Plays by August Strindberg Volume I Part 4

ADOLPH. Why, then, did you say you did?

GUSTAV. Because I pitied you.

ADOLPH. Yes, I am to be pitied! For now I am bankrupt! Finished!--And worst of all: not even she is left to me!

GUSTAV. Well, what could you do with her?

ADOLPH. Oh, she would be to me what G.o.d was before I became an atheist: an object that might help me to exercise my sense of veneration.

GUSTAV. Bury your sense of veneration and let something else grow on top of it. A little wholesome scorn, for instance.

ADOLPH. I cannot live without having something to respect---

GUSTAV. Slave!

ADOLPH.--without a woman to respect and worship!

GUSTAV. Oh, h.e.l.l! Then you had better take back your G.o.d--if you needs must have something to kow-tow to! You're a fine atheist, with all that superst.i.tion about woman still in you! You're a fine free-thinker, who dare not think freely about the dear ladies! Do you know what that incomprehensible, sphinx-like, profound something in your wife really is? It is sheer stupidity!--Look here: she cannot even distinguish between th and t. And that, you know, means there is something wrong with the mechanism. When you look at the case, it looks like a chronometer, but the works inside are those of an ordinary cheap watch.--Nothing but the skirts-that's all! Put trousers on her, give her a pair of moustaches of soot under her nose, then take a good, sober look at her, and listen to her in the same manner: you'll find the instrument has another sound to it. A phonograph, and nothing else--giving you back your own words, or those of other people--and always in diluted form. Have you ever looked at a naked woman--oh yes, yes, of course! A youth with over-developed b.r.e.a.s.t.s; an under-developed man; a child that has shot up to full height and then stopped growing in other respects; one who is chronically anaemic: what can you expect of such a creature?

ADOLPH. Supposing all that to be true--how can it be possible that I still think her my equal?

GUSTAV. Hallucination--the hypnotising power of skirts! Or--the two of you may actually have become equals. The levelling process has been finished. Her capillarity has brought the water in both tubes to the same height.--Tell me [taking out his watch]: our talk has now lasted six hours, and your wife ought soon to be here. Don't you think we had better stop, so that you can get a rest?

ADOLPH. No, don't leave me! I don't dare to be alone!

GUSTAV. Oh, for a little while only--and then the lady will come.

ADOLPH. Yes, she is coming!--It's all so queer! I long for her, but I am afraid of her. She pets me, she is tender to me, but there is suffocation in her kisses--something that pulls and numbs. And I feel like a circus child that is being pinched by the clown in order that it may look rosy-cheeked when it appears before the public.

GUSTAV. I feel very sorry for you, my friend. Without being a physician, I can tell that you are a dying man. It is enough to look at your latest pictures in order to see that.

ADOLPH. You think so? How can you see it?

GUSTAV. Your colour is watery blue, anaemic, thin, so that the cadaverous yellow of the canvas shines through. And it impresses me as if your own hollow, putty-coloured checks were showing beneath--

ADOLPH. Oh, stop, stop!

GUSTAV. Well, this is not only my personal opinion. Have you read to-day's paper?

ADOLPH. [Shrinking] No!

GUSTAV. It's on the table here.

ADOLPH. [Reaching for the paper without daring to take hold of it] Do they speak of it there?

GUSTAV. Read it--or do you want me to read it to you?

ADOLPH. No!

GUSTAV. I'll leave you, if you want me to.

ADOLPH. No, no, no!--I don't know--it seems as if I were beginning to hate you, and yet I cannot let you go.--You drag me out of the hole into which I have fallen, but no sooner do you get me on firm ice, than you knock me on the head and shove me into the water again. As long as my secrets were my own, I had still something left within me, but now I am quite empty. There is a canvas by an Italian master, showing a scene of torture--a saint whose intestines are being torn out of him and rolled on the axle of a windla.s.s. The martyr is watching himself grow thinner and thinner, while the roll on the axle grows thicker.--Now it seems to me as if you had swelled out since you began to dig in me; and when you leave, you'll carry away my vitals with you, and leave nothing but an empty sh.e.l.l behind.

GUSTAV. How you do let your fancy run away with you!--And besides, your wife is bringing back your heart.

ADOLPH. No, not since you have burned her to ashes. Everything is in ashes where you have pa.s.sed along: my art, my love, my hope, my faith!

GUSTAV. All of it was pretty nearly finished before I came along.

ADOLPH. Yes, but it might have been saved. Now it's too late--incendiary!

GUSTAV. We have cleared some ground only. Now we'll sow in the ashes.

ADOLPH. I hate you! I curse you!

GUSTAV. Good symptoms! There is still some strength left in you. And now I'll pull you up on the ice again. Listen now! Do you want to listen to me, and do you want to obey me?

ADOLPH. Do with me what you will--I'll obey you!

GUSTAV. [Rising] Look at me!

ADOLPH. [Looking at GUSTAV] Now you are looking at me again with that other pair of eyes which attracts me.

GUSTAV. And listen to me!

ADOLPH. Yes, but speak of yourself. Don't talk of me any longer: I am like an open wound and cannot bear being touched.

GUSTAV. No, there is nothing to say about me. I am a teacher of dead languages, and a widower--that's all! Take my hand.

ADOLPH. What terrible power there must be in you! It feels as if I were touching an electrical generator.

GUSTAV. And bear in mind that I have been as weak as you are now.--Stand up!

ADOLPH. [Rises, but keeps himself from falling only by throwing his arms around the neck of GUSTAV] I am like a boneless baby, and my brain seems to lie bare.

GUSTAV. Take a turn across the floor!

ADOLPH. I cannot!

GUSTAV. Do what I say, or I'll strike you!

ADOLPH. [Straightening himself up] What are you saying?

GUSTAV. I'll strike you, I said.

ADOLPH. [Leaping backward in a rage] You!

GUSTAV. That's it! Now you have got the blood into your head, and your self-a.s.surance is awake. And now I'll give you some electriticy: where is your wife?