"The Stronger" by August Strindberg
MRS. X: Amelia, spend the evening with us, won't you? Just to show that you are not angry--not with me, at least. I cannot tell exactly why, but it seems so awfully unpleasant to have you--you--for an enemy. Perhaps because I got in your way that time [rallentando] or--I don't know--really, I don't know at all----
[Pause. MISS Y, gazes searchingly at MRS. X.]
MRS. X: [Thoughtly]It was so peculiar, the way our acquaintance--why, I was afraid of you when I first met you; so agraid that I did not dare to let you out of sight. It didn't matter where I tried to go--I always found myself near you. I didn't have the courage to be your enemy--and so I became your frined. But there was always something discordant in the air when you called at our home, for I saw that my husband didn't like you--and it annoyed me--just as it does when a dress won't fit. I've tried my very best to make him appear friendly to you at least, but I couldn't move him--not until you were engaged. Then you two became such fast friends that it almost looked as if you had not dared to show your real feelings before, when it was not safe--and later--let me see, now! I didn't get jealous--strange, was it not? And I remember the baptism--you were acting as godmother, and I made him kiss you--and he did, but both of you looked terribly embarrassed--that is, I didn't think of it then--or afterwards, even--I never thought of it--till--now! [Rises impulsively] Why don't you say something? You have not uttered a single word all this time. You've just let me go on talking. You've been sitting there staring at me only, and your eyes have drawn out of me all these thoughts which were lying in me like silk in a cocoon--thoughts--bad thoughts maybe--let me think. Why did you break your engagement? Why have you never called on us afterward? Why don't you want to be with us tonight?
{MISS Y. makes a motion as if intending to speak.}
MRS. X: No, you don't need to say anything at all. All is clear to me now. So, that's the reason of it all. Yes, yes! Everything fits together now. Shame on you! I don't want to sit at the same table with with you. [Moves her things to another table.] That's why I must put those hateful tulips on his slippers--because you love them. [Throws the slippers on the floor.] That's why we have to spend the summer in the mountains--because you can't bear the salt smell of the ocean; that's why my boy had to be called Eskil--because that was your father's name; that's why I had to wear your color, and read your books, and eat your favorite dishes, and drink your drinks--this chololate, for instance; that's why--great heavens! --it's terrible to think of it--it's terrible! Everything was forced on me by you--even your passions. your sould bored itself into mine as a worm into an apple, and it ate and ate and burrowed and burrowed, 'till nothing was left but the outside shell and a little black dust. I wanted to run away from you, but I couldn't. You were always on hand like a snake, with your black eyes, to charm me--I felt how my wings beat the air only to drag me down--I was in the water with my feet tied together, and the harder I worked with my arms, the further down I went--down, down, 'till I sank to the bottom, where you lay in wait like a monster crab to catch me with your claws--and now I'm there! Shame on you! How I hate you, hate you, hate you! But you, you just sit there, silent and calm and indifferent, whether the moon is new or full; whether it's Christmas or mid-summer; whether other people are happy or unhappy. You are incapable of hatred and you don't know how to love. As a cat in front of a mousehole, you are sitting there. You can't drag your prey out, and you can't pursue it, but you can outwait it. Here you sit in this corner--do you know they've nicknamed it "the mousetrap" on your account? Here you read the papers to see if anybody is in trouble, or if anybody is about to be discharged fromthe theatre. Here you watch your victims and calculate your chances and take your tributes. Poor Amelia! Do you know, I pity you all the same, for I know you are unhappy--unhappy as one who has been wounded, and malicious because you are wounded. I outht to be angry with you, but really I can't--you are so small, after all--and as to Bob why, that does not bother me in the least. What does it matter to me, anyhow? If you or somebody else taught me to drink chocolate--what of that?
[MRS. X. takes a spoonful of chocolate; then, sententiously SHE speaks.]
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