INTERNATIONAL POCKET LIBRARY
EDITED BY EDMUND R. BROWN
THREE PLAYS
By
AUGUST STRINDBERG
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AUGUST STRINDBERG
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COUNTESS JULIE
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THE OUTLAW
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THE STRONGER
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Translated By
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INTERNATIONAL POCKET LIBRARY
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Copyright, 1912, by L. E. Bassett
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 64-22213
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MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC., CLINTON, MASS.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
"I tell you, you must have chaos in you,
if you would give birth to a dancing star.*'
— Nietzsche
The "dancing stars" sprung from the chaos
of Strindberg's being are shining now with
ever-increasing brilliance in the firmament of
dramatic literature.
The lack of harmony in his nature which
motivated his unusual conduct and tempera-
ment, Strindberg tried to explain as due to
heredity. His father's family were titled aristo-
crats, many of them churchmen, although his
father followed a commercial career. His
mother, the daughter of a poor tailor, was a
hotel waitress when his father met her and he
only married her after she had borne him three
children.
August was the fourth child, born in Stock-
holm, January 22, 1849, soon after his father
had gone into bankruptcy. There was little
light or cheer in the boy's home. His mother
became nervous and worn with the birth of
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
twelve children, and his father was serious and
reserved.
In his thirteenth year his mother died, and
within a year his father married his housekeeper
— a blow to the boy, who never got along with
his stepmother.
At school he suffered from the ridicule of
wealthier boys, who laughed at his leather
breeches and heavy boots, but he became a
leader among the boys of lower class. Later, as
the family fortunes bettered, he was able to
attend a private school, where he came in con-
tact with more culture. He was far from pre-
cocious in his studies, though not dull.
He went to Upsala University for one term,
and then left, partly on account of lack of
funds for books, and partly because of his im-
patience with the slow, pedantic teaching meth-
ods. He taught school for a while, then studied
medicine, but was repelled by the suffering he
encountered there.
About this time the creative artist in him
began to stir, and he made his debut at the
Dramatiska Theatre in Stockholm, in 1869, as
an actor in Bjornson's Mary Stuart. After two
months in minor roles, he asked the director to
hear him in a classical role he had been study-
ing. He shouted and ranted until the director
advised him to go to a dramatic school and
study. Overcome by humiliation, he went home
and swallowed an opium pill. Fortunately it
vi
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
was not powerful enough, and a friend coming
in persuaded him to go with him to a cafe and
there drown his sorrows.
This was the turning point of his career.
Next day, while trying to figure out some way
of persuading his stepmother to bring about a
reconciliation with his father, he visualized the
scene, played as clearly as on a stage, and in
two hours had two acts of a comedy worked out.
In four days he had finished his first play, and
although it was not accepted, the compliments
he received restored his confidence.
Within two months he had written two com-
edies and a tragedy in verse, Hermione, which
was later produced. He returned to Upsala in
1870, for he was advised that he would never
be recognized as a writer without a university
degree. To meet his expenses he forced his
father to give him the two hundred crowns left
him by his mother, but even with this his for-
tunes were often at a low ebb.
One evening Strindberg read a new one-act
play, In Rome, to his "Runa" (Song) Club, a
group he had got together to read the poetry
of its members. It was received enthusiastically,
and one of his friends sent the manuscript to
the Dramatiska Theatre, where it was accepted
and produced anonymously in August, 1870.
Strindberg was present at the premiere, but
fled before the final curtain, ashamed of his
self-confession.
¥"
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
He soon finished another play, The Outlaw,
which is included in the present volume. In this
drama, which still holds a high place among his
plays, Strindberg began to speak with his own
voice. It was accepted by the Court Theatre at
Stockholm, for production the next autumn, in
1871.
Returning to the University after a violent
quarrel with his father, he found he had only
one crown, and most of his old, more prosperous
friends were gone. But hope came with the news
of the successful production of The Outlaw.
Then the King, Carl XV, after seeing this splen-
did viking piece, summoned Strindberg to ap-
pear before him. At first Strindberg thought
it a practical joke, and only after confirming it
by telegraph did he obey the summons.
The kindly old King spoke of the pleasure
the ancient viking spirit of The Outlaw had
given him, and said, "You are the son of Strind-
berg, the steamship agent, I believe, and so,
of course, are not in need."
"Quite the reverse," Strindberg replied, ex-
plaining that his father no longer gave him the
meager help toward his university course which
he had formerly done.
"I'm rather short of cash myself," said the
King quite frankly, "but do you think you could
manage on eight hundred riksdaler a year?"
Strindberg was overwhelmed by such munifi-
cence, and the interview ended with his intro-
viii
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
duction to the court treasurer, from whom he
received his first quarter's allowance of two
hundred crowns.
Strindberg took up his studies with more
earnestness than ever. The year 1871 closed
brilliantly for the young writer. In addition to
the kingly favor, he received honorable mention
from the Swedish Academy for his Greek
drama, Hermione.
But following a dispute with one of his pro-
fessors, and the withdrawal of his stipend after
the death of the King, he decided to leave the
University for good. At a farewell banquet in
his honor he expressed appreciation for all he
had received from his student friends, saying,
"A personality does not develop from itself,
but out of each soul it comes in contact with it
sucks a drop, just as the bee gathers the honey
from a million flowers, giving it forth eventually
as its own."
Strindberg went to Stockholm, where for a
few months he gleaned a living from newspaper
work; but in the summer he went to a remote
island in Bothnia Bay, where in his twenty-
third year he wrote his great historical drama,
Master Olof. But the theatrical managers, ob-
jecting to his realistic handling of near-sacred
historical personages, refused it, and Master
Olof was not produced until seven years later,
at the Swedish Theatre at Stockholm.
In 1874 he became assistant at the Court
ix
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Library, a position providing both leisure for
study and an assured income. Finding in the
library some Chinese parchments, he plunged
into the study of that language. A treatise on
the subject won him medals from various
learned societies, as well as from the French
Institute; and further treatises brought him
other honors, until he was, to use his own
phrase, in a condition of "salubrious idiocy."
It was at this time that a friend introduced
him to the beautiful Baroness Wrangel, and
from that moment he was not a free man. The
friendship that followed resulted in the divorce
of the Baroness from her husband and her mar-
riage to Strindberg in December, 1877, when he
was twenty-eight. His new happiness revived
the creative impulse.
In 1878 Master Olof was finally accepted
and won immediate applause. But his resent-
ment at his belated success led to a satire in
novel form, The Red Room, which took for a
motto Voltaire's words, "Rien est si desagreable
que d'etre pendu obscurement."
To escape the hostile atmosphere of Sweden,
he went to a little village in France, where he
joined an international group of painters and
writers. An historical work, La France, won
the decoration of the Legion of Honor, which,
however, he refused, explaining that he never
had a frock coat!
In 1884 the first volume of his famous short
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
stories, Marriages, appeared, and the first edi-
tion was sold out in a few days. The book's
frank discussion of physical sex led to its con-
fiscation by the Swedish Government, but
Strindberg won his case for it in court, and the
book was again on the market.
The next year, 1885, his Real Utopias, an
attack on over-civilization, was written, and
following its success he went to Italy as a spe-
cial correspondent for the Stockholm Daily
News.
When, in 1886, the much anticipated second
volume of Marriages appeared, it attracted the
attention of Nietzsche, and a correspondence
sprang up, of which Nietzsche wrote, "Strind-
berg has written to me, and for the first time I
sense an answering note of universality." The
charge made by some critics that Nietzsche ex-
erted a dominating influence over Strindberg is
disproved by the fact that Countess Julie and
The Father, which are cited as examples of
that supposed influence, were completed before
Strindberg's acquaintance with Nietzsche's
philosophy.
The period during which Strindberg attained
his highest peak was in the years 1886-1890,
when he wrote his autobiography, The Servant
Woman's Son; the tragedies, The Father and
Countess Julie; the comedies, Comrades and
The Stronger; and the tragi-comedies, The
Creditor and Simoon. Strindberg's name now
xi
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
was known and honored throughout Europe —
except in his home country.
Of Countess Julie he says, "When I took this
motive from life, as it was related to me a few
years ago, it made a strong impression on me.
I found it suitable for tragedy, and it still
makes a sorrowful impression on me to see an
individual to whom happiness has been allotted
go under; much more, to see a line become ex-
tinct."
He says further, "The theatre has for a long
time seemed to me the biblia pauperum in the
fine arts, a bible with pictures for those who
can neither read nor write, and the dramatist is
the revivalist who dishes up the ideas of the day
in popular form, so popular that the middle
class, of whom the bulk of theatre-goers is com-
prised, can without burdening their brains un-
derstand what it is all about. The theatre,
therefore, has always been a grammar school
for the young, the half-educated, and women,
who still possess the primitive power of being
able to delude themselves and of allowing them-
selves to be deluded, that is to say, receive
illusions and accept suggestions from the dram-
atist. . . . People call authoritatively for the
'Joy of Life,' and theatrical managers call for
farces, as though the Joy of Life lay in being
foolish and in describing people who each and
every one are suffering from St. Vitus' dance
or idiocy. I find the j oy of life in the powerful,
xii
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
terrible struggles of life ; and the capability of
experiencing something, of learning something,
is a pleasure to me. And therefore I have chosen
an unusual but instructive subject; in other
words, an exception, but a great exception,
that will strengthen the rules which offend the
apostle of the commonplace. What will further
create antipathy in some is the fact that my
plan of action is not simple, and that there is
not one view alone to be taken of it. An event
in life — and that is rather a new discovery — is
usually occasioned by a series of more or less
deep-seated motifs, but the spectator generally
chooses that one which his power of judgment
finds simplest to grasp, or that his gift of judg-
ment considers the most honorable. For exam-
ple, someone commits suicide: 'Bad business!'
says the citizen; 'Unhappy love!' says the
woman ; 'Sickness !' says the sick man ; 'Disap-
pointed hopes!' the bankrupt. But it may be
that none of these reasons is the real one, and
that the dead man hid the real one by pretend-
ing another that would throw the most favor-
able light on his memory. ... In the following
drama (Julie) I have not sought to do anything
new, because that cannot be done, but only to
modernize the form according to the require-
ments I have considered present-day people
require."
Following the mighty output of those years,
in 1891 Strindberg went to the islands where
xiii
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
he had lived years before and led a hermit's life,
writing and painting. In 1892 he was divorced
from his wife.
After a few months, Strindberg went to Ber-
lin, where he was received with honors, includ-
ing a poem by Richard Dehmel addressed to
him as "An Immortal — To Germany's Guest."
While in Berlin he heard of the commotion dur-
ing the production in Paris by Antoine of
Countess Julie. Also he met a young Austrian
writer, Frida Uhl, to whom he was married in
April, 1893. Although the literary giant of the
hour, he was in very straightened circumstances,
which led to his permitting the publication in
French of A Fool's Confession, an account of
his marital miseries, which was republished
without his knowledge in Swedish, involving
him in a lawsuit.
About this time he became interested in
Swedenborg and in chemistry, and went to Paris
to pursue chemical research. Here he found his
plays meeting with great success. The Creditor
had been produced, and he was induced to un-
dertake the direction of The Father at the
Theatre de 1'Oeuvre, where it was a tremendous
success. At the same time the Cercle des Es-
choliers put on The Link, the Odeon produced
The Secret of the Guild, and the Chat Noir, The
Keys of Heaven, while translations of his novels
were running in French periodicals.
But Strindberg turned his back on all this
xiv
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
success and shut himself up in his chemistry
laboratory. Between his experiments and his in-
vestigations of Swedenborg he was unfit for any
kind of companionship, so that when his wife
left him to go to their child, who was ill, he wel-
comed the complete freedom. A year later they
were divorced.
In 1896 Strindberg returned to Sweden, so
broken in health that he went into the sanito-
rium of his friend, Dr. Eliasson at Ystad.
After two months he was well enough to go to
Austria to see his child. Then back in Sweden,
at the University of Lund, he immersed himself
again in the study of Swedenborg. Here he
wrote The Inferno, a record of a soul's night-
mare that is probably unique in literature. This
was followed by the great historical dramas and
the realistically symbolical plays of Sweden-
borgian spirit.
Easter, the most popular of these, was pro-
duced in Stockholm, and in 1901 the young
Norwegian actress, Harriet Bosse, who had
played the part of Eleonora, the psychic, be-
came Strindberg's wife. This third marriage
ended in divorce three years later.
In 1906 the actor-manager, August Falk,
produced Countess Julie in Stockholm, seven-
teen years after it had been written. In conse-
quence of its success, an intimate theater was
founded for the exclusive production of Strind-
berg's plays.
xv
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
On May 14, 1912, worn by the emotional in-
tensity of a life into which had been crowded
the stress and storm of a universe, but secure
in his position as Sweden's foremost man of
letters in modern times, Strindberg closed his
more than thirty years of penetrating analysis
of the human scene. In his last hours he had
said, "One gets more and more humble the
longer one lives, and in the shadow of death
many things look different."
xvi
COUNTESS JULIE
CHARACTERS
COUNTESS JULIE, twenty-five years old
JEAN, a valet, thirty
KRISTIN, a cook, thirty-five
FARM SERVANTS
The action takes place on Saint John's night,
the mid-summer festival surviving from pagan
times.
COUNTESS JULIE
SCENE. — A large kitchen. The ceiUng and
walls are partially covered by draperies and
greens. The back wall slants upward from
left side of scene. On back wall, left, are two
shelves filled with copper kettles, iron casser-
oles and tin pans. The shelves are trimmed
with fancy scalloped paper. To right of mid-
dle a large arched entrance with glass doors
through which one sees a fountain with a
statue of Cupid, syringa bushes in bloom and
tall poplars. To left corner of scene a large
stove with hood decorated with birch
branches. To right, servants9 dining table
of white pine and a few chairs. On the end
of table stands a Japanese jar filled with sy-
ringa blossoms. The floor is strewn with
juniper branches.
Near stove, an ice-box, sink and dish-table. A
large old-fashioned bell hangs over the door,
to left of door a speaking tube.
Kristin stands at stove engaged in cookmg
something. She wears a light cotton dress
and kitchen apron. Jean comes in wearing
livery; he carries a large pair of riding-boots
with spurs, which he puts on floor.
S STRINDBERG
JEAN. Tonight Miss Julie is crazy again, per-
fectly crazy.
KBISTIN. So — you're back at last.
JEAN. I went to the station with the Count and
coming back I went in to the barn and
danced and then I discovered Miss Julie there
leading the dance with the gamekeeper. When
she spied me, she rushed right toward me
and asked me to waltz, and then she waltzed
so — never in my life have I seen anything like
it ! Ah — she is crazy tonight.
KRISTIN. She has always been. But never so
much as in the last fortnight, since her en-
gagement was broken off.
JEAN. Yes, what about that gossip? He seemed
like a fine fellow although he wasn't rich!
Ach ! they have so much nonsense about them.
[Seats himself at table.] It's queer about
Miss Julie though — to prefer staying here at
home among these people, eh, to going away
with her father to visit her relatives, eh?
KRISTIN. She's probably shamefaced about
breaking off with her intended.
JEAN. No doubt! but he was a likely sort just
the same. Do you know, Kristin, how it hap-
pened? I saw it, although I didn't let on.
KEISTIN. No — did you see it?
JEAN. Yes, indeed, I did. They were out in
the stable yard one evening and she was
"training" him as she called it. Do you know
what happened? She made him leap over her
riding whip, the way you teach a dog to
COUNTESS JULIE 3
jump. He jumped it twice and got a lash
each time ; but the third time he snatched the
whip from her hand and broke it into pieces.
And then he vanished!
KRISTIN. Was that the way it happened? No,
you don't say so!
JEAN. Yes, that's the way the thing happened.
But what have you got to give me that's good,
Kristin?
KRISTIN. [She takes things from the pans on
stove and serves them to him.] Oh, it's only a
bit of kidney that I cut out of the veal steak
for you.
JEAN [Smelling the food]. Splendid! My fa-
vorite delicacy. [Feeling of plate] . But you
might have warmed the plate.
KRISTIN. You're fussier than the Count, when
you get started.
[Tweaks his hair.]
JEAN. Don't pull my hair ! You know how sen-
sitive I am.
KRISTIN. Oh — there, there! you know I was
only loving you.
[Jean eats, and Kristm opens bottle of beer.]
JEAN. Beer on midsummer night — thank you,
no! I have something better than that my-
self. [Takes bottle of wine from drawer of
table.] Yellow seal, how's that? Now give
me a glass — a wine glass you understand, of
course, when one drinks the genuine.
KRISTIN. [Fetches a glass. Then goes to stove
and putt on casserole.] Heaven help the
4 STRINDBERG
woman who gets you for her husband. Such
a fuss budget!
JEAN. Oh, talk! You ought to be glad to get
such a fine fellow as I am. And I don't think
it's done you any harm because I'm consid-
ered your intended. [Tastes wine.] Excel-
. . lent, very excellent ! Just a little too cold.
[Warms glass with hands]. We bought this
at Dijon. It stood at four francs a litre in
the bulk; then of course there was the duty
besides. What are you cooking now that
smells so infernally?
KRISTIN. Oh, it's some devil's mess that Miss
Julie must have for Diana.
JEAN. Take care of your words, Kristin. But
why should you stand there cooking for that
damned dog on a holiday evening ? Is it sick,
eh?
KRISTIN. Yes, it's sick. Diana sneaked out with
the gatekeeper's mongrels and now something
is wrong. Miss Julie can't stand that.
JEAN. Miss Julie has a great deal of pride
about some things — but not enough about
others ! Just like her mother in her lifetime ;
she thrived best in the kitchen or the stable,
but she must always drive tandem — never one
horse! She would go about with soiled cuffs
but she had to have the Count's crest on her
cuff buttons. And as for Miss Julie, she
doesn't take much care of her appearance
either. I should say she isn't refined.
Why just now out there she pulled the
COUNTESS JULIE 5
forester from Anna's side and asked him
to dance with her. We wouldn't do things
that way. But when the highborn wish to
unbend they become vulgar. Splendid she is
though! Magnificent! Ah, such shoulders
and •
KRISTIN. Oh, don't exaggerate. I've heard what
Clara says — who dresses her sometimes, I
have.
JEAN. Ha! Clara — you women are always jeal-
ous of each other. I who've been out riding
with her — ! ! ! And such a dancer!
KRISTIN. Come now, Jean, don't you want to
dance with me when I'm through?
JEAN. Of course I want to.
KRISTIN. That is a promise?
JEAN. Promise ! When I say I will do a thing
I do it ! Thanks for the supper — it was ex-
cellent.
[Pushes cork in the bottle with a bang.
Miss Julie appears in doorway, speaking to
someone outside.}
JULIE. I'll be back soon, but don't let things
wait for me.
[Jean quickly puts bottle in table drawer
and rises very respectfully.}
[Enter Miss Julie and goes to Kristin.] . .
JULIE. Is it done?
[Kristin indicating Jean's presence.}
JEAN [Gallantly} . Have you secrets between
you?
6 STRINDBERG
JULIE. [Flipping handkerchief in his face].
Curious, are you?
JEAN. How sweet that violet perfume is !
JULIE [Coquettishly] .Impudence ! Do you ap-
preciate perfumes too? Dance — that you can
do splendidly. [Jean looks towards the cook-
mg stove] . Don't look. Away with you.
JEAN [Inquisitive but polite] . Is it some troll's
dish that you are both concocting for mid-
summer night? Something to pierce the fu-
ture with and evoke the face of your in-
tended?
JULIE [Sharply] . To see him one must have
sharp eyes. [To Kristin] . Put it into a bottle
and cork it tight. Come now, Jean and dance
a schottische with me.
[Jean hesitates.]
JEAN. I don't wish to be impolite to anyone but
— this dance I promised to Kristin.
JULIE. Oh, she can have another — isn't that so,
Kristin? Won't you lend Jean to me.
KRISTIN. It's not for me to say, if Miss Julie is
so gracious it's not for me to say no. [To
Jean] . Go you and be grateful for the honor..
JEAN. Well said — but not wishing any offense
I wonder if it is prudent for Miss Julie to
dance twice in succession with her servant,
especially as people are never slow to find
meaning in —
JULIE [Breaking out]. In what? What sort of
meaning? What were you going to say?
COUNTESS JULIE 7
JEAN [Taken aback] . Since Miss Julie does
not understand I must speak plainly. It
may look strange to prefer one of your — un-
derlings— to others who covet the same
honor
JULIE. To prefer — what a thought ! I, the lady
of the house! I honor the people with my
presence and now that I feel like dancing I
want to have a partner who knows how to
lead to avoid being ridiculous.
JEAN. As Miss Julie commands. I'm here to
serve.
JULIE [Mildly] . You mustn't look upon that as
a command. Tonight we are all in holiday
spirits — full of gladness and rank is flung
aside. So, give me your arm! Don't be
alarmed, Kristin, I shall not take your sweet-
heart away from you.
[ Jean offers arm. They exit.]
PANTOMIME. — Played as though the actress
were really alone. Turns her back to the au-
dience when necessary. Does not look out
into the auditorium. Does not hurry as
though fearing the audience might grow rest-
less. Soft violin music from the distance,
schottische time. Kristin hums with the mu-
sic. She cleans the table; washes plate, wipes
it and puts it in the china closet Takes off
her apron and then opens drawer of table and
takes a small hand glass and stands it against
a flower pot on table. Lights a candle and
heats a hair pm with which she crimps her
8 STRINDBERG
hair around her forehead. After that she
goes to door at back and listens. Then she
returns to table and sees the Countess' hand-
kerchief', picks it up, smells of it, then
smooths it out and folds it. Enter Jean.
JEAN. She is crazy I tell you! To dance like
that! And the people stand grinning at her
behind the doors. What do you say to that,
Kristin ?
KRISTIN. Oh, didn't I say she's been acting
queer lately? But isn't it my turn to dance
now?
JEAN. You are not angry because I let myself
be led by the forelock?
KRISTIN. No, not for such a little thing. That
you know well enough. And I know my place
too
JEAN [Puts arm around her waist] . You're a
pretty smart girl, Kristin, and you ought to
make a good wife.
[Enter Miss Julie.]
JULIE [Disagreeably surprised, but with forced
gaiety]. You're a charming cavalier to run
away from your partner.
JEAN. On the contrary, Miss Julie, I have
hastened to my neglected one as you see.
JULIE [Changing subject] . Do you know, you
dance wonderfully well! But why are you
in livery on a holiday night? Take it off
immediately.
JEAN. Will you excuse me — my coat hangs
there.
COUNTESS JULIE 9
[Goes R. cmd takes coat.]
JULIE. Does it embarrass you to change your
coat in my presence? Go to your room then
— or else stay and I'll turn my back.
JEAN. With your permission, Miss Julie.
[Exit Jean R. One sees his arm as he
changes coat.]
JULIE [To Kristin ]. Is Jean your sweetheart,
that he is so devoted?
KRISTIN. Sweetheart? Yes, may it please you.
Sweetheart — that's what they call it.
JULIE. Call it?
KRISTIN. Oh Miss Julie has herself had a sweet-
heart and
JULIE. Yes, we were engaged
KRISTIN. But it came to nothing.
[Enter Jean in black frock coat.]
JULIE. Tres gentil, Monsieur Jean, tres gentil.
JEAN. Vous voulez plaisanter, Mademoiselle.
JULIE. Et vous voulez parler fran9ais? Where
did you learn that?
JEAN. In Switzerland where I was butler in the •
largest hotel at Lucerne.
JULIE. Why, you look like a gentleman in your
frock coat. Charmant!
[Seats herself by table.]
JEAN. You flatter me!
JULIE. Flatter!
[Picking him up on the word.]
JEAN. My natural modesty forbids me to be-
lieve that you could mean these pleasant
things that you say to a — such as I am — and
10 STRINDBERG
therefore I allowed myself to fancy that you
overrate or, as it is called, flatter.
JULIE. Where did you learn to use words like
that? Have you frequented the theatres
much ?
JEAN. I have frequented many places, I have!
JULIE. But you were born here in this neigh-
borhood?
JEAN. My father was a cottager on the district
attorney's property, and I saw Miss Julie as
a child — although she didn't see me!
JULIE. No, really?
JEAN. Yes, I remember one time in particular.
But I mustn't talk about that.
JULIE. Oh yes, do, when was it?
JEAN. No really — not now, another time per-
haps.
JULIE. "Another time" is a good for nothing.
Is it so dreadful then?
JEAN. Not dreadful — but it goes against the
grain. [Turns and points to Kristin, who hex
fallen asleep in a chair near stove] . Look at
her.
JULIE. She'll make a charming wife! Does she
snore too?
JEAN. No, but she talks in her sleep.
JULIE [Cynically} . How do you know that she
talks in her sleep?
JEAN [Boldly] . I have heard her.
[Pause and they look at each other.]
JULIE. Why don't you sit down?
COUNTESS JULIE 11
JEAN. I can't allow myself to do so in your
presence.
JULIE. But if I command you?
JEAN. Then I obey.
JULIE. Sit down then. But wait — can't you
get me something to drink first?
JEAN. I don't know what there is in the icebox.
Nothing but beer, probably.
JULIE. Is beer nothing? My taste is so simple
that I prefer it to wine.
[Jean takes out beer and serves it on plate.]
JEAN. Allow me.
JULIE. Won't you drink too?
JEAN. I am no friend to beer — but if Miss Julie
commands.
JULIE [Gaily] . Commands ! I should think aa
a polite cavalier you might join your lady.
JEAN. Looking at it in that way you are quite
right.
[Opens another bottle of beer and fills glass.]
JULIE. Give me a toast !
[Jean hesitates.]
JULIE [Mockingly]. Old as he is, I believe the
man is bashful!
JEAN [On his knee with mock gallantry, raises
glass] . A health to my lady of the house !
JULIE. Bravo! Now you must kiss my slipper.
Then the thing is perfect.
[ Jean hesitates and then seizes her foot and
kisses it lightly.]
JULIE. Splendid! You should have been an ac-
tor.
12 STRINDBERG
JEAN [Rising] . But this mustn't go any fur-
ther, Miss Julie. What if someone should
come in and see us?
JULIE. What harm would that do?
JEAN. Simply that it would give them a chance
to gossip. And if Miss Julie only knew how
their tongues wagged just now — then —
JULIE. What did they say? Tell me. And sit
down now.
JEAN [Sitting] . I don't wish to hurt you, but
they used an expression — threw hints of a
certain kind — but you are not a child, you
can understand. When one sees a lady
drinking alone with a man — let alone a ser-
vant— at night — then
JULIE. Then what? And for that matter, we
are not alone. Kristin is here.
JEAN. Sleeping! Yes.
JULIE. Then I shall wake her. [Rises] . Kris-
tin, are you asleep?
KRISTIN. [In her sleep]. Bla — bla — bla — bla.
JULIE. Kristin! She certainly can sleep.
[Goes to Kristin.]
KRISTIN. [In her sleep] . The Count's boots are
polished — put on the coffee — soon — soon —
soon. Oh — h-h-h puh !
[Breathes heavily. Julie takes her by the
nose.]
JULIE. Won't you wake up?
JEAN [Sternly] . Don't disturb the sleeping.
JULIE [Sharply]. What?
COUNTESS JULIE 13
JEAN. Anyone who has stood over the hot stove
all day long is tired when night comes. One
should respect the weary.
JULIE. That's a kind thought — and I honor it.
[Offers her hand.] Thanks for the sugges-
tion. Come out with me now and pick some
syringas.
[Kristin has awakened and goes to her room,
right, in a sort of sleepy, stupefied way.]
JEAN. With Miss Julie?
JULIE. With me.
JEA.N. But that wouldn't do — decidedly not.
JULIE. I don't understand you. Is it possible
that you fancy that I —
JEAN. No — not I, but people.
JULIE. What? That I'm in love with my coach-
man?
JEAN. I am not presumptuous, but we have
seen instances — and with the people nothing
is sacred.
JULIE. I believe he is an aristocrat!
JEAN. Yes, I am.
JULIE. But I step down
JEAN. Don't step down, Miss Julie. Listen to
me — no one would believe that you stepped
down of your own accord; people always say
that one falls down.
JULIE. I think better of the people than you do.
Come — and try them — come!
[Dares him with a look.]
JEAN. Do you know that you are wonderful?
14 STRINDBERG
JULIE. Perhaps. But you are too. Every-
thing is wonderful for that matter. Life,
people — everything. Everything is wreck-
age, that drifts over the water until it sinks,
sinks. I have the same dream every now and
then and at this moment I am reminded of it.
I find myself seated at the top of a high pil-
lar and I see no possible way to get down. I
grow dizzy when I look down, but down I
must. But I'm not brave enough to throw
myself ; I cannot hold fast and I long to fall
— but I don't fall. And yet I can find no rest
or peace until I shall come down to earth;
and if I came down to earth I would wish
myself down in the ground. Have you ever
felt like that?
JEAN. No, I dream that I'm lying in a dark
wood under a tall tree and I would up — up to
the top, where I can look far over the fair
landscape, where the sun is shining. I climb
— climb, to plunder the birds' nests up there
where the golden eggs lie, but the tree trunk
is so thick, so smooth, and the first limb is
so high ! But I know if I reached the first
limb I should climb as though on a ladder, to
the top. I haven't reached it yet, but I shall
reach it, if only in the dream.
JULIE. Here I stand talking about dreams with
you. Come now, just out in the park.
[She offers her arm and they start.}
JEAN. We should sleep on nine midsummer
COUNTESS JULIE 15
flowers tonight and then our dreams would
come true.
[She turns, Jean quickly holds a hand over
his eye.}
JULIE. What is it, something in your eye?
JEAN. Oh, it is nothing — just a speck. It will
be all right in a moment.
JULIE. It was some dust from my sleeve that
brushed against you. Now sit down and let
me look for it. [Pulls him into a chair, looks
into his eye.} Now sit still, perfectly still.
[Uses corner of her handkerchief in his eye.
Strikes his hand.] So — will you mind? I
believe you are trembling, strong man that
you are. [Touching his arm.] And such
arms!
JEAN [Warmngly.} Miss Julie!
JULIE. Yes, Monsieur Jean!
JEAN. Attention. Je ne suis qu' un homme!
JULIE. Will you sit still! So, now it is gone!
Kiss my hand and thank me !
[Jean rises.]
JEAN. Miss Julie, listen to me. Kristin has
gone to bed now — will you listen to me —
JULIE. Kiss my hand first.
JEAN. Listen to me —
JULIE. Kiss my hand first.
JEAN. Yes, but blame yourself.
JULIE. For what?
JEAN. For what? Are you a child at twenty-
five? Don't you know that it is dangerous
to play with fire?
16 STRINDBERG
JULIE. Not for me. I am insured !
JEAN. No, you are not. But even if you are,
there is inflammable material in the neighbor-
hood.
JULIE. Might that be you?
JEAN. Yes, not because it is I, but because I'm
a young man —
JULIE [Scornfully]. With a grand opportun-
ity— what inconceivable presumption! A
Don Juan perhaps ! Or a Joseph ! On my soul,
I believe he is a Joseph !
JEAN. You do?
JULIE. Almost.
[Jean rushes towards her and tries to take
her in his arms to kiss her.]
JULIE [Gives him a box on the ear] . Shame on
you.
JEAN. Are you in earnest, or fooling?
JULIE. In earnest.
JEAN. Then you were in earnest a moment ago,
too. You play too seriously with what is dan-
gerous. Now I'm tired of playing and beg
to be excused that I may go on with my work.
The Count must have his boots in time, and it
is long past midnight.
[Jean picks up boots.]
JULIE. Put those boots away.
JEAN. No, that is my work which it is my duty
to do, but I was not hired to be your play-
thing and that I shall never be. I think too
well of myself for that.
JULIE. You are proud.
JEAN. In some things — not in others.
COUNTESS JULIE 17
JULIE. Were you ever in love?
JEAN. We do not use that word, but I have
liked many girls. One time I was sick be-
cause I couldn't have the one I wanted — sick,
you understand, like the princesses in the
Arabian Nights who could not eat nor drink
for love sickness.
JULIE. Who was she? [Jean is silent.] Who was
she?
JEAN. That you could not make me tell.
JULIE. Not if I ask you as an equal, as a —
friend? Who was she?
JEAN. It was you!
[Julie seats herself.]
JULIE. How extravagant!
JEAN. Yes, if you will, it was ridiculous. That
was the story I hesitated to tell, but now I'm
going to tell it. Do you know how people in
high life look from the under world? No, of
course you don't. 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 nothing
grew, not even a tree, but from the window I
could see the Count's park walls with apple
trees rising above them. That was the garden
of paradise ; and there stood many angry an-
gels 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.
JULIE. Oh, all boys steal apples.
18 STRINDBERG
JEAN. You say that, but you despise me all the
same. No matter! One time I entered the
garden of paradise — it was to weed the onion
beds with my mother! Near the orchard
stood a Turkish pavilion, shaded and over-
grown with jessamine and honeysuckle. I
didn't know what it was used for and I had
never seen anything so beautiful. People
passed in and out and one day — the door was
left open. I sneaked in and beheld walls cov-
ered with pictures of kings and emperors and
there were red-fringed curtains at the win-
dows— now you understand what I mean —
I — [Breaks off a spray of syringa and puts it
to her nostrils.] I had never been in the castle
and how my thoughts leaped — and there they
returned ever after. Little by little the long-
ing came over me to experience for once the
pleasure of — enfin, I sneaked in and was be-
wildered. But then I heard someone coming
— there was only one exit for the great folk,
but for me there was another, and I had to
choose that. [Julie who has taken the syringa
lets it fall on table.] Once out I started to
run, scrambled through a raspberry hedge,
rushed over a strawberry bed and came to a
stop on the rose terrace. For there I saw a
figure in a pink dress and white slippers and
stockings — it was you! I hid under a heap
of weeds, under, you understand, where the
thistles pricked me, and lay on the damp,
rank earth. I gazed at you walking among
COUNTESS JULIE 19
the roses. And 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 Count's daughter.
JULIE [Pensively] . Do you believe that all poor
children would have such thoughts under
those conditions?
JEAN [Hesitates, then in a positive voice] . That
all poor children — yes, of course, of course !
JULIE. It must be a terrible misfortune to be
poor.
JEAN [ With deep pam and great chagrin] . Oh,
Miss Juiie, a dog may lie on the couch of a
Countess, a horse may be caressed by a lady's
hand, but a servant — yes, yes, sometimes
there is stuff enough in a man, whatever he
be, to swing himself up in the world, but how
often does that happen ! But to return to the
story, do you know what I did? I ran down
to the mill dam and threw myself in with
my clothes on — and was pulled out and got
a thrashing. But the following Sunday when
all the family went to visit my grandmother
I contrived to stay at home ; I scrubbed my-
self well, put on my best clothes, such as they
were, and went to church so that I might see
you. I saw you. Then I went home with my
mind made up to put an end to myself. But
I wanted to do it beautifully and without
pain. Then I happened to remember that
20 STRINDBERG
elderberry blossoms are poisonous. I knew
where there was a big elderberry bush in full
bloom and I stripped it of its riches and made
a bed of it in the oat-bin. Have you ever no-
ticed how smooth and glossy oats are? As
soft as a woman's arm. — Well, I got in and
let down the cover, fell asleep, and when I
awoke I was very ill, but didn't die — as you
see. 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.
JULIE. You tell it well! Were you ever at
school?
JEAN. A little, but I have read a good deal and
gone to the theatres. And besides, I have
always heard the talk of fine folks and from
them I have learned most.
JULIE. Do you listen then to what we are say-
ing?
JEAN. Yes, indeed, I do. And I have heard
much when I've been on the coachbox. One
time I heard Miss Julie and a lady —
JULIE. Oh, what was it you heard?
JEAN. Hm! that's not so easy to tell. But I
was astonished and could not understand
where you had heard such things. Well,
perhaps at bottom there's not so much differ-
ence between people and — people.
JULIE. Oh, shame! We don't behave as you do
when we are engaged.
COUNTESS JULIE 21
JEAN. [Eyeing her]. Are you sure of that? It
isn't worth while to play the innocent with
me.
JULIE. I gave my love to a rascal.
JEAN. That's what they always say afterward.
JULIE. Always?
JEAN. Always, I believe, as I have heard the
expression many times before under the same
circumstances.
JULIE. What circumstances?
JEAN. Those we've been talking about. The
last time I
JULIE. Silence. I don't wish to hear any more.
JEAN. Well, then I beg to be excused so I may
go to bed.
JULIE. Go to bed! On midsummer night?
JEAN. Yes, for dancing out there with that
pack has not amused me.
JULIE. Then get the key for the boat and row
me out over the lake. I want to see the sun
rise.
JEAN. Is that prudent?
JULIE. One would think that you were afraid of
your reputation.
JEAN. Why not? I don't want to be made rid-
iculous. I am not willing to be driven out
without references, now that I am going to
settle down. And I feel I owe something to
Kristin.
JULIE. Oh, so it's Kristin now
JEAN. Yes, but you too. Take my advice, go
up and go to bed.
JULIE. Shall I obey you?
22 STRINDBERG
JEAN. For once — for your own sake. I beg of
you. Night is crawling along, sleepiness
makes one irresponsible and the brain grows
hot. Go to your room. In fact — if I hear
rightly some of the people are coming for
me. If they find us here — then you are lost.
[Chorus is heard approaching, singing.]
"There came two ladies out of the woods
Tridiridi-ralla tridiridi-ra.
One of them had wet her foot,
Tridiridi-ralla-la.
They talked of a hundred dollars,
Tridiridi-ralla tridiridi-ra.
But neither had hardly a dollar,
Tridiridi-ralla-la.
The mitten I'm going to send you,
Tridirichi-ralla tridiridi-ra.
For another I'm going to jilt you,
Tridiridi-ralla tridiridi-ra.
JULIE. I know the people and I love them and
they respect me. Let them come, you shall
see.
JEAN. No, Miss Julie, they don't love you.
They take your food and spit upon your
kindness, believe me. Listen to them, listen
to what they're singing! No! Don't listen!
JULIE [Listening]. What are they singing?
JEAN. It's something suggestive, about you
and me.
COUNTESS JULIE 23
JULIE. Infamous ! Oh horrible ! And how cow-
ardly !
JEAN. The pack is always cowardly. And in
such a battle one can only run away.
JULIE. Run away? Where? We can't get out
and we can't go to Kristin.
JEAN. Into my room then. Necessity knows
no law. You can depend on me for I am your/
real, genuine, respectful friend. /
JULIE. But think if they found you there.
JEAN. I will turn the key and if they try to
break in I'll shoot. Come — come!
JULIE. [Meaningly] . You promise me ?
JEAN. I swear. . .
[She exits n. Jean follows her.]
BALLET. — The farm folk enter in holiday dress
with flowers in their hats, a fiddler in the lead.
They carry a keg of home-brewed beer and
a smaller keg of gin, both decorated with
greens which are placed on the table. They
help themselves to glasses and drink. Then
they sing and dance a country dance to the
melody of "There came two ladies out of the
woods." When that is over they go out, sing-
ing.
[Enter Julie alone, sees the havoc the visi-
tors have made, clasps her hands, takes out
powder box and powders her face. Enter
Jean exuberant.]
JEAN. There, you see, and you heard them. Do
you think it's possible for us to remain here
any longer?
24 STRINDBERG
JULIE. No, I don't. But what's to be done?
JEAN. Fly! Travel — far from here!
JULIE. Travel — yes — but where?
JEAN. To Switzerland — to the Italian lakes.
You have never been there?
JULIE. No — is it beautiful there?
JEAN. Oh, an eternal summer! Orange trees,
laurels — oh !
JULE. But what shall we do there?
JEAN. I'll open a first-class hotel for first-class
patrons.
JULIE. Hotel?
JEAN. That is life — you shall see! New faces
constantly, different languages. Not a mo-
ment for boredom. Always something to do
night and day — the bell ringing, the trains
whistling, the omnibus coming and going and
all the time the gold pieces rolling into the
till— that is life !
JULIE. Yes, that is life. And I — ?
JEAN. The mistress of the establishment — the
ornament of the house. With your looks —
and your manners — oh, it's a sure success!
Colossal ! You could sit like a queen in the
office and set the slaves in action by touching
an electric button. The guests line up be-
fore your throne and shyly lay their riches
on your desk. You can't believe how people
tremble when they get their bills — I can salt
the bills and you can sweeten them with your
most bewitching smile — ha, let us get away
from here — [Takes a time table from his
COUNTESS JULIE 25
pocket] immediately — by the next train. We
can be at Malmo at 6.30, Hamburg at 8.40
tomorrow morning, Frankfort the day after
and at Como by the St. Gothard route in
about — let me see, three days. Three days !
JULIE. All that is well enough, but Jean — you
must give me courage. Take me in your arms
and tell me that you love me.
JEAN [Hesitatingly] . I "wiIF— but I daren't —
not again in this house. I love you of course
— do you doubt that, Miss Julie?
JULIE [Shyly and with womardvness]. Miss
Julie! Call me Julie! Between us there can
be no more formality.
JEAN. I can't — There must be formality be-
tween us — as long as we are in this house.
There is the memory of the past — and there
is the Count, your father. I have never
known anyone else for whom I have such re-
spect. I need only to see his 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 as I see his boots standing
there so stiff and proper I feel like bowing
and scraping. [Gives boots a kick] . Super-
stitions and prejudices taught in childhood
can't be uprooted in a moment. Let us go
to a country that is a republic where they'll
stand on their heads for my coachman's liv-
ery— on their heads shall they stand — but I
shall not. I am not born to bow and scrape,
for there's stuff in me — character. If I only
26 STRINDBERG
get hold of the first limb, you shall see me
climb. I'm a coachman today, but next year
I shall be a proprietor, in two years a gentle-
man of income ; then for Roumania where I'll
let them decorate me and can, mark you, can
end a count!
JULIE. Beautiful, beautiful!
JEAN. Oh, in Roumania, one can buy a title
cheap — and so you can be a countess just the
same — my countess!
JULIE. What do I care for all that — which I
now cast behind me. Say that you love me —
else, what am I, without it?
JEAN. I'll say it a thousand times afterwards,
but not here. Above all, let us have npjsenti-
mentality now or everything will fall
through. We must look at this matter coldly
like sensible people. [Takes out a cigar and
lights it.] Now sit down there and I'll sit
here and we'll talk it over as if nothing had
happened.
JULIE [Staggered] . Oh, my God, have you no
feeling?
JEAN. I? No one living has more feeling than I
but I can restrain myself.
JULIE. A moment ago you could kiss my slip-
per and now
JEAN [Harshly] . That was — then. Now we
have other things to think about.
JULIE. Don't speak harshly to me.
JEAN. Not harshly, but wisely. One folly has
been committed — commit no more. The Count
COUNTESS JULIE 27 ^
may be here at any moment, and before he
comes, our fate must be settled. How do my
plans for the future strike you? Do you ap-
prove of them ? JH( c "j
JULIE. They seem acceptable enough. But one
question. For such a great undertaking a
large capital is necessary, have you that?
JEAN [Chewing his cigar], I? To be sure. I
have my regular occupation, my unusual ex-
perience, my knowledge of different lan-
guages— that is capital that counts, I should
say. 4
JULIE. But with all that you could not buy a
railway ticket.
JEAN. That's true, and for that reason I'm
looking for a backer who can furnish the
funds.
JULIE. How can that be done at a moment's
notice ?
JEAN. That is for you to say, if you wish to be
my companion.
JULIE. I can't — as I have nothing myself.
[A pause.]
JEAN. Then the whole matter drops
JULIE. And
JEAN. Things remain as they are.
TTULIE. Do you think I could remain under this
roof after Do you think I will allow the
people to point at me in scorn, or that I can
ever look my father in the face again?
Never! Take me away from this humiliation
38 STRINDBERG
and dishonor. Oh, what have I done ! Oh, my
God, what have I done ! /
[ Weeping.]
JEAN. So, you are beginning in that tune now.
x> What have you done? The same as many
before you.
JULIE. And now you despise me. I am falling!
I am falling!
JEAN. Fall down to my level, I'll lift you up
afterwards.
JULIE. What strange power drew me to you — *
— the weak to the strong — the falling to the
rising, or is this love ! This — love ! Do you
know what love is?
JEAN. I? Yes! Do you think it's the first time?
JULIE. What language, what thoughts.
JEAN. I am what life has made me. Don't be
nervous and play the high and mighty, for
now we are on the same level. Look here, my
little girl, let me offer you a glass of some-
thing extra fine.
[Opens drawer of table and takes out wine
bottle, then fills two glasses that have been
already used.]
JULIE. Where did you get that wine?
JEAN. From the cellar.
JULIE. My father's Burgundy.
JEAN. What's the matter, isn't that good
enough for the son-in-law?
JULIE. And I drink beer — I!
JEAN. That only goes to prove that your taste
is poorer than mine.
COUNTESS JULIE 29
JULIE. Thief!
JEAN. Do you intend to tattle?
JULIE. Oh ho! Accomplice to a house thief.
Was I intoxicated — have I been walking in
my sleep this night — midsummer night, the
night for innocent play
JEAN. Innocent, eh!
JULIE [Pacing back and forth] . Is there a be-
ing on earth so miserable as I.
JEAN. Why are you, after such a conquest?
Think of Kristin in there, don't you think
she has feelings too?
JULIE. I thought so a little while ago, but I
don't any more. A servant is a servant.
JEAN. And a whore is a whore.
JULIE [Falls on her knees with clasped hands] .
Oh, God in heaven, end my wretched life, save
me from this mire into which I'm sinking —
Oh save me, save me.
JEAN. I can't deny that it hurts me to see you
like this.
JULIE. And you who wanted to die for me.
JEAN. In the oat-bin? Oh, that was only talk.
JULIE. That is to say — a lie !
JEAN [Beginning to show sleepiness] . Er — er
almost. I believe I read something of the
sort in a newspaper about a chimney-sweep
who made a death bed for himself of syringa
blossoms in a wood-bin — [laughs] because
they were going to arrest him for non-sup-
port of his children.
JULIE. So .you are such a —
30 STRINDBERG
('JEAN. What better could I have hit on! One
\ must always be romantic to capture a woman.
SrtfLiE. Wretch ! Now you have seen the eagle's
back, and I suppose I am to be the first
limb
JEAN. And the limb is rotten —
JULIE [Without seeming to hear] . And I am to
be the hotel's signboard —
JEAN. And I the hotel —
JULIE. And sit behind the desk and allure
guests and overcharge them —
JEAN. Oh, that'll be my business.
JULIE. That a soul can be so degraded!
JEAN. Look to your own soul.
JULIE. Lackey! Servant! Stand up when I
speak.
JEAN. Don't you dare to moralize to me.
Lackey, eh! Do you think you have shown
yourself finer than any maid-servant tonight?
JULIE [Crushed] . That is right, strike me,
trample on me, I deserve nothing better. I
have done wrong, but help me now. Help me
out of this if there is any possible way.
JEAN [Softens somewhat] . I don't care to
shirk my share of the blame, but do you think
any one of my position would ever have dared
to raise his eyes to you if you yourself had
not invited it? Even now I am astonished —
JULIE. And proud.
JEAN. Why not? Although I must confess that
the conquest was too easy to be exciting.
JULIE. Go on, strike me again —
COUNTESS JULIE 31
JEAN [Rising]. No, forgive me, rather, for
what I said. I do not strike the unarmed,
least of all, a woman. But I can't deny that
from a certain point of view it gives me sat-
isfaction to know that it is the glitter of
brass, not gold, that dazzles us from below,
and that the eagle's back is grey like the rest
of him. On the other hand, I'm sorry to have
to realize that all that I have 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!
JULIE. You speak as though you were already
my superior.
JEAN. And so I am! For I can make you a
countess and you could never make me a
count.
JULIE. But I am born of a count, that you can
never be.
JEAN. That is true, but I can be the father of
counts — if —
JULIE. But you are a thief — that I am not.
JEAN. There are worse things than that, and
for that matter when I serve in a house I re-
gard myself as a member of the family, a
child of the house as it were. And one
doesn't consider it theft if children snoop a
berry from full bushes. [With renewed pas-
sion] ./Miss Julie, you are a glorious woman
— too good for such as I. You have been the
victim of an infatuation and you want to dis-
JL
82 STRINDBERG
guise this fault by fancying that you love
me. But you do not — unless perhaps my
outer self attracts you. And then your love
is no better than mine. But I cannot be sat-
isfied with that, and your real love I can
never awaken. ^J
JULIE. Are you sure of that ?
JEAN. You mean that we could get along with
such an arrangement? There's no doubt
about my loving you — you are beautiful, you
are elegant — [Goes to her and takes her
hand] accomplished, lovable when you wish
to be, and the flame that you awaken in man
does not die easily. [Puts arm around her.]
You are like hot wine with strong spices, and
your lips —
[Tries to kiss her. Julie pulls herself away
slowly.]
JULIE. Leave me — I'm not to be won this way.
JEAN. How then? Not with caresses and beau-
tiful words ? Not by thoughts for the future,
to save humiliation? How then?
JULIE. How? I don't know. I don't know! I
shrink from you as I would from a rat. But
I cannot escape from you.
JEAN. Escape with me.
JULIE. Escape? Yes, we must escape. — But I'm
so tired. Give me a glass of wine. [ Jean fills
a glass with wine, Julie looks at her watch.]
We must talk it over first for we have still a
little time left.
-CC\fUX^
COUNTESS JULIE 33
[She empties the glass and puts it out for
more.]
JEAN. Don't drink too much. It will go to your
head.
JULIE. What harm will that do?
JEAN. What harm? It's foolish to get intoxi-
cated. But what did you want to say?
JULIE. We must go away, but we must talk
first. That is, I must speak, for until now
you have done all the talking. You have told
me about your life — now I will tell you about
mine, then we will know each other through
and through before we start on our wander-
ing together.
JEAN. One moment, pardon. Think well
whether you won't regret having told your
life's secrets. IXj/^'f * a if*-°^7^ (2. *•
VULIE. Aren't you my friend? ^
JEAN. Yes. Sometimes. But don't depend
me.
JULIE. You only say that. And for that mat-
ter I have no secrets. You see, my mother
was not of noble birth. She was brought up
with ideas of equality, woman's freedom and
all that. She had very decided opinions
against matrimony, and when my father
courted her she declared that she would never
be his wife — but she did so for all that. I
came into the world against my mother's
wishes, I discovered, and was brought up like
a child of nature by my mother, and taught
everything that a boy must know as well; I
34 STRINDBERG
was to be an example of a woman being as
good as a man — I was made to go about in
boy's clothes and take care of the horses and
harness and saddle and hunt, and all such
things ; in fact, all over the estate women ser-
vants were taught to do men's work, with the
result that the property came near being
ruined — and so we became the laughing stock
of the countryside. At last my father must
have awakened from his bewitched condition,
for he revolted and ran things according to
his ideas. My mother became ill — what it
was I don't know, but she often had cramps
and acted queerly — sometimes hiding in the
attic or the orchard, and would even be gone
all night at times. Then came the big fire
which of course you have heard about. The
house, the stables — everything was burned,
under circumstances that pointed strongly to
an incendiary, for the misfortune happened
the day after the quarterly insurance was
due and the premiums sent in by father were
strangely delayed by his messenger so that
they arrived too late.
[She fills a wine glass and drinks.]
JEAN. Don't drink any more.
JULIE. Oh, what does it matter? My father
was utterly at a loss to know where to get
money to rebuild with. Then my mother sug-
gested that he try to borrow from a man who
had been her friend in her youth — a brick
manufacturer here in the neighborhood. My
COUNTESS JULIE 35
father made the loan, but wasn't allowed to
pay any interest, which surprised him. Then
the house was rebuilt. [Julie drinks again.]
Do you know who burned the house?
JEAN. Her ladyship, your mother?
JULIE. Do you know who the brick manufac-
turer was?
JEAN. Your mother's lover?
JULIIS. Do you know whose money it was ?
JEAN. Just a moment, that I don't know.
JULIE. It was my mother's.
JEAN. The Count's — that is to say, unless
there was a contract.
JULIE. There was no contract. My mother had
some money which she had not wished to have
in my father's keeping and therefore, she had
entrusted it to her friend's care.
JEAN. Who kept it.
JULIE. Quite right — he held on to it. All this
came to my father's knowledge. He couldn't
proceed against him, wasn't allowed to pay
his wife's friend, and couldn't prove that it
was his wife's money. That was my moth-
er's revenge for his taking the reins of the
establishment into his own hands. At that
time he was ready to shoot himself. Gossip
had it that he had tried and failed. Well, he
lived it down — and my mother paid full pen-
alty for her misdeed. Those were five ter-
rible years for me, as you can fancy. I
sympathized with my father, but I took my
mother's part, for I didn't know the true cir-
36 STRINDBERG
cumstances. Through her I learned to dis-
trust and hate men, and I swore to her never
to be a man's slave.
JEAN. But you became engaged to the District
Attorney.
JULIE. Just to make him my slave.
JEAN. But that he didn't care to be.
JULIE. He wanted to be, fast enough, but I grew
tired of him.
JEAN. Yes — I noticed that — in the stable-yard !
JULIE. What do you mean?
JEAN. I saw how he broke — the engagement.
JULIE. That's a lie. It was I who broke it. Did
he say he broke it — the wretch!
JEAN. I don't believe that he was a wretch.
You hate men, Miss Julie.
JULIE. Most of them. Sometimes one is weak —
JEAN. You hate me?
JULIE. Excessively. I could see you shot —
JEAN. Like a mad dog?
JULIE. Exactly!
JEAN. But there is nothing here to shoot with.
What shall we do then?
JULIE [Rousing herself] .We must get away
from here — travel.
JEAN. And torture each other to death?
"JULIE. No — to enjoy, a few days, a week — as
long as we can. And then to die.
JEAN. Die! How silly. I think it's better to
start the hotel.
JULIE [Not heeding him] . By the Lake of Como
/tO -
- STVr&Hi*3 o^uoufciW
COUNTESS JULIE
a
where the sun is always shining, where the
laurel is green at Christmas and the oranges
glow.
JEAN. The Lake of Como is a rain hole, I never
saw any oranges there except on fruit stands.
But it's a good resort, and there are many
villas to rent to loving couples. That's a very
paying industry. You know why? They
take leases for half a year at least, but they
usually leave in three weeks.
JULIE [Naively]. Why after three weeks?
JEAN. Why? They quarrel of course, but the
rent must be paid all the same. Then you
re-let, and so one after another they come and
go, for there is plenty of love, although it
doesn't last long.-"
JULIE. Then you don't want to die with me?
JEAN. I don't want to die at all, both because I
enjoy living and because I regard suicide as
a crime to Him who has given us life.
JULIE. Then you believe in God?
JEAN. Yes. Of course I do, and I go to church
every other Sunday — But I'm tired of all
this and I'm going to bed.
JULIE. Do you think I would allow myself to be
satisfied with such an ending?. Dp _yp.u-know
what a man owes to a woman he has --
JEAN [Takes out a silver coin and throws it on
the table]. Allow me, I don't want to owe
anything to anyone.
JULIE [Pretending not to notice the insult] . Do
you know what the law demands?
38 STRINDBERG
JEAN. I know that the law demands nothing of
s a woman who seduces a man.
JULIE [Agam not heeding him] . Do you see any
\ way out of it but to travel? — wed — and sep-
h arate?
JEAN. And if I protest against this misalli-
ance?
JULIE. Misalliance!
JEAN. Yes, for me. For you see I have a finer
ancestry than you, for I have no fire-bug in
my family.
J JULIE. How do you know?
JEAN. You can't prove the contrary. We have
no family record except that which the police
keep. But your pedigree I have read in a
book on the drawing room table. Do you
know who the founder of your family was?
It was a miller whose wife found favor with
the king during the Danish War. Such an-
cestry I have not.
s JULIE. This is my reward for opening my heart
to anyone so unworthy, with whom I have
talked about my family honor.
JEAN. Dishonor — yes, I said it. I told you not
to drink because then one talks too freely and
one should never talk.
JULIE. Oh, how I repent all this. If at least
you loved mej
-what do you mean?
jump over your riding
whip, shall I kiss you, lure you to Lake Como
for three weeks, and then — what do you want
you loved me!
j ** — .^ I, \f—
JEAN. For the last time— ^
Shall I weep, shall I jum
CD
^J
COUNTESS JULIE 39
anyway? This is getting tiresome. But
that's the way it always is when you get
mixed up in women's affairs. Miss Julie, I
see that you are unhappy, I know that you
suffer, but I can't understand you. Among
my kind there is no nonsense of this sort £~we
love as we play — when work gives us time.
We haven't the whole day and night for it like
vnn , VN*3P<- OQ^S/b i* - C'V.Su-S ^£i>
JOU' >JU^oX/AK^ t/, UY«fiJ is* sv^ orv Ofr retse-<~
JULIE. You must be good to me and speak to y
me as though I were a human being, t o\Jt -\i *
T> 1* V 'I ' J
JEAN. Joe one yourself. You spit on me and
expect me to stand it.
JULIE. Help me, help me. Only tell me what
to do — show me a way out of this!
JEAN. In heaven's name, if I only knew myself.
JULIE. I have been raving, I have been mad,
but is there no means of deliverance ?
JEAN. Stay here at home and say nothing. No
one knows.
JULIE. Impossible. These people know it, and
Kristin.
JEAN. They don't know it and could never sus-
pect such a thing.
JULIE [Hesitating] . But — it might happen
again.
JEAN. That is true.
JULIE. And the consequences?
JEAN [Frightened] . Consequences — where were
my wits not to have thought of that ! There
is only one thing to do. Get away from here
*$ —
40 STRINDBERG
immediately. I can't go with you or they
^ will suspect. You must go alone — away
2 from here — anywhere.
JULIE. Alone? Where? I cannot.
,JEAN. You must — and before the Count re-
turns. If you stay, we know how it will be.
If one has taken a false step it's likely to
happen again as the harm has already been
done, and one grows more and more daring
until at last all is discovered. Write the
Count afterward and confess all — except that
it was I. That he could never guess, and I
don't think he'll be so anxious to know who it
was, anyway.
JULIE. I will go if you'll go with me.
JEAN. Are you raving again? Miss Julie run-
ning away with her coachman? All the pa-
pers would be full of it and that the Count
could never live through.
JULIE. I can't go — I can't stay. Help me, I'm
so tired — so weary. Command me, set me in
motion — I can't think any more, — can't act —
JEAN. See now, what creatures you aristocrats
are ! Why do you bristle up and stick up
your noses as though you were the lords of
creation. Very well — I will command you!
Go up and dress yourself and see to it that
you have travelling money and then come
down. [She hesitates.] Go immediately.
[She still hesitates. He takes her hand and
leads her to door.]
JULIE. Speak gently to me, Jean.
COUNTESS JULIE 41
JEAN. A command always sounds harsh. Feel
it yourself now.
[Exit Julie.
[Jean draws a sigh of relief, seats himself
by the table, takes out a notebook and pen-
cil and counts aloud now and then until Kris-
tin comes in, dressed -for church.}
KRISTIN. My heavens, how it looks here. What's
been going on?
JEAN. Oh, Miss Julie dragged in the people.
Have you been sleeping so soundly that you
didn't hear anything?
KRISTIN. I've slept like a log.
JEAN. And already dressed for church!
KRISTIN. Ye-es, [Sleepily} didn't you promise
to go to early service with me ?
JEAN. Yes, quite so, and there you have my
stock and front. All right.
[He seats himself. Kristin putting on his
stock.]
JEAN [Sleepily]. What is the text today?
KRISTIN. St. John's Day! It is of course about
the beheading of John the Baptist.
JEAN. I'm afraid it will be terribly long drawn
out — that. Hey, you're choking me. I'm so
sleepy, so sleepy.
KRISTIN. What have you been doing up all
night? You are actually green in the face.
JEAN. I have been sitting here talking to Miss
Julie.
KRISTIN. Oh you don't know your place.
[Pause.]
42 STRINDBERG
JEAN. Listen, Kristin.
KRISTIN. Well?
JEAN. It's queer about her when you think it
over.
KEISTIN. What is queer?
JEAN. The whole thing.
[Pause. Kristin looks at half empty glasses
on table.]
KRISTIN. Have you been drinking together, too ?
JEAN. Yes!
KRISTIN. For shame. Look me in the eye.
JEAN. Yes.
KRISTIN. Is it possible? Is it possible?
JEAN [After reflecting] . Yes, it is.
KRISTIN. Ugh! That I would never have be-
lieved. For shame, for shame!
JEAN. You are not jealous of her?
KRISTIN. No, not of her. But if it had been
Clara or Sophie — then I would have
scratched your eyes out. So that is what has
happened — how I can't understand ! No, that
wasn't very nice!
JEAN. Are you mad at her?
KRISTIN. No, but with you. That was bad of
you, very bad. Poor girl. Do you know what
— 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 reflects on oneself, I think.
COUNTESS JULIE 43
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 better there's no use in our trying to bet-
ter 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 — if it had been a better man —
JEAN. What's that?
KRISTIN. Yes ! You are good enough, to be sure,
but there's a difference between people just
the same. No, this I can never forget. Miss
Julie who was always so proud and indiffer-
ent to men! One never would believe that
she would give herself — and to one like you!
She who was ready to have Diana shot be-
cause she would run after the gatekeeper's
mongrels. Yes, I say it — and here I won't
stay any longer and on the twenty-fourth of
October I go my way.
JEAN. And then?
KRISTIN. Well, as we've come to talk about it,
it's high time you looked around for some-
thing else, since we're going to get married.
JEAN. Well, what'll I look for? A married man
couldn't get a place like this.
KRISTIN. No, of course not. But you could take
a gatekeeper's job or look for a watchman's
place in some factory. The government's
44 STRINDBERG
plums are few, but they are sure. And then
the wife and children get a pension —
JEAN [ With a grimace] . That's all very fine —
— all that, but it's not exactly in my line to
think about dying for my wife and children
just now. I must confess that I have slightly
different aspirations.
KRISTIN. Aspirations? Aspirations — anyway
you have obligations. Think of those, you.
JEAN. Don't irritate me with talk about my ob-
ligations. I know my own business. [He
listens.] We'll have plenty of time for all this
some other day. Go and get ready and we'll
be off to church.
KRISTIN [Listening] . Who's that walking up-
stairs ?
JEAN. I don't know — unless it's Clara.
KRISTIN [Starting to go] . It could never be the
Count who has come home without anyone
hearing him?
JEAN [Frightened] . The Count ! I can't believe
that. He would have rung the bell.
KRISTIN. God help us ! Never have I been mixed
up in anything like this!
[Exit Kristin.
The sun has risen and lights up the scene.
Presently the sunshine comes in through
windows at an angle. Jean goes to door
and motions. Enter Julie, dressed for trav-
elling, carrying a small bird cage covered
with a cloth, which she places on a, chair.]
JULIE. I am ready!
COUNTESS JULIE 45
JEAN. Hush, Kristin is stirring!
[ Julie frightened and nervous throughout
following scene.]
JULIE. Does she suspect anything?
JEAN. She knows nothing. But, good heavens,
how you look!
JULIE. Why?
JEAN. You are pale as a ghost.
JULIE [Sighs] . Am I ? Oh, the sun is rising,
the sun!
JEAN. And now the troll's spell is broken.
JULIE. The trolls have indeed been at work this
night. But, Jean, listen — come with me, I
have money enough.
JEAN. Plenty?
JULIE. Enough to start with. Go with me for
I can't go alone — today, midsummer day.
Think of the stuffy train, packed in with the
crowds of people staring at one; the long
stops at the stations when one would be
speeding away. No, I cannot, I cannot!
And then the memories, childhood's memories
of midsummer day — the church decorated
with birch branches and syringa blossoms;
the festive dinner table with relations and
friends, afternoon in the park, music, danc-
ing, flowers and games — oh, one may fly, fly,
but anguish and remorse follow in the pack
wagon.
JEAN. I'll go with you — if we leave instantly — \
before it's too late.
46 STRINDBERG
JULIE. Go and dress then.
[She takes up bird cage.]
JEAN. But no baggage ! That would betray us.
JULIE. Nothing but what we can take in the
coupe.
[Jean has picked up his hat.]
JEAN. What have you there?
JULIE. It's only my canary. I cannot, will not,
leave it behind.
JEAN. So we are to lug a bird cage with us.
Are you crazy? Let go of it.
JULIE. It is all I take from home. The only
living creature that cares for me. Don't be
hard — let me take it with me.
JEAN. Let go the cage and don't talk so loud.
Kristin will hear us.
JULIE. No, I will not leave it to strange hands.
I would rather see it dead.
JEAN. Give me the creature. I'll fix it.
JULIE. Yes, but don't hurt it. Don't — no, I
cannot.
JEAN. Let go. I can.
JULIE [Takes the canary from cage]. Oh, my
little siren. Must your mistress part with
you?
JEAN. Be so good as not to make a scene. Your
welfare, your life, is at stake. So — quickly.
[Snatches bird from her and goes to chop-
ping block and takes up meat chopper] . You
should have learned how to chop off a chick-
en's head instead of shooting with a revolver.
COUNTESS JULIE 47
[He chops off the bird's head]. Then you
wouldn't swoon at a drop of blood.
JULIE [Shrieks] . Kill me, too. Kill me ! You
who can butcher an innocent bird without a
tremble. Oh, how I shrink from you. I
curse the moment I first saw you. I curse
the moment I was conceived in my mother's
womb.
JEAN. Come now! What good is your cursing,
let's be off.
JULIE [Looks toward chopping block as though
obsessed by thought of the slain bird}. No,
I cannot. I must see hush, a carriage
is passing. Don't you think I can stand the
sight of blood? You think I am weak. Oh, I
should like to see your blood flowing — to see
your brain on the chopping block, all your
sex swimming in a sea of blood. I believe I
could drink out of your skull, bathe my feet
in your breast and eat your heart cooked
whole. You think I am weak ; you believe
that I love you because my life has mingled
with yours; you think that I would carry
your offspring under my heart, and nourish
it with my blood — give birth to your child
and take your name! Hear, you, what are
you called, what is your family name? But
I'm sure you have none. I should be "Mrs.
Gate-Keeper," perhaps, or "Madame Dump-
heap." You dog with my collar on, you
lackey with my father's hallmark on your
buttons. I play rival to my cook — oh — oh —
48 STRINDBERG
oh! You believe that I am cowardly and
want to run away. No, now I shall stay.
The thunder may roll. My father will re-
turn— and find his desk broken into — his
money gone! Then he will ring — that bell.
A scuffle with his servant — then sends for the
police — and then I tell all — everything! Oh,
it will be beautiful to have it all over with —
if only that were the end ! And my father —
he'll have a shock and die, and then that will
be the end. Then they will place his swords
across the coffin — and the Count's line is ex-
tinct. The serf's line will continue in an or-
phanage, win honors in the gutter and end
in prison.
JEAN. Now it is the king's blood talking.
Splendid, Miss Julie! Only keep the miller
in his sack.
i
[Enter Kristm with prayer-book in hand.]
JULIE [Hastening to Kristin and falls in her
arms as though seeking protection]. Help
me, Kristin, help me against this man.
XBISTIN [Cold and unmoved]. What kind of
performance is this for a holy day morning?
What does this mean — this noise and fuss?
JULIE. Kristin, you are a woman, — and my
friend. Beware of this wretch.
JEAN [A little embarrassed and surprised].
While the ladies are arguing I'll go and
shave myself.
[Jean goes, E.J
COUNTESS JULIE 49
JULIE. You must understand me — you must
listen to me.
KEISTIN. No — I can't understand all this bosh.
Where may you be going in your traveling
dress ? — and he had his hat on ! Hey ?
JULIE. Listen to me, Kristin, listen to me and
I'll tell you everything.
KEISTIN. I don't want to know anything —
JULIE. You must listen to me
KEISTIN. What about ? Is it that foolishness with
Jean? That doesn't concern me at all. That
I won't be mixed up with, but if you're try-
ing to lure him to run away with you then we
must put a stop to it.
JULIE [Nervously] . Try to be calm now Kris-
tin, and listen to me. I can't stay here and
Jean can't stay here. That being true, we
must leave Kristin.
KEISTIN. Hm, hm !
JULIE [Brightening up] . But I have an idea —
what if we three should go — away — to for-
eign parts. To Switzerland and set up a
hotel together — I have money you see — and
Jean and I would back the whole thing, you
could run the kitchen. Won't that be fine?
Say yes, now — and come with us — then ev-
erything would be arranged — say yes !
[Throws her arms around Kristin and
coaxes her].
KEISTIN [Cold and reflecting] . Hm — hm !
JULIE [Presto tempo] . You have never been
out and traveled, Kristin. You shall look
50 STRINDBERG
about you in the world. Yon can't believe
how pleasant traveling on a train is — new
faces continually, new countries — and we'll
go to Hamburg — and passing through we'll
see the zoological gardens — that you will
like — then we'll go to the theatre — and hear
the opera — and when we reach Munich there
will be the museum — there are Rubens and
Raphaels and all the big painters that you
know — you have heard of Munich — where
King Ludwig lived — the King, you know,
who went mad. Then we'll see his palace — a
palace like those in the Sagas — and from
there it isn't far to Switzerland — and the
Alps, the Alps mind you with snow in mid-
summer. And there oranges grow and laurel
— green all the year round if —
[Jean is seen in the doorway n. stropping
his razor on the strop which he holds be-
tween his teeth and left hand. He listens
and nods his head favorably now and then.
Julie continues, tempo prestissimo]
And there we'll take a hotel and I'll sit taking
the cash while Jean greets the guests — goes
out and markets — writes letters — that will be
life, you may believe — then the train whistles
— then the omnibus comes — then a bell rings
upstairs, then in the restaurant — and then I
make out the bills — and I can salt them —
you can't think how people tremble when
they receive their bill — and you — you can sit
like a lady — of course you won't have to
COUNTESS JULIE 51
stand over the stove — you can dress finely
and neatly when you show yourself to the
people — and you with your appearance —
Oh, I'm not flattering, you can catch a hus-
band some fine day — a rich Englishman per-
haps— they are so easy to — [Slowing up]
to catch Then we'll be rich — and then
we'll build a villa by Lake Como — to be sure
it rains sometimes — but [becoming languid]
the sun must shine too sometimes
although it seems dark and if not
— we can at least travel homeward — and
come back — here — or some other place.
KRISTIN. Listen now. Does Miss Julie believe
in all this?
[Julie gomg to pieces.}
JULIE. Do I believe in it?
KRISTIN. Yes.
JULIE [Tired]. I don't know. I don't believe
in anything any more. [Sinks down on
bench, and takes head in her hand on table.]
In nothing — nothing!
KRISTIN [Turns to R. and looks toward Jean].
So — you intended to run away?
JEAN [Rather shamefaced comes forward and
puts razor on table] . Run away? That's put-
ting it rather strong. You heard Miss
Julie's project, I think it might be carried
out.
KRISTIN. Now listen to that ! Was it meant that
I should be cook — to that —
52 STRINDBERG
JEAN [Sharply] . Be so good as to use proper
language when you speak of your mistress.
KRISTIN. Mistress?
JEAN. Yes.
KRISTIN. No — hear! Listen to him!
JEAN. Yes, you listen — you need to, and talk
less. Miss Julie is your mistress and for the
same reason that you do not respect her now
you should not respect yourself.
KRISTIN. I have always had so much respect for
myself —
JEAN. That you never had any left for others !
KRISTIN. 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!
JEAN. Yes, you happened to get a fine fellow.
That was your good luck.
KRISTIN. Yes, a fine fellow — who sells the
Count's oats from his stable.
JEAN. Is it for you to say anything — you who
get a commission on all the groceries and a
bribe from the butcher?
KRISTIN. What's that?
JEAN. And you can't have respect for your
master and mistress any longer — you, you!
KRISTIN [Glad to change the subject] . Are you
coming to church with me ? You need a good
sermon for your actions.
JEAN. No, I'm not going to church today. You
can go alone — and confess your doings.
COUNTESS JULIE 53
KRISTIN. Yes, that I shall do, and I shall return
with so much forgiveness that there will be
enough/ for you too. The Savior suffered
and died on the cross for all our sins, and
when we go to Him in faith and a repentant
spirit he takes our sins on Himself.
JULIE. Do you believe that, Kristin?
KRISTIN. That is my life's belief, as true as I
stand here. And that was my childhood's be-
lief that I have kept since my youth, Miss
Julie. And where sin overflows, there mercy
overflows also.
JULIE. Oh, if I only had your faith. Oh, if —
KRISTIN. Yes, but you see that is not given with-
out God's particular grace, and that is not al-
lotted to all, that!
JULIE. Who are the chosen?
KRISTIN. That is the great secret of the King-
dom of Grace, and the Lord has no respect
for persons. But there the last shall be first.
JULIE. But then has he respect for the last —
the lowliest person?
KRISTIN [Continuing] . It is easier for a camel to
pass through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
That's the way it is, Miss Julie. However
— now I am going — alone. And on my way
I shall stop in and tell the stable boy not to
let any horses go out in case any one wants
to get away before the Count comes home.
Good bye.
[Exit Kristin.]
54 STRINDBERG
JEAN. Such a devil. And all this on account
of your confounded canary!
JULIE [Tired]. Oh, don't speak of the canary —
do you see any way out — any end to this?
JEAN [Thinking]. No.
JULIE. What would you do in my place?
JEAN. In your place — wait. As a noble lady,
as a woman — fallen — I don't know. Yes,
now I know.
JULIE [She takes up razor from table and
and makes gestures saying] This?
JEAN. Yes. But / should not do it, mark you,
for there is a difference between us.
JULIE. Because you are a man and I am a
woman? What other difference is there?
JEAN. That very difference — of man and
woman.
JULIE [Razor in hand] . I want to do it — but I
can't. My father couldn't either that time
when he should have done it.
JEAN. No, he was right, not to do it — he had
to avenge himself first.
JULIE. And now my mother revenges herself
again through me.
JEAN. Haven't you loved your father, Miss
Julie?
JULIE. Yes, deeply. But I have probably hated
him too, I must have — without being aware
of it. And it is due to my father's training
that I have learned to scorn my own sex. Be-
/tween them both they have made me half man,
half woman. Whose is the fault for what
COUNTESS JULIE 55
has happened — my father's? My mother's?
My own? I haven't anything of my own. I
haven't a thought which was not my father's
— not a passion that wasn't my mother's.
And last of all from my betrothed the idea
that all people are equal. For that I now
call him a wretch. How can it be my own
fault then? Throw the burden on Jesus as
Kristin did? No, I am too proud, too intel-
ligent, thanks to my father's teaching.
And that a rich man cannot enter the King-
dom of Heaven — that is a lie, and Kristin,
who has money in the savings bank — she
surely cannot enter there. Whose is the
fault? What does it concern us whose fault
it is? It is I who must bear the burden and
the consequences.
JEAN. Yes, but
[Two sharp rings on bell are heard. Julie
starts to her feet. Jean changes his coat.}
JEAN. The Count — has returned. Think if
Kristin has —
[Goes up to speaking tube and listens.}
JULIE. Now he has seen the desk!
JEAN [Speaking in the tube} . It is Jean, Ex-
cellency. [Listens} . Yes, Excellency. [Lis-
tens] .Yes, Excellency, — right away — imme-
diately, Excellency. Yes — in half an hour.
JULIE [In great agitation}. What did he say?
In Heaven's name, what did he say?
JEAN. He wants his boots and coffee in a half
hour.
56 STRINDBERG
JULIE. In half an hour then. Oh, I'm so tired — <
I'm incapable of feeling, not able to be sorry,
not able to go, not able to stay, not able to
live — not able to die. Help me now. Com-
mand me — I will obey like a dog. Do me
this last service — save my honor. Save his
name. You know what I have the will to do
— but cannot do. You will it and command
me to execute your will.
JEAN. I don't know why — but now I can't
either. — I don't understand myself. It is ab-
solutely as though this coat does it — but I
can't command you now. And since the
Count spoke to me I can't account for
it — but oh, it is that damned servant in
my back — I believe if the Count came in here
now and told me to cut my throat I would do
it on the spot.
JULIE. Make believe you are he — and I you.
You could act so well a little while ago when
you knelt at my feet. Then you were a
nobleman — or haven't you ever been at the
theatre and seen the hypnotist — [ Jean nods]
He says to his subject "Take the broom,"
and he takes it; he says, "Sweep," and he
sweeps.
JEAN. Then the subject must be asleep!
JULIE [Ecstatically] . I sleep already. The
whole room is like smoke before me — and you
are like a tall black stove, like a man clad
in black clothes with a high hat; and your
eyes gleam like the hot coals when the fire is
COUNTESS JULIE 57
dying; and your face a white spot like fallen
ashes. [The sunshine is coming in through
the windows and falls on Jean. Julie rubs
her hands as though warming them before a
fire] . It is so warm and good — and so bright
and quiet !
JEAN [Takes razor and puts it in her hand].
There is the broom, go now while it's bright
— out to the hay loft — and —
[He whispers m her ear.]
JULIE [Rousing herself] . Thanks. And now I
go to rest. But tell me this — the foremost
may receive the gift of Grace? Say it, even
if you don't believe it.
JEAN. The foremost? No, I can't say that. But
wait, Miss Julie — you are no longer among
the foremost since you are of the lowliest.
JULIE. That's true, I am the lowliest — the low-
liest of the lowly. Oh, now I can't go. Tell
me once more that I must go.
JEAN. No, now I cannot either — I cannot.
JULIE. And the first shall be last
JEAN. Don't think. You take my strength
from me, too, so that I become cowardly. —
What I thought I heard the bell !
No! To be afraid of the sound of a bell!
But it's not the bell — it's someone behind the
bell, the hand that sets the bell in motion —
and something else that sets the hand in mo-
tion. But stop your ears, stop your ears.
Then he will only ring louder and keep on
ringing until it's answered — and then it is
58 STRINDBERG
too late ! Then come the police — and then —
[Two loud rings on bell are heard, Jean falls
in a heap for a moment, but straightens up
immediately.] It is horrible! But there is no
other way. Go:
[Julie goes out resolutely.]
CURTAIN.
THE OUTLAW
CHARACTER?
THORFINN, Erl of Iceland
VALGERD, his wife
GUNLOD, their daughter
GUNNAR, a Crusader
ORM, a minstrel, foster brother to Thorfinn
A THRALL
A MESSENGER
Action takes place ID
THE OUTLAW
SCENE — A hut, door at back, window-holes,
right and left, closed by big heavy wooden
shutters. Wooden benches against walls, the
high bench, a sort of rude throne, at left.
The uprights of this high bench are carved
with images of the gods Odin and Thor.
From the wall beams hang swords, battle
axes and shields. Near the high bench stands
a harp. Gunlod stands at an open window-
hole peering out; through the opening one
gets a glimpse of the sea lighted by the au-
rora borealis. Valgerd sits by the fire, which
is m the middle of the room, spwwng.
VALGERD. Close the window-hole.
\Gunldd is silent.]
VALGERD. Gunlod!
GUNLOD. Did you speak, mother?
VALGERD. What are you doing?
GUNLOD. I am watching the sea.
VALGERD. When will jOu iearn to forget?
GUNLOD. Take everything away from me but
memories !
VALGERD. Look forward — not back.
GUNLOD. Who reproaches the strong viking
who looks back when he is quitting his native
strand ?
& STRINDBERG
VALGEED. You have had three winters to make
your farewell.
GUNLOD. You speak truly — three winters! For
here never came a summer!
VALGEED. When the floating ice melts, then
shall spring be here.
GUNLOD. The Northern Lights melt no ice.
VALGEED. Nor your tears.
GUNLOD. You never saw me weep.
VALGEED. But I have heard you. As long as
you do that, you are a child.
GUNLOD. I am not a child.
VALGEED. If you would be a woman, suffer in
silence.
GUNLOD. I'll cast sorrow from me, mother.
VALGEED. No, no — bury it, as your deepest
treasure. The seed must not lie on top of the
earth if it would sprout and ripen. You have
a deep sorrow. It should bear great glad-
ness— and great peace.
GUNLOD [After a pause] . I shall forget.
VALGEED. Everything?
GUNLOD. I shall try.
VALGEED. Can you forget your father's hard-
ness?
GUNLOD. That I have forgotten.
VALGEED. Can you forget that there was a time
when your fore-fathers' dwelling stood on
Brovikens' strand? Where the south wind
sang in the oak wood when the ice-bound seas
ran free — where the hemlocks gave forth
their fragrance and the finches twittered
THE OUTLAW 8
among the linden trees — and Balder, the God
of spring and joy, lulled you to sleep on the
green meadows? Can you forget all this,
while you listen to the sea gulls' plaints on
these bare rocks and cliffs, and the cold
storms out of the north howl through the
stunted birches?
GUNLOD. Yes!
VALGERD. Can you forget the friend of your
childhood from whom your father tore you to
save you from the white Christ?
GUNLOD [in desperation] . Yes, yes !
VALGERD. You are weeping.
GUNLOD [Disturbed], Some one is walking out
there. Perhaps father is coming home.
VALGERD. Will you bear in mind every day
without tears that we now dwell in the land of
ice — fugitives from the kingdom of Svea and
hated here by the Christ-men? But we have
suffered no loss of greatness, although we
have not been baptized and kissed the bish-
op's hand. Have you ever spoken to any of
the Christians since we have been here?
GUNLOD [After a pause] . No. Tell me, mother,
is it true that father is to be Erl here in Ice-
land, too?
VALGERD. Don't let that trouble you, child.
GUNLOD. Then I'm afraid he will fare badly
with the Christians.
VALGERD. You fear that?
GUNLOD. Some one is out there.
4 STRINDBERG
VALGERD [Anxiously] . Did you see the ship ly-
ing in the inlet this morning?
GUNLOD. With heart-felt gladness!
VALGERD. Bore it the figure-head of Thorfinn?
GUNLOD. That I could not make out.
VALGERD. Have a care, girl.
GUNLOD. Is it tonight that I may go out?
VALGERD. Tomorrow — that you know well.
GUNLOD. Mother!
VALGERD [Going] . Mind the fire.
[Valgerd goes.]
[Gunlod looks after her mother, then cau-
tiously takes from her breast a crucifix, puts
it on the high bench and falls on her knees.]
' GUNLOD. Christ, Christ, forgive me the lie I
told. [Springs up noticing the images of the
gods on the high bench.] No, I cannot pray
before these wicked images. [She looks for
another place.] Holy St. Olaf, holy — oh, I
can't remember how the bishop named her!
God! God! Cast me not into purgatory for
this sin! I will repeat the whole long prayer
I of the monks — credo, credo — in patrem — oh,
I have forgotten that too. I shall give five
tall candles for the altar of the mother of
God the next time I go to the chapel —
Credo, in patrem omnipotentem —
[Kissmg the crucifix eagerly.]
[A song is heard outside the hut accompa-
nied by a lyre.]
A crusader went out to the Holy Land,
O, Christ, take the maiden's soul in hand,
THE OUTLAW
And to your kingdom bring her!
I'll return, mayhap, when the spruce trees
bloom.
Summers three he wanders far from thee,
Where nightingales sing their delight,
And masses he holds both day and night,
At the holy sepulchre's chapel.
I'll return, mayhap, when the spruce trees
bloom. -~^
When the palm trees bud on Jordan's strand,
Then makes he a prayer to God,
That he may return to his native land,
And press to his heart his love.
I'll return, my love, when the sprupe trees
bloom.
GUNLOD [At beginning of song springs up and
then listens with more and more agitation and
eagerness. When the song is over she goes
toward door to bolt it, but so slowly that Gun-
nar is able to enter before she slips the bolt.
Gunnar is clad in the costume of a crusader
with a lyre swung across his shoulder.]
GUNNAR. Gunlod! [They embrace. Gunlod
pulls away and goes toward door.] You are
afraid of me? What is it, Gunlod?
GUNLOD. You never took me in your arms be-
fore!
GUNNAR. We were children then!
GUNLOD. You are right — we were children then.
What means that silver falcon on your
6 STRINDBERG
shield? I saw it on your ship's bow this
morning, too.
GUNNAR. You saw my ship — you knew my
song, and you would have barred the door
against me! What am I to understand,
Gunlod?
GUNLOD. Oh, ask me nothing! I am so unquiet
of spirit — but sit and let me talk to you.
GUNNAR [Sits]. You are silent.
GUNLOD. You are silent, too.
GUNNAR [Pulls her to his side] . Gunlod, Gun-
lod— has the snow fallen so heavily that
memories have been chilled — even the moun-
tains here burst forth with fire — and you are
cold as a snow wind — but speak — speak!
Why are you here in Iceland — and what has
happened ?
GUNLOD. Terrible things — and more may fol-
low if you stay here longer. — [Springs up] .
Go, before my father comes.
GUNNAR. Do you think I would leave you now
— I, who have sought you for long years?
When I could not find you in the home land I
went to the wars against the Saracens to seek
you the other side of the grave. But my time
had not yet come; when the fourth spring
came, I heard through wandering merchants
that you were to be found here. Now I have
found you — and you wish me to leave you in
this heathen darkness.
GUNLOD. I am not alone!
THE OUTLAW 7
GUNNAR. Your father does not love you — your
mother does not understand you, and they
are both heathen.
GUNLOD. I have friends among the Christians.
GUNNAR. Then you have become a Christian,
Gunlod! — the holy virgin has heard my
prayer.
GUNLOD. Yes, yes ! Oh, let me kiss the cross you
bear on your shoulder — that you got at the
holy sepulchre!
GUNNAR, Now I give you a brother Christian's
kiss — the first, Gunlod, you have from me.
GUNLOD. You must never kiss me again.
GUNNAR. But tell me, how did you become a
Christian ?
GUNLOD. First I believed in my father — he was
so strong ; then I believed in my mother — she
was so good ; last I believed in you — you were
so strong and good — and so beautiful; and
when you went away — I stood alone — myself
I could never believe in — I was so weak ; then
I thought of your God, whom you so often
begged me to love — and I prayed to Him.
GUNNAR. And the old gods
GUNLOD. I have never been able to believe in
them — although my father commanded me to
do so — they are wicked.
GUNNAR. Who has taught you to pray? Who
gave you the crucifix?
GUNLOD. The bishop.
GUNNAR. And that no one knows?
8 STRINDBERG
GUNLOD. No — I have had to He to my mother
and that troubles me.
GUNNAR. And your father hid you here so that
the Christians should not get you?
GUNLOD. Yes — and now he is expected home
from Norway with followers as he is to be Erl
of the island.
GUNNAR. God forbid!
GUNLOD. Yes — yes — but you must not delay.
He is expected home tonight.
GUNNAR. Good — there beyond Hjarleifs head-
land lies my ship. — Out to sea ! There is a
land wind, and before the first cock's crow we
shall be beyond pursuit.
GUNLOD. Yes ! Yes !
GUNNAR. Soon we should be at Ostergotland —
where the summer is still green — and there
you shall live in my castle which I have built
where your father's house stood.
GUNLOD. Does not that still stand?
GUNNAR. No — it was burned.
GUNLOD. By the Christians?
GUNNAR. You are so passionate, Gunlod !
GUNLOD. I suffer to say I would rather be a
heathen.
GUNNAR. What are you saying, girl!
GUNLOD [After a pause] . Forgive me, forgive
me — I am in such a wild mood — and when I
see the Christians, who should be examples,
commit such deeds—
GUNNAR. Crush out that thought, Gunlod — it
is ungodly. Do you see this wreath?
THE OUTLAW 9
GUNLOD. Where did you gather it?
GUNNAR. You recognize the flowers, Gunlod?
GUNLOD. They grew in my father's garden —
may I keep them?
GUNNAR. Gladly — but why do you care to have
them when we are going to journey there
ourselves ?
GUNLOD. I shall look at them the long winter
through — the hemlock shall remind me of the
green woods and the anemones of the blue
sky.
GUNNAR. And when they are withered ;
GUNLOD. Of that I do not think.
GUNNAR. Then go with me from this drear land
— far away, and there where our childhood
was spent we will live as free as the birds
among the flowers and sunshine. There you
shall not go in stealth to the temple of the
Lord when the bells tell you of the Sabbath.
Oh, you shall see the new chapel with its
vaulted roof and high-pillared aisles. And
hear the acolytes singing when the bishop
lights the incense on the high altar. There
shall you solemnize the God service with those
of Christ and you shall feel you heart
cleansed of sin.
GUNLOD. Shall I fly — leave my mother?
GUNNAR. She will forgive you some time.
GUNLOD. But my father would call me cowardly
and that I would never allow.
IUNNAR. That you must endure for the sake of
your belief.
f
10 STRINDBERG
GUNLOD. Thorfinn's daughter was never cow-
ardly.
GUNNAR. Your father does not love you, and he
will hate you when he knows of your conver-
sion.
GUNLOD. That he may do — but he shall never
despise me.
GUNNAR. You surrender your love, Gunlod.
GUNLOD. Love! — I remember — there was a
maiden — she had a friend who went away —
after, she was never again glad — she only
sat sewing silk and gold — what she was mak-
ing no one knew — and when they asked her
she would only weep. And when they asked
her why she wept, she never answered — only
wept. She grew pale of cheek and her
mother made ready her shroud. — Then there
came an old woman and she said it was love.
Gunnar, — I never wept when you went away
as father says it is weak to shed tears; I
never sewed silk and gold for that my mother
has never taught me to do — then had I not
love?
GUNNAR. You have often thought of me during
these years?
GUNLOD. I have dreamed so often of you, and
this morning when I stood by the window
where I linger so willingly and, gazing over
the sea, I saw your ship come up out of the
east, I became unquiet although I did not
know it was your ship.
THE OUTLAW 11
GUNNAR. Why do you gaze so willingly over
the sea?
GUNLOD. You ask many questions!
GUNNAR. Why did you want to close the door
against me?
GUNLOD [Silent] .
GUNNAR. Why didn't you close it?
GUNLOD [Silent] .
GUNNAR. Why are you silent?
[Gunlod bursts into tears.}
GUNNAR. You weep, Gunlod, and you know
why? I know, — you love!
[Takes her in his arms and kisses her.}
GUNLOD. [Tearing herself away}. You must
not kiss me ! Go !
GUNNAR. Yes — and you shall go with me.
GUNLOD. I do not care to be commanded by
you — and I shall not obey.
GUNNAR. The volcano gives forth fire — and
burns itself out !
GUNLOD. You have destroyed my peace — for-
ever ! Go and let me forget you.
GUNNAR. Do you know what the silver falcon
with the ribbon stands for? It is the symbol
of the wild girl I shall tame.
GUNLOD [With force]. You! Go before I hate
you ! — No one yet has bent my will !
GUNNAR. The wild fire of the viking's blood still
burns in your veins, but it shall be quenched.
A day and a night shall I wait for you. And
you will come — mild as a dove seeking shelter,
although you now would fly above the clouds
la STRINDBERG
like a wild falcon. But I still hold the ribbon
in my hand — that is your love, which you
cannot tear away. When twilight falls again
you will come. Till then, farewell.
[Goes to the door and stops.]
GUNLOD. [Silent.]
GUNNAR. [Going.] Farewell.
GUNLOD. We shall see, proud knight, who comes
first. When this garland shall bloom again,
then shall I come. [Throws garland in fire.
She watches it burn in a thoughtful mood.
When it is quite burnt she breaks into tears
again and falls on her knees.] God! God!
Soften my proud spirit! Oh, that he should
leave me ! [Hastens to door. At same moment
Valgerd enters, passes Gunlod, and goes to
fire.]
VALGERD. Why did you not tend the fire?
GUNLOD. [Silent.]
VALGERD [Putting her hand against Gunlod9 g
heart] . You have a secret !
GUNLOD. Yes, mother, yes.
VALGERD. Hide it well.
GUNLOD. Oh, I must speak — I can't bear it any
longer.
VALGERD. When saw you a mother who did not
know a daughter's secrets?
GUNLOD. Who told you mine?
VALGERD [Harshly] . Dry your tears.
[A pause.]
GUNLOD. Oh, let me go out — on the mountains
— on the strand. It is so stifling here.
THE OUTLAW 13
VALGERD. Go up to the loft — and you can be
alone. [Enter a thrall.] What would you?
THRALL. The Erl's trumpets are heard beyond
the rocks and the storm is growing.
VALGERD. Has darkness fallen?
THRALL. Yes, and a terrible darkness it is.
[A pause.]
GUNLOD. Send out a boat — two — as many as
can be found.
THRALL. All the boats are out for the hunt.
GUNLOD. Light beacon fires.
THRALL. All the fuel is so rain-soaked that we
haven't had so much as a twig on the hearth
all the evening.
VALGERD. Away!
THRALL. How will it go with the Erl?
VALGERD. Does that concern you?
[Thrall goes.]
GUNLOD. You have not forgotten your wrong !
VALGERD. Nor my revenge ! One should not lay
hands on the daughter of an Erl!
GUNLOD. So be it. Now your moment has come
— take your revenge — I'll show you how —
like this. [Takes a lighted torch.] Put this
torch in the window-hole on the right and you
wreck him. Put it in the left and you save
him
VALGERD [Interrupts] . Give me the torch and
leave me.
GUNLOD. There is a sacrifice which can pacify
your gods. Sacrifice your revenge.
14 STRINDBERG
VALGERD. [Takes torch, hesitates, and goes
quickly to left window-hole and places it
there. Trumpets are heard] . You struck me,
Thorfinn — I swore revenge — I shall humble
you with a kind deed.
GUNLOD [Unseen by Valgerd has entered and
falls on her mother's neck] . Thanks, mother.
VALGERD [Disconcerted] . Haven't you gone —
GUNLOD. Now I shall go.
[Gunlod goes.]
VALGERD [Alone by the window-hole] . You
shout for help, you mighty man, who always
helped yourself. [Trumpets are heard.]
Where is now your might — where is your
kingdom — [A gust of wind blows out the
lighted torch. Valgerd, terribly frightened,
takes torch and lights it.] Oh, he will perish!
What shall I do? Pray? To whom? Odin?
Njard? Ogir? I have called to them for four
times ten years, but never have they an-
swered. I have sacrificed, but never have
they helped. Thou, God, however you may
be called — Thou mighty one, who bidb the
sun to rise and set, thou tremendous one who
rules over the winds and water — to you will I
pray, to you will I sacrifice my revenge if
you will save him.
[Orm enters unnoticed.]
ORM. Good evening to you, Valgerd. Put on
your cloak — the wind is sharp.
VALGERD [Disconcerted, takes down torch and
closes window-hole.] Welcome, Orm.
THE OUTLAW 15
ORM. Thanks.
VALGERD. How is it with you, Orm?
ORM. Tolerable enough — when one gets near the
big logs.
VALGERD [Irritated], How went the journey I
mean ?
ORM. That is a long saga.
VALGERD. Make it short.
ORM. Well, as you know, we fared to Norway,
seeking men and timber.
VALGERD. Orm!
ORM. Valgerd!
VALGERD. You have not spoken a word of the
Erl.
ORM. Have you asked a word about your mate?
VALGERD. Where is he? Lives he?
ORM. I know not.
VALGERD. You know not! — you, his foster
brother? Where did you part from him?
ORM. Far out in the gulf. It was merry out
there you may believe. You should have seen
him swimming with my lyre in his hand. The
sea-weed was so tangled in his beard and hair
that one was tempted to believe that it was
Neptune himself. Just then came a wave as
big as a house
VALGERD. And then?
ORM. And then — I saw my lyre no more.
VALGERD. Orm! You jest while your lord and
brother is perhaps perishing out there! I
command you — go at once and seek him ! Do
you hear?
16 STRINDBERG
OEM. Why, what is the matter? You were
never before so concerned about your mate!
You might find time to give me a drink of ale
before I go.
VALGEED. Warm your knees by the hearth. I
shall go — and defy wind and storm.
OEM [Taking her hands] . Woman, woman-—
after all, you are a woman !
YALGEED [Angry], Let go my hand.
OEM. Now the Erl is saved !
VALGEED. Saved?
OEM. Yes, you have been given back to him —
and that is his voice now.
[Goes.]
[ Voices of Thorfinn and Orm are heard out-
side, Thorfinn laughing loudly.]
r \LGEED. The Erl comes — he laughs-^that I
have never heard before — oh, there is some-
thing terrible approaching !
[Wrings her hands.]
[Enter Thorfnn and Orm.]
THOEFINN [Laughing] . That was a murderous
sight
OEM. Yes, I promise you!
VALGEED. Welcome home, mate.
THOEFINN. Thanks, wife. Have you been out
in the rain? Your eyes are wet.
VALGEED. You are so merry !
THOEFINN. Merry? Yes — yes.
VALGEED. What became of your ships?
OEM. They went to the bottom — all but one.
THE OUTLAW 17
VALGERD [To Thorfinn] . And you can never-
theless be so gay?
THORFINN. Ho ! Ho ! Timber grows in plenty in
the north!
ORM. Now perhaps we might have something
life-giving.
THORFINN. Well said ! Fetch some ale, wife, and
let's be merry.
ORM. And we'll thank the gods who saved us.
THORFINN. When will you ever outgrow those
sagas, Orm?
ORM. Why do you force your wife and daugh-
ter to believe in them?
THORFINN. Women folk should have gods.
ORM. Whom do you believe helped you out
there in the storm?
THORFINN. I helped myself.
ORM. And yet you cried out to Ake-Thor when
the big wave swallowed you.
THORFINN. There you lie.
ORM. Orm never lies.
THORFINN. Orm is a poet!
ORM. Thorfinn must have swallowed too much
sea water when he cried for help to have such
a bitter tongue.
THORFINN. Take care of your own tongue,
Orm.
[Valgerd with dnnkmg horns.]
VALGERD. Here, foster-brothers, I drink to
your oath of friendship and better luck for
your next voyage.
18 STRINDBERG
THOEFINN. I forbid you to speak of that again.
[They drink. Thorfinn takes horn hastily
from mouth and asks] Where is the child?
VALGEED [Troubled]. She is in the loft.
THOEFINN. Call her hither.
VALGEED. She's not well.
THOEFINN [ Looks sharply at Valgerd] . She
shall — come !
VALGEED. You don't mean that.
THOEFINN. Did you hear the word?
VALGEED. It is not your last.
THOEFINN. A man has but one, though woman
must always have the last.
VALGEED [ Weakly] . You mock me.
THOEFINN. You are angry I believe.
VALGEED. You laugh so much tonight.
[Goes out.]
THOEFINN. Orm ! A thought comes to me.
OEM. If it's a great one you had better hide it.
Great thoughts are scarce these days.
THOEFINN. Did you notice my wife?
OEM. I never notice other men's wives.
THOEFINN. How kindly and mild she was.
OEM. She pitied you.
THOEFINN. Pitied me?
OEM. Yes, because sorrow that laughs is the
laughter of death, she thought.
THOEFINN. Woman cannot think.
OEM. No, not with her head, but with her heart.
That's why she has a smaller head but a big-
ger breast than we.
THOEFINN. Forebodings of evil torture me.
THE OUTLAW 19
ORM. Poor Thorfinn.
THORFINN. My child! Orm! When she comes
do you bid her drink from the horn to Asa-
Odin.
OEM. The fox scents against the wind. I un-
derstand.
THORFINN. Be ready — they come.
ORM. Be not hard with the child, Thorfinn, or
you will have me to reckon with.
[Valgerd and Gunlod enter. The latter
heavy with sleepiness. ,]
GUNLOD. Welcome home, father.
THORFINN. Do you speak truthfully?
GUNLOD. [Silent.}
THORFINN. You are ill, are you not?
GUNLOD. I am not quite myself.
THORFINN. I fear so.
ORM [Waving a drinking horn over the fire].
Come, Gunlod, and empty this sacred horn
to Odin who saved your father from ship-
wreck.
[All empty their horns except Gunlod.]
THORFINN [Tremblingly], Drink, Gunlod.
[Gunlod throws the horn on floor and goes
to Thorfinn and buries her head m his lap.]
GUNLOD. Hear me, father. I am a Christian.
Do with me what you will — my soul you can-
not destroy. God and the Saints will pro-
tect it.
[Thorfinn is beside himself with grief and
rage. Rises and pushes Gunlod away from
him and tries to speak, but words fail him.
*0 STRINDBERG
Sits on his high bench again in silence. Orm
goes to the women and speaks quietly to
them. They go toward door. Suddenly
Gunlod turns.]
GUNLOD. No! I won't go. I must speak that
you, my father, may not go to the grave with
a lie — for your whole life has been a lie! I
shall sacrifice the child's respect — love I have
never felt — and prove to you what terrible
guilt you have gathered on your head. Know
then, you have taught me to hate — for when
did you ever give me love — you taught me to
fear the great Erl Thorfinn and you have
succeeded, because I tremble before your
harshness. I respect your many scars and
great deeds, but you never taught me to love
my father. You always thrust me away when
I wanted to come to you — you poisoned my
soul and now you see God's punishment.
You have made me a criminal — for such I am
at this moment, but it cannot be otherwise.
Why do you hate my belief? Because it is
love and yours is hate ! Oh, father, father, I
want to kiss the clouds from your brow. I
wanted to caress your white locks and make
you forget the sorrows that whitened them.
I wanted to support you when your steps be-
gan to falter — Oh ! forget what I have said —
open your arms [falls on her knees] and take
me to your heart. Look at me tenderly — >
just once before it is too late. Speak one
word — [springs to her feet] Oh, your
THE OUTLAW 31
glance freezes me ! You will not ! I shall pray
for power to love you.
[Bursts mto tears and goes out, followed by
Valgerd, Orm goes forward to Thorfirm.]
THOEFINN. Sing for me, Orm.
ORM. Orm sings nothing but lies*
THORFINN. Lie then.
ORM. Was the truth so bitter?
THORFINN. What do you say?
ORM. Never mind. You shall hear more from
me later.
THORFINN. Orm, you are my friend!
ORM. H'm — of course !
THORFINN. I lack peace.
ORM. There are two ways to gain peace: one is
never to do anything one regrets — the other
never to regret anything one does !
THORFINN. But if one has already done what
one regrets?
ORM. Thorfinn! That is to say, you regret
your harshness toward your child?
THORFINN [Angry] . I regret nothing. And as
far as the child is concerned you had better
hold your tongue !
ORM. Hear you, Thorfinn — have you ever
thought about what your life has been?
THORFINN. Thinking is for old women — doing
has been my life.
ORM. What do you intend to do now?
THORFINN. What do I intend to do now?
ORM. Yes.
THORFINN [Shaken, is silent.]
82 STRINDBERG
OEM. You see how even a little thought struck
you — think then if a big thought should
come. Why don't you dare to look back?
Because you are afraid of the sights you
would see.
THOEFINN. Let the past remain buried.
OEM. No, I shall tear the corpses from their
graves and they shall stare at you with their
empty orbits until you quake with anguish
and fear — and you shall see that with all your
.strength you were not a man.
THOEFINN. What are you saying, madman?
OEM. Yes, shout — you are still a boy. Yes, you
— I have seen big, tall children with bushy
beards and gray hairs and crooked backs as
well.
THOEFINN. Hold your tongue, Orm.
OEM. Shout until the hut trembles — the truth
you cannot shout down.
THOEFINN. Silence, before I strike you !
OEM. Strike! Strike me to death — tear the
tongue out of my mouth — with copper trum-
pets shall the truth be blasted into your ears,
"your life has been a lie."
THOEFINN [jFtjA repressed anger and pain} .
Orm, I beg of you — speak no more.
OEM. Yes, Thorfmn, I shall speak. Feel how
the earth trembles under you. That means
an earthquake! The whole earth trembles
these days, for she is about to give birth.
She is to bring forth in dire pain a glorious
hero. Open your eyes and look. Do you see
THE OUTLAW 33
how thejsast wars with the west? It is love's
first conflict — the new bride trembles under
the elder's embraces, she struggles and suf-
fers— but soon she shall rejoice, and thou-
sands of torches shall be lighted and radiate
peace and gladness, because he shall be born,
the young, the strong, the beautiful prince-
ling, who shall rule over all peoples and whose
sceptre is called love and whose crown is
called light and whose name is the new age!
Thorfinn! do you remember the saga about
Thor at Utgarda Loke? He lifted the cat
so high that the trolls turned pale ; he drank
so deep from the horn that the trolls trembled
— but when the old woman felled him to his
knees then the trolls laughed. It was the age
that vanquished him, and it is the age that
you have warred against, and which has slain
you — it is the lord of the age, it is God who
has crushed you.
THORFINN. I have never known any god but '
my own strength, and that god I believe in! |
OEM. You don't know him — you who have so
long been lying at feud with him. It was he
who drove you from your native land, and
you thought you were escaping him. It was
he who struck your ships to splinters and
swallowed up your treasures and ended your
power. It was he who tore your child from
you — and you said you lacked peace ! It was
he
[Messenger enter$\,
*4 STRINDBERG
MESSENGER. Are you the Erl Thorfmn.
THOEFINN. I am.
MESSENGER. You committed the coast massacre
at Reyd-fiord last spring?
THORFINN [ Undisturbed] . I did.
MESSENGER. You plundered and burned Hall-
fred atThorvalla?
THORFINN. YeS.
MESSENGER. And then you disappeared.
THORFINN [Silent.]
MESSENGER. The Allting has now declared you
an outlaw and pronounced you a felon. Your
house is to be burned to the ground, and
whomsoever will may take your life. Your
enemies are at hand, therefore fly while there
is yet time — make your escape this night.
[Messenger goes out and there is a long
pause.]
ORM. Do you know who that was?
THORFINN. You may well ask that.
ORM. It was a messenger from that old woman
who felled Thor — the age !
THORFINN. You talk like an old woman.
' ORM. This age does not want to use force, but
you have violated it and it strikes you.
THORFINN. This age cannot suffer strength,
therefore it worships weakness.
ORM. When you came to this island you swore
peace. You have broken your oath, you have
. violated your honor, therefore you must die
like a felon.
THORFINN. Do you too call me a felon?
THE OUTLAW 35
OEM. Yes.
THOEFINN. Would you dare to break an oath?
Would you dare to be called a felon?
OEM [Silent.]
THOEFINN. Poor wretch ! It is you who put
shackles on me when I want to fly! Like a
snake you coil yourself around my legs. Let
go of me !
OEM. We have sworn the oath of foster-broth-
ers.
THOEFINN. I break it!
OEM, You cannot.
THOEFINN. Then I'll kick you out of the way.
OEM. That will be our death.
THOEFINN. Are you a man, Orm?
OEM. I've become a poet only.
THOEFINN. Therefore you have become nothing.
OEM. I knew what I wanted, but I could not at-
tain it. You could attain anything, but did
not know what you wanted.
THOEFINN. Thanks for your song. Farewell.
OEM. Who will sing your death song?
THOEFINN. The ravens no doubt.
OEM. Do you dare to die, Thorfinn?
THOEFINN. I dare more ! I dare to be forgotten !
OEM. You were always stronger than I. Fare-
well. We'll meet again.
[Orm goes out.}
THOEFINN. Alone! Alone! Alone! [Pause.] I
remember one autumn when the equinoctial
storm raged over England's sea my dragon
ship was wrecked and I was tossd up on the
6 STRINDBERG
rocks alone. Afterward everything grew
calm. Oh, what long days and nights ! Only
the cloudless sky above and endlessly the deep
blue sea around me. Not a sound of any liv-
ing creature ! Not even the gulls to wake me
with their screeching! Not even a breeze
stirred the waves to lap against the stones.
It seemed as if I myself were dead ! Loudly I
talked and shouted, but the sound of my
voice frightened me, and thirst bound my
tongue. Only the even beat of my heart in
my breast told me that I was alive ! But after
a moment's listening I heard it no longer and,
trembling, I rose to my feet, and so it was
each time Until, senseless, I swooned. When
at last I revived I heard the slow beats of a
heart beside me and a deep breathing that was
not mine, and courage revived in my soul. I
looked about — it was a seal seeking rest; it
gazed at me with its moist eyes as if filled
with compassion for me. Now I was no
longer alone! I stretched out my hand to
caress its rough body ; then it fled and I was
doubly alone. Again I am on the j*ocks !
What jlo I fear? Yes, loneliness! What is
loneliness ? It is I, myself! Who am I then to
fear myself? Am I not Erl Thorfinn, the
strong, who has bowed thousands of wills to
his? Who never asked for friendship or love
but himself bore his own sorrows ! No ! No ! I
am another! And therefore Thorfinn the
strong fears Thorfinn the weak! JVho stole
THE OUTLAW 37
my strength? Who struck me down? Was it
the sea? Have I not vanquished the sea three
times ten voyages? And it has defeated me
but once — but then to the death! It was the
stronger. It was a God. But who subdued the
sea that lately raged? Who? Who? Who? It
was the stronger! Who are you then, the
stronger! Oh, answer, that I may believe! —
He does not answer ! — All is silent ! — Again
I hear my heart beating. Oh, help, help! I
am cold, I freeze —
[Goes to door and calls Valgerd.]
[Enter a thrall]
THRALL. You called, Master Erl?
THORFINN [Recovering himself] . You were mis-
taken.
THRALL. Yes, master.
THORFINN. How many men are we ?
THRALL. Oh — half three score I think.
THORFINN. Are you afraid to die, thrall?
THRALL. How can I be when I believe that I
shall be saved?
[Crosses himself.]
THORFINN. What does that mean?
THRALL. The bishop has taught us to do that.
THORFINN. I forgot that you are a Christian.
THRALL. Do you wish me to stay in your ser-
vice when you are a heathen?
THORFINN. I want to prove how little I respect
their belief. We must put double bolts on
the north gate!
38 STRINDBERG
THE ALL. Yes, Master, but the belief is stronger
than a hundred bolts.
THORFINN. Who questioned you? [Pause.]
What happened when you became Christians
here on the island?
THRALL. Oh, it was easier than any one would
think. They only poured water on us and the
bishop read from a big book and then they
gave us each a white shirt.
THORFINN. Tell the twelve strongest to take
their new axes — do you hear?
THRALL [Starting to go] . Yes, Master.
THORFINN. Wait. [Pause.] Do you remember
what was written in that big book?
THRALL. I don't remember much of it, but there
was something about two thieves who were
hanged on crosses along with the Son of God.
But one of them went to heaven.
THORFINN. Did they pour water on him, too?
THRALL. The bishop didn't say.
THORFINN. Do you know whether there are any
horses in the stable?
THRALL. They must be out at pasture — but I'll
see.
[Starts to go.]
THORFINN. You mustn't leave me — stay.
[Pause.] Could you die in peace this night?
THRALL. Yes, if I only had time for a prayer
first.
THORFINN. Does that bring peace to one?
THRALL. Oh, yes, Master.
THE OUTLAW *9
THOBFINN [ Rises, takes up a goblet] . This you
shall have if you will pray for me.
THRALL. That's not enough.
THORFINN. You shall have ten, but if you ever
tell of it— I'll take your life.
THEALL. It would not help even if you gave me
a hundred. You must pray yourself.
THORFINN. I cannot, but I command you to
pray.
THRALL. I will obey — but you will see that it
does not help. [Praying.} Jesus Christ,
have pity on this poor sinner who begs for
mercy.
THORFINN. That's & lie. I never begged for
anything !
THRALL. You see now that it doesn't help.
THORFINN. Give me my armor and help me
buckle.
THRALL [Helping] . You are not keeping still.
I can't fasten the buckles.
THORFINN. Wretch!
THRALL. But your whole body is shaking.
THORFINN. That's a lie !
[Valgerd and Gtmlod enter.]
THRALL. May I go now?
THORFINN. Go.
VALGERD [Coming forward]. You called me.
THORFINN. That's not true.
VALGERD. Your enemies are upon you.
THORFINN. What does that concern you ?
VALGRED. Make ready. I have heard what has
come to pass.
30 STRINDBERG
THORFINN. Then it is best that you [indicating
both Valgerd and Gunlod] hide yourselves in
the cellar passage.
[Another messenger enters.]
MESSENGER. Erl Thorfinn, we are here. Will
you surrender to our superior strength?
THORFINN [Silent.]
MESSENGER. You do not answer. Let the wo-
men go as we shall burn your home. [Thor-
finn is silent.] Your answer!
[Gimlod who has been standing by the door,
comes forward and takes a battle axe from
wall]
GUNLOD. I give you your answer! Ill must Erl
Thorfinn have brought up his daughter and
little would his wife have loved him if they
should desert him now. Here is your answer.
[Throws battle axe at messenger's feet.]
MESSENGER. You are stronger than I thought,
Thorfinn. For your daughter's sake you
shall have a chance to fall like a hero and not
as a felon. Make ready for open conflict —
out on the field.
[Goes out.]
THORFINN [to Valgerd] . Out on you, cowardly,
faithless woman, to guard my treasure so ill!
To make my child mine enemy.
GUNLOD. O, my father, am I your enemy?
THORFINN. You are a Christian; but it is not
too late yet. Will you deny the white Christ?
GUNLOD. Never ! But I will follow you to death.
THE OUTLAW 31
VALGERD. Thorfinn, you call me cowardly. I
can suffer that, but faithless — there you
wrong me. I have not loved you as warmly
as the southern women are said to love, yet
have I been faithful to you throughout life
and I have sworn to go with you in death — as
is the ancient custom. [Opens a trap door in
floor.] Look, here have I prepared my
grave, here would I die under these smoky
beams that have witnessed my sorrows — and
with those [points to the carved images of
Thor and Odin on uprights of high bench]
who guided us here. I want to go with the
flames, and in the smoke shall my spirit rise
to Ginde to receive charity and peace.
GUNLOD. And I to be alone afterward! Oh, let
me follow you.
VALGERD. No, child, you are young. You may
yet flourish in a milder clime. But the old
fir tree dies on its roots.
GUNLOD. Father, father, you must not die. I
will save you!
THORFINN. YOU?
GUNLOD. Your kinsman Gunnar lies off Hjar-
leif 's headland with his men. Send one of the
thralls to him by a roundabout route and he
will come.
THORFINN. So ! It was out of that well that you
drew your courage. Keep your help and go
if you will.
GUNLOD. You shall not think me a coward. I go
with you, mother. You cannot hinder me.
82 STRINDBERG
[Thorfinn goes to the door, try wig to con-
ceal his emotion.}
VALGEED. No! Stay, Thorfinn, and for once
bare your big soul that I may read its dim
runics.
THORFINN. If you cannot interpret them now
then may this runic stone crumble to air un-
read.
VALGEED. You are not the hard stone you would
seem. You have feelings. Show them. Let
them flow forth and you shall know peace!
THOEFINN. My feelings are my heart's blood.
Would you see it?
[The clatter of arms is heard outside which
continues until Thorfinn returns. Thorfinn
starts to go out when he hears the clatter.]
VALGEED. Oh, stay and say a word of farewell!
THOEFINN. Woman, you tear down my strength
with your feelings. Let me go! The play
has begun!
VALGEED. Say farewell, at least.
THOENFINN [Restraining his feelings with ef-
fort] . Farewell, child.
[Goes out.]
VALGEED. That man no one will bend.
GUNLOD. God will!
VALGEED. His hardness is great.
GUNLOD. God's mercy is greater !
VALGEED. Farewell, my child.
GUNLOD. Do you dare leave me behind, alone?
VALGEED [Embracing Gunlod] . Are you pre-
pared?
THE OUTLAW 33
GUNLOD. The holy virgin prays for me.
VALGERD. I trust in the God of love.
GUNLOD. And in the mother of God.
VALGERD. I know her not.
GUNLOD. You must believe in her.
VALGERD. My belief is not your belief.
GUNLOD [Embracing Valgerd] . Forgive me.
VALGERD. Now to your place.
[Gunlod opens the wooden shutter at win-
dow-hole and looks out. Valgerd takes a
torch and places herself by the trap door in
floor.]
GUNLOD. The strife is sharp.
VALGERD. Do you see the Erl?
GUNLOD. He stands at the gate.
VALGERD. How fares he?
GUNLOD. Everything falls before him.
VALGERD. Does he weary?
GUNLOD. Still is he straight See what
terrible northern lights.
VALGERD. Have many fallen?
GUNLOD. I cannot tell. They are drawing away
from the threshing yard. Oh, the heavens are
red as blood !
[Pause.]
VALGERD. Speak! What do you see?
GUNLOD [With joy}. The silver falcon!
VALGERD. It's an ill-omen.
GUNLOD. Father comes.
VALGERD. Is he wounded?
GUNLOD. Oh, now he is falling !
84 STRINDBERG
VALGERD. Close the window-hole and trust in
God.
GUNLOD. No, not yet. A moment.
VALGRED. Are you afraid?
GUNLOD [Going toward door]. No! No!
[The sounds of the conflict gradually die
away.]
THOEFINN [Comes in pale and wounded.] Stay!
[Valgerd goes towards him. Pause.}
THORFINN [On high bench}. Come here.
[Valgerd and Gunlod go to him. Thorfinn
caresses Gunlod's hair, kisses her forehead,
then presses Valgerd1 s hand.]
THORFINN [Kissing Valgerd] . Now you see my
heart's blood.
[Valgerd rises to get torch.]
VALGERD. Now is our parting over.
THORFINN. Stay and live with your child.
VALGERD. My oath!
THORFINN. My whole life has been a broken
oath and yet I hope It is better to
live
[Orm comes in wounded. Stops at door.]
ORM. May I come?
THORFINN. Come.
ORM. Have you found peace now?
THORFINN [Caressmg the woman] . Soon, soon !
ORM. Then we are ready for the journey.
THORFINN [Looks at Valgerd and Gunlod].
Not yet.
ORM [Sits on bench] . Hurry if you want com-
pany.
THE OUTLAW 85
THORFINN. Orm, are you a Christian?
ORM. You may ask indeed.
THORFINN. What are you then, riddle?
ORM. I was everything. I was nothing. I was
a poet.
THORFINN. Do you believe in anything?
ORM. I've come to have a belief.
THORFINN. What gave it to you?
ORM. Doubt, misfortune, sorrow.
THORFINN [To Valgerd] . Valgerd, give me
your hand, so. Hold fast — tighter — you
must not let go until — the end,
[Gunnar comes m and stops by door.}
THORFINN. Who COmCS?
GUNNAR. You know me!
THORFINN. I know your voice, but my eyes see
you not.
GUNNAR. I am your kinsman, Gunnar.
THORFINN [After a pause] . Step forth.
[Gunnar remains where he is, looking ques-
tioningly at Gunlod.}
THORFINN. Is he here ?
[Gunlod rises, goes with slow steps and
bowed head to Gunnar. Takes his hand and
leads him to Thorfinn. They kneel.]
THORFINN [Puttmg hands on their heads].
Eternal Creating God —
[Diet.]
CUETAIN.
THE STRONGER
CHARACTERS
MME. X., an actress, married
MLLE. Y., an actress, unmarried
A WAITRESS
THE STRONGER
SCENE — The corner of a ladies9 cafe. Two lit-
tie iron tables, a red velvet sofa, several
chairs. Enter Mme. X., dressed in winter
clothes, carrying a Japanese basket on her
arm.
MLLE. Y. sits with a half empty beer bottle be-
fore her, reading an illustrated paper, which
she changes later for another.
MME. x. Good afternoon, Amelie. You're sit«
ting here alone on Christmas eve like a poor
bachelor !
MLLE. Y. {Looks up, nods, and resumes her
reading.}
MME. x. Do you know it really hurts me to see
you like this, alone, in a cafe, and on Christ-
mas eve, too. It makes me feel as I did one
time when I saw a bridal party in a Paris
restaurant, and the bride sat reading a comic
paper, while the groom played billiards with
the witnesses. Huh, thought I, with such a
beginning, what will follow, and what will be
the end? He played billiards on his wedding
eve ! [Mile. Y. starts to speak] . And she
read a comic paper, you mean? Well, they
are not altogether the same thing.
1
£ STRINDBERG
[A waitress enters, places a cup of chocolate
before Mme. X. and goes out.}
MME. x. You know what, Amelie! I believe you
would have done better to have kept him ! Do
you remember, I was the first to say "For-
give him?" Do you remember that? You
would be married now and have a home. Re-
member that Christmas when you went out
to visit your fiance's parents in the country?
How you gloried in the happiness of home
life and really longed to quit the theatre for-
ever? Yes, Amelie dear, home is the best of
all, the theatre next and children — well, you
don't understand that.
MLLE. Y. [Looks up scornfully.]
[Mme. X. sips a few spoonfuls out of the
cup, then opens her basket and shows Christ-
mas presents.]
MME. x. Now you shall see what I bought for
mv P^gy wigs. [Takes up a doll.] Look at
this ! This is for Lisa, ha ! Do you see how
she can roll her eyes and turn her head, eh?
And here is Maja's popgun.
[Loads it and shoots at Mile. Y.]
MLLE. Y. [Makes a startled gesture.]
MME. x. Did I frighten you? Do you think I
would like to shoot you, eh? On my soul, if I
don't think you did! If you wanted to shoot
me it wouldn't be so surprising, because I
stood in your way — and I know you can
never forget that — although I was absolutely
THE STRONGER 3
innocent. You still believe I intrigued and
got you out of the Stora theatre, but I didn't.
I didn't do that, although you think so. Well,
it doesn't make any difference what I say to
you. You still believe I did it. [Takes up a
pair of embroidered slippers.] And these are
for my better half. I embroidered them my-
self— I can't bear tulips, but he wants tulips
on everything.
MLLE. Y. [Looks up ironically and curiously.}
•*IME. x. [Putting a hand in each slipper.] See
what little feet Bob has! What? And you
should see what a splendid stride he has!
You've never seen him in slippers ! [Mile. F.
laughs aloud.] Look! [She makes the slip-
pers walk on the table. Mile. Y. laughs
loudly.] And when he is grumpy he stamps
like this with his foot. "What! damn those
servants who can never learn to make coffee.
Oh, now those creatures haven't trimmed the
lamp wick properly!" And then there are
draughts on the floor and his feet are cold.
"Ugh, how cold it is; the stupid idiots can
never keep the fire going."
[She rubs the slippers together, one sole
over the other.]
MLLE. Y. [Shrieks with laughter.]
MME. x. And then he comes home and has to
hunt for his slippers which Marie has stuck
under the chiffonier — oh, but it's sinful to
sit here and make fun of one's husband this
4 STRINDBERG
way when he is kind and a good little man.
You ought to have had such a husband,
Amelie. What are you laughing at? What?
What? And you see he's true to me. Yes, I'm
sure of that, because he told me himself —
what are you laughing at? — that when I was
touring in Norway that that brazen Fr£d-
erique came and wanted to seduce him ! Can
you fancy anything so infamous? [Pause.]
I'd have torn her eyes out if she had come to
see him when I was at home. [Pause.] It
was lucky that Bob told me about it himself
and that it didn't reach me through gossip.
[Pause.] But would you believe it, Freder-
ique wasn't the only one ! I don't know why,
but the women are crazy about my husband.
They must think he has influence about get-
ting them theatrical engagements, because he
is connected with the government. Perhaps
you were after him yourself. I didn't use
to trust you any too much. But now I know
he never bothered his head about you, and
you always seemed to have a grudge against
him someway.
[Pause. They look at each other in a pux-
zled way.}
MME. x. Come and see us this evening, Amelie,
and show us that you're not put out with us
— not put out with me at any rate. I don't
know, but I think it would be uncomfortable
to have you for an enemy. Perhaps it's be-
THE STRONGER 5
cause I stood in your way [rallentando] or —
I really — don't know why — in particular.
[Pause. Mile. Y. stares at Mme. X curi-
ously.}
MME. x [Thoughtfully] . Our acquaintance has
been so queer. When I saw you for the first
time I was afraid of you, so afraid that I
didn't dare let you out of my sight ; no mat-
ter when or where, I always found myself
near you — I didn't dare have you for an en-
emy, so I became your friend. But there was
always discord when you came to our house,
because I saw that my husband couldn't en-
dure you, and the whole thing seemed as
awry to me as an ill-fitting gown — and I did
all I could to make him friendly toward you,
but with no success until you became engaged.
Then came a violent friendship between you,
so that it looked all at once as though you
both dared show your real feelings only when
you were secure — and then — how was it
later? I didn't get jealous — strange to say!
And I remember at the christening, when you
acted as godmother, I made him kiss you — he
did so, and you became so confused — as it
were; I didn't notice it then — didn't think
about it later, either — have never thought
about it until — now! [Rises suddenly.] Why
are you silent? You haven't said a word this
whole time, but you have let me go on talk-
ing ! You have sat there, and your eyes have
reeled out of me all these thoughts which lay
6 STRINDBERG
like raw silk in its cocoon — thoughts — sus-
picious thoughts, perhaps. Let me see — why
did you break your engagement? Why do you
never come to our house any more? Why
won't you come to see us tonight?
[Mile. Y. appears as if about to speak.]
MME. x. Hush, you needn't speak — I under-
stand it all! It was because — and because —
and because ! Yes, yes ! Now all the accounts
balance. That's it. Fie, I won't sit at the
same table with you. [Moves her things to
another table.] That's the reason I had to
embroider tulips — which I hate — on his slip-
pers, because you are fond of tulips; that's
why [Throws slippers on the floor] we go
to Lake Malarn in the summer, because you
don't like salt water; that's why my boy is
named Eskil — because it's your father's
name; that's why I wear your colors, read
your authors, eat your favorite dishes, drink
your drinks — chocolate, for instance; that's
why — oh — my God — it's terrible, when I
think about it; it's terrible. Everything,
everything came from you to me, even your
passions. Your soul crept into mine, like a
worm into an apple, ate and ate, bored and
bored, until nothing was left but the rind and
a little black dust within. I wanted to get
away from you, but I couldn't; you lay like
a snake and charmed me with your black
eyes ; I felt that when I lifted my wings they
only dragged me down; I lay in the water
THE STRONGER 7
with bound feet, and the stronger I strove to
keep up the deeper I worked myself down,
down, until I sank to the bottom, where you
lay like a giant crab to clutch me in your
claws — and there I am lying now.
I hate you, hate you, hate you! And you only
sit there silent — silent and indifferent; indif-
ferent whether it's new moon or waning moon,
Christmas or New Year's, whether others are
happy or unhappy ; without power to hate or
to love; as quiet as a stork by a rat hole —
you couldn't scent your prey and capture it,
but you could lie in wait for it ! You sit here
in your corner of the cafe — did you know it's
called "The Rat Trap" for you? — and read
the papers to see if misfortune hasn't befallen
some one, to see if some one hasn't been given
notice at the theatre, perhaps ; you sit here
and calculate about your next victim and
reckon on your chances of recompense like a
pilot in a shipwreck. Poor Amelie, I pity
you, nevertheless, because I know you are un-
happy, unhappy like one who has been
wounded, and angry because you are wound-
ed. I can't be angry with you, no matter
how much I want to be — because you come
out the weaker one. Yes, all that with Bob
doesn't trouble me. What is that to me, after
all? And what difference does it make
whether I learned to drink chocolate from
you or some one else.
[Sips a spoonful from her cup.]
8 STRINDBERG
Besides, chocolate is very healthful. And if
you taught me how to dress — tant mieux! —
that has only made me more attractive to my
husband ; so you lost and I won there. Well,
judging by certain signs, I believe you have
already lost him; and you certainly intended
that I should leave him — do as you did with
your fianc£ and regret as you now regret;
but, you see, I don't do that — we mustn't be
too exacting. And why should I take only
what no one else wants?
Perhaps, take it all in all, I am at this mo-
ment the stronger one. You received nothing
from me, but you gave me much. And now
I seem like a thief since you have awakened
and find I possess what is your loss. How
could it be otherwise when everything is
worthless and sterile in your hands? You can
never keep a man's love with your tulips and
your passions — but I can keep it. You can't
learn how to live from your authors, as I have
learned. You have no little Eskil to cherish,
even if your father's name was Eskil. And
why are you always silent, silent, silent? I
thought that was strength, but perhaps it is
because you have nothing to say ! Because you
never think about anything!
[Rises and picks up slippers.]
Now I'm going home — and take the tulips with
me — your tulips! You are unable to learn
from another; you can't bend — therefore,
you broke like a dry stalk. But I won't
THE STRONGER 9
break ! Thank you, Amelie, for all your good
lessons. Thanks for teaching my husband
how to love. Now I'm going home to love
him.
[Goet.]
INTERNATIONAL : POCKET : LIBRARY
1. MADEMOISELLE Fin Guy de Maupassant
Introduction by Joseph Conrad
2. Two TALES Foreword by Wilson Follett Rudyard Kipling
3. Two WESSEX TALES Introduction by Conrad Aften Thomas Hardy
4. MODERN RUSSIAN CLASSICS
Stories by Andreyev, Solgub, Gorki, Tchekov,
Babel, and Artzibashev. Foreword by Issac Goldberg
5. CANDIDE Introduction by Andre Morize Voltaire
6. THE LAST LION Vicente Blasco Ibdnez
Introduction by Mariano Joaquin Lorente
7. A SHROPSHIRE LAD A. E. Housman
Preface by William Stanley Braithwaite
8. GITANJALI introduction by W. B. Yeats Rabindranath Tagore
9. THE BOOK or FRANCOIS VILLON
Introduction by H. De Vere Stacpoole
10. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN Francis Thompson
Introduction by G. K. Chesterton
11. COLOURED STARS Edited by Edward Powys Mathers
12. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM Edward Fitzgerald
With Decorations by Elihu Vedder
13. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Oscar Wilde
14. FIVE MODERN PLAYS O'Neill, Schnitzler, Dunsany,
Maeterlinck, Richard Hughes
15. THREE IRISH PLAYS /. M. Synge, Douglas Hyde, and W. B. Yeats
Introduction by Harrison Hale Schaff
16. THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD Henry Drummond
Introduction by Elizabeth Towne
17. THE SYMPOSIUM OF PLATO Introduction by B. Jowett, MA.
18. THE WISDOM OF CONFUCIUS Edited by Miles M. Dawson
19. ALICE IN WONDERLAND Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
20. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel
Other Titles in Preparation
INTERNATIONAL : POCKET : LIBRARY
21. MAXIMS OF LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Translated by John Heard
22. THE GOLDBUG AND OTHER STORIES Edgar Allan Poe
Illustrated by Mittis
23. THE LOWER DEPTHS M ^' *~ ' '
24. THE SEA GULL and THE TRAGEDIAN IN SPITE OF HIM:
Ante
25. AN ARMOURY OF LIGHT VERSE Rich
26. CARGOES W. W. Jacobs
27. THE CANTERVILLE GHOST O^car Wilde
Illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith
28. BRAZILIAN TALES Edited by Isaac Goldberg
30. HISTORICAL VIGNETTES Bernard Capes
32. THE JIG OF FORSLIN Conrad Aiken
33. MODERN ESSAYS Bernard Shaw, Henry D. Thoreau,
Charles W. Eliot
34. FAMOUS STORIES FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Translated by Edna Worthley Underwood
35. THE FATHER August Stnndberg
36. THREE PLAYS (COUNTESS JULIE, THE OUTLAW, THE STRONGER)
August St. indberg
44. THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET Karel Capek
Introduction by H. T. Parker
42. RINCONETE AND CORTADILLO Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
Preface by R. B. Cunninghame Graham
HOME SERIES
29. How To STUDY James D. Weinland
37. CHESS— TRICK AND TREAT E. M. Reubens
Introduction by Larry Evans
30. TWENTY COMMON MUSHROOMS George Coffin and
Margaret Lewis
Illustrated by Catherine R. Hammond
40. BRIDGE SUMMARY COMPLETE George Coffin
BINDING SECT. MAR 1 8 1982
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
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