Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 155

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 smas.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.s--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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.s 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 acc.u.mulated dynamite in him just happened to go off, but I, who am defending myself like this, am the one who's really ent.i.tled 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?