TEKLA. No, for to love is to give.
ADOLPH. To love like a man is to give; to love like a woman is to take.--And I have given, given, given!
TEKLA. Pooh! What have you given?
ADOLPH. Everything!
TEKLA. That"s a lot! And if it be true, then I must have taken it.
Are you beginning to send in bills for your gifts now? And if I have taken anything, this proves only my love for you. A woman cannot receive anything except from her lover.
ADOLPH. Her lover, yes! There you spoke the truth! I have been your lover, but never your husband.
TEKLA. Well, isn"t that much more agreeable--to escape playing chaperon? But if you are not satisfied with your position, I"ll send you packing, for I don"t want a husband.
ADOLPH. No, that"s what I have noticed. For a while ago, when you began to sneak away from me like a thief with his booty, and when you began to seek company of your own where you could flaunt my plumes and display my gems, then I felt, like reminding you of your debt. And at once I became a troublesome creditor whom you wanted to get rid of. You wanted to repudiate your own notes, and in order not to increase your debt to me, you stopped pillaging my safe and began to try those of other people instead. Without having done anything myself, I became to you merely the husband.
And now I am going to be your husband whether you like it or not, as I am not allowed to be your lover any longer,
TEKLA. [Playfully] Now he shouldn"t talk nonsense, the sweet little idiot!
ADOLPH. Look out: it"s dangerous to think everybody an idiot but oneself!
TEKLA. But that"s what everybody thinks.
ADOLPH. And I am beginning to suspect that he--your former husband--was not so much of an idiot after all.
TEKLA. Heavens! Are you beginning to sympathise with--him?
ADOLPH. Yes, not far from it,
TEKLA. Well, well! Perhaps you would like to make his acquaintance and pour out your overflowing heart to him? What a striking picture! But I am also beginning to feel drawn to him, as I am growing more and more tired of acting as wetnurse. For he was at least a man, even though he had the fault of being married to me.
ADOLPH. There, you see! But you had better not talk so loud--we might be overheard.
TEKLA. What would it matter if they took us for married people?
ADOLPH. So now you are getting fond of real male men also, and at the same time you have a taste for chaste young men?
TEKLA. There are no limits to what I can like, as you may see. My heart is open to everybody and everything, to the big and the small, the handsome and the ugly, the new and the old--I love the whole world.
ADOLPH. Do you know what that means?
TEKLA. No, I don"t know anything at all. I just _feel_.
ADOLPH. It means that old age is near.
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 friendship 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 yon 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.)