Gustav. Bring me the bill—I'm leaving by the twelve-o'clock boat.
[Waiter bows and exit left.]
Scene VII.
Thekla. Without a reconciliation?
Gustav [on her left]. Reconciliation? You play about with so many words that they've quite lost their meaning. We reconcile ourselves? Perhaps we are to live in a trinity, are we? The way for you to effect a reconciliation is to put matters straight. You can't do that alone. You have not only taken something, but you have destroyed what you took, and you can never put it back. Would you be satisfied if I were to say to you: "Forgive me because you mangled my heart with your claws; forgive me for the dishonor you brought upon me; forgive me for being seven years on end the laughing-stock of my pupils, forgive me for freeing you from the control of your parents; for releasing you from the tyranny of ignorance and superstition; for making you mistress over my house; for giving you a position and friends, I, the man who made you into a woman out of the child you were? Forgive me like I forgive you? Anyway, I now regard my account with you as squared. You go and settle up your accounts with the other man.
Thekla. Where is he? What have you done with him? I've just got a suspicion—a—something dreadful!
Gustav. Done with him? Do you still love him?
Thekla [goes over to him toward the left]. Yes.
Gustav. And a minute ago you loved me? Is that really so?
Thekla. It is.