_Bertha_ (_gives in_). Axel, Axel, I don't know you e any longer. Can this be you who swore to love me, you who begged to be allowed to support me? _Axel_. Yes, I was strong then and believed I had strength to do it. But you clipped the hair of my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole my best blood, and yet enough remains to subdue you. Stand up, and let us have done with speeches. There is business to be talked over. (_Bertha gets up, then sits down on the sofa, weeping_.) _Axel_. Why are you crying? _Bertha_. I don't know. Perhaps because I am weak. _Axel_. You see! I was your strength. When I took back what was my own you had nothing left. You were like a rubber ball which I blew out; when I threw you down you collapsed. _Bertha_ (_without looking up_). I don't know if it is as you say, but since we quarrelled my strength has left me. Axel, believe me, I have never felt for you what I now feel. _Axel_. Really! What do you feel? _Bertha_. I can't say. I don't know if it is love, but.... _Axel_. What do you mean by love? Is it not a secret longing to eat me alive once more? You begin to love me. Why not formerly, when I was good to you? Goodness is stupidity. Let us be wicked. What do you think? _Bertha_. Yes, I would rather have you a little wicked than weak. (_Gets up_.) Axel, forgive me, but don't desert me. Love me, oh, love me! But Axel is not caught again. He consents to allow the party to take place, as if they were still good comrades, but he is determined to obtain a divorce. In Act IV we again meet the happy pair, Starck, Willmer, Abel, Dr. Östermark, the _raisonneur_ of the play, and his divorced wife, Mrs. Hall, a dubious middle-aged woman whom Bertha imagines to be a victim of man's brutality and a living argument in favour of the woman's movement. She and Abel have arranged, not only to punish Axel by confronting him with his unsuccessful picture, but to disconcert Dr. Östermark by confronting him with the wife and daughters whom he has not seen for eighteen years. But Bertha's calculations are faulty, as usual. The picture is carried into the studio by order of the _concierge_ who has protested against its unexpected appearance at the door. Axel is annoyed. She wants everybody to see the picture, to look at it closely. They do, and it turns out to be Bertha's picture. [Illustration: August Strindberg--Portrait in Oil by Chr. Krogh, 1893] [Illustration: August Strindberg--Portrait in Oil by Richard Bergh, 1906.]