't turned up to-day.

HELMS [_resentfully_]. You haven't congratulated me.

KRAKAU. Because he's a postal inspector? Hump! Congratulations. [_Pushes aside the chessboard and rises._]

HELMS [_ironically_]. Thanks. Ah, if my daughter had lived, she would be proud.

KRAKAU [_over his shoulder_]. If Mary's gray cat had been a horse she could have gone riding in the park.

HELMS [_regarding him sharply over his glasses_]. Do you know what I have noticed, Krakau? [_Krakau does not answer._] I have noticed that whenever I mention my son-in-law you get mad.

KRAKAU. So?

HELMS [_querulously_]. Yes you do. I noticed it long ago. I don't see what you've got against him. His son Knut is your godson, too.

KRAKAU. We'll not talk about that, Helms.

HELMS. But I want to talk about it. We have been friends for sixty years, you and me, and--

KRAKAU [_suddenly_]. Why didn't Knut send regards to me in his birthday letter?

HELMS. Ha, you're jealous, that's what you are. After all, it's my birthday, not yours.

KRAKAU. He never forgot to send regards to _you_ on _my_ birthday.

HELMS [_beating his breast_]. Well, he's my grandson and he's only your godson.

KRAKAU [_incredulously_]. So--e?

HELMS. Well, isn't he your godson?

KRAKAU. Yes.

HELMS. Then why do you say so--e like that?

KRAKAU [_restraining himself_]. We'd better not talk about that. I told you so before.

HELMS. But, damn it, I insist upon talking about it. I want to know what you mean.

KRAKAU. That's all right.

HELMS. It isn't the first time you've made the same stupid remark.... Do you mean to insinuate that he isn't my grandson? Is that what you're driving at?

KRAKAU. For the third time, let's drop the subject. [_Down in the courtyard a hand organ begins to play._] There's the old organ grinder.... This is Thursday.

HELMS. You needn't tell me. I can hear for myself.

KRAKAU. It's your turn to give him something.

HELMS. I have no small change. Lay it out for me.

KRAKAU. Remember you owe me for the pack of matches.