Fordringsägare

The Creditor, written immediately after Miss Julie in the late summer of 1888, is a one-play act which can be summed up in Gustav's words to Adolf, Tekla's husband: "Don't be afraid when I carve up a human soul and lay its entails on the table. It is said to be awful for the uninitiated but when you've seen it once you'll never regret it." The soul he intends to lay bare is that of a woman, his middle-aged one time flirt, Tekla. A writer, she has offended her former husband Gustav, by characterizing him as an idiot in one of her novels. Gustav now appears, unrecognized by her present husband Adolf, to take his revenge. In a diabolical dialogue with Adolf, who really loves and respects his wife, Gustav lays bare what he believes to be her soul and reduces her to the only thing he thinks she is, a bitch, a vampire who sucks the lifeblood from a man's soul and then regards him as an unpleasant "creditor". Gustav arranges a lovers' assignation with Tekla at which an ailing Adolf, listening behind a door, falls down and dies. Tekla throws herself upon him with all the signs of a loving wife's despair. Gustav leaves the scene saying: "Indeed she loves him too. Poor creature!" (oficjalny tekst dystrybutora)