Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 143

GUSTAV. Because I watched these symptoms in a younger brother of mine, who eventually died of excess.

[_He sits down in the arm-chair by the circular table._]

ADOLF. How did it manifest itself--that disease, I mean?

[_Gustav gesticulates vividly; Adolf watches with strained attention, and involuntarily imitates Gustav's gestures._]

GUSTAV. A ghastly sight. If you feel at all off color, I'd rather not harrow you by describing the symptoms.

ADOLF [_nervously_]. Go on; go on.

GUSTAV. Well, it's like this. Fate had given the youngster for a wife a little innocent, with kiss-curls, dove-like eyes, and a baby face, from which there spoke the pure soul of an angel. In spite of that, the little one managed to appropriate the man's prerogative.

ADOLF. What is that?

GUSTAV. Initiative, of course; and the inevitable result was that the angel came precious near taking him away to heaven. He first had to be on the cross and feel the nails in his flesh.

ADOLF [_suffocating_]. Tell me, what was it like?

GUSTAV [_slowly_]. There were times when he and I would sit quite quietly by each other and chat, and then--I'd scarcely been speaking a few minutes before his face became ashy white, his limbs were paralyzed, and his thumbs turned in towards the palm of the hand. [_With a gesture._] Like that! [_Adolf imitates the gesture._] And his eyes were shot with blood, and he began to chew, do you see, like this. [_He moves his lips as though chewing; Adolf imitates him again._] The saliva stuck in his throat; the chest contracted as though it had been compressed by screws on a joiner's bench; there was a flicker in the pupils like gas jets; foam spurted from his mouth, and he sank gently back in the chair as though he were drowning. Then--

ADOLF [_hissing_]. Stop!

GUSTAV. Then--are you unwell?

ADOLF. Yes.

GUSTAV [_gets up and fetches a gla.s.s of water from the table on the right near the center door_]. Here, drink this, and let's change the subject.

ADOLF [_drinks, limp_]. Thanks; go on.

GUSTAV. Good! When he woke up he had no idea what had taken place. [_He takes the gla.s.s back to the table._] He had simply lost consciousness.

Hasn't that ever happened to you?

ADOLF. Now and again I have attacks of dizziness. The doctor puts it down to anaemia.

GUSTAV [_on the right of Adolf_]. That's just how the thing starts, mark you. Take it from me, you're in danger of contracting epilepsy; if you aren't on your guard, if you don't live a careful and abstemious life, all round.

ADOLF. What can I do to effect that?

GUSTAV. Above all, you must exercise the most complete continence.

ADOLF. For how long?

GUSTAV. Six months at least.

ADOLF. I can't do it. It would upset all our life together.

GUSTAV. Then it's all up with you.

ADOLF. I can't do it.

GUSTAV. You can't save your own life? But tell me, as you've taken me into your confidence so far, haven't you any other wound that hurts you?--some other secret trouble in this multifarious life of ours, with all its numerous opportunities for jars and complications? There is usually more than one _motif_ which is responsible for a discord.

Haven't you got a skeleton in the cupboard, old chap, which you hide even from yourself? You told me a minute ago you'd given your child to people to look after. Why didn't you keep it with you?

[_He goes behind the square table on the left and then behind the sofa._]

ADOLF [_covers the figure on the small table with a cloth_]. It was my wife's wish to have it nursed outside the house.

GUSTAV. The motive? Don't be afraid.

ADOLF. Because when the kid was three years old she thought it began to look like her first husband.

GUSTAV. Re-a-lly? Ever seen the first husband?

ADOLF. No, never. I just once cast a cursory glance over a bad photograph, but I couldn't discover any likeness.

GUSTAV. Oh, well, photographs are never like, and besides, his type of face may have changed with time. By the by, didn't that make you at all jealous?

ADOLF. Not a bit. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was traveling when I met Thekla, here--in this watering-place--in this very house. That's why we come here every summer.

GUSTAV. Then all suspicion on your part was out of the question? But so far as the intrinsic facts of the matter are concerned you needn't be jealous at all, because it not infrequently happens that the children of a widow who marries again are like the deceased husband. Very awkward business, no question about it; and that's why, don't you know, the widows are burned alive in India. Tell me, now, didn't you ever feel jealous of him, of the survival of his memory in your own self? Wouldn't it have rather gone against the grain if he had just met you when you were out for a walk, and, looking straight at Thekla, said "We," instead of "I"? "We."

ADOLF. I can't deny that the thought has haunted me.

GUSTAV [_sits down opposite Adolf on the sofa on the left_]. I thought as much, and you'll never get away from it. There are discords in life, you know, which never get resolved, so you must stuff your ears with wax, and work. Work, get older, and heap up over the coffin a ma.s.s of new impressions, and then the corpse will rest in peace.

ADOLF. Excuse my interrupting you--but it is extraordinary at times how your way of speaking reminds me of Thekla. You've got a trick, old man, of winking with your right eye as though you were counting, and your gaze has the same power over me as hers has.

GUSTAV. No, really?

ADOLF. And now you p.r.o.nounce your "No, really?" in the same indifferent tone that she does. "No, really?" is one of her favorite expressions, too, you know.

GUSTAV. Perhaps there is a distant relations.h.i.+p between us: all men and women are related of course. Anyway, there's no getting away from the strangeness of it, and it will be interesting for me to make the acquaintance of your wife, so as to observe this remarkable characteristic.

ADOLF. But just think of this, she doesn't take a single expression from me; why, she seems rather to make a point of avoiding all my special tricks of speech; all the same, I have seen her make use of one of my gestures; but it is quite the usual thing in married life for a husband and a wife to develop the so-called marriage likeness.

GUSTAV. Quite. But look here now. [_He stands up._] That woman has never loved you.

ADOLF. Nonsense.

GUSTAV. Pray excuse me, woman's love consists simply in this--in taking in, in receiving. She does not love the man from whom she takes nothing: she has never loved you.

[_He turns round behind the square table and walks to Adolf's right._]

ADOLF. I suppose you don't think that she'd be able to love more than once?

GUSTAV. No. Once bit, twice shy. After the first time, one keeps one's eyes open, but you have never been really bitten yet. You be careful of those who have; they're dangerous customers.