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. 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.