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HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
/
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
W.lO-1.5ia^u3L
6w^^itoUAua;^ M ^Q^cX^ ' '*1'7-
THE
^SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE^^ODERN
DRAMA^
EMMA GOLDMAN
BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER
TORONTO; THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED
Copyright, 1914, by Richard G. Badger
*. .1 ;^j , All Rights Reserved
1. J
I ,
FOREWORD
In order to understand the social and dynamic
significance of modern dramatic art it is necessary,
I believe, to ascertain the difference between the
functions of art for art's sake and art as the mir-
ror of life.
Art for art's sake presupposes an attitude of
aloofness on the part of the artist toward the com-
plex struggle of life : he must rise above the ebb
and tide of life. He is to be merely an artistic
conjurer of beautiful forms, a creator of pure
fancy.
That is not the attitude of modem art, which is
preeminently the reflex, the mirror of life. The
artist being a part of life cannot detach himself
from the events and occurrences that pass pan-
orama-like before his eyes, impressing themselves
upon his emotional and intellectual vision.
The modern artist is, in the words of August
Strindberg, " a lay preacher popularizing the press-
ing questions of his time." Not necessarily be-
cause his aim is to proselyte, but because he can
best express himself by being true to life.
Millet, Meunier, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Em-
erson, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Strindberg,
3
4 Foreword
Hauptmann and a host of others mirror in their
work as much of the spiritual and social revolt as is
expressed by the most fiery speech of the propa-
gandist. And more important still, they compel
far greater attention. Their creative genius, im-
bued with the spirit of sincerity and truth, strikes
root where the ordinary word often falls on barren
soil.
The reason that many radicals as well as conser-
vatives fail to grasp the powerful message of art is
perhaps not far to seek. The average radical is
as hidebound by mere terms as the man devoid of
all ideas. " Bloated plutocrats," " economic de-
terminism," " class consciousness," and similar ex-
pressions sum up for him the symbols of revolt.
But since art speaks a language of its own, a lan-
guage embracing the entire gamut of human emo-
tions, it often sounds meaningless to those whose
hearing has been dulled by the din of stereotyped
phrases.
On the other hand, the conservative sees danger
only in the advocacy of the Red Flag. He has too
long been fed on the historic legend that it is only
the " rabble " which makes revolutions, and not
those who wield the brush or pen. It is therefore
legitimate to applaud the artist and hound the rab-
ble. Both radical and conservative have to learn
that any mode of creative work, which with true
perception portrays social wrongs earnestly and
Foreword 5
boldly, may be a greater menace to our social
fabric and a more powerful inspiration than the
wildest harangue of the soapbox orator.
Unfortunately, we in America have so far
looked upon the theater as a place of amusement
only, exclusive of ideas and inspiration. Because
the modern drama of Europe has till recently been
inaccessible in printed form to the average theater-
goer in this country, he had to content himself with
the interpretation, or rather misinterpretation, of
our dramatic critics. As a result the social signif-
icance of the Modern Drama has well nigh been
lost to the general public.
As to the native drama, America has so far pro-
duced very little worthy to be considered in a social
light. Lacking the cultural and evolutionary tra-
dition of the Old World, America has necessarily
first to prepare the soil out of which sprouts
creative genius.
The hundred and one springs of local and sec-
tional life must have time to furrow their common
channel into the seething sea of life at large, and
social questions and problems make themselves
felt, if not crystallized, before the throbbing pulse
of the big national heart can find its reflex in a
great literature — and specifically in the drama —
of a social character. This evolution has been go-
ing on in this country for a considerable time,
shaping the wide-spread unrest that is now begin-
6 Foreword
ning to assume more or less definite social form
and expression.
Therefore, America could not so far produce its
own social drama. But in proportion as the crys-
tallization progresses, and sectional and national
questions become clarified as fundamentally social
problems, the drama develops. Indeed, very com-
mendable beginnings in this direction have been
made within recent years, among them " The
Easiest Way," by Eugene Walter, " Keeping Up
Appearances," and other plays by Butler Daven-
port, ** Nowadays " and two others volumes of
one-act plays, by George Middleton, — attempts
that hold out an encouraging promise for the fu-
ture.
The Modern Drama, as all modern literature,
mirrors the complex struggle of life, — the strug-
gle which, whatever its individual or topical expres-
sion, ever has its roots in the depth of human na-
ture and social environment, and hence is, to that
extent, universal. Such literature, such drama, is
at once the reflex and the inspiration of mankind in
its eternal seeking for things higher and better.
Perhaps those who learn the great truths of the so-
cial travail in the school of life, do not need the
message of the drama. But there is another class
whose number is legion, for whom that message is
Foreword 7
indispensable. In countries where political oppres-
sion affects all classes, the best intellectual element
have made common cause with the people, have
become their teachers, comrades, and spokesmen.
But in America political -pressure has so far affected
only the " common " people. It is they who are
thrown into prison; they who are persecuted and
mobbed, tarred and deported. Therefore another
medium is needed to arouse the intellectuals of this
country, to make them realize their relation to the
people, to the social unrest permeating the atmos-
phere.
The medium which has the power to do that is
the Modern Drama, because it mirrors every phase
of life and embraces every strata of society, — the
Modern Drama, showing each and all caught in
the throes of the tremendous changes going on, and
forced either to become part of the process or be
left behind.
Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Tolstoy, Shaw,
Galsworthy and the other dramatists contained in
this volume represent the social iconoclasts of our
time. They know that society has gone beyond
the stage of patching up, and that man must throw
off the dead weight of the past, with all its ghosts
and spooks, if he is to go foot free to meet the
future.
This is the social significance which differentiates
8
Foreword
modern dramatic art from art for art's sake. It
is the dynamite which undermines superstition,
shakes the social pillars, and prepares men and
women for the reconstruction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword 3
The Scandinavian Drama
Henrik Ibsen ii
The Pillars of Society 13
A DolFs House 18
Ghosts 25
An Enemy of Society 34
August Strindberg 43
The Father 45
Countess Julie 51
Comrades 61
The German Drama
Hermann Sudermann 69
Magda 71
The Fires of St. John ...... 80
Gerhart Hauptmann 87
Lonely Lives 87
The Weavers 98
The Sunken Bell 108
Frank Wedekind 118
The Awakening of Spring 118
The French Drama
Maurice Maeterlinck 129
Monna Vanna 129
Edmond Rostand 138
Chantecler 138
Table of Contents
PAGE
Brieux 147
Damaged Goods 147
Maternity 161
The English Drama
George Bernard Shaw 175
Mrs. Warren's Profession 176
Major Barbara 186
John Galsworthy 196
Strife 197
Justice 208
The Pigeon 215
Stanley Houghton 226
Hindle Wakes 226
Git ha Sower by 235
Rutherford and Son 235
The Irish Drama
William Butler Yeats 250
Where There Is Nothing 252
Lenox Robinson 261
Harvest 261
T. G. Murray 267
Maurice Harte 267
The Russian Drama
Leo Tolstoy 275
The Power of Darkness 276
Anton Tchekhof 283
The Seagull 284
The Cherry Orchard 290
Maxim Gorki 294
A Night's Lodging 294
Leonid Andreyev 302
King-Hunger 302
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE MODERN DRAMA
THE SCANDINAVIAN DRAMA
HENRIK IBSEN
IN a letter to George Brandes, shortly after
the Paris Commune, Henrik Ibsen wrote
concerning the State and political liberty:
** .The State is the curse of the individ-
ual. How has the national strength of Prussia
been purchased? By the sinking of the individual
in a political and geographical formula. . . . The
State must go I That will be a revolution which
will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of
the State, set up in its place spontaneous action,
and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only
thing that makes for unity, and you will start the
elements of a liberty which will be something
worth possessing."
The State was not the only bete noire of Henrik
Ibsen. Every other institution which, like the
State, rests upon a lie, was an iniquity to him.
Uncompromising demolisher of all false idols and
dynamiter of all social shams and hypocrisy, Ibsen
ZI
12 Henrik Ibsen
consistently strove to uproot every stone of our
social structure. Above all did he thunder his
fiery indictment against the four cardinal sins of
modern society: the Lie inherent in our social
arrangements; Sacrifice and Duty, the twin curses
that fetter the spirit of man; the narrow-minded-
ness and pettiness of Provincialism, that stifles all
growth ; and the Lack of Joy and Purpose in Work
which turns life into a vale of misery and tears.
So strongly did Ibsen feel on these matters, that
in none of his works did he lose sight of them.
Indeed, they recur again and again, like a Lett-
motif in music, in everything he wrote. These
issues form the keynote to the revolutionary sig-
nificance of his dramatic works, as well as to the
psychology of Henrik Ibsen himself.
It is, therefore, not a little surprising that most
of the interpreters and admirers of Ibsen so en-
thusiastically accept his art, and yet remain utterly
indifferent to, not to say ignorant of, the message
contained in it. That is mainly because they are,
in the words of Mrs. Alving, ** so pitifully afraid
of the light." Hence they go about seeking mys-
teries and hunting symbols, and completely losing
sight of the meaning that is as clear as daylight
in all of the works of Ibsen, and mainly in the
group of his social plays, " The Pillars of So-
ciety," '* A Doll's House," ** Ghosts," and " An
Enemy of the People."
The Pillars of Society 13
THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY
The disintegrating effect of the Social Lie, of
Duty, as an imposition and outrage, and of the
spirit of Provincialism, as a stifling factor, are
brought out with dynamic force in " The Pillars
of Society.**
Consul Bernick, driven by the conception of his
duty toward the House of Bernick, begins his
career with a terrible lie. He sells his love for
Lona Hessel in return for the large dowry of her
step-sister Betty, whom he does not love. To for-
get his treachery, he enters into a clandestine re-
lationship with an actress of the town. When sur-
prised in her room by the drunken husband, young
Bernick jumps out of the window, and then gra-
ciously accepts the offer of his bosom friend,
Johan, to let him take the blame.
Johan, together with his faithful sister Lona,
leaves for America. In return for his devotion,
young Bernick helps to rob his friend of his good
name, by acquiescing in the rumors circulating in
the town that Johan had broken into the safe of
the Bernicks and stolen a large sum of money.
In the opening scene of " The Pillars of So-
ciety," we find Consul Bernick at the height of his
career. The richest, most powerful and respected
citizen of the community, he is held up as the
14 Henrik Ibsen
model of an ideal husband and devoted father.
In short, a worthy pillar of society.
The best ladies of the town come together in
the home of the Bernicks. They represent the
society for the " Lapsed and Lost," and they
gather to do a little charitable sewing and a lot
of charitable gossip. It is through them we leai*n
that Dina Dorf, the ward of Bernick, is the issue
of the supposed escapade of Johan and the actress.
With them, giving unctuous spiritual advice and
representing the purity and morality of the com-
munity, is Rector Rorlund, hidebound, self-right-
eous, and narrow-minded.
Into this deadening atmosphere of mental and
social provincialism comes Lona Hessel, refreshing
and invigorating as the wind of the plains. She
has returned to her native town together with
Johan.
The moment she enters the house of Bernick,
the whole structure begins to totter. For in
Loners own words, " Fie, fie — this moral linen
here smells so tainted — just like a shroud. I am
accustomed to the air of the prairies now, I can
tell you. . . . Wait a little, wait a little — we'll
soon rise from the sepulcher. We must have
broad daylight here when my boy comes."
Broad daylight is indeed needed in the com-
munity of Consul Bernick, and above all in the
life of the Consul himself.
\The Pillars of Society 15
It seems to be the psychology of a He that it
can never stand alone. Consul Bernick Is com-
pelled to weave a network of lies to sustain his
foundation. In the disguise of a good husband,
he upbraids, nags, and tortures his wife on the
slightest provocation* In the mask of a devoted
father, he tyrannizes and bullies his only child as
only a despot used to being obeyed can do. Un-
der the cloak of a benevolent citizen he buys up
public land for his own profit. Posing as a true
Christian, he even goes so far as to jeopardize
human life. Because of business considerations
he sends The Indian Girl, an unse a worthy, rotten
vessel, on a voyage, although he is assured
by one of his most capable and faithful workers
that the ship cannot make the journey, that it is
sure to go down. But Consul Bernick is a pillar
of society; he needs the respect and good will of
his fellow citizens. He must go from precipice
to precipice, to keep up appearances.
Lona alone sees the abyss facing him, and tells
him : " What does it matter whether such a so-
ciety is supported or not? What is it that passes
current here? Lies and shams — nothing else.
Here are you, the first man in the town, living in
wealth and pride, in power and honor, you, who
have set the brand of crime upon an innocent
man." She might have added, many innocent
1 6 Henrik Ibsen
men, for Johan was not the only one at whose
expense Karsten Berntck built up his career.
The end is inevitable. In the words of Lona:
" All this eminence, and you yourself along with
it, stand on a trembling quicksand; a moment may
come, a word may be spoken, and, if you do not
save yourself in time, you and your whole
grandeur go to the bottom."
But for Lona, or, rather, what she symbolizes,
Berntck — even as The Indian Girl — would go
to the bottom.
In the last act, the whole town is preparing to
give the great philanthropist and benefactor, the
eminent pillar of society, an ovation. There are
fireworks, music, gifts and speeches in honor of
Consul Bernick, At that very moment, the only
child of the Consul is hiding in The Indian Girl to
escape the tyranny of his home. Johan, too, is
supposed to sail on the same ship, and with him,
Dina, who has learned the whole truth and is eager
to escape from her prison, to go to a free atmos-
phere, to become independent, and then to unite
with Johan in love and freedom. As Dina says:
** Yes, I will be your wife. But first I will work,
and become something for myself, just as you are.
I will give myself, I will not be taken."
Consul Bernick, too, is beginning to realize
himself. The strain of events and the final shock
that he had exposed his own child to such peril,
The Pillars of Society 17
act like a stroke of lightning on the Consul. It
makes him see that a house built on lies, shams,
and crime must eventually sink by its own weight.
Surrounded by those who truly love and therefore
understand him, Consul Bernick, no longer the
pillar of society, but the man becomes conscious
of his better self.
" Where have I been?" he exclaims. "You
will be horrified when you know. Now, I feel
as if I had just recovered my senses after being
poisoned. But I feel — I feel that I can be
young and strong again. Oh, come nearer —
closer around me. Come, Betty! Come, Olaf 1
Come, Martha ! Oh, Martha, it seems as though
I had never seen you in all these years. And we
— we have a long, earnest day of work before
us; I most of all. But let it come; gather close
around me, you true and faithful women. I have
learned this, in these days: it is you women who
are the Pillars of Society."
Lona: " Then you have learned a poor wis-
dom, brother-in-law. No, no; the spirit of Truth
and of Freedom — these are the Pillars of Soci-
ety."
The spirit of truth and freedom is the socio-
revolutionary significance of " The Pillars of Soci-
ety." Those, who, like Consul Bernick, fail to
realize this all-important fact, go on patching up
The Indian Girl, which is Ibsen's symbol for our
1 8 Henrik Ibsen
society. But they, too, must learn that society is
rotten to the core ; that patching up or reforming
one sore spot merely drives the social poison
deeper into the system, and that all must go to the
bottom unless the spirit of Truth and Freedom
revolutionize the world.
A DOLL'S HOUSE
In "A Doll's House" Ibsen returns to the
subject so vital to him, — the Social Lie and Duty,
— this time as manifesting themselves in the sacred
institution of the home and in the position of
woman in her gilded cage.
Nora is the beloved, adored wife of Torvald
Helmer. He is an admirable man, rigidly hon-
est, of high moral ideals, and passionately devoted
to his wife and children. In short, a good man
and an enviable husband. Almost every mother
would be proud of such a match for her daughter,
and the latter would consider herself fortunate
to become the wife of such a man.
Nora, too, considers herself fortunate. In-
deed, she worships her husband, believes in him
implicitly, and is sure that if ever her safety should
be menaced, Torvald, her idol, her god, would
perform the miracle.
When a woman loves as Nora does, nothing
A DolVs House 19
else matters; least of all, social, legal or moral
considerations. Therefore, when her husband's
life is threatened, it is no effort, it is joy for Nora
to forge her father's name to a note and borrow
800 cronen on it, in order to take her sick husband
to Italy.
In her eagerness to serve her husband, and in
perfect innocence of the legal aspect of her act,
she does not give the matter much thought, except
for her anxiety to shield him from any emergency
that may call upon him to perform the miracle in
her behalf. She works hard, and saves every
penny of her pin-money to pay back the amount
she borrowed oh the forged check.
Nora is light-hearted and gay, apparently with-
out depth. Who, indeed, would expect depth of
a doll, a "squirrel," a song-bird? Her purpose
in life is to be happy for her husband's sake, for
the sake of the children; to sing, dance, and play
with them. Besides, is she not shielded, pro-
tected, and cared for? Who, then, would suspect
Nora of depth? But already in the opening
scene, when Torvald inquires what his precious
" squirrel " wants for a Christmas present, Nora
quickly asks him for money. Is it to buy maca-
roons or finery? In her talk with Mrs. Linden,
Nora reveals her inner self, and forecasts the in-
evitable debacle of her doll's house.
After telling her friend how she had saved her
20 Henrik Ibsen
husband, Nora says : " When Torvald gave me
money for clothes and so on, I never used more
than half of it; I always bought the simplest
things. . . . Torvald never noticed anything.
But it was often very hard, Christina dear. For
it's nice to be beautifully dressed. Now, isn't
it ? . . . Well, and besides that, I made money in
other ways. Last winter I was so lucky — I got
a heap of copying to do. I shut myself up every
evening and wrote far into the night. Oh, some-
times I was so tired, so tired. And yet it was
splendid to work in that way and earn money. I
almost felt as if I was a man."
Down deep in the consciousness of Nora there
evidently slumbers personality and character,
which could come into full bloom only through a
great miracle — not the kind Nora hopes for, but
a miracle just the same.
Nora had borrowed the money from Nils
Krogstad, a man with a shady past in the eyes of
the community and of the righteous moralist, Tor-
vald Helmer. So long as Krogstad is allowed
the little breathing space a Christian people
grants to him who has once broken its laws, he is
reasonably human. He does not molest Nora.
But when Helmer becomes director of the bank in
which Krogstad is employed, and threatens the
man with dismissal, Krogstad naturally fights back.
For as he says to Nora: " If need be, I shall
A DolVs House 21
fight as though for my life to keep my little place
in the bank. . . . It's not only for the money:
that matters least to me. It's something else.
Well, I'd better make a clean breast of it. Of
course you know, like every one else, that some
years ago I — got into trouble. . . . The matter
never came into court; but from that moment all
paths were barred to me. Then I took up the
business you know about. I was obliged to grasp
at something; and I don't think I've been one of
the worst. But now I must clear out of it all.
My sons are growing up; for their sake I must
try to win back as much respectability as I can.
This place in the bank was the first step, and now
your husband wants to kick me off the ladder,
back into the mire. Mrs. Helmer, you evidently
have no clear idea what you have really done.
But I can assure you that it was nothing more
and nothing worse that made me an outcast from
society. . . . But this I may tell you, that if I'm
flung into the gutter a second time, you shall keep
me company."
Even when Nora is confronted with this awful
threat, she does not fear for herself, only for
Torvald, — so good, so true, who has such an
aversion to debts, but who loves her so devotedly
that for her sake he would take the blame upon
himself. But this must never be. Nora, too, be-
gins a fight for life, for her husband's life and that
22 Henrik Ibsen
of her children. Did not Helmer tell her that
the very presence of a criminal like Krogstad
poisons the children? And is she not a criminal?
Torvald Helmer assures her, in his male con-
ceit, that " early corruption generally comes from
the mother's side, but of course the father's in-
fluence may act in the same way. And this Krog-
stad has been poisoning his own children for years
past by a life of lies and hypocrisy — that's why
I call him morally ruined."
Poor Nora, who cannot understand why a
daughter has no right to spare her dying father
anxiety, or why a wife has no right to save her
husband's life, is surely not aware of the true
character of her idol. But gradually the veil is
lifted. At first, when in reply to her desperate
pleading for Krogstad, her husband discloses the
true reason for wanting to get rid of him: " The
fact is, he was a college chum of mine — there
was one of those rash friendships between us that
one so often repents later. I don't mind con-
fessing it — he calls me by my Christian name;
and he insists on doing It even when others are
present. He delights in putting on airs of fa-
miliarity — Torvald here, Torvald there! I as-
sure you it's most painful to me. He would make
my position at the bank perfectly unendurable."
And then again when the final blow comes.
For forty-eight hours Nora battles for her ideal,
A Doll's House 23
never doubting Torvald for a moment. Indeed,
so absolutely sure is she of her strong oak, her
lord, her god, that she would rather kill herself
than have him take the blame for her act. The
end comes, and with It the doll's house tumbles
down, and Nora discards her doll's dress — she
sheds her skin, as it were. Torvald Helmer
proves himself a petty Philistine, a bully and a
coward, as so many good husbands when they
throw off their respectable doak.
Helmer^s rage over Nora^s crime subsides the
moment the danger of publicity is averted — prov-
ing that Helmer, like many a moralist, is not so
mudi Incensed at Nora's offense as by the fear
of being found out. Not so Nora. Finding out
is her salvation. It Is then that she realizes how
much she has been wronged, that she is only a
plaything, a doll to Helmer. In her disillusion-
ment she says, " You have never loved me. You
only thought It amusing to be in love with me."
Helmer. Why, Nora, what a thing to say!
Nora. Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home
with father he used to tell me all his opinions and I
held the same opinions. If I had others I concealed them,
because he would not have liked it. He used to call me
his doll child, and play with me as I played with my
dolls. Then I came to live in your house ... I
mean I passed from father's hands into yours. You
setded everything according to your taste; and I got the
24 Henrik Ibsen
same tastes as you; or I pretended to — I don't know
which — both ways perhaps. When I look back on it
now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from
hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you,
Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father
have done me a great wrong. It's your fault that my
life has been wasted. • • .
Helmer. It's exasperating! Can you forsake your
holiest duties in this way?
Nora. What do you call my holiest duties?
Helmer. Do you ask me that? Your duties to your
husband and your children.
Nora. I have other duties equally sacred.
Helmer. Impossible! What duties do you mean?
Nora. My duties toward myself.
Helmer. Before all else you are a wift and a mother.
Nora. That I no longer believe. I think that before
all else I am a human being, just as much as you are
— or, at least, I will try to become one. I know that
most people agree with you, Torvald, and that they say
so in books. But henceforth I can't be satisfied with
what most people say, and what is in books. I must
think thing? out for myself and try to get dear about
them. ... I had been living here these eight years with
a strange man, and had borne him three children — Oh !
I can't bear to think of it — I could tear myself to pieces!
... I can't spend the night in a strange man's house.
Is there anything more degrading to woman
than to live with a stranger, and bear him chil-
dren? Yet, the He of the marriage institution de-
Ghosts 25
crees that she shall continue to do so, and the
social conception of duty insists that for the sake
of that lie she need be nothing else than a play-
thing, a doll, a nonentity.
When Nora closes behind her the door of her
dolFs house, she opens wide the gate of life for
woman, and proclaims the revolutionary message
that only perfect freedom and communion make a
true bond between man and woman, meeting in
the open, without lies, without shame, free from
the bondage of duty.
GHOSTS
The social and revolutionary significance of
Henrik Ibsen is brought out with even greater
force in " Ghosts " than in his preceding works.
Not only does this pioneer of modern dramatic
art undermine in " Ghosts " the Social Lie and
the paralyzing effect of Duty, but the uselessness
and evil of Sacrifice, the dreary Lack of Joy and
of Purpose in Work are brought to light as most
pernicious and destructive elements in life.
Mrs. Alving, having made what her family
called a most admirable match, discovers shortly
after her marriage that her husband is a drunkard
and a roue. In her despair she flees to her young
friend, the divinity student Manders. But he,
preparing to save souls, even though they be en-
26 Henrik Ibsen
cased In rotten bodies, sends Mrs. Alving back to
her husband and her duties toward her home.
Helen Alving is young and immature. Besides,
she loves young Manders; his command is law to
her. She returns home, and for twenty-five years
suffers all the misery and torture of the damned.
That she survives is due mainly to her passionate
love for the child born of that horrible relation-
ship — her boy Oswald, her all in life. He must
be saved at any cost. To do that, she had sacri-
ficed her great yearning for him and sent him
away from the poisonous atmosphere of her home.
And now he has returned, fine and free, much
to the disgust of Pastor Manders, whose limited
vision cannot conceive that out in the large world
free men and women can live a decent and cre-
ative life.
Manders. But how is it possible that a — a young
man or young woman with any decent principles can
endure to live in that way? — in the eyes of all the
world !
Oswald. What are they to do? A poor young artist
— a poor girl. It costs a lot of money to get married.
What are they to do?
Manders. What are they to do? Let me tell you,
Mr. Alving, what they ought to do. They ought to
exercise self-restraint from the first; that's what they
ought to do.
Ghosts 27
Oswald. Such talk as that won't go far with warm-
blooded young people, over head and ears in love.
Mrs. Alving. No, it wouldn't go far.
Manders. How can the authorities tolerate such
things? Allow it to go on in the light of day? {To
Mrs. Alving,) Had I not cause to be deeply concerned
about your son? In circles where open immorality pre-
vails, and has even a sort of prestige !
Oswald. Let me tell you, sir, that I have been a con-
stant Sunday-guest in one or two such irregular
homes
Manders. On Sunday of all days!
Oswald. Isn't that the day to enjoy one's self? Well,
never have I heard an offensive word, and still less have
I ever witnessed anything that could be called immoral.
No; do you know when and where I have found immo-
rality in artistic circles?
Manders. No! Thank heaven, I don't!
Oswald. Well, then, allow me to inform you. I have
met with it when one or other of our pattern husbands
and fathers has come to Paris to have a look around on
his own account, and has done the artists the honor of
visiting their humble haunts. They knew what was
what. These gentlemen could tell us all about places
and things we had never dreamt of.
Manders. What? Do you mean to say that respect-
able men from home here would ?
Oswald. Have you never heard these respectable men,
when they got home again, talking about the way in
which immorality was running rampant abroad ?
28 Henrik Ibsen
Menders. Yes, of course.
Mrs. Alving. I have, too.
Oswald. Well, you may take their word for it.
They know what they are talking about! Oh! that that
great, free, glorious life out there should be defiled in
such a way!
Pastor Manders is outraged, and when Oswald
leaves, he delivers himself of a tirade against Mrs.
Alving for her '* irresponsible proclivities to shirk
her duty."
Manders. It is only the spirit of rebellion that craves
for happiness in this life. What right have we human
beings to happiness? No, we have to do our duty!
And your duty was to hold firmly to the man you had
once chosen and to whom you were bound by a holy tie.
... It was your duty to bear with humility the cross
which a Higher Power had, for your own good, laid
upon you. But instead of that you rebelliously cast away
the cross. ... I was but a poor instrument in a Higher
Hand. And what a blessing has it not been to you all
the days of your life, that I got you to resume the yoke
of duty and obedience!
The price Mrs. Alving had to pay for her yoke,
her duty and obedience, staggers even Dr. Man-
ders, when she reveals to him the martyrdom she
had endured those long years.
Mrs. Alving. You have now spoken out. Pastor Man-
ders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory
Ghosts 29
of my husband. I shall not speak to-morrow. But now
I will speak out a little to you, as you have spoken to
me. ... I want you to know that after nineteen years
of marriage my husband remained as dissolute in his de-
sires as he was when you married us. After Oswald's
birth, I thought Alving seemed to be a little better. But
it did not last long. And then I had to struggle twice
as hard, fighting for life or death, so that nobody should
know what sort of a man my child's father was. I had
my little son to bear it for. But when the last insult
was added; when my own servant-maid—^ Then I
swore to m3rself : This shall come to an end. And so I
took the upper hand in the house — the whole control
over him and over everything else. For now I had a
weapon against him, you see; he dared not oppose me.
It was then that Oswald was sent from home. He was
in his seventh year, and was beginning to observe and
ask questions, as children do. That I could not bear.
1 thought the child must get poisoned by merely breath-
ing the air in this polluted home. That was why I
placed him out. And now you can see, too, why he was
never allowed to set foot inside his home so long as his
father lived. No one knows what it has cost me. . . .
From the day after to-morrow it shall be for me as
though he who is dead had never lived in this house.
No one shall be here but my boy and his mother. {From
within the dining-room comes the noise of a chair over-
turned, and at the same moment is heard:)
Regind (sharply, but whispering), Oswald! take care!
are you mad? let me go!
Mrs. Jiving (starts in terror). Ah! (She stares
30 Henrik Ibsen
wildly toward the half -opened door, Oswald is heard
coughing and humming inside,
Manders {excited). What in the world is the mat-
ter? What IS It, Mrs. Alving?
Mrs. Alving {hoarsely). Ghosts! The couple from
the conservatory has risen again!
Ghosts, indeed I Mrs, Alving sees this but tocy
clearly when she discovers that though she did not
want Oswald to inherit a single penny from the
purchase money Captain Alving had paid for her,
all her sacrifice did not save Oswald from the
poisoned heritage of his father. She learns soon
enough that her beloved boy had inherited a terri-
ble disease from his father, as a result of which he
will never again be able to work. She also finds
out that, for all her freedom, she has remained in
the clutches of Ghosts, and that she has fostered
in Oswald's mind an ideal of his father, the more
terrible because of her own loathing for the man.
Too late she realizes her fatal mistake :
Mrs. Alving, I ought never to have concealed the
facts of Alving's life. But ... in my superstitious awe
for Duty and Decency I lied to my boy, year after year.
Oh! what a coward, what a coward I have been! . . .
Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there,
it was as though I saw the Ghosts before me. But I
almost think we are all of us Ghosts, Pastor Manders.
It IS not only what we have inherited from our father
and mother that " walks " in us. It is all sorts of dead
Ghosts 31
ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have
no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and wt
can't get rid of them. . . . There must be Ghosts all
the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And
then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.
. . . When you forced me under the yoke you called
Duty and Obligation; when you praised as right and
proper what my whole soul rebelled against, as some-
thing loathsome. It was then that I began to look into
the seams of your doctrine. I only wished to pick at a
single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole
thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was
all machine-sewn. ... It was a crime against us both.
Indeed, a crime on which the sacred institution
IS built, and for which thousands of innocent chil-
dren must pay with their happiness and life, while
their mothers continue to the very end without
ever learning how hideously criminal their life is.
Not so Mrs. Alving who, though at a terrible
price, works herself out to the truth ; aye, even to
the height of understanding the dissolute life of
the father of her child, who had lived in cramped
provincial surroundings, and could find no purpose
in life, no outlet for his exuberance. It is through
her child, through Oswald, that all this becomes
illumed to her.
Oswald. Ah, the joy of life, mother; that's a thing
you don't know much about in these parts. I have
never felt it here. . . . And then, too, the joy of work.
32 Henrik Ibsen
At bottom, it's the same thing. But that too you know
nothing about. . . . Here people are brought up to be-
lieve that work is a curse and a punishment for sin, and
that life is something miserable, something we want to
be done with, the sooner the better. . . • Have you
noticed that everything I have painted has turned upon
the joy of life? always, always upon the joy of life? —
light and sunshine and glorious air, and faces radiant
with happiness? That is why I am afraid of remaining
at home with you.
Mrs. Alving, Oswald, you spoke of the joy of life;
and at that word a new light burst for me over my life
and all it has contained. . . . You ought to have known
your father when he was a young lieutenant. He was
brimming over with the joy of life! . . . He had no
object in life, but only an official position. He had no
work into which he could throw himself heart and soul;
he had only business. He had not a single comrade that
knew what the joy of life meant — only loafers and boon
companions ... So that happened which was sure
to happen. . . . Oswald, my dear boy; has it shaken
you very much?
Oswald. Of course it came upon me as a great sur-
prise, but, after all, it can't matter much to me.
Mrs. Alving. Can't matter! That your father was
so infinitely miserable!
Oswald. Of course I can pity him as I would any-
body else; but
Mrs. Alving. Nothing more? Your own father!
Oswald. Oh, there! " Father," " father " ! I never
Ghosts 33
knew anything of father. I don't remember anything
about him except — that he once made me sick.
Mrs, Alving. That's a terrible way to speak!
Should not a son love his father, all the same?
Oswald. When a son has nothing to thank his father
for? has never known him? Do you really cling to the
old superstition? — you who are so enlightened in other
ways?
Mrs. Alving. Is that only a superstition?
In truth, a superstition — one that is kept like
the sword of Damocles over the child who does
not ask to be given life, and is yet tied with a
thousand chains to those who bring him into a
cheerless, joyless, and wretched world.
The voice of Henrik Ibsen in " Ghosts " sounds
like the trumpets before the walls of Jericho.
Into the remotest nooks and corners reaches his
voice, with its thundering indictment of our moral
cancers, our social poisons, our hideous crimes
against unborn and born victims. Verily a more
revolutionary condemnation has never been ut-
tered in dramatic form before or since the great
Henrik Ibsen.
We need, therefore, not be surprised at the vile
abuse and denunciation heaped upon Ibsen's head
by the Church, the State, and other moral eunuchs.
But the spirit of Henrik Ibsen could not be
34 Henrik Ibsen
daunted. It asserted itself with even greater de-
fiance in " An Enemy of Society," — a powerful
arraignment of the political and economic Lie,
— Ibsen's own confession of faith.
AN ENEMY OF SOCIETY
Dr. Thomas Stockmann is called to the po-
sition of medical adviser to the management of
the " Baths," the main resource of his native town.
A sincere man of high ideals, Dr. Stockmann
returns home after an absence of many years, full
of the spirit of enterprise and progressive inno-
vation. For as he says to his brother Peter, the
town Burgomaster, " I am so glad and content.
I feel so unspeakably happy in the midst of all
this growing, germinating life. After all, what a
glorious time we do live in. It is as if a new
world were springing up around us."
Burgomaster. Do you really think so?
Dr, Stockmann. Well, of course, you can't see this
as clearly as I do. YouVe spent all your life in this
place, and so your perceptions have been dulled. But I,
who had to live up there in that small hole in the north
all those years, hardly ever seeing a soul to speak a
stimulating word to me — all this affects me as if I were
carried to the midst of a crowded city — I know well
enough that the conditions of life are small compared
vwth many other towns. But here is life, growth, an
An Enemy of Society 35
infinity of things to work for and to strive for; and that
is the main point.
In this spirit Dr. Stockmann sets to his task.
After two years of careful investigation, he finds
that the Baths are built on a swamp, full of poi-
sonous germs, and that people who come there for
their health will be infected with fever.
Thomas Stockmann is a conscientious physician.
He loves his native town, but he loves his
fellow-men more. He considers it his duty to
communicate his discovery to the highest authority
of the town, the Burgomaster, his brother Peter
Stockmann.
Dr. Stockmann is indeed an idealist; else he
would know that the man is often lost in the of-
ficial. Besides, Peter Stockmann is also the
president of the board of directors and one of the
heaviest stockholders of the Baths. Sufficient rea-
son to upbraid his reckless medical brother as a
dangerous man :
Burgomaster. Anyhow, youVe an ingrained propen-
sity for going your own way. And that in a well-or-
dered community is almost as dangerous. The individual
must submit himself to the whole community, or, to speak
more correctly, bow to the authority that watches over
the welfare of all.
But the Doctor is not disconcerted: Peter is
an official; he is not concerned with ideals. But
36 Henrik Ibsen
there Is thp press, — that is the medium for his
purpose! The staff of the People's Messenger
— Hovstad, Billings, and Aslaksen, are deeply
impressed by the Doctor's discovery. With one
eye to good copy and the other to the political
chances, they immediately put the People's Mes-
senger at the disposal of Thomas Stockmann.
Hovstad sees great possibilities for a thorough
radical reform of the whole life of the commun-
ity.
Hovstad. To you, as a doctor and a man of science,
this business of the water-works in an isolated affair.
I fancy it hasn*t occurred to you that a good many other
things are connected with it. . . . The swamp our whole
municipal life stands and rots in. ... I think a journal-
ist assumes an immense responsibility when he neglects
an opportunity of aiding the masses, the poor, the op-
pressed. I know well enough that the upper classes will
call this stirring up the people, and so forth, but they can
do as they please, if only my conscience is clear.
Aslaksen, printer of the People's Messenger,
chairman of the Householders' Association, and
agent for the Moderation Society, has, like Hov-
stad, 2L keen eye to business. He assures the
Doctor of his whole-hearted cooperation, espe-
cially emphasizing that, " It might do you no harm
to have us middle-class men at your back. We
now form a compact majority in the town —
when we really make up our minds to. And it's
An Enemy of Society 37
always as well, Doctor, to have the majority with
you. . . . And so I think it wouldn't be amiss if
we made some sort of a demonstration. ... Of
course with great moderation, Doctor. I am al-
ways in favor of moderation; for moderation is a
citizen's first virtue — at least those are my senti-
ments."
Truly, Dr. Stockmann is an idealist; else he
would not place so much faith in the staff of the
People's Messenger, who love the people so well
that they constantly feed them with high-sounding
phrases of democratic principles and of the noble
function of the press, while they pilfer their pock-
ets.
That is expressed in Hovstad's own words,
when Petra, the daughter of Dr. Stockmann, re-
turns a sentimental novel she was to translate for
the People's Messenger: " This can't possibly
go into the Messenger," she tells Hovstad; '* it is
in direct contradiction to your own opinion."
Hovstad. Well, but for the sake of the cause —
Petra. You don*t understand me yet. It is all about
a supernatural power that looks after the so-called good
people here on earth, and turns all things to their ad-
vantage at last, and all the bad people are punished.
Hovstad. Yes, but that's very fine. It*s the very
thing the public like.
Petra. And would you supply the public with such
stuff? Why, you don't believe one word of it yourself.
38 Henrik Ibsen
You know well enough that things don't really happen
like that.
Hovstad. You're right there; but an editor can't
always do as he likes. He often has to yield to public
opinion in small matters. After all, politics is the chief
thing in life — at any rate for a newspaper; and if I
want the people to follow me along the path of emanci-
pation and progress, I mustn't scare them away. If they
find such a moral story down in the cellar, they're much
more willing to stand what is printed above it — they
feel themselves safer.
Editors of the stamp of Hovstad seldom dare
to express their real opinions. They cannot af-
ford to " scare away " their readers. They gen-
erally yield to the most ignorant and vulgar public
opinion; they do not set themselves up against
constituted authority. Therefore the People's
Messenger drops the " greatest man " in town
when it learns that the Burgomaster and the influ-
ential citizens are determined that the truth shall
be silenced. The Burgomaster soundly de-
nounces his brother's " rebellion."
Burgomaster, The public doesn't need new ideas.
The public is best served by the good old recognized
ideas that they have already. ... As an official, you've
no right to have any individual conviction.
Dr, Stockmann, The source is poisoned, man! Are
you mad? We live by trafficking in filth and garbage.
The whole of our developing social life is rooted in a lie !
An Enemy of Society 39
Burgomaster. Idle fancies — or something worse.
The man who makes such offensive insinuations against
his own native place must be an enemy of society.
Dr. Stockmann. And I must bear such treatment!
In my own house. ICatrine! What do you think of it?
Mrs. Stockmann. Indeed, it is a shame and an insult,
Thomas . . • But, after all, your brother has the
power
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, but I have the right!
Mrs. Stockmann. Ah, yes, right, right! What is the
good of being right when you haven't any might?
Dr. Stockmann. What! No good in a free society to
have right on your side? You are absurd, Katrine. And
besides, haven't I the free and independent press with me ?
The compact majority behind me? That's might enough,
I should think!
Katrine Stockmann is wiser than her husband.
For he who has no might need hope for no right.
The good Doctor has to drink the bitter cup to the
last drop before he realizes the wisdom of his
wife.
Threatened by the authorities and repudiated
by the People's Messenger, Dr. Stockmann at-
tempts to secure a hall wherein to hold a public
meeting. A free-born citizen, he believes in the
Constitution and its guarantees; he is determined
to maintain his right of free expression. But like
so many others, even most advanced liberals
blinded by the spook of constitutional rights and
40 Henrik Ibsen
^ free speech, Dr. Stockmann inevitably has to pay
the penalty of his credulity. He finds every hall
in town closed against him. Only one solitary
citizen has the courage to open his doors to the
persecuted Doctor, — his old friend Horster.
But the mob follows him even there and howls
him down as an enemy of society. Thomas
Stockmann makes the discovery in his battle with
ignorance, stupidity, and vested interests that " the
most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in
our midst are the compact majority, the damned
compact liberal majority." His experiences lead
him to the conclusion that " the majority is never
right. . . . That is one of those conventional lies
against which a free, thoughtful man must rebel.
. . . The majority has might unhappily — but
right it has not."
Hovstad, The man who would ruin a whole com-
munity must be an enemy of society!
Dr. Stockmann. It doesn't matter if a lying com-
munity is mined! . . . You'll poison the whole country
in time; you will bring it to such a pass that the whole
country will deserve to perish. And should it come to
this, I say, from the bottom of my heart: Perish the
country! Perish all its people!
Driven out of the place, hooted and jeered by
the mob, Dr. Stockmann barely escapes with his
life, and seeks safety in his home, only to find
An Enemy of Society 41
everything demolished there. In due time he is
repudiated by the grocer, the baker, and the can-
dlestick maker. The landlord, of course, is very
sorry for him. The Stockmanns have always
paid their rent regularly, but it would injure his
reputation to have such an avowed rebel for a
tenant. The grocer is sorry, and the butcher,
too; but they can not jeopardize their business.
Finally the board of education sends expressions
of regret: Petra is an excellent teacher and the
boys of Stockmann splendid pupils, but it would
contaminate the other children were the Stock-
manns allowed to remain at school. And again
Dr. Stockmann learns a vital lesson. But he will
not submit ; he will be strong.
Dr. Stockmann. Should I let myself be beaten oflF the
field by public opinion, and the compact majority, and
such deviltry? No, thanks. Besides, what I want is so
simple, so clear and straightforward. I only want to
drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are
the worst foes of free men ; that party-programmes wring
the necks of all young living truths; that considerations
of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside
down, until life is simply hideous. ... I don^t see any
man free and brave enough to dare the Truth. . . . The
strongest man is he who stands most alone.
A confession of faith, indeed, because Henrik
Ibsen, although recognized as a great dramatic
42 Henrik Ibsen
artist, remained alone in his stand as a revolution-
ist.
His dramatic art, without his glorious rebellion
against every authoritative institution, against
every social and moral lie, against every vestige
of bondage, were inconceivable. Just as his art
would lose human significance, were his love of
truth and freedom lacking. Already in " Brand,"
Henrik Ibsen demanded all or nothing, no weak-
kneed moderation, — no compromise of any sort in
the struggle for the ideal. His proud defiance,
his enthusiastic daring, his utter indifference to
consequences, are Henrik Ibsen's bugle call, her-
alding a new dawn and the birth of a new race.
STRINDBERG
**^ ■ ^HE reproach was levelled against my '
I tragedy, *The Father,' that it was
I so sad, as though one wanted merry '
•^^ tragedies. People clamour for the
joy of life, and the theatrical managers order
farces, as though the joy of life consisted in being
foolish, and in describing people as if they were
each and all afflicted with St. Vitus's dance or
idiocy. I find the joy of life in the powerful, \
cruel struggle of life, and my enjoyment in dis- I
covering something, in learning something."
The passionate desire to discover something,
to learn something, has made of August Strind-
berg a keen dissector of souls. Above all, of his
own soul.
Surely there Is no figure in contemporary litera-
ture, outside of Tolstoy, that laid bare the most
secret nooks and corners of his own soul with the
sincerity of August Strindberg. One so relent-'
lessly honest with himself, could be no less with
others.
That explains the bitter opposition and hatred
of his critics. They did not object so much to
Strindberg's self-torture; but that he should have
43
44 Strindberg
dared to torture them, to hold up his searching
mirror to their sore spots, that they could not
I forgive.
Especially is this true of woman. For cen-
turies she has been lulled into a trance by the songs
of the troubadours who paid homage to her good-
ness, her sweetness, her selflessness and, above all,
her noble motherhood. And though she Is begin-
ning to appreciate that all this incense has be-
fogged her mind and paralyzed her soul, she hates
to give up the tribute laid at her feet by senti-
mental moonshiners of the past.
To be sure, it is rude to turn on the full search-
light upon a painted face. But how is one to
know what is back of the paint and artifice ? Au-
gust Strindberg hated artifice with all the passion
of his being; hence his severe criticism of woman.
Perhaps it was his tragedy to see her as she really
is, and not as she appears in her trance. To love
with open eyes is, indeed, a tragedy, and Strind-
berg loved woman. All his life long he yearned
for her love, as mother, as wife, as companion.
But his longing for, and his need of her, were the
crucible of Strindberg, as they have been the cruci-
ble of every man, even of the mightiest spirit.
Why It is so is best expressed In the words of
the old nurse, Margret, in '* The Father'':
! " Because all you men, great and small, are wom-
: an's children, every man of you."
The Father 45
The child in man — and the greater the man
the more dominant the child in him — has ever
succumbed to the Earth Spirit, Woman, and as
long as that is her only drawing power, Man,
with all his strength and genius, will ever be at her
feet.
The Earth Spirit is motherhood carrying the
race in its womb; the flame of life luring the
moth, often against its will, to destruction.
In all of Strindberg's plays we see the flame
of life at work, ravishing man's brain, consuming
man's faith, rousing man's passion. Always, al-
ways the flame of life is drawing its victims with
irresistible force. August Strindberg's arraign-
ment of that force is at the same time a confes-
sion of faith. He, too, was the child of woman,
and utterly helpless before her.
THE FATHER
" The Father " portrays the tragedy of a man
and a woman struggling for the possession of their
child. The father, a cavalry captain, is intel-
lectual, a freethinker, a man of ideas. His wife
is narrow, selfish, and unscrupulous in her methods
when her antagonism is wakened.
Other members of the family are the wife's
mother, a Spiritualist, and the Captain's old nurse,
Margret, ignorant and superstitious. The father
46 Strindberg
feels that the child would be poisoned in such an
atmosphere :
The Captain. This house is full of women who all
want to have their say about my child. My mother-in-
law wants to make a Spiritualist of her. Laura wants
her to be an artist! the governess wants her to be a
Methodist, old Margret a Baptist, and the servant-girls
want her to join the Salvation Army! It won*t do to
try to make a soul in patches like that. I, who have the
chief right to try to form her character, am constantly
opposed in my efforts. And that's why I have decided
to send her away from home.
But it is not only because the Captain does not
believe in *' making a soul in patches," that he
wants to rescue the child from the hot-house en-
vironment, nor because he plans to make her an
image of himself. It is rather because he wants
her to grow up with a healthy outlook on life.
The Captain. I don't want to be a procurer for my
daughter and educate her exclusively for matrimony, for
then if she were left unmarried she might have bitter
days. On the other hand, I don't want to influence her
toward a career that requires a long course of training
which would be entirely thrown away if she should
marry. I want her to be a teacher. If she remains un-
married she will be able to support herself, and at any
rate she wouldn't be any worse off than the poor school-
masters who have to share their salaries with a family.
The Father 47
If she marries she can use her knowledge in the educa-
tion of her children.
While the father's love is concerned with the
development of the child, that of the mother is
interested mainly in the possession of the child.
Therefore she fights the man with every means
at her command, even to the point of instilling the
poison of doubt into his mind, by hints that he is
not the father of the child. Not only does she
seek to drive her husband mad, but through skillful
intrigue she leads every one, including the Doc-
tor, to believe that he is actually insane. Finally
even the old nurse is induced to betray him: she
slips the straitjacket over him, adding the last
touch to the treachery. Robbed of his faith,
broken in spirit and subdued, the Captain dies a
victim of the Earth Spirit — of motherhood,
which slays the man for the sake of the child.
Laura herself will have it so when she tells her
husband, " You have fulfilled your function as
an unfortunately necessary father and breadwin-
ner. You are not needed any longer, and you
must go."
Critics have pronounced " The Father " an
aberration of Strindberg's mind, utterly false and
distorted. But that is because they hate to face
the truth. In Strindberg, however, the truth is
his most revolutionary significance.
48 Strindberg
" The Father " contains two basic truths.
Motherhood, much praised, poetized, and hailed
as a wonderful thing, is in reality very often the
greatest deterrent influence in the life of the child.
Because it is not primarily concerned with the po-
tentialities of character and growth of the child;
on the contrary, it is interested chiefly in the birth-
giver, — that is, the mother. Therefore, the
mother is the most subjective, self-centered and
conservative obstacle. She binds the child to her-
self with a thousand threads which never grant
sufficient freedom for mental and spiritual ex-
pansion. It is not necessary to be as bitter as
Strindberg to realize this. There are of course
exceptional mothers who continue to grow with
the child. But the average mother is like the hen
with her brood, forever fretting about her chicks
if they venture a step away from the coop. The
mother enslaves with kindness, — a bondage
harder to bear and more difficult to escape than
the brutal fist of the father.
Strindberg himself experienced it, and nearly
every one who has ever attempted to outgrow the
soul strings of the mother.
In portraying motherhood, as it really is, Au-
gust Strindberg is conveying a vital and revolu-
tionary message, namely, that true motherhood,
even as fatherhood, does not consist in molding
the child according to one's image, or in imposing
The Father 49
upon it one's own ideas and notions, but in allow-
ing the child freedom and opportunity to grow
harmoniously according to its own potentialities,
unhampered and unmarred.
The child was August Strindberg's religion, —
perhaps because of his own very tragic childhood
and youth. He was like Father Time in " Jude
the Obscure,'^ a giant child, and as he has Laura
say of the Cjaptain in ** The Father," " he had
either come too early into the world, or perhaps
was not wanted at all."
" Yes, that's how it was," the Captain replies,
"my father's and my mother's will was against
my coming into the world, and consequently I
was born without a will."
[The horror of having been brought into the
world undesired and unloved, stamped its indeli-
ble mark on August Strindberg. It never left
him. Nor did fear and hunger — the two ter-
rible phantoms of his childhood.
Indeed, the child was Strindberg's religion, his
faith, his passion. Is it then surprising that he
should have resented woman's attitude towards
the man as a mere means to the child; or, in the
words of Laura, as " the function of father and
breadwinner"? That this is the attitude of
woman, is of course denied. But it is neverthe-
less true. It holds good not only of the average,
unthinking woman, but even of many feminists of
50 Strindberg
to-day; and, no doubt, they were even more an-
tagonistic to the male in Strindberg's time.
, It is only too true that woman is paying back
what she has endured for centuries — humiliation,
subjection, and bondage. But making oneself
free through the enslavement of another, is by
no means a step toward advancement. Woman
must grow to understand that the father is as vital
a factor in the life of the child as is the mother.
Such a realization would help very much to mini-
mize the conflict between the sexes.
Of course, that is not the only cause of the
conflict. There is another, as expressed by Laura:
" Do you remember when I first came into your
life, I was like a second mother? ... I loved you
as my child. But . . . when the nature of your
feelings changed and you appeared as my lover,
I blushed, and your embraces were joy that was
followed by remorseful conscience as if my blood
were ashamed."
The vile thought instilled into woman by the
Church and Puritanism that sex expression without
the purpose of procreation is immoral, has been a
most degrading influence. It has poisoned the
life of thousands of women who similarly suffer
"remorseful conscience"; therefore their disgust
and hatred of the man ; therefore also the conflict.
Must it always be thus ? Even Strindberg does
not think so. Else he would not plead in behalf
Countess Julie 51
of " divorce between man and wife, so that lovers \
may be born." He felt that until man and woman
cease to have " remorseful consciences " because
of the most elemental expression of the joy of
life, they cannot realize the purity and beauty of
sex, nor appreciate its ecstasy, as the source of
full understanding and creative harmony between
male and female. Till then man and woman must
remain in conflict, and the child pay the penalty.
August Strindberg, as one of the numberless
innocent victims of this terrible conflict, cries out
bitterly against it, with the artistic genius and
strength that compel attention to the significance
of his message.
COUNTESS JULIE
In his masterly preface to this play, August
Strinc^berg writes: *'The fact that my tragedy
makes a sad impression on many is the fault of
the many. When we become strong, as were the
first French revolutionaries, it will make an ex-
clusively pleasant and cheerful impression to see
the royal parks cleared of rotting, superannuated
trees which have too long stood in the way of
others with equal right to vegetate their full life-
time; it will make a good impression in the same
sense as does the sight of the death of an incura^
ble."
52 Strindberg
What a wealth of revolutionary thought, —
were we to realize that those who will clear soci-
ety of the rotting, superannuated trees that have
so long been standing in the way of others entitled
to an equal share in life, must be as strong as the
great revolutionists of the past!
Indeed, Strindberg is no trimmer, no cheap re-
former, no patchworker; therefore his inability
to remain fixed, or to content himself with ac-*
cepted truths. Therefore also, his great versatil-
ity, his deep grasp of the subtlest phases of life.
Was he not forever the seeker, the restless spirit
roaming the earth, ever in the death-throes of the
Old, to give birth to the New? How, then, could
he be other than relentless and grim and brutally
frank.
" Countess Julie," a one-act tragedy, is no doubt
a brutally frank portrayal of the most intimate
thoughts of man and of the age-long antagonism
between classes. Brutally frank, because August
Strindberg strips both of their glitter, their sham
and pretense, that we may see that " at bottom
there's not so much difference between people and
— people."
Who in modern dramatic art is there to teach
us that lesson with the insight of an August Strind-
berg? He who had been tossed about all his life
between the decadent traditions of his aristocratic
father and the grim, sordid reality of the class
Countess Julie 53
of his mother. He who had been begotten
through the physical mastery of his father and
the physical subserviency of his mother. Verily,
Strindberg knew whereof he spoke — for he
spoke with his soul, a language whose significance
is illuminating, compelling.
Countess Julie inherited the primitive, in-
tense passion of her mother and the neurotic aris-
tocratic tendencies of her father. Added to this
heritage is the call of the wild, the " intense sum-
mer heat when the blood turns to fire, and when
all are in a holiday spirit, full of gladness, and
rank is flung aside." Countess Julie feels, when
too late, that the barrier of rank reared through
the ages, by wealth and power, is not flung aside
with impunity. Therein the vicious brutality, the
boundless injustice of rank.
The people on the estate of Juliets father are
celebrating St. John's Eve with dance, song and
revelry. The Count is absent, and Julie gra-
ciously mingles with the servants. But once hav-
ing tasted the simple abandon of the people, once
having thrown off the artifice and superficiality of
her aristocratic decorum, her suppressed passions
leap into full flame, and Julie throws herself into
the arms of her father's valet, Jean — not be-
cause of love for the man, nor yet openly and
freely, but as persons of her station may do when
carried away by the moment.
54 Strindberg
The woman in Julie pursues the male, follows
him into the kitchen, plays with him as with a pet
dog, and then feigns indignation when Jean,
aroused, makes advances. How dare he, the
servant, the lackey, even insinuate that she would
have him I " I, the lady of the house ! I honor
the people with my presence. I, in love with my
coachman? I, who step down."
How well Strindberg knows the psychology of
the upper classes 1 How well he understands that
their graciousness, their charity, their interest in
the " common people " is, after all, nothing but
arrogance, blind conceit of their own importance
and ignorance of the character of the people.
Even though Jean is a servant, he has his pride,
he has his dreams. ** I was not hired to be your
plaything," he says to Julie; " I think too much
of myself for that."
Strange, is it not, that those who serve and
drudge for others, should think so much of them-
selves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger
still that they should indulge in dreams. Jean
says:
Do you know how people in high life look from the
under-world? . . . They look like hawks and eagles
whose backs one seldom sees, for they soar up above. I
lived in a hovel provided by the State, with seven brothers
and sisters and a pig ; out on a barren stretch where noth-
ing grew, not even a tree, but from the window I could
see the Count's park walls with apple trees rising above
Countess Julie 55
them. That was the garden of paradise ; and there stood
many angry angels with flaming swords protecting it ; but
for all that I and other boys found the way to the tree of
life — now you despise me. ... I thought if it is true
that the thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell
among the angels it was strange that a pauper child on
God's earth could not go into the castle park and play
with the Countess' daughter. . . . What I wanted — I
don't know. You were unattainable, but through the
vision of you I was made to realize how hopeless it was
to rise above the conditions of my birth.
What rich food for thought in the above for
all of us, and for the Jeans, the people who do
not know what they want, yet feel the cruelty of
a world that keeps the pauper's child out of the
castle of his dreams, away from joy and play
and beauty! The injustice and the bitterness of
it all, that places the stigma of birth as an im-
passable obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one
from the table of life, with the result of producing
such terrible effects on the Julies and the Jeans.
The one unnerved, made helpless and useless by
affluence, ease and idleness ; the other enslaved and
bound by service and dependence. Even when
Jean wants to, he cannot rise above his condi-
tion. When Julie asks him to embrace her, to
love her, he replies :
I can't as long as we are in this house. . . . There
IS the G)unt, your father. • • • I need only to see his
56 Strindberg
gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I
have only to hear his bell, to start like a nervous horse.
. . . And now that I see his boots standing there so stiflE
and proper, I feel like bowing and scraping. ... I can't
account for it but — but ah, it is that damned servant in
my back — I believe if the Count came here now, and
told me to cut my throat, I would do it on the spot. . . .
Superstition and prejudice taught in childhood can't be
uprooted in a moment.
No, superstition and prejudice cannot be up-
rooted in a moment; nor in years. The awe of
authority, servility before station and wealth —
these are the curse of the Jean class that makes
such cringing slaves of them. Cringing before
those who are above them, tyrannical and over-
bearing toward those who are below them. For
Jean has the potentiality of the master in him as
much as that of the slave. Yet degrading as
** the damned servant " reacts upon Jean, it is
much more terrible in its effect upon Kristin, the
cook, the dull, dumb animal who has so little left
of the spirit of independence that she has lost
even the ambition to rise above her condition.
Thus when Kristin, the betrothed of Jean, dis-
covers that her mistress Julie had given herself
to him, she is indignant that her lady should have
so much forgotten her station as to stoop to her
father's valet.
Countess Julie 57
Kristin. I don't want to be here in this house any
longer where one cannot respect one's betters.
Jean. Why should one respect them?
Kristin. Yes, you can say that, you are so smart.
But I don't want to serve people who behave so. It re-
flects on oneself, I think.
Jean. Yes, but it's a comfort that they're not a bit
better than we.
Kristin. No, I don't think so, for if they are not bet-
ter there's no use in our trying to better ourselves in this
world. And to think of the Count! Think of him who
has had so much sorrow all his days. No, I don't want
to stay in this house any longer ! And to think of it being
with such as you! If it had been the Lieutenant —
... I have never lowered my position. Let any one
say, if they can, that the Count's cook has had anything
to do with the riding master or the swineherd. Let them
come and say it!
Such dignity and morality are indeed pathetic,
because they indicate how completely serfdom
may annihilate even the longing for something
higher and better in the breast of a human being.
The Kristins represent the greatest obstacle to
social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between
the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with
all their longing for higher possibilities, often
become brutalized in the hard school of life;
though in the conflict with Julie, Jean shows bru-
tality only at the critical moment, when it be-
58 Strindberg
comes a question of life and death, a moment
that means discovery and consequent ruin, or
safety for both.
Jean, though the male is aroused in him, pleads
with Julie not to play with fire, begs her to re-
turn to her room, and not to give the servants a
chance for gossip. And when later Jean suggests
his room for a hiding place that Julie may escape
the approaching merry-makers, it is to save her
from their songs full of insinuation and ribaldry.
Finally when the inevitable happens, when as a
result of their closeness in Jean^s room, of their
overwrought nerves, their intense passion, the
avalanche of sex sweeps them off their feet, for-
getful of station, birth and conventions, and they
return to the kitchen, it is again Jean who is will-
ing to bear his share of the responsibility. " I
don't care to shirk my share of the blame," he tells
Julie, " but do you think any one of my position
would have dared to raise his eyes to you if you
had not invited it? "
There is more truth in this statement than the
Julies can grasp, namely, that even servants have
their passions and feelings that cannot long be
trifled with, with impunity. The Jeans know
" that it is the glitter of brass, not gold, that
dazzles us from below, and that the eagle's back
is gray like the rest of him." For Jean says,
" I'm sorry to have to realize that all that I have
Countess Julie 59
looked up to is not worth while, and it pains me
to see you fallen lower than your cook, as it pains
me to see autumn blossoms whipped to pieces by
the cold rain and transformed into — dirt ! "
It is this force that helps to transform the blos-
som into dirt that August Strindberg emphasizes
in '* The Father." For the child born against
the will of its parents must also be without will,
and too weak to bear the stress and storm of life.
In " Countess Julie " this idea recurs with even
more tragic effect. Julie, too, had been brought
into the world against her mother's wishes. In-
deed, so much did her mother dread the thought
of a child that she ** was always ill, she often
had cramps and acted queerly, often hiding in the
orchard or the attic." Added to this horror was
the conflict, the relentless war of traditions be-
tween Juliets aristocratic father and her mother
descended from the people. This was the
heritage of the innocent victim, Julie — an au-
tumn blossom blown into fragments by lack of
stability, lack of love and lack of harmony. In
other words, while Julie is broken and weakened
by her inheritance and environment, Jean is hard-
ened by his.
When Jean kills the bird which Julie wants to
rescue from the ruins of her life, it is not so much
out of real cruelty, as it is because the character
6o Strindberg
of Jean was molded in the relentless school
of necessity, in which only those survive who have
the determination to act in time of danger. For
as Jean says, " Miss Julie, I see that you are un-
happy, I know that you are suffering, but I cannot
understand you. Among my kind there is no non-
sense of this sort. We love as we play — when
work gives us time. We haven't the whole day
and night for it as you."
Here we have the key to the psychology of
the utter helplessness and weakness of the Julie
type, and of the brutality of the Jeans. The one,
the result of an empty life, of parasitic leisure, of
a useless, purposeless existence. The other, the
effect of too little time for development, for ma-
turity and depth; of too much toil to permit the
growth of the finer traits in the human soul.
August Strindberg, himself the result of the
class conflict between his parents, never felt at
home with either of them. All his life he was
galled by the irreconcilability of the classes; and
though he was no sermonizer in the sense of offer-
ing a definite panacea for individual or social ills,
yet with master touch he painted the degrading
effects of class distinction and its tragic antago-
nisms. In " Countess Julie " he popularized one
of the most vital problems of our age, and gave
to the world a work powerful in its grasp of ele-
mental emotions, laying bare the human soul be-
Comrades * 6i
hind the mask of social tradition and class
culture.
COMRADES
Although " Comrades " was written in 1888,
It is in a measure the most up-to-date play of
Strindberg, — so thoroughly modern that one at
all conversant with the milieu that inspired " Com-
rades " could easily point out the type of character
portrayed in the play.
It is a four-act comedy of marriage — the kind
of marriage that lacks social and legal security in
the form of a ceremony, but retains all the petty
conventions of the marriage institution. The re-
sults of such an anomaly are indeed ludicrous when
viewed from a distance, but very tragic for those
who play a part in it.
Axel Alberg and his wife Bertha are Swedish
artists residing in Paris. They are both painters.
Of course they share the same living quarters, and
although each has a separate room, the arrange-
ment does not hinder them from trying to regulate
each other's movements. Thus when Bertha does
not arrive on time to keep her engagement with
her model. Axel is provoked; and when he takes
the liberty to chide her for her tardiness, his wife
is indignant at the " invasiveness " of her husband,
because women of the type of Bertha are as sensi-
62 Strindberg
tive to fair criticism as their ultra-conservative
sisters. Nor is Bertha different in her concept of
love, which is expressed in the following dialogue :
Bertha. Will you be very good, very, very good?
Axel. I always want to be good to you, my friend.
Bertha, who has sent her painting to the exhibi-
tion, wants to make use of Axel's " goodness "
to secure the grace of one of the art jurors.
Bertha. You would not make a sacrifice for your
wife, would you?
Jxel. Go begging? No, I don't want to do that
Bertha immediately concludes that he does not
love her and that, moreover, he is jealous of her
art. There is a scene.
Bertha soon recovers. But bent on gaining her
purpose, she changes her manner.
Bertha. Axel, let's be friends! And hear me a
moment. Do you think that my position in your house
— for It is yours — is agreeable to me? You support
me, you pay for my studying at Julian's, while you your-
self cannot afford instruction. Don't you think I see
how you sit and wear out yourself and your talent on
these pot-boiling drawings, and are able to paint only in
leisure moments? You haven't been able to aflord
models for yourself, while you pay mine five hard-earned
francs an hour. You don't know how good — how
noble — how sacrificing you are, and also you don't
know how I suffer to see you toil so for me. Oh, Axel,
you can't know how I feel my position. What am I to
Comrades 63
you? Of what use am I in your house? Oh, I blush
when I think about it!
Axel. What talk! Isn't a man to support his wife?
Bertha. I don't want it. And you, Axel, you must
help me. Tm not your equal when it's like that, but I
could be if you would humble yourself once, just once!
Don't think that you are alone in going to one of the
jury to say a good word for another. If it were for
yourself, it would be another matter, but for me —
Forgive me ! Now I beg of you as nicely as I know how.
Lift me from my humiliating position to your side, and
I'll be so grateful I shall never trouble you again with
reminding you of my position. Never, Axel!
Yet though Bertha gracefully accepts everything
Axel does for her, with as little compunction as
the ordinary wife, she does not give as much in re-
turn as the latter. On the contrary, she exploits
Axel in a thousand ways, squanders his hard-
earned money, and lives the life of the typical
wifely parasite.
August Strindberg could not help attacking with
much bitterness such a farce and outrage parading
in the disguise of radicalism. For Bertha is not
an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when
Strindberg satirized the all-too-feminine, the ma-
jority of so-called emancipated women are willing
to accept, like Bertha, everything from the man,
and yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return
the simple comforts of married life. The ordi-
64 Strindberg
nary wife, at least, does not pretend to play an im-
portant role in the life of her husband. But the
Berthas deceive themselves and others with the no-
tion that the '* emancipated " wife is a great moral
force, an inspiration to the man. Whereas in
reality she is often a cold-blooded exploiter of the
work and ideas of the man, a heavy handicap to his
life-purpose, retarding his growth as effectively as
did her grandmothers in the long ago. Bertha
takes advantage of AxeVs affection to further her
own artistic ambitions, just as the Church and
State married woman uses her husband's love to
advance her social ambitions. It never occurs to
Bertha that she is no less despicable than her le-
gally married sister. She cannot understand
AxeVs opposition to an art that clamors only for
approval, distinction and decorations.
However, Axel can not resist Bertha^s plead-
ings. He visits the patron saint of the salon, who,
by the way, is not M. Roubey, but Mme. Roubey;
for she is the " President of the Woman-Painter
Protective Society." What chance would Berlha
have with one of her own sex in authority?
Hence her husband must be victimized. During
Axel's absence Bertha learns that his picture has
been refused by the salon, while hers is accepted.
She is not in the least disturbed, nor at all con-
cerned over the effect of the news on AxeL On
the contrary, she is rather pleased because " so
Comrades 65
many women are refused that a man might put up
with it, and be made to feel it once."
In her triumph Bertha's attitude to Axel be-
comes overbearing; she humiliates him, belittles
his art, and even plans to humble him before the
guests invited to celebrate Bertha's artistic suc-
cess.
But Axel is tearing himself free from the meshes
of his decaying love. He begins to see Bertha as
she is : her unscrupulousness in money matters, her
ceaseless effort to emasculate him. In a terrible
word tussle he tells her: ** I had once been free,
but you clipped the hair of my strength while my
tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole
my best blood."
In the last act Bertha discovers that Axel had
generously changed the numbers on the paintings
in order to give her a better chance. It was his
picture that was chosen as her work. She feels
ashamed and humiliated; but it is too late. Axel
leaves her with the exclamation, " I want to meet
my comrades in the cafe, but at home I want a
wife."
A characteristic sidelight in the play is given by
the conversation of Mrs. Hall, the divorced wife
of Doctor Ostermark. She comes to Bertha with
a bitter tirade against the Doctor because he gives
her insufficient alimony.
66 Strindberg
Mrs. Hall. And now that the girls are grown up
and about to start in life, now he writes us that he is
bankrupt and that he can't send us more than half the
allowance. Isn't that nice, just now when the girls are
grown up and are going out into life?
Bertha. We must look into this. Hell be here in a
few days. Do you know that you have the law on your
side and that the courts can force him to pay? And he
shall be forced to do so. Do you understand? So, he
can bring children into the world and then leave them
empty-handed with the poor deserted mother.
Bertha, who believes in woman's equality with
man, and in her economic independence, yet de-
livers herself of the old sentimental gush in be-
half of ** the poor deserted mother," who has been
supported by her husband for years, though their
relations had ceased long before.
A distorted picture, some feminists will say.
Not at all. It is as typical to-day as it was twenty-
six years ago. Even to-day some " emancipated "
women claim the right to be self-supporting, yet
demand their husband's support. In fact, many
leaders in the American suffrage movement assure
us that when women will make laws, they will force
men to support their wives. From the leaders
down to the simplest devotee, the same attitude
prevails, namely, that man is a blagueur, and that
but for him the Berthas would have long ago be-
Comrades 67
come Michelangelos, Beethovens, or Shakes-
peares; they claim that the Berthas represent the
most virtuous half of the race, and that they have
made up their minds to make man as virtuous as
they are.
That such ridiculous extravagance should be re-
sented by the Axels is not at all surprising. It is
resented even by the more intelligent of Bertha's
own sex. Not because they are opposed to the
emancipation of woman, but because they do not
believe that her emancipation can ever be achieved
by such absurd and hysterical notions. They re-
pudiate the idea that people who retain the sub-
stance of their slavery and merely escape the
shadow, can possibly be free, live free, or act free.
The radicals, no less than the feminists, must
realize that a mere external change in their eco-
nomic and political status, cannot alter the inher-
ent or acquired prejudices and superstitions which
underlie their slavery and dependence, and which
are the main causes of the antagonism between the
sexes.
The transition period is indeed a most difficult
and perilous stage for the woman as well as for the
man. It requires a powerful light to guide us
past the dangerous reefs and rocks in the ocean of
life. August Strindberg is such a light. Some-
times glaring, ofttimes scorching, but always bene-
ficially illuminating the path for those who walk
68 Strindberg
in darkness, for the blind ones who would rather
deceive and be deceived than look into the recesses
of their being. Therefore August Strindberg is
not only " the spiritual conscience of Sweden," as
he has been called, but the spiritual conscience of
the whole human family, and, as such, a most vital
revolutionary factor.
THE GERMAN DRAMA
HERMANN SUDERMANN
IT has been said that military conquest gen-
erally goes hand in hand with the decline
of creative genius, with the retrogression
of culture. I believe this is not a mere
assertion. The history of the human race re-
peatedly demonstrates that whenever a nation
achieved great military success, it invariably in-
volved the decline of art, of literature, of the
drama; in short, of culture in the deepest and
finest sense. This has been particularly borne out
by Germany after its military triumph in the
Franco-Prussian War.
For almost twenty years after that war, the
country of poets and thinkers remained. Intellectu-
ally, a veritable desert, barren of ideas. Young
Germany had to go for its intellectual food to
France, — Daudet, Maupassant, and Zola; or to
Russia — Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostdyevski;
finally also to Ibsen and Strindberg. Nothing
thrived In Germany during that period, except a
sickening patriotism and sentimental romanticism,
perniciously misleading the people and giving
69
70 Hermann Sudermann
them no adequate outlook upon life and the social
struggle. Perhaps that accounts for the popular
vogue of Hermann Sudermann: it may explain
why he was received by the young generation with
open arms and acclaimed a great artist.
It is not my intention to discuss Hermann Suder-
mann as an artist or to consider him from the
point of view of the technic of the drama. I in-
tend to deal with him as the first German drama-
tist to treat social topics and discuss the pressing
questions of the day. From this point of view
Hermann Sudermann may be regarded as the pio-
neer of a new era in the German drama. Pri-
marily is this true of the three plays " Honor,"
** Magda," and " The Fires of St. John." In
these dramas Hermann Sudermann, while not
delving deeply into the causes of the social con-
flicts, nevertheless touches upon many vital sub-
jects.
In " Honor " the author demolishes the super-
ficial, sentimental conception of " honor " that is
a purely external manifestation, having no roots
in the life, the habits, or the customs of the people.
He exposes the stupidity of the notion that be-
cause a man looks askance at you, or fails to pay
respect to your uniform, you must challenge him
to a duel and shoot him dead. In this play Suder-
mann shows that the conception of honor is noth-
ing fixed or permanent, but that it varies with
Mag da 71
economic and social status, different races, peo-
ples and times holding different ideas of it. With
" Honor " Sudermann succeeded in undermining
to a considerable extent the stupid and ridiculous
notion of the Germans ruled by the rod and the
Kaiser's coat.
But I particularly wish to consider " Magda,"
because, of all the plays written by Hermann
Sudermann, it is the most revolutionary and
the least national. It deals with a universal sub-
ject, — the awakening of woman. It is revo-
lutionary, not because Sudermann was the first to
treat this subject, for Ibsen had preceded him, but
because in ** Magda " he was the first to raise the
question of woman's right to motherhood with or
without the sanction of State and Church.
MAGDA
Lieutenant Colonel Schwartze, Magda's
father, represents all the conventional and con-
servative notions of society.
Schwartze. Modern Ideas! Oh, pshaw! I know
them. But come into the quiet homes where are bred
brave soldiers and virtuous wives. There you'll hear no
talk about heredity, no arguments about individuality, no
scandalous gossip. There modern ideas have no foot-
hold, for it IS there that the life and strength of the
Fatherland abide. Look at this home! There is no
luxury, — hardly even what you call good taste, — faded
72 Hermann Sudermann
nigs, birchen chairs, old pictures; and yet when you see
the beams of the western sun pour through the white
curtains and He with such a loving touch on the old room,
does not something say to you, " Here dwells true hap-
pmess r
The Colonel is a rigid military man. He is
utterly blind to the modern conception of woman's
place in life. He rules his family as the Kaiser
rules the nation, with severe discipline, with ter-
rorism and depotism. He chooses the man whom
Magda is to marry, and when she refuses to ac-
cept his choice, he drives her out of the house.
At the age of eighteen Magda goes out into
the world yearning for development; she longs
for artistic expression and economic independence.
Seventeen years later she returns to her native
town, a celebrated singer. As Madelene dell'
Orto she is invited to sing at the town's charity
bazaar, and is acclaimed, after the performance,
one of the greatest stars of the country.
Magda has not forgotten her home; especially
does she long to see her father whom she loves
passionately, and her sister, whom she had left
a little child of eight After the concert Magda,
the renowned artist, steals away from her admir-
ers, with their flowers and presents, and goes out
into the darkness of the night to catch a glimpse,
through the window at least, of her father and her
little sister.
Magda 73
Magda^s father is scandalized at her mode of
life: what will people say if the daughter of the
distinguished officer stops at a hotel, associates
with men without a chaperon, and is wined and
dined away from her home? Magda is finally
prevailed upon to remain with her parents. She
consents on condition that they should not pry
into her life, that they should not soil and be-
smirch her innermost being. But that is expect-
ing the impossible from a provincial environment.
It is not that her people really question ; but they
insinuate, they speak with looks and nods; burn-
ing curiosity to unearth Magda' s life is in the very
air.
Schwartze. I implore you — Come here, my child —
nearer — so — I implore you — let me be happy in my
dying hour. Tell me that you have remained pure in
body and soul, and then go with my blessing on your way.
Magda, I have remained — true to myself, dear
father.
Schwartze. How? In good or in ill?
Magda. In what — for me — was good.
Schwartze, I love you with my whole heart, because
I have sorrowed for you — so long. But I must know
who you are.
Among the townspeople who come to pay
homage to Magda is Councillor von Keller. In
his student days he belonged to the bohemian set
and was full of advanced ideas. At that period
74 Hermann Sudermann
he met Magda, young, beautiful, and inexperi-
enced. A love affair developed. But when Von
Keller finished his studies, he went home to the
fold of his family, and forgot his sweetheart
Magda. In due course he became an important
pillar of society, a very influential citizen, admired,
respected, and feared in the community.
When Magda returns home. Von Keller comes
to pay her his respects. But she is no longer the
insignificant little girl he had known; she is now
a celebrity. What pillar of society is averse to
basking in the glow of celebrities? Von Keller
offers flowers and admiration. But Magda dis-
covers in him the man who had robbed her of her
faith and trust, — the father of her child.
Magda has become purified by her bitter strug-
gle. It made her finer and bigger. She does not
even reproach the man, because —
Magda, I've painted this meeting to myself a thou-
sand times, and have been prepared for it for years.
Something warned me, too, when I undertook this
journey home — though I must say I hardly expected
just here to — Yes, how is it that, after what has
passed between us, you came into this house? It seems
to me a little — ... I can see it all. The effort to
keep worthy of respect under such difficulties, with a bad
conscience, is awkward. You look down from the
height of your pure atmosphere on your sinful youth, —
for you are called a pillar, my dear friend.
Magda 75
Von Keller. Well, I felt myself called to higher
things. I thought — Why should I undervalue my posi-
tion? I have become Councillor, and that comparatively
young. An ordinary ambition might take satisfaction in
that. But one sits and waits at home, while others are
called to the ministry. And this environment, conven-
tionality, and narrowness, all is so gray, — gray! And
the ladies here — for one who cares at all about elegance
— I assure you something rejoiced within me when I
read this morning that you were the famous singer, —
you to whom I was tied by so many dear memories
and —
Magda. And then you thought whether it might not
be possible with the help of these dear memories to bring
a little color into the gray background?
Von Keller. Oh, pray don't —
Magda. Well, between old friends —
Von Keller. Really, are we that, really?
Magda. Certainly, sans rancune. Oh, if I took it
from the other standpoint, I should have to range the
whole gamut, — liar, coward, traitor! But as I look at
it, I owe you nothing but thanks, my friend.
Von Keller. This is a view which —
Magda. Which is very convenient for you. But
why should I not make it convenient for you? In the
manner in which we met, you had no obligations towards
me. I had left my home; I was young and innocent,
hot-blooded and careless, and I lived as I saw others live.
I gave myself to you because I loved you. I might per-
haps have loved anyone who came in my way. That —
that seemed to be all over. And we were so happy, —
76 Hermann Sudermann
weren't we? . . . Yes, we were a merry set; and when
the fun had lasted half a year, one day my lover van-
ished.
Von Keller. An unlucky chance, I swear to you. My
father was ill. I had to travel. I wrote everything to
you.
Magda. H'm! I didn't reproach you. And now I
will tell you why I owe you thanks. I was a stupid, un-
suspecting thing, enjoying freedom like a runaway mon-
keyl Through you I became a woman. For whatever
I have done in my art, for whatever I have become in
myself, I have you to thank. My soul was like — yes,
down below there, there used to be an -^olian harp
which was left moldering because my father could not
bear it. Such a silent harp was my soul; and through
you it was given to the storm. And it sounded almost
to breaking, — the whole scale of passions which bring us
women to maturity, — love and hate and revenge and
ambition, and need, need, need, — three times need —
and the highest, the strongest, the holiest of all, the
mother's love! — All I owe to you!
Von Keller. My child!
Magda. Your child? Who calls it so? Yours?
Ha, ha! Dare to claim portion in him and 111 kill you
with these hands. Who are you? You're a strange
man who gratified his lust and passed on with a laugh.
But I have a child, — my son, my God, my all ! For him
I lived and starved and froze and walked the streets;
for him I sang and danced in concert-halls, — for my child
who was crying for his bread!
Magda 77
Von Keller. For Heaven's sake, hush! someone's
coming.
Magda, Let them come! Let them all come! I
don't care, I don't care! To their faces I'll say what I
think of you, — of you and your respectable society.
Why should I be worse than you, that I must prolong
my existence among you by a lie! Why should this
gold upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my
name, only increase my infamy? Have I not worked
early and late for ten long years ? Have I not woven this
dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built up my
career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why
should I blush before anyone? I am myself, and through
myself I have become what I am.
Magda' s father learns about the affair and im-
mediately demands that the Councillor marry his
daughter, or fight a duel. Magda resents the
preposterous idea. Von Keller is indeed glad to
offer Magda his hand in marriage : she is so beau-,
tiful and fascinating; she will prove a great asset
to his ambitions. But he stipulates that she give
up her profession of singer, and that the existence
of the child be kept secret. He tells Magda that
later on, when they are happily married and firmly
established in the world, they will bring their
child to their home and adopt it; but for the pres-
ent respectability must not know that it is theirs,
born out of wedlock, without the sanction of the
Church and the State.
78 Hermann Sudermann
That is more than Magda can endure. She is
outraged that she, the mother, who had given up
everything for the sake of her child, who had
slaved, struggled and drudged in order to win a
career and economic independence — all for the
sake of the child — that she should forswear her
right to motherhood, her right to be true to her-
self 1
Magda. What — what do you say?
Von Keller. Why, it would ruin us. No, no, it is
absurd to think of it. But we can make a little journey
every year to wherever it is being educated. One can
register under a false name; that is not unusual in for-
eign parts, and is hardly criminal. And when we arc
fifty years old, and other regular conditions have been
fulfilled, that can be arranged, can't it? Then we can,
under some pretext, adopt it, can't we?
Magda. I have humbled myself, I have surrendered
my judgment, I have let myself be carried like a lamb to
the slaughter. But my child I will not leave. Give up
my child to save his career!
Magda orders Von Keller out of the house.
But the old Colonel is unbending. He insists that
his daughter become an honorable woman by
marrying the man who had seduced her. Her
refusal fires his wrath to wild rage.
Schwartze. Either you swear to me now . . . that
you will become the honorable wife of your child's father,
or — neither of us two shall go out of this room alive.
Magda 79
. . . You think . . . because you are free and a great
artist, that you can set at naught —
Magda* Leave art out of the question. Consider me
nothing more than the seamstress or the servant-maid
who seeks, among strangers, the little food and the little
love she needs. See how much the family with its
morality demand from us! It throws us on our own re-
sources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet,
in our loneliness, we must live according to the laws
which It has planned for itself alone. We must still
crouch in the corner, and there wait patiently until a re-
spectful wooer happens to come. Yes, wait. And mean-
while the war for existence of body and soul is consum-
ing us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair,
and yet shall we not once dare to give what we have of
youth and strength to the man for whom our whole being
cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us up in harems or in
cloisters — and that perhaps would be best. But if you
give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage
of it.
But morality and the family never understand
the Magdas. Least of all does the old Colonel
understand his daughter. Rigid in his false no-
tions and superstitions, wrought up with distress,
he is about to carry out his threat, when a stroke
of apoplexy overtakes him.
In " Magda," Hermann Sudermann has
given to the world a new picture of modern wo-
manhood, a type of free motherhood. As such
the play is of great revolutionary significance, not
8o Hermann Sudermann
alone to Germany, but to the universal spirit of
a newer day.
THE FIRES OF ST. JOHN '
In " The Fires of St. John," Sudermann does
not go as far as in ** Magda.'* Nevertheless the
play deals with important truths. Life does not
always draw the same conclusions; life is not al-
ways logical, not always consistent. The function
of the artist is to portray Life — only thus can he
be true both to art and to life.
In this drama we witness the bondage of grati-
tude, — one of the most enslaving and paralyzing
factors. Mr. Brauer, a landed proprietor, has a
child, Gertrude, a beautiful girl, who has always
lived the sheltered life of a hothouse plant. The
Brauers also have an adopted daughter, Marie,
whom they had picked up on the road, while travel-
ing on a stormy night. They called her " the
calamity child," because a great misfortune had
befallen them shortly before. Mr. Brauer's
younger brother, confronted with heavy losses, had
shot himself, leaving behind his son George and a
heavily mortgaged estate. The finding of the
baby, under these circumstances, was considered
by the Brauers an omen. They adopted it and
brought it up as their own.
This involved the forcible separation of Marie
The Fires of St. John 8r
from her gypsy mother, who was a pariah, an out-
cast beggar. She drank and stole in order to sub-
sist. But with it all, her mother instinct was
strong and it always drove her back to the place
where her child lived. Marie had her first shock
when, on her way home from confirmation, the
ragged and brutalized woman threw herself be-
fore the young girl, crying, " Mamie, my child, my
Mamie 1 " It was then that Marie realized her
origin. Out of gratitude she consecrated her life
to the Brauers.
Marie never forgot for a moment that she owed
everything — her education, her support and hap-
piness — to her adopted parents. She wrapped
herself around them with all the intensity and pas-
sion of her nature. She became the very spirit of
the house. She looked after the estate, and de-
voted herself to little Gertrude, as to her own sis-
ter.
Gertrude is engaged to marry her cousin
George, and everything is beautiful and joyous in
the household. No one suspects that Marie has
been in love with the young man ever since her
childhood. However, because of her gratitude to
her benefactors, she stifles her nature, hardens her
heart, and locks her feelings behind closed doors,
as It were. And when Gertrude is about to marry
George, Marie throws herself into the work of fix-
ing up a home for the young people, to surround
82 Hermann Sudermann
them with sunshine and joy in their new love life.
Accidentally Marie discovers a manuscript writ-
ten by George, wherein he discloses his deep love
for her. She learns that he, even as she, has no
other thought, no other purpose in life than his
love for her. But he also is bound by gratitude
for his uncle Brauer who had saved the honor of
his father and had rescued him from poverty.
He feels it dishonorable to refuse to marry Ger-
trude.
George. All these years I have struggled and de-
prived myself with only one thing in view — to be free —
free — and yet I must bow — I must bow. If it were
not for the sake of this beautiful child, who is innocent
of It all, I would be tempted to — But the die is cast,
the yoke is ready — and so am I! ... I, too, am a
child of misery, a calamity child; but I am a subject of
charity. I accept all they have to give. . . . Was I not
picked up from the street, as my uncle so kindly informed
me for the second time — like yourself? Do I not be-
long to this house, and am I not smothered with the
damnable charity of my benefactors, like yourself?
It is St. John's night. The entire family is
gathered on the estate of the Brauers, while the
peasants are making merry with song and dance at
the lighted bonfires.
It is a glorious, dreamy night, suggestive of
symbolic meaning. According to the servant
Katie, it is written that " whoever shall give or re-
The Fires of St. John 83
ceive their first kiss on St. John's eve, their
love is sealed and they will be faithful unto
death."
In the opinion of the Pastor, St. John's night
represents a religious phase, too holy for flippant
pagan joy.
Pastor. On such a dreamy night, different emotions
are aroused within us. We seem to be able to look into
the future, and imagine ourselves able to fathom all mys-
tery and heal all wounds. The common becomes ele-
vated, our wishes become fate; and now we ask our-
selves: What is it that causes all this within us — all
these desires and wishes? It is love, brotherly love, that
has been planted in our souls, that fills our lives: and, it
IS life Itself. Am I not right? And now, with one
bound, I will come to the point. In the revelation you
will find : " God is love." Yes, God is love ; and that
is the most beautiful trait of our religion — that the
best, the most beautiful within us, has been granted us
by Him above. Then how could I, this very evening,
so overcome with feeling for my fellow-man — how could
I pass Him by? Therefore, Mr. Brauer, no matter,
whether pastor or layman, I must confess my inability
to grant your wish, and decline to give you a genuine
pagan toast —
But Christian sjmibolism having mostly de-
scended from primitive pagan custom, George's
view is perhaps the most significant.
George. Since the Pastor has so cloquendy with-
84 Hermann Sudermann
drawn, I will give you a toast. For, you see, my dear
Pastor, something of the old pagan, a spark of heathen-
ism, is still glowing somewhere within us all. It has
outlived century after century, from the time of the old
Teutons. Once every year that spark is fanned into
flame — it flames up high, and then it is called " The
Fires of St. John." Once every year we have " free
night." Then the witches ride upon their brooms —
the same brooms with which their witchcraft was once
driven out of them — with scornful laughter the wild
hordes sweep across the tree-tops, up, up, high upon the
BlocksbergI Then it is, when in our hearts awake those
wild desires which our fates could not fulfill —
and, understand me well, dared not fulfill — then,
no matter what may be the name of the law that governs
the world on that day, in order that one single wish may
become a reality, by whose grace we prolong our miser-
able existence, thousand others must miserably perish,
part because they were never attainable; but the others,
yes, the others, because we allowed them to escape us
like wild birds, which, though already in our hands, but
too listless to profit by opportunity, we failed to grasp
at the right moment. But no matter. Once every year
we have " free night." And yonder tongues of fire
shooting up towards the heavens — do you know what
they are? They are the spirits of our dead perished
wishes! That is the red plumage of our birds of para-
dise we might have petted and nursed through our entire
lives, but have escaped us! That is the old chaos, the
heathenism within us; and though we be happy in sun-
shine and according to law, to-night is St. John's night.
The Fires of St. John 85
To Its ancient pagan fires I empty this glass. To-night
they shall burn and flame up high — high and again
high!
George and Marie meet. They, too, have had
their instinct locked away even from their own
consciousness. And on this night they break loose
with tremendous, primitive force. They are
driven into each other's arms because they feel
that they belong to each other ; they know that if
they had the strength they could take each other by
the hand, face their benefactor and tell him the
truth : tell him. that it would be an unpardonable
crime for George to marry Gertrude when he
loves another woman.
Now they all but find courage and strength for
it, when the pitiful plaint reaches them, " Oh,
mine Mamie, mine daughter, mine child." And
Marie is cast down from the sublime height of her
love and passion, down to the realization that she
also, like her pariah mother, must go out into the
world to struggle, to fight, to become free from
the bondage of gratitude, of charity and depend-
ence.
Not so George. He goes to the altar, like
many another man, with a lie upon his lips. He
goes to swear that all his life long he will love,
protect and shelter the woman who is to be his
wife.
86 Hermann Sudermann
This play is rich in thought and revolutionary
significance. For is it not true that we are all
bound by gratitude, tied and fettered by what we
think we owe to others ? Are we not thus turned
into weaklings and cowards, and do we not enter
into new relationships with lies upon our lips?
Do we not become a lie to ourselves and a lie to
those we associate with? And whether we have
the strength to be true to the dominant spirit,
warmed into being by the fires of St. John;
whether we have the courage to live up to it al-
ways or whether it manifests itself only on oc-
casion, it is nevertheless true that there is the po-
tentiality of freedom in the soul of every man and
every woman; that there is the possibility of great-
ness and fineness in all beings, were they not bound
and gagged by gratitude, by duty and shams, — a
vicious network that enmeshes body and soul.
GERHART HAUPTMANN
LONELY LIVES
GERHART HAUPTMANN is the
dramatist of whom it may be justly said
that he revolutionized the spirit of dram-
atic art in Germany : the last Mohican of
a group of four — Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, and
Hauptmann — who illumined the horizon of the
nineteenth century. Of these Hauptmann, un-
doubtedly the most human, is also the most uni-
versal.
It is unnecessary to make comparisons between
great artists: life is sufficiently complex to give
each his place in the great scheme of things. If,
then, I consider Hauptmann more human, it is
because of his deep kinship with every stratum of
life. While Ibsen deals exclusively with o«^ at-
titude, Hauptmann embraces all, understands all,
and portrays all, because nothing human is alien
to him.
Whether it be the struggle of the transition
stage in ** Lonely Lives," or the conflict between
the Ideal and the Real in '* The Sunken Bell," or
87
88 Gerhart Hauptmann
the brutal background of poverty in " The
Weavers," Hauptmann is never aloof as the icono-
clast Ibsen, never as bitter as the soul dissector
Strindberg, nor yet as set as the crusader Tolstoy.
And that because of his humanity, his boundless
love, his oneness with the disinherited of the
earth, and his sympathy with the struggles and
the travail, the hope and the despair of every
human soul. That accounts for the bitter opposi-
tion which met Gerhart Hauptmann when he made
his first appearance as a dramatist; but it also
accounts for the love and devotion of those to
whom he was a battle cry, a clarion call against
all iniquity, injustice and wrong.
In " ^onelyJLives " we see the wonderful sym-
pathy, the tenderness of Hauptmann permeating
every figure of the drama.
Dr. Vockerat is not a fighter, not a propagand-
ist or a soap-box orator; he is a dreamer, a poet,
and above all a searcher for truth; a scientist, a
man who lives in the realm of thought and ideas,
and is out of touch with reality and his immediate
surroundings.
His parents are simple folk, religious and de-
voted. To them the world is a book with seven
seals. Having lived all their life on a farm,
everything with them is regulated and classified
into simple ideas : — good or bad, great or small,
strong or weak. How can they know the infinite
Lonely Lives 89
shades between strong and weak, how could they
grasp the endless variations between the good and
the bad ? To them life is a daily routine of work
and prayer. God has arranged everything, and
God manages everything. Why bother your
head? Why spend sleepless nights? " Leave it
all Jo God." What pathos in this childish sim-
plicity 1
They love their son John, they worship him,
and they consecrate their lives to their only boy;
and because of their love for him, also to his wife
and the newly born baby. They have but one
sorrow: their son has turned away from religion.
Still greater their grief that John is an admirer of
Darwin, Spencer and Haeckel and other such
men,- sinners, heathens" all, who will burn in
purgatory and hell. To protect their beloved
son from the punishment of God, the old folks
continuously pray, and give still more devotion
and love to their erring child.
Ki ^ty, Dr. Vockerafs wife, is a beautiful type
of the Gretchen, reared without any ideas about
life, without any consciousness of her position in
the world, a tender, helpless flower. She loves
John; he is her ideal; he is her all. But she
cannot understand him. She does not live in his
sphere, nor speak his language. She has never
dreamed his thoughts, — not because she is not
willing or not eager to give the man all that he
90 Gerhart Hauptmann
needs, but because she does not understand and
does not know how.
Into this atmosphere comes Anna Mahr like a
breeze from the plains. Anna is a Russian girl,
a woman so far produced in Russia only, perhaps
because the conditions, the life struggles of that
country have been such as to develop a different
type of woman. Anna Mahr has spent most of
her life on the firing line. She has no conception
of the personal: she is universal in her feelings
and thoughts, with deep sympathies going out in
abundance to all mankind.
When she comes to the Vockerats, their whole
life is disturbed, especially that of John Fockerat,
to whom she is like a balmy spring to the parched
wanderer in the desert. She understands him,
for has she not dreamed such thoughts as his,
associated with men and women who, for the sake
of the ideal, sacrificed their lives, went to Siberia,
and suffered in the underground dungeons?
How then could she fail a Vockerat? It is quite
natural that John should find in Anna what his
own little world could not give him, — understand-
ing, comradeship, deep spiritual kinship.
The Anna Mahrs give the same to any one, be
It man, woman or child. For theirs is not a feel-
ing of sex, of the personal; it is the selfless, the
human, the all-embracing fellowship.
In the invigorating presence of Anna Mahr,
Lonely Lives 9 1'
John Vockerat begins to live, to dream and work.
Another phase of him, as it were, comes Into be-
ing; larger vistas open before his eyes, and his
life IS filled with new aspiration for creative work
in behalf of a liberating purpose.
Alas, the inevitability that the ideal should be
besmirched and desecrated when it comes in con-
tact with sordid reality 1 This tragic fate befalls
Anna Mahr and John Vockerat.
Old Mother Vockerat, who, in her simplicity
of soul cannot conceive of an Intimate friendship
between a man and a woman, unless they be hus-
band and wife, begins first to suspect and Insinuate,
then to nag and interfere. Of course, it is her
love for John, and even more so her love for her
son's wife, who is suffering in silence and wear-
ing out her soul in her realization of how little she
can mean to her husband.
Moiher Vockerat interprets Kitty's grief in a
different manner: jealousy, and antagonism to
the successful rival is her most convenient explana-
tion for the loneliness, the heart-hunger of love.
But as a matter of fact, it is something deeper
and more vital that is born in Kitty's soul. It is
the awakening of her own womanhood, of her
personality.
Kitty. I agree with Miss Mahr on many points. She
was saying lately that we women live in a condition of
degradation. I think she is quite right there. It is
92 Gerhart Hauptmann
what I feel very often. . . . It's as clear as daylight
that she is right. We are really and- truly a despised and
ill-used sex. Only think that there is still a law — so
she told me yesterday — which allows the husband to
inflict a moderate amount of corporal punishment on his
wife.
And yet, corporal punishment is not half as
terrible as the punishment society inflicts on the
Kittys by rearing them as dependent and useless
beings, as hot-house flowers, ornaments for a fine
house, but of no substance to the husband and cer-
tainly of less to her children.
And Mother Vockerat, without any viciousness,
instills poison into the innocent soul of Kitty and
embitters the life of her loved son. Ignorantly,
Mother Vockerat meddles, interferes, and tram-
ples upon the most sacred feelings, the innocent
joys of true comradeship.
And all the time John and Anna are quite
unaware of the pain and tragedy they are the
cause of: they are far removed from the com-
monplace, petty world about them. They walk
and discuss, read and argue about the wonders of
life, the needs of humanity, the beauty of the
ideal. They have both been famished so long:
John for spiritual communion, Anna for warmth
of home that she had known so little before, and
which In her simplicity she has accepted at the
hand of Mother Vockerat and Kitty, oblivious of
Lonely Lives 93
the fact that nothing is so enslaving as hospitality
prompted by a sense of duty.
Mks Mahr, It is a great age that we live in. That
which has so weighed upon people's minds and darkened
their lives seems to me to be gradually disappearing.
Do you not think so, Dr. Vockerat?
John. How do you mean?
Miss Mahr, On the one hand we were oppressed by
a sense of uncertainty, of apprehension, on the other by
gloomy fanaticism. This exaggerated tension is calming
down, is yielding to the influence of something like a
current of fresh air, that is blowing in upon us from —
let us say from the twentieth century.
John. But I don't find it possible to arrive at any
real joy in life yet. I don't know. . . .
Miss Mahr. It has no connection with our individual
fates — our little fates, Dr. Vockerat! ... I have
something to say to you — but you are not to get angry ;
you are to be quite quiet and good. . . . Dr. Vockerat!
we also are falling into the error of weak natures. We
must look at things more impersonally. We must learn
to take ourselves less seriously.
John. But we'll not talk about that at present. . . .
And is one really to sacrifice everything that one has
gained to this cursed conventionality? Arc people in-
capable of understanding that there can be no crime in a
situation which only tends to make both parties better
and nobler? Do parents lose by their son becoming a
better, wiser man? Does a wife lose by the spiritual
growth of her husband?
Miss Mahr. You are both right and wrong. . . •
94 Gerhart Hauptmann
Your parents have a different standard from you.
Kitty's again, differs from theirs. It seems to me that
in this we cannot judge for them.
John, Yes, but you have always said yourself that one
should not allow one's self to be ruled by the opinion of
others — that one ought to be independent?
Miss Mahr, You have often said to me that you fore-
see a new, a nobler state of fellowship between man and
woman.
John, Yes, I feel that it will come some time — a
relationship in which the human will preponderate over
the animal tie. Animal will no longer be united to
animal, but one human being to another. Friendship is
the foundation on which this love will rise, beautiful,
unchangeable, a miraculous structure. And I foresee
more than this — something nobler, richer, freer still.
Miss Mahr. But will you get anyone, except me, to
believe this? Will this prevent Kitty's grieving herself
to death? . . . Don't let us speak of ourselves at all.
Let us suppose, quite generally, the feeling of a new,
more perfect relationship between two people to exist, as
it were prophetically. It is only a feeling, a young and
all too tender plant which must be carefully watched and
guarded. Don't you think so. Dr. Vockerat? That this
plant should come to perfection during our lifetime is
not to be expected. We shall not see or taste its fruits.
But we may help to propagate it for future generations.
I could imagine a person accepting this as a life-task.
John, And hence you conclude that we must part.
Miss Mahr, I did not mean to speak of ourselves.
But it is as you say . • . we must part. Another idea
Lonely Lives 95
• • • had sometimes suggested itself to me too . . .
momentarily. But I could not entertain it now. I too
have felt as if it were the presentiment of better things.
And since then the old aim seems to me too poor a one
for us — too common, to tell the truth. It is like com-
ing down from the mountain-top with its wide, free view,
and feeling the narrowness, the nearness of everything in
the valley.
Those who feel the narrow, stifling atmosphere
must either die or leave. Anna Mahr is not made
for the valley. She must live on the heights.
But John Vockerat, harassed and whipped on by
those who love him most, is unmanned, broken
and crushed. He clings to Anna Mahr as one
condemned to death.
John. Help me, Miss Anna! There is no manliness,
no pride left in me. I am quite changed. At this
moment I am not even the man I was before you came
to us. The one feeling left in me is disgust and weari-
ness of life. Everything has lost its worth to me, is
soiled, polluted, desecrated, dragged through the mire.
When I think what you, your presence, your words made
me, I feel that if I cannot be that again, then — then all
the rest no longer means anything to me. I draw a line
through it all and — close my account.
Miss Mahr. It grieves me terribly. Dr. Vockerat, to
sec you like this. I hardly know how I am to help you.
But one thing you ought to remember — that we fore-
saw this. We knew that we must be prepared for this
sooner or later.
96 Gerhart Hauptmann
John. Our prophetic feeling of a new, a free existence,
a far-off state of blessedness — that feeling we will keep.
It shall never be forgotten, though it may never be real-
ized. It shall be my guiding light; when this light is
extinguished, my life will be extinguished too.
Miss Mahr. Johnl one word more! This ring —
was taken from the finger of a dead woman, who had
followed her — her husband to Siberia — and faithfully
shared his suffering to the end. Just the opposite to our
case. ... It is the only ring I have ever worn. Its
story is a thing to think of when one feels weak. And
when you look at it — in hours of weakness — then —
think of her — who, far away — lonely like yourself —
is fighting the same secret fight — Good-bye!
But John lacks the strength for the fight. Life
to him is too lonely, too empty, too unbearably
desolate. He has to die — a suicide.
What wonderful grasp of the deepest and most
hidden tones of the human soul! What signif-
icance in the bitter truth that those who struggle
for an ideal, those who attempt to cut themselves
loose from the old, from the thousand fetters
that hold them down, are doomed to lonely
lives !
Gerhart Hauptmann has dedicated this play
** to those who have lived this life." And there
are many, oh, so many who must live this life,
torn out root and all from the soil of their birth,
of their surroundings and past. Xhe ideal they
Lonely Lives 97
see only in the distance — sometimes quite near,
again in the far-off distance. These are the lonely
lives.
This drama also emphasizes the important
point that not only the parents and the wife of
John Vockerat fail to understand him, but even
his own comrade, one of his own world, the
painter Braun, — the type of fanatical revolution-
ist who scorns human weaknesses and ridicules
those who make concessions and compromises.
But not even this arch-revolutionist can grasp the
needs of John. Referring to his chum's friend-
ship with Anna, Braun upbraids him. He
charges John with causing his wife's unhappiness
and hurting the feelings of his parents. This
very man who, as a propagandist, demands that
every one live up to his ideal, is quick to condemn
his friend when the latter, for the first time in his
life, tries to be consistent, to be true to his own
innermost being.
The revolutionary, the social and human sig-
nificance of *' Lonely Lives " consists in the les-
son that the real revolutionist, — the dreamer, the \
creative artist, the iconoclast in whatever line, —
is fated to be misunderstood, not only by his own
kin, but often by his own comrades. That is the
doom of all great spirits: they are detached
from their environment. Theirs is a lonely life
— the life of the transition stage, the hardest and
98 Gerhart Hauptmann
the most difficult period for the individual as well
as for a people.
THE WEAVERS
When " The Weaver s" first saw the light,
pandemonium broke out in the '* land of thinkers
and poets." **WhatI" cried Philistia, " work-
\ ingmen, dirty, emaciated and starved, to be placed
on the stage! Poverty, in all its ugliness, to be
presented as an after-dinner amusement? That
I is too much ! "
Indeed it is too much for the self-satisfied
bourgeoisie to be brought face to face with the
horrors of the weaver's existence. It is too much,
because of the truth and reality that thunders in
the placid ears of society a terrific J*accuse/
Gerhart Hauptmann is a child of the people;
his grandfather was a weaver, and the only way
his father could escape the fate of his parents
was by leaving his trade and opening an inn.
Little Gerhart's vivid and impressionable mind
must have received many pictures from the stories
told about the life of the weavers. Who knows
but that the social panorama which Hauptmann
subsequently gave to the world, had not slum-
bered in the soul of the child, gaining form and
substance as he grew to manhood. At any rate
The Weavers 99
" The Weavers,'' like the canvases of Millet and
the heroic figures of Meunier, represent the epic
of the age-long misery of labor, a profoundly
stirring picture.
The background of " The Weavers '* is the
weaving district in Silesia, during the period of
home industry — a gruesome sight of human
phantoms, dragging on their emaciated existence
almost by superhuman effort. Life is a tenacious
force that clings desperately even to the most
meager chance in an endeavor to assert itself.
But what is mirrored in " The Weavers " is so
appalling, so dismally hopeless that it stamps the
damning brand upon our civilization.
One man and his hirelings thrive on the sinew
and bone, on the very blood, of an entire com-
munity. The manufacturer Dreissiger spends
more for cigars in a day than an entire family^
earns in a week. Yet so brutalizing, so terrible
is the effect of wealth that neither pale hunger
nor black despair can move the master.
There is nothing in literature to equal the cruel
reality of the scene in the office of Dreissiger,
when the weavers bring the finished cloth. For
hours they are kept waiting in the stuffy place,
waiting the pleasure of the rich employer after
they had walked miles on an empty stomach and
little sleep. For as one of the men says, " What's
100 Gerhari Hauptmann
to hinder a weaver waitin' for an hour, or for a
day ? What else is he there for ? "
Indeed what else, except to be always waiting
in humility, to be exploited and degraded, always
at the mercy of the few pence thrown to them
after an endless wait.
Necessity knows no law. Neither does it know
pride. The weavers, driven by the whip of
hunger, bend their backs, beg and cringe before
their " superior."
Weaver's wife. No one can't call me idle, but I am
not fit now for what I once was. I've twice had a mis-
carriage. As to John, he's but a poor creature. He's
been to the shepherd at Zerlau, but he couldn't do him
no good, and . . . you can't do more than you've strength
for. . . . We works as hard as ever we can. This many
a week I've been at it till far into the night. An' we'll
keep our heads above water right enough if I can just
get a bit o' strength into me. But you must have pity
on us, Mr. Pfeifer, sir. You'll please be so very kind as
to let me have a few pence on the next job, sir? Only
a few pence, to buy bread with. We can't get no more
credit. We've a lot o' little ones.
■
" Suffer little children to come unto me."
Christ loves the children of the poor. The more
the better. Why, then, care if they starve?
Why care if they faint away with hunger, like
the little boy in Dreisstger^s office ? For " little
Philip is one of nine and the tenth's coming, and
The Weavers ipi
the rain comes through their roof — and the
mother hasn't two shirts among the nine."
Who is to blame ? Ask the Dreissigers. They
will tell you, " The poor have too many chil-
dren." Besides —
Dreissiger, It was nothing serious. The boy is all
right again. But all the same it's a disgrace. The
child's so weak that a puff of wind would blow him over.
How people, how any parents can be so thoughtless is
what passes my comprehension. Loading him with two
heavy pieces of fustian to carry six good miles! No one
would believe it that hadn't seen it. It simply means
that I shall have to make a rule that no goods brought
by children will be taken over. I sincerely trust that
such things will not occur again. — Who gets all the
blame for it? Why, of course the manufacturer. It's
entirely our fault. If some poor little fellow sticks in
the snow in winter and goes to sleep, a special correspond-
ent arrives post-haste, and in two days we have a blood-
curdling story served up in all the papers. Is any blame
laid on the father, the parents, that send such a child ? —
Not a bit of it. How should they be to blame? It's all
the manufacturer's fault — he's made the scapegoat.
They flatter the weaver, and give the manufacturer
nothing but abuse — he's a cruel man, with a heart like
a stone, a dangerous fellow, at whose calves every cur of
a journalist may take a bite. He lives on the fat of the
land, and pays the poor weavers starvation wages. In
the flow of his eloquence the writer forgets to mention
that such a man has his cares too and his sleepless nights;
102 Gerhart Hauptmann
that he runs risks of which the workman never dreams;
that he is often driven distracted by all the calculations
he has to make, and all tho. different things he has to take
into account; that he has to struggle for his very life
against competition ; and that no day passes without some
annoyance or some loss. And think of the manufactur-
er's responsibilities, think of the numbers that depend on
him, that look to him for their daily bread. No, No!
none of you need wish yourselves in my shoes — you
would soon have enough of it. You all saw how that
fellow, that scoundrel Becker, behaved. Now he*ll go
and spread about all sorts of tales of my hardhearted-
ness, of how my weavers are turned off for a mere trifle,
without a moment's notice. Is that true? Am I so very
unmerciful ?
The weavers are too starved, too subdued, too
terror-stricken not to accept Dreissiget^s plea
in his own behalf. What would become of these
] living corpses were it not for the rebels like
Becker, to put fire, spirit, and hope in them?
Verily the Beckers are dangerous.
Appalling as the scene in the office of Dreis-
siger is, the life in the home of the old weaver
Baumert is even more terrible. His decrepit old
wife, his idiotic son August, who still has to wind
spools, his two daughters weaving their youth and
bloom into the cloth, and Ansorge, the broken
remnant of a heroic type of man, bent over his
baskets, all live in cramped quarters lit up only
The Weavers 103
by two small windows. They are waiting anx-
iously for the few pence old Baumert is to bring,
that they may indulge in a long-missed meal.
" What . . . what . . . what is to become of us
if he don't come home?" laments Mother
Baumert. " There is not so much as a handful
o' salt in the house — not a bite o' bread, nor a
bit o' wood for the fire."
But old Baumert has not forgotten his family.
He brings them a repast, the first " good meal "
they have had in two years. It is the meat of
their faithful little dog , whom Baumert could not
kill himself because he loved him so. But hunger
knows no choice; Baumert had his beloved dog
killed, because " a nice little bit o' meat like that
does you a lot o' good."
It did not do old Baumert much good. His
stomach, tortured and abused so long, rebelled,
and the old man had to " give up the precious
dog." And all this wretchedness, all this horror
almost within sight of the palatial home of Dreis-
siffer, whose dogs are better fed than his human c
slaves. ^
Man's endurance is almost limitless. Almost,
yet not quite. For there comes a time when the
Baumerts, even like their stomachs, rise in re-
bellion, when they hurl themselves, even though
in blind fury, against the pillars of their prison
house. Such a moment comes to the weavers, the
I04 Gerhart Hauptmann
most patient, docile and subdued of humanity,
when stirred to action by the powerful poem read
to them by the Jaeger.
The justice to us weavers dealt
Is bloody, cruel, and hateful;
Our life's one torture, long drawn out:
For Lynch law we'd be grateful.
Stretched on the rack day after day.
Heart sick and bodies aching,
Our heavy sighs their witness bear
To spirit slowly breaking.
The Dreissigers true hangmen are.
Servants no whit behind them;
Masters and men with one accord
Set on the poor to grind them.
You villains all, you brood of hell • . .
You fiends in fashion human,
A curse will fall on all like you,
Who prey on man and woman.
The suppliant knows he asks in vain,
Vain every word that's spoken.
" If not content, then go and starve —
Our rules cannot be broken."
Then think of all our woe and want,
O ye, who hear this ditty!
Our struggle vain for daily bread
Hard hearts would move to pity.
The Weavers 105'
But pity's what you've never known, —
You'd take both skin and clothing,
You cannibals, whose cruel deeds
Fill all good men with loathing.
The Dreissigers, however, will take no heed.
Arrogant and secure in the possession of their
stolen wealth, supported by the mouthpieces of
the Church and the State, they feel safe from
the wrath of the people — till it is too late. But
when the storm breaks, they show the yellow
streak and cravenly run to cover.
The weavers, roused at last by the poet's de-
scription of their condition, urged on by the in-
spiring enthusiasm of the Beckers and the Jaegers,
become indifferent to the threats of the law and
ignore the soft tongue of the dispenser of the pure
word of God, — " the God who provides shelter
and food for the birds and clothes the lilies of the
field." Too long they had believed in Him. No
wonder Pastor Kittelhaus is now at a loss to under-
stand the weavers, heretofore " so patient, so hum-
ble, so easily led." The Pastor has to pay the
price for his stupidity : the weavers have outgrown
even him.
The spirit of revolt sweeps their souls. It
gives them courage and strength to attack the rot-
ten structure, to drive the thieves out of the tem-
ple, aye, even to rout the soldiers who come to
save the sacred institution of capitalism. The
io6 Gerhart Hauptmann
women, too, are imbued with the spirit of revolt
and become an avenging force. Not even the
devout faith of Old Hilse, who attempts to stem
the tide with his blind belief in his Saviour, can
stay them.
Old Hilse. O Lord, we know not how to be thankful
enough to Thee, for that Thou hast spared us this night
again in Thy goodness ... an' hast had pity on us . . .
an* hast suffered us to take no harm. Thou art the All-
merciful, an* we are poor, sinful children of men — that
bad that we are not worthy to be trampled under Thy
feet. Yet Thou art our loving Father, an* Thou wilt
look upon us an* accept us for the sake of Thy dear Son,
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. " Jesus* blood and
righteousness, Our covering is and glorious dress.*' An*
if we*re sometimes too sore cast down under Thy chas-
tening — when the fire of Thy purification burns too
ragin' hot — oh, lay it not to our charge; forgive us our
sin. Give us patience, heavenly Father, that after all
these sufferin*s we may be made partakers of Thy eternal
blessedness. Amen.
The tide is rushing on. Luise, Old Hilse's
own daughter-in-law, is part of the tide.
Luise, You an* your piety an* religion — did they
serve to keep the life in my poor children? In rags an'
dirt they lay, all the four — it didn't as much as keep
*em dry. Yes! I sets up to be a mother, that's what I
do — an* if you*d like to know it, that's why I'd send
The Weavers 107
all the manufacturers to hell — because I am a mother!
— Not one of the four could I keep in life ! It was
cryin' more than breathin' with me from the time each
poor little thing came into the world till death took pity
on it. The devil a bit you cared ! You sat there prayin*
and singin', and let me run about till my feet bled, tryin'
to get one little drop 0' skim milk. How many hundred
nights has I lain an' racked my head to think what I
could do to cheat the churchyard of my little one ? What
harm has a baby like that done that it must come to such
a miserable end — eh? An' over there at Dittrich's
they're bathed in wine an' washed in milk. No! you may
talk as you like, but if they begins here, ten horses won't
hold me back. An' what's more — if there's a rush on
Dittrich's, you will see me in the forefront of It — an'
pity the man as tries to prevent me — I've stood it long
enough, so now you know it.
Thus the tide sweeps over Old Hike, as it must
sweep over every obstacle, every hindrance, once
labor awakens to the consciousness of its solidaric
power.
An epic of misery and revolt never before
painted with such terrific force, such inclusive art-
istry. Hence its wide human appeal, its incon-
trovertible indictment and its ultra-revolutionary
significance, not merely to Silesia or Germany, but
to our whole pseudo-civilization built on the mis-
ery and exploitation of the wealth producers, of
Labor. None greater, none more universal than
io8 Gerhart Hauptmann
this stirring, all-embracing message of the most
humanly creative genius of our time — Gerhart
Hauptmann.
THE SUNKEN BELL
The great versatility of Gerhart Hauptmann
is perhaps nowhere so apparent as in " The
Sunken Bell," the poetic fairy tale of the tragedy
of Man, a tragedy as rich in symbolism as it is
realistically true — a tragedy as old as mankind,
as elemental as man's ceaseless struggle to cut
loose from the rock of ages.
Hetnrich, the master bell founder, is an idealist
consumed by the fire of a great purpose. He has
already set a hundred bells ringing in a hundred
different towns, all singing his praises. But his
restless spirit is not appeased. Ever it soars to
loftier heights, always yearning to reach the sun.
Now once more he has tried his powers, and
the new bell, the great Master Bell, is raised aloft,
— only to sink into the mere, carrying its maker
with it.
His old ideals are broken, and Hetnrich is lost
in the wilderness of life.
Weak and faint with long groping in the dark
woods, and bleeding, Hetnrich reaches the moun-
tain top and there beholds Raufendelein, the spirit
of freedom, that has allured him on in the work
The Sunken Bell 109
which he strove — " in one grand Bell, to weld
the silver music of thy voice with the warm gold
of a Sun-holiday. It should have been a master-
work! I failed, then wept I tears of blood."
Heinrich returns to his faithful wife Mag da, his
children, and his village friends — to die. The
bell that sank into the mere was not made for the
heights — it was not fit to wake the answering
echoes of the peaks!
Heinrich.
• •••••••
*Twas for the valley — not the mountain-top!
I choose to die. The service of the valleys
Charms me no longer, . . . since on the peak I stood.
Youth — a new youth — I'd need, if I should live:
Out of some rare and magic mountain flower
Marvelous juices I should need to press —
Heart-health, and strength, and the mad lust of triumph,
Steeling my hand to work none yet have dreamed of I
Rautendelein, the symbol of youth and freedom,
the vision of new strength and expression, wakes
Heinrich from his troubled sleep, kisses him back
to life, and inspires him with faith and courage
to work toward greater heights.
Heinrich leaves his wife, his hearth, his native
place, and rises to the summit of his ideal, there
to create, to fashion a marvel bell whose iron
throat shall send forth
no Gerhart Hauptmann
The first waking peal
Shall shake the skies — when, from the somber clouds
That weighed upon us through the winter night,
Rivers of jewels shall go rushing down
Into a million hands outstretched to clutch!
Then all who drooped, with sudden power inflamed,
Shall bear their treasure homeward to their huts.
There to unfurl, at last, the silken banners.
Waiting — so long, so long — to be upraised.
• •••••••
And now the wondrous chime again rings out.
Filling the air with such sweet, passionate sound
As makes each breast to sob with rapturous pain.
It sings a song, long lost and long forgotten,
A song of home — a childlike song of Love,
Born in the waters of some fairy well —
Known to all mortals, and yet heard of none!
And as it rises, softly first, and low.
The nightingale and dove seem singing, too;
And all the ice in every human breast
Is melted, and the hate, and pain, and woe,
Stream out in tears.
Indeed a wondrous bell, as only those can forge
who have reached the mountain top, — they who
can soar upon the wings of their imagination high
above the valley of the commonplace, above the
dismal gray of petty consideration, beyond the
reach of the cold, stifling grip of reality, — hi^er,
ever higher, to kiss the sun-lit sky.
The Sunken Bell ill
Heinrich spreads his wings. Inspired by the
divine fire of Rautendelein, he all but reaches the
pinnacle. But there is the Vicar, ready to wrestle
with the devil for a poor human soul; to buy it
free, if need be, to drag it back to its cage that it
may never rise again in rebellion to the will of
God.
The Vicar,
You shun the church, take refuge in the mountains;
This many a month you have not seen the home
Where your poor wife sits sighing, while, each day,
Your children drink their lonely mother*s -tears !
For this there is no name but madness.
And wicked madness. Yes. I speak the truth.
Here stand I, Master, overcome with horror
At the relentless cruelty of your heart.
Now Satan, aping God, hath dealt a blow —
Yes, I must speak my mind — a blow so dread
That even he must marvel at his triumph.
. . . Now — I have done.
Too deep, yea to the neck, you are sunk in sin!
Your Hell, decked out in beauty as high Heaven,
Shall hold you fast. I will not waste more words.
Yet mark this. Master: witches make good fuel.
Even as heretics, for funeral-pyres.
. . . Your ill deeds.
Heathen, and secret once, are now laid bare.
Horror they wake, and soon there shall come hate.
112 Gerhart Hauptmann
Then, go your way! Farewell! My task is done.
The hemlock of your sin no man may hope
To rid your soul of. May God pity you!
But this remember! There's a word named rue!
And some day, some day, as your dreams you dream,
A sudden arrow, shot from out the blue.
Shall pierce your breast! And yet you shall not die,
Nor shall you live. In that dread day you'll curse
All you now cherish — God, the world, your work,
Your wretched self you 11 curse. Then . , . think of
me!
That bell shall ring again! Then think of me!
Bare^ly does Hetnrich escape the deadly clutch
of outlived creeds, superstitions, and conventions
embodied in the Vicar, than he is in the throes of
other foes who conspire his doom.
Nature herself has decreed the death of Hein-
rich. For has not man turned his back upon her,
has he not cast her oflf, scorned her beneficial of-
ferings, robbed her of her beauty, devastated her
charms and betrayed her trust — all for the
ephemeral glow of artifice and sham? Hence
Nature, too, is Heinrich's foe. Thus the Spirit
of the Earth, with all Its passions and lusts, sym-
bolized in the Wood Sprite, and gross materialism
in the person of the Nickelmann, drive the in-
truder back.
The Wood Sprite,
He crowds us from our hills. He hacks and hews»
The Sunken Bell 113
Digs up our metals, sweats, and smelts, and brews.
The earth-man and the water-sprite he takes
To drag his burdens, and, to harness, breaks.
She steals my cherished flowers, my red-brown ores,
My gold, my precious stones, my resinous stores.
She serves him like a slave, by night and day.
'Tis he she kisses — us she keeps at bay.
Naught stands against him. Ancient trees he fells.
The earth quakes at his tread, and all the dells
Ring with the echo of his thunderous blows.
His crimson smithy furnace glows and shines
Into the depths of my most secret mines.
What he is up to, only Satan knows !
The Nickelmann,
Brekekekex! Hadst thou the creature slain,
A-rotting in the mere long since he had lain —
The maker of the bell, beside the bell.
And so when next I had wished to throw the stones.
The bell had been my box — the dice, his bones!
But even they are powerless to stem the tide of
the Ideal: they are helpless in the face of Hein-
rich's new-born faith, of his burning passion to
complete his task, and give voice to the thousand-
throated golden peal.
Hetnrich works and toils, and when doubt casts
its black shadow athwart his path, Rautendelein
charms back hope. She alone has boundless faith
in her Balder, — god of the joy of Life — for he
is part of her, of the great glowing force her spirit
114 Gerhart Hauptmann
breathed into the Heinrichs since Time was born
— Liberty, redeemer of man.
Heinrich.
I am thy Balder?
Make me believe it — make me know it, child!
Give my faint soul the rapturous joy it needs,
To nerve it to its task. For, as the hand.
Toiling with tong and hammer, on and on.
To hew the marble and to guide the chisel,
Now bungles here, now there, yet may not halt,
• . . But — enough of this,
Still straight and steady doth the smoke ascend
From my poor human sacrifice to heaven.
Should now a Hand on high reject my gift.
Why, it may do so. Then the priestly robe
Falls from my shoulder — by no act of mine;
While I, who erst upon the heights was set.
Must look my last on Horeb, and be dumb!
But now bring torches! Lights! And show thine Art!
Enchantress! Fill the wine-cup! We will drink!
Ay, like the common herd of mortal men.
With resolute hands our fleeting joy we*ll grip!
Our unsought leisure we will fill with life.
Not waste it, as the herd, in indolence.
We will have music!
While Heinrich and Rautendelein are in the
ecstasy of their love and work, the spirits
weave their treacherous web — they threaten,
they plead, they cling, — spirits whose pain and
The Sunken Bell 115
grief are harder to bear than the enmity or
menace of a thousand foes. Spirits that entwine
one's heartstrings with tender touch, yet are heav-
ier fetters, more oppressive than leaden weights.
Heinrich's children, symbolizing regret that par-
alyzes one's creative powers, bring their mother's
tears and with them a thousand hands to pull
Heinrich down from his heights, back to the val-
ley.
" The bell ! The bell ! " The old, long buried
bell again ringing and tolling. Is it not the echo
from the past? The superstitions instilled from
birth, the prejudices that cling to man with cruel
persistence, the conventions which fetter the wings
of the idealist: the Old wrestling with the New
for the control of man.
" The Sunken Bell " is a fairy tale in its poetic
beauty and glow of radiant color. But stripped
of the legendary and symbolic, it is the life story
of every seeker for truth, of the restless spirit of
rebellion ever striving onward, ever reaching out
toward the sun-tipped mountain, ever yearning
for a new-born light.
Too long had Heinrich lived in the valley. It
has sapped his strength, has clipped his wings.
"Too late! Thy heavy burdens weigh thee
down; thy dead ones are too mighty for thee."
Heinrich has to die. " He who has flown so high
Ii6 Gerhart Hauptmann
into the very Light, as thou hast flown, must per-
ish, if he once fall back to earth."
Thus speak the worldly wise. As if death
could still the burning thirst for light; as if the
hunger for the ideal could ever be appeased by the
thought of destruction! The worldly wise. never
feel the irresistible urge to dare the cruel fates.
With the adder in Maxim Gorki's " Song of the
Falcon" they sneer, "What is the sky? An
empty place. . . . Why disturb the soul with the
desire to soar into the sky? . . . Queer birds,"
they laugh at the falcons. " Not knowing the
earth and grieving on it, they yearn for the sky,
seeking for light in the sultry desert. For it is
only a desert, with no food and no supporting
place for a living body."
The Heinrichs are the social falcons, and
though they perish when they fall to earth, they
die in the triumphant glory of having beheld the
sun, of having braved the storm, defied the clouds
and mastered the air.
The sea sparkles m the glowing light, the waves
dash against the shore. In their lion-like roar a
song resounds about the proud falcons : " O dar-
ing Falcon, in the battle with sinister forces you
lose your life. But the time will come when your
precious blood will illumine, like the burning torch
of truth, the dark horizon of man; when your
The Sunken Bell I17
blood shall inflame many brave hearts with a burn-
ing desire for freedom."
The time when the peals of Heinrich's Bell will
call the strong and daring to battle for light and
joy. "Hark! . . . 'Tis the music of the Sun-
bells' song! The Sun . . . the Sun . . . draws
near I " . . . and though " the night is long,"
dawn breaks, its first rays falling on the dying
Heinrichs.
FRANK WEDEKIND
THE AWAKENING OF SPRING
FRANK WEDEKIND is perhaps the
most daring dramatic spirit in Germany.
Coming to the fore much later than Sud-
ermann and Hauptmann, he did not fol-
low in their path, but set out in quest of new truths.
More boldly than any other dramatist Frank
Wedekind has laid bare the shams of morality
in reference to sex, especially attacking the igno-
rance surrounding the sex life of the child and
its resultant tragedies.
Wedekind became widely known through his
great drama '' The Awakening of Spring," which
he called a tragedy of childhood, dedicating thcL.
work to parents and teachers. Verily an appro-
priate dedication, because parents and teachers
are, in relation to the child's needs, the most
ignorant and mentally indolent class. Needless
to say, this element entirely failed to grasp the
social significance of Wedekind's work. On the
contrary, they saw in it an invasion of their tradi-
tional authority and an outrage on the sacred
rights of parenthood.
1x8
The Awakening of Spring II9
The critics also could see naught in Wedekind,
except a base, perverted, almost diabolic nature
bereft of all finer feeling. But professional critics
seldom see below the surface; else they would
discover beneath the grin and satire of Frank
Wedekind a sensitive soul, deeply stirred by the
heart-rending tragedies about him. Stirred and
grieved especially by the misery and torture of
the child, — the helpless victim unable to explain
the forces germinating in its nature, often crushed
and destroyed by mock modesty, sham decencies,
and the complacent morality that greet its blind
gropings.
Never was a more powerful indictment hurled
against society, which out of sheer hypocrisy and
cowardice persists that boys and girls must grow
up in ignorance of their sex functions, that they
must be sacrificed on the altar of stupidity and
convention which taboo the enlightenment of the
child in questions of such elemental importance
to health and well-being.
frhe most criminal phase of the indictment, how-
ever, is that it is generally the most promising
children who are sacrificed to sex ignorance and
to the total lack of appreciation on the part of
teachers of the latent qualities and tendencies in
the child^the one slaying the body and soul, the
other paralyzing the function of the brain; and
I20 Frank Wedekind
both conspiring to give to the world mental and
physical mediocrities.
" The Awakening of Spring '* is laid in three
acts and fourteen scenes, consisting almost entirely
of dialogues among the children. So close is
Wedekind to the soul of the child that he suc-
ceeds in unveiling before our eyes, with a most
gripping touch, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and
despair, its struggles and tragedies.
The play deals with a group of school children
just entering the age of puberty, — imaginative be-
ings speculating about the mysteries of life.
JVendla, sent to her grave by her loving but
prudish mother, is an exquisite, lovable child;
Melchior, the innocent father of Wendlc^s unborn
baby, is a gifted boy whose thirst for knowledge
leads him to inquire into the riddle of life, and
to share his observations with his school chums,
— a youth who, in a free and intelligent atmos-
phere, might have developed into an original
thinker. That such a boy should be punished as
a moral pervert, only goes to prove the utter un-
fitness of our educators and parents. Moritz,
Melchior's playfellow, is driven to suicide because
he cannot pass his . examinations, thanks to our
stupid and criminal system of education which con-
sists in cramming the mind to the bursting point.
Wedekind has been accused of exaggerating
his types, but any one familiar with child life
The Awakening of Spring 121
knows that every word in " The Awakening of
Spring " is vividly true. The conversation be-
tween Melchior and Moritz, for instance, is typi-
cal of all boys not mentally inert.
Melchior. Fd like to know why we really are on
earth !
Moritz, I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to
school! — Why do we go to school? — We go to
school so that somebody can examine us! — And why
do they examine us? — In order that we may fail.
Seven must fail, because the upper classroom will hold
only sixty. — I feel so queer since Christmas, — The
devil take me, if it were not for Papa, Fd pack my
bundle and go to Altoona, to-day!
Moritz, Do you believe, Melchior, that the feeling
of shame in man is only a product of his education?
Melchior. I was thinking over that for the first time
the day before yesterday. It seems to me deeply rooted in
human nature. Only think, you must appear entirely
clothed before your best friend. You wouldn't do so if
he didn't do the same thing. — Therefore, it's more or
less of a fashion.
Moritz. Have you experienced it yet?
Melchior. What ?
Moritz. How do you say it?
Melchior. Manhood's emotion?
Moritz. M — 'hm.
Melchior. Certainly.
Moritz. I also . . .
Melchior. I've known that for a long while ! — Al-
most for a year.
122 Frank Wedekind
Moritz. I was startled as if by lightning.
Melchior, Did you dream?
Moritz, Only for a little while — of legs in li^t
blue tights, that strode over the cathedral — to be cor-
rect, I thought they wanted to go over it. I only saw
them for an instant.
Melchior, George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother.
Moritz, Did he tell you that? ... I thought I was
incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward
hurt. — Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot
down the recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Mel-
chior, the last three weeks have been a Gethsemane for
me. . . . Truly they play a remarkable game with us.
And we're expected to give thanks for it. I don't re-
member to have had any longing for this kind of excite-
ment. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all
was still again. My dear parents might have had a hun-
dred better children. I came here, I don't know how,
and must be responsible myself for not staying away. —
Haven't you often wondered, Melchior, by what means
we were brought into this whirl?
Melchior. Don't you know that yet either, Moritz?
Moritz. How should I know it? I see how the hens
lay eggs, and hear that Mamma had to carry me under
her heart. But is that enough? ... I have gone
through Meyer's " Little Encyclopedia " from A to Z.
Words — nothing but words and words! Not a single
plain explanation. Oh, this feeling of shame! — What
good to me is an encyclopedia that won't answer mc con-
cerning the most important question in life?
The Awakening of Spring 123
Yes, of what good is an encyclopedia or the
other wise books to the quivering, restless spirit
of the child? No answer anywhere, least of all
from your own mother, as Wendla and many an-
other like her have found out.
The girl, learning that her sister has a new
baby, rushes to her mother to find out how it came
into the world.
Wendla, I have a sister who has been married for
two and a half years, I myself have been made an aunt
for the third time, and I haven't the least idea how it all
comes about — Don't be cross, Mother dear, don't
be cross! Whom in the world should I ask but you!
Please tell me, dear Mother! Tell me, dear Mother!
I am ashamed for myself. Please, Mother, speak!
Don't scold me for asking you about it. Give me an
answer— How does it happen? — How does it all
come about? — You cannot really deceive yourself that
I, who am fourteen years old, still believe in the stork.
Frau Bergmann. Good Lord, child, but you are pecu-
liar! — What ideas you have! — I really can't do
that!
Wendla. But why not. Mother? — Why not? —
It can't be anything ugly If everybody is delighted over it !
Frau Bergmann, O — O God, protect me! — I de-
serve — Go get dressed, child, go get dressed.
Wendla. I'll go — And suppose your child went out
and asked the chimney sweep?
Frau Bergmann. But that would be madness! —
124 Frank Wedekind
Q)me here, child, come here, V\\ tell you! Ill tell you
everything — ... In order to have a child — one must
love — the man — to whom one is married — love him,
I tell you — as one can only love a man ! One must love
him so much with one's whole heart, so — so that one
can't describe it ! One must love him, Wendla, as you
at your age are still unable to love — Now you know it!
How much Wendla knew, her mother found
out when too late.
Wendla and Melchior, overtaken by a storm,
seek shelter in a haystack, and are drawn by what
Melchior calls the " first emotion of manhood "
and curiosity into each other's arms. Six months
later Wendlc^s mother discovers that her child is
to become a mother. To save the family honor,
the girl is promptly placed in the hands of a quack
who treats her for chlorosis.
Wendla. No, Mother, no! I know it. I feel it. I
haven't chlorosis. I have dropsy — I won't get better.
I have the dropsy, I must die, Mother — O, Mother,
I must die!
Frau Bergmann, You must not die, child! You
must not die — Great heavens, you must not die!
Wendla. But why do you weep so frightfully, then?
Frau Bergmann, You must not die, child! You
haven't the dropsy, you have a child, girl! You have a
child! Oh, why did you do that to me?
Wendla. I haven't done anything to you*^
Frau Bergmann. Oh, don't deny it any more.
The Awakening of Spring 125
.Wendla! — I know everything. See, I didn't want to
say a word to you. — Wendla, my Wendla — !
Wendla. But it's not possible, Mother. ... I have
loved nobody in the world as I do you, Mother.
The pathos of it, that such a loving mother
should be responsible for the death of her own
child ! Yet Frau Bergmann is but one of the many
good, pious mothers who lay their children to
*' rest in God," with the inscription on the tomb-
stone: "Wendla Bergmann, born May 5th,
1878, died from chlorosis, Oct. 27, 1892.
Blessed are the pure of heart."
Melchior, like Wendla, was also " pure of
heart "; yet how was he " blessed "? Surely not
by his teachers who, discovering his essay on the
mystery of life, expel the boy from school. Only
Wedekind could inject such grim humor into the
farce of education — the smug importance of the
faculty of the High School sitting under the por-
traits of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and pronounc-
ing judgment on their " immoral " pupil Melchior.
Rector Sonnenstich. Gentlemen: We cannot help
moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the Na-
tional Board of Education; there are the strongest reasons
why we cannot: we cannot, because we must expiate the
misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot,
because of our need to protect ourselves from similar
blows in the future; we cannot, because we must chas-
tise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he
126 Frank Wedekind
exerted upon his classmates ; we cannot, above all, because
we must hinder him from exerting the same influence
upon his remaining classmates. We cannot ignore the
charge — and this, gentlemen, is possibly the weightiest
of all — on any pretext concerning a ruined career, be-
cause it is our duty to protect ourselves from an epidemic
of suicide similar to that which has broken out recently
in various grammar schools, and which until to-day has
mocked all attempts of the teachers to shackle it by any
means known to advanced education. . . . We see our-
selves under the necessity of judging the guilt-laden that
we may not be judged guilty ourselves. . . . Are you the
author of this obscene manuscript?
Melchior, Yes — I request you, sir, to show me any-
thing obscene in it.
Sonnensttch. You have as little respect for the dig-
nity of your assembled teachers as you have a proper
appreciation of mankind's innate sense of shame which
belongs to a moral world.
Melchior' 5 mother, a modern type, has greater
faith in her child than in school education. But
even she cannot hold out against the pressure of
public opinion; still less against the father of
Melchior, a firm believer in authority and dis-
cipline.
Herr Gabor. Anyone who can write what Melchior
wrote must be rotten to the core of his being. The mark
is plain. A half-healthy nature wouldn't do such a
thing. None of us are saints. Each of us wanders from
The Awakening of Spring 127
the straight path. His writing, on the contrary,
tramples on principles. His writing is no evidence of
a chance slip in the usual way; it sets forth with dread-
ful plainness and a frankly definite purpose that natural
longing, that propensity for immorality, because it is im-
morality. His writing manifests that exceptional state
of spiritual corruption which we jurists classify under
the term " moral imbecility."
Between the parents and the educators,
Melchior is martyred even as Wendla, He is
sent to the House of Correction; but being of
sturdier stock than the girl, he survives.
Not so his chum Moritz. Harassed by the Im-
pelling forces of his awakened nature, and unable
to grapple with the torturous tasks demanded by
his *' educators " at the most critical period of his
life, Moritz falls In the examinations. He can-
not face his parents: they have placed all their
hope in him, and have lashed him, by the subtle
cruelty of gratitude, to the grindstone till his brain
reeled. Moritz is the third victim in the tragedy,
the most convenient explanation of which is given
by Pastor Kahlbauch In the funeral sermon.
Pastor Kahlbauch. He who rejects the grace with
which the Everlasting Father has blessed those born in
sin, he shall die a spiritual death ! — He, however, who
in willful carnal abnegation of God's proper honor, lives
for and serves evil, shall die the death of the body! —
Who, however, wickedly throws away from him the cross
128 Frank Wedekind
which the All Merciful has laid upon him for his sins,
verily, verily, I say unto you, he shall die the everlasting
death! Let us, however, praise the All Gracious Lord
and thank Him for His inscrutable grace in order that
we may travel the thorny path more and more surely.
For as truly as this one died a triple death, as truly will
the Lord God conduct the righteous unto happiness and
everlasting life. . . .
'^It is hardly necessary to point out the revolu-
tionary significance of this extraordinary play. It
speaks powerfully for itself. One need only add
that " The Awakening of Spring " has done much
to dispel the mist enveloping the paramount issue
of sex in the education of the child. To-day it is
conceded even by conservative elements that the
conspiracy of silence has been a fatal mistake;.
And while sponsors of the Church and of moral
fixity still clamor for the good old methods, the
message of Wedekind is making itself felt
throughout the world, breaking down the barriers.
The child Is the unit of the race, and only
through its unhampered uijfoldment can humanity
come into its heritage. • " The Awakening of
Spring " is one of the great forces of modern
times that is paving the way for the birth of a free
race.
ry-
w
THE FRENCH DRAMA
MAETERLINCK
TO those who are conversant with the
works of Maeterlinck it may seem
rather far-fetched to discuss him from
the point of view of revolutionary and
social significance. Above all, Maeterlinck is the
portrayer of the remote, the poet of symbols;
therefore it may seem out of place to bring him
down to earth, to simplify him, or to interpret his
revolutionary spirit. To some extent these ob-
jections have considerable weight; but on the other
hand, if one keeps in mind that only those who
go to the remote are capable of understanding the
obvious, one will readily see how very significant
Maeterlinck is as a revolutionizing factor. Be-
sides, we have Maeterlinck's own conception of
the significance of the revolutionary spirit. In a
very masterly article called " The Social Revolu-
tion," he discusses the objection on the part of the
conservative section of society to the introduction
of revolutionary methods. He says that they
129
130 Maeterlin ck
would like us to " go slow "; that they object to
the use of violence and the forcible overthrow
of the evils of society. And Maeterlinck answers
in these significant words:
" We are too ready to forget that the heads-
men of misery are less noisy, less theatrical, but
infinitely more numerous, more cruel and active
than those of the most terrible revolutions."
Maeterlinck realizes that there are certain
grievances in society, iniquitous conditions which
demand immediate solution, and that if we do not
solve them with the readiest and quickest methods
at our command, they will react upon society and
upon life a great deal more terribly than even the
most terrible revolutions. No wonder, then, that
his works were put under the ban by the Catholic
Church which forever sees danger in light and
emancipation. Surely if Maeterlinck were not
primarily the spokesman of truth, he would be
embraced by the Catholic Church.
In " Monna Vanna " Maeterlinck gives a won-
derful picture of the new woman — not the new
woman as portrayed in the newspapers, but the
new woman as a reborn, regenerated spirit; the
woman who has emancipated herself from her
narrow outlook upon life, and detached herself
from the confines of the home; the woman, in
short, who has become race-conscious and there-
fore understands that she is a unit in the great
Monna Vanna 131
ocean of life, and that she must take her place as
an independent factor in order to rebuild and re-
mold life. In proportion as she learns to become
race-conscious, does she become a factor in the
reconstruction of society, valuable to herself, to
her children, and to the race.
Pisa is subdued by the forces of Florence ; it is
beaten and conquered. The city is in danger of
being destroyed, and the people exposed to famine
and annihilation. There is only one way of sav-
ing Pisa. Marco Colonna, the father of the Com-
mander of Pisa, brings the ultimatum of the
enemy :
Marco. Know, then, that I saw Prinzivalle and spoke
with him. ... I thought to find some barbarian, arro-
gant and heavy, always covered with blood or plunged
in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they have told
us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the battle-
field, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man
knows whence. I thought to meet the demon of combat,
bh'nd, unreasoning, vain and cruel, faithless and disso-
lute. ... I found a man who bowed before me as a
loving disciple bows before the master. He is lettered,
eager for knowledge, and obedient to the voice of wis-
dom. . . . He loves not war; his smile speaks of under-
standing and gentle humanity. He seeks the reason of
passions and events. He looks into his own heart; he is
endowed with conscience and sincerity, and it is against
his will that he serves a faithless State. ... I have told
132 Maeterlinck
you that Prinzivalle seems wise, that he is humane and
reasonable. But where is the wise man that hath not
his private madness, the good man to whom no monstrous
idea has ever come? On one side is reason and pit; and
justice; on the other — ah! there is desire and passion
and what you will — the insanity into which we all fall
at times. I have fallen into it myself, and shall, belike,
again — so have you. Man is made in that fashion. A
grief whicK should not be within the experience of man is
on the point of touching you. . . . Hearken: this great
convoy, the victuals that I have seen, wagons running
over with corn, others full of wine and fruit; flocks of
sheep and herds of cattle, enough to feed a city for
months; all these tuns of powder and bars of lead, with
which you may vanquish Florence and make Pisa lift her
head — all this will enter the city to-night, ... if you
send in exchange, to give her up to Prinzivalle until to-
morrow's dawn, ... for he will send her back when
the first faint gray shows in the sky, . . . only, he exacts
that, in sign of victory and submission, she shall come
alone, and her cloak for all her covering. . . .
Guido, Who? Who shall thus come?
Marco. Giovanna.
Guido. My wife? Vanna?
Marco. Ay, your Vanna.
Guido Colonna, in the consciousness that the
woman belongs to him, that no man may even
look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty, re-
sents this mortal insult. He is willing that all
the other women should face danger, that the lit-
Monna Vanna 133
tie children of Pisa should be exposed to hunger
and destruction, rather than that he give up his
possession. But Monna Vanna does not hesitate.
When she is before the issue of saving her people,
she does not stop to consider. She goes into the
enemy's tent, as a child might go, without con-
sciousness of self, imbued solely with the impulse
to save her people.
The meeting of Monna Vanna and Prinzivalle
IS an exquisite interpretation of love — the sweet-
ness, purity, and fragrance of Prinzivalle's love
for the woman of his dream — the one he had
known when she was but a child, and who re-
mained an inspiring vision all through his career.
He knows he cannot reach her ; he also knows that
he will be destroyed by the political intriguers of
Florence, and he stakes his all on this one step
to satisfy the dream of his life to see Vanna and
in return to save Pisa.
Prinzivalle. Had there come ten thousand of you into
my tent, all clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sis-
ters whom even their mother would not know apart, I
should have risen, should have taken your hand, and said,
** This IS she! " Is it not strange that a beloved image
can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in
mine that each day it changed as in real life — the image
of to-day replaced that of yesterdiay — it blossomed out,
it became alwa}^ fairer; and the years adorned it with
all that they add to a child that grows in grace and
134 Maeterlinck
beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed to mi
first that my eyes deceived me. My memories wen
fair and so fond — but they had been too slow and
timid — they had not dared to give you all the splen
which appeared so suddenly to dazzle me. I was a
man that recalled to mind a flower he had but seen
passing through a garden on a gray day, and should
suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fail
a field bathed with sunshine. I saw once more y
hair, your brow, your eyes, and I found all the soul
the face I had adored — but how its beauty shames t
which I had treasured in silence through endless di
through years whose only light was a memory that 1
taken too long a road and found itself outshone by
reality! . . • Ah! I knew not too well what I me
to do. I felt that I was lost — and I desired to di
with me all I could. . • . And I hated you, because of i
love. . . . Yes, I should have gone to the end had
not been you. • . . Yet any other would have seen
odious to me — you yourself would have had to be otl
than you are. ... I lose my reason when I think
it. . . • One word would have been enough that w
different from your words — one gesture that was r
yours — the slightest thing would have inflamed my hi
and let loose the monster. But when I saw you, I si
in that same moment that it was impossible.
Vanna, I felt a change, too. ... I marveled that
could speak to you as I have spoken since the first m
ment. ... I am silent by nature — I have never spok
thus to any man, unless it be to Marco, Guid(
father, . . , And even with him it is not the same. 1
Monna Vanna 135
has a thousand dreams that take up all his mind, . . «
and we have talked but a few times. The others have
always a desire in their eyes that will not suffer one to
tell them that one loves them and would fain know what
they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing
burns; but it is not the same — it does not affright me
nor fill me with loathing. I felt at once that I knew
you before I remembered that I had ever seen you. . . .
Vanna, awed by the character and personality
of this despised and hated outlaw, pleads with
him to come with her to Pisa under the protec-
tion of herself and her husband. She Is sure that
he will be safe with them, and that he will be
hailed as the redeemer oi the people of Pisa.
Like innocent children they walk to their doom.
Vanna is honored by the people whom she has
saved, but scorned by her husband who, like the
true male, does not credit her story.
Vanna, Hear me, I say! I have never lied — but
to-day, above all days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth
that can be told but once and brings life or death. . . .
Hearken, Guido, then — and look upon me, if you havcj
never known me until this hour, the first and only hour
when you have it in your power to love me as I would
be loved. I speak in the name of our life, of all that I
am, of all that you are to me. ... Be strong enough
to believe that which is incredible. This man has spared
my honor. ... He had all power — I was given over
to him. Yet he has not touched me — I have issued
136 Maeterlinck
from his tent as I might from my brother's house. . . .
I gave him one only kiss upon the brow — and he gave
it me again.
Guido, Ah, that was what you were to tell us — that
was the miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I
divined something beneath them that I understood
not. ... It passed me like a flash — I took no heed of
it . . . But I see now that I must look more closely.
So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for
all your covering, all night long, you say he spared
you? . . . Am I a man to believe that the stars are frag-
ments of hellebore, or that one may drop something into
a well and put out the moon? . . . What! a man de-
sires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake
all that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever,
and do it basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought
to do before him, and make the world uninhabitable to
himself forever! And this man has you there in his tent,
alone and defenseless, and he has but this single night
that he has bought at such a price — and he contents
himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither
to make us give him credence! No, let us reason fairly
and not too long mock at misfortune. If^he asked but
that, what need was there that he should plunge a whole
people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery such
that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years?
Ah! Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might
have saved us without torturing us so! He had but to
come like a god to our rescue. . . . But a kiss upon the
brow is not demanded and prepared for after his fash-
Monna Vanna 137
ion. . . . The truth is found in our cries of anguish and
despair. . . .
It is only at this psychological moment, a mo-
ment that sometimes changes all our conceptions,
all our thoughts, our very life, that Monna
Vanna feels the new love for Prinzivalle stirring
in her soul, a love that knows no doubt. The
conception of such a love is revolutionary in
the scope of its possibilities — a love that is preg-
nant with the spirit of daring, of freedom, that lifts
woman out of the ordinary and inspires her with
the strength and joy of molding a new and free
race.
ROSTAND
CHANTECLER
IN view of the progress the modern drama
has made as an interpreter of social ideas and
portrayer of the human struggle against in-
ternal and external barriers, it is difficult to
say what the future may bring in the way of great
dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is
hardly anything to compare with " Chantecler " in
philosophic depth and poetic beauty.
Chantecler is the intense idealist, whose mission
is light and truth. His soul is aglow with deep
human sympathies, and his great purpose in life
is to dispel the night. He keeps aloof from
mediocrity; indeed, he has little knowledge of his
immediate surroundings. Like all great vision-
aries, Chantecler is human, " all too human " ;
therefore subject to agonizing soul depressions and
doubts. Always, however, he regains confidence
and strength when he is close to the soil; when
he feels the precious sap of the earth surging
through his being. At such times he feels the
mysterious power that gives him strength to pro-
138
Chantecler 139
claim the truth, to call forth the golden glory of
the day.
The pheasant hen Is the eternal female, bewitch-
ingly beautiful, but self-centered and vain. True
to her destrny, she must possess the man and is
jealous of everything that stands between her and
him she loves. She therefore employs every de-
vice to kill Chantecler's faith in himself, for, as
she tells him, ** You can be all in all to me, but
nothing to the dawn."
The blackbird is the modernist who has become
blase, mentally and spiritually empty. He is a
cynic and scoffer; without principle or sincerity
himself, he sees only small and petty intentions in
everybody else.
Patou, true and stanch, is the symbol of honest
conviction and simplicity of soul. He loathes the
blackbird because he sees in him the embodiment
of a shallow, superficial modernity, a modernity
barren of all poetic vision, which aims only at ma-
terial success and tinseled display, without regard
for worth, harmony or peace.
The peacock is the overbearing, conceited, in-
tellectual charlatan ; the spokesman of our present-
day culture ; the idle prater of ** art for art's sake."
As such he sets the style and pace for the idle
pursuits of an idle class.
The guinea hen is none other than our most
illustrious society lady. Sterile of mind and empty
140 Rostand
of soul, she flits from one social function to an-
other, taking up every fad, clinging to the coat-
tails of every newcomer, provided he represent
station and prestige. She is the slave of fashion,
the imitator of ideas, the silly hunter after effect —
in short, the parasite upon the labor and efforts
of others.
The night birds are the ignorant, stupid main-
tainers of the old. They detest the light because
it exposes their mediocrity and stagnation. They
hate Chantecler because, as the old owl remarks,
" Simple torture it is to hear a brazen throat for-
ever reminding you of what you know to be only
too true I " This is a crime mediocrity never for-
gives, and it conspires to kill Chantecler.
The woodpecker is our very learned college
professor. Dignified and important, he loudly
proclaims the predigested food of his college as
the sole source of all wisdom.
The toads represent the cringing, slimy hangers-
on, the flunkies and lickspittles who toady for the
sake of personal gain.
" Chantecler," then, is a scathing arraignment
of the emptiness of our so-called wise and cultured,
of the meanness of our conventional lies, the petty
jealousies of the human breed in relation to each
other. At the same time " Chantecler " character-
izes the lack of understanding for, and apprecia-
tion of, the ideal and the idealists — the mob
Chanted er 141
spirit, whether on top or at the bottom, using the
most cruel and contemptible methods to drag the
idealist down ; to revile and persecute him — aye,
even to kill him — for the unpardonable sin of
proclaiming the ideal. They cannot forgive
Chantecler for worshiping the sun :
Chantecler.
Blaze forth in glory! . . .
thou that driest the tears of the meanest among weeds
And dost of a dead flower make a living butterfly —
Thy miracle, wherever almond-trees
Shower down the wind their scented shreds,
Dead petals dancing in a living swarm —
1 worship thee, O Sun! whose ample light,
Blessing every forehead, ripening every fruit.
Entering every flower and every hovel.
Pours itself forth and yet is never less.
Still spending and unspent — like mother's love!
I sing of thee, and will be thy high priest.
Who disdainest not to glass thy shining face
In the humble basin of blue suds,
Or see the lightning of thy last farewell
Reflected in an humble cottage pane!
• •••••••
Glory to thee in the vineyards! Glory to thee in the
fields!
Glory among the grass and on the roofs.
In eyes of lizards and on wings of swans, —
Artist who making splendid the great things
142 Rostand
Forgets not to make exquisite the small!
'Tis thou that, cutting out a silhouette,
To all thou beamest on dost fasten this dark twin,
Doubling the number of delightful shapes.
Appointing to each thing its shadow,
More charming often than itself.
I praise thee, Sun! Thou sheddest roses on the air,
Diamonds on the stream, enchantment on the hill ;
A poor dull tree thou takest and turnest to green rapture,
O Sun, without whose golden magic — things
Would be no more than what they are!
In the atmosphere of persecution and hatred
Chantecler continues to hope and to work for his
sublime mission of bringing the golden day. But
his passion for the pheasant hen proves his Water-
loo. It is through her that he grows weak, dis-
closing his secret. Because of her he attends the
silly five o'clock function at the guinea hen's, and
is involved in a prize fight. His passion teaches
him to understand life and the frailties of his fel-
low creatures. He learns the greatest of all truths,
— that " it is the struggle for, rather than the
attainment of, the ideal, which must forever in-
spire the sincere, honest idealist." Indeed, it is
life which teaches Chantecler that if he cannot
wake the dawn, he must rouse mankind to greet
the sun.
Chantecler finds himself in a trying situation
Chantecler 1143
when he comes into the gathering at the guinea
hen's five o'clock tea, to meet the pompous, over-
bearing cocks representing the various govern-
ments. When he arrives in the midst of these
distinguished society people, he is plied with the
query, "How do you sing? Do you sing the
Italian school or the French school or the German
school?" Poor Chantecler, in the simplicity of
his idealism, replies, '' I don't know how I sing,
but I know why I sing." Why need the chante-
clers know how they sing? They represent the
truth, which needs no stylish clothes or expensive
feathers. That is the difference between truth
and falsehood. Falsehood must deck herself out
beyond all semblance of nature and reality.
Chantecler, I say . , . that these resplendent gen-
tlemen are manufactured wares, the work of merchants
with highly complex brains, who to fashion a ridiculous
chicken have taken a wing from that one, a topknot from
this. I say that in such Cocks nothing remains of the
true Cock. They are Cocks of shreds and patches, idle
bric-a-brac, fit to figure in a catalogue, not in a barnyard
with its decent dunghill and its dog. I say that those
befrizzled, beruffled, bedeviled Cocks were never stroked
and cherished by Nature's maternal hand. . . . And I
add that the whole duty of a Cock is to be an embodied
crimson cry! And when a Cock is not that, it matters
little that his comb be shaped like a toadstool, or his
quills twisted like a screw, he will soon vanish and be
144 Rostand
heard of no more, having been nothing but a variety of
a variety!
The Game Cock appears. He greets Chante-
cler with the announcement that he is the Cham-
pion fighter, that he has killed so and so many
Cocks in one day and an equal number on other
occasions. Chantecler replies simply, ** I have
never killed anything. But as I have at different
times succored, defended, protected this one and
that, I might perhaps be called, in my fashion,
brave."
The fight begins. Chantecler is wounded and
about to succumb, when suddenly all the guests
present rush to Chantecler for protection : the com-
mon enemy, the Hawk is seen to approach.
Chantecler mistakes the cowardice of those who
come to seek his aid, for friendship; but the
moment the danger is over, the crowd again cir-
cles around the fighters, inciting the Game Cock
to kill Chantecler. But at the crirical moment the
Game Cock mortally wounds himself with his own
spurs, and is jeered and driven off the scene by the
same mob that formerly cheered him on. Chante-
cler, weak and exhausted from loss of blood,
disillusioned and stung to the very soul, follows
the pheasant hen to the Forest.
Soon he finds himself a henpecked husband : he
may not crow to his heart's content any more, he
Chantecler 145
may not wake the sun, for his lady love is jealous.
The only time he can crow is when her eyes are
closed in sleep.
But leave it to the pheasant hen to ferret out a
secret. Overhearing Chantecler^ s conversation
with the woodpecker, she is furious. " I will
not let the sun defraud me of my love," she
cries. But Chantecler replies, ** There is no great
love outside of the shadow of the ideal." She
makes use of her beauty and charm to win him
from the sun. She embraces him and pleads,
" Come to my soft bosom. Why need you bother
about the sun ? "
Chantecler hears the nightingale and, like all
great artists, he recognizes her wonderful voice,
her inspiring powers compared with which his own
must seem hard and crude. Suddenly a shot is
heard, and the little bird falls dead to the ground.
Chantecler is heart-broken. And as he mourns
the sweet singer, the dawn begins to break. The
pheasant hen covers him with her wing, to keep
him from seeing the sun rise, and then mocks him
because the sun has risen without his crowing.
The shock is terrible to poor Chantecler, yet in
his desperation he gives one tremendous cock-a-
doodle-do.
** Why are you crowing? " the hen asks.
" As a warning to myself, for thrice have I
denied the thing I love."
146 Rostand
Chantecler is in despair. But now he hears
another Nightingale, more silvery and beautiful
than the first. ** Learn, comrade, this sorrowful
and reassuring fact, that no one. Cock of the morn-
ing or evening nightingale, has quite the song of
his dreams."
A wonderful message, for there must always be
" in the soul a faith so faithful that it comes back
even after it has been slain." It is vital to under-
stand that it is rather the consciousness that though
we cannot wake the dawn, we must prepare the
people to greet the rising sun.
BRIEUX
DAMAGED GOODS
IN the preface to the English edition of
" Damaged Goods," George Bernard Shaw
relates a story concerning Lord Melbourne,
in the early days of Queen Victoria. When
the cabinet meeting threatened to break up in con-
fusion, Lord Melbourne put his back to the door
and said: ** Gentlemen, we can tell the house the
truth or we can tell it a lie. I don't give a damn
which it is. All I insist on is that we shall all tell
the same lie, and you shall not leave the room until
you have settled what it is to be."
This seems to characterize the position of our
middle-class morality to-day. Whether a thing
be right or wrong, we are all to express the same
opinion on the subject. All must agree on the
same lie, and the lie upon which all agree, more
than on any other, is the lie of purity , which must
be kept up at all costs.
How slow our moralists move is best proved by
the fact that although the great scientist Neisser
had discovered, as far back as 1879, that sup-
posedly insignificant venereal afflictions are due to
«47
148 Brieux
a malignant micro-organism often disastrous not
only to the immediate victim, but also to those who
come in touch with him, the subject is still largely
tabooed and must not be discussed.
To be sure, there is a small contingent of men
and women who realize the necessity of a frank
discussion of the very important matter of ven-
ereal disease. But unfortunately they are attempt-
ing to drive out the devil with fire. They are en-
lightening the public as to the gravity of gonorrhea
and syphilis, but are implanting an evil by no means
less harmful, namely, the element of fear. The
result often is that the victims who contract an in-
fection are as little capable of taking care of them-
selves now as in the past when they knew little
about the subject.
Brieux is among the few who treats the question
in a frank manner, showing that the most danger-
ous phase of venereal disease is i gnorance and fear,
and that if treated openly and intelligently, it is
perfectly curable. Brieux also emphasizes the im-
portance of kindness and consideration for those
who contract the affliction, since it has nothing to
do with what is commonly called evil, immorality,
or impurity.
Therein lies the superiority of " Damaged
Goods " to most scientific treatises. Without
lacking logic and clarity, it has greater humanity
and warmth.
Damaged Goods 149
But " Damaged Goods " contains more than an
expose of venereal disease. It touches upon the
whole of our social life. It points out the cold-
blooded indifference of the rich toward those who
do not belong to their class, to the poor, the
workers, the disinherited whom they sacrifice with-
out the slightest compunction on the altar of their
own comforts. Moreover, the play also treats of
the contemptible attitude towards love not backed
by property or legal sanction. In short, it un-
covers and exposes not only sexual disease but that
which is even more terrible — our social disease,
our social syphilis.
George Dupont, the son of wealthy people, is
informed by a specialist that he has contracted a
venereal disease of a most serious nature; but that
with patience and time he will be cured. Dupont
is crushed by the news, and decides to blow out
his brains. His only regret is that he cannot in
the least account for his trouble.
George. Vm not a rake, Doctor. My life might be
held up as an example to all young men. I assure you,
no one could possibly be more prudent, no one. Sec
here; supposing I told you that in all my life I have only
had two mistresses, what would you say to that?
Doctor. That would have been enough to bring you
here.
George, No, Doctor. Not one of those two. No
1 50 Brieux
one in the world has dreaded this so much as I have; no
one has taken such infinite precautions to avoid it. My
first mistress was the wife of my best friend. I chose
her on account of him ; and him, not because I cared most
for him, but because I knew he was a man of the most
rigid morals, who watched his wife jealously and didn't
let her go about forming imprudent connections. As
for her, I kept her in absolute terror of this disease. I
told her that almost all men were taken with it, so that
she mightn't dream of being false to me. My friend
died in my arms. That was the only thing that could
have separated me from her. Then I took up with a
young seamstress. . . . Well, this was a decent girl with
a family in needy circumstances to support. Her grand-
mother was an invalid, and there was an ailing father and
three little brothers. It was by my means that they all
lived. ... I told her and I let the others know that if
she played me false I should leave her at once. So then
they all watched her for me. It became a regular thing
that I should spend Sunday with them, and in that sort
of way I was able to give her a lift up. Church-going
was a respectable kind of outing for her. I rented a
pew for them and her mother used to go with her to
church; they liked seeing their name engraved on the
card. She never left the house alone. Three months
ago, when the question of my marriage came up, I had
to leave her.
Doctor, You were very happy, why did you want to
change ?
George. I wanted to settle down. My father was a
notary, and before his death he expressed a wish that I
Damaged Goods 151
should marry my cousin. It was a good match; her
dowry will help to get me a practice. Besides, I simply
adore her. She's fond of me, too. I had everything one
could want to make my life happy. And then a lot of
idiots must give me a farewell dinner and make me gad
about with them. See what has come of it! I haven't
any luck, I've never had any luck! I know fellows who
lead the most racketty life: nothing happens to them,
the beasts ! But I — for a wretched lark — what is
there left for a leper like me? My future is ruined, my
whole life poisoned. Well then, isn't it better for me
to clear out of it? Anyway, I shan't suffer any more.
You see now, no one could be more wretched than I am.
The doctor explains to him that there is no need
for despair, but that he must postpone his mar-
riage if he does not wish to ruin his wife and pos-
sibly make her sterile for life. It is imperative
especially because of the offspring, which is certain
to be syphilitic.
Doctor, Twenty cases identical with yours have been
carefully observed — from the beginning to the end.
Nineteen times — you hear, nineteen times in twenty —
the woman was contaminated by her husband. You
think that the danger is negligible: you think you have
the right to let your wife take her chance, as you said,
of being one of the exceptions for which we can do
nothing! Very well then; then you shall know what
you are doing. You shall know what sort of a disease
it is that your wife will have five chances per cent, of
contracting without so much as having her leave asked.
152 Brieux
. . . But there is not only your wife, — there are her
children, your children, whom you may contaminate, too.
It is in the name of those innocent little ones that I
appeal to you; it is the future of the race that I am
defending.
But George Dupont will not postpone the mar-
riage for several years. He would have to give
tan explanation, break his word, and lose his in-
heritance, — things infinitely more important than
any consideration for the girl he " adores " or for
their children, should they have any. In short,
he is actuated by the morality of the bourgeoisie :
the silly conception of honor, the dread of public
opinion and, above all, the greed for property.
The second act is laid at the home of George
Dupont. George and his wife Henriette are child-
ishly happy, except for the regret that their mar-
riage could not have taken place six months earlier
because poor George had been declared consump-
tive. How stupid of doctors to suspect the
healthy strong George Dupont of consumption!
But, then, " all doctors are stupid." But now that
they are together, nothing shall part them in their
great happiness, and especially in their great love
for their baby. True, a little cloud obscures their
sunny horizon. The baby is not very strong; but
with the care and devotion of the grandmother, out
in the country air, it is sure to recover.
Damaged Goods 153
The grandmother unexpectedly arrives, an-
nouncing that she has brought the baby back to
town : it is very ill and she has consulted a specialist
who has promised to come at once to examine the
child. Presently the doctor arrives. He insists
that the wet nurse be dismissed immediately, as the
child would infect her and she in return would in-
fect her own husband and baby. Madame Dupont
is scandalized. What, leave her precious grand-
child! Rob him of the milk he needs!
Mme. Dupont. If there is one way to save its life,
It IS to give it every possible attention, and you want me
to treat it in a way that you doctors condemn even for
healthy children. You think I will let her die like that!
Oh, I shall take good care she does not! Neglect the
one Single thing that can save her! It would be crim-
inal! As for the nurse, we will indemnify her. We
will do everything in our power, everything but that.
Doctor. This is not the first time I have found my-
self in this situation, and I must begin by telling you
that parents who have refused to be guided by my advice
have invariably repented of it most bitterly. . . . You
propose to profit by her ignorance and her poverty. Be-
sides, she could obtain the assistance of the court. . . •
You can convince yourself. In one or two cases the
parents have been ordered to pay a yearly pension to the
nurse; in the others sums of money varying from three
to eight thousand francs.
Mtne. Dupont. If we had to fight an action, we
should retain the very best lawyer on our side. Thank
154 Brieux
heaven we are rich enough. No doubt he would make
it appear doubtful whether the child hadn't caught this dis-
ease from the nurse, rather than the nurse from the child.
Indeed, what matters a peasant woman ! They
are so numerous. In vain the doctor tries to con-
vince Mme. Dupont that it is not a question of
money. It is a question of humanity, of decency;
he would not and could not be a party to such a
crime.
After the doctor leaves to examine the child,
Mme. Dupont and her worthy son clinch the bar-
gain with the unsuspecting and ignorant servant.
They tell her that the baby has a cold which it
might communicate to her. The poor peasant girl
had lived in the cold aU her life, and as she justly
says:' " We of the country are not as delicate as
the Parisian ladies." She realizes that a thou-
sand francs would mean a great fortune to her, and
that it would help her people to pay the mortgage
and become independent. She consents to stay
and signs away her health.
The doctor returns with the dreaded news that
the child has congenital syphilis. He informs
them that with care and patience the child might
be cured, but that it will have to be put on bottle
milk, because otherwise It would be disastrous to
the nurse. When he is told that the nurse has
consented to remain, he grows indignant, declar-
ing:
Damaged Goods fl55
" You must not ask me to sacrifice the health of a young
and strong woman to that of a sickly infant. I will be
no party to giving this woman a disease that would em-
bitter the lives of her whole family, and almost certainly
render her sterile. Besides, I cannot even do it from a
legal standpoint. . . . If you do not consent to have the
child fed by handj I shall either speak to the nurse or
give up the case"
But there is no need for the doctor to interfere.
Fortunately for the servant, she discovers the
miserable transaction. She learns from the but-
ler the real condition of the child, and announces
to the Duponts that she must refuse to stay. " I
know your brat isn't going to live. I know it's
rotten through and through because its father's
got a beastly disease that he caught from some
woman of the streets."
At this terrible moment the unsuspecting, light-
headed and light-hearted mother, Henriette, ar-
rives. She overhears the horrible news and falls
screaming to the floor.
The last act takes place in the hospital — the
refuge of the unfortunate victims of poverty, ig-
norance and false morality. M. Loche, the
Deputy, is announced. The doctor is overjoyed
because he believes that the representative of the
people comes to inform himself of the causes of
the widespread misery. But he is mistaken.
M. Loche is the father-in-law of George Dupont.
1 56 Brieux
He wants to secure the signature of the doctor as
evidence in the divorce sought by his daughter.
Doctor. I regret that I am unable to furnish you
with such a certificate. . . . The rule of professional
secrecy is absolute. And I may add that even were I
free, I should refuse your request. I should regret hav-
ing helped you to obtain a divorce. It would be in your
daughter's own interest that I should refuse. You ask
me for a certificate in order to prove to the court that
your son-in-law has contracted syphilis? You do not
consider that in doing so you will publicly acknowledge
that your daughter has been exposed to the infection.
Do you suppose that after that your daughter is likely to
find a second husband ? . . . Do you think that this poor
little thing has not been unlucky enough in her start in
life? She has been blighted physically. You wish be-
sides indelibly to stamp her with the legal proof of con-
genital syphilis.
Lac he. Then what am I to do?
Doctor. Forgive. . . . When the marriage was pro-
posed you doubtless made inquiries concerning your
future son-in-law's income; you investigated his securi-
ties; you satisfied yourself as to his character. You only
omitted one point, but it was the most important of all:
you made no inquiries concerning his health.
Loche. No, I did not do that. It is not the cus-
tom. ... I think a law should be passed.
Doctor, No, no! We want no new laws. There
are too many already. All that is needed is for people
to understand the nature of this disease rather better.
It would soon become the custom for a man who pro-
Damaged Goods I5f
posed for a girl's hand to add to the other things for
which he is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness,
which would make it certain that he did not bring this
plague into the family with him. . . . Well, there is
one last argument which, since I must, I will put to you.
Are you yourself without sin, that you are so relentless
to others?
Loche, I have never had any shameful disease, sir.
Doctor. I was not asking you that. I was asking
you if you had never exposed yourself to catching one.
Ah, you see! Then it is not virtue that has saved you;
It is luck. Few things exasperate me more than that
term "sjiameful disease," which you used just now.
This disease is like all other diseases: it is one of our
afflictions. There is no shame in being wretched — even
if one deserves to be so. Come, come, let us have a little
plain speaking! I should like to know how many of
these rigid moralists, who are so shocked with their mid-
dle-class prudery, that they dare not mention the name
syphilis, or when they bring themselves to speak of it do
so with expressions of every sort of disgust, and treat its
victims as criminals, have never run the risk of contract-
ing it themselves? It is those alone who have the right
to talk. How many do you think there are? Four out
of a thousand? Well, leave those four aside: between
all the rest and those who catch the disease there is no
difference but chance, and by heavens, those who escape
won't get much sympathy from me: the others at least
have paid their fine of suffering and remorse, while they
have gone scot free! Let's have done, if you please,
once for all with this sort of hypocrisy.
1 58 Brieux
The doctor, who is not only a sincere scientist
but also a humanitarian, realizes that as things
are to-day no one Is exempt from the possibility
of contracting an infection; that those who are
responsible for the spread of the disease are they
who constantly excuse themselves with the inane
" I did not kno w," as if ignorance were not the
crime of all crimes. The doctor demonstrates to
M. Loche a number of cases under his observation,
all of them the result of ignorance and of poverty.
There is, for instance, the woman whose hus-
band died of the disease. He " didn't know " ;
so he infected her. She, on the other hand, is
poor and cannot afford the treatment she needs.
A private physician is beyond her means, and she
has too much pride to stand the indignities heaped
upon the poor who are at the mercy of dispensaries
and charity. Therefore she neglects her disease
and perhaps is unconsciously instrumental in in-
fecting others.
fThen there is the man whose young son has con-
tracted the disease. His father " didn't know,"
and therefore he did not inform his son, as a re-
sult of which the boy became half paralyzed.
Man. We are small trades-people; we have regularly
bled ourselves in order to send him to college, and
now — I only wish the same thing mayn't happen to
others. It was at the very college gates that my poor
boy was got hold of by one of these women. Is it right,
Damaged Goods 159
sir, that that should be allowed? Aren't there enough
police to prevent children of fifteen from being seduced
like that? I ask, is it right?
The poor man, in his ignorance, did not know
that " these women " are the most victimized, as
demonstrated by the doctor himself in the case of
the poor girl^ oL_the^ s5;?.et- _ ^^^ was both ig-
norant and innocent when she found a place as
domestic servant and was seduced by her master.
Then she was kicked out into the street, and in
her endless search for work found every door
closed in her face. She was compelled to stifle
her feeling of motherhood, to send her baby to a
foundling asylum, and finally, in order to exist, be-
come a street-walker. If in return she infected
the men who came to her, including her erstwhile
seducer, she was only paying back in a small
measure what society had done to her, — the in-
jury, the bitterness, the misery and tears heaped
upon her by a cruel and self-satisfied world.
It is to be expected that a political representa-
tive of the people like Loche should suggest the
same stereotyped measures as his predecessors:
legal enactments, prosecution, imprisonment. But
the doctor, a real social student, knows that " the
true remedy lies in a change of our ways."
Doctor. Syphilis must cease to be treated like a mys-
terious evil, the very name of which cannot be pro-
'l6o Brieux
nounced. . . . People ought to be taught that there is
nothing immoral in the act that reproduces life by means
of love. But for the benefit of our children we organize
round about it a gigantic conspiracy of silenc e* A re-
spectable man will take his son and daughter to one of
these grand music halls, where they will hear things of
the most loathsome description; but he won't let them
hear a word spoken seriously on the subject of the great
act of love. The mystery and humbug in which phy-
sical facts are enveloped ought to be swept away and
young men be given some pride in the creative power
with which each one of us is endowed.
In other words, what we need is more general
enlightenment, greater frankness and, above all,
different social and economic conditions. The
revolutionary significance of " Damaged Goods "
consists in the lesson that not syphilis but the causes
that lead to it are the terrible curse of society.
Those who rant against syphilis and clamor for
more laws, for marriage certificates, for registra-
tion and segregation, do not touch even the sur-
face of the evil. Brieux is among the very few
modern dramatists who go to the bottom of this
question by insisting on a complete social and
economic change, which alone can free us from
the scourge of syphilis and other social plagues.
Maternity i6l
MATERNITY
Motherhood to-day is on the lips of every
penny-a-liner, every social patch-worker and polit-
ical climber. It is so much prated about that one
is led to believe that motherhood, in its present con-
dition, is a force for good. It therefore re-
quired a free spirit combined with great dramatic
power to tear the mask off the lying face of
motherhood, that we may see that, whatever its
possibilities in a free future, motherhood is to-day
a sickly tree setting forth diseased branches. For
its sake thousands of women are being sacrificed
and children sent into a cold and barren world
without the slightest provision for their physical
and mental needs. It was left to Brieux to in-
scribe with letters of fire the crying shame of the
motherhood of to-day.
Brignac, a provincial lawyer and an unscrupu-
lous climber for political success, represents the
typical pillar of society. He believes implicitly
in the supremacy of God over the destiny of man.
He swears by the State and the army, and cringes
before the power of money. Naturally he is the
champion of large families as essential to the wel-
fare of society, and of motherhood, as the most
sacred and sole function of woman.
He is the father of three children, all of whom
are in a precarious condition. He resents the idea
1 62 Brieux
that society ought to take care of the children
already in existence, rather than continue indis-
criminately breeding more. Brignac himself
wants more children. In vain his wife Lucie,
weakened by repeated pregnancies, pleads with
him for a respite.
Lucie. Listen, Julien, since we are talking about this.
I wanted to tell you — I haven't had much leisure since
our marriage. We have not been able to take advantage
of a single one of your holidays. I really have a right
to a little rest. . . . Consider, we have not had any time
to know one another, or to love one another. Besides,
remember that we already have to find dowries for three
girls.
Brignac, I tell you this is going to be a boy.
Lucie. A boy is expensive.
Brignac. We are going to be rich?
Lucie. How ?
Brignac. Luck may come in several ways. I may stay
in the civil service and get promoted quickly. I may go
back to the bar. ... I am certain we shall be rich.
After all, it's not much good your saying so, if I say yes.
Lucie. Evidently. My consent was asked for before
I was given a husband, but my consent is not asked for
! before I am given a child. . . . This is slavery — yes,
{slavery. After all you are disposing of my health, my
sufferings, my life — of a year of my existence, calmly,
without consulting me.
Brignac. Do I do it out of selfishness? Do you sup-
pose I am not a most unhappy husband all the time I
Maternity [163
have a future mother at my side instead of a loving
wife? ... A father is a man all the same.
Lucie, Rubbish! You evidently take me for a fool.
I know what you do at those times. . . . Don't deny it.
You must see that I know all about it. . . . Do you want
me to tell you the name of the person you go to see over
at Villeneuve, while I am nursing or " a future mother/*
as you call it? We had better say no more about it.
Brignac goes off to his political meeting to pro-
claim to his constituency the sacredness of mother-
hood, — the deepest and highest function of
woman.
Lucie has a younger sister, Annette, a girl of
eighteen. Their parents being dead, Lucie takes
the place of the mother. She is passionately fond
of her little sister and makes it her purpose to
keep the girl sheltered and protected from the
outside world. Annette arrives and announces
with great enthusiasm that the son of the wealthy
Bernins has declared his love and asked her to
marry him, and that his mother, Mme. Bernin,
is coming to talk the matter over with Lucie.
Mme. Bernin does arrive, but not for the pur-
pose poor Annette had hoped. Rather is it to
tell Lucie that her son cannot marry the girl.
Oh, not because she Isn't beautiful, pure or at-
tractive. Indeed not I Mme. Bernin herself
says that her son could not wish for a more suit-
able match. But, then, she has no money, and
164 Brieux
her son must succeed in the world. He must ac-
quire social standing and position; that cannot be
hacj without money. When Lucie pleads with her
that after all the Bernins themselves had begun at
the bottom, and that it did not prevent their being
happy, Mme, 5^m« replies:
No, no; we are not happy, because we have worn our-
selves out hunting after happiness. We wanted to " get
on," and we got on. But what a price we paid for it!
First, when we were both earning wages, our life was
one long drudgery of petty economy and meanness.
When we set up on our own account, we lived in an
atmosphere of trickery, of enmity, of lying; flattering the
customers, and always in terror of bankruptcy. Oh, I
know the road to fortune! It means tears, lies, envy,
hate; one suffers — and one makes other people suffer.
I have had to go through it : my children shan't. We've
only had two children: we meant only to have one.
Having two we had to be doubly hard upon ourselves.
Instead of a husband and wife helping one another, we
have been partners spying upon one another; calling one
another to account for every little expenditure or
stupidity; and on our very pillows disputing about our
business. That's how we got rich; and now we can't
enjoy our money because we don't know how to use it;
and we aren't happy because our old age is made bitter
by the memories and the rancor left by the old bad days;
because we have suffered too much and hated too much.
My children shall not go through this. I endured it that
they might be spared.
Maternity 165
Learning the price Mme. Bernin has paid for
her wealth, we need not blame her for turning a
deaf ear to the entreaties of Lucie in behalf of
her sister. Neither can Lucie be held responsible
for her stupidity in keeping her sister in ignorance
until she was incapable of protecting herself when
the occasion demanded. Poor Annette, one of
the many offered up to the insatiable monster of
Ignorance and social convention I
When Annette is informed of the result of
Mme. Bernin's visit, the girl grows hysterical,
and Lucie learns that her little sister is about to
become a mother. Under the pretext of love and
marriage- young, pampered Jaques Bernin has
taken advantage of the girl's inexperience and in-
nocence. In her despair Annette rushes out in
search of her lover, only to be repelled by him
in a vulgar and cruel manner. She then attempts
suicide by trying to throw herself under the train
which is to carry off her worthless seducer. She
is rescued by the faithful nurse Catherine, and
brought back to her anxious sister Lucie. Ann-
ette, in great excitement, relates:
Annette, You'll never guess what he said. He got
angry, and he began to abuse me. He said he guessed
what I was up to; that I wanted to make a scandal to
force him to marry me — oh, he spared me nothing — to
force him to marry me because he was rich. And when
that made me furious, he threatened to call the police!
1 66 Brieux
I ought to have left him, run away, come home, oughtn^t
I ? But I couldn't believe it of him all at once, like that!
And I couldn't go away while I had any hope. ... As
long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was en-
gaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable
ruined girl, like dozens of others. . . . My life was at
stake : and to save myself I went down into the very low-
est depths of vileness and cowardice. I cried, I im-
plored. I lost all shame. . . . What he said then I can-
not tell you — not even you — it was too much — too
much — I did not understand at first. It was only after-
wards, coming back, going over all his words, that I made
out what he meant. . . . Then he rushed to the train,
and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fin-
gers in the door; and he went and hid behind his mother,
and she threatened, too, to have me arrested. ... I wish
I was dead ! Lucie, dear, I don*t want to go through all
that's coming — I am too little — I am too weak, I'm
too young to bear it. Really, I haven't the strength.
But Lucie has faith in her husband. In all the
years of their married life she has heard him pro-
claim from the very housetops that motherhood is
the most sacred function of woman; that the State
needs large numbers ; that commerce and the army
require an increase of the population, and ** the
government commands you to further this end to
the best of your ability, each one of you in his own
commune." She has heard her husband repeat,
over and over again, that the woman who refuses
to abide by the command of God and the laws to
Maternity 167
become a mother is immoral, is criminal. Surely
he would understand the tragedy of Annette, who
had been placed in this condition not through her
own fault but because she had been confiding and
trusting in the promise of the man. Surely Brig-
nac would come to the rescue of Annette; would
help and comfort her in her trying and difficult
moment. But Lucie, like many wives, does not
know her husband ; she does not know that a man
who is so hide-bound by statutes and codes cannot
have human compassion, and that he will not stand
by the little girl who has committed the " unpar-
donable sin." Lucie does not know, but she is
soon to learn the truth.
Lucie. I tell you Annette is the victim of this wretch.
If you are going to do nothing but insult her, we had
better stop discussing the matter.
Brtgnac, I am in a nice fix now! There is nothing
left for us but to pack our trunks and be off. I am done
for. Ruined! Smashed! I tell you if she was caught
red handed stealing, the wreck wouldn't be more complete.
. . . We must make some excuse. We will invent an
aunt or cousin who has invited her to stay. I will find a
decent house for her in Paris to go to. Shell be all right
there. When the time comes she can put the child out
to nurse in the country, and come back to us.
Lucie, You seriously propose to send that poor child
to Paris, where she doesn't know a soul?
Brignac. What do you mean by that? I will go to
Paris myself, if necessary. There are special boarding
1 68 Brieux
houses: very respectable ones. FU inquire: of course
without letting out that it is for anyone I know. And
I'll pay what is necessary. What more can you want?
Lucie. Just when the child is most in need of every
care, you propose to send her off alone; alone, do you un-
derstand, alone! To tear her away from here, put her
into a train, and send her off to Paris, like a sick animal
you want to get rid of. If I consented to that I should
feel that I was as bad as the man who seduced her. Be
honest, Julien: remember it is in our interest you pro-
pose to sacrifice her. We shall gain peace and quiet at
the price of her loneliness and despair. To save our-
selves — serious troubles, I admit -^ we are to abandon
this child to strangers . . . away from all love and care
and comfort, without a friend to put kind arms around
her and let her sob her grief away. I implore you,
Julien, I entreat you, for our children's sake, don't keep
me from her, don't ask me to do this shameful thing.
Brignac. There would have been no question of mis-
ery if she had behaved herself.
Lucie. She is this man's victim! But she won't go.
You'll have to drive her out as you drove out the serv-
ant. . . . And then — after that — she is to let her child
go; to stifle her strongest instinct; to silence the cry of
love that consoles us all for the tortures we have to go
through ; to turn away her eyes and say, " Take him away,
I don't want him." And at that price she is to be
forgiven for another person's crime. . . . Then that is
Society's welcome to the new born child?
Brignac. To the child bom outside of marriage, yes.
If it wasn't for that, there would soon be nothing but
Maternity 169
illegitimate births. It is to preserve the family that
society condemns the natural child.
Lucie. You say you want a larger number of births,
and at the same time you say to women : " No mother-
hood without marriage, and no marriage without money."
As long as you've not changed that, all your circulars will
be met with shouts of derision — half from hate, half
from pity. ... If you drive Annette out, I shall go with
her.
Lucie and Annette go out into the world. As
middle-class girls they have been taught a little
of everything and not much of anything. They
try all kinds of work to enable them to make a
living, but though they toil hard and long hours,
they barely earn enough for a meager existence.
As long as Annette's condition Is not noticeable,
life is bearable; but soon everybody remarks her
state. She and Lucie are driven from place to
place. In her despair Annette does what many
girls in her position have done before her and will
do after her so long as the Brignacs and their
morality are dominant. She visits a midwife, and
one more victim is added to the large number
slaughtered upon the altar of morality.
The last act Is In the court room. Mme.
Thomas, the midwife, is on trial for criminal
abortion. With her are a number of women
whose names have been found on her register.
Bit by bit we learn the whole tragedy of each of
170 Brieux
the defendants ; we see all the sordidness of pov-
erty, the inability to procure the bare necessities of
life, and the dread of the unwelcome child.
A schoolmistress, although earning: a few hun-
dred francs, and living with her husband, is com-
pelled to have an abortion performed because an-
other child would mean hunger for all of them.
Schoolmistress. We just managed to get along by
being most careful; and several times we cut down ex-
penses it did not seem possible to cut down. A third
child coming upset everything. We couldn't have lived.
We should have all starved. Besides, the inspectors and
directresses don't like us to have many children, espe-
cially if we nurse them ourselves. They told me to hide
myself when I was suckling the last one. I only had ten
minutes to do it in, at the recreation, at ten o'clock and
at two o'clock ; and when my mother brought baby to me
I had to shut myself up with him in a dark closet.
The couple Tupin stand before the bar to de-
fend themselves against the charge of criminal
abortion. Tupin has been out of work for a long
time and is driven by misery to drink. He is
known to the police as a disreputable character.
One of his sons is serving a sentence for theft,
and a daughter Is a woman of the streets. But
Tupin is a thinking man. He proves that his
earnings at best are not enough to supply the
needs of an already large family. The daily
nourishment of five children consists of a four-
Maternity 171
pound loaf, soup of vegetables and dripping, and
a stew which costs 90 centimes. Total, 3f. 75c.
This Is the expenditure of the father: Return
ticket for tram, 30c. Tobacco, 15c. Dinner,
I f. 25 c. The rent, 3 oof. Clothing for the whole
family, and boots : 1 6 pairs of boots for the chil-
dren at 4f. 50c. each, 4 for the parents at 8f.,
total again 30of. Total for the year, 2,6oof.
Tupin, who is an exceptional workman, earns i6of.
a month, that is to say, 2,1 oof. a year. There is
therefore an annual deficit of 50of., provided
Tupin keeps at work all the time, which never
happens in the life of a workingman. Under such
circumstances no one need be surprised that one of
his children is imprisoned for theft, and the other
is walking the streets, while Tupin himself Is
driven to drink.
Tupin. When we began to get short in the house, my
wife and I started to quarrel. Every time a child came
we were mad at making it worse for the others. And
so ... I ended up in the saloon. It's warm there, and
you can't hear the children crying nor the mother com-
plaining. And besides, when you have drink in you, you
forget. . . . And that's how we got poorer and poorer.
My fault, if you like. . . . Our last child was a cripple.
He was born in starvation, and his mother was worn out.
And they nursed him, and they nursed him, and they
nursed him. They did not leave him a minute. They
made him live in spite of himself. And they let the other
172 Brieux
children — the strong ones — go to the bad. With half
the money and the fuss they wasted on the cripple, they
could have made fine fellows of all the others.
Mme, Tupin. I have to add that all this is not my
fault. My husband and I worked like beasts; we did
without every kind of pleasure to try and bring up our
children. If we had wanted to slave more, I declare to
you we couldn't have done it. And now that we have
given our lives for them, the oldest is in hospital, ruined
and done for because he worked in " a dangerous trade "
as they call it. . . . There are too many people in the
world. . . . My little girl had to choose between starva-
tion and the street. . . . Fm only a poor woman, and I
know what it means to have nothing to eat, so I forgave
her.
Thus Mme. Tupin also understands that it is
a crime to add one more victim to those who are
born ill and for whom society has no place.
Then Lucie faces the court, — Lucie who loved
her sister too well, and who, driven by the same
conditions that killed Annette, has also been
compelled to undergo an abortion rather than have
a fourth child by the man she did not love any
more. Like the Schoolmistress and the Tupins,
she is dragged before the bar of justice to explain
her crime, while her husband, who had forced
both Annette and Lucie out of the house, has
meanwhile risen to a high position as a supporter
Maternity 173
of the State with his favorite slogan, " Mother-
hood is the highest function of woman."
Finally the midwife Thomas is called upon for
her defense.
Thomas. A girl came to me one day; she was a serv- *,
ant. She had been seduced by her master. I refused to 1
do what she asked me to do: she went and drowned her- j
self. Another I refused to help was brought up before \
you here for infanticide. Then when the others came, I
said, " Yes." I have prevented many a suicide and many !
a crime.
It is not likely that the venerable judge, the
State's attorney or the gentlemen of the jury can
see in Mme. Thomas a greater benefactress to
society than they; any more than they can grasp
the deep importance of the concluding words of
the counsel for the defense in this great social trag-
edy.
Counsel for the Defense, Their crime is not an indi-
vidual crime; it is a social crime. ... It is not a crime
against nature. It is a revolt against nature. And w^ith
all the warmth of a heart melted by pity, with all the
indignation of my outraged reason, I look for that glori-
ous hour of liberation when some master mind shall dis-
cover for us the means of having only the children we
need and desire, release forever from the prison of hypoc-
risy and absolve us from the profanation of love. That
would indeed be a conquest of nature — savage nature —
174 Brieux
which pours out life with culpable profusion, and sees it
disappear with indifference.
Surely there can be no doubt as to the revolu-
tionary significance of " Maternity " : the demand
that woman must be given means to prevent con-
ception of undesired and unloved children; that
she must become free and strong to choose the
father of her child and to decide the number of
children she is to bring into the world, and under
what conditions. That is the only kind of mother-
hood which can endure.
THE ENGLISH DRAMA
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
** "^ AM not an ordinary playwright in general
practice. I am a specialist in immoral and
heretical plays. My reputation has been
gained by my persistent struggle to force
the public to reconsider its morals. In particular,
I regard much current morality as to economic and
sexual relations as disastrously wrong; and I regard
certain doctrines of the Christian religion as under-
stood in England to-day with abhorrence. I write
plays with the deliberate object of converting the
nation to my opinions in these matters."
This confession of faith should leave no doubt
as to the place of George Bernard Shaw in modern
dramatic art. Yet, strange to say, he is among the
most doubted of his time. That is partly due to
the fact that humor generally serves merely to
amuse, touching only the lighter side of life. But
there is a kind of humor that fills laughter with
tears, a humor that eats into the soul like acid, leav-
ing marks often deeper than those made by the
tragic form.
There is another reason why Shaw's sincerity is
regarded lightly : it is to be found in the difference
X75
176 George Bernard Shaw
of his scope as propagandist and as artist. As the
propagandist Shaw is limited, dogmatic, and set.
Indeed, the most zealous Puritan could not be more
antagonistic to social theories differing from his
own. But the artist, if he is sincere at all, must go
to life as the source of his inspiration, and life is
beyond dogmas, beyond the House of Commons,
beyond even the '* eternal and irrevocable law " of
the materialistic conception of history. If, then,
the Socialist propagandist Shaw is often lost in the
artist Shaw, it is not because he lacks sincerity, but
because life will not be curtailed.
It may be contended that Shaw is much more the
propagandist than the artist because he paints in
loud colors. But that is rather because of the in-
dolence of the human mind, especially of the An-
glo-Saxon mind, which has settled down snugly to
the self-satisfied notion of its purity, justice, and
charity, so that naught but the strongest current of
light will make it wince. In " Mrs. Warren's Pro-
fession " and ** Major Barbara," George Ber-
nard Shaw has accomplished even more. He has
pulled off the mask of purity and Christian kind-
ness that we may see their hidden viciousness at
work.
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION
Mrs. Warren is engaged in a profession which
has existed through all the ages. It was at home
Mrs. Warren's Profession 177
in Egypt, played an important role in Greece and
Rome, formed one of the influential guilds in the
Middle Ages, and has been one of the main sources
of income for the Christian Church.
But it was left to modern times to make of Mrs.
Warren's profession a tremendous social factor,
ministering to the needs of man in every station of
life, from the brownstone mansion to the hovel,
from the highest official to the poorest drag.
Time was when the Mrs. Warrens were looked
upon as possessed by the devil, — lewd, depraved
creatures who would not, even if they had the
choice, engage in any other profession, because
they are vicious at heart, and should therefore be
held up to condemnation and obloquy. And
while we continue to drive them from pillar to
post, while we still punish them as criminals and
deny them the simplest humanities one gives even
to the dumb beast, the light turned on this subject
by men like George Bernard Shaw has helped to
expose the lie of inherent evil tendencies and nat-
ural depravity. Instead we learn :
Mrs. Warren, Do you think I did what I did be-
cause I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn't rather
have gone to college and been a lady if Fd had the
chance? . . . Oh, it's easy to talk, very easy, isn't it?
Here ! — , Would you like to know what my circum-
stances were? D'you know what your gran'mother was?
No, you don't. I do. She called herself a widow and
178 George Bernard Shaw
had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept her-
self and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sis-
ters : that was me and Liz ; and we were both good look-
ing and well made. I suppose our father was a well fed
man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don't
know. The other two were only half sisters — under-
sized, ugly, starved, hard working, honest poor creatures:
Liz and I would have half murdered them if mother
hadn't half murdered us to keep our hands off them.
They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they
get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them
worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for
nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning.
She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed;
but she died. The other was always held up to us as a
model because she married a Government laborer in the
Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the
three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week
— until he took to drink. That was worth being re-
spectable for, wasn't it?
Vivie, Did you and your sister think so?
Mrs, Warren. Liz didn't, I can tell you; she had
more spirit. We both went to a Church School — that
was part of the lady-like airs we gave ourselves to be
superior to the children that knew nothing and went no-
where — and we stayed there until Liz went out one
night and never came back. I knew the schoolmistress
thought I'd soon follow her example; for the clergyman
was always warning me that Lizzie 'd end by jumping
off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all that he
knew about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead
Mrs. Warren's Profession 179
factory than I was of the river; and so would you have
been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as
a scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they
sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress;
and then I went to the bar at Waterloo Station — four-
teen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for
four shillings a week and my board. That was consid-
ered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched
night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself
awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but
Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with
a lot of sovereigns in her purse.
Vivie, My aunt Lizzie?
Mrs, Warren, Yes. . . . She's living down at Win-
chester, now, close to the cathedral, one of the most re-
spectable ladies there — chaperones girls at the country
ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You
remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business
woman — saved money from the beginning — never let
herself look too like what she was — never lost her head
or threw away a chance. When she saw Fd grown up
good-looking she said to me across the bar: "What are
you doing there, you little fool? Wearing out your
health and your appearance for other people's profit ! "
Liz was saving money then to take a house for herself
in Brussels: and she thought we two could save faster
than one. So she lent me some money and gave me a
start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and
then went into business with her as her partner. Why
shouldn't I have done it? The house in Brussels was
real high class — a much better place for a woman to
i8o George Bernard Shaw
be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned.
None of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in
the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo
bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them
and become a worn-out old drudge before I was forty?
. . . Yes, saving money. But where can a woman get the
money to save in any other business? Could you save
out of four shillings a week and keep yourself dressed
as well? Not you. Of course, if you're a plain woman
and can't earn anything more: or if you have a turn for
music, or the stage, or newspaper writing: that's diiler-
ent. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things :
all we had was our appearance and our turn for pleas-
ing men. Do you think we were such fools as to let
other people trade in our good looks by employing us as
shop-girls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could
trade in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of
starvation wages? Not likely. . . . Everybody dislikes
having to work and make money; but they have to do it
all the same. I'm sure I've often pitied a poor girl, tired
out and in low spirits, having to try to please some man
that she doesn't care two straws for — some half-drunken
fool that thinks he's making himself agreeable when he's
teasing and worrying and disgusting a woman so that
hardly any money could pay her for putting up with it.
But she has to bear vdth disagreeables and take the rough
with the smooth, just like a nurse in a hospital or any-
one else. It's not work that any woman would do for
pleasure, goodness knows; though to hear the pious peo-
ple talk you would suppose it was a bed of roses. Of
course it's worth while to a poor girl, if she can resist
Mrs. Warren's Profession l8i
temptation and is good looking and well-conducted and
sensible. It*s far better than any other employment open
to her. I always thought that oughtn't to be. It can't
be right, Vivie, that there shouldn't be better opportu-
nities for women. I stick to that: It's wrong. But it's
so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the best of it.
But, of course, it's not worth while for a lady. If you
took to it you'd be a fool; but I should have been a fool
if Fd taken to anything else. . . . Why am I independ-
ent and able to give my daughter a first-rate education,
when other women that had just as good opportunities
are in the gutter? Because I always knew how to re-
spect myself and control myself. Why is Liz looked up
to in a cathedral town? The same reason. Where
would we be now if we'd minded the clergyman's foolish-
ness? Scrubbing floors for one and sixpence a day and
nothing to look forward to but the workhouse infirmary.
Don't you be led astray by people who don't know the
world, my girl. The only way for a woman to provide
for herself decently is for her to be good to some man
that can afford to be good to her. If she's in his own
station of life, let her make him marry her; but if she's
far beneath him, she can't expect it — why should she?
It wouldn't be for her own happiness. Ask any lady in
London society that has daughters ; and she'll tell you the
same, except that I tell you straight and she'll tell you
crooked. That's all the difference. . . • It's only good
manners to be ashamed of it ; it's expected from a woman.
Women have to pretend a great deal that they don't feel.
Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the truth
about it. She used to say that when every woman would
1 82 George Bernard Shaw
learn enough from what was going on in the world before
her eyes, there was no need to talk about it to her. But
then Liz was such a perfect lady! She had the true in-
stinct of It; while I was always a bit of a vulgarian. I
used to be so pleased when you sent me your photographs
to see that you were growing up like Liz ; youVe just her
lady-like determined way. But I can*t stand saying one
thing when everyone knows I mean another. What's the
use in such hypocrisy? If people arrange the world that
way for women, there's no use pretending that it's ar-
ranged the other way. I never was a bit ashamed really.
I consider that I had a right to be proud that we man-
aged everything so respectably, and never had a word
against us, and that the girls were so well taken care of.
Some of them did very well: one of them married an
ambassador. But of course now I daren't talk about
such things: whatever would they think of us.
No, it IS not respectable to talk about these
things, because respectability cannot face the
truth. Yet everybody knows that the majority
of women, *' if they wish to provide for them-
selves decently must be good to some man that
can afford to be good to them." The only differ-
ence then between Sister Liz, the respectable girl,
and Mrs. Warren, is hypocrisy and legal sanc-
tion. Sister Liz uses her money to buy back her
reputation from the Church and Society. The re-
spectable girl uses the sanction of the Church to
buy a decent income legitimately, and Mrs, Witr-
Mrs. Warren^s Profession 183
ren plays her game without the sanction of either.
Hence she is the greatest criminal in the eyes of
the world. Yet Mrs. Warren is no less human
than most other women. In fact, as far as her
love for her daughter Vivian is concerned, she is
a superior sort of mother. That her daughter
may not have to face the same alternative as she,
— slave in a scullery for four shillings a week —
Mrs. Warren surrounds the girl with comfort
and ease, gives her an education, and thereby es-
tablishes between her child and herself an abyss
which nothing can bridge. Few respectable
mothers would do as much for their daughters.
However, Mrs. Warren remains the outcast,
while all those who benefit by her profession, in-
cluding even her daughter Vivian^ move in the
best circles.
Sir John Crofts, Mrs. Warren's business part-
ner, who has invested 40,000 pounds in Mrs.
Warren^ s house, drawing an income of 35 per
cent, out of it in the worst years, is a recognized
pillar of society and an honored member of his
class. Why not 1
Crofts. The fact is, it's not what would be considered
exactly a high-class business in my set — the county set,
you know. . . • Not that there is any mystery about it:
don't think that. Of course you know by your mother's
being in it that it's perfectly straight and honest. I've
known her for many years; and I can say of her that
184 George Bernard Shaw
she'd cut off her hands sooner than touch anything that
was not what it ought to be. . • . But you see you can't
mention such things in society. Once let out the word
hotel and everybody says you keep a public-house. You
wouldn't like people to say that of your mother, would
you? That's why we're so reserved about it. . . . Don't
turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would
your Newnhams and Girtons be without it? . . . You
wouldn't refuse the acquaintance of my mother's cousin,
the Duke of Belgravia, because some of the rents he gets
are earned in queer ways. You wouldn't cut the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiasti-
cal Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners
among their tenants? Do you remember your Crofts
scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by
my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent, out of a
factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting
wages enough to live on. How d' ye suppose most of
them manage? Ask your mother. And do you expect
me to turn my back on 35 per cent, when all the rest are
pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such
fool! If you're going to pick and choose your acquaint-
ances on moral principles, you'd better clear out of this
country, unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent
society. . . . The world isn't such a bad place as the
croakers make out. So long as you don't fly openly in
the face of society, society doesn't ask any inconvenient
questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads
who do. There are no secrets better kept than the
secrets that everybody guesses. In the society I can in-
troduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget
Mrs. Warren's Profession 185
themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your
mother's.
Indeed, no lady or gentleman would discuss the
profession of Mrs. Warren and her confreres.
But they partake of the dividends. When the
evil becomes too crying, they engage in vice cru-
sades, and call down the wrath of the Lord and
the brutality of the police upon the Mrs. Warrens
and her victims. While the victimlzers, the
Crofts, the Canterburys, Rev. Gardner —
Fivian's own father and pious mouthpiece of the
Church — and the other patrons of Mrs. War-
ren's houses parade as the protectors of woman,
the home and the family.
To-day no one of the least intelligence denies
the cruelty, the injustice, the outrage of such a
state of affairs, any more than it is being denied
that the training of woman as a sex commodity
has left her any other source of income except to
sell herself to one man within marriage or to many
men outside of marriage. Only bigots and inex-
perienced girls like Vivian can say that " every-
body has some choice. The poorest girl alive
may not be able to choose between being Queen of
England or Principal of Newnham; but she can
choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, ac-
cording to her taste."
It Is astonishing how little education and col-
lege degrees teach people. Had Vivian been
1 86 George Bernard Shaw
compelled to shift for herself, she would have dis-
covered that neither rag-picking nor flower-sell-
ing brings enough to satisfy one's " taste." It is
not a question of choice, but of necessity, which
is the determining factor in most people's lives.
When Shaw flung Mrs. Warren into the smug
midst of society, even the educated Vivians knew
little of the compelling force which whips thou-
sands of women into prostitution. As to the
ignorant, their minds are a mental and spiritual
desert. Naturally the play caused consternation.
It still continues to serve as the red rag to the so-
cial bull. '* Mrs. Warren's Profession " infu-
riates because it goes to the bottom of our evils;
because it places the accusing finger upon the
sorest and most damnable spot in our social fabric
— SEX as woman's only commodity in the competi-
tive market of life. " An immoral and heretical
play," indeed, of very deep social significance.
MAJOR BARBARA
" Major Barbara " is of still greater social
importance, inasmuch as it points to the fact that
while charity and religion are supposed to minis-
ter to the poor, both institutions derive their main
revenue from the poor by the perpetuation of the
evils both pretend to fight.
Major Barbara, the daughter of the world re-
Major Barbara 187
nowned cannon manufacturer Undershaft, has
joined die Salvation Army. The latter lays claim
to being the most humane religious institution, be-
cause — unlike other soul savers — it does not en-
tirely forget the needs of the body. It also
teaches that the greater the sinner the more glor-
ious the saving. But as no one is quite as black
as he is painted, it becomes necessary for those
who want to be saved, and incidentally to profit by
the Salvation Army, to invent sins — the blacker
the better.
Rummy, What am I to do? I can't starve. Them
Salvation lasses is dear girls; but the better you are the
worse they likes to think you were before they rescued
you. Why shouldn't they 'av' a bit o' credit, poor loves ?
They're worn to rags by their work. And where would
they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on we're
no worse than other people? You know what ladies
and gentlemen are.
Price. Thievin' swine! . . . We're companions in
misfortune, Rummy. . . .
Rummy. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major
Barbara?
Price. No: I come here on my own. I'm goin' to
be Bronterre O'Brien Price, the converted painter. I
know wot they like. I'll tell 'em how I blasphemed and
gambled and wopped my poor old mother —
Rummy. Used you to beat your mother?
Price. Not likely. She used to beat me. No mat-
ter: you come and listen to the converted painter, and
you'll hear how she was a pious woman that taught me
1 88 George Bernard Shaw
mc prayers at *er knee, an' how I used to come home
drunk and drag her out o' bed be *er snoMr-white 'airs,
and lam into 'er with the poker.
Rummy. That's what's so unfair to us women. Your
confessions is just as big lies as ours: you don't tell what
you really done no more than us; but you men can tell
your lies right out at the meetin's and be made much of
for it; while the sort o' confessions we az to make 'as
to be whispered to one lady at a time. It ain't right,
spite of all their piety.
Price. Right! Do you suppose the Army'd be al-
lowed if it went and did right? Not much. It combs
our 'air and makes us good little blokes to be robbed and
plit upon. But I'll play the game as good as any of 'em.
I'll see somebody struck by lightnin', or hear a voice
sayin', "Snobby Price: where will you spend eternity?"
I'll 'ave a time of it, I tell you.
It is inevitable that the Salvation Army, like all
other religious and charitable institutions, should
by its very character foster cowardice and hypoc-
risy as a premium securing entry into heaven.
Major Barbara, being a novice, is as ignorant
of this as she is unaware of the source of the money
which sustains her and the work of the Salva-
tion Army. She consistently refuses to accept
the " conscience sovereign " of Bill Walker for
beating up a Salvation lassie. Not so Mrs.
Baines, the Army Commissioner. She is dyed in
the wool in the profession of begging and will
take money from the devil himself " for the
Major Barbara 189
Glory of God," — the Glory of God which con-
sists in " taking out the anger and bitterness
against the rich from the hearts of the poor," a
service " gratifying and convenient for all large
employers." No wonder the whisky distiller
Bodger makes the generous contribution of 50QO
pounds and Undershaft adds his own little mite
of another 5000.
Barbara is indeed ignorant or she would not
protest against a fact so notorious:
Barbara. Do you know what my father is? Have
you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the
whisky man? Do you remember how we implored the
County Council to stop him from writing Bodger's
Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor
drink-ruined creatures on the embankment could not
wake up from their snatches of sleep without being re-
minded of their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign?
Do you know that the worst thing that I have had to
fight here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger
with his whisky, his distilleries, and his tied houses?
Are you going to make our shelter another tied house, for
him, and ask me to keep it?
Undershaft. My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very
necessary article. It heals the sick — ... It assists the
doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of put-
ting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who
could not endure their existence if they were quite sober.
It enables Parliaipent to dp things at eleven at night
that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
190 George Bernard Shaw
Mrs. Baines, Barbara: Lord Saxmundham gives us I
the money to stop drinking — to take his own business
from him.
Undershaft. I also, Mrs. Baines, may claim a little
disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the
widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces {
with shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite! the oceans of
blood, not one drop of which is shed in a really just
cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants forced,
women and men, to till their fields under the fire of op-
posing armies on pain of starvation ! the bad blood of the |
fierce cowards at home who egg on others to fight for
the gratification of national vanity! All this makes
money for me : I am never richer, never busier than when
the papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach
peace on earth and good will to men. Every convert
you make is a vote against war. Yet I give you this
money to hasten my own commercial ruin.
Barbara. Drunkenness and Murder! My God, why
hast thou forsaked me?
However, Barbara's indignation does not last
very long, any more than that of her aristocratic
mother, Lady Britomart, who has no use for her
plebeian husband except when she needs his
money. Similarly Stephen, her son, has become
converted, like Barbara, not to the Glory Halle-
lujah of the Salvation Army but to the power
of money and cannon. Likewise the rest of the
family, including the Greek Scholar Cusins, Bat'
bora's suitor.
Major Barbara 191
During the visit to their father's factory the
Undershaft family makes several discoveries.
They learn that the best modern method of ac-
cumulating a large fortune consists in organizing
industries in such a manner as to make the work-
ers content with their slavery. It's a model fac-
tory.
Undershaft. It is a spotlessly clean and beautiful hill-
side town. There are two chapels: a Primitive one and
a sophisticated one. There's even an ethical society; but
It is not much patronized, as my men are all strongly'
religious. In the high explosives sheds they object to the
presence of agnostics as unsafe.
The family further learns that it is not high
moral precepts, patriotic love of country, or sim-
ilar sentiments that are the backbone of the life
of the nation. It is Undershaft again who en-
lightens them of the power of money and its role
in dictating governmental policies, making war or
peace, and shaping the destinies of man.
Undershaft, The government of your country. / am
the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. Do
you suppose that you and a half a dozen amateurs like
you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can
govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you
will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits
us, and keep peace when it doesn't. You will find out
that trade requires certain measures when we have de-
192 George Bernard Shaw
cided on those measures. When I want anything to
keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is
a national need. When other people want something to
keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and
military. And in return you shall have the support and
applause of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining
that you are a great statesman. Government of your
country! Be off with you, my boy, and play with your
caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great
leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys.
I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper
and call the tune. . . . To give arms to all men who
offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons
or principles: to Aristocrat and Republican, to Nihilist
and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and
Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man, white
man, and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all na-
tionalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and all crimes.
... I will take an order from a good man as cheerfully
as from a bad one. If you good people prefer preaching
and shirking to buying my weapons and fighting the ras-
cals, don't blame me. I can make cannons: I cannot
make courage and conviction.
That is just It. The Undershafts cannot make
conviction and courage; yet both are indispens-
able if one is to see that, in the words of Under-
shaft:
" Cleanliness and respectability do not need justifica-
tion : they justify themselves. There are millions of poor
people, abject people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed
Major Barbara 193
people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill
the happiness of society: they force us to do away with
our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for
fear they should rise against us and drag us down into
their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty,
I had rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be
a murderer than a slave. I don't want to be either; but
if you force the alternative on me, then, by Heaven, I'll
choose the braver and more moral one. I hate poverty
and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever."
Cusins, the scientist, realizes the force of Un-
dershaffs argument. Long enough have the
people been preached at, and intellectual power
used to enslave them.
Cusins. As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual
man weapons against the common man. I now want to
give the common man weapons against the intellectual
man. I love the common people. I want to arm them
against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary
man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who,
once in authority, are the most dangerous, disastrous, and
tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors.
This thought is perhaps the most revolutionary
sentiment in the whole play, in view of the fact
that the people everywhere are enslaved by the
awe of the lawyer, the professor, and the poli-
tician, even more than by the club and gun. It is
the lawyer and the politician who poison the
194 George Bernard SHaw
people with " the germ of briefs and politics,"
thereby unfitting them for the only effective course
in the great social struggle — action, resultant
from the realization that poverty and inequality
never have been, never can be, preached or voted
out of existence.
«
Undershaft. Poverty and slavery have stood up for
centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they will
not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them ;
don't reason with them. Kill them.
Barbara, Killing. Is that your remedy for every-
thing?
Undershaft. It is the final test of conviction, the only
lever strong enough to overturn a social system, the only
way (5f saying Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools
loose in the street; and three policemen can scatter them.
But huddle them together in a certain house in West-
minster; and let them go through certain ceremonies and
call themselves certain names until at last they get the
courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools
become a government. Your pious mob fills up ballot
papers and imagines it is governing its masters; but the
ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a
bullet wrapped up in it. . . • Vote! Bah! When you
vote you only change the names of the cabinet. When
you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new
epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that his-
torically true, Mr. Learned Man, or is it not?
Cusins, It is historically true. I loathe having to
admit it. I repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your
Major Barbara 195
nature. I defy you in every possible way. Still, it is
true. But it ought not to be true.
Vndershaft. Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought!
Are you going to spend your life saying ought, like the
rest of our moralists? Turn your oughts into shells,
man. Come and make explosives with me. The history
of the world is the history of those who had the courage
to embrace this truth.
" Major Barbara " is one of the most revolu-
tionary plays. In any other but dramatic form
the sentiments uttered therein would have con-
demned the author to long imprisonment for in-
citing to sedition and violence.
Shaw the Fabian would be the first to repudiate
such utterances as rank Anarchy, " impractical,
brain cracked and criminal." But Shaw the
dramatist is closer to life — closer to reality,
closer to the historic truth that the people wrest
only as much liberty as they have the intelligence
to want and the courage to take.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
THE power of the modern drama as an
interpreter of the pressing questions of
our time is perhaps nowhere evident
as clearly as it is in England to-day.
Indeed, while other countries have come al-
most to a standstill in dramatic art, England is the
most productive at the present time. Nor can it
be said that quantity has been achieved at the ex-
pense of quality, which is only too often the case.
The most prolific English dramatist, John
Galsworthy, is at the same time a great arrist
whose dramatic quality can be compared with that
of only one other living writer, namely, Gerhart
Hauptmann. Galsworthy, even as Hauptmann, is
neither a propagandist nor a moralist. His
background is life, " that palpitating life," which
is the root of all sorrow and joy.
His attitude toward dramatic art is given in
the following words :
" I look upon the stage as the great beacon li^t
of civilization, but the drama should lead the so-
cial thought of the time and not direct or dictate it.
" The great duty of the dramatist is to present
life as it really is. A true story, if told sincere ly,
' X96
Strife 197
i s the strongest moral argument that can be put on
the stage. It is the business of the dramatist so
to present the characters in his picture of life that
the inherent moral is brought to light without any
lecturing on his part.
" Moral c odes in themselves are, after all, not
lasting, but a true picture of life is. A man may
preach a strong lesson in a play which may exist
for a day, but if he succeeds in presenting real life
itself in such a manner as to carry with it a certain
moral inspiration, the force of the message need
never be lost, for a new interpretation to fit the
spirit of the time can renew its vigor and power." 1
John Galsworthy has undoubtedly succeeded in
presenting real life. It is this that makes him so
thoroughly human and universal.
S TRIFE
Not since Hauptmann's " Weavers " was
placed before the thoughtful public, has there ap-
peared anything more stirring than *' Strife."
Its theme is a strike in the Trenartha Tin
Plate Works, on the borders of England and
Wales. The play largely centers about the two
dominant figures : John Anthony, the President of
the Company, rigid, autocratic and uncompromis-
ing; he is unwilling to make the slightest conces-
sion, although the men have been out for six
198 John Galsworthy
months and are in a condition of semi-starvation.
On the other hand there is David Roberts, an un-
compromising revolutionist, whose devotion to
the workers and the cause of freedom is at red-
white heat. Between them are the strikers, worn
and weary with the terrible struggle, driven and
tortured by the awful sight of poverty at home.
At a directors' meeting, attended by the Com-
pany's representatives from London, Edgar An-
thony, the President's son and a man of kindly
feeling, pleads in behalf of the strikers.
Edgar. I don't see how we can get over it that to go
on like this means starvation to the men's wives and fam-
ilies ... It won't kill the shareholders to miss a divi-
dend or two; I don't see that thafs reason enough for
knuckling under.
Wilder, H'm! Shouldn't be a bit surprised if that
brute Roberts hadn't got us down here with the very
same idea. I hate a man with a grievance.
Edgar, We didn't pay him enough for his discovery.
I always said that at the time.
Wilder. We paid him five hundred and a bonus of
two hundred three years later. If that's not enough!
What does he want, for goodness' sake?
Tench. Company made a hundred thousand out of his
brains, and paid him seven hundred — that's the way he
goes on, sir.
Wilder. The man's a rank agitator 1 Look here, I
hate the Unions. But now we've got Harness here let's
get him to settle the whole thing.
Strife 199
Harness, the trade union official, speaks in
favor of compromise. In the beginning of the
strike the union had withdrawn its support, be-
cause the workers had used their own judgment in
deciding to strike.
Harness. I'm quite frank with you. We were forced
to withhold our support from your men because some of
their demands are in excess of current rates . I expect to
make them withdraw those demands to-day. , . . Now, I
want to see something fixed upon before I go back to-
night. Can't we have done with this old-fashioned tug-
of-war business? What good's it doing you? Why
don't you recognize once for all that these people are
men like yourselves, and want what's good for them just
as you want what's good for you. . . . There's just one
very simple question I'd like to put to you. Will you pay
your men one penny more than they force you to pay
them?
Of course not. With trade unionism lacking
in true solidarity, and the workers not conscious
of their power, why should the Company pay one
penny more ? David Roberts is the only one who
fully understands the situation.
Roberts. Justice from Ix)ndon? What are you talk-
ing about, Henry Thomas? Have you gone silly? Wc
know very well what we are — discontented dogjs —
never satisfied. What did the Chairman tell me up in
London ? That I didn't know what I was talking about.
I was a foolish, uneducated man, that knew nothing of
zoo John Galsworthy
the wants of the men I spoke for. ... I have this to
say — and first as to their condition. . . . Ye can*t
squeeze them any more. Every man of us is well nigh
starving. Ye wonder why I tell ye that? Every man
of us is going short. We can't be no worse off than
we've been these weeks past. Ye needn't think that by
waiting yc'll drive us to come in. We'll die first, the
whole lot of us. The men have sent for ye to know,
once and for all, whether ye are going to grant them tfieir
demands. ... Ye know best whether ye can afford your
tyranny — but this I tell ye: If ye think the men will
give way the least part of an inch, ye're making the worst
mistake ye ever made. Ye think because the Union is
not supporting us — more shame to it! — that we'll be
coming on our knees to you one fine morning. Ye think
because the men have got their wives an' families to
think of — that it's just a question of a week or
two-
...
The appalling state of the strikers is dem-
onstrated by the women : Anna Roberts, sick with
heart trouble and slowly dying for want of
warmth and nourishment; Mrs. Rous, so accus-
tomed to privation that her present poverty seems
easy compared with the misery of her whole life.
Into this dismal environment comes Enid, the
President's daughter, with delicacies and jams for
Annie. Like many women of her station she im-
agines that a little sympathy will bridge the chasm
between the classes, or as her father says, " You
Strife 20I
think with your gloved hands you can cure the
troubles of the century."
Enid does not know the life of Annie Roberts'
class: that it is all a gamble from the " time 'e 's
born to the time 'e dies."
Mrs, Roberts, Roberts says workin' folk have al-
ways lived from hand to mouth. Sixpence to-day is
worth more than a shillin' to-morrow, that's what they
say. . . . He says that when a working man's baby is
bom, It's a toss-up from breath to breath whether it ever
draws another, and so on all 'is life; an' when he comes
to be old, it's the workhouse or the grave. He says that
without a man is very near, and pinches and stints 'imself
and 'is children to save, there can be neither surplus nor
security. That's why he wouldn't have no children, not
though I wanted them.
The strik ers* meeting is a masterly study of
mass psychology, — the men swayed hither and
thither by the different speakers and not knowing
whither to go. It is the smooth-tongued Harness
who first weakens their determination to hold out.
Harness. Cut your demands to the right pattern, and
we'll see you through; refuse, and don't expect me to
waste my time coming down here again. I'm not the
sort that speaks at random, as you ought to know by
this time. If you're the sound men I take you for — no
matter who advises you against it — you'll make up your
minds to come in, and trust to us to get your terms*
202 John Galsworthy
Which is It to be? Hands together, and victory — or —
the starvation you've got now?
Then Old Thomas appeals to their religious
sentiments :
Thomas. It iss not London; it iss not the Union —
it iss Nature. It iss no disgrace whateffer to a potty to
give in to Nature. For this Nature iss a fery pig thing;
it is pigger than what a man is. There is more years to
my hett than to the hett of anyone here. It is a man's
pisness to pe pure, honest, just, and merciful. That's
what Chapel tells you. . . . We're going the roat to
tamnation. An' so I say to all of you. If ye co against
Chapel I will not pe with you, nor will any other Got-
fearing man.
At last Roberts makes his plea, Roberts who
has given his all — brain, heart and blood — aye,
sacrificed even his wife to the cause. By sheer
force of eloquence and sincerity he stays his fickle
comrades long enough at least to listen to him,
though they are too broken to rise to his great dig-
nity and courage.
Roberts. You don't want to hear me then? You'll
listen to Rous and to that old man, but not to me. You'll
listen to Sim Harness of the Union that's treated you so
fair; maybe you'll listen to those men from London. . . .
You love their feet on your necks, don't you? . . . Am
I a liar, a coward, a traitor? If only I were, ye'd listen
to me, I'm sure. Is there a man of you here who has
Strife 203
less to gain by striking? Is there a man of you that had
more to lose? Is there a man among you who has given
up eight hundred pounds since this trouble began?
Come, now, is there? How much has Thomas given up
— ten pounds or five or what? You listened to him,
and what had he to say? " None can pretend," he said,
" that Tm not a believer in principle — but when Nature
says : * No further,' *tes going against Nature ! " I
tell you if a man cannot say to Nature : " Budge me from
this if ye can ! " — his principles are but his belly. " Oh,
but," Thomas says, " a man can be pure and honest, just
and merciful, and take off his hat to Nature." I tell you
Nature's neither pure nor honest, just nor merciful. You
chaps that live over the hill, an' go home dead beat in the
dark on a snowy night — don't ye fight your way every
inch of it? Do ye go lyin* down an* trustin* to the ten-
der mercies of this merciful Nature? Try it and you'll
soon know with what ye've got to deal. 'Tes only by
that {he strikes a blow with his clenched fist) in Nature's
face that a man can be a man. " Give in," says Thomas ;
" go down on your knees; throw up your foolish fight, an'
perhaps," he said, " perhaps your enemy will chuck you
down a crust." . . . And what did he say about Chapel?
"Chapel's against it," he said. " She's . against it."
Well, if Chapel and Nature go hand in hand, it's the
first I've ever heard of it. Surrendering's the work of
cowards and traitors. . . . You've felt the pinch o't in
your bellies. You've forgotten what that fight 'as been;
many times I have told you; I will tell you now this
once again. The fight o' the country's body and blood
against a blood-sucker. The fight of those that spend
SS>-
204 John Galsworthy
themselves with every blow they strike and every breath
they draw, against a thing that fattens on them, and
grows and grows by the law of merciful Nature. That
thing is Capital! A thing that buys the sweat o' men's
brows, and the tortures o' their brains, at its own price.
Don't I know that? Wasn't the work o' my brains
bought for seven hundred pounds, and hasn't one hun-
dred thousand pounds been gained them by that seven
hundred without the stirring of a finger. It is a thing
that will take as much and give you as little as it can.
That's Capital! A thing that will say — "I'm very
sorry for you, poor fellows — you have a cruel time of it,
I know," but will not give one sixpence of its dividends
to help you have a better time. That's Capital! Tell
me, for all their talk, is there one of them that will con-
sent to another penny on the Income Tax to help the
poor? That's Capital! A white-faced, stony-hearted
monster! Ye have got it on its knees; are ye to give up
at the last minute to save your miserable bodies pain?
When I went this morning to those old men from Lon-
don, I looked into their very 'earts. One of them was
sitting there — Mr. Scantlebury, a mass of flesh nour-
ished on us: sittin' there for all the world like the share-
holders in this Company, that sit not moving tongue nor
finger, takin' dividends — a great dumb ox that can only
be roused when its food is threatened. I looked into his
eyes and I saw he was afraid — afraid for himself and
his dividends, afraid for his fees, afraid of the very share-
holders he stands for ; and all but one of them's afraid —
like children that get into a wood at night, and start at
every rustle of the leaves. I ask you, men — give me a
Strife 205
free hand to tell them : " Go you back to London. The
men have nothing for you ! " Give me that, and I swear
to you, within a week you shall have from London all
you want. 'Tis not for this little moment of time we're
fighting, not for ourselves, our own little bodies, and their
wants, 'tis for all those that come after throughout all
time. Oh! men — for the love o' them, don't roll up
another stone upon their heads, don't help to blacken the
sky, an' let the bitter sea in over them. They're welcome
to the worst that can happen to me, to the worst that can
happen to us all, aren't they — aren't they? If we can
shake the white-faced monster with the bloody lips, that
has sucked the life out of ourselves, our wives, and chil-
dren, since the world began. If we have not the hearts
of men to stand against it breast to breast, and eye to eye,
and force it backward till it cry for mercy, it will go
on sucking life; and we shall stay forever what we are,
less than the very dogs.
Consistency is the greatest crime of our com-
mercial age. No matter how intense the spirit or
how important the man, the moment he will not
allow himself to be used or sell his principles, he
is thrown on the dust heap. Such is the fate of
Anthony, the President of the Company, and of
David Roberts. To be sure they represent oppo-
site poles — poles antagonistic to each other,
poles divided by a terrible gap that can never be
bridged over. Yet they share a common fate.
Anthony is the embodiment of conservatism, of
old ideas, of iron methods :
206 John Galsworthy
Anthony. I have been Chairman of this Ccmipany
since its inception two and thirty years ago. ... I have
had to do with ** men " for fifty years ; I've alwa3rs stood
up to them ; I have never been beaten yet. I have fought
the men of this Company four times, and four times I
have beaten them. . . . The men have been treated
justly, they have had fair wages, we have alwa3rs been
ready to listen to complaints. It has been said that times
have changed; if they have, I have not changed with
them. Neither will I. It has been said that masters
and men are equal ! Cant ! There can only be one mas-
ter in a house! Where two men meet the better man
will rule. It has been said that Capital and Labor have
the same interests. Cant! Their interests are as wide
asunder as the poles. It has been said that the Board is
only part of a machine. Cant! We are the machine;
its brains and sinews ; it is for us to lead and to determine
what is to be done; and to do it without fear or favor.
Fear of the men! Fear of the shareholders! Fear of
our own shadows! Before I am like that, I hope to die.
There is only one way of treating " men " — with the
iron hand. This half-and-half business, the half-and-half
manners of this generation, has brought all this upon us.
Sentiments and softness and what this young man, no
doubt, would call his social policy. You can't eat cake
and have it! This middle<lass sentiment, or socialism,
or whatever it may be, is rotten. Masters are masters,
men are men! Yield one demand, and they will make
it six. They are like Oliver Twist, asking for more.
If I were in their place I should be the same. But I am
not in their place. . • • I have been accused of being t
Strife 207
domineering t3rrant, thinking only of my pride — I am
thinking of the future of this country, threatened with
the black waters of confusion, threatened with mob gov-
ernment, threatened with what I cannot say. If by any
conduct of mine I help to bring this on us, I shall be
ashamed to look my fellows in the face. Before I put
this amendment to the Board, I have one more word to
say. If it is carried, it means that we shall fail in what
we set ourselves to do. It means that we shall fail in
the duty that we owe to all Capital. It means that we
shall fail in the duty that we owe ourselves.
We may not like this adherence to old, reaction-
ary notions, and yet there is something admirable
in the courage and consistency of this man; nor
is he half as dangerous to the interests of the op-
pressed as our sentimental and soft reformers who
rob with n ine fingers, and give libraries with the
tenth ; who grind human beings and spend millions
of dollars in social research work. Anthony is a
worthy foe ; to fight such a foe, one must learn to
meet him in open battle.
David Roberts has all the mental and moral at-
tributes of his adversary, coupled with the spirit
of revolt and the inspiration of modem ideas.
He, too, is consistent: he wants nothing for his
class short of complete victory.
It is inevitable that compromise and petty in-
terest should triumph until the masses become im-
bued with the spirit of a David Roberts. Will
2o8 John Galsworthy
they ever? Prophecy is not the vocation of the
dramatist, yet the moral lesson is evident. One
cannot help realizing that the workingmen will
have to use methods hitherto unfamiliar to them;
; that they will have to discard the elements in their
1 midst that are forever seeking to reconcile the ir-
1 reconcilable — Capital and Labor. They will
have to learn that men like David Roberts are the
very forces that have revolutionized the world and
thus paved the way for emancipation out of the
clutches of the '* white-faced monster with bloody
lips," toward a brighter horizon, a freer life, and a
truer recognition of human values.
JUSTICE
No subject of equal social import has received
such thoughtful consideration in recent years as
the question of Crime and Punishment. A num-
ber of books by able writers, both in Europe and
this country — preeminently among them *' Prison
Memoirs of an Anarchist," by Alexander Berk-
man — discuss this topic from the historic, psycho-
logic, and social standpoint, the consensus of opin-
ion being that present penal institutions and our
methods of coping with crime have in every re-
spect proved inadequate as well as wasteful.
This new attitude toward one of the gravest so-
Justice 209
cial wrongs has now also found dramatic interpre-
tation in Galsworthy's " Justice."
The play opens in the ofSce of James How &f
Sons, solicitors. The senior clerk, Robert Coke-
son, discovers that a check he had issued for nine
pounds has been forged to ninety. By elimina-
tion, suspicion falls upon William Falder, the
junior office clerk. The latter is in love with a
married woman, the abused and ill-treated wife of
a brutal drunkard. Pressed by his employer, a
severe yet not unkindly man, Falder confesses the
forgery, pleading the dire necessity of his sweet-
heart, Ruth Honeywill, witl^ whom he had planned
to escape to save her from the unbearable bru-
tality of her husband.
Falder. Oh! sir, look over it! V\\ pay the money
back — I will, I promise.
Notwithstanding the entreaties of young Walter
How, who holds modern ideas, his father, a
moral and law-respecting citizen, turns Falder
over to the police.
The second act, in the court room, shows Justice
in the very process of manufacture. The scene
equals in dramatic power and psychologic verity
the great court scene in ** Resurrection." Young
Falder, a nervous and rather weakly youth of
twenty-three, stands before the bar. Ruth, his
2IO John Galsworthy
faithful sweetheart, full of love and devotion,
burns with anxiety to save the young man, whose
affection for her has brought about his present pre-
dicament. Falder is defended by Lawyer Frame,
whose speech to the jury is a masterpiece pf social
philosophy. He does not attempt to dispute the
mere fact that his client had altered the check; and
though he pleads temporary aberration in his de-
fense, the argument is based on a social conscious-
ness as fundamental and all-embracing as the roots
of our social ills — " the background of life, that
palpitating life which always lies behind the com-
mission of a crime." He shows Falder to have
faced the alternative of seeing the beloved woman
murdered by her brutal husband^ whom she can-
not divorce, or of taking the law into his own
hands. He pleads with the jury not to turn the
weak young man into a criminal by condemning
him to prison.
Frome, Men like the prisoner are destroyed daily
under our law for want of that human insight which sees
them as they are, patients, and not criminals. . . . Justice
is a machine that, when someone has given it a starting
push, rolls on of itself. ... Is this young man to be
ground to pieces under this machine for an act which, at
the worst, was one of weakness ? Is he to become a mem-
ber of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred
ships called prisons? ... I urge you, gentlemen, do not
ruin this young man. For as a result of those four min-
Justice 211
utes, ruin, utter and irretrievable, stares him in the face.
. . . The rolling of the chariot wheels of Justice over
this boy began when it was decided to prosecute him.
But the chariot of Justice rolls mercilessly on,
for — as the learned Judge says —
" Your counsel has made an attempt to trace your of-
fense back to what he seems to suggest is a defect in the
marriage law; he has made an attempt also to show that
to punish you with further imprisonment would be un-
just. I do not follow him in these flights. The Law is
what it is — a majestic edifice, sheltering all of us, each
stone of which rests on another. I am concerned only
with its administration. The crime you have committed
is a very serious one. I cannot feel it in accordance with
my duty to Society to exercise the powers I have in your
favor. You will go to penal servitude for three years.*'
In prison the young, inexperienced convict soon
finds himself the victim of the terrible '* system."
The authorities admit that young Falder is men-
tally and physically " in bad shape," but nothing
can be done in the matter: many others are in a
similar position, and " the quarters are inade-
quate."
The third scene of the third act is heart-gripping
In its silent force. The whole scene is a panto-
mime, taking place in Falder^ s prison cell.
*' In fast-falling daylight, Falder, in his stock-
ings, is seen standing motionless, with his head in-
212 John Galsworthy
cUned towards the door, listening. He moves a
little closer to the door, his stockinged feet making
no noise. He stops at the door. He is trying
harder and harder to hear something, any little
thing that is going on outside. He springs sud-
denly upright — as if at a sound — and remains
perfectly motionless. Then, with a heavy sigh,
he moves to his work, and stands looking at it,
with his head down ; he does a stitch or two, hav-
ing the air of a man so lost in sadness that each
stitch is, as it were, a coming to life. Then, turn-
ing abruptly, he begins pacing his cell, moving his
head, like an animal pacing its cage. He stops
again at the door, listens, and, placing the palms
of his hands against it, with his fingers spread out,
leans his forehead against the iron. Turning
from it, presently, he moves slowly back towards
the window, tracing his way with his finger along
the top line of the distemper that runs round
the wall. He stops under the window, and, pick-
ing up the lid of one of the tins, peers into it. It
has grown very nearly dark. Suddenly the lid
falls out of his hand with a clatter — the only
sound that has broken the silence — and he stands
Staring intently at the wall where the stuff of the
shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness — he
seems to be seeing somebody or something there.
There is a sharp tap and click; the cell light be-
hind the glass screen has been turned up. The
Justice 213
cell is brightly lighted. Falder is seen gasping
for breath.
** A sound from far away, as of distant, dull
beating on thick metal, is suddenly audible. Falder
shrinks back, not able to bear this sudden clamor.
But the sounds grows, as though some great tum-
bril were rolling towards the cell. And gradu-
ally it seems to hypnotize him. He begins creep-
ing inch by inch nearer to the door. The banging
sound, traveling from cell to cell, draws closer
and closer; Falder^ s hands are seen moving as if
his spirit had already joined in this beating; and
the sound swells until it seems to have entered the
very cell. He suddenly raises his clenched fists.
** Panting violently, he flings himself at his door,
and beats on it."
Falder leaves the prison, a broken ticket-of-
leave man, the stamp of the convict upon his brow,
the iron of misery in his soul.
Falder. I seem to be struggling against a thing that's
all round me. I can't explain it: it's as if I was in a
net; as fast as I cut it here, it grows up there. I didn't
act as I ought to have, about references; but what are
you to do? You must have them. And that made me
afraid, and I left. In fact, I'm — I'm afraid all the time
now.
Thanks to Ruth's pleading, the firm of James
How &? Son is willing to take Falder back in their
214 John Galsworthy
employ, on condition that he give up Ruth. Fal
der resents this :
Folder. I couldn't give her up. I couldn't! Oh,
sir! I'm all she's got to look to. And I'm sure she's all
I've got.
It is then that Falder learns the awful news that
the woman he loves had been driven by the chariot
wheel of Justice to sell herself.
Ruth. I tried making skirts . . . cheap things. It
was the best I could get, but I never made more than ten
shillings a week, buying my own cotton and working all
day; I hardly ever got to bed till past twelve. I kept at
it for nine months. ... It was starvation for the chil-
dren. . . . And then ... my employer happened — he's
happened ever since.
At this terrible psychologic moment the police
appear to drag Falder back to prison for failing
to report to the authorities as ticket-of-leave man.
Completely overcome by the inexorability of his
fate, Falder throws himself down the stairs, break-
ing his neck.
The socio-revolutionary significance of ** Jus-
tice " consists not only in the portrayal of the in-
human system which grinds the Falders and
Honeywills, but even more so in the utter helpless-
ness of society as expressed in the words of the
Senior Clerk, Cokeson, ** No one'U touch him
The Pigeon 215
now! Never again! He's safe with gentle
Jesus!''
THE PIGEON
John Galsworthy calls this play a fantasy.
To me it seems cruelly real: it demonstrates that
the best human material is crushed in the fatal
imechanism of our life. " The Pigeon " also dis-
closes to us the inadequacy of charity, individual
and organized, to cope with poverty, as well as the
absurdity of reformers and experimenters who at-
tempt to patch up effects while they ignore the
causes.
Christopher Wellwyn, an artist, a man deeply
in sympathy with all human sorrow and failings,
generously shares his meager means with everyone
who applies to him for help.
His daughter Ann is of a more practical turn
of mind. She cannot understand that giving is
as natural and necessary to her father as light and
air; indeed, the greatest joy in life.
Perhaps Ann is actuated by anxiety for her
father who is so utterly " hopeless " that he would
give away his ** last pair of trousers." From her
point of view ** people who beg are rotters ": de-
cent folk would not stoop to begging. But Chris-
topher fFellwyn's heart is too full of humanity to
admit of such a straight-laced attitude. " We're
2i6 John Galsworthy
not all the same. . . . One likes to be friendly.
What's the use of being alive if one isn't? "
Unfortunately most people are not alive to the
tragedies around them. They are often unthinking
mechanisms, mere tabulating machines, like Alfred
Calway, the Professor, who believes that " we're
to give the State all we can spare, to make the
undeserving deserving." Or as Sir Hoxton, the
Justice of the Peace, who insists that " we ought to
support private organizations for helping the de-
serving, and damn the undeserving." Finally
there is the Canon who religiously seeks the mid-
dle road and " wants a little of both."
When Ann concludes that her father is the de-
spair of all social reformers, she is but expressing
a great truism ; namely, that social reform is a cold
and bloodless thing that can find no place in the
glowing humanity of Christopher Wellwyn.
It is Christmas Eve, the birth of Him who came
to proclaim " Peace on earth, good will to all."
Christopher Wellwyn is about to retire when he is
disturbed by a knock on the door.
The snow-covered, frost-pinched figure of
Guinevere Megan appears. She is a flower-seller
to whom Wellwyn had once given his card that
she might find him In case of need. She comes to
him when the rest of the world has passed her by,
The Pigeon 217
forlorn and almost as dead as her violets which no
one cares to buy.
At sight of her misery Wellwyn forgets his
daughter's practical admonition and his promise
to her not to be '' a fool." He treats the flower-
seller tenderly, makes her warm and comfortable.
He has barely time to show Guinevere into his
model's room, when another knock is heard.
This time it is Ferrand, " an alien," a globe trot-
ter without means, — a tramp whom Wellwyn had
once met in the Champs-Elysees. Without food
for days and unable to endure the cold, Ferrand
too comes to the artist.
Ferrand. If I had not found you, Monsieur — I
would have been a little hole in the river to-night — I
was so discouraged. . . . And to think that in a few min-
utes He will be born! . . . The world would reproach
you for your goodness to me. Monsieur, if He himself
were on earth now, there would be a little heap of gen-
tlemen writing to the journals every day to call him
sloppee sentimentalist! And what is veree funny, these
gentlemen they would all be most strong Christians.
But that will not trouble you. Monsieur; I saw well
from the first that you are no Christian. You have so *
kind a face.
Ferrand has deeper insight into the character of
Christopher JVellwyn than his daughter. He
knows that the artist would not judge nor could he
2i8 John Galsworthy
refuse one whom misery stares in the face. Even
the third visitor of fFellwyn, the old cabman Tim -
son, with more whisky than bread in his stomach,
receives the same generous reception as the other
two.
The next day Ann calls a council of war. The
learned Professor, Alfred Calway; the wise judge,
Sir Thomas Hoxton; and the professional Chris-
tian, Edward Bertley — the Canon — are sum-
moned to decide the fate of the three outcasts.
There are few scenes in dramatic literature so
rich in satire, so deep in the power of analysis as
the one in which these eminent gentlemen discuss
human destiny. Ca non Bertley is emphatic that it
is necessary to " remove the temptation and re-
form the husband of the flower-seller."
Bertley. Now, what is to be done?
Mrs, Megan, I could get an unfurnished room, if I'd
the money to furnish it.
Bertley, Never mind the money. What I want to
find in you is repentance.
Those who are engaged in saving souls cannot
be interested in such trifles as money matters, nor
to understand the simple truth that if the Megans
did not have to bother with making a " livin',"
repentance would take care of itself.
The other two gentlemen are more worldly,
since law and science cannot experiment with
The Pigeon 219
such elusive things as the soul. Professor Calway
opines that Timson is a congenital case, to be put
under observation, while Judge Hoxton decides
that he must be sent to prison.
Calway. Is it, do you think, chronic unemployment
with a vagrant tendency? Or would it be nearer the
mark to say: Vagrancy — Dipsomaniac? ... By the
look of his face, as far as one can see it, I should say
there was a leaning towards mania. I know the treat-
ment.
Hoxton, Hundreds of these fellows before me in my
time. The only thing is a sharp lesson!
Calway. I disagree. I've seen the man; what he re-
quires is steady control, and the Dobbins treatment.
Hoxton. Not a bit of it ! He wants one for his knob !
Bracing him up! It's the only thing!
Calway. You're moving backwards, Sir Thomas.
I've told you before, convinced reactionaryism, in these
days — The merest sense of continuity — a simple instinct
for order —
Hoxton. The only way to get order, sir, is to bring
the disorderly up with a round turn. You people with-
out practical experience —
Calway. The question is a much wider one. Sir
Thomas.
Hoxton. No, sir, I repeat, if the country once com-
mits itself to your views of reform, it's as good as doomed.
Calway, I seem to have heard that before. Sir
Thomas. And let me say at once that your hitty-missy
cart-load of bricks regime —
220 John Galsworthy
Hoxton, Is a deuced sight better, sir, than your grand-
motherly methods. What the old fello\*^ wants is a
shock! With all this socialistic molly-coddling, you're
losing sight of the individual.
Calway, You, sir, with your " devil take the hind-
most," have never seen him.
The farce ends by each one insisting on the su-
periority of his own pet theory, while misery con-
tinues to stalk white-faced through the streets.
Three months later Ann determines to rescue
her father from his disreputable proclivities by
removing with him to a part of the city where their
address will remain unknown to his beggar friends
and acquaintances.
While their belongings are being removed,
Canon Bertley relates the trouble he had with
Mrs. Megan.
Bertley, I consulted with Calway and he advised me
to try a certain institution. We got her safely in —
excellent place; but, d'you know, she broke out three
weeks ago. And since — IVe heard — hopeless, Fm
afraid — quite! . . . Fm sometimes tempted to believe
there's nothing for some of these poor folk but to pray
for death.
Wellwyn, The Professor said he felt there was noth-
ing for some of these poor devils but a lethal chamber.
What is science for if not to advise a lethal
chamber? It's the easiest way to dispose of " the
The Pigeon 221
unfit " and to supply learned professors with the
means of comfortable livelihood.
Yet there is Ferrand, the vagabond, the social
outcast who has never seen the inside of a uni-
versity, propounding a philosophy which very few
professors even dream of:
Ferrand, While I was on the road this time I fell ill
of a fever. It seemed to me in my illness that I saw the
truth — how I was wasting in this world — I would
never be good for anyone — nor anyone for me — all
would go by, and I never of it — fame, and fortune, and
peace, even the necessities of life, ever mocking me. And
I saw, so plain, that I should be vagabond all my days,
and my days short ; I dying in the end the death of a dog.
I saw it all in my fever — clear as that flame — there
was nothing for us others, but the herb of death. And
so I wished to die. I told no one of my fever. I lay out
on the ground — it was verree cold. But they would
not let me die on the roads of their parishes — They
took me to an Institution. I looked in their eyes while
I lay there, and I saw more clear than the blue heaven
that they thought it best that I should die, although they
would not let me. Then naturally my spirit rose, and I
said: " So much the worse for you. I will live a little
more." One is made like that! Life is sweet. That
little girl you had here, Monsieur — in her too there is
something of wild savage. She must have joy of life.
I have seen her since I came back. She has embraced
the life of joy. It is not quite the same thing. She is
lost. Monsieur, as a stone that sinks in water. I can
222 John GalsworiKy
sec, if she cannot. • . . For the great part of mankind,
to see anything — is fatal. No, Monsieur. To be so
near to death has done me good ; I shall not lack courage
any more till the wind blows on my grave. Since I saw
you, Monsieur, I have been in three Institutions. They
are palaces. . . . One little thing they lack — those pal-
aces. It is understanding of the 'uman heart. In them
tame birds pluck wild birds naked. Ah! Monsieur, I
am loafer, waster — what you like — for all that, pov-
erty is my only crime. If I were rich, should I not be
simply verree original, 'ighly respected, ^vith soul above
commerce, traveling to see the world? And that young
girl, would she not be " that charming ladee," " verec
chic, you know ! " And the old Tims — good old-fash-
ioned gentleman — drinking his liquor well. Eh! bien
— what are we now? Dark beasts, despised by alL
That is life. Monsieur. Monsieur, it is just that. You
understand. When we are with you we feel something
— here — If I had one prayer to make, it would be,
" Good God, give me to understand ! " Those sirs, with
their theories, they can clean our skins and chain our
'abits — that soothes for them the aesthetic sense ; it gives
them too their good little importance. But our spirits
they cannot touch, for they nevare understand. Without
that. Monsieur, all is dry as a parched skin of orange.
Monsieur, of their industry I say nothing. They do a
good work while they attend with their theories to the
sick and the tame old, and the good unfortunate deserv-
ing. Above all to the little children. But, Monsieur,
when all is done, there are always us hopeless ones.
What can they do with me. Monsieur, with that girl, or
The Pigeon 223
wnth that old man? Ah! Monsieur, wc too, 'ave our
qualities, we others — it wants you courage to undertake
a career like mine, or like that young girl's. We wild
ones — we know a thousand times more of life than ever
will those sirs. They waste their time trying to make
rooks white. Be kind to us if you will, or let us alone
like Mees Ann, but do not try to change our skins.
Leave us to live, or leave us to die when we like in the
free air. If you do not wish of us, you have but to shut
your pockets and your doors — we shall die the faster.
... If you cannot, how is it our fault? The harm we
do to others — is it so much? If I am criminal, dan-
gerous — shut me up! I would not pity myself —
nevare. But we in whom something moves — like that
flame. Monsieur, that cannot keep still — we others —
we are not many — that must have motion in our lives,
do not let them make us prisoners, with their theories,
because we are not like them — it is life itself they would
enclose! . . . The good God made me so that I would
rather walk a whole month of nights, hungry, with the
stars, than sit one single day making round business on
an office stool! It is not to my advantage. I cannot
help it that I am a vagabond. What would you have?
It is stronger than me. Monsieur, I say to you things
I have never said. Monsieur! Are you really English?
The English are so civilized.
Truly the English are highly ** civilized "; else
it would be impossible to explain why of all the na-
tions on • earth, the Anglo-Saxons should be the
only ones to punish attempts at suicide.
224 John Galsworthy
Society makes no provision whatever for the
Timsons, the Ferrands and Mrs. Megans. It has
closed the door in their face, denying them a seat
at the table of life. Yet when Guinevere Megan
attempts to drown herself, a benevolent constable
drags her out and a Christian Judge sends her to
the workhouse.
Constable, Well, sir, we can't gpt over the facts, can
we ? . . . You know what soocide amounts to — it's an
awkward job.
Wellwyn, But look here, Constable, as a reasonable
man — This poor wretched little girl — you know what
that life means better than anyone! Why! It's to her
credit to try and jump out of it!
Constable. Can't neglect me duty, sir; that's impos-
sible.
Wellwyn. Of all the d d topsy-turvy — ! Not
a soul in the world wants her alive — and now she is to
be prosecuted for trying to go where everyone wishes her.
Is it necessary to dwell on the revolutionary sig-
nificance of this cruel reality? It is so all-embrac-
ing in its sweep, so penetrating of the topsy-tur-
viness of our civilization, with all its cant and arti-
fice, so powerful in its condemnation of our cheap
theories and cold institutionalism which freezes the
soul and destroys the best and finest in our being.
The Wellwyns, Ferrands, and Megans are the stuff
out of which a real humanity might be fashioned.
They feel the needs of their fellows, and what-
The Pigeon 225
ever is in their power to give, they give as nature »
does, unreservedly. But the Hoxtons, Calways
and Bertleys have turned the world into a dismal :
prison and mankind into monotonous, gray, dull
shadows.
The professors, judges, and preachers cannot
meet the situation. Neither can Wellwyn, to be
sure. And yet his very understanding of the dif-
ferentiation of human nature, and his sympathy
with the inevitable reaction of conditions upon it,
bring the Wellwyns much closer to the solution
of our evils than all the Hoxtons, Calways and
Bertleys put together. This deep conception of
social factors is in itself perhaps the most signifi-
cant lesson taught in ** The Pigeon."
STANLEY HOUGHTON
HINDLE WAKES
IN Stanley Houghton, who died last year
drama lost a talented and brave ai
Brave, because he had the courage to t
one of the most sensitive spots of Purita:
— woman's virtue. Whatever else one may \
cise or attack, the sacredness of virtue must
main untouched. It is the last fetich which <
so-called liberal-minded people refuse to dest
To be sure, the attitude towards this hob
holies has of late years undergone a consider
change. It is beginning to be felt in ever-grov
circles that love is its own justification, requi
no sanction of either religion or law. The rev
tionary idea, however, that woman may, evei
man, follow the urge of her nature, has never
fore been so sincerely and radically expressed.
The message of *' Hindle Wakes '' is therel
of inestimable value, inasmuch as it dispels the
of the silly sentimentalism and disgusting boml
that declares woman a thing apart from nature
one who neither does nor must crave the joys
life permissible to man.
Hindle is a small weaving town, symbolicj
226
Hindle Wakes 227
representing the wakefulness of every small com-
munity to the shortcomings of its neighbors.
Christopher Hawthorne and Nathaniel Jeff cote
had begun life together as lads in the cotton mill.
But while Christopher was always a timid and
shrinking boy, Nathaniel was aggressive and am-
bitious. When the play opens, Christopher,
though an old man, is still a poor weaver; Na-
thaniel, on the contrary, has reached the top of fi-
nancial and social success. He is the owner of the
biggest mill; is wealthy, influential, and withal a
man of power. For Nathaniel Jeff cote always
loved power and social approval. Speaking of
the motor he bought for his only son Alan, he tells
his wife :
Jeff cote. Why did I buy a motor-car? Not because
I wanted to go motoring. I hate it. I bought it so that
people could see Alan driving about in it, and say,
" There's Jeff cote's lad in his new car. It cost five hun-
dred quid."
However, Nathaniel is a " square man," and
when facing an emergency, not chary with jus-
tice and always quick to decide in its favor.
The Jeffcotes center all their hopes on Alan,
their only child, who is to inherit their fortune and
business. Alan is engaged to Beatrice, the lovely,
sweet daughter of Sir Timothy Farrar, and all is
joyous at the Jeffcotes'.
228 Stanley Houghton
Down in the valley of Hindle live the Hav^-
thornes, humble and content, as behooves God-
fearing workers. They too have ambitions in be-
half of their daughter Fanny, strong, willful and
self-reliant, — qualities molded in the hard grind
of Jeffcote's mill, where she had begun work as a
tot.
During the " bank holiday " Fanny with her
chum Mary goes to a neighboring town for an
outing. There they meet two young men, Alan
Jeffcote and his friend. Fanny departs with Alan,
and they spend a glorious time together. On the
way home Mary is drowned. As a result of the
accident the Hawthornes learn that their daughter
had not spent her vacation with Mary. When
Fanny returns, they question her, and though she
at first refuses to give an account of herself,
they soon discover that the girl had passed the
time with a man, — young Alan Jefcote. Her
parents are naturally horrified, and decide to force
the Jef cotes to have Alan marry Fanny.
In the old mother of Fanny the author has suc-
ceeded in giving a most splendid characterization
of the born drudge, hardened by her long struggle
with poverty, and grown shrewd in the ways of the
world. She knows her daughter so little, how-
ever, that she believes Fanny had schemed the af-
fair with Alan in the hope that she might force him
to marry her. In her imagination the old woman
Hindle Wakes 229
already sees Fanny as the mistress of the Jeffcote
estate. She persuades her husband to go immedi-
ately to the Jef cotes, and though it is very late at
night, the old man is forced to start out on his dis-
agreeable errand.
Jeffcote, a man of integrity, is much shocked at
the news brought to him by old Hawthorne,
Nevertheless he will not countenance the wrong.
Jeffcote. ni see you're treated right. Do you hear?
Christopher, I can't ask for more than that.
Jeffcote, rU see you're treated right.
Young Alan had never known responsibility.
Why should he, with so much wealth awaiting
him? When confronted by his father and told
that he must marry Fanny, he fights hard against
it. It may be said, in justice to Alan, that he
really loves his betrothed, Beatrice, though such a
circumstance has never deterred the Alans from
having a lark with another girl.
The young man resents his father's command to
marry the mill girl. But when even Beatrice in-
sists that he belongs to Fanny, Alan unwillingly
consents. Beatrice, a devout Christian, believes
in renunciation.
Beatrice, I do need you, Alan. So much that noth-
ing on earth could make me break off our engagement,
if I felt that it was at all possible to let it go on. But
it isn't. It's impossible.
230 Stanley Houghton
Alan, And you want me to marry Fanny?
Beatrice. Yes. Oh, Alan! can't you see what a
splendid sacrifice you have it in your power to make?
Not only to do the right thing, but to give up so much
in order to do it.
The Jef cotes and the Hawthornes gather to ar-
range the marriage of their children. It does not
occur to them to consult Fanny in the matter.
Much to their consternation, Fanny refuses to
abide by the decision of the family council.
Fanny, It's very good of you. You'll hire the par-
son and get the license and make all the arrangements
on your own* without consulting me, and I shall have
nothing to do save turn up meek as a lamb at the churdi
or registry office or whatever it is. . . . That's just where
you make the mistake. I don't want to marry Alan. . . .
I mean what I say, and Til trouble you to talk to me
without swearing at me. I'm not one of the family yet.
The dismayed parents, and even Alan, plead
with her and threaten. But Fanny Is obdurate.
At last Alan asks to be left alone with her, confi-
dent that he can persuade the girl.
Alan. Look here, Fanny, what's all this nonsense
about? . . . Why won't you marry me?
Fanny. You can't understand a girl not jumping at
you when she gets the chance, can you? . . . How is it
that you aren't going to marry Beatrice Farrar?
Weren't you fond of her?
H in die Wakes 231
Alan, Very. ... I gave her up because my father
made me.
Fanny. Made you? Good Lord, a chap of your age!
Alan. My father's a man who will have his own
way. . . . He can keep me short of brass.
Fanny. Earn some brass.
Alan. I can earn some brass, but it will mean hard
work and it'll take time. And, after all, I shan't earn
anything like what I get now.
Fanny. Then all you want to wed me for is what
you'll get with me? I'm to be given away with a pound
of tea, as it were?
Alan. I know why you won't marry me. . . . You're
doing it for my sake.
Fanny. Don't you kid yourself, my lad! It isn't be-
cause I'm afraid of spoiling your life that I'm refusing
you, but because I'm afraid of spoiling mine! That
didn't occur to you?
Alan. Look here, Fanny, I promise you I'll treat you
fair all the time. You don't need to fear that folk'U
look down on you. We shall have too much money for
that.
Fanny. I can manage all right on twenty-five bob a
week.
Alan. I'm going to fall between two stools. It's all
up with Beatrice, of course. And if you won't have me
I shall have parted from her to no purpose; besides get-
ting kicked out of the house by my father, more than
likely I You said you were fond of me once, but it hasn't
taken you long to alter.
Fanny. All women aren't built alike. Beatrice is
2J2 Stanley Houghton
religious. She'll be sorry for you. I was fond of you
in a way.
Alan. But you didn't ever really love me?
Fanny, Love you? Good heavens, of course not!
Why on earth should I love you? You were just som^
one to have a bit of fun with. You were an amuse-
ment — a lark. How much more did you care for me?
Alan. But it's not the same. I'm a man.
Fanny. You're a man, and I was your little fancy.
Well, I'm a woman, and you were my little fancy. You
wouldn't prevent a woman enjoying herself as well as a
man, if she takes it into her head ?
Alan. But do you mean to say that you didn't care
any more for me than a fellow cares for any girl he hap-
pens to pick up?
Fanny. Yes. Are you shocked?
Alan. It's a bit thick; it is really!
Fanny. You're a beauty to talk!
Alan. It sounds so jolly immoral. I never thought
of a girl looking on a chap just like that! I made sure
you wanted to marry me if you got the chance.
Fanny. No fear! You're not good enough for mc
The chap Fanny Hawthorn weds has got to be made of
different stuff from you, my lad. My husband, if ever
I have one, will be a man, not a fellow who'll throw over
his girl at his father's bidding! Strikes me the sons of
these rich manufacturers are all much alike. They seem
a bit weak in the upper story. It's their father's brass
that's too much for them, happen! . . . You've no call
to be afraid. I'm not going to disgrace you. But so
Hindle Wakes 233
long as I've to live my own life I don't see why I
shouldn't choose what it's to be.
Unheard of, is it not, that a Fanny should re-
fuse to be made a " good woman," and that she
should dare demand the right to live in her own
way? It has always been considered the most
wonderful event in the life of a girl if a young
man of wealth, of position, of station came into
her life and said, " I will take you as my wife until
death do us part."
But a new type of girlhood is in the making.
We are developing the Fannies who learn in the
school of life, the hardest, the cruelest and at the
same time the most vital and instructive school.
Why should Fanny marry a young man in order to
become " good," any more than that he should
marry her in order to become good? Is it not be-
cause we have gone on for centuries believing that
woman's value, her integrity and position in so-
ciety center about her sex and consist only in her
virtue, and that all other usefulness weighs naught
in the balance against her " purity " ? If she dare
express her sex as the Fannies do, we deny her in-
dividual and social worth, and stamp her fallen.
The past of a man is never questioned: no
one inquires how many Fannies have been in his
life. Yet man has the impudence to expect the
Fannies to abstain till he is ready to bestow on
them his name.
234 Stanley Houghton
** Hindle Wakes " is a much needed and impor-
tant social lesson, — not because it necessarily in-
volves the idea that every girl must have sex ex-
perience before she meets the man she loves, but
rather that she has the right to satisfy, if she so
chooses, her emotional and sex demands like any
other need of her mind and body. When the
Fannies become conscious of that right, the rela-
tion of the sexes will lose the shallow romanticism
and artificial exaggeration that mystery has sur-
rounded it with, and assume a wholesome, natural,
and therefore healthy and normal expression.
GITHA SOWERBY
RUTHERFORD AND SON
THE women's rights women who claim
for their sex the most wonderful things
in the way of creative achievement, will
find it difficult to explain the fact that
until the author of " Rutherford and Son " made
her appearance, no country had produced a single
woman dramatist of note.
That is the more remarkable because woman
has since time immemorial been a leading figure in
histrionic art. Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, Elea-
nore Duse, and scores of others have had few male
peers.
It can hardly be that woman is merely a repro-
ducer and not a creator. We have but to recall
such creative artists as Charlotte and Emily
Bronte, George Sand, George Eliot, Mary WoU-
stonecraft, Marie Bashkirtshev, Rosa Bonheur,
Sophia Kovalevskaya and a host of others, to ap-
preciate that woman has been a creative factor in
literature, art and science. Not so in the drama,
so far the stronghold exclusively of men.
It is therefore an event for a woman to come
235
236
Githa Sowerby
to the fore who possesses such dramatic power,
realistic grasp and artistic penetration as evi-
denced by Githa Sowerby.
The circumstance is the more remarkable be-
cause Githa Sowerby is, according to her pub-
lishers, barely out of her teens ; and though she be
a genius, her exceptional maturity is a phenomenon
rarely observed. Generally maturity comes only
with experience and suffering. No one who has
not felt the crushmg weight of the Rutherford
atmosphere could have painted such a vivid and
life-like picture.
The basic theme in " Rutherford and Son " is
not novel. Turgenev, Ibsen and such lesser art-
ists as Sudermann and Stanley Houghton have
dealt with it : the chasm between the old and the
young, — the tragic struggle of parents against
their children, the one frantically holding on, Ae
other recklessly letting go. But " Rutherford
and Son " is more than that. It is a picture of the
paralyzing effect of tradition and institutionalism
on all human life, growth, and change.
John Rutherford, the owner of the firm
" Rutherford and Son," is possessed by the phan-
tom of the past — the thing handed down to hin\
by his father and which he must pass on to his son
with undiminished luster; the thing that has turned
his soul to iron and his heart to stone; the thing
for the sake of which he has never known joy and
Rutherford and Son 237
because of which no one else must know joy, —
** Rutherford and Son."
The crushing weight of this inexorable monster
on Rutherford and his children is significantly
summed up by young John :
John. Have you ever heard of Moloch? No. . . .
Well, Moloch was a sort of a God . . . some time ago,
you know, before Dick and his kind came along. They
built his image with an ugly head ten times the size of
a real head, with great wheels instead of legs, and set him
up in the middle of a great dirty town. And they
thought him a very important person indeed, and made
sacrifices to him . . . human sacrifices ... to keep him
going, you know. Out of every family they set aside one
child to be an ofEering to him when it was big enough, and
at last It became a sort of honor to be dedicated in this
way, so much so, that the victims came themselves gladly
to be crushed out of life under the great wheels. That
was Moloch.
Janet. Dedicated — we are dedicated — all of us —
to Rutherfords*.
Not only the Rutherford children, their with-
ered Aunt Ann, and old Rutherford himself, but
even Martin, the faithful servant in the employ of
the Rutherfords for twenty-five years, is " dedi-
cated," and when he ceases to be of use to their
Moloch, he is turned into a thief and then cast
off, even as Janet and John.
Not love for John, his oldest son, or sympathy
238 Githa Sowerby
with the latter's wife and child induces old Ruihei'
ford to forgive his son's marriage with a mere
shop-girl, but because he needs John to serve the
house of Rutherford. The one inexorable pur-
pose, always and everl
His second son RichMrd, who is in the ministry,
and *' of no use " to old Rutherford* s God of
stone, receives the loving assurance : " You were
no good for my purpose, and there's the end; for
the matter o' that, you might just as well never
ha' been bom."
For that matter, his daughter Janet might also
never have been bom, except that she was " good
enough " to look after her father's house, serve
him, even helping take off his boots, and submitting
without a murmur to the loveless, dismal life in
the Rutherford home. Her father has sternly
kept every suitor away, *' because no one in Grant-
ley's good enough for us." Janet has become
faded, sour and miserable with' yearning for love,
for sunshine and warmth, and when she at last
dares to partake of it secretly with her father's
trusted man Martin, old Rutherford sets his iron
heel upon her love, and drags it through the mud
till it lies dead.
Again, when he faces the spirit of rebellion in
his son John, Rutherford crushes it without the
slightest hesitation in behalf of his one obsession,
his one God — the House of Rutherford.
Rutherford and Son 239
John has made an invention which holds great
possibilities. By means of it he hopes to shake
oflf the deadly grip of the Ruther fords'. He
wants to become a free man and mold a new life
for himself, for his wife and child. He knows his
father will not credit the value of his invention.
He dare not approach him: the Rutherford chil-
dren have been held in dread of their parent too
long.
John turns to Martin, the faithful servant, the
only one in the confidence of Rutherford. John
feels himself safe with Martin. But he does not
know that Martin, too, is dedicated to Moloch,
broken by his twenty-five yeais of service, left
without will, without purpose outside of the
Rutherfords'.
Martin tries to enlist Rutherford's interest in
behalf of John. But the old man decides that
John must turn over his invention to the House of
Rutherford.
Rutherford. What^s your receipt?
John. I want to know where I stand. ... I want
my price.
Rutherford. Your price — your price? Damn your
impudence, sir. ... So that's your line, is it? . . . This
IS what I get for all I've done for you. . . . This is the
result of the schooling I gave you. Fve toiled and
sweated to give you a name you'd be proud to own —
worked early and late, toiled like a dog when other men
240
Githa Sowerby
were taking their ease — plotted and planned to giet no
chance, taken it and held it when it come till I could M
burst with the struggle. Sell I You talk o' selling to bx,
when everything you'll ever make couldn't pay back tk
life I've given to you!
John. Oh, I know, I know. I've been both for fi^t
years. Only I've had no salary.
Rutherford. You've been put to learn your business
like any other young fellow. I began at the bottom -
you've got to do the same. . . . Your father has lived
here, and your grandfather before you. It's your in-
heritance — can't you realize that ? — what you've got to
come to when I'm under ground. We've made it for
you, stone by stone, penny by penny, fighting througlJ
thick and thin for close on a hundred years. . . . It's
what you've got to do — or starve. You're my son —
you've got to come after me.
Janet knows her father better than John; she
knows that '' no one ever stands out against
father for long — or else they get so knocked
about, they don't matter any more." Jane\
knows, and when the moment arrives that brings
her father's blow upon her head, it does not come
as a surprise to her. When old Rutherford dis-
covers her relation with Martin, his indignation is
as characteristic of the man as everything else in
his life. It is not outraged morality or a father's
love. It is always and forever the House of
Rutherford. Moreover, the discovery of the
affair between his daughter and his workman
Rutherford and Son 241
comes at a psychologic moment: Rutherford is
determined to get hold of John's invention — for
the Rutherfords, of course — and now that Mar-
tin has broken faith with his master, his offense
serves an easy pretext for Rutherford to break
faith with Martin. He calls the old servant to his
office and demands the receipt of John's invention,
entrusted to Martin. On the latter*s refusal to
betray John, the master plays on the man's loyalty
to the Rutherfords.
Rutherford. Rutherfords' is going down — down. I
got to pull her up, somehow. There's one way out. . . *
Mr. John's made this metal — a thing, I take your word
for It, that's worth a fortune. And we're going to sit
by and watch him fooling it away — selling it for a song
to Miles or Jarvis, that we could break to-morrow if we
had half a chance. . . . You've got but to put your hand
in your pocket to save the place and you don't do it.
You're with them — you're with the money-grubbing lit-
tle souls that can't see beyond the next shilling they put
in their pockets. . . . When men steal, Martin, they
do it to gain something. If I steal this, what'll I gain
by it? If I make money, what'll I buy with it? Pleas-
ure, maybe?* Children to come after me — glad o' what
I done? Tell me anything in the wide world that'd
bring me joy, and I'll swear to you never to touch it.
. . . If you give it to me what'll you gain by it? Not
a farthing shall you ever have from me — no more than
I get myself.
Martin. And what will Mr. John gpt for it?
242
Githa Sowerby
Rutherford. Rutherfords* — when I'm gone Hcl
thank you in ten years — he'll come to laugh at himseli
— him and his price. He'll see the Big Thing one day,
mebbe, like what I've done. He'll see that it was no
more his than 'twas yours to give nor mine to take. . . •
It's Rutherfords'. • . • Will you give it to me?
Martin. I take shame to be doing it now. • • . He
worked it out along o' me. Every time it changed he
come running to show me like a bairn wi' a new toy.
Rutherford. It's for Rutherfords'. . . .
Rutherfords' ruthlessly marches on. If the
Rutherford purpose does not shrink from corrupt-
ing its most trusted servant, it surely will not bend
before a daughter who has dared, even once in her
life, to assert herself.
Rutherford, How far's it gone?
Janet. Right at first — I made up my mind that if
you ever found out, I'd go right away, to put things
straight. He wanted to tell you at the first. But I knew
that it would be no use. ... It was / said not to tell
you.
Rutherford. Martin . . . that I trusted as I trust
myself.
Janet. You haven't turned him away — you couldn't
do that!
Rutherford. That's my business.
Janet. You couldn't do that . . . not Martin. . . .
Rutherford. Leave it — leave it . • . Martin's my
servant, that I pay wages to. I made a name for my
children — a name respected in all the countryside — and
Rutherford and Son 243
you go with a workingman. . . . To-morrow you leave
my house. D'ye understand? Ill have no light ways
under my roof. No one shall say I winked at it. You
can bide the night. To-morrow when I come in Tm to
find ye gone. . . . Your name shan't be spoken in my
house . . . never again.
Janet. Oh, you've no pity. ... I was thirty-six.
Gone sour. Nobody'd ever come after me. Not even
when I was young. You took care o' that. Half of my
life was gone, well-nigh all of it that mattered. . . .
Martin loves me honest. Don't you come near! Don't
you touch that! . . . You think that I'm sorry you've
found out — you think you've done for me when you use
shameful words on me and turn me out o' your house.
You've let me out o' jail! Whatever happens to me
now, I shan't go on living as I lived here. Whatever
Martin's done, he's taken me from you. You've ruined
my life, you with your getting on. I've loved in wretch-
edness, all the joy I ever had made wicked by the
fear o' you. . . . Who are you? Who are you? A
man — a man that takes power to himself, power to
gather people to him and use them as he wills — a man
that'd take the blood of life itself and put it into the
Works — into Rutherfords'. And what ha' you got by it
— what? You've got Dick, that you've bullied till he's a
fool — John, that's waiting for the time when he can
sell what you've done — and you got me — me to take
your boots off at night — to well-nigh wish you dead
when I had to touch you. . . . Now! . . . Now you
know it!
244 Githa Sowerby
But for the great love in her heart, Janet could
not have found courage to face her father as she
did. But love gives strength ; it instills hope and
faith, and kindles anew the fires of life. Why,
then, should it not be strong enough to break the
fetters of -even Rutherf ords' ? Such a love only
those famished for affection and warmth can feel,
and Janet was famished for life.
Janet. I had a dream — a dream that I was in a place
wi* flowers, in the summer-time, white and thick like they
never grow on the moor — but it was the moor — a place
near Martin's cottage. And I dreamt that he came to
me with the look he had when I was a little lass, with his
head up and the lie gone out of his eyes. All the time
I knew I was on my bed in my room here — but it was
as if sweetness poured into me, spreading and covering
me like the water in the tarn when the rains are heavy
in the fells. . . . That's why I dreamt of him so last
night. It was as if all that was best in me was in that
dream — what I was as a bairn and what I'm going to
be. He couldn't help but love me. It was a message —
I couldn't have thought of it by myself. It's something
that's come to me — here {putting her hands on her
breast). Part of me!
All that lay dormant in Janet now turns into
glowing fire at the touch of Spring. But in
Martin life has been marred, strangled by the iron
hand of Rutherfords*.
Rutherford and Son 245
Martin. Turned away I am, sure enough. Twenty-
five years. And in a minute it's broke. Wi* two words.
Janet. You say that now because your heart's cold
with the trouble. But itll warm again — it'll warm
again. Til warm it out of my own heart, Martin — my
heart that can't be made cold.
Martin. I'd rather ha' died than he turn me away.
I'd ha' lost everything in the world to know that I was
true to 'm, like I was till you looked at me wi' the love
in your face. It was a great love ye gave me — you in
your grand hoose wi' your delicate ways. But it's broke
me.
Janet, But — it's just the same with us. Just the
same as ever it was.
Martin. Aye. But there's no mending, wi' the likes
o' him.
Janet. What's there to mend? What's there to mend
except what's bound you like a slave all the years?
You're free — free for the first time since you were a
lad mebbe. We'll begin again. We'll be happy —
happy. You and me, free in the world! All the time
that's been '11 be just like a dream that's past, a waiting
time afore we found each other — the long winter afore
the flowers come out white and thick on the moors —
Martin. Twenty-five years ago he took me. . . . It's
too long to change. . . . I'll never do his work no more;
but it's like as if he'd be my master just the same —
till I die —
Janet. Listen, Martin. Listen to me. You've
worked all your life for him, ever since you were a little
246 Githa Sowerby
lad. Early and late youVe been at the Works— woA-
ing — working — for him.
Martin, Gladly !
Janet, Now and then he give you a kind word-
when you were wearied out mebbe — and your thougjw
might ha' turned to what other men's lives were, wi
time for rest and pleasure. You didn't see through him,
you wi* your big heart, Martin. You were too ncartt
see, like I was till Mary came. You worked gjaiily
maybe — but all the time your life was going into
Rutherfords' — your manhood into the place he's builL
He's had you, Martin, — like he's had me, and all of us.
We used to say he was hard and ill-tempered. Bad to
do with in the house — we fell silent when he came in
— we couldn't see for the little things, — we couldn't see
the years passing because of the days. And all the time
it was our lives he was taking bit by bit — our lives that
we'll never get back. . . . Now's our chance at last!
He's turned us both away, me as well as you. We two
he's sent out into the world together. Free. He's done
it himself of his own will. It's ours to take, Martin —
our happiness. We'll get it in spite of him. He'd kill
it if he could.
The cruelty of it, that the Rutherfords never
kill with one blow : never so merciful are they. In
their ruthless march they strangle inch by inch,
shed the blood of life drop by drop, until they
have broken the very spirit of man and made him
as helpless and pitiful as Martin, — a trembling
leaf tossed about by the winds.
Rutherford and Son 247
•
A picture of such stirring social and human im-
portance that no one, except he who has reached
the stage of Martin, can escape its effect. Yet
even more significant is the inevitability of the
doom of the Rutherfords as embodied in the wis-
dom of Mary, John's wife.
When her husband steals his father's money —
a very small part indeed compared with what the
father had stolen from him — he leaves the hate-
ful place and Mary remains to face the master.
For the sake of her child she strikes a bargain with
Rutherford.
Mary, A bargain is where one person has something
to sell that another wants to buy. There's no love in it
— only money — money that pays for life. I've got
something to sell that you want to buy.
Rutherford. What's that?
Mary. My son. You've lost everything you've had
in the world. John's gone — and Richard — and Janet.
They won't come back. You're alone now and getting
old, with no one to come after you. When you die
Rutherfords' will be sold — somebody'U buy it and give
It a new name perhaps, and no one will even remember
that you made it. That'll be the end of all your work.
Just — nothing. You've thought of that. . . . It's for
my boy. I want — a chance of life for him — his place
in the world. John can't give him that, because he's
made so. If I went to London and worked my hardest
I'd get twenty-five shillings a week. We've failed.
From you I can get when I want for my boy. I want
248 Githa Sowerby
— all the good common things : a good house, good k
warmth. He's a delicate little thing now, but he'll gi
strong like other children. . . . Give me what I
and in return 111 give you — him. On one condit
I'm to stay on here. I won't trouble you — you nee(
speak to me or see me unless you want to. For ten yi
he's to be absolutely mine, to do what I like with. 1
mustn't interfere — you mustn't tell him to do things
frighten him. He's mine for ten years more.
Rutherford. And after that?
Mary. He'll be yours.
Rutherford. To train up. For Rutherf ords' ?
Mary. Yes.
Rutherford. After all? After Dick, that I've bul:
till he's a fool? John, that's wished me dead?
Mary. In ten years you'll be an old man; you w(
be able to make people afraid of you any more.
When I saw the masterly presentation of
play on the stage, Mary's bargain looked uni
and incongruous. It seemed Impossible to
that a mother who really loves her child she
want It to be In any way connected with the Rut!
fords'. But after repeatedly rereading the pi
I was convinced by Mary's simple statemc
" In ten years you'll be an old man ; you won't
able to make people afraid of you any moi
Most deeply true. The Rutherfords are boi
by time, by the eternal forces of change. Tl
influence on human life is Indeed terrible. ^
Rutherford and Son 249
withstanding it all, however, they are fighting a
losing game. They are growing old, already too
old to make anyone afraid. Change and innova-
tion are marching on, and the Rutherfords must
make place for the young generation knocking at
the gates.
THE IRISH DJIAMA
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
MOST Americans know about the Irisk
people only that they are not averse
to drink, and that they make bnital
policemen and corrupt politicians.
But those who are familiar with the revolutionary
movements of the past are aware of the fortitude
and courage, aye, of the heroism of the Irish,
manifested during their uprisings, and especiaDy
in the Fenian movement — the people's revolt
against political despotism and land robbery.
And though for years Ireland has contributed to
the very worst features of American life, those in-
terested in the fate of its people did not despair;
they knew that the spirit of unrest in Ireland was
not appeased, and that it would make itself felt
again in no uncertain form.
The cultural and rebellious awakening in that
country within the last twenty-five years once more
proves that neither God nor King can for long
suppress the manifestation of the latent possibili-
ties of a people. The possibilities of the Irish
250
The Irish Drama 251
must indeed be great if they could inspire the rich
humor of a Lady Gregory, the deep symbolism of
a Yeats, the poetic fancy of a Synge, and the re-
bellion of a Robinson and Murray.
Only a people unspoiled by the dulling hand
of civilization and free from artifice can retain
such simplicity of faith and remain so imaginative,
so full of fancy and dreams, wild and fiery, which
have kindled the creative spark in the Irish dram-
atists of our time. It is true that the work of only
the younger element among them is of social sig-
nificance, yet all of them have rendered their peo-
ple and the rest of the world a cultural service of
no mean value. William Butler Yeats is among
the latter, together with Synge and Lady Gregory;
his art, though deep In human appeal, has no bear-
ing on the pressing questions of our time. Mr.
Yeats himself would repudiate any implication
of a social character, as he considers such dramas 1
too ** topical " and therefore " half bad " plays.
In view of this attitude. It is difficult to reconcile
his standard bf true art with the repertoire of the
Abbey Theater, which consists mainly of social
dramas. Still more difficult is it to account for his
work, " Where There is Nothing," which is no
less social m Its philosophy and tendency than Ib-
sen's " Brand."
25^ William Butler Yeats
WHERE THERE IS NOTHING
" Where There Is Nothing " is as true an inter-
pretation of the philosophy of Anarchism as could
be given by its best exponents. I say this not out
of any wish to tag Mr. Yeats, but because the ideal
of Paul Ruttledge, the hero of the play, is nothing
less than Anarchism applied to everyday life.
Paul Ruttledge, z man of wealth, comes to the
conclusion, after a long process of development
and growth, that riches are wrong, and that the
life of the propertied is artificial, useless and in-
ane.
Paul Ruttledge. When I hear these people talking I
always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or
quack, as it does in the newspapers. I would like to
have great iron claws, and to put them about the pillars,
and to pull and pull till ever3rthing fell into pieces. . . .
Sometimes I dream I am pulling down my own house,
and sometimes it is the whole world that I am pulling
down. . • . When everything was pulled down we would
have more room to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out
of the cup of life, out of the drunken cup of life.
He decides to give up his position and wealth
and cast his lot in with the tinkers — an element
we in America know as " hoboes," men who tramp
the highways making their living as they go about,
mending kettles and pots, earning an honest penny
without obligation or responsibility to anyone.
Where There Is Nothing 253
jPaul Rutttedge longs for the freedom of the road,
— to sleep under the open sky, to count the stars,
to be free. He throws off all artificial restraint
and is received with open arms by the tinkers.
To identify himself more closely with theif life, he
marries a tinker's daughter — not according to
the rites of State or Church, but in true tinker
fashion — in freedom — bound only by the prom-
ise to be faithful and " not hurt each other."
In honor of the occasion, Paul tenders to his
comrades and the people of the neighborhood a
grand feast, full of the spirit of life's joy, — an out-
pouring of gladness that lasts a whole week.
PauVs brother, his friends, and the authorities
are incensed over the carousal. They demand
that he terminate the " drunken orgy."
Mr. Joyce. This is a disgraceful business, Paul; the
whole countryside is demoralized. There is not a man
who has come to. sensible years who is not drunk.
Mr, Dowler. This is a flagrant violation of all pro-
priety. Society is shaken to its roots. My own serv-
ants have been led astray by the free drinks that are being
given in the village. My butler, who has been with mc
for seven years, has not been seen for the last two days.
Mr, Algie, I endorse his sentiments completely.
There has not been a stroke of work done for the last
week. The hay is lying in ridges where it has been cut,
there is not a man to be found to water the cattle. It is
impossible to get as much as a horse shod in the vil-
lage.
254
William Butler Yeats
Paul Ruttledge. I think you have something to 9}»
Colonel Lawley?
Colonel Lawley. I have undoubtedly. I want ti
know when law and order are to be reestablished. Tk
police have been quite unable to cope vi^ith the disonk
Some of them have themselves got drunk. If my aJvix
had been taken the military would have been called in.
Mr. Green. The military are not indispensabk «
occasions like the present. There are plenty of pofa
coming now. We have wired to Dublin for them, diej
will be here by the four o'clock train.
Paul Ruttledge. But you have not told me what y«
have come here for. Is there anything I can do fa
you?
Mr. Green. We have come to request you to go to tk
public-houses, to stop the free drinks, to send the pcopfc
back to their work. As for those tinkers, the law will
deal with them when the police arrive.
Paul Ruttledge. I wanted to give a little pleasure to
my fellow-creatures.
Mr. Dowler. This seems rather a lovir form of pleas-
ure.
Paul Ruttledge. I daresay it seems to you a little vio-
? lent. But the poor have very few hours in which to en-
joy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they
haven't the time to cook it. Have we not tried sobriety?
Do you like it ? I found it very dull. . . . Think what
I it is to them to have their imagination like a blazing tar
i barrel for a whole week. Work could never bring them
such blessedness as that.
Where There Is Nothing 255
Mr. Dowler, Everyone knows there is no more valua-
ble blessing than work.
Paul Ruttledge decides to put his visitors " on
trial," to let them see themselves as they are in all
their hypocrisy, all their corruption.
He charges die military man, Colonel Lawley,
with calling himself a Christian, yet following the
business of man-killing. The Colonel is forced to
admit that he had ordered his men to fight in a
war, of the justice of which they knew nothing, or
did not believe in, and yet it is ** the doctrine of
your Christian church, of your Catholic church,
that he who fights in an unjust war, knowing it to
be unjust, loses his own soul." Of the rich man
Dowler, Paul Ruttledge demands whether he could
pass through the inside of a finger ring, and on
Paul's attention being called by one of the tinkers
to the fine coat of Mr. Dowler, he tells him to help
himself to it. Threatened by Mr. Green, the
spokesman of the law, with encouraging robbery,
Ruttledge admonishes him.
Ruttledge. Remember the commandment, " Give to '
him that asketh thee " ; and the hard commandment goes
even farther, " Him that taketh thy cloak forbid not to
take thy coat also."
But the worst indictment Ruttledge hurls against
Mr. Green. The other professed Christians kill.
256 William Butler Yeats
murder, do not love their enemies, and do not give
to any man that asks of them. But the Greens,
Ruttledge says, are the worst of all. For the
others break the law of Christ for their own
pleasure, but '* you take pay for breaking it; when
their goods are taken away you condemn the taker;
when they are smitten on one cheek you punish the
smiter. You encourage them in their breaking of
the Law of Christ."
For several years Ruttledge lives the life of the
tinkers. But of weak physique, he finds himself
unable to withstand the rigors of the road. His
health breaks down, and his faithful comrades
carry him to his native town and bring him to a
monastery where Paul is cared for by the priests.
While there he begins to preach a wonderful
gospel, a gospel strange to the friars and the su-
perior, — so rebellious and terrible that he is de-
clared a disenter, a heathen and a dangerous char-
acter.
Paul Ruttledge. Now I can give you the message that
has come to me. . . . Lay down your palm branches b^
fore this altar; you have brought them as a sign that the
walls are beginning to be broken up, that we are going
back to the joy of the green earth. . . . For a long time
after their making men and women wandered here and
there, half blind from the drunkenness of Eternity; they
had not yet forgotten that the green Earth was the Love
of God, and that all Life was the Will of God, and so
Where There Is Nothing 257
they wept and laughed and hated according to the impulse
of their hearts. They gathered the great Earth to their
breasts and their lips, ... in what they believed would
be an eternal kiss. It was then that the temptation be-
gan. The men and women listened to them, and be-
cause when they had lived ... in mother wit and nat-
ural kindness, they sometimes did one another an injury,
they thought that it would be better to be safe than to be
blessed, they made the Laws. The Laws were the first
sin. They were the first mouthful of the apple; the mo-
ment man had made them he began to die; we must put '
out. the Laws as I put out this candle. And when they
had lived amidst the green Earth that is the Love of
God, they were sometimes wetted by the rain, and some-
times cold and hungry, and sometimes alone from one
another; they thought it would be better to be com-
fortable than to be blessed. They began to build big
houses and big towns. They grew wealthy and they sat
chattering at their doors; and the embrace that was to
have been eternal ended. . . . We must put out the
towns as I put out this candle. But that is not all, for
man created a worse thing. . . . Man built up the
Church. We must destroy the Church, we must put it \
out as I put out this candle. . . , We must destroy ^
everything that has Law and Number.
The rebel is driven from the monastery. He is
followed by only two faithful friars, his disciples,
who go among the people to disseminate the new
gospel. But the people fail to understand them.
Immersed in darkness and superstition, they look
258 William Butler Yeats
upon these strange men as evildoers. They ac-
cuse them of casting an evil spell on their cattle
and disturbing the people's peace. The path of
the crusader is thorny, and Colman, the friar di»
ciple of Paul, though faithful for a time, becomes
discouraged in the face of opposition and persecu-
tion. He weakens.
Colman. It's no use stopping vraiting for the wind;
if we have anything to say that's worth the people lis-
tening to, we must bring them to hear it one way or an-
other. Now, it is what I was saying to Aloysius, we
must begin teaching them to make things, they never hd
the chance of any instruction of this sort here. Those
and other things, we got a good training in the old days.
And we'll get a grant from the Technical Board. The
Board pays up to four hundred pounds to some of its
instructors.
Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I understand ; you will sell them.
And what about the dividing of the money? You will
need to make laws about that. Oh, we will grow quite
rich in time.
Colman, We'll build workshops and houses for those
who come to work from a distance, good houses, slated,
not thatched. . . . Thej^ will think so much more of
our teaching when we have got them under our influence
by other things. Of course we will teach them their
meditations, and give them a regular religious life. We
must settle out some little place for them to pray in —
there's a high gable over there where we could hang a
bell —
Where There Is Nothing 259
Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes, I understand. You would
'weave them together like this, you would add one thing
to another, laws and money and church and bells, till you
had got everything back again that you have escaped
from. But it is my business to tear things asunder.
Aloysius, Brother Paul, it is what I am thinking;
now the tinkers have come back to you, you could begin
to gather a sort of an army; you can't fight your battle
without an army. They would call to the other tinkers,
and the tramps and the beggars, and the sieve-makers and
all the wandering people. It would be a great army.
Paul Ruttledge, Yes, that would be a great army, a
great wandering army.
Aloysius. The people would be afraid to refuse us
then ; we would march on —
Paul Ruttledge. We could march on. We could j
march on the towns, and we could break up all settled or-
der ; we could bring back the old joyful, dangerous, indi- •
vidual life. We would have banners. We will have ^
one great banner that will go in front, it will take two
men to carry it, and on it we will have Laughter —
Aloysius. That will be the banner for the front.
We will have different troops, we will have captains to
organize them, to give them orders.
Paul Ruttledge. To organize? That is to bring in
law and number. Organize — organize — that is how
all the mischief has been done. I was forgetting, — we
cannot destroy the world with armies; it is inside our
minds that it must be destroyed.
26o
William Butler Yeats
Deserted, Paul Ruttledge stands alone in b
crusade, like most iconoclasts. Misunderstool
and persecuted, he finally meets his death at k
hands of the infuriated mab.
" Where There Is Nothing " is of great social
significance, deeply revolutionary in the sense that
it carries the message of the destruction of evq
institution — State, Property, and Church— tht
enslaves humanity. For where there is nothinj,
there man begins.
A certain critic characterized this play as i
; " statement of revolt against the despotism of
. facts." Is there a despotism more compelling and
destructive than that of the facts of property, of
the State and Church? But "Where There Is
Nothing " is not merely a ** statement '* of revolt
It embodies the spirit of revolt itself, of that most
constructive revolt which begins with the destruc-
tion of every obstacle in the path of the new life
that is to grow on the debris of the old, when the
paralyzing yoke of institutionalism shall have been
broken, and man left free to enjoy Life and
Laughter.
LENOX ROBINSON
HARVEST
TIMOTHY HURLEY, an old farmer,
slaves all his life and mortgages his farm
in order to enable his children to lead an
idle, parasitic life.
Started on this road toward so-called culture by
the school-master, fVilltam Lordan, Hurley's chil-
dren leave their father's farm and in due time es-
tablish themselves in society as priest, lawyer, sec-
retary and chemist, respectively.
The secretary son is ashamed of his lowly origin
and denies it. The lawyer son is much more con-
cerned with his motor car than with the condition
of the farm that has helped him on his feet. The
priest has departed for America, there to collect
funds for Church work. Only Maurice, the
youngest son of Timothy Hurley, remains at home
as the farm drudge, the typical man with the hoe.
Jack Hurley, the chemist, and Timothy's only
daughter Mary, retain some loyalty to the old
place, but when they return after an absence of
years, they find themselves out of touch with farm
life, and they too turn their back on their native
261
262 Lenox Robinson
heath. Jack Hurley's notion of the country i$
that of most city people : nature is beautiful, die
scenery lovely, so long as it is someone else
has to labor in the scorching sun, to plow and
in the sweat of his brow.
Jack and his wife Mildred are both extremely
romantic about the farm.
Jack. It stands to reason farming must pay enor-
mously. Take a field of oats, for instance; every grain
that's sown gives a huge percentage in return. ... I
don't know exactly how many grains a stalk carries, but
several hundred Fm sure . . . why, there's no invest-
ment in the world would give you a return like that.
But soon they discover that every grain of corn
does not yield hundreds of dollars.
Maurice. You can't have a solicitor, and a priest, and
a chemist in a family without spending money, and for
the last ten years youVe been all drawing money out of
the farm . . . there's no more to drain now. ... Oh,
I suppose you think I'm a bloody fool not to be able to
make it pay; but sure what chance have I and I never
taught how to farm? There was money and education
wanted to make priests and doctors and gentlemen of you
all, and wasn't there money an' education wanted to make
a farmer of me? No; nothing taught me only what I
picked up from my father and the men, and never a bit of
fresh money to put into the farm only it all kept to make
a solicitor of Bob and a chemist of you.
Harvest 263
During Jack's visit to the farm a fire breaks out
and several buildings on the place are destroyed.
Much to the horror of the well-bred Jack, he learns
that his father himself had lit the match in order
to get '* compensation." He sternly upbraids the
old farmer.
Jack, Didn't you see yourself how dishonest it was?
Timothy. Maybe I did, but I saw something more,
and that was that I was on the way to being put out of
the farm.
Jack is outraged; he threatens to inform on his
own people and offers to stay on the farm to help
with the work. But two weeks' experience in the
field beneath the burning sun is more than delicate
Jack can stand. He suffers fainting spells, and
is in the end prevailed upon by his wife to leave.
Mary, old Hurley's daughter, also returns to the
farm for rest and quiet. But she finds no peace
there, for the city is too much in her blood. There
is, moreover, another lure she cannot escape.
Mary, I was too well educated to be a servant, and
I was never happy as one, so to better myself I learned
typing. • . . It's a hard life, Jack, and I soon found out
how hard it was, and I was as dissatisfied as ever. Then
there only seemed one way out of it . . . and he . . .
my employer, I mean. • . . I went into it deliberately
with my eyes open. You sec, a woman I knew chucked
typing and went in for this . • • and I saw what a splen-
264 Lenox Robinson
did time she had, and how happy she Avas — and I was so
miserably unhappy — and how she had everything she
wanted and I had nothing, and . . . and ... But this
life made me unhappy, too, and so in desperation I came
home; but IVe grown too far away from it all, and now
Fm going back. Don't you see, Jack, I'm not happy
here. I thought if I could get home to the farm and the
old simple life it would be all right, but it isn't. Every-
thing jars on me, the roughness and the hard living and
the coarse food — oh, it seems ridiculous — but they make
me physically ill. I always thought, if I could get away
home to Knockmalgloss I could start fair again. . . .
So I came home, and everything is the same^ and every-
one thinks that Fm as pure and innocent as when I went
away, but . . . but . . . But, Jack, the dreadful thing
is I want to go back. . . . Fm longing for that life, and
its excitement and splendor and color.
In her misery and struggle a great faith sus-
tains Mary and keeps her from ruin. It is the
thought of her father, in whom she believes im-
plicitly as her ideal of honesty, strength and incor-
ruptibility. The shock is terrible when she learns
that her father, even her father, has fallen a victim
to the cruel struggle of life, — that her father him-
self set fire to the buildings.
Mary, And I thought he was so simple, so innocent,
so unspoiled! . . . Father, the simple, honest peasant,
the only decent one of us. I cried all last night at the
contrast! His unselfishness, his simplicity, . . . Why,
we're all equally bad now — he and I — we both sell
Harvest 265
ourselves, he for the price of those old houses and I for
a few years of splendor and happiness. • • •
The only one whom life seems to teach nothing
is Schoolmaster Lordan. Oblivious of the stress
and storm of reality, he continues to be enraptured
with education, with culture, with the opportunities
offered by the large cities. He is particularly
proud of the Hurley children.
Lordan. The way you Ve all got on ! I tell you what,
if every boy and girl I ever taught had turned out a fail-
ure I'd feel content and satisfied when I looked at all of
you and saw what I've made of you.
Mary. What you've made of us? I wonder do you
really know what you've made of us?
Lordan, Isn't it easily seen? One with a motor car,
no less. ... It was good, sound seed I sowed long ago
in the little schoolhouse and it's to-day you're all reaping
the harvest.
** Harvest " is a grim picture of civilization in
its especially demoralizing effects upon the people
who spring from the soil. The mock culture and
shallow education which inspire peasant folk with
awe, which lure the children away from home,
only to crush the vitality out of them or to turn
them into cowards and compromisers. The trag-
edy of a civilization that dooms the tillers of the
soil to a dreary monotony of hard toil with little
return, or charms them to destruction with the
266 Lenox Robinson
false glow of city culture and ease ! Greater st
this tragedy in a country like Ireland, its peoj
taxed to the very marrow and exploited to t
verge of stan^ation, leaving the young gene
tion no opening, no opportunity in life.
It is inevitable that the sons and daughters
Ireland, robust in body and spirit, yearning
things better and bigger, should desert her. I
as Mary says, " When the sun sets here, it's aU
dark and cold and dreary,** But the young n(
light and warmth — and these are not in
valley of ever-present misery and want.
" Harvest " is an expressive picture of the
cial background of the Iri^ people, a backgroi
somber and unpromising but for the streak
dawn that pierces that country's dark horizon
the form of the inherent and irrepressible fight
spirit of the true Irishman, the spirit of the Fen
revolt whose fires often slumber but are never ]
out, all the ravages of our false civilization n
withstanding.
T- G. MURRAY
MAURICE HARTE
AURICE HARTE " portrays the
most sinister force which holds the
Irish people in awe — that heaviest
of all bondage, priestcraft.
Michael Harte, his wife Ellen, and their son
Owen are bent on one purpose; to make a priest
of their youngest child Maurice. The mother es-
pecially has no other ambition in life than to see
her son ** priested." No higher ideal to most
Catholic mothers than to consecrate their favorite
son to the glory of God.
What it has cost the Hartes to attaintheir am-
bition and hope is revealed by Ellen Harte in the
conversation with her sister and later with her
husband, when he informs her that he cannot bor-
row any more money to continue the boy in the
seminary.
Mrs, Harte, If Michael and myself have our son
nearly a priest this day, 'tis no small price at all we have
paid for it. . . . Isn't it the terrible thing, every time you
look through that window, to have the fear in your heart
267
268 T. G. Murray
that 'tis the process-server you'll see and he comit
the borecn?
Old Harte impoverishes himself to enabL
son to finish his studies. He has borrowed \
and left, till his resources are now entirelj
hausted. But he is compelled to try anc
loan.
Michael, He made out 'twas as good as insulting
making such a small pa3niient, and the money that's (
to be so heavy. "If you don't wish to sign that n
says he, " you needn't. It don't matter at all to mc
way or the other, for before the next Quarter Ses
'tis Andy DriscoU, the process-server, will be marc
up to your door." So what could I do but sign ? "V
'twas how he turned on me in a red passion. "
isn't it a scandal, Michael Harte," says he, " for the
o' you, with your name on them books there for a 1
dred and fifty pounds, and you with only the grass of
or ten cows, to be making your son a priest ? The lik
it," says he, " was never heard of before."
Mrs. Harte. What business was it of his, I'd lik
know? Jealous of us! There's no fear any of his i
will ever be anything much !
Michael. I was thinking it might do Maurice »
harm with the Bishop if it came out on the papers \
we were up before the judge for a civil bill.
Mrs. Harte, • • • 'Tisn't once or twice I told
that I had my heart set on hearing Maurice say the n
riage words over his own brother.
Maurice Harte 269
Maurice comes home for the summer vacation,
looking pale and emaciated. His mother ascribes
his condition to the bad city air and hard study at
school. But Maurice suffers from a different
cause. His is a mental struggle: the maddening
struggle of doubt, the realization that he has lost
his faith, that he has no vocation, and that he must
give up his divinity studies. He knows how fa-
natically bent his people are on having him or-
dained, and he is tortured by the grief his decision
will cause his parents. His heart is breaking as he
at last determines to inform them.
He reasons and pleads with his parents and im-
plores them not to drive him back to college. But
they cannot understand. They remain deaf to his
arguments; pitifully they beg him not to fail them,
not to disappoint the hope of a lifetime. When it
all proves of no avail, they finally disclose to
Maurice their gnawing secret: the farm has been
mortgaged and many debts incurred for the sake
of enabling him to attain to the priesthood.
Michael, Maurice, would you break our hearts?
Maurice, Father, would you have your son live a life
of sacrilege? Would you, Father? Would you?
Mrs. Harte, That's only foolish talk. Aren't you
every bit as good as the next?
Maurice, I may be, but I haven't a vocation. . . .
My mind is finally made up.
Mrs, Harte, Maurice, listen to mc — listen to me!
270 T. G. Murray
. . . If it went out about you this day, isn't it dcstrojJ
forever we'd be? Look! The story wouldn't be cast ii
Macroom when we'd have the bailifiFs walking in ^
door. The whole world knows he i$ to be priested nal
June, and only for the great respect they have for is
through the means o' that, 'tisn't James McCarthy alone,
but every other one o' them "would come down on «
straight for their money. In one w^eek there wouldn't
be a cow left by us, nor a horse, nor a lamb, nor anything
at all ! . . . Look at them books. 'Tis about time job
should know how we stand here. . • . God knows, I
wouldn't be hard on you at all, but look at the great loaJ
o' money that's on us this day, and mostly all on your ac-
count.
Maurice, Mother, don't make my cross harder tt
bear.
Mrs. Harte. An' would you be seeing a heavier cross
put on them that did all that mortal man and woman
could do for you ?
Maurice. Look! FU wear the flesh ofl my bones, but
in pity spare me!
Mrs. Harte. And will you have no pity at all on us
and on Owen here, that have slaved for you all our
lives ?
Maurice. Mother ! Mother !
Mrs. Harte. You'll go back? 'Tis only a mistake?
Maurice. Great God of Heaven ! • . . you'll kill me.
Michael. You'll go back, Maurice? The vocation
will come to you in time with the help of God. It will,
surely.
Maurice. Don't ask me! Don't ask me!
Maurice Harte 271
. , Mrs. Harte. If you don't how can I ever face outside
_ Jiis door or lift my head again ? • . . How could I listen
_jo the neighbors making pity for me, and many a one o'
,Jiem only glad in their hearts? How could I ever face
.^ again into town o* Macroom?
Maurice, Oh, don't.
Mrs. Harte. I tell you, Maurice, I'd rather be lying
^clead a thousand times in the graveyard over Killnamar-
'tyra —
Maurice. Stop, Mother, stop! I'll — I'll go back —
^is — as you all wish it.
Nine months later there is general rejoicing at
the Hartes': Maurice has passed his examina-
tions with flying colors ; he is about to be ordained,
and he is to officiate at the wedding of his brother
Owen and his wealthy bride.
Ellen Harte plans to give her son a royal wel-
come. Great preparations are on foot to greet
the return of Maurice. He comes back — not in
the glory and triumph expected by his people, but
a driveling idiot. His mental struggle, the agony
of whipping himself to the hated task, proved too
much for him, and Maurice is sacrificed on the
altar of superstition and submission to paternal
authority.
In the whole range of the Irish drama " Mau-
rice Harte " is the most Irish, because nowhere
does Catholicism demand so many victims as in
that unfortunate land. But in a deeper sense the
272
T. G. Murray
play is of that social importance that knows »]
limit of race or creed.
There is no boundary of land or time to thc^l
sistance of the human mind to coercion ; it is woit^j
wide. Equally so is the rebellion of youth agaiiBi|
the tyranny of parents. But above all does
play mirror the self-centered, narrow, ambid(»|
love of the mother, so disastrous to the happinal
and peace of her child. For it is Ellen Hflftt,
rather than the father, who forces Af^JttHc^backto
his studies. From whatever viewpoint, however,'
" Maurice Harte " be considered, it carries a
dramatically powerful message of wide social sif
nificance.
THE RUSSIAN DRAMA
PEOPLE outside of Russia, especially
Anglo-Saxons, have one great objection
to the Russian drama: it is too sad, too
gloomy. It is often asked, " Why is the
Russian drama so pessimistic? " The answer is:
the Russian drama, like all Russian culture, has
been conceived in the sorrow of the people; it was
born in their woe and struggle. Anything thus
conceived cannot be very joyous or amusing.
It is no exaggeration to say that in no other
country are the creative artists so interwoven, so
much at one with the people. This is not only
true of men like Turgenev, Tolstoy and the dram-
atists of modern times. It applies also to Gogol,
who in ** The Inspector " and " Dead Souls "
spoke in behalf of the people, appealing to the
conscience of Russia. The same is true of Dos-
toyevsky, of the poets Nekrassov, Nadson, and
others. In fact, all the great Russian artists have
gone to the people for their inspiration, as to the
source of all life. That explains the depth and
the humanity of Russian literature.
273
274 ^^^ Russian Drama
The modern drama naturally suggests Henrik
Ibsen as its pioneer. But prior to him, Gogol
utilized the drama as a vehicle for popularizing the
social issues of his time. In " The Inspector,''
(Revizor) he portrays the corruption, graft and
extortion rampant in the governmental depart-
ments. If we were to Anglicize the names of the
characters in "The Inspector," and forget for a
moment that it was a Russian who wrote the play,
the criticism contained therein would apply with
similar force to present-day America, and to every
other modern country. Gogol touched the deep-
est sores of social magnitude and marked the be-
ginning of the realistic drama in Russia.
However, it is not within the scope of this work
to discuss the drama of Gogol's era. I shall be-
gin with Tolstoy, because he is closer to our own
generation, and voices more definitely the social
significance of the modern drama.
TOLSTOY
WHEN Leo Tolstoy died, the represen-
tatives of the C hurch proclaimed him
as their own. " He was with us,"
they said. It reminds one of the
Russian fable about the fly and the ox. The fly
was lazily resting on the horn of the ox while he
plowed the field, but when the ox returned home
exhausted with toil, the fly bragged, " JVe have
been plowing." The spokesmen of the Church
are, in relation to Tolstoy, in the same position.
It is true that Tolstoy based his conception of hu-
man relationships on a new interpretation of the
Gospels. But he was as far removed from pres-
ent-day Christianity as Jesus was alien to the insti-
tutional religion of his time.
Tobtoy was the last true Christian, and as such
he undermined the stronghold of the Church with
all its pernicious power of darkness, with all its
injustice and cruelty.
For this he was persecuted by the Holy Synod
and excommunicated from the Church; for this
he was feared by the Tsar and his henchmen; for
this his works have been condemned and pro-
hibited.
»75
276
Tolstoy
The only reason Tolstoy himself escaped the
fate of other great Russians was that he was
mightier than the Churdi, mightier than the ducal
clique, mightier even than the Tsar. He was the
powerful conscience of Russia exposing her
crimes and evils before the civilized world.
How deeply Tolstoy felt the grave problems
of his time, how closely related he was to the peo-
ple, he demonstrated in various works, but in
none so strikingly as in " The Power of Dark-
ness.
9}
THE POWER OF DARKNESS
" The Power of Darkness " is the tragedy of
sordid misery and dense ignorance. It deals with
a group of peasants steeped in poverty and utter
darkness. This appalling condition, especially in
relation to the women folk, is expressed by one
of the characters in the play:
Mitrich. There are millions of you women and girls,
but you are all like the beasts of the forest. Just as one
has been born, so she dies. She has neither seen or heard
anything. A man will learn something; if nowhere else,
at least in the inn, or by some chance, in prison, or in the
army, as I have. But what about a woman ? She does
not know a thing about God, — nay, she does not know
one day from another. They creep about like blind pups,
and stick their heads into the manure.
The Power of Darkness 277
Peter , a rich peasant, is in a dying condition.
Yet he clings to his money and slave-drives his
young wife, Anisya, his two daughters by a first
marriage, and his peasant servant Nikita. He
will not allow them any rest from their toil, for
the greed of money is in his blood and the fear
of death in his bones. Jnisya h^itcs her husband:
he forces her to drudge, and he is old and ill. She
loves Niki ta, The latter, young and irresponsi-
ble, cannot resist women, who are his main weak-
ness and final undoing. Before he came to old
Peter's farm, he had wronged an orphan girl.
When she becomes pregnant, she appeals to Ni-
kita's father, Akim, a simple and honest peasant.
He urges his son to marry the girl, because " it is
a sin to wrong an orphan. Look out, Nikita!
A tear of offense does not flow past, but upon a
man's head. Look out, or the same will happen
with you."
Akim's kindness and simplicity are opposed by
the viciousness and greed of his wife Matrena.
Nikita remains on the farm, and Anisya^ urged
and influenced by his mother, poisons old Peter
and steals his money.
When her husband dies, Anisya marries Nikita
and turns the money over to him. Nikita be-
comes the head of the house, and soon proves him-
self a rake and a tyrant. Idleness and affluence
278 Tolstoy
undermine whatever good is latent in him.
Money, the destroyer of souls, together with tk
consciousness that he has been indirectly a party
to Anisya^s crime, turn Nikita^s love for the
woman into bitter hatred. He takes for his mis-
tress Akulina, Peter^s oldest daughter, a girl of six-
teen, deaf and silly, and forces Anisya to serve
them. She had strength to resist her old husband,
but her love for Nikita has made her weak.
*' The moment I see him my heart softens. I have
no courage against him."
Old Akim comes to ask for a little money from
his newly rich son. He quickly senses the swamp
of corruption and vice into which Nikita has sunL
He tries to save him, to bring him back to himself,
to arouse the better side of his nature. But he
fails.
The ways of life are too evil for Akim. He
leaves, refusing even the money he needs so badly
to purchase a horse.
Akim, One sin holds on to another and pulls you
along. Nikita, you are stuck in sins. You are stuck, I
see, in sins. You are stuck fast, so to speak. I have
heard that nowadays they pull fathers' beards, so to speak,
— but this leads only to ruin, to ruin, so to speak. . . .
There is your money. I will go and beg, so to speak,
but I will not, so to speak, take the money. . . . Let me
go! I will not stay! I would rather sleep near the
fence than in your nastiness.
The Power of Darkness 279
The type of Akim is most vividly characterized
by Tolstoy in the talk between the old peasant and
the new help on the farm.
Mitrich. Let us suppose, for example, you have
money, and I, for example, have my land lying fallow;
It is spring, and I have no seed; or I have to pay the
taxes. So I come to you, and say : " Akim, give me ten
roubles! I will have the harvest in by St. Mary's Inter-
cession and then I will give it back to you, with a tithe
for the accommodation." You, for example, sec that I
can be flayed, having a horse or a cow, so you say:
" Give me two or three roubles for the accommodation."
The noose is around my neck, and I cannot get along
without It. " Very well," says I, " I will take the ten
roubles." In the fall I sell some things, and I bring you
the money, and you skin me in addition for three rou-.
bles.
Akim. But this is, so to speak, a wrong done to a peas-
ant. If one forgets God, so to speak, it is not good.
Mitrich. Wait a minute! So remember what you
have done: you have fleeced me, so to speak, and Anisya,
for example, has some money which is lying idle. She
has no place to put it in and, being a woman, does not
know what to do with it. So she comes to you : " Can't
I," says she, " make some use of my money? " " Yes, you
can," you say. And so you wait. Next summer I come
to you once more. " Give me another ten roubles," says
I, " and I will pay you for the accommodation." So you
watch me to see whether my hide has not been turned
yet, whether I can be flayed again, and if I can, you give
28o
Tolstoy
me Anisya's money. But if I have not a blessed thin&<
and nothing to eat, you make your calculations, seeujl
that I cannot be skinned, and you say: " Grod be wi4
you, my brother ! " and you look out for another man to
whom to give Anisya's money, and whora you can Say.
Now this is called a bank. So it keeps going arouni
It is a very clever thing, my friend.
Akim. What is this? This is a nastiness, so to sped
If a peasant, so to speak, were to do ft, the peasants would
regard it as a sin, so to speak. This is not according to
the Law, not according to the Law, so to speak. It is
bad. How can the learned men, so to speak — ... As
I look at it, so to speak, there is trouble without money,
so to speak, and with money the trouble is double, so to
speak. God has commanded to work. But you put the
money in the bank, so to speak, and lie down to sleep,
and the money will feed you, so to speak, while you arc
lying. This is bad, — not according to the Law, so to
speak.
Mitrich. Not according to the Law? The Law docs
not trouble people nowadays, my friend. All they think
about IS how to clean out a fellow. That's what !
As long as Akulina's condition is not noticeable,
the relation of Ntkita with his dead master's
daughter remains hidden from the neighbors.
But the time comes when she is to give birth to a
child. It is then that Anisya becomes mistress of
the situation again. Her hatred for Akultna, her
outraged love for Ntkita and the evil spirit of Nt-
kita* s mother all combine to turn her into a fiend.
The Power of Darkness 281
Akulina is driven to the barn, where her terrible!
labor pains are stifled by the dread of her step-
mother. When the innocent victim 'is born, Nu
kita's vicious mother and Anisya persuade him|
that the child is dead and force him to bury it inl
the cellar. |
While Nikita is digging the grave, he discovers (
the deception. The child is alive! The terrible
shock unnerves the man, and in temporary madness
he presses a board over the little body'till its bones
crunch. Superstition, horror and the perfidy of
the women drive Nikita to drink in an attempt to
drown the baby's cries constantly ringing in his
ears. '
The last act deals with Akulinc^s wedding to the
son of a neighbor. She is forced into the mar-
riage because of her misfortune. The peasants
all gather for the occasion, but Nikita is missing:
he roams the place haunted by the horrible phan-
tom of his murdered child. He attempts ta hang
himself but fails, and finally decides to go before
the entire assembly to confess his crimes.
Nikita. Father, listen to me! First of all, Marina,
look at me! I am guilty toward you: I had promised
to marry you, and I seduced you. I deceived you and
abandoned you; forgive me for Christ's sake!
Matrena. Oh, oh, he is bewitched. What is the mat-
ter with him? He has the evil eye upon him. Get up
and stop talking nonsense I
282
Tolstoy
Nikita. I killed your father, and I, dog, have
his daughter. I had the power over her, and I
also her baby. . . • Father dear! Forgive me, sli
man! You told me, when I first started on this lire il
debauch : " When the claw i s ca ught, the whole birdjl
lost." But, I, dog, did not pay any attention to you, all
so everything turned out as you said. Forgive me, h
Christ's sake.
The '* Power of Darkness " is a terrible pictutl
of poverty, ignorance and superstition. To writtj
such a work it is not sufficient to be a creative ai^l
ist: it requires a deeply sympathetic human soi
Tolstoy possessed both. He understood that tht
tragedy of the peasants' life Is due not to anyifr
herent viciousness but to the power of darkng
which permeates their existence from the cradle
to the grave. Something heavy is oppressing
them — in the words of Antsy a — weighing them
down, something that saps all humanity out o(
them and drives them into the depths.
" The Power of Darkness " is a social picture
at once appalling and gripping.
^.
ANTON TCHEKHOF
HEN Anton Tchekhof first came to
the fore, no less an authority than
Tols toy said: "Russia has given
birth to another Turgenev." The
^estimate was not overdrawn. Tchekhof was in-
deed a modern Turgenev. Perhaps not as uni-
versal, because Turgenev, having lived in western
^Europe, in close contact with conditions outside of
Russia, dealt with more variegated aspects of life.
; But as a creative artist Tchekhof is fitted to take
his place with Turgenev.
Tchekhof is preeminently the master of short
stories. Within the limits of a few pages he paints
the drama of human life with its manifold tragic
and comic colors, in its most intimate reflex upon
the characters who pass through the panorama.
He has been called a pessimist. As if one could
miss the sun without feeling the torture of utter
darkness I
Tchekhof wrote during the gloomiest period of
Russian life, at a time when the reaction had
drowned the revolution in the blood of the young
generation, — when the Tsar had choked the very
283
284
Anton Tchekhof
breath out of young Russia. The intellec
were deprived of every outlet: all the social
nels were closed to them, and they found the
selves without hope or faith, not having yet \t\
to make common cause with the people.
Tchekhof could not escape the atmospM
which darkened the horizon of almost the wholeofl
Russia. It was because he so intensely feltb]
oppressive weight that he longed for air, for lii
for new and vital ideas. To awaken the samtj
yearning and faith in others, he had to picture lifej
as it was, in all its wretchedness and horror.
This he did in " The Seagull," while in "Tie
Cherry Orchard " he holds out the hope of a new
and brighter day.
THE SEAGULL
In " The Seagull " the young artist, Con5t»
tine Treble f, seeks new forms, new modes of ex-
pression. He is tired of the old academic ways,
the beaten track; he is disgusted with the endless
imitative methods, no one apparently capable of an
original thought.
Constantine has written a play; the principal part
is to be acted by Nina, a beautiful girl with whom
Constantine is in love. He arranges the first per-
formance to take place on the occasion of his
mother's vacation in the country.
The Seagull 285
She herself — known as Mme. Arcadtna — is a
famous actress of the old school. She knows how
to show off her charms to advantage, to parade her
beautiful gowns, to faint and die gracefully before
the footlights ; but she does not know how to live
her part on the stage. Mme. Arcadina is the type
of artist who lacks all conception of the relation
between art and life. Barren of vision and empty
of heart, her only criterion is public approval and
material success. Needless to say, she cannot un-
derstand her son. She considers him decadent,
a foolish rebel who wants to undermine the settled
canons of dramatic art. Constantine sums up his
mother's personality in the following manner :
Treplef. She is a psychological curiosity, is my mother.
A clever and gifted woman, who can cry over a novel,
will reel you off all Nekrassov's poems by heart, and is the
perfection of a sick nurse ; but venture to praise Eleonora
Duse before her! Oho! ho! You must praise nobody
but her, write about her, shout about her, and go into
ecstasies over her wonderful performance in La Dame aux
Camelias, or The Fumes of Life; but as she cannot have
these intoxicating pleasures down here in the country,
she's bored and gets spiteful. . . . She loves the stage;
she thinks that she is advancing the cause of humanity
and her sacred art; but I regard the stage of to-day as
mere routine and prejudice. When the curtain goes up
and the gifted beings, the high priests of the sacred art,
appear by electric light, in a room with three sides to it,
representing how people eat, drink, love, walk and wear
286
Anton Tchekhof
their jackets; when they strive to squeeze out a
from the flat, vulgar pictures and the flat, vulgar
a little tiny moral, easy to comprehend and handy i
home consumption, when in a thousand variations
offer me always the same thing over and over and
again — then I take to my heels and run, as Mauf
ran from the Eiffel Tower, which crushed his brain bf 1
overwhelming vulgarity. . . . We must have new
mulae. That's what we want. And if there are
then it's better to have nothing at all.
tei
dii
ha
an
int
With Mme. Arcadina is her lover, Trigorkj
successful writer. When he began his lite
career, he possessed originality and strength.
gradually writing became a habit: the publish
constantly demand new books, and he suppW
them.
Oh, the slavery of being an " arrived" artt^
forging new chains for oneself with every "bei
seller '' ! Such is the position of Trigorin\ ^
hates his work as the worst drudgery. Exhaustd
of ideas, all life and human relations serve to
only as material for copy.
Nina, innocent of the ways of the world anJ
saturated with the false romanticism of Trigoni^
works, does not see the man but the celebrated art*
ist. She is carried away by his fame and stirred
by his presence; ^n infatuation with him quickh
replaces her affection for Constantine. To hei
ni!
m
h2
w
.
in
1
a;
i
The Seagull 287
Trigorin embodies her dream of a brilliant and in-
teresting life.
Niniu How I envy you, if you but knew it! How
different are the lots of different people! Some can
hardly drag on their tedious, insignificant existence; they
are all alike, all miserable; others, like you, for instance
— you are one in a million — are blessed with a brilliant,
interesting life, all full of meaning. . . . You are happy.
. . . What a delightful life yours is!
Trigorin, What is there so fine about it? Day and
night I am obsessed by the same persistent thought; I
must write, I must write, I must write. . . . No sooner
have I finished one story than I am somehow compelled to
write another, then a third, and after the third a fourth.
. . . I have no rest for myself; I feel that I am devour-
ing my own life. . . • I've never satisfied myself, . . .
I have the feeling for nature; it wakes a passion in me,
an irresistible desire to write. But I am something more
than a landscape painter ; I'm a citizen as well ; I love my
country, I love the people; I feel that if I am a writer
I am bound to speak of the people, of its suffering, of its
future, to speak of science, of the rights of man, etc, etc ;
and I speak about it all, volubly, and am attacked angrily
in return by everyone ; I dart from side to side like a fox
run down by hounds; I see that life and science fly farther
and farther ahead of me, and I fall farther and farther
behind, like the countryman running after the train; and
in the end I feel that the only thing I can write of is the
landscape, and in everything else I am untrue to life,
false to the very marrow of my bones.
288 Anton Tchekhof
Constantine realizes that Nina is slipping a^
from him. The situation is aggravated by tkl
constant friction with his mother and his despal
at the lack of encouragement for his art. In ail
of despondency he attempts suicide, but withoa
success. His mother, although nursing him bad]
to health, is infuriated at her son's " foolishness,"
his inability to adapt himself to conditions, hisiu
practical ideas. She decides to leave, accompanid;
by Trigorin. On the day of their departure iViiu!
and Trigorin nleet once more. The girl tells him
of her ambition to become an actress, and, encour-
aged by him, follows him to the city.
Two years later Mme. Arcadina, still full of her
idle triumphs, returns to her estate. Trigorin'^
again with her still haunted by the need of copy.
Constantine has in the interim matured consider-
ably. Although he has made himself heard as a
writer, he nevertheless feels that life to-day has no
place for such as he : that sincerity in art is not
wanted. His mother is with him, but she only
serves to emphasize the flatness of his surround-
ings. He loves her, but her ways jar him and
drive him into seclusion.
Ninay too, has returned to her native place,
broken in body and spirit. Partly because of the
memory of her past affection for Constmntine, and
mainly because she learns of Trigorin* s presence,
she is drawn to the place where two years before
The Seagull 289
she had dreamed of the beauty of an artistic career.
The cruel struggle for recognition, the bitter dis-
appointment in her relation with Trigorin, the care
of a child and poor health have combined to change
the romantic child into a sad woman.
Constantine still loves her. He pleads with her
to go away with him, to begin a new life. But it
is too late. The lure of the footlights is beckon-
ing to Nina; she returns to the stage. Constan-
tine, unable to stand the loneliness of his life and
the mercenary demands upon his art, kills himself.
To the Anglo-Saxon mind such an ending is pes-
simism, — defeat. Often, however, apparent de-
feat is in reality die truest success. For is not suc-
cess, as commonly understood, but too frequently
bought at the expense of character and idealism ?
** The Seagull " is not defeat. As long as there
is still such material in society as the Constantines
— men and women who would rather die than
compromise with the sordidness of life — there is
hope for humanity. If the Constantines perish, it
is the social fault, — our indifference to, and lack
of appreciation of, the real values that alone ad-
vance the fuller and more complete life of the race.
290
Anton Tchekhof
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
"The Cherry Orchard " is TchekhoPs pi^|
phetic song. In tliis play he depicts three sta
of social development and their reflex in literatuit]
Mme. Raneysky, the owner of the cherry or-
chard, an estate celebrated far and wide forittl
beauty and historic traditions, is deeply attachedto'
the family place. She loves it for its romanticism:'
nightingales sing in the orchard, accompanying tie 1
wooing of lovers. She is devoted to it because oi
the memory of her ancestors and because of the
many tender ties which bind her to the orchari
The same feeling and reverence is entertained by
her brother Leonid Gayef . They are expressed ifl
the Ode to an Old Family Cupboard:
Gayef. Beloved and venerable cupboard ; honor ani
glory to your existence, which for more than a hundred
years has been directed to the noble ideals of justice ani
virtue. Your silent summons to profitable labor has never
weakened in all these hundred years. You have uphelfi
the courage of succeeding generations of human kind:
you have upheld faith in a better future and cherished in
us ideals of goodness and social consciousness.
But the social consciousness of Gayef and of his
sister is of a paternal nature: the attitude of the
aristocracy toward its serfs. It is a paternalism
that takes no account of the freedom and happiness
of the people, — the iwnajatidsm^ ^l^Y^PS ^'l5^
The Cherry Orchard 291'
Mme. Ranevsky is impoverished. The cherry
orchard is heavily mortgaged and as romance and
sentiment cannot liquidate debts, the beautiful es-
tate falls into the cruel hands of commercialism.
The merchant Yermolai Lopakhin buys the
place. He is in ecstasy over his newly acquired
possession. He the owner — he who had risen
from the serfs of the former master of the or-
chard I
Lopakhin. Just think of it! The cherry orchard is
mine! Mine! Tell me that Vm drunk; tell me that Fm
off my head; tell me that it*s all a dream! ... If only
my father and my grandfather could rise from their
graves and see the whole affair, how their Yermolai, their
flogged and ignorant Yermolai, who used to run about
barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had
bought a property that hasn't its equal for beauty any-
where in the whole world! I have bought the property
where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they
weren't even allowed into the kitchen.
A new epoch begins in the cherry orchard. On
the ruins of romanticism and aristocratic case there
rises commercialism, its iron hand yoking nature,
devastating her beauty, and robbing her of all
radiance.
With the greed of rich returns, Lopakhin cries,
** Lay the ax to the cherry orchard, come and see
the trees fall down! We'll fill the place with
villas."
292 Anton Tchekhof
Materialism reigns supreme ; it lords the oi*
chard with mighty hand, and in the frenzy of ibl
triumph believes itself in control of the bodies anJI
souls of men. But in the madness of conquest r]
has discounted a stubborn obstacle — the spirkoil
idealism. It is symbolized in Peter Trophiml
** the perpetual student," and Anya, the youBj
daughter of Mme. Ranevsky. The " wonderful
achievements " of the materialistic age do not en-
thuse them; they have emancipated themselves
from the Lopakhin idol as well as from their aristo-
cratic traditions.
Anya. Why is it that I no longer love the djcnr
orchard as I did? I used to love it so tenderly; I thougb
there was no better place on earth than our garden.
Trophimof. All Russia is our garden. The earth is
great and beautihil ; it is full of wonderful places. Think,
Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather and all
your ancestors were serf-owners, owners of living souls.
Do not human spirits look out at you from every tree In
the orchard, from every leaf and every stem ? Do you not
hear human voices? . . . Oh! it is terrible. Your or-
chard frightens me. When I walk through it in the
evening or at night, the rugged bark on the trees glows
with a dim light, and the cherry trees seem to see all that
happened a hundred and two hundred years ago in pain-
ful and oppressive dreams. Well, well, we have fallen
at least two hundred years beyond the times. We ha\t
achieved nothing at all as yet ; we have not made up our
minds how we stand with the past ; we only philosophize,
The Cherry Orchard 293f
complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It is so plain that,
before we can live in the present, we must first redeem the
past, and have done with it.
Any a. The house we live in has long since ceased to
be our house ; I shall go away.
Trophimof. If you have the household keys, throw
them in the well and go away. Be free, be free as the
wind. ... I am hungry as the winter ; I am sick, anxious,
poor as a beggar. Fate has tossed me hither and thither;
I have been everywhere, everywhere. But everywhere I
have been, every minute, day and night, my soul has been
full of mysterious anticipations. I feel the approach of
happiness, Anya; I see it coming ... it is coming to-
wards us, nearer and nearer; I can hear the sound of its
footsteps. . . • And if we do not see it, if we do not
know it, what does it matter? Others will see it.
The new generation, on the threshold of the
new epoch, hears the approaching footsteps of the
Future. And even if the Any as and Trophimofs
of to-day will not see it, others wilU
It was not given to Anton Tchekhof to see it
with his bodily eyes. But his prophetic vision be-
held the coming of the New Day, and with power-
ful pen he proclaimed it, that others might see it.
Far from being a pessimist, as charged by unintelli-
gent critics, his faith was strong in the possibilities
of liberty.
This is the inspiring message of " The Cherry
Orchard."
MAXIM GORKI
A NIGHT'S LODGING
WE In America are conversant
tramp literature. A number
writers of considerable note have
scribed what is commonly called
underworld, among them Josiah Flynt and ,
London, who have ably interpreted the life
psychology of the outcast. But with all due
spect for their ability, It must be said that, a
all, they wrote only as onlookers, as observ
They were not tramps themselves. In the real s(
of the word. In " The Childr en of the Aby
Jack London relates that when he stood in
breadline, he had money, a room In a good he
and a change of linen at hand. He was theref
not an Integral part of the underworld, of
homeless and hopeless.
Never before has anyone given such a tr
realistic picture of the social depths as Ma>
Gorki, himself a denizen of the underworld fr«
his early childhood. At the age of eight he i
away from his poverty-stricken, dismal home, a
294
A Nighfs Lodging 295
for many years thereafter he lived the life of the
bosyaki. He tramped through the length and
breadth of Russia ; he lived with the peasant, the
factory worker and the outcast. He knew them
intimately; he understood their psychology, for he
was not only with them, but of them. Therefore
Gorki has been able to present such a vivid picture
of the underworld.
** A Night^s Lodging ^' portrays a lodging
house, hideous and foul, where gather the social
derelicts, — the thief, the gambler, the ex-artist, the
ex-aristocrat, the prostitute. All of them had at
one time an ambition, a goal, but because of their
lack of will and the injustice and cruelty of the
world, they were forced into the depths and cast
back whenever they attempted to rise. They are
the superfluous ones, dehumanized and brutalized.
In this poisonous air, where everything withers
and dies, we nevertheless find character. No-
' » 111 ■ *
tashoj a young girl, still retains her wholesome in-
stincts. She had never known love or sympathy,
had gone hungry all her days, and had tasted noth-
ing but abuse from her brutal sister, on whom she
was dependent. Vaska Pepel^ the young thief, a
lodger in the house, strikes a responsive chord in
her the moment he makes her feel that he cares
for her and that she mig^t be of spiritual and
moral help to him. Vaska, like Natasha, is a
product of his social environment.
296
Maxim Gorki
Vaska. From childhood, I have been — only a
. . . Always I was called Vaska the pickpocket, Vasbl
the son of a thief! See, it was of no consequence to nt,]
as long as they would have it so ... so they would
it. ... I was a thief, perhaps, only out of spite . . .ix-j
cause nobody came along to call me anything— thid
. . . You call me something else, Natasha. . . . It fi
no easy life that I lead — friendless ; pursued like a wolt
... I sink like a man in a swamp . . . whatever 1 toiri
is slimy and rotten . . . nothing is firm . . . but you aic
like a young fir-tree; you are prickly, but you givesup^
port.
There is another humane figure illuminating the
dark picture in "A Night's Lodging", — Lwifl.
He is the type of an old pilgrim, a man whom the
experiences of life have taught wisdom. He has
tramped through Russia and Siberia, and con-
sorted with all sorts of people; but disappointment
and grief have not robbed him of his faith in
beauty, In idealism. He believes that every man.
however low, degraded, or demoralized can yet be
reached, if we but know how to touch his soul.
Luka inspires courage and hope in everyone he
meets, urging each to begin life anew. To the
former actor, now steeped in drink, he says :
Luka. The drunkard, I have heard, can now be cured,
without charge. They realize now, you see, that the
drunkard is also a man. You must begin to make ready.
Begin a new life!
A Nighfs Lodging 297
Luka tries also to imbue Natasha and Vaska
with new faith. They marvel at his goodness.
In simplicity of heart Luka gives his philosophy of
life.
Luka, I am good, you say. But you see, there must
be some one to be good. . . . We must have pity on
mankind. . . . Have pity while there is still time, be-
lieve me, it IS very good. I was once, for example, em-
ployed as a watchman, at a country place which belonged
to an engineer, not far from the city of Tomsk, in Siberia.
The house stood in the middle of the forest, an out-of-the-
way location . . . and it was winter and I was all alone
in the country house. It was beautiful there . . . mag-
nificent! And once ... I heard them scrambling
up! . . .
Natasha. Thieves!
Luka. Yes. They crept higher and I took my rifle
and went outside. I looked up: two men ... as they
were opening a window and so busy that they did not see
anything of me at all. I cried to them : " Heh there
... get out of that "... and would you think it,
they fell on me with a hand ax. ... I warned them —
" Halt," I cried, " or else I fire "... then I aimed
first at one and then at the other. They fell on their
knees, saying, " Pardon us." I was pretty hot ... on
account of the hand ax, you remember. " You devils," I
cried, " I told you to clear out and you didn't . . . and
now," I said, " one of you go into the brush and get a
switch." It was done. " And now," I commanded, " one
of you stretch out on the ground, and the other thrash
298 Maxim Gorki
him "... and so they whipped each other at my oo»
mand. And when they had each had a sound bo&A ^
they said to me: "Grandfather," said they, "iorllB ^
sake of Christ give us a piece of bread. We haven't^ 1
bite in our bodies." They were the thieves, who
fallen upon me with the hand ax. Yes . . . they wciti
pair of splendid fellows. ... I said to them, " If youUj
asked for bread." Then they answrered : " We had
ten past that. . . . We had asked and asked and
would give us anything . . . endurance was worn ouV
. . . and so they remained with me the whole wint&j
One of them, Stephen by name, liked to take the rifle anil
go into the woods . . . and the other, Jakoff, was cofr
stantly ill, always coughing . . . the three of us watdri
the place, and when spring came, they said, " Farewdl,
grandfather," and went away — to Russia. . . .
Natasha, Were they convicts, escaping ?
Luka, They were . . . fugitives . . . they had Icii
their colony ... a pair of splendid fellows. ... It I
had not had pity on them — who knows what would ha\t
happened. They might have killed me. . . . Then they
would be taken to court again, put in prison, sent back to
Siberia. . . . Why all that? You learn nothing good in
prison, nor in Siberia . . . but a man, what can he not
learn. Man may teach his fellowman something good
... very simply.
Impressed and strengthened by Luka's wonder-
ful faith and vision, the unfortunates make an at-
tempt to rise from the social swamp. But he has
come too late into their lives. They have been
A Night's Lodging 299
robbed of energy and will ; and conditions always
conspire to thrust them back into the depths.
When Natasha and Vaska are about to start out on
the road to a new life, fate overtakes them. The
girl, during a scene with her heartless sister, is ter-
ribly scalded by the latter, and Vaska, rushing to
the defense of his sweetheart, encounters her
brutal brother-in-law, whom he accidentally kills.
Thus these " superfluous ones " go down in the
struggle. Not because of their vicious or degrad-
ing tendencies ; on the contrary, it is their better in-
stincts that cause them to be swept back into the
abyss. But though they perish, the inspiration of
Luka is not entirely lost. It is epitomized in the
words of one of the victims.
Sahtin. The old man — he lived from within. . . .
He saw everything with his own eyes. ... I asked him
once: "Grandfather, why do men really live?" . . .
" Man lives ever to give birth to strengffi.** There live,
for example, the carpenters, noisy, miserable people . . .
and suddenly in their midst is a carpenter born . . . such
a carpenter as the world has never seen: he is above all,
no other carpenter can be compared to him. He gives a
new face to the whole trade ... his own face, so to
speak . . . and with that simple impulse it has advanced
twenty years . . . and so the others live ... the lock-
smiths and the shoemakers, and all the rest of the work-
ing people . . . and the same is true of other classes —
all to give birth to strength. Everyone thinks that he for
himself takes up room in the world, but it turns out that
300 Maxim Gorki
he is here for another's benefit — for someone bettc
a hundred years ... or perhaps longer. . . ii m
so long . . . for the sake of genius. . . . All, my
dren, all, live only to give birth to strength. Fo:
reason we must respect everybody. We cannot
who he is, for what purpose born, or what he mi
fulfill . . . perhaps he has been bom for our goo<
tune ... or great benefit."
No stronger indictment than " A Night's L
ing " is to be found in contemporary literatui
our perverse civilization that condemns thous
— often the very best men and women — to
fate of the Vaskas and Anyas, doomed as si
fluous and unnecessary in society. And yet
are necessary, aye, they are vital, could we but
beneath the veil of cold indifference and stupi
to discover the deep humanity, the latent possi
ties in these lowliest of the low. If within our
cial conditions they are useless material, oi
vicious and detrimental to the general good, i
because they have been denied opportunity :
forced into conditions that kill their faith in th«
selves and all that is best in their natures.
The so-called depravity and crimes of th
derelicts are fundamentally the depravity and cr
inal anti-social attitude of Society itself that fi
creates the underworld and, having created
wastes much energy and effort in suppressing 2
destroying the menacing phantom of its own m
A Night's Lodging 301
ing, — forgetful of the elemental brotherhood of
man, blind to the value of the individual, and igno-
rant of the beautiful possibilities inherent in even
the most despised children of the depths.
LEONID ANDREYEV
KING-HUNGER
LEONID ANDREYEV is the younj
and at the present time the most poi«
ful dramatist of Russia. Like Td
hof and Gorki, he is very versatile:
sketches and stories possess as fine a liter
quality and stirring social appeal as his plays.
No one who has read his terrible picture of \
*' The Red La ugh," or his unsurpassed arra
ment of capital punishment, ** The Seven V
Were Hang ed," can erase from memory the
feet of Leonid Andreyev's forceful pen.
The drama '' King-Hunger " deals with
most powerful king on earth, — King-Hunger.
the presence of Time and Death he pleads \
Time to ring the alarm, to call the people to re
lion, because the earth is replete with suffer!
cities, shops, mines, factories and fields reso
with the moans and groans of the people. T
agony is unbearable.
King-Hunger. Strike the bell, old man; rend to
ears its copper mouth. Let no one slumber !
3o»
King-Hunger 303
But Time has no faith in King-Hunger. He
knows that Hunger had deceived the people on
many occasions : " You will deceive again, King-
Hungen You have many a time deluded your
children and me." Yet Time is weary with wait-
ing. He consents to strike the bell.
King-Hunger calls upon the workingmen to re-
bel. The scene is in a machine shop ; the place is
filled with deafening noises as of men's groans.
Every machine, every tool, every screw, holds its
human forms fettered to it and all keep pace with
the maddening speed of their tormentors. And
through the thunder and clatter of iron there rises
the terrible plaint of the toilers.
We are starving.
We are crushed by machines.
Their weight smothers us.
The iron crushes.
The steel oppresses.
Oh, what a furious weight! As a mountain
upon me!
The whole earth is upon me.
The iron hammer flattens me. It crushes the
blood out of my veins, it fractures my bones, it makes me
flat as sheet iron.
Through the rollers my body is pressed and
drawn thin as wire. Where is my body? Where is my
blood? Where is my soul?
The wheel is twirling me.
Day and night screaks the saw cutting stceL
304
Leonid Andreyev
Day and nig^t in my ears the screeching of the sswctl
ting steeL All the dreams that I see, all the sounds all
songs that I hear, is the screeching of the saw aitti^|
steel. What is the earth? It is the screeching of il
saw. What is the sky? It is the screeching of theai]
cutting steel. Day and night.
Day and night.
We are crushed by the machines.
We ourselves are parts of the machines.
Brothers! We forge our own chains!
The crushed call upon King-Hunger to hdp
them, to save them from the horror of their lift
Is he not the most powerful king on earth?
King-Hunger comes and exhorts them to rebd
AH follow his call except three . One of these is
huge of body, of Herculean built, large of musdc
but with small, flat head upon his massive
shoulders. The_ second workingman is young.
but with the mark of death already upon his brow.
He is constantly coughing and the hectic flush on
his cheeks betrays the wasting disease of his dass.
The third workingnian is a worn-out old man.
Everything about him, even his voice, is deathlike,
colorless, as If in his person a thousand lives had
been robbed of their bloom.
First Workingman, I am as old as the earth. I have
performed all the twelve labors, cleansed stables, cut ofi
the hydra's heads, dug and vexed the earth, built dries,
and have so altered its face, that the Creator himself
King-Hunger 305
would not readily recognize her. But I can't say why I
did all this. Whose will did I shape? To what end
did I aspire? My head is dull. I am dead tired. My
strength oppresses me. Explain it to me, O King! Or
ril clutch this hammer and crack the earth as a hollow
nut.
King-Hunger, Patience, my son! Save your powers
for the last great revolt. Then you'll know all.
First Workingman. I shall wait.
Second Workingman. He cannot comprehend it, O
King. He thinks that we must crack the earth. It is
a gross falsehood, O King! The earth is fair as the
garden of God. We must guard and caress her as a lit-
tle girl. Many that stand there in the darkness say,
there is no sky, no sun, as if eternal night is upon the
earth. Just think: eternal night!
King-Hunger, Why, coughing blood, do you smile
and gaze to heaven?
Second Workingman. Because flowers will blossom on
my blood, and I see them now. On the breast of a beau-
tiful rich lady I saw a red rose — she didn't know it was
my blood.
King-Hunger, You are a poet, my son. I suppose
you write verses, as they do.
Second Workingman, King, O King, sneer not at me.
In darkness I learned to worship fire. Dying I under-
stood that life is enchanting. Oh, how enchanting!
King, it shall become a great garden, and there shall walk
in peace, unmolested, men and animals. Dare not ruffle
the animals! Wrong not any man! Let them play,
embrace, caress one another — let them! But where is
3o6 Leonid Andreyev
the path? Where is the path? Explain, King-Hui
King-Hunger. Revolt.
Second fVorkingman, Through violence to freed
Through blood to love and kisses?
King-Hunger. There is no other way.
Third Workingman, You lie, King-Hunger. 1
you have killed my father and grandfather and g]
grandfather, and would'st thou kill us? Where do
lead us, unarmed? Don't you see how ignorant we
how blind and impotent. You are a traitor. Only i
you are a king, but there you lackey upon their tal
Only here you wear a crown, but there you walk al
with a napkin.
King-Hunger will not listen to their prot
He gives them the alternative of rebellion or sta
ation for themselves and their children. Tl
decide to rebel, for King-Hunger is the m
powerful king on earth.
The subjects of King-Hunger, the people of l
underworld, gather to devise ways and mej
of rebellion. A gruesome assembly this, held
the cellar. Above is th e palace ringing with mu
and laughter, the fine ladies in gorgeous splend<
bedecked with flowers and costly jewels, the tabl
laden with rich food and delicious wines. Evei
thing is most exquisite there, joyous and happ
And underneaths in the cellar, the underworld
gathered, all the dregs of society: the robber ai
the murderer, the thief and the prostitute, tl
King-Hunger 307
gambler and the drunkard. They have come to
consult with each other how poverty is to rebel,
how to throw off the yoke, and what to do with the
rich.
Various suggestions are made. One advises
poisoning the supply of water. But this is con-
demned on the ground that the people also have to
drink from the same source.
Another suggests that all books should be burned
for they teach the rich how to oppress. But the
motion fails. What is the use of burning the
books? The wealthy have money; they will buy
writers, poets and scientists to make new books.
A third proposes that the children of the rich
be killed. From the darkest, most dismal corner
of the cellar comes the protest of an old woman :
" Oh, not the children. Don't touch the children.
I have buried many of them myself. I know the
pain of the mother. Besides, the children are not
to blame for the crimes of their parents. Don't
touch the children I The child is pure and sacred.
Don't hurt the child I "
A little girl rises, a chil d of twelve with the face
of the aged. She announces that for the last four
years she has given her body for money. She had
been sold by her mother because they needed bread
for the smaller children. During the four years
of her terrible life, she has consorted with all kinds
of men, influential men, rich men, pious men.
3o8 Leonid Andreyev
They infected her. Therefore she proposes tte
the rich should be infected.
The underworld plans and plots, and the grot
some meeting is closed with a frenzied dance Ix -
tween King-Hunger and Death, to the music of tkt
dance above.
King-Hunger is at t he trial of the Starvini/. Ht
is the most powerful king on earth : he is at home
everywhere, but nowhere more so than at the trial
of the Starving. On high chairs sit the judges, ib
all their bloated importance. The courtroom ii
filled with curiosity seekers, idle ladies dressed ai
if for a ball; college professors and students look
ing for object lessons in criminal depravity; rid
young girls are there, to satisfy a perverted craviii
for excitement.
The first starveling is brought in muzzled.
King-Hunger. What is your oflEense, starveling?
Old Man. I stole a fiye-jhgund_loaf, but it w
wrested from me. I had only time to bite a small pic
of It. Forgive me, I will never again —
He is condemned in the name of the Law ar
King-Hunger^ the most powerful king on earth.
Another starveling is brought before the bare
justice. It is a woman, young and beautiful, b
pale and sad. She is charged with killing h(
child.
rif
King-Hunger 309
Young Womsm. One night my baby and I crossed
' ' the long bridge over the river. And since I had long be-
fore decided, so then approaching the middle, where the
>^ river is deep and swift, I said : " Look, baby dear, how
Z the water is a-roaring below." She said, " I can't reach,
u; mamma, the railing is so high." I said, " Come, let me
lift you, baby dear." And when she was gazing down
into the black deep, I threw her over. That's all.
; The Lam and King-Hunger condemn the woman
to " blackest hell," there to be " tormented and
burned in everlasting, slackless fires.'^
The heavy responsibility of meting out justice
has fatigued the judges. The excitement of the
trial has sharpened the appetite of the spectators.
King-Hunger, at home with all people, proposes
that the court adjourn for luncheon.
The scene in the restaurant represents Hunger
devouring like a wild beast the produce of toil,
ravenous, famished, the victim of his own glutton-
ous greed.
The monster fed, his hunger and thirst ap-
peased, he now returns to sit in self-satisfied judg-
ment over the Starving. The judges are more
bloated than before, the ladies more eager to bask
in the misery of their fellows. The college pro-
fessors and students, mentally heavy with food, are
still anxious to add data to the study of human
criminality.
310 Leonid Andreyev
A lean boy Is brought in, muzzled ; he is W
lowed by a ragged woman.
Woman. Have mercy! He stole an apple for r
your Honor. I was sick, thought he. " Let me bri
her a litde apple." Pity him ! Tell them that you wc
any more. Well! Speak!
Starveling. I won't any more.
Woman. Fvc already punished him myself. Pity
youth, cut not at the root his bright little days !
Voices. Indeed, pity one and then the next. Cut
evil at its roots.
One needs courage to be ruthless.
It is better for them.
Now he is only a boy, but when he grows u]
King-Hunger. Starveling, you are condemned.
A starveling, heavily muzzled, is dragged
He is big and strong. He protests to the court
has always been a faithful slave . But K
Hunger announces that the man is dangerous,
cause the faithful slave, being strong and hones
" obnoxious to people of refined culture and
brawny." The slave is faithful to-day, K
Hunger warns the judges, but " who can trust
to-morrow? Then in his strength and integ
we will encounter a violent and dangerous enen
In the name of justice the faithful slave is •
demned. Finally the last starveling appears,
looks half human, half beast.
^- King-Hu nger 311
1 King-Hunger, Who are you, starveling? Answer.
Do you understand human speech?
Starveling, We are the peasants.
r King-Hunger, What's your offense?
^ Starveling, We killed thedeyjl.
^ King-Hunger. It was a man whom you burnt.
Starveling. No, it was the devil. The priest told us
so, and then we burnt him.
The peasant is condemned. The session of the
: Court closes with a brief speech by King-Hunger:
King-Hunger. To-day you witnessed a highly in-
structive spectacle. Divine, eternal justice has found in
us, as judges and your retainers, its brilliant reflection on
earth. Subject only to the laws of immortal equity, un-
known to culpable compassion, indifferent to cursing and
entreating prayers, obeying the voice of our conscience
alone — we illumed this earth with the light of human
wisdom and sublime, sacred truth. Not for a single
moment forgetting that justice is the foundation of life,
we have crucified the Christ in days gone by and since,
to this very day, we cease not to grace Golgotha with new
crosses. But, certainly, only ruffians, only ruffians are
hanged. We showed no mercy to God himself, in the
name of the laws of immortal justice — would we be
now disconcerted by the howling of this impotent, starv-
ing rabble, by their cursing and raging? Let them curse!
Life herself blesses us, the great sacred truth will screen
us with her veil, and the very decree of history will not
be more just than our own. What have they gained by
cursing? What? They are there, we're here. They
312 Leonid Andreyev
arc in dungeons, in galleys, on crosses, but we will g
the theater. They perish, but we will devour thet
devour — devour.
The court has fulfilled its mission. K\
Hunger is the most powerful king on earth.
The starvelings break out in revolt. The b
peal with deafening thunder; all is confusion a
chaos. The city is immersed in the blackness
despair, and all is dark. Now and then gusts
fire sweep the sky illuminating the scene of batt
The air is filled with cries and groans ; there is t
thud of falling bodies, and still the fight goes on.
In a secluded part of the town stands the cast
In its most magnificent bal lroom the rich and th
lackeys — scientists, teachers and artists — a
gathered. They tremble with fear at the ominc
sounds outside. To silence the loud beat of th(
terror they command the musicians to strike up t
liveliest tunes, and the guests whirl about in a m:
dance.
From time to time the door is forced open ai
someone drops exhausted to the floor. An arti
rushes in, crying out that the art gallery is
flames.
" MurlUo is burning! Velasquez is burninj
Giorgione is burning ! "
He is not in the least concerned with livir
King-Hunger 313
values ; he dwells In the past and he wildly bewails
the dead weight of the past.
One after another men rush in to report the
burning of libra ries, the breaking of statues, and
the destruction of monuments. No one among the
wealthy mob regrets the slaughter of human life.
Panic-stricken the mighty fall from their
thrones. The Starvin g, infuriated and vengeful,
are marching on the m asters 1 They must not see
the craven fear of the huddled figures in the man-
sions, — the lights are turned off. But darkness
is even more terrible to the frightened palace mob.
In the madness of terror they begin to accuse and
denounce each other. They feel as helpless as
children before the approaching avalanche of
vengeance.
At this critical moment a man appears. He is
small, dirty, and unwashed; he smells of cheap
whisky and bad tobacco ; he blows his nose with a
red handkerchief and his manners are disgusting.
He is the engineer . He looks calmly about him,
presses a button, and the place is flooded widi
light. He brings the comforting news that the
revolt is crushed.
Engineer. On Sunny Hill wc planted a line of im-
mense machine guns of enormous power. ... A few
projectiles of a specially destructive power ... A public
square filled with people . • • Enough one or two such
314 Leonid Andreyev
shells. • . • And should the revolt still continue,
shower the city.
The revolt is over. All is quiet — the peai
death. The ground is strewn with bodies,
streets are soaked with blood. Fine ladies
about. They lift their children and bid t
kiss the mouth of the cannon , for the cannon 1
saved the rich from destruction. Prayers
hymns are offered up to the cannon, for they I
saved the masters and punished the starveli
And all is quiet, with the stillness of the gravej
where sleep the dead.
King-Hunger, with hollow cheeks and sun
eyes, makes a desperate last appeal to his c
dren.
King-Hunger, Oh, my son, my son! You clamc
so loud — why are you mute? Oh, my daughter,
daughter, you hated so profoundly, so intensely, you n
miserable on earth — arise. Arise from the dust ! Rt
the shadowy bonds of death! Arise! I conjure you
the name of Life! — You're silent?
For a brief moment all remains silent and i
movable. Suddenly a sound is heard, distant
first, then nearer and nearer, till a thousar
throated roar breaks forth like thunder :
We shall yet come!
We shall yet come!
Woe unto the victorious!
King-Hunger 315
The Victors pale at the ghostly cry. Seized
with terror, they run, wildly howling :
The dead arise!
— The dead arise!
" We shall yet come 1 " cry the dead. For they
who died for an ideal never die in vain. They
must come back, they shall come back. And then
— woe be to the victorious 1 King-Hunger is in-
deed the most terrible king on earth, but only for
those who are driven by blind forces alone.
But they who can turn on the light, know the
power of the things they have created. They will
come, and take possession, — no longer the
wretched scum, but the masters of the world.
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