Plays by August Strindberg Volume II Part 55

MR. Y. [Putting his things together] Are you angry at me?

MR. X. Yes--would you prefer me to pity you?

MR. Y. [Sulkily] Pity? Do you think you're any better than I?

MR. X. Of course I do, as I AM better than you. I am wiser, and I am less of a menace to prevailing property rights.

MR. Y. You think you are clever, but perhaps I am as clever as you. For the moment you have me checked, but in the next move I can mate you--all the same!

MR. X. [Looking hard at MR. Y.] So we have to have another bout!

What kind of mischief are you up to now?

MR. Y. That's my secret.

MR. X. Just look at me--oh, you mean to write my wife an anonymous letter giving away MY secret!

MR. Y. Well, how are you going to prevent it? You don't dare to have me arrested. So you'll have to let me go. And when I am gone, I can do what I please.

MR. X. You devil! So you have found my vulnerable spot! Do you want to make a real murderer out of me?

MR. Y. That's more than you'll ever become--coward!

MR. X. There you see how different people are. You have a feeling that I cannot become guilty of the same kind of acts as you. And that gives you the upper hand. But suppose you forced me to treat you as I treated that coachman?

[He lifts his hand as if ready to hit MR. Y.]

MR. Y. [Staring MR. X. straight in the face] You can't! It's too much for one who couldn't save himself by means of the box over there.

ME. X. So you don't think I have taken anything out of the box?

MR. Y. You were too cowardly--just as you were too cowardly to tell your wife that she had married a murderer.

MR. X. You are a different man from what I took you to be--if stronger or weaker, I cannot tell--if more criminal or less, that's none of my concern--but decidedly more stupid; that much is quite plain. For stupid you were when you wrote another person's name instead of begging--as I have had to do. Stupid you were when you stole things out of my book--could you not guess that I might have read my own books? Stupid you were when you thought yourself cleverer than me, and when you thought that I could be lured into becoming a thief. Stupid you were when you thought balance could be restored by giving the world two thieves instead of one. But most stupid of all you were when you thought I had failed to provide a safe corner-stone for my happiness. Go ahead and write my wife as many anonymous letters as you please about her husband having killed a man--she knew that long before we were married!-- Have you had enough now?

MR. Y. May I go?

MR. X. Now you _have_ to go! And at once! I'll send your things after you!--Get out of here!

(Curtain.)