part I fell into the habit of the new role of the little brother. Your

tenderness remained the same as ever, in fact it has rather increased, but it is tinged with a grain of pity which is counterbalanced by a strong dose of contempt, and that will increase until it becomes complete, even as my genius is on the wane and your star is in the ascendant. It seems, too, as though your source were likely to dry up, when I leave off feeding it, or, rather, as soon as you show that you don't want to draw your inspiration from me any longer. And so we both go down, but you need somebody you can put in your pocket, somebody new, for you are weak and incapable of carrying any moral burden yourself. So I became the scapegoat to be slaughtered alive, but all the same we had become like twins in the course of years, and when you cut through the thread of my longing, you little thought that you were throttling our own self. You are a branch from my tree, and you wanted to cut yourself free from your parent stem before it had struck roots, but you are unable to flourish on your own, and the tree in its turn couldn't do without its chief branch, and so both perish.

THEKLA. Do you mean, by all that, that you've written my books?

ADOLF. No; you say that so as to provoke me into a lie. I don't express myself so crudely as you, and I've just spoken for five minutes on end simply so as to reproduce all the nuances, all the half-tones, all the transitions, but your barrel organ has only one key.

THEKLA [_walking up and down on the right_]. Yes, yes; but the gist of the whole thing is that you've written my books.

ADOLF. No, there's no gist. You can't resolve a symphony into one key; you can't translate a multifarious life into a single cipher. I never said anything so crass as that I'd written your books.

THEKLA. But you meant it all the same.

ADOLF [_furious_]. I never meant it.

THEKLA. But the result--

ADOLF [_wildly_]. There's no result if one doesn't add. There is a quotient, a long infinitesimal figure of a quotient, but I didn't add.

THEKLA. You didn't, but I can.

ADOLF. I quite believe you, but I never did.

THEKLA. But you wanted to.

ADOLF [_exhausted, shutting his eyes_]. No, no, no--don't speak to me any more, I'm getting convulsions--be quiet, go away! You're flaying my brain with your brutal pinchers--you're thrusting your claws into my thoughts and tearing them.

[_He loses consciousness, stares in front of him and turns his thumbs inwards._]

THEKLA [_tenderly coming towards him_]. What is it, dear? Are you ill? [_Adolf beats around him. Thekla takes her handkerchief, pours water on to it out of the bottle on the table right of the center door, and cools his forehead with it._] Adolf!

ADOLF [_he shakes his head_]. Yes.

THEKLA. Do you see now that you were wrong?

ADOLF [_after a pause_]. Yes, yes, yes--I see it.

THEKLA. And you ask me to forgive you?

ADOLF. Yes, yes, yes--I ask you to forgive me; but don't talk right into my brain any more.

THEKLA. Now kiss my hand.

ADOLF. I'll kiss your hand, if only you won't speak to me any more.

THEKLA. And now you'll go out and get some fresh air before dinner.

ADOLF [_getting up_]. Yes, that will do me good, and afterwards we'll pack up and go away.

THEKLA. No.

[_She moves away from him up to the fireplace on the right._]

ADOLF. Why not? You must have some reason.

THEKLA. The simple reason that I've arranged to be at the reception this evening.

ADOLF. That's it, is it?

THEKLA. That's it right enough. I've promised to be there.

ADOLF. Promised? You probably said that you'd try to come; it doesn't prevent you from explaining that you have given up your intention.

THEKLA. No, I'm not like you: my word is binding on me.

ADOLF. One's word can be binding without one being obliged to respect every casual thing one lets fall in conversation; or did somebody make you promise that you'd go? In that case, you can ask him to release you because your husband is ill.

THEKLA. No, I've no inclination to do so. And, besides, you're not so ill that you can't quite well come along too.

ADOLF. Why must I always come along too? Does it contribute to your greater serenity?

THEKLA. I don't understand what you mean.

ADOLF. That's what you always say when you know I mean something which you don't like.

THEKLA. Re-a-lly? And why shouldn't I like it?

ADOLF. Stop! stop! Don't start all over again--good-by for the present--I'll be back soon; I hope that in the meanwhile you'll have thought better of it.

[_Exit through the central door and then toward the right. Thekla accompanies him to the back of the stage. Gustav enters, after a pause, from the right._]