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PLAYS BY
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TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH, WITH IXTRODUCTION3 BT
EDAVIN BJORKMAN
AUTHORIZED EDITION
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1912
ComuOHT. 1912. BT
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS
Publkhod October. 1012
?■
CONTENTS
I>AOE
Introduction to "Creditors" 1
Creditors 7
Introduction to "Pariah" C3
Pariah C9
c»i;::n:r;0'g
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INTRODUCTION
This is one of the three plaj's which Strindberg placed at
the head of his dramatic production during the middle ultra-
naturalistic period, tlie other two being "The Father" and
"Miss Julia." It is, in many waj^s, one of the strongest he
ever produced. Its rarely excelled unity of construction, its
tremendous dramatic tension, and its wonderful psychological
analysis combine to make it a masterpiece.
In Swedish its name is "Fordringsagare." This indefinite
form may be either singular or plural, but it is rarely used
except as a plural. And the play itself makes it perfectly
clear that the proper translation of its title is "Creditors,"
for under this aspect appear both the former and the present
husband of Tehla. One of the main objec ts of the play is to
reve al her inde btedness first to one and then to the other
of these men, wKiie all the time she is posmg as a perso'n of
original gifts. ~~ '^~~
I have little doubt that Strindberg, at the time he wrote
this play — and bear in mind that this happened only a year
before he finally decided to free himself from an impossible
marriage by an appeal to the law — believed Tekla to be fairly
representative of womanhood in general. The utter unreason-
ableness of such a view need hardly be pointed out, and I shall
waste no time on it. A question more worthy of discussion
is whether the figure of Tekla be true to life merely as the
picture of a personality — as one out of numerous imaginable
4 CREDITORS
variations on a t^-pe decided not by sex but by faculties and
qualities. And the same question may well be raised in re-
gard to the two men, both of whom are evidently intended to
win our sympathy: one as the victim of a fate stronger than
himself, and the other as the conqueror of adverse and hu-
miliating circumstances.
Personally, I am inclined to doubt whether a Tclda can l>e
found in tlie flesh— and even if found, she might seem too
exceptional to gain acceptance as a real individuality. It
must be remembered, however, that, in spite of his avowed
realism, Strindlarg did not draw his men and women in the
spirit generally designated as impressionistic; that Is, with
the idea that they might step straight from his pages into life
and there win recognition as human Ix'ings of familiar aspiH-t.
His realism is always mixed with i«lealism; his figures are
always "dcK-tored," so to speak. And they have Int-n thus
treated in order to enable liieir creator to drive home the
particular truth he is just then concerne<l with.
Consciously or unconsciously he sought to produce what
may be designated as "pure cultures" of certain human
qualities. But these he took great pains to arrange in their
proper psychological settings, for mental and moral cjualilies,
like everything else, run in groups that are more or less har-
monious, if not exactly homogeneous. The man with a single
quality, like Moliere's Uarpagon, was much too primitive and
crude for Strindbcrg's art, as he liiinsclf rightly asserti^l in
his preface to "Miss Julia." When he wanted to draw the
genius of greed, so to sinak. he did it by .setting it in the
midst of related qualities of a kind most likely to be attracted
by it.
Tekla Is such a "pure culture" of a group of naturally cor-
relaletl mental and moral qualities and functions and tenden-
cies — of a personality built up logically around a dominant
INTRODUCTION 5
central note. There are within all of us many personalities,
gome of which remain for ever potentialities. But it is con-
ceivable that any one of them, under circumstances different
from those in which we have been living, might have developed
into its severely logical consequence — or, if you please, into
a human being that would be held abnormal if actually en-
countered.
This is exactly what Strindberg seems to have done time
and again, both in his middle and final periods, in his novels
as well as in his plays. In all of us a TeJda, an Adolph, a
Giistav — or a Jean and a Miss Julia — lie more or less dormant.
And if we search our souls unsparingly, I fear the result can
only be an admission that — had the needed set of circum-
stances been provided — we might have come unpleasantly
close to one of those Strindbergian creatures which we are
now inclined to reject as unhuman.
Here we have the secret of what I believe to be the great
Swedish dramatist's strongest hold on our interest. How
could it otherwise happen that so many critics, of such widely
differing temperaments, have recorded identical feelings as
springing from a study of his work: on one side an active
resentment, a keen unwillingness to be interested; on the
other, an attraction that would not be denied in spite of reso-
lute resistance to it! For Strindberg does hold us, even when
we regret his power of doing so. And no one familiar with the
conclusions of modern psychology could imagine such a para-
dox possible did not the object of oiu- sorely divided feelings
provide us with something that our minds instinctively recog-
nise as true to life in some way, and for that reason valuable
to the art of living.
There are so many ways of presenting truth. Strindberg's
is only one of them — and not the one commonly employed
nowadays. Its main fault lies perhaps in being too intellectual.
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too abstract. For while Strindherg was intensely emotional,
and while this fact colours all his writings, he could only
express himself through his reason. An emotion that would
move another man to murder would precipitate Strindlu-rg
into merciless analysis of his own or somelMxly else's mental
and moral make-up. At any rate. I do not pnK-laim his way
of presenlinfi truth as the l>est one of all available. But
I susiKHt^tMt_Jjii^tTi(K^lIv stra nge way of Strind t>erg'a
—resulting in such repulsive ly^ supe rior beings as G uitar,
or in such grievously inferior on^'s as Adolph — pmy come
nearer the temper^and nec<ls of the future than do the ways
jjT mucl}jnorcj)Jausn2lt_wrntrs^ 'I'liis does not need to im-
ply that the future will imitate StrindlnTg. But it may
ascertain what he aimifl at doing, antl llien do it with a
degree of perfection which he, the piouct-r. c-ould never hoin.*
to attuiu.
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A TRAGICOMEDY
1889
PERSONS
Tekla
Adolpm, hrr liii.<>han({, a painter
GubTAV. her dirnreed husband, a high-ichool teacher {who i$
traccUing umUr an assumed nanu)
S C E N E
A parlor in a summer hotel on the sea-shore. The rear ira/i
has a door o])ening on a reranda, l>eyond trhieh is seen a land-
scape. To the right of the door stands a table irith neirsjHtjters
nn it. There is a chair on the left side of the stage. To the right
of the table stands a sofa. A door on the right leads to an adjoin-
ing room.
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Adolpii and Gustav, the latter seated on tJie sofa by the table
to the right.
Adolph. [At work on a wax figure on a miniature modelling
stand; his crutches are placed beside him] — and for all this I
have to thank you !
Gustav. [Smoking a cigar] Oh, nonsense!
Adolph. Why, certainly! During the first days after my
wife had gone, I lay helpless on a sofa and did nothing but
long for her. It was as if she had taken away my crutches
with her, so that I couldn't move from the spot. When I had
slept a couple of days, I seemed to come to, and began to pull
myself together. My head calmed down after having been
working feverishly. Old thoughts from days gone by bobbed
up again. The desire to work and the instinct for creation
came back. My eyes recovered their faculty of quick and
straight vision — and then you showed up,
Gustav. I admit you were in a miserable condition when
I first met you, and you had to use your crutches when you
walked, but this is not to say that my presence has been the
cause of your recovery. You needed a rest, and you had a
craving for masculine company.
Adolph. Oh, that's true enough, like everything you say.
Once I used to have men for friends, but I thought them super-
fluous after I married, and I felt quite satisfied with the one
I had chosen. Later I was drawn into new circles and made a
lot of acquaintances, but my wife was jealous of them — she
wanted to keep me to herself: worse still — she wanted also
9
10 CREDITORS
to keep my friends to herself. And so I was left alone with
my own jealousy.
Gl'stav. Yes, you have a strong tendency towartl that
kind of disease.
Adoli'H. I was afraid of losing her — and I tritxl to prevent
it. There Ls nothing strange in that. But I was never afraid
that she might Ik* deceiving me
GusTAV. No, that's what marrie<l men arc never afraid of.
Adoi.pii. Yes, isn't it queer? What I really fearetl was that
her friends would get such an influence over her that they
would Ix'gin to exercLse .si»me kin«l of indirect power over me —
and that is something I couldn't Inrar.
CrsTAV. S) your ideas d(»n't agree — yours and your wife's?
.\DOLrH. SnMiig that you have heani mt much aln-ady, I
may a.s well tell you everything. My wife has an indejH:ndent
nature — what are you smiling at?
GusTAV. Go on! She ha.s an independent nature
Adoi.pii. Which caniu»t accept anything from mc
GusTAV. But from everylnxly el.se.
Adoi.pii. [-iftfr a pause] Yes. — .\nd it liMikol as if she
especially hate<l my ideas Inx-au-se they were mine, and not
because tluTc was anything wrong alM>ut them. For it usiti
to happen (piitc often that she advanceil idras that had once
heen mine, and that she stcxMl up for them as her own. Yes,
it even hapiKMn-d that friends of mine gave her idea.s which
tlii-y had taken dinx-tly fn>m me, an<l then they seem***! all
right. Everything was all right except what came from m«-.
GusTAV. Which means that you arc not entirely happy?
AiK>i.PH. Oh yes, I am happy. I have the one I wanted,
and I have never wanteil anylnxly else.
GrsT.w. And you have never wanted to Ik* free?
Adolph. No, I can't say that I have. Oh, well, sometimes
I have imagined that it might seem like a rest to Ijc free. But
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the moment she leaves me, I begin to long for her — long for
her as for ray own arras and legs. It is queer tliat soraetinies
I have a feeling that she is nothing in herself, hut only a part
of myself — an organ that can take away with it ray will, ray
very desire to live. It seems almost as if I had deposited
with her that centre of vitality of which the anatomical books
tell us.
GusTAV. Perhaps, when we get to the bottom of it, that is
just what has happened.
Adolpii. How could it be so? Is she not an independent
being, with thoughts of her own.' And when I met her I was
nothing — a child of an artist whom she undertook to educate.
GusTAV. But later you developed her thoughts and edu-
cated her, didn't you?
Adolph. No, she stopped growing and I pushed on.
GusTAV. Yes, isn't it strange that her "authoring" seemed
to fall off after her first book — or that it failed to improve, at
least? But that first time she had a subject which wrote
itself — for I understand she used her former husband for a
model. You never knew liim, did you? They say he was an
idiot.
Adolph. I never knew him, as he was away for six months
at a time. But he must have been an arch-idiot, judging by
her picture of him. [Pause] And you may feel sure that the
picture was correct.
GusTAV. I do! — But why did she ever take him?
Adolph. Because she didn't know him well enough. Of
course, you never do get acquainted until afterward!
GusTAV. .:\nd for that reason one ought not to marry until
— afterward. — And he was a tyrant, of course?
Adolph. Of course?
GusTAV. Why, so are all married men. [Feeling his way]
And you not the least.
12 CREDITORS
Adolph. I? Who let my wife come and go as she pleases
GusTAV. Well, that's nothing. You couldn't lock her up.
could you? But do you like her to stay away whole nights?
Adolpii. No, rrally, I don't.
GusT.w. There, you see! [With a change of tactics] And to
tell the truth, it would only make you ridiculous to like it.
Adolph. Ridiculous? Can a man be ridiculous because he
trusts his wife?
GusTAV. Of course he can. .Viid it's just what you arc
already — and thoroughly at that!
Adolph. [Coitnihicely] I! It's what I dread most of all —
and there's going to Ik? a change.
GusTAV. Don't get excited now — or you'll have another
attack.
Adolph. But why isn't she ridiculous when I stay out all
night?
GrsTAV. Yes, why.' Well, it's nothing that concerns you,
hut that's the way it is. And while you arc trying to figure out
why, the mishap liius already occurred.
Adolph. What mishap?
GusTAV. However, the first husband was a tyrant, and she
took him only to get her freedom. You see, a girl cannot have
freetlom except by providing herself with a chaperon — or w hat
wc call a husbaufl.
Adolph. Of course not.
GusT.w. And now you arc the chaperon.
Adolph. I?
GusTAV. Since you are her husband.
Adolph keeps a preoccupied silence.
Gdstav. Am I not right?
Adolph. [Uneasily] I don't know. You live with a woman
for years, and you never stop to analyse her, or your relation-
ship with her, and then — then you begin to think — and there
CREDITORS 13
yon are! — Giistav, you are my friend. The only male friend
I have. During this last week you have given me courage
to hve again. It is as if your own magnetism had been poured
into me. Like a watchmaker, you have fixed the works in my
head and wound up the spring again. Can't you hear, your-
self, how I think more clearly and speak more to the point .^
And to myself at least it seems as if my voice had recovered
its ring.
GusTAV. So it seems to me also. And why is that?
Adolph. I shouldn't wonder if you grew accustomed to
lower your voice in talking to women. I know at least that
Tekla always used to accuse me of shouting.
GusTAv. And so you toned down your voice and accepted
the rule of the slipper.'^
Adolph. That isn't quite the way to put it. [After some
reflection] I think it is even worse than that. But let us talk
of something else! — \Miat was I saying.^ — Yes, you came here,
and you enabled me to see my art in its true light. Of course,
for some time I had noticed my growing lack of interest in
painting, as it didn't seem to offer me the proper medium
for the expression of what I wanted to bring out. But when
you explained all this to me, and made it clear why painting
must fail as a timely outlet for the creative instmct, then I
saw the light at last — and I realised that hereafter it would
not be possible for me to express myself by means of colour
only.
GusTAV. Are you quite sure now that you cannot go on
painting — that you may not have a relapse.''
Adolph. Perfectly sure! For I have tested myself. When
I went to bed that night after our talk, I rehearsed your argu-
ment point by point, and I knew you had it right. But when
I woke up from a good night's sleep and my head was clear
again, then it came over me in a flash that you might be mis-
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taken after all. And I jumptnl out of bed and got hold of my
Ijrushcs and paints — but it was no use! Every trace of illu-
sion was gone — it was nothing but smears of paint, and I
(|uake<l at the thought of having believed, and having made
others l>elicve, that a paintetl canvas could be anything but
a paintetl canvas. The veil ha<l fallen from my eyes, and it
was just as impossible for me to paint any more as it was to
become a child again.
GisTAV. And then you saw that the realistic tenclency of
our day, its craving fur actuality an«l tangibility, cwuld only
6nd its proper form in sculpture, which gives you body, ex-
tension in all three dimensions
Adolpii. [\'a(jiu'ly\ The thr«-<' tlimensioiu — oh yes, Ixxly,
in a won 11
GusTAV. And then you Invame a sculptor yourself. Or
rather, ymi have Invn one all your life, but you had g< "
a-stray, ami nothing was neo<le<l but a guide to put you on the
ri^^lil road— Tell me, do you exp«-riencv supreme joy now
when you are at work?
Adolimi. Now I am living!
GusTAv. May I see what you are doing.'
Adolimi. a female figure.
GusTAv. Without a mo<lel? .\nd so lifelike at that!
AooLrn. [.ipathcticalli/] Yes, but it resembles somelxxly.
It is reniarkaMe that this woman seems to have betxime a
part of my btnly as I of hers.
GusTAV. Well, that's not so very remarkable. Do you
know what transfusi«)n is?
Adolph. Of blooil? Yes.
GusTAV. .Vnd you seem to have bletl yourself a little t' >
much. When I lcK)k at the figure here I comprehend several
things which I merely guessed before. You have loved li- r
tremendously !
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Adolph. Yes, to such an extent that I couldn't tell whether
she was I or I she. When she is smiling, I smile also. When
she is weeping. I weep. And when she — can you imagine
anything like it? — when she was giving life to our child — I
felt the birth pangs within myself.
GusTAV. Do you know, my dear friend — I hate to speak of
it, but you are already showing the first symptoms of epilepsy.
Adolpii. [Agitated] I! How can you tell?
GusTAV. Because I have watched the symptoms in a
younger brother of mine who had been worshipping Venus
a little too excessively.
Adolpii. How — how did it show itself — that thing you
spoke of?
[During the following fassage Gustav speaks vith great
animation, and Adolpii listens so intently that, 7in-
consciously, he imitates many of Gustav's gestures.
Gustav. It was dreadful to witness, and if you don't feel
strong enough I won't inflict a description of it on you.
Adolph. [Nervously] Yes, go right on — just go on!
Gustav. Well, the boy happened to marry an innocent
little creature with curls, and eyes like a turtle-dove; with
the face of a child and the pure soul of an angel. But never-
theless she managed to usurp the male prerogative
Adolph. What is that?
Gustav. Initiative, of course. And with the result that
the angel nearly carried him off to heaven. But first he had
to be put on the cross and made to feel the nails in his flesh.
It was horrible!
Adolph. [Breathlessly] W'ell, what happened?
Gustav. [Lingering on each trord] We might be sitting
together talking, he and I — and when I had been speaking for
a while his face would turn white as chalk, his arms and legs
would grow stiff, and his thumbs became twisted against the
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palms of his hands— like this. [lie illustrates the morement and
it is imitated by Adolph] Then liis eyes became blootlshot, antl
he began io ( hew— hkc this. [lie cheirs, and again Adolph
imitates him] The saliva was rattling in his throat. Ilis chesl
was squeezed together as if it had lK«en closed in a vice. The
pui)ils of his eyes flickeretl like gas-jets. His tongue l>eat the
saliva into a lather. and he sank — sU)wly — down— Imckward—
into the chair — as if he were drowning. Ami then
Adolph. [In a uhisper] Stop now!
GusTAV. And then— Are you not feeling well.'
Adoumi. No.
GcsTAV. [dets a glass of water for him] There: drink now.
And we'll talk of something else.
Adolph. [Feebly] Thank yon I Please go on!
GusTAV. Well — when he came to he couldn't remember
anything at all. He had simply lost consciousness. Has that
ever happ<'ncd to you?
Adolph. Yes, I have had attacks of vertigo now and then,
but my jihysician says it's oidy ana>mia.
GusTAV. Well, that's the Inginning of it. you know. But,
l>elieve me. it will end in ci)iKpsy if you don't take care of
yourself.
Adolph. What can I <lo?
GisTAV. To begin with, you will have to observe complete
abstinence.
Adolph. For how long?
GusTAV. For half a year at least.
Adolph. I cannot do it. That would upset our marrieil
life.
GusTAV. Good-bye to you then!
Adolph. [Covers up the icax figure] I cannot do it!
GusTAV. Can you not save your own life? — But tell me,
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as you have alreadj' given me so much of your confidence — is
there no other canker, no secret wound, that troubles you?
For it is very rare to find only one cause of discord, as life is
so full of variety and so fruitful in chances for false relation-
ships. Is there not a corpse in your cargo that you are trying
to hide from yourself? — For instance, you said a minute ago
that you have a child which has been left in other people's
care. Why don't you keep it with you?
Adolph. My wife doesn't want us to do so.
GusTAV. And her reason? Speak up now!
Adolph. Because, when it was about three years old, it
began to look like liim, her former husband.
GusTAV. Well? Have you seen her former husband?
Adolph. No, never. I have only had a casual glance at
a very poor portrait of him, and then I couldn't detect the
shghtest resemblance.
GusTAV. Oh, portraits are never like the original, and,
besides, he might have changed considerably since it was
made. However, I hope it hasn't aroused any suspicions in
you?
Adolph. Not at all. The child was born a year after our
marriage, and the husband was abroad when I first met
Tekla — it happened right here, in this very house even, and
that's why we come here every summer.
GusTAV. No, then there can be no cause for suspicion.
And you wouldn't have had any reason to trouble yourself
anyhow, for the children of a widow who marries again often
show a likeness to her dead husband. It is annoying, of
course, and that's why they used to burn all widows in
India, as you know. — But tell me: have you ever felt
jealous of him — of his memory? Would it not sicken you
to meet him on a walk and hear him, with his eyes on
your Tekla, use the word "we" instead of "I"?— We!
18 CREDITORS
Adolph. I cannot deny that I have been pursued by that
very thought.
Gdstav. There now ! — And you'll never get rid of it. There
are discords in this life which can never be reducetl to harmony.
For this reason you had better put wax in your ears and go to
work. If you work, ami grow oM, and pile masses of new im-
pressions on the hatches, then the corpse will stay (juict in the
hold.
Adoij'II. Pardon me for interrupting you, but — it is won-
derful how you res«'mble T«'kla now and then while you are
talking. Vou hav«' a way of blinking one eye as if you were
taking aim with a gun, an<l your eyes have the same influence
on me as hers have at times.
GusT.w. No, n-ully?
Adoi.pu. .\nd n«)w you said that "no, really" in the same
indifTcrnit way that she <lo«'s. She al.so has th«' habit of say-
ing "no, really" <|iiite often.
GusT.w. Perhaps we arc distantly relatenl, .seeing that all
human beings are .sai«l to Ix* of one family. .\t any rate, it
will be interesting to make your wife's acquaintance to see if
what you .say is true.
Adolhh. And do you know, .she never takc^ an expression
from me. She .seems rather to avoid my vocabulary, and
I have never caught her using any of my gestures. .\nd
yet people as a rule develop what is called "marital resem-
blance."
GrsTAV. .Vnd do you know why this has not happi-ned in
your case? — That woman has never h)ved you.
Adom'H. What do you mean.'
GusTAV. I ho|K' you will excu.se what I am .saying — but
woman's love consists in taking, in rtx-eiving, an«l one from
whom she takes nothing does not have her love. She has
never loved you!
CREDITORS 19
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 j'ou had better beware of those that have.
They are dangerous, I tell you.
Adolph. Your words pierce me like knife thrusts, and I
feel 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
wliether 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 dispas-
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 pre-
sume 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 dis-
tance? But when they felt their passions stirring, then came
fear — of themselves, of their consciences, of him. For protec-
tion they played brother and sister. And the more their
20 CREDITORS
feelings smacketl of the fle-sli. 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 hahit of playing
papa and mamma, but when they grow up tluy play brother
and sister — in order to hide what should Ik* hi<l<lenl — .Vnil then
they took the vow of ehaistity — and then they playctl hide-
and-seek — until they got in a dark comer where they were
sure of not being seen by anylxxly. [H'Uh mocl: scrrrity]
But they felt that there was one whose eye reache<l them in
the darkness — an«l they grew frightened — and their fright
raised the spectre of the absent one — liLs figure lH>gan to
a.ssume immense proixirtions — it Invame nietamoriihosed :
turned into a nightmare that jlisturlnxl their amorous slum-
bers; a creditor who knocke<l at all doors. Then they saw
his black hand betwivn their own as these sncaketl towani
each other across the tal)le; and they heanl h'm grating
voice through that stillness of the night that should have
been broken only by the l>cating i»f their own pulses. lie
did not prevent them from |)OsseHsing each otlier but he
spoiled their happiness. And when they Ixvame awarr of
his invisii)le interference with their happinens; when they
took flight at hust — a vain flight from the memories that pur-
sued them, from the liability they had left l>ehind. from the
public opinion they could not fan* — and when they found
themselves without the strength nee<h-<l to carry their own
guilt, then they ha<l to send out into the fields ft>r a .scaix-gtMit
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 cow-
ards, and so the tyrant had to be slaughtertHl. Is that right?
Adolpii. Yes, but you forget that she etlucated me, that
she filletl uiy head with new thoughts
CREDITORS 21
GusTAV. I have not forgotten it. But tell me: why coultl
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 licr novel, his
idiocy seems mainly to have consisted in failure to understand
her. Pardon me a question : hut is your wife so very profound
after all? I have discovered nothing profound in her writings,
Adolpii. 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 some-
thing 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 to-day?
[Takes out a letter from his pocket-hook.
GusTAV. [Glancing through tfie letter] Hm! The handwrit-
ing 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 otlier? 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
22 CREDITORS
fill the part? Do you want to place yourself l>eneath your
wife?
Adolph. Yes, I do. I take a pleasure in never quite reach-
ing up to her. I have taught her to swim, for example, and
now I enjoy hearing her lx)ast that she surpasses nie Inith in
skill and daring. To begin with, I merely pretendeil to Im?
awkward and timid in order to raise her courage. And so it
ended with my actually l)eing her inferior, more of a c«wanl
than she. It almost seemed to me as if she had actually taken
my courage away from me.
GusTAV. Have j'ou taught her anything else.'
Adolpii. Yes — but it must stay In-tween ua — I have
taught her how to spell, which she didn't know iH'fore. IJut
now, listen: when she took charge «>f our domestic corresix)n-
denoe, I grew out of the habit «)f writing. And think «if it:
as the years passetl on, lack of practice made me forget a little
here and there of my gramnuir. Hut d«j you think she rwalls
that I was the one who taught her at the start? No — and so
I am "the idiot," of course.
GusTAV. So you arc an idiot already?
Adolph. Oh, it's just a joke, of course!
GusTAV. Of course! Hut this Ls clear cannibalism, I think.
/ Do you know what's In-hind that .sort of prm-tic**? The
j savages eat their enemies in order to ac(|uirc their useful
\ qualities. And this woman has l)cen eating your .soul, your
. courage, your knowknlge
Adolpii. And my faith! It was I who urginl her to write
her first book
GusTAV. [Mahingafarc] Oh-h-h!
Adolph. It was I who praised her, even when I found her
stufT rather poor. It was I who brought her into literary cir-
cles where she could gather honey from our most ornamental
literary flowers. It was I who use<l my i>er.sonal influence
CREDITORS 23
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 my-
self. Do you know — I'll tell you everything now — do you
know I really believe — and the human soul is so peculiarly
constituted — 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 be-
ginning 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.
24 CREDITORS
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 ab-
stract, antiquated art that dates back to the childhood of
civilisation.' Do you believe that you can obtain your effect
by pure form — by the tlirce 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.
Adolph. Why, then, did you say you did?
GusTAV. Because I pitic<l you.
Adolph. Yes, I am to be pitied! For now I am banknij)t!
Finished! — And worst of all: not even she is left to me!
GusT.iv. Well, what could you do with her?
Adolph. Oh, she would be to me what God 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 re-
spect
GusTAV. Slave!
Adolph. — without a woman to respect and worship!
GusTAV. Oh, Hell! Then you had better take back your
God — if you needs must have something to kow-tow tt)!
You're a fine atheist, with all that superstition about woman
still in you! You're a fine free-thinker, who dare not think
CREDITORS 25
freely about the dear ladies ! Do you know what that incom-
prehensible, 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 breasts; an under-developed man; a
child that has shot up to full height and then stopped grow-
ing 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 hoiu-s, 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
/
/
26 CREDITORS
and numbs. And I feci like a circus cliild that is being pinrhe<l
by the chvm in order that it may look rosy-checked when
it appears before the public.
GusTAV. I feel very sorry for you, my friend. Witliout
being a physician, I can tell that you arc a dying man. It i-s
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 you/ own hollow, putty-coloured chevks
were showing beneath
Adolph. Oh, stop, stop!
GusTAV. "Well, this is not only my personal opinion. Have
you read to-day's paper?
Adolph. [Shrinlciny] No!
GusTAV. It's on the table here.
Adolph. [Reaching for the paper iciihout daring to take Jiold
of ii] 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 mc 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 «lrag
me out of the hole into which I have fallen, but no sooner <lo
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 windlass. The martyr is
watching himself grow thinner and thinner, while the roll
on the axle grows thicker. — Now it seems to mc as if you
had swelled out since you began to dig in mc; and when you
CREDITORS 27
leave, you'll carry away my vitals with you, and leave nothing
but an empty shell 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 passed along : my art,
my love, my hope, my faith!
GusTAV, All of it was prettj^ 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 j'ourself. 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!
J
!
28 CREDITORS
Adolph. [Rises, but keeps Jiimself from falling only by throw-
ing his arms around tlie 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 Dl strike you!
Adolph. [Straightening himself vp] 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-assurance is awake. And now I'll
give you some electriticy: where is your wife.'
Adolph. ^^1lcre is she.'
Gustav. Yes.
Adolph. She is — at — a meeting.
Gustav. Sure?
Adolph. Absolutely!
Gustav. What kind of meeting?
Adolph. Oh, something relating to an orphan asylum.
Gustav. Did you part as friends?
Adolph, [With some hesitation] Not as friends.
Gustav. As enemies then! — What did you say that pro-
voked her?
Adolph. You are terrible. I am afraid of you. How could
you know?
Gustav. It's very simple: I possess three known factors,
and with their help I figure out the unknown one. What did
you say to her?
Adolph. I said — two words only, l>ut they were dreadful,
and I regret them — regret them very much,
Gustav. Don't do it! Tell me now?
Adolph. I said: "Old flirt!"
Gustav. What more did you say?
CREDITORS 29
Adolph. Nothing at all.
GusTAV. Yes, you did, but you have forgotten it— perhaps
because you don't dare remember it. You have put it away
in a secret drawer, but you have got to open it now!
Adolph. I can't remember!
GusTAV. But I know. This is what you said : "You ought
to be ashamed of flirting when you are too old to have any
more lovers!"
Adolph. Did I say that.'' I must have said it!— But how
can you know that I did.-*
GusTAV. I heard her tell the story on board the boat as I
came here,
Adolph. To whom.?
GusTAv. To fom- young men who formed her company.
She is already developing a taste for chaste yoimg men, just
like
Adolph. But there is nothing wrong in that.'*
GusTAV. No more than in playing brother and sister when
you are papa and mamma.
Adolph. So you have seen her then.'*
GusTAV. Yes, I have. But you have never seen her when
you didn't — I mean, when you were not present. And there's
the reason, you see, why a husband can never really know his
wife. Have you a portrait of her.''
Adolph takes a photograph from his pocketbook. There
is a look of aroused curiosity on his face.
GusTAV. You were not present when this was taken.''
Adolph. No.
GusTAV. Look at it. Does it bear much resemblance to the
portrait you painted of her? Hardly any! The features are
the same, but the expression is quite different. But you don't
see this, because your own picture of her creeps in between
your eyes and this one. Look at it now as a painter, without
30 CREDITORS
giving a thought to the original. What docs it represent?
Nothing, so far as I can see, but an affected coquette inviting
somebody to come and play with her. Do you notice this
CATiical line around the mouth which you are never allowed
to see.' Can you see that her eyes are seeking out some man
who is not you.' Do you observe that her dress is cut low at
the neck, that her hair is done up in a different way, that her
sleeve has managed to slip back from her arm.^ Can you sec?
Adolph. Yes — now J see.
GusTAV. Look out, my boy!
Adolph. For what?
GusTAV. For her revenge! Bear in mind that when you
said she could not attract a man, you struck at what to her
is most sacred — the one thing al>ove all others. If you had
told her that she wrote nothing but nonsense, she would
have laughed at your poor taste. But as it is — believe me, it
will not be her fault if her desire for revenge has not already
been satisfied.
Adolph. I must know if it is so!
GusTAV. Find out!
Adolph. Find out?
GusTAv. Watch — I'll assist you, if you want me to.
Adolph. As I am to die anyhow — it may as well come first
as last! ^Miat ami todo?
GusTAV. First of all a piece of information: has your wife
any vulnerable pouit?
Adolph. Hardly! I think she must have nine lives, like
a cat.
GusTAV. There — that was the boat whisthng at the landing
— now she'll soon be here.
Adolph. Then I must go down and meet her.
GusTAV. No, you are to stay here. You have to be im-
CREDITORS 31
polite. If her conscience is clear, you'll catch it until your
ears tingle. If she is guilty, she'll come up and pet you.
Adolph. Are you so sure of that.'
GusTAV. Not quite, because a rabbit will sometimes turn
and run in loops, but I'll follow. My room is next to this.
[He paints to the door on the right} There I shall take up my
position and watch you while you are plaj'ing the game in
here. But when you are done, we'll change parts: I'll enter
the cage and do tricks with the snake while you stick to the
key-hole. Then we meet in the park to compare notes. But
keep your back stiff. And if j'ou feel yourself weakening,
knock twice on the floor with a chair.
Adolph. All right! — But don't go away. I must be sure
that you are in the next room.
GusTAV. You can be quite sure of that. But don't get
scared afterward, when you watch me dissecting a human
soul and laying out its various parts on the table. They say
it is rather hard on a beginner, but once you have seen it
done, you never want to miss it. — And be sure to remember
one thing : not a word about having met me, or ha\'ing made
any new acquaintance whatever while she was away. Not
one word! And I'll discover her weak point by mj^self. Hush,
she has arrived — she is in her room now. She's humming to
herself. That means she is in a rage! — Now, straight in the
back, please! And sit do^\Ti on that chair over there, so that
she has to sit here — then I can watch both of you at the same
time.
Adolph. It's only fifteen minutes to dinner — and no new
guests have arrived — for I haven't heard the bell ring. That
means we shall be by ourselves — worse luck!
GusTAV. Are you weak?
Adolph. I am nothing at all ! — Yes, I am afraid of what is
now coming! But I cannot keep it from coming! The stone
32 CREDITORS
has been set rolling — and it was not the first drop of water
that started it — nor was it the last one — but all of them to-
gether.
GusTAV. Let it roll then — for peace will come in no other
way. Good-bye for a while now! [Goc^ ou/J
Adolpii nods bade at him. Until then he has been stand-
ing v'ith the photograph in his hand. Xoic he tears it
vp and flings the pieees under the table. Then he sits
doien on a chair, pulls Jierrou.dti at his tie, runs his
fingers through his hair, crumples his coat lapel, and
so on.
Tekla. [Kntcrs, goes straight up to him and gires him a hi.ss:
her manner is friendly, frank, happy, and engaging] Hello,
little brother! How is he getting on?
Adolpii. [.Almost won over; speaking reluctantly and as if
in jest] What mischief have you Ihvh up to now tliat makes
you come antl kiss me.'
Tekl.\. I'll tell you: I've spent an awful lot of money.
Adolpii. You have had a gtxxl time then.'
Tekla. Very! But not exactly at that cr^he meeting.
That was plain pifTlc. to tell the truth.— But what has little
brother found to divert himsdf with while his Pussy was
away.''
Iler eyes wander around the room as if she were looking
for somebody or snijpng something.
Adolpii. I've simply been bort*!!.
TekLu\. And no company at all.'
Adolpii. Quite by myself.
Tekl.\. [Watching him; she sits down on the sofa] \\'ho has
been sitting here.'
Adolph. Over there? Nobtxly.
Tekl.\. That's funny! The seat is still warm, and there is
CREDITORS 33
a hollow here that looks as if it had been made by an elbow.
Have you had lady callers?
Adolph. I? You don't believe it, do you?
Tekla. But you blush. I think little brother is not telling
the truth. Come and tell Pussy now what he has on his con-
science.
Draws him toward herself so that he sinks down with his
head resting in her lap.
Adolph. You're a little devil — do you know that?
Tekla. No, I don't know anything at all about myself.
Adolph. You never think about yourself, do you?
Tekl,\. [Sniffing and taking notes] I think of nothing but
myself— I am a dreadful egoist. But what has made you turn
so philosophical all at once?
Adolph. Put your hand on my forehead.
Tekla. [Prattling as if to a baby] Has he got ants m his
head again? Does he want me to take them away, does he?
[Kisses him on the forehead] There now! Is it all right now?
Adolph. Now it's all right. [Pause]
Tekla. Well, tell me now what you have been doing to
make the time go? Have you painted anything?
Adolph. No, I am done with pamting.
Tekla. WTiat? Done with painting?
Adolph. Yes, but don't scold me for it. How can I help
it that I can't pamt any longer!
Tekla. What do you mean to do then?
Adolph. I'll become a sculptor.
Tekla. WTiat a lot of brand new ideas again !
Adolph. Yes, but please don't scold! Look at that figure
over there.
Tekla. [Uncovering the wax figure] Well, I declare! — 'Who
is that meant for?
Adolph. Guess!
34 CREDITORS
Tekla. Is it Pussy? lias he got no shame at all?
Adolph. Is it like?
Tekl-'V. How can I tell when there is no face?
Adolph. Yes, but there is so much else — that's Ix'autiful!
Teki^. [Taps him plai/fully on ilie cheek] Now be must
keep still or I'll have to kiss Ijim.
Adolph. [Holding her bach] Now, now! — Somelxxly might
come!
Tp:kla. Will, what do I care? Can't I kiss my own hus-
band, perhaps? Oh yes, that's my lawful right.
Adolph. Yes, but don't you know — in the hotel here, they
don't believe we are marrii-*!. Ufause we an* kis.sing each other
such a lot. And it makes no diflerencc that we quarrel now
and then, for lovers are said to do that also.
Tekl.\. AVcli. but what's the use of quarrelling? Why
can't he always be as nice as he Ls now? Tell me now? Can't
he try? Doesn't he want us to be hai)py?
Adolph. Do I want it? Yes, but
Tekla. There we are again! Who has put it into his head
that he is not to paint any longer?
Adolph. Wlio? You are always looking for somebwly else
behind me and my thouglit.s. Are you jealous?
TekLuV. Yes, I am. I'm afraid somebo<ly might take him
away from me.
Adolph. Arc you really afrai<l of that? You who know
that no other woman can take your place, and that I cannot
live without you!
Tekl.\. Well, I am not afraid of the women — it's your
friends that fill your head with all sorts of notions.
Adolph. [Watching her] You are afraid then? Of what are
you afraid?
TekLu\. [Getting vp] Somebody has been here. Who has
been here?
CREDITORS 35
Adolph. Don't you wish me to look at you?
Tekla. Not in that way: it's not the way you are accus-
tomed to look at me.
Adolph. How was I looking at you then.-*
Tekla. Way up under my eyelids.
Adolph. Under your eyelids — yes, I wanted to see what is
behind them.
Tekl.\. See all you can! There is nothing that needs to be
hidden. But— you talk differently, too— you use expressions
— [studying him] you philosophise — that's what you do! [Ap-
proaches him threateningly] Who has been here?
Adolph. Nobody but my physician.
Tekla. Your physician? Who is he?
Adolph. That doctor from Stromstad.
Tekla. What's his name?
Adolph. Sjoberg.
Tekla. What did he have to say?
Adolph. He said — well — among other things he said —
that I am on the verge of epilepsy
Tekla. Among other things? What more did he say?
Adolph. Something very unpleasant.
Tekla. Tell me!
Adolph. He forbade us to live as man and wife for a while.
Tekl.'V. Oh, that's it! Didn't I just guess it! They want
to separate us! That's what I have understood a long time!
Adolph. You can't have understood, because there was
nothing to understand.
Tekla. Oh yes, I have!
Adolph. How can you see what doesn't exist, unless your
fear of something has stirred up your fancy into seeing what
has never existed? What is it you fear? That I might borrow
somebody else's eyes in order to see you as you are, and not
as you seem to be?
36 CREDITORS
Tekla. Keep your imagination in check, Adolpb! It is
the beast that dwells in man's soul.
Adolph. AMicre did you learn that? From those chaste
young men on the boat — did you?
Tekla. [Not at all abashed] Yes, there is something to be
learned from youth also.
Adolph. I think you are already beginning to have a taste
for youth?
Tekla. I have always liked youth. That's why I love you.
Do you object?
Adolph. No, l)ut I should prefer to have no partners.
Tekl.\. [Prattling rogxiislilij] My heart Ls so big. little
brother, that there is room in it for many more than him.
Adolph. But little brother (hn^n't want any more brothers.
Tekl,\. Come here to Pussy now and got his hair pulled
because he is jealous — no, envious is the right word for it!
Two knocks with a chair are heard from tfie adjoining
room, where Gustav is.
Adolph. No, I don't want to play now. I want to talk
seriously.
Tekl.\. [Prattling] Mercy me, does he want t«) talk seri-
ously? Dreadful, how serious he's become! [Takes hold of
his head and kisses him] Smile a little — there now!
Adolph. [Smiling against his will] Oh, you're the
I might almost think you knew how to use magic!
Tekl.\. Well, can't he see now? That's why he shouldn't
start any trouble — or I might use my magic to make him in-
visible!
Adolpil [Gets vp] Will you sit for me a moment, Tekla?
With the side of your face this way, so that I can put a face
on my figure.
Tekla. Of course, I will.
[Turns her liead so lie can sec her in profile.
CREDITORS 37
Adolph. [Gazes hard at her while 'pretending to work at the
figure] Don't think of me now — but of somebody else.
Tekl.\. I'll think of my latest conquest.
Adolph. That chaste young man?
Tekla. Exactly! He had a pair of the prettiest, sweetest
moustaches, and his cheek looked like a peach — it was so soft
and rosy that you just wanted to bite it.
Adolph. [Darkening] Please keep that expression about
the mouth.
Tekl.\. ^^^lat expression?
Adolph. A cj-nical, brazen one that I have never seen
before.
Tekla. [Making a face] This one?
Adolph. Just that one! [Getting up] Do you know how
Bret Harte pictures an adulteress?
Tekla. [Smiling] No, I have never read Bret Something.
Adolph. As a pale creature that cannot blush.
Tekla. Not at all? But when she meets her lover, then
she must blush, I am sure, although her husband or Mr. Bret
may not be allowed to see it.
Adolph. Are j'ou so sure of that?
Tekla. [.4* before] Of course, as the husband is not capable
of bringing the blood up to her head, he cannot hope to behold
the charming spectacle.
Adolph. [Enraged] Tekla!
Tekla. Oh, you little ninny!
Adolph. Tekla!
Tekla. He should call her Pussy— then I might get up a
pretty little blush for his sake. Does he want me to?
Adolph. [Disarmed] You minx, I'm so angry with you, that
I could bite you !
Tekla. [Playfully] Come and bite me then!— Come!
[Opens Iter arms to him.
38 CREDITORS
Adolph. [Puts his hands around her neck and kisses her]
Yes, I'll bite you to deatli!
Tekla. [Teasingly] Look out — somebody might come!
Adolph. Well, what do I care! I care for nothing else in
the world if I can only have you !
Tekla. And when you don't have me any longer.'
Adolph. Then I shall die!
Tekla. But you are not afraid of losing me, are you — as I
am too old to be wanted by anylxxly else.''
Adolph. You have not forgotten my words yet, Tekla! I
take it all back now!
Tekla. Can you explain to me why you are at once so
jealous and so cock-sure.'
Adolph. No, I cannot explain anything at all. But it's
possible that the thought of somebody else having possessed
you may still be gnawing within me. At times it appears to
me as if our love were nothing but a fiction, an attempt at
self-defence, a passion kept up as a matter of honor — and I
can't think of anything that would give me more pain than to
have him know that I am unhappy. Oh, I have never seen
him — but the mere thought that a person exists who is waiting
for my misfortune to arrive, who is daily calling down curses
on my head, who will roar with laughter when I perish — the
mere idea of it obsesses me, drives me nearer to you, fascinates
me, paralj'ses me!
Tekla. Do you think I would let him have that joy? Do
you think I would make his prophecy come true?
Adolph. No, I cannot think you would.
Tekla. Why don't you keep calm then?
Adolph. No, you upset me constantly l)y your coquetry.
Why do you play that kind of game?
Tekla. It is no game. I want to be admired — that's all!
Adolph. Yes, but only by men!
CREDITORS 39
Tekla, Of course ! For a woman is never admired by other
women.
Adolph. Tell me, have you heard anything — from him —
recently?
Tekla. Not in the last six months.
Adolph. Do you ever think of him?
Tekla. No! — Since the child died we have broken off our
correspondence.
Adolph. And you have never seen him at all?
Tekla. No, I understand he is living somewhere down on
the West Coast. But why is all this coming into your head
just now?
Adolph. I don't know. But during the last few days, while
I was alone, I kept thinking of him — how he might have felt
when he was left alone that time.
Tekla. Are you having an attack of bad conscience?
Adolph. I am.
Tekla. You feel like a thief, do you?
Adolph. Almost!
Tekla. Isn't that lovely! Women can be stolen as you
steal children or chickens? And you regard me as his chattel
or personal property. I am very much obliged to you!
Adolph. No, I regard you as his wife. And that's a good
deal more than property — for there can be no substitute.
Tekla. Oh, yes! If you only heard that he had married
again, all these foolish notions would leave you. — Have you
not taken his place with me?
Adolph, Well, have I? — And did you ever love him?
Tekla. Of course, I did !
Adolph. And then
Tekla. I grew tired of him!
Adolph. And if you should tire of me also?
Tekla. But I won't!
40 CREDITORS
Adolph. If somebody else should turn up — one who had
all the qualities you are looking for in a man now — suppose
only — then you would leave me?
Tekia. No.
Adolph. If he captivated you? So that you couldn't live
without him? Then you would leave me, of course?
Tekla. No, that doesn't follow,
Adolph. But you couldn't love two at the same time, could
you?
Tekl.\. Yes! Why not?
Adolph. That's something I cannot understand.
Tekla. But things exist although you do not understand
them. All persons are not made ui the same way, you know.
Adolph. I begin to see now!
Tekl.v. No, really!
Adolph. No, really? [.1 pause follows, during trhich he
seems to struggle with some memory that will not come back] Do
you know, Tekla, that your frankness is beginning to be pain-
ful?
TekIo^v. And yet it used to be my foremost virtue in j'our
mind, and one that you taught mc.
Adolph. Yes, but it seems to me as if j'ou were hiding some-
thing behind that frankness of yours.
Tekl,\. That's the new tactics, you know.
Adolph. I don't know why, but this place has suddenly
become offensive to me. If you feel like it, we might return
home — this evening!
Tekla. \Yhat kind of notion is that? I have barely arrived
and I don't feel Hke starting on another trip.
Adolph. But I want to.
Tekla. Well, what's that to me.' — You can go!
Adolph. But I demand that you take the next boat with
me!
CREDITORS 41
Tekla. Demand? — What are you talking about?
Adolph. Do you realise that you are my wife?
Tekla. Do you realise that you are m.y husband?
Adolph. Well, there's a difference between those two
things.
Tekla. Oh, that's the way you are talking now! — You have
never loved me!
Adolph. Haven't I?
Tekla. No, for to love is to give.
Adolph. To love like a man is to give; to love hke a woman
is to take. — And I have given, given, given!
Tekla. Pooh! WTiat 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. W^ell, isn't that much more agreeable — to escape
playing chaperon? But if you are not satisfied with your posi-
tion, 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 in-
crease 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.
42 CREDITORS
And now I am going to be your husband whether you Hke it
or not, as I am not allowed to be your lover any longer.
Tekl.\. [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, a,s 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. Ijust/cc/.
Adolph. It means that old age is near.
Tekla. There you are again! Take care!
CREDITORS 43
Adolph. Take care yourself!
Tekla. Of what?
Adolph. Of the knife!
Tekla. [Prattlirig] Little brother had better not play w ith
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
44 CREDITORS
muscles and cliarged 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 hired 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 exhibi-
tion 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 compellc<l the clamon)Us herd to see you
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 owTi feci. AMien you
reached that far, then my strength was used up, and I col-
lapsed from the overstrain — in lifting you up, I had pushed
myself down. I was taken ill, and my illness seemed an an-
noyance 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 accustomctl my-
self to the new part of little brother. Your tenderness for me
remained, and even increased, but it was minglcfl with a sug-
gestion 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 foun-
tainhead 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 arc weak, and you can never
CREDITORS 45
carry your o\\'n 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 crip-
pling 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.
TekLu\. ^Miat 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.
Tekl.^. Yes, but the summary of the whole story is that
you have written my books.
Adolph. No, there is no summar\\ 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;
TekLu\. But the sum of it
Adolph. [Wildly] There can be no sum without an addi-
tion. 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
46 CREDITORS
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!
Ue seems almost itnconscious and sits staring straight
ahead while his thumbs are bent imcard against tlie
folms of his hands.
Tekl.\. [Tenderli/] What is it? Are you sick?
Adolpii motions her away.
Tekla. Adolph!
Adolpii shakes his head at her.
Tekla. Adolph.
Adolph. Yes.
Tekla. Do you admit that you were unjust a moment ago?
Adolph. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I admit!
Tekla. And do j^ou ask my pardon?
Adolph. Yes, yes, yes, I ask your pardon — if you only
won't speak to me!
Tekla. Kiss my hand then!
Adolph. [Kissing her haiid] I'll kiss your hand — if you only
don't speak to me!
Tekla. And now you had better go out for a breath of
fresh air before dinner.
Adolph. Yes, I think I need it. And then we'll pack and
leave.
Tekla. No!
Adolph. [On his feet] \Vhj^? There must be a reason.
Tekla. The reason is that I have promised to be at the
concert to-night.
Adolph. Oh, that's it!
Tekla. Yes, that's it. I have promised to attend
Adolph. Promised? Probably you said only that j'ou
CREDITORS 47
might go, and that wouldn't prevent you from saying now
that you won't go.
Tekla. No, I am not like you: I keep my word.
Adolph. Of course, promises should be kept, but we don't
have to live up to every little word we happen to drop. Per-
haps there is somebody who has made you promise to go.
Tekla. Yes.
Adolph. Then you can ask to be released from your prom-
ise because your husband is sick.
Tekla. No, I don't want to do that, and you are not sick
enough to be kept from going with me.
Adolph. Why do you always want to drag me along.'' Do
you feel safer then?
Tekla. I don't know what you mean.
Adolph. That's what you always say when you know I
mean something that — doesn't please j'ou.
Tekl-iv. So-o! What is it now that doesn't please me?
Adolph. Oh, I beg you, don't begin over again — Good-bye
for a while!
Goes out through the door in the rear and then turns to
the right.
Tekla is left alone. A moment later Gustav enters and
goes straight up to the table as if looking for a news-
paper. He pretends not to see Tekla.
Tekla. [Shows agitation, hut manages to control herself] Oh,
is it you?
Gustav. Yes, it's me — I beg your pardon !
Tekla. Which way did you come?
Gustav. By land. But — I am not going to stay, as
Tekla. Oh, there is no reason why you shouldn't. — Well,
li was some time ago
Gustav. Yes, some time.
Tekla. You have changed a great deal.
48 CREDITORS
GusTAV. And you are as charming as ever. A little
younger, if anything. Excuse me, however— I am nut going
to spoil your happiness by my presence. And if I had known
you were here, I should never
Tekla. If you don't think it improper, I should like you
to stay.
GusTAV. On my part there could ho no objection, but I
fear — well, whatever I say, I am sure to offend you.
Tekl.\. Sit down a moment. You don't offend me, for
you possess that rare gift— which was always yours — of tact
and politeness.
GusTAV. It's very kind of you. But one could hardly
expect — that your husband might regard my qualities in the
same generous light as you.
Tekl.\. On the contrary, he lias just been speaking of you
in very sympathetic terms.
GusTAV. Oh! — ^^\•ll. everything becomes covered up by
time, like names cut in a tree — and not even dislike can main-
tain itself permanently in our minds.
Tekl.\. He ha-s never dislike<l you. for he has never seen
you. And as for me, I have always cherishixl a dream — that
of seeing you come together as friends — or at least of seeing
you meet for once in my presence — of seeing you shake hands
— and then go your different ways again.
GusTAV. It has also been my secret longing to see her whom
I used to love more than my own life — to make sure that she
was in good hands. And although I have heard nothing but
good of him, and am familiar with all his work, I should never-
theless have liked, liefore it grew too late, to lot)k into his
eyes and beg him to take good care of the treasure Providence
has place<l in his possession. In that way I hoped also to lay
the hatred that must have developed instinctively between
us; I wished to bring some peace and humility into my soul,
CREDITORS 49
so that I might manage to live through the rest of my sorrow-
ful days.
TekLu^. You have uttered my own thoughts, and you have
understood me. I thank j^ou for it!
GusTAV. Oh, I am a man of small account, and have al-
ways been too insignificant to keep you in the shadow. My
monotonous way of living, my drudgery, my narrow horizons
— all that could not satisfy a soul like yours, longing for liberty.
I admit it. But you understand — you who have searched the
human soul — what it cost me to make such a confession to
myself.
TekLu\. It is noble, it is splendid, to acknowledge one's own
shortcomings — and it's not everybody that's capable of it.
[S/^^5] But yours has always been an honest, and faithful,
and reliable nature — one that I had to respect — but
GusTAV. Not always — not at that time! But suffering
purifies, sorrow ennobles, and — I have suffered!
Tekla. PoorGustav! Can you forgive me. ^^ Tell me, can
you.?
GusTAV. Forgive.' What? I am the one who must ask
you to forgive.
Tekla. [Changing tone] I believe we are crying, both of
us — we who are old enough to know better!
GusTAV. [Feeling his way] Old.' Yes, I am old. But you —
you grow younger every day.
He has by that time manoeuvred himself up to the chair on
the left and sits down on it, whereupon Tekla. sits down
on the sofa.
Tekla. Do you think so?
GusTAV. And then you know how to dress.
Tekla, I learned that from you. Don't you remember
how you figured out what colors would be most becoming to
me?
50 CREDITORS
GUSTAV. No.
Tekla. Yes, don't you remember — hm ! — I can even recall
how you used to be angry with me whenever I failed to have
at least a touch of crimson about my dress.
GuSTAV. No, not angry! I was never angry with you.
Tekla. Oh, yes, when you wanted to teach me how to
thiuk^do you remember.' For that was something I couldn't
do at all.
GuSTAV. Of course, you could. It's something every human
being does. And you have become quite keen at it — at least
when you write.
Tekla. [Unpleasantly impressed; hurrying her words] Well,
my dear Gustav, it is pleasant to see you anyhow, and es-
pecially in a peaceful way like this.
GusTAV. AVoll, I can hardly l)e called a troublemaker, and
you had a pretty peaceful time v ith me.
Tekla. Perhaps too much so.
Gustav. Oh! But you see, I thought you wanted me that
way. It was at least the impression you gave me while we
were engaged.
Tekla. Do you think one really knows what one wants at
that time.' And then the mammas insist on all kinds of pre-
tensions, of course.
GusTAV. Well, now you must be having all the excitement
you can wish. They say that life among artists is rather swift,
and I don't think j'our husband can be called a sluggard.
Tekla. You can get too much of a good thing.
GusTAV. [Trying a new tack] What! I do believe you are
still wearing the ear-rings I gave you.'
Tekl.\. [Embarrassed] Why not? There was never any
quarrel between us — and then I thought I might wear them
as a token — and a reminder — that we were not enemies. And
CREDITORS 51
then, you know, it is impossible to buy tliis kind of ear-rings
any longer. [Takes off one of her ear-rings.
GusTAV. Oh, that's all right, but what does your husband
say of it?
Tekla. Why should I mind what he says?
GusTAV. Don't you mind that? — But you may be doing him
an injury. It is likely to make him ridiculous.
Tekla. [Brusquely, as if speakitig to herself alviost] He was
that before!
GusTAv. [Rises when he notes her difficulty in putting hack
the ear-ring] May I help you, perhaps?
Tekla. Oh — thank you !
GusTAV. [Pinching her ear] That tiny ear!— Think only
if your husband could see us now!
Tekla. Wouldn't he howl, though!
GusTAV. Is he jealous also?
Tekla. Is he? I should say so!
[A noise is heard from the room on the right.
GusTAV. Who lives in that room?
Tekla. I don't know.— But tell me how you are getting
along and what you are doing?
GusTAV. Tell me rather how you are getting along?
Tekla is visibly confused, and toithout realising lohat
she is doing, she takes the cover off the wax figure.
GusTAV. Hello! What's that?— Well!— It must be you!
Tekla. I don't believe so.
GusTAV. But it is very like you.
Tekla. [Cynically] Do you think so?
GusTAV. That reminds me of the story — you know it —
"How could your majesty see that?"
Tekla. [Laughing aloud] You are impossible! — Do you
know any new stories?
GusTAV. No, but you ought to have some.
52 CREDITORS
Tekla. Oh, I never hear anything funny nowadays.
GusTAV. Is he modest also?
Tekla. Oh— well
GusTAV. Not in everything?
Tekla. He isn't well just now.
GusTAV. Well, why should little brother put his nose into
other people's hives?
Tekl.\. [Laitghing] You crazj' thing!
GusTAV. Poor chap ! — Do you remember once when we were
just married — we lived in this very room. It was furnishetl
differently in those days. There was a chest of drawers against
that wall there — and over there stood the big bed.
Tekl.\. Now you stop!
GusTAV. Look at me!
Tekla. Well, why shouldn't I?
[They look hard at each other.
GusTAV. Do you think a person can ever forget anything
that has made a very deep impression on him?
Tekla. No! And our memories have a tremendous power.
Particularly the memories of our youth.
GusTAV. Do you remember when I first met you? Then
you were a pretty little girl: a slate on which parents and
governesses had made a few scrawls that I had to wipe out.
And then I filled it with inscriptions that suited my own mind,
until you believed the slate could hold nothing more. That's
the reason, you know, why I shouldn't care to be in your hus-
band's place — well, that's his business! But it's also the rea-
son why I take pleasure in meeting you again. Our thoughts
fit together exactly. And as I sit here and chat with you,
it seems to me like drinking old wine of my own bottling. Yes,
it's my own wine, but it has gained a great deal in flavour!
And now, when I am about to marry again, I have purposely
picked out a young girl whom I can educate to suit myself.
CREDITORS 53
For the woman, you know, is the man's child, and if she is not, /
he becomes hers, and then the world turns topsy-turvy. |
Tekla. Are you going to marry again?
GusTAV. Yes, I want to try my luck once more, but this
time I am going to make a better start, so that it w^on't end
again with a spUl.
Tekla. Is she good looking?
GusTAV. Yes, to me. But perhaps I am too old. It's
queer — now when chance has brought me together with you
again — I am beginning to doubt whether it will be pos-
sible to play the game over again.
Tekla. How do you mean?
GusTAV. I can feel that my roots stick in your soil, and
the old wounds are beginning to break open. You are a
dangerous woman, Tekla!
Tekla. Am I? And my young husband says that I can
make no more conquests.
GusTAV. That means he has ceased to love you.
Tekla. Well, I can't quite make out what love means to
him.
GusTAV. You have been playuig hide and seek so long that
at last you cannot find each other at all. Such things do hap-
pen. You have had to play the innocent to yourself, until he
has lost his courage. There are some drawbacks to a change,
I tell you — there are drawbacks to it, indeed.
Tekla. Do you mean to reproach
GusTAV. Not at all ! Whatever happens is to a certain ex-
tent necessary, for if it didn't happen, somethmg else would —
but now it did happen, and so it had to happen.
Tekla. You are a man of discernment. And I have never
met anybody with whom I liked so much to exchange ideas.
You are so utterly free from all morality and preaching, and
you ask so little of people, that it is possible to be oneself in
54 CREDITORS
your presence. Do you know, I am jealous of your intended
wife!
GusTAV. And do you realise that I am jealous of your hus-
band ?
Tekla. [Rising] And now we must part! For ever!
GusTAV. Yes, we must part! But not without a farewell —
or what do you say?
Tekl.\. [Agitated] No!
GusTAV. [Following after her] Yes! — Let us have a farewell !
Let us drown our memories — you know, there are intoxica-
tions so deep that when you wake up all memories are gone.
[Putting his arm around her waist] You have been dragged
down 1)3' a diseased spirit, who is infecting you with his own
annemia. I'll breathe new life into you. I'll make your talent
blossom again in your autumn days, like a remontant rose.
I'll
Two Ladies in travelling dress are seen in the doorway
leading to the veranda. They look surprised. Tfien
they point at those within, laugh, and disappear.
Tekla. [Freeing herself] Who was that?
GusTAV. [Indifferently] Some tourists.
Tekla. Leave me alone! I am afraid of you !
GusTAV. Why?
Tekla. You take my soul away from me!
GusTAV. And give you my own in its jilace! And you have
no soul for that matter — it's nothing but a delusion.
TekL-V. You have a way of saying impolite things so that
nobody can be angry with yt)u.
GusTAV. It's because you feel that I hold the first mortgage
on you — Tell me now, when — and — where?
Tekl.\. No, it wouldn't be right to him. I think he is still
in love with me, and I don't want to do any more harm.
GusTAV. He does not love you! Do you want proofs?
CREDITORS 55
Tekl.\. Where can you get them?
GusTAV. [Picking vp the pieces of the jjhotograph from the
floor] 'Revel See for yourself !
Tekl.\. Oh, that's an outrage!
GusTAV. Do you see? Now then, when? And where?
Tekla. The false-hearted wretch!
GusTAV, When?
Tekla. He leaves to-night, with the eight-o'clock boat.
GusTAV. And then
Tekla. At nine! [A noise is heard from the adjoining room]
Who can be living in there that makes such a racket?
GusTAV. Let's see! [Goes over arid looks through the key-
hole] There's a table that has been upset, and a smashed
water caraffe — that's all! I shouldn't wonder if they had left
a dog locked up in there. — At nine o'clock then?
Tekla. All right! And let him answer for it himself. —
■\Miat a depth of deceit! And he who has always preached
about truthfulness, and tried to teach me to tell the truth!
— But wait a little — how was it now? He received me with
something hke hostility — didn't meet me at the landing— and
then — and then he made some remark about young men on
board the boat, which I pretended not to hear— but how could
he know? Wait — and then he began to philosophise about
women — and then the spectre of you seemed to be haunting
him — and he talked of becoming a sculptor, that being the
art of the time — exactly in accordance with your old specula-
tions !
GusTAv. No, really!
Tekla. No, really?— Oh, now I understand! Now I be- j
gin to see what a hideous creature you are! You have been /
here before and stabbed him to death! It was you who had /
been sitting there on the sofa; it was you who made him think j
himself an epileptic— that he had to live in celibacy; that he I
56 CREDITORS
ought to rise in rebellion against his wife; yes, it was you! —
How long have you been here?
GusTAV. I have been here a week.
Tekla. It was you, then, I saw on board the boat?
GusTAV. It was.
Tekla. And now you were thinking you could trap me?
GusTAV. It ha-s been done.
Tekla. Not yet!
GusTAV. Yes!
Tekla. Like a wolf yon went after my lamb. You came
here with a villainous plan to break up my happiness, and you
were carrying it out, when my eyes were opened, and I foiled
you.
GusTAV. Not quite that way, if you please. This is how it
liappened in reality. Of course, it has been my secret hope
that disaster might overtake you. But I felt practically cer-
tain that no interference on my part was required. And be-
sides, I have been far too l)usy to have any time left for in-
triguing. Cut when I happened to be moving about a bit,
and happened to sec you with those young men on lioard the
boat, then I guessed the time had come for me to take a look
at the situation. I came here, and your lamb threw itself
into the arms of the wolf. I won his affection by some sort
of reminiscent impression which I shall not be tactless enough
to explain to you. At 6rst he aroused my sympathy, because
he seemed to be in the same fix as I was once. But then he
happened to touch old wounds — that book, you know, and
"the idiot" — and I was seized with a wish to pick him
to pieces, and to mix up these so thoroughly that they
couldn't be put together again — and I succeeded, thanks to
the painstaking way in which you had done the work of prepa-
ration. Then I had to deal with you. For you were the
spring that had kept the works moving, and j'ou had to be
CREDITORS 57
taken apart — and what a buzzing followed ! — When I came in
here, I didn't know exactly what to say. Like a chess-player,
I had laid a number of tentative plans, of course, but my play
had to depend on your moves. One thing led to the other,
chance lent me a hand, and finally I had you where I wanted
you. — Now you are caught!
Tekla. No!
GusTAV. Yes, you are! What you least wanted has hap-
pened. The world at large, represented by two lady tourists
— whom I had not sent for, as I am not an intriguer — the world
has seen how you became reconciled to your former husband,
and how you sneaked back repentantly into his faithful arms.
Isn't that enough.''
Tekla. It ought to be enough for your revenge — But
tell me, how can you, who are so enlightened and so right-
minded — how is it possible that you, who think whatever
happens must happen, and that all our actions are determined
in advance
GusTAV. [Correcting her] To a certain extent determined.
Tekla. That's the same thing!
GusTAV. No!
Tekla. [Disregarding him] How is it possible that you, who
hold me guiltless, as I was driven by my nature and the cir-
cumstances into acting as I did — how can you think yourself
entitled to revenge — .'*
GusTAV. For that very reason — for the reason that my
nature and the circumstances drove me into seeking revenge. ■■,/
Isn't that giving both sides a square deal? But do you know
why you two had to get the worst of it in this struggle?
Tekla looks scornful.
GusTAV. And why you were doomed to be fooled? Because
I am stronger than you, and wiser also. You have been the
idiot — and he! And now you may perceive that a man need
f
58 CREDITORS
not be an idiot because he doesn't write novels or paint pic-
tures. It might be well for you to bear this in mind.
Tekla. Are you then entirely without feelings.'
GusTAV. Entirely ! And for that very reason, you know, I
am capable of thinking — in which you have had no experience
whatever — and of acting — in which you have just had some
slight experience.
Tekla. And all this merely because I have hurt your van-
ity?
GusTAV. Don't call that vierchj! You had better not go
around hurting other people's vanity. They have no more
sensitive spot than that.
Tekla. Vindictive wretch — shame on you!
GusTAV. Dissolute wretch — shame on you!
Tekla. Oh, that's my character, is it?
GusTAV. Oh, that's my character, is it? — You ought to
learn something about human nature in others before you give
your own nature free rein. Otherwise you may get hurt, and
then there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Tekla. You can never forgive
GusTAV. Yes, I have forgiven you!
Tekl.'V. You!
GusTAV. Of course! Have I raised a hand against you
during all these years? No! And now I came here only to
have a look at you, and it was enough to burst your bubble.
Have I uttered a single reproach? Have I moralised or
preached sermons? No! I played a joke or two on your
dear consort, and nothing more was needed to finish him. —
But there is no reason why I, the complainant, should be de-
fending myself as I am now — Tekla ! Have you nothing at all
to reproach j^ourself with?
TekkiV. Nothing at all! Christians say that our actions
CREDITORS 59
are governed by Providence; others call it Fate; in either
case, are we not free from all liability?
GusTAV. In a measure, yes; but there is always a narrow
margin left unprotected, and there the liability applies in
spite of all. And sooner or later the creditors make thei.- ap-
pearance. Guiltless, but accountable! Guiltless in regard to
one who is no more; accountable to oneself and one's fellow
beings.
Tekla. So you came here to dun me?
GusTAV. I came to take back what you had stolen, not
what you had received as a gift. You had stolen my honour,
and I could recover it only by taking yours. This, I think, was
my right — or was it not?
Tekla. Honour? Hm! And now you feel satisfied?
GusTAV. Now I feel satisfied. [Rings for a waiter.
Tekla. And now you are going home to your fiancee?
GusTAV. I have no fiancee! Nor am I ever going to have
one. I am not going home, for I have no home, and don't
want one.
A Waiter comes in.
GusTAV. Get me my bill — I am leaving by the eight o'clock
boat.
The Waiter bows and goes out.
Tekla. Without making up?
GusTAV. Making up? You use such a lot of words that
have lost their meaning. Why should we make up? Perhaps
you want all three of us to live together? You, if anybody,
ought to make up by making good what you took away, but
this you cannot do. You just took, and what you took you
consumed, so that there is nothing left to restore. — Will it
satisfy you if I say like this : forgive me that you tore my heart
to pieces; forgive me that you disgraced me; forgive me
that you made me the laughing-stock of my pupils through
60 CREDITORS
every week-day of seven long years; forgive me that I set you
free from parental restraints, that I released you from the
tyranny of ignorance and superstition, that I set you to rule
my house, that I gave you position and friends, that I made
a woman out of the child you were before? Forgive me as I
forgive you! — Now I have torn up your note! Now you can
go and settle your account with the other one!
Tekla. What have you done with him? I am beginning
to suspect — something terrible!
GusTAV. AYith him? Do you still love him?
Tekl.'V. Yes!
GusTAV. And a moment ago it was me! Was that also true?
Tekla. It was true.
GusTAV. Do you know what you are then?
Tekla. You despise me?
GusTAV. I pity you. It is a trait — I don't call it a fault
— just a trait, which is rendered disadvantageous by its results.
Poor Tekla! I don't know — but it seems almost as if I were
feeling a certain regret, although I am as free from any guilt
— as you! But perhaps it will be useful to you to feel what I
felt that time. — Do you know where your husband is?
Tekla. I think I know now — he is in that room in there!
And he has heard everytliing! And seen everything! And
the man who sees his own wraith dies!
^Vdolpii appears in tlw doorway hading to the veranda.
nis face is white as a sheet, and there is a bleeding
scratch on one check. His eyes arc staring and void
of all expression. His lips are covered tcith froth.
GusTAV. [Shrinking bade] No, there he is! — Now you can
settle with him and see if he proves as generous as I have been.
— Good-bye!
He goes toward the left, but stops before he reaches the
door.
I
CREDITORS 61
Tekla. [Goes to meet Adolph with open arms] Adolpli!
Adolph leans against the door-jamb and sinks gradu-
ally to the floor.
Tekla. [Throiving herself upon his prostrate body and caress-
ing him] Adolph! My own child! Are j'ou still alive — oh,
speak, speak ! — Please forgive your nasty Tekla ! Forgive me,
forgive me, forgive me! — Little brother must say something,
I tell him! — No, good God, he doesn't hear! He is dead!
O God in heaven ! O my God ! Help !
GusTAV. Why, she really must have loved him, too ! — Poor
creature!
Curtain,
PARIAH
I
i
PARIAH
INTRODUCTION
Both "Creditors" and "Pariah" were written in the winter
of 1888-89 at Holte, near Copenhagen, where Strindberg,
assisted by his first wife, was then engaged in starting what he
called a " Scandmavian Experimental Theatre." In March,
1889, the two plays were given by students from the Univer-
sity of Copenhagen, and with IVIrs. von Essen Strindberg as
Tekla. A couple of weeks later the performance was repeated
across the Sound, in the Swedish city of Malmo, on which
occasion the writer of this introduction, then a young actor,
assisted in the stage management. One of the actors was
Gustav Wied, a Danish playwright and novelist, whose ex-
quisite art since then has won him European fame. In the
audience was Ola Hansson, a Swedish novelist and poet who
had just published a short story from which Strindberg, ac-
cording to his own acknowledgment on playbill and title-page,
had taken the name and the theme of "Pariah."
Mr. Hansson has printed a number of letters {Tilslcueren,
Copenhagen, July, 1912) written to him by Strindberg
about that time, as well as some very informative com-
ments of his own. Concerning the performance of Malmo he
writes: "It gave me a very unpleasant sensation. What did
it mean.'' Why had Strindberg turned my simple theme up-
sidedown so that it became unrecognisable.'* Not a vestige
of the 'theme from Ola Hansson' remained. Yet he had even
65
66 PARIAH
suggested that he and I act the play together, I not knowing
that it was to be a duel between two criminals. And he had
at first planned to call it 'Aryan and Pariah' — which meant,
of course, that the strong ^Vryan, Strindberg, was to crush
the weak Pariah, Hansson. coram populo."
In regard to his own story Mr. Hansson informs us that it
dealt with "a man who commits a forgery and then tells about
it, doing both in a sort of somnambulistic state whereby every-
thing is left vague and undefined." At that moment "Ras-
kolnikov" was in the air. so to speak. And without wanting
in any way to suggest imitation. I feel sure that the ground-
note of the story was distinctly Dostoievskian. Strindberg
himself had been reading Nietzsche and was — largely under
the pressure of a reaction against the popular disapproval of
his anti-feministic attitude — being driven more and more into
a superman philosophy which reached its climax in the two
novels "Chandalah" (1889) and "At the Edge of the Sea"
(1890). The Nietzschean note is unmistakable in the two
plays contained in the present volume.
But these plays are strongly colored by something else —
by something that is neither Hansson-Dostoievski nor Strind-
berg-Nietzsche. The solution of the problem is found in the
letters published by Mr. Hansson. These show that while
Strindberg was still planning "Cretlitors," and before he had
begun "Pariah," he had borrowed from Hansson a volume
of tales by Edgar Allan Poe. It was his first acquaintance
with the work of Poe, though not with American literature
— for among hLs first printed work was a series of transla-
tions from American humourists; and not long ago a Swedish
critic (Gunnar Castren in Samiidcii, Christiania, June. 1912)
wrote of Strindberg's literary beginnings that "he had learned
much from Swedish literature, but probably more from Mark
Twain and Dickens."
INTRODUCTION 67
The impression Poe made on Strindberg was overw helming.
He returns to it in one letter after another. Everything that
suits his mood of the moment is "Poesque" or "E. P-esque."
The story that seems to have made the deepest impression of
all was "The Gold Bug," though his thought seems to have
distilled more useful material out of certain other stories illus-
trating Poe's theories about mental suggestion. Under the
direct influence of these theories, Strindberg, according to
his own statements to Hansson, wrote the powerful one-act
play "Simoom," and made Gustav in "Creditors" actually
call forth the latent epileptic tendencies in Adolph. And on
the same authority we must trace the method of psycholog-
ical detection practised by Mr. X. in "Pariah" directly to
"The Gold Bug."
Here we have the reason why IVIr. Hansson could find so
little of his story in the play. And here we have the origin of
a theme which, while not quite new to him, was ever after-
ward to remain a favourite one with Strindberg : that of a duel
between intellect and cunning. It forms the basis of such
novels as "Chandalah" and "At the Edge of the Sea," but
it recurs in subtler form in works of much later date. To
readers of the present day, Mr. X. — that strikmg antithesis
of everything a scientist used to stand for in poetry — is much
less interesting as a superman in spe than as an illustration of
what a morally and mentally normal man can do with the
tools furnished him by our new understanding of human ways
and human motives. And in givmg us a play that holds our
interest as firmly as the best "love plot" ever devised,
although the stage shows us only two men engaged in an in-
tellectual wrestling match, Strindberg took another great step
toward ridding the drama of its old, shackhng conventions.
The name of this play has sometimes been translated as
"The Outcast," whereby it becomes confused with "The Out-
68 PARIAH
law," a much earlier play on a theme from the old Sagas.
I think it better, too, that the Hindu allusion in the Swedish
title be not lost, for the best of men may become an outcast,
but the baseness of the Pariah is not supposed to spring only
from lack of social position.
PARIAH
AN ACT
1889
PERSONS
Mr. X., an archceologist (^
Mr. Y., an American traveller )
Middle-aged men.
SCENE
A simply furnished room in a farm-house. The door and the
windows in the back-ground open on a landscape. In the middle
of the room stands a big dining-table, covered at one end by books,
writing materials, and antiquities; at the other end by a micro-
scope, insect cases, and specimen jars full of alchohol.
On the left side hangs a bookshelf. Otherwise the furniture
is that of a well-to-do farmer.
•• THi: .sraONGKn." a plav by Avigust
Strinilr.erp.
TianaUtion bv Kdlth and Wuin/r Olanf).
>Ir.«. X • .- . Mabel Moore
M!.--« Y Hedwtg R' " "
A WHlUir-.-^ Marjoii? lidnn'
•• PAllfAII." a pla;. by Aupu^-l Strin.lberg.
Tr<nmlailoii by Edwin lijorkman.
Mr. X .-.WalUV Tl;in
Mr. V , Frank !:•
Forty-elgnth Street Theatre.
PARIAH
Mr. Y. enters in his shirtsleeves, carrying a butterfly-net and a
botany-can. He goes straight up to the book-shelf and takes
down a book, which he begins to read on the spot.
The landscape outside and the room itself are steeped in sunlight.
The ringing of church bells indicates that the morning ser-
vices are ju^t over. Now and then the cackling of hens is
heard from the outside.
Mr. X. enters, also in his shirt-sleeves.
Mr. Y. starts violently, puts the book back on the shelf upside-
doion, and pretends to be looking for another volume.
Mr. X. This heat is horrible. I guess we are going to have
a thunderstorm.
Mr. Y. What makes you think so?
Mr. X. The bells have a kind of dry ring to them, the flies
are sticky, and the hens cackle. I meant to go fishing, but I
couldn't find any worms. Don't you feel nervous.^
Mr. Y. [Cautiously] I.=— A little.
Mr. X. Well, for that matter, you always look as if you
were expecting thunderstorms.
Mr. Y. [With a staH] Do I?
Mr. X. Now, you are going away to-morrow, of course, so
it is not to be wondered at that you are a little "journey-
proud." — Anything new.^ — Oh, there's the mail! [Picks up
some letters from the table] Mjs I have palpitation of the heart
every time I open a letter! Nothing but debts, debts, debts!
Have you ever had any debts.'*
71
72 PARIAH
Mb. Y. [After some reflection] N-no.
Mr. X. Well, then you don't know what it means to re-
ceive a lot of overdue bills. [Reads one of the Irttcrs] The rent
unpaid — the landlord acting nasty — my wife in despair. And
here am I sitting waist-high in gold! [He opens an iron-banded
box that stands on the table; then both sit down at the table, fac-
ing each other] Just look — here I have six thousand crowns'
worth of gold which I have dug up in the la.st fortnight. This
bracelet alone would bring me the three hundred and fifty
crowns I need. And with all of it I might make a fine career
for myself. Then I could get the illustrations made for my
treatise at once; I could get my work printixl, and — I could
travel! ^^^ly don't I do it, do you suppose?
Mu. Y. I sujipose you are afraid to be found out.
Mr. X. That, too, perhaps. But don't you think an intel-
ligent fellow like myself might fix matters so that he was
never found out? I am alone all the time — with nolwMly
watching me — while I am digging out there in the fields. It
wouldn't be strange if I put sometliing in ray own pockets now
and then.
Mu. Y. Yes. but the worst danger lies in disposing of the
stufT.
Mi{. X. Pooli! I'd nult it down, of course — every bit of
it — and then I'd turn it into coins — with just as much gold
in them as genuine ones, of course
Mr. Y. Of course!
Mr. X. Well, you can easily sec why. For if I wanted to
dabble in counterfeits, then I need not go digging for gold
first. [Pause] It is a strange thing anyhow, that if anybody
else did what I cannot make myself do, then I'd be willing to
acquit him — but I couldn't possibly acquit myself. I might
even make a brilliant speech in defence of the thit^f. proving
that this gold was res nullius, or nobody's, as it had been de-
PARIAH 73
posited at a time when property rights did not yet exist;
that even under existing rights it could belong only to the first
finder of it, as the ground-owner has never included it in the
valuation of his property; and so on.
Mr. Y. And probably it would be much easier for you to do
this if the — hm ! — the thief had not been prompted by actual
need, but by a mania for collecting, for instance — or by
scientific aspirations — by the ambition to keep a discovery to
himself. Don't you think so?
Mr. X. You mean that I could not acquit him if actual
need had been the motive? Yes, for that's the only motive
which the law will not accept in extenuation. That motive
makes a plain theft of it.
Mr. Y. And this you coiddn't excuse?
Mr. X. Oh, excuse — no, I guess not, as the law wouldn't.
On the other hand, I must admit that it would be hard for me
to charge a collector with theft merely because he had ap-
propriated some specimen not yet represented in his own col-
lection.
Mr. Y. So that vanity or ambition might excuse what
could not be excused by need?
Mr. X. And yet need ought to be the more telling excuse
— the only one, in fact? But I feel as I have said. And I
can no more change this feeling than I can change my own
determination not to steal under any circumstances what-
ever.
Mr. Y. And I suppose you count it a great merit that you
cannot — hm ! — steal ?
Mr. X. No, my disinclmation to steal is just as irresistible
as the inclination to do so is irresistible with some people. So
it cannot be called a merit. I cannot do it, and the other
one cannot refrain! — But you understand, of course, that I
am not without a desire to own this gold. Why don't I take
74 PARIAH
it then? Because I cannot! It's an inability — and the lack
of something cannot be called a merit. There!
[Closes tJie box with a slam.
Straij clouds have cast their shadoics on tJie landscape and
darkened the room now and then. Note it grows quite
dark as tchen a thunderstorm is approaching.
Mr. X. How close the air is! I guess the storm is coming
all right.
Mr. Y. gets up and shuts the door and all tlie windows.
Mr. X. Are you afraid of thunder.^
Mr. Y. It's just as well to be careful.
They resume their seats at the table.
Mr. X. You're a curious chap! Here you come dropping
down like a bomb a fortnight ago, introducing yourself as
a Swedish-American who is collecting flies for a small mu-
seum
Mr. Y. Oh, never mind me now!
Mr. X. That's what you always say when I grow tired of
talking about myself and want to turn my attention to you.
Perhaps that was the reason why I took to you as I did — be-
cause you let me talk about myself? All at once we seemed like
old friends. There were no angles about you against which I
could bump myself, no pins that pricked. There was some-
thing soft about your whole person, and you overflowed with
that tact which only well-educated people know how to show.
You never made a noise when you came home late at night
or got up early in the morning. You were patient in small
things, and you gave in whenever a conflict seemed threat-
ening. In a word, you proved yourself the perfect companion !
But you were entirely too compliant not to set me wondering
about you in the long run — and you are too timid, too easily
frightened. It seems almost as if you were made up of two
different personalities. Why, as I sit here looking at your
PARIAH 75
back in the mirror over there — it is as if I were looking at
somebody else.
Mk. Y. turns around and stares at the mirror.
Mr. X. No, you cannot get a glimpse of your own back,
man! — In front you appear like a fearless sort of fellow, one
meeting his fate with bared breast, but from behind — really,
I don't want to be impolite, but — you look as if you were
carrying a burden, or as if you were crouching to escape a
raised stick. And when I look at that red cross your suspend-
ers make on your white shirt — well, it looks to me hke some
kind of emblem, hke a trade-mark on a packing-box
IMr. Y. I feel as if I'd choke — if the storm doesn't break
soon
Mr. X. It's coming — don't you worry! — And your neck!
It looks as if there ought to be another kind of face on top of
it, a face quite diflFerent in type from yours. And your ears
come so close together behind that sometimes I wonder what
race you belong to. [A flash of lightning lights up the room]
^^^ly, it looked as if that might have struck the sheriff's
house !
Mr. Y. [Alarmed] The sheriff's!
JVIr. X. Oh, it just looked that way. But I don't think
we'll get much of this storm. Sit down now and let us have
a talk, as you are going away to-morrow. One thing I find
strange is that you, with whom I have become so intimate in
this short time — that you are one of those whose image I
cannot call up when I am away from them, ^^^len you are
not here, and I happen to think of you, I alwaj's get the vision
of another acquaintance — one who does not resemble you, but
with whom you have certain traits in common.
Mr. Y. ^\llo is he.'
Mr. X. I don't want to name him, but — I used for several
years to take my meals at a certain place, and there, at the
76 PARIAH
side-table where they kept the whiskey and the other pre-
liminaries, I met a little blond man, with blond, faded eyes.
He had a wonderful faculty for making his way through a
crowd without jostling anybody or being jostled himself.
And from his customary place down by the door he seemed
perfectly able to reach whatever he wanted on a table that
stood some six feet away from him. He seemed always happy
just to be in company. But when he met anybody he knew,
then the joy of it made him roar with laughter, and he would
hug and pat the other fellow as if he hadn't seen a human face
for years. When anybody stepped on his foot, he smiled as
if eager to apologise for being in the way. For two years I
watched him and amused myself by guessing at his occupa-
tion and character. But I never asked who he was; I didn't
want to know, you see, for then all the fun would have been
spoiled at once. That man had just your quality of being in-
definite. At different times I made him out to be a teacher
who had never got his licence, a non-commissioned officer,
a druggist, a government clerk, a detective — and like you, he
looked as if made out of two pieces, for the front of him never
quite fitted the back. One day I happened to read in a news-
paper about a big forgery committed by a well-known gov-
ernment official. Then I learned that my indefinite gentle-
man had been a partner of the forger's brother, and that his
name was Strawman. Later on I learned that the aforesaid
Strawman used to run a circulating library, but that he was
now the police reporter of a big daily. How in the world could
I hope to establish a connection between the forgery, the
police, and my little man's peculiar manners.'' It was beyond
me; and when I asked a friend whether Strawman had ever
been punished for something, my friend couldn't answer
either yes or no — he just didn't know! [Pause.
Mr. Y. Well, had he ever been — punished.'
PARIAH 77
Mr. X. No, he had not. [Pause.
Mr. Y. And that was the reason, you think, why the poHce
had such an attraction for him, and why he was so afraid of
offending people?
Mr. X. Exactly!
Mr. Y. And did you become acquainted with him after-
ward.'
Mr. X. No, I didn't want to. [Pause.
Mr. Y. Would you have been willing to make his acquaint-
ance if he had been — punished?
]VIr. X. Perfectly!
Mr. Y. rises and walks back and forth several times.
Mr. X. Sit still! Why can't you sit still?
Mr. Y. How did you get your liberal view of human con-
ditions? Are you a Christian?
Mr. X. Oh, can't you see that I am not?
Mr. Y. makes a face.
Mr, X. The Christians require forgiveness. But I require
punishment in order that the balance, or whatever you may
call it, be restored. And you, who have served a term, ought to
know the difference.
Mr. Y. [Stands motionless and stares at Mr. X., first idth
wild, hateful eyes, then with surprise and admiration] How —
could — you — know — that?
Mr. X. Why, I could see it.
Mr. Y. How? How could you see it?
Mr. X. Oh, with a little practice. It is an art, like many
others. But don't let us talk of it any more. [He looks at his
watch, arranges a docximent on the table, dips a pen in the ink-
well, and hands it to Mr. Y.] I must be thinking of my tangled
affairs. Won't you please witness my signature on this note
here? I am going to turn it in to the bank at Malmo to-mor-
row, when I go to the city with you.
78 PARIAH
Mr. Y. I am not going by way of Malmo.
Mr. X. Oh, you are not.'
Mr. Y. No.
Mr. X. But that need not prevent you from witnessing my
signature.
Mr. Y. N-no! — I never write my name on papers of that
kind
Mr. X. — any longer! This is the fifth time you have re-
fused to write your own name. The first time nothing more
serious was involved than the receipt for a registered letter.
Then I began to watch you. And since then I have noticed
that you have a morbid fear of a pen filled with ink. You
have not written a suigle letter since you came here — only a
post-card, and that you wrote with a blue pencil. You under-
stand now that I have figured out the exact nature of your
slip? Furthermore! This is something like the seventh time
you have refused to come with me to Malmo, which place you
have not visited at all during all this time. And yet you came
the whole way from America merely to have a look at Malniii!
And every morning you walk a couple of miles, up to the old
mill, just to get a glimpse of the roofs of Malmo in the distance.
And when you stand over there at the right-hand window and
look out through the third pane from the bottom on the left
side, you can see the spired turrets of the castle and the tall
chimney of the county jail. — Aid now I hope you see that it's
your own stupidity rather than my cleverness which has made
everything clear to me.
Mr. Y. This means that you despise me.''
Mr. X. Oh, no!
Mr. Y. Yes, you do — you cannot but do it!
Mr. X. No— here's my hand.
Mr. Y. takes hold of the outstretched hand and hisses U.
PARIAH 79
Mr. X. [Drawing hack his hand] Don't lick hands like a dog !
Mr. Y. Pardon me, sir, but you are the first one who has
let me touch his hand after learning
Mr. X. And now you call me "sir!" — What scares me
about you is that you don't feel exonerated, washed clean,
raised to the old level, as good as anybody else, when you have
suffered your punishment. Do you care to tell me how it
happen ed-f* Would you?
Mr. Y. [Twisting uneasily] Yes, but you won't believe what
I say. But I'll tell you. Then you can see for yourself that I
am no ordinary criminal. You'll become convinced, I think,
that ihere are errors which, so to speak, are involuntary —
[twisting again] which seem to commit themselves — spon-
taneously — without being willed by oneself, and for which
one cannot be held responsible — May I open the door a
little now, since the storm seems to have passed over?
Mr. X. Suit yourself.
Mr. Y. [Opens the door; then he sits dmon at the table and
begins to speak with exaggerated display of feeling, theatrical ges-
tures, and a good deal of false emphasis] Yes, I'll tell you! I was
a student in the university at Lund, and I needed to get a loan
from a bank. I had no pressing debts, and my father owned
some property — not a great deal, of course. However, I had
sent the note to the second man of the two who were to act as
security, and, contrary to expectations, it came back with a
refusal. For a while I was completely stunned by the blow,
for it was a very unpleasant surprise — most impleasant! The
note was lying in front of me on the table, and the letter lay
beside it. At first my eyes stared hopelessly at those lines
that pronounced my doom — that is, not a death-doom, of
course, for I could easily find other securities, as many as I
wanted — but as I have already said, it was very annoying
just the same. And as I was sitting there quite unconscious
80 PARIAH
of any evil intention, my eyes fastened upon the signature of
the letter, which would have made my future secure if it had
only appeared in the riglit place. It was an unusually well-
written signature — and you know how sometimes one may
absent-mindedly scribble a sheet of paper full of meaningless
words. I had a pen in my hand — [picks up a penholder from
the table] like this. And somehow it just began to run— I
don't want to claim that there was anything mystical — any-
thing of a spiritualistic nature back of it — for that kind of
thing I don't believe in ! It was a wholly unreasoned, mechan-
ical process — my copying of that beautiful autograph over
and over again. When all the clean space on the letter was
used up, I had learned to reproduce the signature aiilo-
maticall;s — and then — [throwing airaij the penholder with a
violent gesture] then I forgot all about it. That night I slept
long and heavily. And when I woke up, I couM feel that I
had been dreaming, but I couldn't recall the dream itself.
At times it was as if a door had been thrown ajar, and then I
seemed to see the writing-table with the note on it as in a dis-
tant memory — and when I got out of bed, I was force<l up to
the table, just as if, after careful deliberation, I had formed an
irrevocable decision to sign the name to that fateful paper.
All thought of the consequences, of the risk involved, had dis-
appeared — no hesitation remained — it was almost as if I was
fulfilling some sacred duty — and so I wrote! [Leaps to his
feet] What could it be? Was it some kind of outside influence,
a case of mental suggestion, as they call it? But from whom
could it come? I was sleeping alone in that room. Could it
possibly be my primitive self — the savage to whom the keep-
ing of faith is an unknown thing — which pushed to the front
while my consciousness was asleep — together with the crim-
inal will of that self, and its inability to calculate the results
of an action? Tell me, what do you think of it?
PARIAH 81
Mr. X. [As if he had to force the words out of himself]
Frankly speaking, your story does not convince me — there
are gaps in it, but these may depend on your failure to recall
all the details — and I have read something about criminal
suggestion — or I think I have, at least — hm ! But all that is
neither here nor there! You have taken your medicine — and
you have had the courage to acknowledge your fault. Now
we won't talk of it any more.
Mr. Y. Yes, yes, yes, we must talk of it — till I become sure
of my innocence.
Mr. X. Well, are you not?
Mr. Y. No, I am not!
Mr. X. That's just what bothers me, I tell you. It's ex-
actly what is bothering me! — Don't you feel fairly sure that
every human being hides a skeleton in his closet.'' Have we
not, all of us, stolen and lied as children.'' Undoubtedly!
Well, now there are persons who remain children all their
lives, so that they cannot control their unlawful desires. Then
comes the opportunity, and there you have your criminal. —
But I cannot understand why you don't feel innocent. If the
child is not held responsible, why should the criminal be re-
garded differently.'* It is the more strange because — well,
perhaps I may come to repent it later. [Pause] I, for my part,
have killed a man, and I have never suffered any qualms on
account of it.
Mr. Y. [Very much interested] Have — you?
Mr. X. Yes, I, and none else! Perhaps you don't care to
shake hands with a murderer?
Mr. Y. [Pleasantly] Oh, what nonsense!
Mr. X. Yes, but I have not been punished.
Mr. Y. [Growing more familiar and taking on a superior
to7ie] So much the better for you! — How did you get out
of it?
82 PARIAH
Mr. X. There was nobody to accuse me, no suspicions, no
witnesses. This is the way it happened. One Christmas I
was invited to hunt with a fellow-student a Httle way out of
Upsala. He sent a besotted old coachman to meet me at the
station, and this fellow went to sleep on the box, drove the
horses into a fence, and u[)set the whole equipage in a ditch.
I am not going to pretend that my life was in danger. It was
sheer impatience which made me hit him across the neck with
the edge of my hand — you know the way — just to wake him
up — and the result was that he never woke up at all, but col-
lapsed then and there.
Mr. Y. [Craftily] And did you report it.'
Mr. X. No, and these were my reasons for not doing so.
The man left no family behind him, or anybody else to whom
his life could be of the slightest use. He had already outlived
his allotted period of vegetation, and his place might just as
well be filled by somebody more in need of it. On the other
hand, my life was necessary to the happiness of my parents
and myself, and perhaps also to the progress of my science.
The outcome had once for all cure<I me of any desire to wake
up people in that manner, and I didn't care to spoil both my
own life and that of my parents for the sake of an abstract
principle of justice.
Mr. Y. Oh, that's the way you measure the value of a
human life?
Mr. X. In the present case, yes.
Mr. Y. But the sense of guilt — that balance you were
speaking of.**
Mr. X. I had no sense of guilt, as I had committed no
crime. As a boy I had given and taken more than one blow
of the same kind, and the fatal outcome in this particular
case was simply caused by my ignorance of the eflFect such a
blow might have on an elderly person.
PARIAH 83
Mr. Y. Yes, but even the unintentional killing of a man
is punished with a two-year term at hard labour — which is
exactly what one gets for — writing names.
Mr. X. Oh, you may be sure I have thought of it. And
more than one night I have dreamt myself in prison. Tell
me now — is it really as bad as they say to find oneself behind
bolt and bar?
Mr. Y. You bet it is! — First of all they disfigure you by
cutting off your hair, and if you don't look like a criminal
before, you are sure to do so afterward. And when you
catch sight of yourself in a mirror you feel quite sure that you
are a regular bandit.
Mr. X. Isn't it a mask that is being torn oflF, perhaps?
Which wouldn't be a bad idea, I should say.
Mr. Y, Yes, you can have your little jest about it! — And
then they cut down your food, so that every day and every
hour you become conscious of the border line between life and
death. Every vital function is more or less checked. You
can feel yourself shrinking. And your soul, which was to be
cured and improved, is instead put on a starvation diet —
pushed back a thousand years into outlived ages. You are
not permitted to read anything but what was written for the
savages who took part in the migration of the peoples. You
hear of nothing but what will never happen in heaven; and
what actually does happen on the earth is kept hidden from
you. You are torn out of your surroundings, reduced from
your own class, put beneath those who are really beneath
yourself. Then you get a sense of living in the bronze age.
You come to feel as if you were dressed in skins, as if you
were living in a cave and eating out of a trough — ugh!
Mr. X. But there is reason back of all that. One who acts
as if he belonged to the bronze age might surely be expected
to don the proper costume.
84 PARIAH
Mr. Y. [Irately] Yes, you sneer! You who have behaved
like a man from the stone age — and who are permitted to live
in the golden age.
^1b. X, [Sharply, icatching him closely] What do you mean
with that last expression — the golden age?
Mr. Y. [With a poorly suppressed snarl] Nothing at all.
;Mr. X. X'ow you lie — because you are too much of a
coward to say all you think.
Mr. Y. Am I a coward? You think so? But I was no
coward when I dared to show myself around here, where I
had had to suffer as I did. — But can you tell what makes one
suffer most while in there? — It is that the others are not in
there too!
Mr. X. 'SMiat others?
Mr. Y. Those that go unpunished.
Mr. X. Are you thinking of me?
Mr. Y. I am.
Mr. X. But I have committed no crime.
Mr. Y. Oh, haven't you?
Mr. X. No, a misfortune is no crime.
Mr. Y. So, it's a misfortune to commit murder?
Mr. X. I have not committed murder.
Mr. Y. Is it not murder to kill a person?
Mr. X. Not always. The law speaks of murder, man-
slaughter, killing in self-defence — and it makes a distinction
between intentional and unintentional killing. However —
now you really frighten me, for it's becoming plain to me that
you belong to the most dangerous of all human groups — that
of the stupid.
Mr. Y. So you imagine that I am stupid? Well, listen —
would you like me to show you how clever I am?
Mr. X. Come on!
Mr. Y. I think you'll have to admit that there is both
PARIAH 85
logic and wisdom in the argument I'm now going to give you.
You have suffered a misfortune which might have brought
you two years at hard labor. You have completely escaped
the disgrace of being punished. And here you see before you
a man — who has also suffered a misfortune — the victim of an
unconscious impulse — and who has had to stand two years
of hard labor for it. Only by some great scientific achieve-
ment can this man wipe off the taint that has become attached
to him without any fault of his own — but in order to arrive
at some such achievement, he must have money — a lot of
money — and money this minute! Don't you think that the
other one, the impunished one, would bring a Httle better bal-
ance into these imequal human conditions if he paid a penalty
in the form of a fine? Don't you think so.'
:Me. X. [Calmly] Yes.
Mk. Y. Then we understand each other. — Hml [Pause]
What do you think would be reasonable.'
!Me. X. Reasonable.^ The minimum fine in such a case is
fixed by the law at fifty crowns. But this whole question is
settled by the fact that the dead man left no relatives.
'Mr. Y. Apparently you don't want to understand. Then
I'll have to speak plainly : it is to me you must pay that fine.
!Mr. X. I have never heard that forgers have the right to
collect fines imposed for manslaughter. And, besides, there
is no prosecutor.
ISIn. Y. There isn't.' Well — how would I do?
]Mr. X. Oh, now we are getting the matter cleared up!
How much do you want for becoming my accompHce?
1Mb. Y. Six thousand crowns.
Me. X. That's too much. And where am I to get them?
Mr. Y. points to the box.
Mb, X. Xo, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be-
come a thief.
86 PARIAH
Mr. Y. Oh, don't put on any airs now! Do you think I'll
believe that you haven't helped yourself out of that box be-
fore?
Mr. X. [As if speaking to himself] Think only, that I could
let myself be fooled so completely. But that's the way with
these soft natures. You like them, and then it's so easj' to
believe that they like you. And that's the reason why I have
always been on mj' guard against people I take a liking to! —
So you are firmly convinced that I have helped myself out of
the box before?
Mr. Y. Certainly!
Mr. X. And you are going to report me if you don't get
six thousand crowns?
Mr. Y. Most decidedly ! You can't get out of it, ?o there's
no use trying.
Mr. X. You think I am going to give ray father a thief
for son. my wife a thief for husband, my children a thief for
father, my fellow -workers a thief for colleague? No, that will
never happen! — Now I am going over to the sheriff to report
the killing myself.
Mr. Y. [Jumps up and begins to pick up his things] Wait
a moment!
Mr. X. For what?
Mr. Y, [Stammering] Oh, I thought — as I am no longer
needed — it wouldn't be necessary for me to stay — and I might
just as well leave.
Mr. X. No, you may not! — Sit down there at the table,
where you sat before, and we'll have another talk before you
go.
Mr. Y. [Sits down after having put on a dark coat] What are
you up to now?
Mr. X. [Looking into the mirror back of Mr. Y.] Oh, now
I have it! Oh-h-h!
PARIAH 87
Mr. Y. [Alarmed] What kind of wonderful things are you
discovering now?
Mr. X. I see in the mirror that you are a thief — a plaia,
ordinary thief! A moment ago, while you had only the white
shirt on, I could notice that there was something wrong about
my book-shelf. I couldn't make out just what it was, for I
had to listen to you and watch you. But as my antipathy in-
creased, my vision became more acute. And now, with your
black coat to furnish the needed color contrast for the red back
of the book, which before couldn't be seen against the red of
your suspenders — now I see that you have been reading about
forgeries in Bernheim's work on mental suggestion — for you
turned the book upsidedown in putting it back. So even that
story of yours was stolen ! For this reason I think myself en-
titled to conclude that your crime must have been prompted
by need, or by mere love of pleasure.
Mr. Y. By need ! If you only knew
Mr. X. If yoH only knew the extent of the need I have had
to face and live through! But that's another story! Let's
proceed with your case. That you have been in prison — I
take that for granted. But it happened in America, for it was
American prison life you described. Another thing may also
be taken for granted, namely, that you have not borne your
punishment on this side.
Mr. Y. How can you imagine anything of the kind.''
Mr. X. Wait until the sheriflf gets here, and you'll learn
all about it.
Mr. Y. gets up.
Mr. X. There you see! The first time I mentioned the
sheriff, in connection with the storm, you wanted also to run
away. And when a person has served out his time he doesn't
care to visit an old mill every day just to look at a prison, or
to stand by the window — in a word, you are at once punished
88 PARIAH
and unpunished. And that's why it was so hard to make you
out. [Pause.
Mr. Y. [Comfhtehj beaten] May I go now.'
Mr. X. Now you can go.
Mr. Y. [Putting his things together] Are you angry at me?
Mr. X. Yes — would you prefer me to pity you.?
Mr. Y. [SuUcily] Pity.' Do you think you're any better
than I?
Mr. X. Of course I do. as I am belter than you. I am
wiser, and I am less of a menace to prevaihng jiropcrty 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 viy 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 tlie same kind of acts
as you. And tliat gives you the upper hand. But suppose you
forced me to treat you as I treated that coachman?
[lie 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.
PARIAH 89
]Mr. 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.
1Mb. 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 i
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?
Mb. Y. May I go?
Mb. X. Now you have to go! And at once! I'll send your
things after you! — Get out of here!
Curtain.
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