Thekla. It comes to the same thing.
Gustav. No.
Thekla. How does it come about that you, who are bound to regard me as an innocent person, inasmuch as nature and circumstances have driven me to act as I did, could regard yourself as justified in revenging yourself on me.
Gustav. Well, the same principle applies, you see—that is to say, the principle that my temperament and circumstances drove me to revenge myself. Isn't it a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other? But do you know why you've got the worst of it in this struggle? [Thekla looks contemptuous.] Why you and that husband of yours managed to get downed? I'll tell you. Because I was stronger than you, and smarter. It was you, my dear, who was a donkey—and he as well! So you see that one isn't necessarily bound to be quite an ass even though one doesn't write any novels or paint any pictures. Just remember that!
[He turns away from her to the left.]
Thekla. Haven't you got a grain of feeling left?
Gustav. Not a grain—that's why, don't you know, I'm so good at thinking, as you are perhaps able to see by the slight proofs which I've given you, and can play the practical man equally well, and I've just given you something of a sample of what I can do in that line.
[He strides round the table and sofa on the left and turns again to her.]
Thekla. And all this simply because I wounded your vanity?
Gustav [on her left]. Not that only, but you be jolly careful in the future of wounding other people's vanity—it's the most sensitive part of a man.