THEKLA [_after another pause_]. And now you're going to your bride, Gustav? GUSTAV. I have none--and shall never have one. I am not going home because I have no home, and shall never have one. [_Waiter comes in on the lef._] SCENE VI. [_Previous characters--Waiter standing back._] 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. GUSTAV. Do you know what you are, then? THEKLA. You despise me? GUSTAV. No, I pity you. It's a characteristic--I don't say a defect, but certainly a characteristic--that is very fatal, by reason of its results. Poor Thekla! I don't know--but I almost think that I'm sorry for it, although I'm quite innocent--like you. But anyway it's perhaps all for the best that you've now got to feel what I felt then. Do you know where your husband is? THEKLA. I think I know now. [_She points to the right._] He's in your room just here. He has heard everything, seen everything, and you know they say that he who looks upon his vampire dies. SCENE VIII. [_Adolf appears on the right, deadly pale, a streak of blood on his left cheek, a fixed expression in his eyes, white foam on his mouth._] GUSTAV [_moves back_]. No, here he is--settle with him now! See if he'll be as generous to you as I was. Good-by. [_He turns to the left, stops after a few steps, and remains standing._]