Marg. Certainly not. That's why I brought suit for divorce. You know the story. I just couldn't bear living with a man who had no other interest in life than eating and drinking and cotton.
Clem. I dare say. But that was three years ago. These poems were written later.
Marg. Quite so. But consider the position in which I found myself—
Clem. What do you mean? You didn't have to endure any privation? In this respect you must admit your husband acted very decently toward you. You were not under the necessity of earning your own living. And suppose the publishers did pay you one hundred gulden for a poem—surely they don't pay more than that—still, you were not bound to write a book of this sort.
Marg. I did not refer to position in a material sense. It was the state of my soul. Have you a notion how—when you came to know me—things were considerably improved. I had in many ways found myself again. But in the beginning! I was so friendless, so crushed! I tried my hand at everything; I painted, I gave English lessons in the pension where I lived. Just think of it! A divorcee, having nobody—
Clem. Why didn't you stay in Vienna?
Marg. Because I couldn't get along with my family. No one appreciated me. Oh, what people! Did any one of them realize that a woman of my type asks more of life than a husband, pretty dresses and social position? My God! If I had had a child, probably everything would have ended differently—and maybe not. I'm not quite lacking in accomplishments, you know. Are you still prepared to complain? Was it not for the best that I went to Munich? Would I have made your acquaintance else?
Clem. You didn't go there with that object in view.
Marg. I wanted to be free spiritually, I mean. I wanted to prove to myself whether I could succeed through my own efforts. And, admit, didn't it look as if I was jolly well going to? I had made some headway on the road to fame.
Clem. H'm!
Marg. But you were dearer to me than fame.
Clem [good-naturedly]. And surer.
Marg. I didn't give it a thought. I suppose it's because I loved you from the very start. For in my dreams, I always conjured up a man of your likeness. I always seemed to realize that it could only be a man like you who would make me happy. Blood—is no empty thing. Nothing whatever can weigh in the balance with that. You see, that's why I can't resist the belief—
Clem. What?
Marg. Oh, sometimes I think I must have blue blood in my veins, too.
Clem. How so?
Marg. It's not improbable?
Clem. I'm afraid I don't understand.
Marg. But I told you that members of the nobility were entertained at our house—
Clem. Well, and if they were?
Marg. Who knows—
Clem. Margaret, you're positively shocking. How can you hint at such a thing!
Marg. I can never say what I think in your presence! That's your only shortcoming—otherwise you would be quite perfect. [She smiles up to him.] You've won my heart completely. That very first evening, when you walked into the café with Wangenheim, I had an immediate presentiment: this is he! You came among that group, like a soul from another world.
Clem. I hope so. And I thank heaven that somehow you didn't seem to be altogether one of them, either. No. Whenever I call to mind that junto—the Russian girl, for instance, who because of her close-cropped hair gave the appearance of a student—except that she did not wear a cap—
Marg. Baranzewitsch is a very gifted painter.
Clem. No doubt. You pointed her out to me one day in the picture gallery. She was standing on a ladder at the time, copying. And then the fellow with the Polish name—
Marg. [beginning]. Zrkd—
Clem. Spare yourself the pains. You don't have to use it now any more. He read something at the café while I was there, without putting himself out the least bit.
Marg. He's a man of extraordinary talent. I'll vouch for it.
Clem. Oh, no doubt. Everybody is talented at the café. And then that yokel, that insufferable—
Marg. Who?
Clem. You know whom I mean. That fellow who persisted in making tactless observations about the aristocracy.
Marg. Gilbert. You must mean Gilbert.
Clem. Yes. Of course. I don't feel called upon to make a brief for my class. Profligates crop up everywhere, even among writers, I understand. But, don't you know it was very bad taste on his part while one of us was present?
Marg. That's just like him.
Clem. I had to hold myself in check not to knock him down.
Marg. In spite of that, he was quite interesting. And, then, you mustn't forget he was raving jealous of you.
Clem. I thought I noticed that, too. [Pause.]
Marg. Good heavens, they were all jealous of you. Naturally enough—you were so unlike them. They all paid court to me because I wouldn't discriminate in favor of any one of them. You certainly must have noticed that, eh? Why are you laughing?
Clem. Comical—is no word for it! If some one had prophesied to me that I was going to marry a regular frequenter of the Café Maxmillian—I fancied the two young painters most. They'd have made an incomparable vaudeville team. Do you know, they resembled each other so much and owned everything they possessed in common—and, if I'm not mistaken, the Russian on the ladder along with the rest.
Marg. I didn't bother myself with such things.
Clem. And, then, both must have been Jews?
Marg. Why so?
Clem. Oh, simply because they always jested in such a way. And their enunciation.
Marg. You may spare your anti-Semitic remarks.
Clem. Now, sweetheart, don't be touchy. I know that your blood is not untainted, and I have nothing whatever against the Jews. I once had a tutor in Greek who was a Jew. Upon my word! He was a capital fellow. One meets all sorts and conditions of people. I don't in the least regret having made the acquaintance of your associates in Munich. It's all the weave of our life experience. But I can't help thinking that I must have appeared to you like a hero come to rescue you in the nick of time.
Marg. Yes, so you did. My Clem! Clem! [Embraces him.]
Clem. What are you laughing at?
Marg. Something's just occurred to me.
Clem. What?
Marg. "Abandoned on thy breast and—"
Clem. [vexed]. Please! Must you always shatter my illusions?
Marg. Tell me truly, Clem, wouldn't you be proud if your fiancée, your wife, were to become a great, a famous writer?
Clem. I have already told you. I am rooted in my decision. And I promise you that if you begin scribbling or publishing poems in which you paint your passion for me, and sing to the world the progress of our love—it's all up with our wedding, and off I go.
Marg. You threaten—you, who have had a dozen well-known affairs.
Clem. My dear, well-known or not, I didn't tell anybody. I didn't bring out a book whenever a woman abandoned herself on my breast, so that any Tom, Dick or Harry could buy it for a gulden and a half. There's the rub. I know there are people who thrive by it, but, as for me, I find it extremely coarse. It's more degrading to me than if you were to pose as a