Plays by August Strindberg Volume I Part 10

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 friends.h.i.+p 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.

TEKLA. But the sum of it--

ADOLPH. [Wildly] There can be no sum without an addition. You get an endless decimal fraction for quotient when your division does not work out evenly. I have not added anything.

TEKLA. But I can do the adding myself.

ADOLPH. I believe it, but then I am not doing it.

TEKLA. No, but that's what you wanted to do.

ADOLPH. [Exhausted, closing his eyes] No, no, no--don't speak to me--you'll drive me into convulsions. Keep silent! Leave me alone! You mutilate my brain with your clumsy pincers--you put your claws into my thoughts and tear them to pieces!

(He seems almost unconscious and sits staring straight ahead while his thumbs are bent inward against the palms of his hands.)

TEKLA. [Tenderly] What is it? Are you sick?

(ADOLPH motions her away.)

TEKLA. Adolph!

(ADOLPH shakes his head at her.)

TEKLA. Adolph.

ADOLPH. Yes.

TEKLA. Do you admit that you were unjust a moment ago?

ADOLPH. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I admit!

TEKLA. And do you ask my pardon?

ADOLPH. Yes, yes, yes, I ask your pardon--if you only won't speak to me!

TEKLA. Kiss my hand then!

ADOLPH. [Kissing her hand] I'll kiss your hand--if you only don't speak to me!

TEKLA. And now you had better go out for a breath of fresh air before dinner.

ADOLPH. Yes, I think I need it. And then we'll pack and leave.

TEKLA. No!

ADOLPH. [On his feet] Why? There must be a reason.

TEKLA. The reason is that I have promised to be at the concert to-night.

ADOLPH. Oh, that's it!

TEKLA. Yes, that's it. I have promised to attend--

ADOLPH. Promised? Probably you said only that you might go, and that wouldn't prevent you from saying now that you won't go.

TEKLA. No, I am not like you: I keep my word.

ADOLPH. Of course, promises should be kept, but we don't have to live up to every little word we happen to drop. Perhaps there is somebody who has made you promise to go.

TEKLA. Yes.

ADOLPH. Then you can ask to be released from your promise because your husband is sick.

TEKLA, No, I don't want to do that, and you are not sick enough to be kept from going with me.

ADOLPH. Why do you always want to drag me along? Do you feel safer then?