Thekla. And did you really think that I'd fall in with your little game?
Gustav [firmly]. You've already done it.
Thekla. Not yet.
Gustav [firmly]. Yes, you have.
Thekla [comes forward]. You've stalked my lamb like a wolf. You came here with a scoundrelly plan of smashing up my happiness and you've been trying to carry it through until I realize what you were up to and put a spoke in your precious wheel.
Gustav [vigorously]. That's not quite accurate. The thing took quite another course. That I should have wished in my heart of hearts that things should go badly with you is only natural. Yet I was more or less convinced that it would not be necessary for me to cut in actively; because, I had far too much other business to have time for intrigues. But just now, when I was loafing about a bit, and happened to run across you on the steamer with your circle of young men, I thought that the time had come to get to slightly closer quarters with you two. I came here and that lamb of yours threw himself immediately into the wolf's arms. I aroused his sympathy by methods of reflex suggestion, into details of which, as a matter of good form, I'd rather not go. At first I experienced a certain pity for him, because he was in the very condition in which I had once found myself. Then, as luck would have it, he began unwittingly to probe about in my old wound—you know what I mean—the book—and the ass—then I was overwhelmed by a desire to pluck him to pieces and to mess up the fragments in such a tangle that they could never be put together again. Thanks to the conscientious way in which you have cleared the ground, I succeeded only too easily, and then I had to deal with you. You were the spring in the works that had to be taken to pieces. And, that done, the game was to listen for the smash-up. When I came into this room I had no idea what I was to say. I had a lot of plans in my head, like a chess player, but the character of the opening depended on the moves you made; one move led to another, chance was kind to me. I soon had you on toast—and now you're in a nice mess.
Thekla. Nonsense.
Gustav. Oh yes; what you'd have prayed your stars to avoid has happened: society, in the persons of two lady visitors—I didn't commandeer their appearance because intrigue is not in my line—society, I say, has seen your pathetic reconciliation with your first husband, and the penitent way in which you crawled back into his faithful arms. Isn't that enough?
Thekla [she goes over to him toward the right]. Tell me—you who make such a point of being so logical and so intellectual—how does it come about that you, who make such a point of your maxim that everything which happens happens as a matter of necessity, and that all our actions are determined—
Gustav [corrects her]. Determined up to a certain extent.