Creditors and Pariah | Page 6

the word "we"
instead of "I"?--We!
ADOLPH. I cannot deny that I have been pursued by that very thought.
GUSTAV. There now!--And you'll never get rid of it. There are
discords in this life which can never be reduced to harmony. For this
reason you had better put wax in your ears and go to work. If you work,
and grow old, and pile masses of new impressions on the hatches, then
the corpse will stay quiet in the hold.
ADOLPH. Pardon me for interrupting you, but--it is wonderful how
you resemble Tekla now and then while you are talking. You have a
way of blinking one eye as if you were taking aim with a gun, and your
eyes have the same influence on me as hers have at times.
GUSTAV. No, really?
ADOLPH. And now you said that "no, really" in the same indifferent
way that she does. She also has the habit of saying "no, really" quite
often.
GUSTAV. Perhaps we are distantly related, seeing that all human
beings are said to be of one family. At any rate, it will be interesting to
make your wife's acquaintance to see if what you say is true.
ADOLPH. And do you know, she never takes an expression from me.
She seems rather to avoid my vocabulary, and I have never caught her
using any of my gestures. And yet people as a rule develop what is
called "marital resemblance."
GUSTAV. And do you know why this has not happened in your
case?-- That woman has never loved you.
ADOLPH. What do you mean?
GUSTAV. I hope you will excuse what I am saying--but woman's love
consists in taking, in receiving, and one from whom she takes nothing

does not have her love. She has never loved you!
ADOLPH. Don't you think her capable of loving more than once?
GUSTAV. No, for we cannot be deceived more than once. Then our
eyes are opened once for all. You have never been deceived, and so you
had better beware of those that have. They are dangerous, I tell you.
ADOLPH. Your words pierce me like knife thrusts, and I fool as if
something were being severed within me, but I cannot help it. And this
cutting brings a certain relief, too. For it means the pricking of ulcers
that never seemed to ripen.--She has never loved me!--Why, then, did
she ever take me?
GUSTAV. Tell me first how she came to take you, and whether it was
you who took her or she who took you?
ADOLPH. Heaven only knows if I can tell at all!--How did it happen?
Well, it didn't come about in one day.
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 dispassionate 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 passions 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
chastity--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 assume 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