GUSTAV. Would you like to have me tell you how it did happen?
ADOLPH. That"s more than you can do.
GUSTAV. Oh, by using the information about yourself and your wife that you have given me, I think I can reconstruct the whole event. Listen now, and you"ll hear. [In a dispa.s.sionate tone, almost humorously]
The husband had gone abroad to study, and she was alone. At first her freedom seemed rather pleasant. Then came a sense of vacancy, for I presume she was pretty empty when she had lived by herself for a fortnight. Then he appeared, and by and by the vacancy was filled up. By comparison the absent one seemed to fade out, and for the simple reason that he was at a distance--you know the law about the square of the distance? But when they felt their pa.s.sions stirring, then came fear--of themselves, of their consciences, of him. For protection they played brother and sister. And the more their feelings smacked of the flesh, the more they tried to make their relationship appear spiritual.
ADOLPH. Brother and sister? How could you know that?
GUSTAV. I guessed it. Children are in the habit of playing papa and mamma, but when they grow up they play brother and sister--in order to hide what should be hidden!--And then they took the vow of chast.i.ty--and then they played hide-and-seek--until they got in a dark corner where they were sure of not being seen by anybody. [With mock severity] But they felt that there was ONE whose eye reached them in the darkness--and they grew frightened--and their fright raised the spectre of the absent one--his figure began to a.s.sume immense proportions--it became metamorphosed: turned into a nightmare that disturbed their amorous slumbers; a creditor who knocked at all doors. Then they saw his black hand between their own as these sneaked toward each other across the table; and they heard his grating voice through that stillness of the night that should have been broken only by the beating of their own pulses. He did not prevent them from possessing each other but he spoiled their happiness. And when they became aware of his invisible interference with their happiness; when they took flight at last--a vain flight from the memories that pursued them, from the liability they had left behind, from the public opinion they could not face--and when they found themselves without the strength needed to carry their own guilt, then they had to send out into the fields for a scapegoat to be sacrificed. They were free-thinkers, but they did not have the courage to step forward and speak openly to him the words: "We love each other!" To sum it up, they were cowards, and so the tyrant had to be slaughtered. Is that right?
ADOLPH. Yes, but you forget that she educated me, that she filled my head with new thoughts--
GUSTAV. I have not forgotten it. But tell me: why could she not educate the other man also--into a free-thinker?
ADOLPH. Oh, he was an idiot!
GUSTAV. Oh, of course--he was an idiot! But that"s rather an ambiguous term, and, as pictured in her novel, his idiocy seems mainly to have consisted in failure to understand her. Pardon me a question: but is your wife so very profound after all? I have discovered nothing profound in her writings.
ADOLPH. Neither have I.--But then I have also to confess a certain difficulty in understanding her. It is as if the cogs of our brain wheels didn"t fit into each other, and as if something went to pieces in my head when I try to comprehend her.
GUSTAV. Maybe you are an idiot, too?
ADOLPH. I don"t THINK so! And it seems to me all the time as if she were in the wrong--Would you care to read this letter, for instance, which I got today?
[Takes out a letter from his pocket-book.]
GUSTAV. [Glancing through the letter] Hm! The handwriting seems strangely familiar.
ADOLPH. Rather masculine, don"t you think?
GUSTAV. Well, I know at least ONE man who writes that kind of hand--She addresses you as "brother." Are you still playing comedy to each other?
And do you never permit yourselves any greater familiarity in speaking to each other?
ADOLPH. No, it seems to me that all mutual respect is lost in that way.
GUSTAV. And is it to make you respect her that she calls herself your sister?
ADOLPH. I want to respect her more than myself. I want her to be the better part of my own self.
GUSTAV. Why don"t you be that better part yourself? Would it be less convenient than to permit somebody else to fill the part? Do you want to place yourself beneath your wife?
ADOLPH. Yes, I do. I take a pleasure in never quite reaching up to her.
I have taught her to swim, for example, and now I enjoy hearing her boast that she surpa.s.ses me both in skill and daring. To begin with, I merely pretended to be awkward and timid in order to raise her courage.
And so it ended with my actually being her inferior, more of a coward than she. It almost seemed to me as if she had actually taken my courage away from me.
GUSTAV. Have you taught her anything else?
ADOLPH. Yes--but it must stay between us--I have taught her how to spell, which she didn"t know before. But now, listen: when she took charge of our domestic correspondence, I grew out of the habit of writing. And think of it: as the years pa.s.sed on, lack of practice made me forget a little here and there of my grammar. But do you think she recalls that I was the one who taught her at the start? No--and so I am "the idiot," of course.
GUSTAV. So you are an idiot already?
ADOLPH. Oh, it"s just a joke, of course!
GUSTAV. Of course! But this is clear cannibalism, I think. Do you know what"s behind that sort of practice? The savages eat their enemies in order to acquire their useful qualities. And this woman has been eating your soul, your courage, your knowledge---
ADOLPH. And my faith! It was I who urged her to write her first book---
GUSTAV. [Making a face] Oh-h-h!
ADOLPH. It was I who praised her, even when I found her stuff rather poor. It was I who brought her into literary circles where she could gather honey from our most ornamental literary flowers. It was I who used my personal influence to keep the critics from her throat. It was I who blew her faith in herself into flame; blew on it until I lost my own breath. I gave, gave, gave--until I had nothing left for myself. Do you know--I"ll tell you everything now--do you know I really believe--and the human soul is so peculiarly const.i.tuted--I believe that when my artistic successes seemed about to put her in the shadow--as well as her reputation--then I tried to put courage into her by belittling myself, and by making my own art seem inferior to hers. I talked so long about the insignificant part played by painting on the whole--talked so long about it, and invented so many reasons to prove what I said, that one fine day I found myself convinced of its futility. So all you had to do was to breathe on a house of cards.
GUSTAV. Pardon me for recalling what you said at the beginning of our talk--that she had never taken anything from you.
ADOLPH. She doesn"t nowadays. Because there is nothing more to take.
GUSTAV. The snake being full, it vomits now.
ADOLPH. Perhaps she has been taking a good deal more from me than I have been aware of?
GUSTAV. You can be sure of that. She took when you were not looking, and that is called theft.
ADOLPH. Perhaps she never did educate me?
GUSTAV. But you her? In all likelihood! But it was her trick to make it appear the other way to you. May I ask how she set about educating you?
ADOLPH. Oh, first of all--hm!
GUSTAV. Well?
ADOLPH. Well, I---
GUSTAV. No, we were speaking of her.
ADOLPH. Really, I cannot tell now.
GUSTAV. Do you see!
ADOLPH. However--she devoured my faith also, and so I sank further and further down, until you came along and gave me a new faith.
GUSTAV. [Smiling] In sculpture?
ADOLPH. [Doubtfully] Yes.
GUSTAV. And have you really faith in it? In this abstract, antiquated art that dates back to the childhood of civilisation? Do you believe that you can obtain your effect by pure form--by the three dimensions--tell me? That you can reach the practical mind of our own day, and convey an illusion to it, without the use of colour--without colour, mind you--do you really believe that?
ADOLPH. [Crushed] No!
GUSTAV. Well, I don"t either.