You are a free man. You don't have to steal your hours devoted to artistic labor. And your future doesn't depend on the throw.
Gil. And you?
Marg. That's what I've done. Only a half hour ago Clement left me because I confessed to him that I had written a novel.
Gil. Left you—for good?
Marg. I don't know. But it isn't unlikely. He went away in a fit of anger. What he'll decide to do I can't say.
Gil. So he objects to your writing, does he? He can't bear to see his mistress put her intelligence to some use. Capital! And he represents the blood of the country! H'm! And you, you're not ashamed to give yourself up to the arms of an idiot of this sort, whom you once—
Marg. Don't you speak of him like that. You don't know him.
Gil. Ah!
Marg. You don't know why he objects to my writing. Purely out of love. He feels that if I go on I will be living in a world entirely apart from him. He blushes at the thought that I should make copy of the most sacred feelings of my soul for unknown people to read. It is his wish that I belong to him only, and that is why he dashed out—no, not dashed out—for Clement doesn't belong to the class that dashes out.
Gil. Your observation is well taken. In any case, he went away. We will not undertake to discuss the tempo of his going forth. And he went away because he could not bear to see you surrender yourself to the creative impulse.
Marg. Ah, if he could only understand that! But, of course, that can never be! I could be the best, the faithfulest, the noblest woman in the world if the right man only existed.
Gil. At all events, you admit he is not the right man.
Marg. I never said that!
Gil. But you ought to realize that he's fettering you, undoing you utterly, seeking through egotism, to destroy your inalienable self. Look back for a moment at the Margaret you were; at the freedom that was yours while you loved me. Think of the younger set who gathered about me and who belonged no whit less to you? Do you never long for those days? Do you never call to mind the small room with its balcony—Beneath us plunged the Isar—[He seizes her hand and presses her near.]
Marg. Ah!
Gil. All's not beyond recall. It need not be the Isar, need it? I have something to propose to you, Margaret. Tell him, when he returns, that you still have some important matters to arrange at Munich, and spend the time with me. Margaret, you are so lovely! We shall be happy again as then. Do you remember [very near her] "Abandoned on thy breast and—"
Marg. [retreating brusquely from him]. Go, go away. No, no. Please go away. I don't love you any more.
Gil. Oh, h'm—indeed! Oh, in that case I beg your pardon. [Pause.] Adieu, Margaret.
Marg. Adieu.
Gil. Won't you present me with a copy of your novel as a parting gift, as I have done?
Marg. It hasn't come out yet. It won't be on sale before next week.
Gil. Pardon my inquisitiveness, what kind of a story is it?
Marg. The story of my life. So veiled, to be sure, that I am in no danger of being recognized.
Gil. I see. How did you manage to do it?
Marg. Very simple. For one thing, the heroine is not a writer but a painter.
Gil. Very clever.
Marg. Her first husband is not a cotton manufacturer, but a big financier, and, of course, it wouldn't do to deceive him with a tenor—
Gil. Ha! Ha!
Marg. What strikes you so funny?
Gil. So you deceived him with a tenor? I didn't know that.
Marg. Whoever said so?
Gil. Why, you yourself, just now.
Marg. How so? I say the heroine of the book deceives her husband with a baritone.
Gil. Bass would have been more sublime, mezzo-soprano more piquant.
Marg. Then she doesn't go to Munich, but to Dresden; and there, has an affair with a sculptor.
Gil. That's me—veiled.
Marg. Very much veiled, I rather fear. The sculptor, as it happens, is young, handsome and a genius. In spite of that she leaves him.
Gil. For—
Marg. Guess?
Gil. A jockey, I fancy.
Marg. Wretch!
Gil. A count, a prince of the empire?
Marg. Wrong. An archduke.
Gil. I must say you have spared no costs.
Marg. Yes, an archduke, who gave up the court for her sake, married her and emigrated with her to the Canary Islands.
Gil. The Canary Islands! Splendid! And then—
Marg. With the disembarkation—
Gil. In Canaryland.
Marg. The story ends.
Gil. Good. I'm very much interested, especially in the veiling.
Marg. You yourself wouldn't recognize me were it not for—
Gil. What?
Marg. The third chapter from the end, where our correspondence is published entire.
Gil. What?
Marg. Yes, all the letters you sent me and those I sent you are included in the novel.
Gil. I see, but may I ask where you got those you sent me? I thought I had them.
Marg. I know. But, you see, I had the habit of always making a rough draft.
Gil. A rough draft?
Marg. Yes.
Gil. A rough draft? Those letters which seemed to have been dashed off in such tremendous haste. "Just one word, dearest, before I go to bed. My eyelids are heavy—" and when your eyelids were closed you wrote the whole thing over again.
Marg. Are you piqued about it?
Gil. I might have expected as much. I ought to be glad, however, that they weren't bought from a professional love-letter writer. Oh, how everything begins to crumble! The whole past is nothing but a heap of ruins. She made a rough draft of her letters!
Marg. Be content. Maybe my letters will be all that will remain
