MASTER. Things straighten out much better if you don't mess them up
still further by interference. How can you want me to direct matters
where so many passions are at play? Do you think I can suppress
anybody's emotions, or give them a new turn?
LOUISE. But how about the child?
MASTER. I have surrendered my rights--and besides--frankly speaking--I
don't care for them--not at all now, when _she_ has been here and
spoiled the images harboured in my memory. She has wiped out all the
beauty that I had cherished, and now there is nothing left.
LOUISE. But that's to be set free!
MASTER. Look, how empty the place seems in there--as if everybody had
moved out; and up there--as if there had been a fire.
LOUISE. Who is coming there?
AGNES _enters, excited and frightened, but trying hard
to control herself; she makes for the gateway, where the
confectioner is seated on his chair_.
LOUISE [_To the_ MASTER] There is Agnes? What can this mean?
MASTER. Agnes? Then things are getting straightened out.
STARCK. [_With perfect calm_] Good evening, girl! Where have you been?
AGNES. I have been for a walk.
STARCK. Your mother has asked for you several times.
AGNES. Is that so? Well, here I am.
STARCK. Please go down and help her start a fire under the little oven.
AGNES. Is she angry with me, then?
STARCK. You know that she cannot be angry with you.
AGNES. Oh, yes, but she doesn't say anything.
STARCK. Well, girl, isn't it better to escape being scolded?
AGNES _disappears into the gateway_.
MASTER. [_To_ LOUISE] Does he know, or doesn't he?
LOUISE. Let's hope that he will remain in ignorance.
MASTER. But what can have happened? A breach? [_To_ STARCK] Say, Mr.
Starck----
STARCK. What is it?
MASTER. I thought--Did you notice if anybody left the house a while ago?
STARCK. I saw the iceman, and also a mail-carrier, I think.
MASTER. Oh! [_To_ LOUISE] Perhaps it was a mistake--that we didn't hear
right--I can't explain it--Or maybe he is not telling the truth? What
did she say when she telephoned?
LOUISE. That she wanted to speak to you.
MASTER. How did it sound? Was she excited?
LOUISE. Yes.
MASTER. I think it's rather shameless of her to appeal to me in a
matter like this.
LOUISE. But the child!
MASTER. Just think, I met my daughter on the stairway, and when I asked
her if she recognised me she called me uncle and told me that her
father was up-stairs. Of course, he is her stepfather, and has all the
rights--They have just spent their time exterminating me, blackguarding
me----
LOUISE. A cab is stopping at the corner.
STARCK _withdraws into the gateway_.
MASTER. I only hope they don't come back to burden me again! Just
think: to have to hear my child singing the praise of her father--the
other one! And then to begin the old story all over again: "Why did you
marry me?"--"Oh, you know; but what made you want me?"--"You know very
well!"--And so on, until the end of the world.
LOUISE. It was the consul that came.
MASTER. How does he look?
LOUISE. He is taking his time.
MASTER. Practising what he is to say, I suppose. Does he look satisfied?
LOUISE. Thoughtful, rather----
MASTER. Hm!--That's the way it always was. Whenever he saw that woman
he became disloyal to me. She had the power of charming everybody but
me. To me she seemed coarse, vulgar, ugly, stupid; to all the rest she
seemed refined, pleasant, handsome, intelligent. All the hatred aroused
by my independence centred in her under the form of a boundless
sympathy for whoever wronged me in any way. Through her they strove to
control and influence me, to wound me, and, at last, to kill me.
LOUISE. Now, I'll go in and watch the telephone--I suppose this storm
will pass like all others.
MASTER. Men cannot bear independence. They want you to obey them. Every
one of my subordinates in the department, down to the very messengers,
wanted me to obey him. And when I wouldn't they called me a despot. The
servants in our house wanted me to obey them and eat food that had been
warmed up. When I wouldn't, they set my wife against me. And finally
my wife wanted me to obey the child, but then I left, and then all of
them combined against the tyrant--which was I!--Get in there quick now,
Louise, so we can set off our mines out here.
_The_ CONSUL _enters from the left_.
MASTER. Results--not details--please!
CONSUL. Let's sit down. I am a little tired.
MASTER. I think it has rained on the bench.
CONSUL. It can't be too wet for me if you have been sitting on it.
MASTER. A you like!--Where is my child?
CONSUL. Can I begin at the beginning?
MASTER. Begin!
CONSUL [_Speaking slowly_] I got to the depot with Gerda--and at the
ticket-office I discovered him and Agnes----
MASTER. So Agnes was with him?
CONSUL. And so was the child!--Gerda stayed outside, and I went up to
them. At that moment _he_ was handing Agnes the tickets, but when she
discovered that they were for third class she threw them in his face
and walked out to the cab-stand.
MASTER. Ugh!
CONSUL. As soon as I had established a connection with the man, Gerda
hurried up and got hold of the child, disappearing with it in the
crowd----
MASTER. What did the man have to say?
CONSUL. Oh, you know--when you come to hear the other side--and so on.
MASTER. I want to hear it. Of course, he isn't as bad as we thought--he
has his good sides----
CONSUL. Exactly!
MASTER. I thought so! But you don't want me to sit here listening to
eulogies of my enemy?
CONSUL. Oh, not eulogies, but ameliorating circumstances----
MASTER. Did you ever want to listen to me when I tried to explain the
true state of affairs to you? Yes, you did listen--but your reply was
a disapproving silence, as if I had been lying to you. You have always
sided with what was wrong, and you have believed nothing but lies, and
the reason was--that you were in love with Gerda! But there was also
another reason----
CONSUL. Brother, don't say anything more! You see nothing but your own
side of things.
MASTER. How can you expect me to view my conditions from the standpoint
of my enemy? I cannot take sides against myself, can I?
CONSUL. I am not your enemy.
MASTER. Yes, when you make friends with one who has wronged me!--Where
is my child?
CONSUL. I don't know.
MASTER. What was the outcome at the depot?
CONSUL. He took a south-bound train alone.
MASTER. And the others?
CONSUL. Disappeared.
MASTER. Then I may have them after me again. [_Pause]_ Did you see if
they went with him?
CONSUL. He went alone.
MASTER. Well, then we are done with that one, at least. Number
two--there remain now--the mother and the child.
CONSUL. Why is the light burning up there in their rooms?
MASTER. Because they forgot to turn it out.
CONSUL. I'll go up----
MASTER. No, don't go!--I only hope that they don't come back here!--To
repeat, always repeat, begin the same lesson all over again!
CONSUL. But it has begun to straighten out.
MASTER. Yet the worst remains--Do you think they will come back?
CONSUL. Not she--not since she had to make you amends in the presence
of Louise.
MASTER. I had forgotten that! She really did me the honour of becoming
jealous! I do think there is justice in this world!
CONSUL. And then she learned that Agnes was younger than herself.
MASTER. Poor Gerda! But in a case like this you mustn't tell people
that justice exists--an avenging justice--for it is sheer falsehood
that they love justice! And you must deal gently with their filth. And
Nemesis--exists only for the other person.--There it's ringing again?
That telephone makes a noise like a rattlesnake!
LOUISE _becomes visible at the telephone inside. Pause_.
MASTER. [_To_ LOUISE] Did the snake bite?
LOUISE. [_At the window_] May I speak to you, sir?
MASTER. [_Going up to the window_] Speak out!
LOUISE. The lady has gone to her mother, in the country, to live there
with her little girl.
Master. [_To his brother_] Mother and child in the country--in a good
home! Now it's straightened out!--Oh!
LOUISE. And she asked us to turn out the light up-stairs.
MASTER. Do that at once, Louise, and pull down the shades so we don't
have to look at it any longer.
LOUISE _leaves the dining-room_.
STARCK. [_Coming out on the sidewalk again and looking up]_ I think the
storm has passed over.
MASTER. It seems really to have cleared up, and that means we'll have
moonlight.
CONSUL. That was a blessed rain!
STARCK. Perfectly splendid!
MASTER. Look, there's the lamplighter coming at last!
_The_ LAMPLIGHTER _enters, lights the street lamp beside the
bench, and passes on_.
MASTER. The first lamp! Now the fall is here! That's our season, old
chaps! It's getting dark, but then comes reason to light us with its
bull's-eyes, so that we don't go astray.
LOUISE _becomes visible at one of the windows on the second
floor; immediately afterward everything is dark up there_.
Master. [_To_ Louise] Close the windows and pull down the shades so
that all memories can lie down and sleep in peace! The peace of old
age! And this fall I move away from the Silent House.
_Curtain_.
AFTER THE FIRE
(BRÄNDA TOMTEN)
A CHAMBER PLAY
1907
CHARACTERS
RUDOLPH WALSTRÖM, _a dyer_
THE STRANGER, _who is_) }
ARVID WALSTRÖM } _brother of_ RUDOLPH
ANDERSON, _a mason (brother-in-law of the gardener)_
MRS. ANDERSON, _wife of the mason_
GUSTAFSON, _a gardener (brother-in-law of the mason)_
ALFRED, _son of the gardener_
ALBERT ERICSON, _a stone-cutter_ (_second cousin of the hearse-driver_)
MATHILDA, _daughter of the stone-cutter_
THE HEARSE-DRIVER (_second cousin of the stone-cutter_)
A DETECTIVE
SJÖBLOM, _a painter_
MRS. WESTERLUND, _hostess at "The Last Nail," formerly a
nurse at the dyer's_
MRS. WALSTRÖM, _wife of the dyer_
THE STUDENT
THE WITNESS
AFTER THE FIRE
FIRST SCENE
_The left half of the background is occupied by the empty shell
of a gutted one-story brick house. In places the paper remains
on the walls, and a couple of brick stoves are still standing_.
_Beyond the walls can be seen an orchard in bloom._
_At the right is the front of a small inn, the sign of which
is a wreath hanging from a pole. Tables and benches are placed
outside._
_At the left, in the foreground, there is a pile of furniture
and household utensils that have been saved from the fire_.
SJÖBLOM, _the painter, is painting the window-frames of the
inn. He listens closely to everything that is said_.
ANDERSON, _the mason, is digging in the ruins_.
_The_ DETECTIVE _enters_.
DETECTIVE. Is the fire entirely out?
ANDERSON. There isn't any smoke, at least.
DETECTIVE. Then I want to ask a few more questions. [_Pause_] You were
born in this quarter, were you not?
ANDERSON. Oh, yes. It's seventy-five years now I've lived on this
street. I wasn't born when they built this house here, but my father
helped to put in the brick.
DETECTIVE. Then you know everybody around here?
ANDERSON. We all know each other. There is something particular about
this street here. Those that get in here once, never get away from it.
That is, they move away, but they always come back again sooner or
later, until at last they are carried out to the cemetery, which is
way out there at the end of the street.
DETECTIVE. You have got a special name for this quarter, haven't you?
ANDERSON. We call it the Bog. And all of us hate each other, and
suspect each other, and blackguard each other, and torment each other
[_Pause_.
DETECTIVE. The fire started at half past ten in the evening, I
hear--was the front door locked at that time?
ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know, for I live in the house next
to this.
DETECTIVE. Where did the fire start?
ANDERSON. Up in the attic, where the student was living.
DETECTIVE. Was he at home?
ANDERSON. No, he was at the theatre.
DETECTIVE. Had he gone away and left the lamp burning, then?
ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know. [_Pause_.
DETECTIVE. Is the student any relation to the owner of the house?
ANDERSON. No, I don't think so.--Say, you haven't got anything to do
with the police, have you?
DETECTIVE. How did it happen that the inn didn't catch fire?
ANDERSON. They slung a tarpaulin over it and turned on the hose.
DETECTIVE. Queer that the apple-trees were not destroyed by the heat.
ANDERSON. They had just budded, and it had been raining during the day,
but the heat made the buds go into bloom in the middle of the night--a
little too early, I guess, for there is frost coming, and then the
gardener will catch it.
DETECTIVE. What kind of fellow is the gardener?
ANDERSON. His name is Gustafson----
DETECTIVE. Yes, but what sort of a man is he?
ANDERSON. See here: I am seventy-five--and for that reason I don't know
anything bad about Gustafson; and if I knew I wouldn't be telling it!
[_Pause_.
DETECTIVE. And the owner of the house is named Walström, a dyer, about
sixty years old, married----
ANDERSON. Why don't you go on yourself? You can't pump me any longer.
DETECTIVE. Is it thought that the fire was started on purpose?
ANDERSON. That's what people think of all fires.
DETECTIVE. And whom do they suspect?
ANDERSON. The insurance company always suspects anybody who has an
interest in the fire--and for that reason I have never had anything
insured.
DETECTIVE. Did you find anything while you were digging?
ANDERSON. Mostly one finds all the door-keys, because people haven't
got time to take them along when the house is on fire--except now and
then, of course, when they have been taken away----
DETECTIVE. There was no electric light in the house?
ANDERSON. Not in an old house like this, and that's a good thing, for
then they can't put the blame on crossed wires.
DETECTIVE. Put the blame?--A good thing?--Listen----
ANDERSON. Oh, you're going to get me in a trap? Don't you do it, for
then I take it all back.
DETECTIVE. Take back? You can't!
ANDERSON. Can't I?
DETECTIVE. No!
ANDERSON. Yes! For there was no witness present.
DETECTIVE. No?
ANDERSON. Naw!
_The_ DETECTIVE _coughs. The_ WITNESS _comes in from the left_.
DETECTIVE. Here's _one_ witness.
ANDERSON. You're a sly one!
DETECTIVE. Oh, there are people who know how to use their brains
without being seventy-five. [_To the_ WITNESS] Now we'll continue with
the gardener.
[_They go out to the left_.
ANDERSON. There I put my foot in it, I guess. But that's what happens
when you get to talking.
MRS. ANDERSON _enters with her husband's lunch in a bundle_.
ANDERSON. It's good you came.
MRS. ANDERSON. Now we'll have lunch and be good--you might well
be hungry after all this fuss--I wonder if Gustafson can pull
through--he'd just got done with his hotbeds and was about to start
digging in the open--why don't you eat?--and there's Sjöblom already at
work with his putty--just think of it, that Mrs. Westerlund got off as
well as she did--morning, Sjöblom, now you've got work, haven't you?
MRS. WESTERLUND _comes in_.
MRS. ANDERSON. Morning, morning, Mrs. Westerlund--you got out of this
fine, I must say, and then----
MRS. WESTERLUND. I wonder who's going to pay me for all I am losing
to-day, when there's a big funeral on at the cemetery, which always
makes it a good day for me, and just when I've had to put away all my
bottles and glassware----
MRS. ANDERSON. Who's that they're burying to-day? I see such a lot of
people going out that way--and then, of course, they've come to see
where the fire was, too.
MRS. WESTERLUND. I don't think they're burying anybody, but I've heard
they're going to put up a monument over the bishop--worst of it is that
the stone-cutter's daughter was going to get married to the gardener's
son--him, you know, who's in a store down-town--and now the gardener
has lost all he had--isn't that his furniture standing over there?
MRS. ANDERSON. I guess that's some of the dyer's, too, seeing as it
came out helter-skelter in a jiffy--and where's the dyer now?
MRS. WESTERLUND. He's down at the police station testifying.
MRS. ANDERSON. Hm-hm!--Yes, yes!--And there's my cousin now--him what
drives the hearse--he's always thirsty on his way back.
HEARSE-DRIVER. [_Enters_] How do, Malvina! So you've gone and started a
little job of arson out here during the night, have you? Looks pretty,
doesn't it. Would have been better to get a new shanty instead, I guess.
MRS. WESTERLUND. Oh, mercy me! But whom have you been taking out now?
HEARSE-DRIVER. Can't remember what his name was--only _one_ carriage
along, and no flowers on the coffin at all.
MRS. WESTERLUND. Sure and it wasn't any happy funeral, then! If you
want anything to drink you'll have to go 'round to the kitchen, for
I haven't got things going on this side yet, and, for that matter,
Gustafson is coming here with a lot of wreaths--they've got something
on out at the cemetery to-day.
HEARSE-DRIVER. Yes, they're going to put up a moniment to the
bishop--'cause he wrote books, I guess, and collected all kinds of
vermin--was a reg'lar vermin-hunter, they tell me.
MRS. WESTERLUND. What's that?
HEARSE-DRIVER. Oh, he had slabs of cork with pins on 'em, and a lot of
flies--something beyond us here--but I guess that's the proper way--can
I go out to the kitchen now?
MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, if you use the back door, I think you can get
something wet----
HEARSE-DRIVER. But I want to have a word with the dyer before I drive
off--I've got my horses over at the stone-cutter's, who's my second
cousin, you know. Haven't got any use for him, as you know, too, but
we're doing business together, he and I--that is, I put in a word for
him with the heirs, and so he lets me put my horses into his yard--just
let me know when the dyer shows up--luck, wasn't it, that he didn't
have his works here, too----
[_He goes out, passing around the inn_.
MRS. WESTERLUND _goes into the inn by the front door_.
ANDERSON, _who has finished eating, begins to dig again_.
MRS. ANDERSON. Do you find anything?
ANDERSON. Nails and door-hinges--all the keys are hanging in a bunch
over there by the front door.
MRS. ANDERSON. Did they hang there before, or did you put them there?
ANDERSON. No, they were hanging there when I got here.
MRS. ANDERSON. That's queer--for then somebody must have locked all the
doors and taken out the keys before it began burning! That's queer!
ANDERSON. Yes, of course, it's a little queer, for in that way it was
harder to get at the fire and save things. Yes--yes! [_Pause_.
MRS. ANDERSON. I worked for the dyer's father forty years ago, I did,
and I know the people, both the dyer himself and his brother what
went off to America, though they say he's back now. The father, he
was a real man, he was, but the boys were always a little so-so. Mrs.
Westerlund over here, she used to take care of Rudolph, and the two
brothers never could get along, but kept scrapping and fighting all
the time.--I've seen a thing or two, I have--yes, there's a whole lot
what has happened in that house, so I guess it was about time to get it
smoked out.--Ugh, but that was a house! One went this way and another
that, but back they had to come, and here they died and here they were
born, and here they married and were divorced.--And Arvid, the brother
what went off to America--him they thought dead for years, and at least
he didn't take what was coming to him after his father, but now they
say he's come back, though nobody has seen him--and there's such a lot
of talking--Look, there's the dyer back from the police station!
ANDERSON. He doesn't look happy exactly, but I suppose that's more than
can be expected--Well, who's that student that lived in the attic? How
does he hang together with the rest?
MRS. ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know. He had his board there,
and read with the children.
ANDERSON. And also with the lady of the house?
MRS. ANDERSON. No-o, they played something what they called tennis,
and quarrelled the rest of the time--yes, quarrelling and backbiting,
that's what everybody is up to in this quarter.
ANDERSON. Well, when they broke the student's door open they found
hairpins on the floor--it had to come out, after all, even if the fire
had to sweep over it first----
MRS. ANDERSON. I don't think it was the dyer that came, but our
brother-in-law, Gustafson----
ANDERSON. He's always mad, and to-day I suppose he's worse than ever,
and so he'll have to come and dun me for what I owe him, seeing what he
has lost in the fire----
MRS. ANDERSON. Now you shut up!
GUSTAFSON. [_Enters with a basketful of funeral wreaths and other
products of his trade_] I wonder if I am going to sell anything to-day
so there'll be enough for food after all this rumpus?
ANDERSON. Didn't you carry any insurance?
GUSTAFSON. Yes, I used to have insurance on the glass panes over my
hotbeds, but this year I felt stingy, and so I put in oiled paper
instead--gosh, that I could be such a darned fool!--[_Scratching his
head_] I don't get paid for that, of course. And now I've got to cut
and paste and oil six hundred paper panes. It's as I have always said:
that I was the worst idiot among us seven children. Gee, what an ass
I was--what a booby! And then I went and got drunk yesterday. Why in
hell did I have to get drunk that day of all days--when I need all the
brains I've got to-day? It was the stone-cutter who treated, because
our children are going to get married to-night, but I should have said
no. I didn't want to, but I'm a ninny who can't say no to anybody.
And that's the way when they come and borrow money of me--I can't say
no--darned fool that I am! And then I got in the way of that policeman,
who snared me with all sorts of questions. I should have kept my mouth
shut, like the painter over there, but I can't, and so I let out this,
that, and the other thing, and he put it all down, and now I am called
as a witness!
ANDERSON. What was it you said?
GUSTAFSON. I said I thought--that it looked funny to me--and that
somebody must have started it.
ANDERSON. Oh, that's what you said!
GUSTAFSON. Yes, pitch into me--I've deserved it, goose that I am!
ANDERSON. And who could have started it, do you think?--Don't mind the
painter, and my old woman here never carries any tales.
GUSTAFSON. Who started it? Why, the student, of course, as it started
in his room.
ANDERSON. No--_under_ his room!
GUSTAFSON. Under, you say? Then I _have_ gone and done it!--Oh, I'll
come to a bad end, I'm sure!--_Under_ his room, you say--what could
have been there--the kitchen?
ANDERSON. No, a closet--see, over there! It was used by the cook.
GUSTAFSON. Then it must have been her.
ANDERSON. Yes, but don't you say so, as you don't know.
GUSTAFSON. The stone-cutter had it in for the cook last night--I guess
he must have known a whole lot----
ANDERSON. You shouldn't repeat what the stone-cutter says, for one who
has served isn't to be trusted----
GUSTAFSON. Ash, that's so long ago, and the cook's a regular dragon,
for that matter--she'd always haggle over the vegetables----
ANDERSON. There comes the dyer from the station now--you'd better quit!
_The_ STRANGER _enters, dressed in a frock coat and a high hat
with mourning on it; he carries a stick_.
MRS. ANDERSON. It wasn't the dyer, but he looks a lot like him.
STRANGER. How much is one of those wreaths?
GARDENER. Fifty cents.
STRANGER. Oh, that's not much.
GARDENER. No, I am such a fool that I can't charge as I should.
STRANGER. [_Looking around_] Has there--been a fire--here?
GARDENER. Yes, last night.
STRANGER. Good God! [_Pause_] Who was the owner of the house?
GARDENER. Mr. Walström.
STRANGER. The dyer?
GARDENER. Yes, he used to be a dyer, all right. [_Pause_.
STRANGER. Where is he now?
GARDENER. He'll be here any moment.
STRANGER. Then I'll look around a bit--the wreath can lie here till I
come back--I meant to go out to the cemetery later.
GARDENER. On account of the bishop's monument, I suppose?
STRANGER. What bishop?
GARDENER. Bishop Stecksen, don't you know--who belonged to the Academy.
STRANGER. Is he dead?
GARDENER. Oh, long ago!
STRANGER. I see!--Well, I'll leave the wreath for a while.
_He goes out to the left, studying the ruins carefully as he
passes by_.
MRS. ANDERSON. Perhaps he came on account of the insurance.
ANDERSON. Not that one! Then he would have asked in a different way.
MRS. ANDERSON. But he looked like the dyer just the same.
ANDERSON. Only he was taller.
GUSTAFSON. Now, I remember something--I should have a bridal bouquet
ready for to-night, and I should go to my son's wedding, but I have
no flowers, and my black coat has been burned. Wouldn't that make
you--Mrs. Westerlund was to furnish the myrtle for the bride's crown,
being her godmother--that's the myrtle she stole a shoot of from
the dyer's cook, who got hers from the dyer's first wife--she who
ran away--and I was to make a crown of it, and I've clean forgotten
it--well, if I ain't the worst fool that ever walked the earth! [_He
opens the inn door_] Mrs. Westerlund, can I have the myrtle now, and
I'll do the job!--I say, can I have that myrtle! Wreath, too, you
say--have you got enough for it?--No?--Well, then I'll let the whole
wedding go hang, that's all there is to it!--Let them walk up to the
minister's and have him splice them together, but it'll make the
stone-cutter mad as a hornet.--What do you think I should do?--No, I
can't--haven't slept a wink the whole night.--It's too much for a poor
human creature.--Yes, I am a ninny, I know--go for me, will you!--Oh,
there's the pot--thanks! And then I need scissors, which I haven't
got--and wire--and string--where am I to get them from?--No, of course,
nobody wants to break off his work for a thing like that.--I'm tired of
the whole mess--work fifty years, and then have it go up in smoke! I
haven't got strength to begin over again--and the way it comes all at
once, blow on blow--did you ever! I'm going to run away from it! [_He
goes out_.
RUDOLPH WALSTRÖM. [_Enters, evidently upset, badly dressed_, _his hands
discoloured by the dyes_] Is it all out now, Anderson?
ANDERSON. Yes, now it's out.
RUDOLPH. Has anything been discovered?
ANDERSON. That's a question! What's buried when it snows comes to light
when it thaws!
RUDOLPH. What do you mean, Anderson?
ANDERSON. If you dig deep enough you find things.
RUDOLPH. Have you found anything that can explain how the fire started?
ANDERSON. Naw, nothing of that kind.
RUDOLPH. That means we are still under suspicion, all of us.
ANDERSON. Not me, I guess.
RUDOLPH. Oh, yes, for you have been seen up in the attic at unusual
hours.
ANDERSON. Well, I can't always go at usual hours to look for my tools
when I've left them behind. And I did leave my hammer behind when I
fixed the stove in the student's room.
RUDOLPH. And the stone-cutter, the gardener, Mrs. Westerlund, even the
painter over there--we are all of us under suspicion--the student, the
cook, and myself more than the rest. Lucky it was that I had paid the
insurance the day before, or I should have been stuck for good.--Think
of it: the stone-cutter suspected of arson--he who's so afraid of doing
anything wrong! He's so conscientious _nowadays_ that if you ask him
what time it is he won't swear to it, as his watch _may_ be wrong. Of
course, we all know he got two years, but he's reformed, and I'll swear
now he's the straightest man in the quarter.
ANDERSON. But the police suspect him because he went wrong once--and he
ain't got his citizenship back yet.
RUDOLPH. Oh, there are so many ways of looking at a thing--so many
ways, I tell you.--Well, Anderson, I guess you'd better quit for the
day, seeing as you're going to the wedding to-night.
ANDERSON. Yes, that wedding--There was somebody looking for you a while
ago, and he said he would be back.
RUDOLPH. Who was it?
ANDERSON. He didn't say.
RUDOLPH. Police, was it?
ANDERSON. Naw, I don't think so.--There he is coming now, for that
matter. [_He goes out, together with his wife_.
_The_ STRANGER _enters_.
RUDOLPH. [_Regards him with curiosity at first, then with horror; wants
to run away, but cannot move_] Arvid!
STRANGER. Rudolph!
RUDOLPH. So it's you!
STRANGER. Yes. [_Pause_.
RUDOLPH. You're not dead, then?
STRANGER. In a way, yes!--I have come back from America after thirty
years--there was something that pulled at me--
I wanted to see my childhood's home once more--and I found
those ruins! [_Pause_] It burned down last night?
RUDOLPH. Yes, you came just in time. [_Pause_.
STRANGER. [_Dragging his words_] That's the place--such a tiny place
for such a lot of destinies! There's the dining-room with the frescoed
walls: palms, and cypresses, and a temple beneath a rose-coloured
sky--that's the way I dreamt the world would look the moment I got away
from home. And the stove with its pale blossoms growing out of conches.
And the chimney cupboard with its metal doors--I remember as a child,
when we had just moved in, somebody had scratched his name on the
metal, and then grandmother told us it was the name of a man who had
killed himself in that very room. I quickly forgot all about it, but
when I later married a niece of the same man, it seemed to me as if my
destiny had been foretold on that plate of metal.--You don't believe in
that kind of thing, do you?--However, you know how my marriage ended!
RUDOLPH. Yes, I've heard----
STRANGER. And there's the nursery--yes!
RUDOLPH. Don't let us start digging in the ruins!
STRANGER. Why not? After the fire is out you can read things in the
ashes. We used to do it as children, in the stove----
RUDOLPH. Come and sit down at the table here!
STRANGER. What place is that? Oh, the tavern--"The Last Nail"--where
the hearse-drivers used to stop, and where, once upon a time, condemned
culprits were given a final glass before they were taken to the
gallows--Who is keeping it?
RUDOLPH. Mrs. Westerlund, who used to be my nurse.
STRANGER. Mrs. Westerlund--I remember her. It is as if the bench sank
from under me, and I was sent tumbling through the past, sixty whole
years, down into my childhood. I breathe the nursery air and feel it
pressing on my chest. You older ones weighed me down, and you made
so much noise that I was always kept in a state of fright. My fears
made me hide in the garden--then I was dragged forward and given a
spanking--always spankings--but I never knew why, and I don't know it
yet. And yet she was my mother----
RUDOLPH. Please!
STRANGER. Yes, you were the favourite, and as such you always had her
support--Then we got a stepmother. Her father was an undertaker's
assistant, and for years we had been seeing him drive by with funerals.
At last he came to know us so well by sight that he used to nod and
grin at us, as if he meant to say: "Oh, I'll come for you sooner or
later!" And then he came right into our house one day, and had to be
called grandfather--when our father took his daughter for his second
wife.
RUDOLPH. There was nothing strange in that.
STRANGER. No, but somehow, as our own destinies, and those of other
people, were being woven into one web----
RUDOLPH. Oh, that's what happens everywhere----
STRANGER. Exactly! It's the same everywhere. In your youth you see
the web set up. Parents, relatives, comrades, acquaintances, servants
form the warp. Later on in life the weft becomes visible. And then
the shuttle of fate runs back and forth with the thread--sometimes
it breaks, but is tied up again, and it goes on as before. The reed
clicks, the thread is packed together into curlicues, and one day the
web lies ready. In old age, when the eye has learned how to see, you
discover that those curlicues form a pattern, a monogram, an ornament,
a hieroglyph, which only then can be interpreted: that's life! The
world-weaver has woven it! [_Pause; he rises_] Over there, in that
scrap-heap, I notice the family album. [_He walks a few steps to the
right and picks up a photograph album_] That's the book of our family
fate. Grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, brothers and
sisters, relatives, acquaintances--or so-called "friends"--schoolmates,
servants, godparents. And, strange to say, wherever I have gone, in
America or Australia, to Hongkong or the Congo, everywhere I found
at least one countryman, and as we began to dig it always came out
that this man knew my family, or at least some godfather or maid
servant--that, in a word, we had some common acquaintances. I even
found a relative in the island of Formosa----
RUDOLPH. What has put those ideas into your head?
STRANGER. The fact that life, however it shaped itself--I have been
rich and poor, exalted and humbled; I have suffered a shipwreck and
passed through an earthquake--but, however life shaped itself, I always
became aware of connections and repetitions. I saw in one situation the
result of another, earlier one. On meeting _this_ person I was reminded
of _that_ one whom I had met in the past. There have been incidents in
my life that have come back time and again, so that I have been forced
to say to myself: this I have been through before. And I have met with
occurrences that seemed to me absolutely inevitable, or predestined.
RUDOLPH. What have you done during all these years?
STRANGER. Everything! I have beheld life from every quarter, from every
standpoint, from above and from below, and always it has seemed to me
like a scene staged for my particular benefit. And in that way I have
at last become reconciled to a part of the past, and I have come to
excuse not only my own but also other people's so-called "faults." You
and I, for instance, have had a few bones to pick with each other----
RUDOLPH _recoils with a darkening face_.
STRANGER. Don't get scared now----
RUDOLPH. I never get scared!
STRANGER. You are just the same as ever.
RUDOLPH. And so are you!
STRANGER. Am I? That's interesting!--Yes, you are still living in that
delusion about your own bravery, and I remember exactly how this false
idea became fixed in your mind. We were learning to swim, and one day
you told how you had dived into the water, and then mother said: "Yes,
Rudolph, he has courage!" That was meant for me--for me whom you had
stripped of all courage and self-assurance. But then came the day when
you had stolen some apples, and you were too cowardly to own up to it,
and so you put it on me.
RUDOLPH. Haven't you forgotten that yet?
STRANGER. I haven't forgotten, but I have forgiven.--From here, where I
am sitting, I can see that very tree, and that's what brought it into
my mind. It's over there, you see, and it bears golden pippins.--If you
look, you'll see that one of its biggest branches has been sawed off.
For it so happened that I didn't get angry with you on account of my
unjust punishment, but my anger turned against the tree. And two years
later that big branch was all dried up and had to be sawed off. It made
me think of the fig-tree that was cursed by the Saviour, but I was
not led into any presumptuous conclusions.--However, I still know all
those trees by heart, and once, when I had the yellow fever in Jamaica,
I counted them over, every one. Most of them are still there, I see.
There's the snow-apple which has red-striped fruit--a chaffinch used
to nest in it. There's the melon-apple, standing right in front of the
garret where I used to study for technological examinations; there's
the spitzenburg, and the late astrachan; and the pear-tree that used to
look like a poplar in miniature; and the one with pears that could only
be used for preserves--they never ripened, and we despised them, but
mother treasured them above all the rest; and in that tree there used
to be a wryneck that was always twisting its head around and making a
nasty cry--That was fifty years ago!
RUDOLPH. [_Irately_] What are you driving at?
STRANGER. Just as touchy and ill-tempered as ever! It's
interesting.--There was no special purpose back of my chatter--my
memories insist on pushing forward--I remember that the garden was
rented to somebody else once, but we had the right to play in it.
To me it seemed as if we had been driven out of paradise--and the
tempter was standing behind every tree. In the fall, when the ground
was strewn with ripe apples, I fell under a temptation that had become
irresistible----
RUDOLPH. You stole, too?
STRANGER. Of course I did, but I didn't put it off on you!--When I was
forty I leased a lemon grove in one of the Southern States, and--well,
there were thieves after the trees every night. I couldn't sleep, I
lost flesh, I got sick. And then I thought of--poor Gustafson here!
RUDOLPH. He's still living.
STRANGER. Perhaps he, too, stole apples in his childhood?
RUDOLPH. Probably.
STRANGER. Why are your hands so black?
RUDOLPH. Because I handle dyed stuffs all the time.--Did you have
anything else in mind?
STRANGER. What could that have been?
RUDOLPH. That my hands were not clean.
STRANGER. Fudge!
RUDOLPH. Perhaps you are thinking of your inheritance?
STRANGER. Just as mean as ever! Exactly as you were when eight years
old!
RUDOLPH. And you are just as heedless, and philosophical, and silly!
STRANGER. It's a curious thing--but I wonder how many times before we
have said just what we are saying now? [_Pause_] I am looking at your
album here--our sisters and brothers--five dead!
RUDOLPH. Yes.
STRANGER. And our schoolmates?
RUDOLPH. Some taken and some left behind.
STRANGER. I met one of them in South Carolina--Axel Ericson--do you
remember him?
RUDOLPH. I do.
STRANGER. One whole night, while we were on a train together, he kept
telling me how our highly respectable and respected family consisted of
nothing but rascals; that it had made its money by smuggling--you know,
the toll-gate was right here; and that this house had been built with
double walls for the hiding of contraband. Don't you see that the walls
are double?
RUDOLPH. [_Crushed_] So that's the reason why we had closets everywhere?
STRANGER. The father of that fellow, Ericson, had been in the
custom-house service and knew our father, and the son told me a lot
of inside stories that turned my whole world of imagined conditions
topsyturvy.
RUDOLPH. You gave him a licking, I suppose?
STRANGER. Why should I lick him?--However, my hair turned grey that
night, and I had to edit my entire life over again. You know how we
used to live in an atmosphere of mutual admiration; how we regarded
our family as better than all others, and how, in particular, our
parents were looked up to with almost religious veneration. And then I
had to paint new faces on them, strip them, drag them down, eliminate
them. It was dreadful! Then the ghosts began to walk. The pieces of
those smashed figures would come together again, but not properly,
and the result would be a regular wax cabinet of monsters. All those
grey-haired gentlemen whom we called uncles, and who came to our house
to play cards and eat cold suppers, they were smugglers, and some of
them had been in the pillory--Did you know that?
RUDOLPH. [_Completely overwhelmed_] No.
STRANGER. The dye works were merely a hiding-place for smuggled yarn,
which was dyed in order to prevent identification. I can still remember
how I used to hate the smell of the dyeing vat--there was something
sickeningly sweet about it.
RUDOLPH. Why did you have to tell me all this?
STRANGER. Why should I keep silent about it and let you make yourself
ridiculous by your boasting about that revered family of yours? Have
you never noticed people grinning at you?
RUDOLPH. No-o! [_Pause_.
STRANGER. I am now looking at father's bookcase in the pile over there.
It was always locked, you remember. But one day, when father was out,
I got hold of the key. The books in front I had seen through the glass
doors, of course. There were volumes of sermons, the collected works
of great poets, handbooks for gardening, compilations of the statutes
referring to customs duties and the confiscation of smuggled goods; the
constitution; a volume about foreign coins; and a technical work that
later determined my choice of a career. But back of those books there
was room for other things, and I began to explore. First of all I found
the rattan--and, do you know, I have since learned that that bitter
plant bears a fruit from which we get the red dye known as "dragon's
blood": now, isn't that queer! And beside the rattan stood a bottle
labelled "cyanide of potassium."
RUDOLPH. I suppose it was meant for use over at the works.
STRANGER. Or elsewhere, perhaps. But this is what I had in mind: there
were some bundles of pamphlets with illustrated covers that aroused my
interest. And, to put it plain, they contained the notorious memoirs
of a certain chevalier--I took them out and locked the case again. And
beneath the big oak over there I studied them. We used to call that oak
the Tree of Knowledge--and it was, all right! And in that way I left
my childhood's paradise to become initiated, all too early, into those
mysteries which--yes!
RUDOLPH. You, too?
STRANGER. Yes, I, too! [_Pause_] However--let us talk of something
else, as all that is now in ashes.--Did you have any insurance?
RUDOLPH. [_Angrily_] Didn't you ask that a while ago?
STRANGER. Not that I can recall. It happens so often that I confuse
what I have said with what I have intended to say, and mostly because I
think so intensely--ever since that day when I tried to hang myself in
the closet.
RUDOLPH. What is that you are saying?
STRANGER. I tried to hang myself in the closet.
RUDOLPH. [_Speaking very slowly_] Was that what happened that Holy
Thursday Eve, when you were taken to the hospital--what the rest of us
children were never permitted to know?
STRANGER. [_Speaking in the same manner_] Yes.--There you can see how
little we know about those that are nearest to us, about our own homes
and our own lives.
RUDOLPH. But why did you do it?
STRANGER. I was twelve years old, and tired of life! It was like
groping about in a great darkness--I couldn't understand what I had to
do here--and I thought the world a madhouse. I reached that conclusion
one day when our school was turned out with torches and banners to
celebrate "the destroyer of our country." For I had just read a book
which proved that our country had been brought to destruction by the
worst of all its kings--and that was the one whose memory we had to
celebrate with hymns and festivities.[1]
[_Pause_.
RUDOLPH. What happened at the hospital?
STRANGER. My dear fellow, I was actually put into the morgue as dead.
Whether I was or not, I don't know--but when I woke up, most of my
previous life had been forgotten, and I began a new one, but in such a
manner that the rest of you thought me peculiar.--Are you married again?
RUDOLPH. I have wife and children--somewhere.
STRANGER. When I recovered consciousness I seemed to myself another
person. I regarded life with cynical calm: it probably had to be the
way it was. And the worse it turned out the more interesting it became.
After that I looked upon myself as if I were somebody else, and I
observed and studied that other person, and his fate, thereby rendering
myself callous to my own sufferings. But while dead I had acquired new
faculties--I could see right through people, read their thoughts, hear
their intentions. In company, I beheld them stripped naked--Where did
you say the fire started?
RUDOLPH. Why, nobody knows.
STRANGER. But the newspapers said that it began in a closet right
under the student's garret--what kind of a student is he?
RUDOLPH. [_Appalled_] Is it in the newspapers? I haven't had time to
look at them to-day. What more have they got?
STRANGER. They have got everything.
RUDOLPH. Everything?
STRANGER. The double walls, the respected family of smugglers, the
pillory, the hairpins----
RUDOLPH. What hairpins?
STRANGER. I don't know, but they are there. Do you know?
RUDOLPH. Naw!
STRANGER. Everything was brought to light, and you may look for a
stream of people coming here to stare at all that exposed rottenness.
RUDOLPH. Lord have mercy! And you take pleasure at seeing your family
dragged into scandal?
STRANGER. My family? I have never felt myself related to the rest of
you. I have never had any strong feeling either for my fellow men or
myself. I think it's interesting to watch them--that's all--What sort
of a person is your wife?
RUDOLPH. Was there anything about her, too?
STRANGER. About her and the student.
RUDOLPH. Good! Then I was right. Just wait and you'll see!--There comes
the stone-cutter.
STRANGER. You know him?
RUDOLPH. And so do you. A schoolmate--Albert Ericson.
STRANGER. Whose father was in the customs service and whose brother I
met on the train--he who was so very well informed about our family.
RUDOLPH. That's the infernal cuss who has blabbed to the papers, then!
ERICSON _enters with a pick and begins to look over the ruins_.
STRANGER. What a ghastly figure!
RUDOLPH. He's been in jail--two years. Do you know what he did? He made
some erasures in a contract between him and myself----
STRANGER. You sent him to jail! And now he has had his revenge!
RUDOLPH. But the queerest part of it is that nowadays he is regarded as
the most honest man in the whole district. He has become a martyr, and
almost a saint, so that nobody dares say a word against him.
STRANGER. That's interesting, indeed!
DETECTIVE. [_Entering, turns to_ Ericson] Can you pull down that wall
over there?
ERICSON. The one by the closet?
DETECTIVE. That's the one.
ERICSON. That's where the fire started, and I'm sure you'll find a
candle or a lamp around there--for I know the people!
DETECTIVE. Go ahead then!
ERICSON. The closet door was burned off, to be sure, but the ceiling
came down, and that's why we couldn't find out, but now we'll use the
beak on it! [_He falls to with his pick_] Ho-hey, ho-ho!--Ho-hey,
leggo!--Ho-hey, for that one!--Do you see anything?
DETECTIVE. Not yet.
ERICSON. [_Working away as before_] Now I can see something!--The lamp
has exploded, but the stand is left!--Who knows this forfeit for his
own?--Didn't I see the dyer somewhere around here?
DETECTIVE. There he is sitting now. [_He picks the lamp from the debris
and holds it up_] Do you recognise your lamp, Mr. Walström?
RUDOLPH. That isn't mine--it belonged to our tutor.
DETECTIVE. The student? Where is he now?
RUDOLPH. He's down-town, but I suppose he'll soon be here, as his books
are lying over there.
DETECTIVE. How did his lamp get into the cook's closet? Did he have
anything to do with her?
RUDOLPH. Probably!
DETECTIVE. The only thing needed now is that he identify the lamp as
his own, and he will be arrested. What do you think of it, Mr. Walström?
RUDOLPH. I? Well, what is there to think?
DETECTIVE. What reason could he have for setting fire to another
person's house?
RUDOLPH. I don't know. Malice, or mere mischief--you never can tell
what people may do--Or perhaps there was something he wanted to cover
up.
DETECTIVE. That would have been a poor way, as old rottenness always
will out. Did he have any grudge against you?
RUDOLPH. It's likely, for I helped him once when he was hard up, and he
has hated me ever since, of course.
DETECTIVE. Of course? [_Pause_] Who is he, then?
RUDOLPH. He was raised in an orphanage--born of unknown parents.
DETECTIVE. Haven't you a grown-up daughter, Mr. Walström?
RUDOLPH. [_Angered_] Of course I have!
DETECTIVE. Oh, you have! [_Pause; then to_ ERICSON] Now you bring those
twelve men of yours and pull down the walls quick. Then we'll see what
new things come to light.
[_He goes out_.
ERICSON. That'll be done in a jiffy. [_Goes out_.
[_Pause_.
STRANGER. Have you really paid up your insurance?
RUDOLPH. Of course!
STRANGER. Personally?
RUDOLPH. No, I sent it in as usual.
STRANGER. You sent it--by somebody else! That's just like you!--Suppose
we take a turn through the garden and have a look at the apple-trees.
RUDOLPH. All right, and then we'll see what happens afterward.
STRANGER. Now begins the most interesting part of all.
RUDOLPH. Perhaps not quite so interesting if you find yourself mixed up
in it.
STRANGER. I?
RUDOLPH. Who can tell?
STRANGER. What a web it is!
RUDOLPH. There was a child of yours that went to the orphanage, I think?
STRANGER. God bless us!--Let's go over into the garden!
_Curtain_.
[Footnote 1: This refers to King Charles XII of Sweden, whose memory
Strindberg hated mainly because of the use made of it by the jingo
elements of the Swedish upper classes.]
SECOND SCENE
_The same setting as before with the exception that the walls
have been torn down so that the garden is made visible,
with its vast variety of spring flowers--daphnes, deutzias,
daffodils, narcissuses, tulips, auriculas--and with all the
fruit-trees in bloom_.
ERICSON, ANDERSON _and his old wife_, GUSTAFSON, _the_
HEARSE-DRIVER, MRS. WESTERLUND, _and the painter_, SJÖBLOM,
_are standing in a row staring at the spot where the house used
to be_.
STRANGER. [_Entering_] There they stand, enjoying the misfortune that's
in the air and waiting for the victim to appear--he being the principal
item. That the fire was incendiary they take for granted, merely
because they want it that way.--And all these rascals are the friends
and comrades of my youth. I am even related to the hearse-driver
through my stepmother, whose father used to help carry out the
coffins--[_He speaks to the crowd of spectators_] Look here, you
people, I shouldn't stand there if I were you. There may have been some
dynamite stored in the cellar, and if such were the case an explosion
might take place any moment.
_The curious crowd scatters and disappears_.
STRANGER. [Stoops _over the scrap-heap and begins to poke in the
books piled there_] Those are the student's books--Same kind of rot
as in my youth--Livy's Roman history, which is said to be lies, every
word--But here's a volume out of my brother's library--"Columbus, or
the Discovery of America"! My own book, which I got as a Christmas
gift in 1857. My name has been erased. This means it was stolen from
me--and I accused one of our maids, who was discharged on that account!
Fine business! Perhaps it led to her ruin--fifty years ago! Here is
the frame of one of our family portraits; my renowned grandfather,
the smuggler, who was put in the pillory--fine!--But what is this?
The foot-piece of a mahogany bed--the one in which I was born! Oh,
damn!--Next item: a leg of a dinner-table--the one that was an
heirloom. Why, it was supposed to be of ebony, and was admired on
that account! And now, after fifty years, I discover it to be made
of painted maple. Everything had its colours changed in our house to
render it unrecognisable, even the clothes of us children, so that
our bodies always were stained with various dyes. Ebony--humbug! And
here's the dining-room clock--smuggled goods, that, too--which has
measured out the time for two generations. It was wound up every
Saturday, when we had salt codfish and a posset made with beer for
dinner. Like all intelligent clocks, it used to stop when anybody
died, but when I died it went on just as before. Let me have a look at
you, old friend--I want to see your insides. [_As he touches the clock
it falls to pieces_] Can't stand being handled! Nothing could stand
being handled in our home--nothing! Vanity, vanity!--But there's the
globe that was on top of the clock, although it ought to have been at
the bottom. You tiny earth: you, the densest and the heaviest of all
the planets--that's what makes everything on you so heavy--so heavy
to breathe, so heavy to carry. The cross is your symbol, but it might
just as well have been a fool's cap or a strait-jacket--you world of
delusions and deluded!--Eternal One--perchance Thy earth has gone
astray in the limitless void? And what set it whirling so that Thy
children were made dizzy, and lost their reason, and became incapable
of seeing what really is instead of what only seems?--Amen!--And here
is the student!
_The_ STUDENT _enters and looks around in evident search of
somebody_.
STRANGER. He is looking for the mistress of the house. And he tells
everything he knows--with his eyes. Happy youth!--Whom are you looking
for?
STUDENT. [_Embarrassed_] I was looking----
STRANGER. Speak up, young man--or keep silent. I understand you just
the same.
STUDENT. With whom have I the honour----
STRANGER. It's no special honour, as you know, for once I ran away to
America on account of debts----
STUDENT. That wasn't right.
STRANGER. Right or wrong, it remains a fact.--So you were looking for
Mrs. Walström? Well, she isn't here, but I am sure that she will come
soon, like all the rest, for they are drawn by the fire like moths----
STUDENT. By a candle!
STRANGER. That's what _you_ say, but I should rather have said "lamp,"
in order to choose a more significant word. However, you had better
hide your feelings, my dear fellow, if you can--I can hide mine!--We
were talking of that lamp, were we not? How about it?
STUDENT. Which lamp?
STRANGER. Well, well! Every one of them lies and denies!--The lamp
that was placed in the cook's closet and set fire to the house?
STUDENT. I know nothing about it.
STRANGER. Some blush when they lie and others turn pale. This one has
invented an entirely new manner.
STUDENT. Are you talking to yourself, sir?
STRANGER. I have that bad habit.--Are your parents still living?
STUDENT. They are not.
STRANGER. Now you lied again, but unconsciously.
STUDENT. I never tell a lie!
STRANGER. Not more than three in these few moments! I know your father.
STUDENT. I don't believe it.
STRANGER. So much the better for me!--Do you see this scarf-pin? It's
pretty, isn't it? But I never see anything of it myself--I have no
pleasure in its being there, while everybody else is enjoying it. There
is nothing selfish about that, is there? But there are moments when
I should like to see it in another man's tie so that I might have a
chance to admire it. Would you care to have it?
STUDENT. I don't quite understand--Perhaps, as you said, it's better
not to wear it.
STRANGER. Perhaps!--Don't get impatient now. She will be here soon.--Do
you find it enviable to be young?
STUDENT. I can't say that I do.
STRANGER. No, youth is not its own master; it has never any money, and
has to take its food out of other hands; it is not permitted to speak
when company is present, but is treated as an idiot; and as it cannot
marry, it has to ogle other people's wives, which leads to all sorts of
dangerous consequences. Youth--humbug!
STUDENT. That's right! As a child, you want to grow up--that is, reach
fifteen, be confirmed, and put on a tall hat. When you are that far,
you want to be old--that is, twenty-one. Which means that nobody wants
to be young.
STRANGER. And when you grow old in earnest, then you want to be dead.
For then there isn't much left to wish for.--Do you know that you are
to be arrested?
STUDENT. Am I?
STRANGER. The detective said so a moment ago.
STUDENT. Me?
STRANGER. Are you surprised at that? Don't you know that in this life
you must be prepared for anything?
STUDENT. But what have I done?
STRANGER. You don't have to do anything in order to be arrested. To be
suspected is enough.
STUDENT. Then everybody might be arrested!
STRANGER. Exactly! The rope might be laid around the neck of the whole
race if justice were wanted, but it isn't. It's a disgusting race:
ugly, sweating, ill-smelling; its linen dirty, its stockings full of
holes; with chilblains and corns--ugh! No, an apple-tree in bloom is
far more beautiful. Or look at the lilies in the field--they seem
hardly to belong here--and what fragrance is theirs!
STUDENT. Are you a philosopher, sir?
STRANGER. Yes, I am a great philosopher.
STUDENT. Now you are poking fun at me!
STRANGER. You say that to get away. Well, begone then! Hurry up!
STUDENT. I was expecting somebody.
STRANGER. So I thought. But I think it would be better to go and
meet----
STUDENT. She asked you to tell me?
STRANGER. Oh, that wasn't necessary.
STUDENT. Well, if that's so--I don't want to miss----
[_He goes out_.
STRANGER. Can that be my son? Well, if it comes to the worst--I was a
child myself once, and it was neither remarkable nor pleasant--And I
am his--what of it? And for that matter--who knows?--Now I'll have a
look at Mrs. Westerlund. She used to work for my parents--was faithful
and good-tempered; and when she had been pilfering for ten years she
was raised to the rank of a "trusted" servant. [_He seats himself at
the table in front of the inn_] There are Gustafson's wreaths--just as
carelessly made as they were forty years ago. He was always careless
and stupid in all he did, and so he never succeeded with anything. But
much might be pardoned him on account of his self-knowledge. "Poor
fool that I am," he used to say, and then he would pull off his cap
and scratch his head.--Why, there's a myrtle plant! [_He knocks at the
pot_] Not watered, of course! He always forgot to water his plants, the
damned fool--and yet he expected them to grow.
SJÖBLOM, _the painter, appears_.
STRANGER. I wonder who that painter can be. Probably he belongs also to
the Bog, and perhaps he is one of the threads in my own web.
SJÖBLOM _is staring at the_ STRANGER _all this time_.
STRANGER. [_Returning the stare_] Well, do you recognise me?
SJÖBLOM. Are you--Mr. Arvid?
STRANGER. Have been and am--if perception argues being.
[_Pause_.
SJÖBLOM. I ought really to be mad at you.
STRANGER. Well, go on and be so! However, you might tell me the reason.
That has a tendency to straighten matters out.
SJÖBLOM. Do you remember----
STRANGER. Unfortunately, I have an excellent memory.
SJÖBLOM. Do you remember a boy named Robert?
STRANGER. Yes, a regular rascal who knew how to draw.
SJÖBLOM. And I was to go to the Academy in order to become a real
painter, an artist. But just about that time-colour-blindness was all
the go. You were studying at the Technological Institute then, and so
you had to test my eyes before your father would consent to send me to
the art classes. For that reason you brought two skeins of yarn from
the dye works, one red and the other green, and then you asked me about
them. I answered--called the red green and the green red--and that was
the end of my career----
STRANGER. But that was as it should be.
SJÖBLOM. No--for the truth of it was, I could distinguish the
colours, but not--the _names_. And that wasn't found out until I was
thirty-seven----
STRANGER. That was an unfortunate story, but I didn't know better, and
so you'll have to forgive me.
SJÖBLOM. How can I?
STRANGER. Ignorance is pardonable! And now listen to me. I wanted to
enter the navy, made a trial cruise as mid-shipman, seemed to become
seasick, and was rejected! But I could stand the sea, and my sickness
came from having drunk too much. So my career was spoiled, and I had to
choose another.
SJÖBLOM. What have I got to do with the navy? I had been dreaming of
Rome and Paris----
STRANGER. Oh, well, one has so many dreams in youth, and in old age
too, for that matter. Besides, what's the use of bothering about what
happened so long ago?
SJÖBLOM. How you talk! Perhaps you can give me back my wasted life----
STRANGER. No, I can't, but I am under no obligation to do so, either.
That trick with the yarn I had learned at school, and you ought to have
learned the proper names of the colours. And now you can go to--one
dauber less is a blessing to humanity!--There's Mrs. Westerlund!
SJÖBLOM. How you _do_ talk. But I guess you'll get what's coming to you!
MRS. WESTERLUND _enters_.
STRANGER. How d'you do, Mrs. Westerlund? I am Mr. Arvid--don't get
scared now! I have been in America, and how are you? I am feeling fine!
There has been a fire here, and I hear your husband is dead--policeman,
I remember, and a very nice fellow. I liked him for his good humour
and friendly ways. He was a harmless jester, whose quips never hurt. I
recall once----
MRS. WESTERLUND. O, merciful! Is this my own Arvid whom I used to
tend----
STRANGER. No, that wasn't me, but my brother--but never mind, it's just
as well meant. I was talking of your old man who died thirty-five years
ago--a very nice man and a particular friend of mine----
MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, he died. [_Pause_] But I don't know if--perhaps
you are getting him mixed up----
STRANGER. No, I don't. I remember old man Westerlund perfectly, and I
liked him very much.
MRS. WESTERLUND. [_Reluctantly_] Of course it's a shame to say it, but
I don't think his temper was very good.
STRANGER. What?
MRS. WESTERLUND. Well--he had a way of getting around people, but
he didn't mean what he said--or if he did he meant it the other way
around----
STRANGER. What is that? Didn't he mean what he was saying? Was he a
hypocrite?
MRS. WESTERLUND. Well, I don't like to say it, but I believe----
STRANGER. Do you mean to say that he wasn't on the level?
MRS. WESTERLUND. N--yes--he was--a little--well, he didn't mean exactly
what he said--And how have you been doing, Mr. Arvid?
STRANGER. Now a light is dawning on me!--The miserable wretch! And
here I have been praising him these thirty-five years. I have missed
him, and I felt something like sorrow at his departure--I even used
some of my tobacco allowance to buy a wreath for his coffin.
MRS. WESTERLUND. What was it he did? What was it?
STRANGER. The villain! [_Pause_] Well--he fooled me--it was Shrove
Tuesday, I remember. He told me that if one took away every third
egg from a hen she would lay so many more. I did it, got a licking,
and came near getting into court. But _I_ never suspected him of
having told on me.--He was always hanging around our kitchen looking
for tid-bits, and so our maids could do just what they pleased about
the garbage--oh, now I see him in his proper aspect!--And here I am
now getting into a fury at one who has been thirty-five years in his
grave?--So he was a satirist, he was--and I didn't catch on--although I
understand him now.
MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, he was a little satirical all right--_I_ ought
to know that!
STRANGER. Other things are coming back to me now--and I have been
saying nice things about that blackguard for thirty-five years! It was
at his funeral I drank my first toddy--And I remember how he used to
flatter me, and call me "professor" and "the crown prince"--ugh--And
there is the stone-cutter! You had better go inside, madam, or we'll
have a row when that fellow begins to turn in his bills. Good-bye,
madam--we'll meet again!
MRS. WESTERLUND. No we won't. People ought never to meet again--it
is never as it used to be, and they only get to clawing at each
other--What business did you have to tell me all those things--seeing
everything was all right as it was [_She goes out_.
ERICSON, _the stone-cutter, comes in_.
STRANGER. Come on!
ERICSON. What's that?
STRANGER. Come on, I said!
ERICSON _stares at him_.
STRANGER. Are you looking at my scarf-pin? I bought it in London.
ERICSON. I am no thief!
STRANGER. No, but you practise the noble art of erasure. You wipe out!
ERICSON. That's true, but that contract was sheer robbery, and it was
strangling me.
STRANGER. Why did you sign it?
ERICSON. Because I was hard up.
STRANGER. Yes, that _is_ a motive.
ERICSON. But now I am having my revenge.
STRANGER. Yes, isn't it nice!
ERICSON. And now _they_ will be locked up.
STRANGER. Did _we_ ever fight each other as boys?
ERICSON. No, I was too young.
STRANGER. Have we never told lies about each other, or robbed each
other, or got in each other's way, or seduced each other's sisters?
ERICSON. Naw, but my father was in the customs service and yours was a
smuggler.
STRANGER. There you are! That's something, at least!
ERICSON. And when my father failed to catch yours he was discharged.
STRANGER. And you want to get even with me because your father was a
good-for-nothing?
ERICSON. Why did you say a while ago that there was dynamite in the
cellar?
STRANGER. Now, my dear sir, you are telling lies again. I said there
_might_ be dynamite in the cellar, and everything is possible, of
course.
ERICSON. And in the meantime the student has been arrested. Do you know
him?
STRANGER. Very little--his mother more, for she was a maid in our
house. She was both pretty and good, and I was making up to her--until
she had a child.
ERICSON. And were you not its father?
STRANGER. I was not. But as a denial of fatherhood is not allowed, I
suppose I must be regarded as a sort of stepfather.
ERICSON. Then they have lied about you.
STRANGER. Of course. But that's a very common thing.
ERICSON. And I was among those who testified against you--under oath!
STRANGER. I have no doubt about it, but what does it matter? Nothing
matters at all! But now we had better quit pulling--or we'll get the
whole web unravelled.
ERICSON. But think of me, who have perjured myself----
STRANGER. Yes, it isn't pleasant, but such things will happen.
ERICSON. It's horrible--don't you find life horrible?
STRANGER. [_Covering his eyes with his hand_] Yes, horrible beyond all
description!
ERICSON. I don't want to live any longer!
STRANGER. Must! [_Pause_] Must! [_Pause_] Tell me--the student is
arrested, you say--can he get out of it?
ERICSON. Hardly!--And now, as we are talking nicely, I'll tell you
something: he is innocent, but he cannot clear himself. For the only
witness that can prove him innocent would, by doing so, prove him
guilty--in another way.
STRANGER. She with the hairpins, isn't it?
ERICSON. Yes.
STRANGER. The old one or the young one?
ERICSON. You have to figure that out yourself. But it isn't the cook.
STRANGER. What a web this is!--But who put the lamp there?
ERICSON. His worst enemy.
STRANGER. And did his worst enemy also start the fire?
ERICSON. That's beyond me! Only Anderson, the mason, knows that.
STRANGER. Who is he?
ERICSON. The oldest one in the place--some kind of relative of Mrs.
Westerlund--knows all the secrets of the house--but he and the dyer
have got some secrets together, so he won't tell anything.
STRANGER. And the lady--my sister-in-law--who is she?
ERICSON. Well--she was in the house as governess when the first wife
cleared out.
STRANGER. What sort of character has she got?
ERICSON. Hm! Character? I don't quite know what that is. Do you mean
trade? The old assessment blanks used to call for your name and
"character"--but that meant occupation instead of character.
STRANGER. I mean her temper.
ERICSON. Well, it changes, you know. In me it depends on the person
with whom I am talking. With decent people I am decent, and with the
cruel ones I become like a beast of prey.
STRANGER. But I was talking of her temper under ordinary circumstances.
ERICSON. Well, nothing in particular. Gets angry if you tease her, but
comes around after a while. One cannot always have the same temper, of
course.
STRANGER. I mean, is she merry or melancholy?
ERICSON. When things go right, she is happy, and when they go wrong,
she gets sorry or angry--just like the rest of us.
STRANGER. Yes, but how does she behave?
ERICSON. Oh, what does it matter?--Of course, being an educated person,
she behaves politely, but nevertheless, you know, she can get nasty,
too, when her blood gets to boiling.
STRANGER. But that doesn't make me much wiser.
ERICSON. [_Patting him on the shoulder_] No, sir, we never get much
wiser when it's a question of human beings.
STRANGER. Oh, you're a marvel!--And how do you like my brother, the
dyer? [_Pause_.
ERICSON. Oh, his manners are pretty decent. And more than that I don't
know, for what he keeps hidden I can't find out, of course.
STRANGER. Excellent! But--his hands are always blue, and yet you know
that they are white beneath the dye.
ERICSON. But to make them so they should be scraped, and that's
something he won't permit.
STRANGER. Good!--Who are the young couple coming over there?
ERICSON. That's the gardener's son and my daughter, who were to have
been married to-night, but who have had to postpone it on account of
the fire--Now I shall leave, for I don't want to embarrass them. You
understand--I ain't much as a father-in-law. Good-bye! [_He goes out_.
_The_ Stranger _withdraws behind the inn, but so that he
remains visible to the spectators_.
Alfred _and_ Mathilda _enter hand in hand_.
ALFRED. I had to have a look at this place--I had to----
MATHILDA. Why did you have to look at it?
ALFRED. Because I have suffered so much in this house that more than
once I wished it on fire.
MATHILDA. Yes, I know, it kept the sun out of the garden, and now
everything will grow much better--provided they don't put up a still
higher house----
ALFRED. Now it's open and pleasant, with plenty of air and sunlight,
and I hear they are going to lay out a street----
MATHILDA. Won't you have to move then?
ALFRED. Yes, all of us will have to move, and that's what I like--I
like new things--I should like to emigrate----
MATHILDA. Mercy, no! Do you know, our pigeons were nesting on the roof.
And when the fire broke out last night they kept circling around the
place at first, but when the roof fell in they plunged right into the
flames--They couldn't part from their old home!
ALFRED. But we must get out of here--must! My father says that the soil
has been sucked dry.
MATHILDA. I heard that the cinders left by the fire were to be spread
over the ground in order to improve the soil.
ALFRED. You mean the ashes?
MATHILDA. Yes; they say it's good to sow in the ashes.
ALFRED. Better still on virgin soil.
MATHILDA. But your father is ruined?
ALFRED. Not at all. He has money in the bank. Of course he's
complaining, but so does everybody.
MATHILDA. Has he--The fire hasn't ruined him?
ALFRED. Not a bit! He's a shrewd old guy, although he always calls
himself a fool.
MATHILDA. What am I to believe?
ALFRED. He has loaned money to the mason here--and to others.
MATHILDA. I am entirely at sea! Am I dreaming?--The whole morning
we have been weeping over your father's misfortune and over the
postponement of the wedding----
ALFRED. Poor little thing! But the wedding is to take place to-night----
MATHILDA. Is it not postponed?
ALFRED. Only delayed for a couple of hours so that my father will have
time to get his new coat.
MATHILDA. And we who have been weeping----
ALFRED. Useless tears--such a lot of tears!
MATHILDA. I am mad because they were useless--although--to think that
my father-in-law could be such a sly one!
ALFRED. Yes, he is something of a joker, to put it mildly. He is always
talking about how tired he is, but that's nothing but laziness--oh,
he's lazy, I tell you----
MATHILDA. Don't say any more nasty things about him--but let us get
away from here. I have to dress, you know, and put up my hair.--Just
think, that my father-in-law isn't what I thought him--that he could be
fooling us like that and not telling the truth! Perhaps you are like
that, too? Oh, that I can't know what you really are!
ALFRED. You'll find out afterward.
MATHILDA. But then it's too late.
ALFRED. It's never too late----
MATHILDA. All you who lived in this house are bad--And now I am afraid
of you----
ALFRED. Not of me, though?
MATHILDA. I don't know what to think. Why didn't you tell me before
that your father was well off?
ALFRED. I wanted to try you and see if you would like me as a poor man.
MATHILDA. Yes, afterward they always say that they wanted to try you.
But how can I ever believe a human being again?
ALFRED. Go and get dressed now. I'll order the carriages.
MATHILDA. Are we to have carriages?
ALFRED. Of course--regular coaches.
MATHILDA. Coaches? And to-night? What fun! Come--hurry up! We'll have
carriages!
ALFRED. [_Gets hold of her hand and they dance out together_] Hey and
ho! Here we go!
STRANGER. [_Coming forward_] Bravo!
_The_ DETECTIVE _enters and talks in a low tone to the_
Stranger, _who answers in the same way. This lasts for about
half a minute, whereupon the_ DETECTIVE _leaves again_.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Enters, dressed in black, and gazes long at the_
Stranger] Are you my brother-in-law?
STRANGER. I am. [_Pause_] Don't I look as I have been described--or
painted?
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Frankly, no!
STRANGER. No, that is generally the case. And I must admit that the
information I received about you a while ago does not tally with the
original.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Oh, people do each other so much wrong, and they paint
each other in accordance with some image within themselves.
STRANGER. And they go about like theatrical managers, distributing
parts to each other. Some accept their parts; others hand them back and
prefer to improvise.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. And what has been the part assigned to you?
STRANGER. That of a seducer. Not that I have ever been one! I have
never seduced anybody, be she wife or maid, but once in my youth I was
seduced, and that's why the part was given to me. Strange to say, it
was forced on me so long that at last I accepted it. And for twenty
years I carried the bad conscience of a seducer around with me.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. You were innocent then?
STRANGER. I was.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. How curious! And to this day my husband is still
talking of the Nemesis that has pursued you because you seduced another
man's wife.
STRANGER. I fully believe it. But your husband represents a still more
interesting case. He has created a new character for himself out of
lies. Tell me: isn't he a coward in facing the struggles of life?
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Of course he is a coward!
STRANGER. And yet he boasts of his courage, which is nothing but
brutality.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. You know him pretty well.
STRANGER. Yes, and no!--And you have been living in the belief that you
had married into a respected family which had never disgraced itself?
MRS. WALSTRÖM. So I believed until this morning.
STRANGER. When your faith crumbled! What a web of lies and mistakes
and misunderstandings! And that kind of thing we are supposed to take
seriously!
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Do you?
STRANGER. Sometimes. Very seldom nowadays. I walk like a somnambulist
along the edge of a roof--knowing that I am asleep, and yet being
awake--and the only thing I am waiting for is to be waked up.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. You are said to have been across to the other side?
STRANGER. I have been across the river, but the only thing I can recall
is--that there everything _was_ what it pretended to be. That's what
makes the difference.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. When nothing stands the test of being touched, what are
you then to hold on to?
STRANGER. Don't you know?
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Tell me! Tell me!
STRANGER. Sorrow brings patience; patience brings experience;
experience brings hope; and hope will not bring us to shame.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Hope, yes!
STRANGER. Yes, hope!
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Do you ever think it pleasant to live?
STRANGER. Of course. But that is also a delusion. I tell you, my dear
sister-in-law, that when you happen to be born without a film over your
eyes, then you see life and your fellow creatures as they are--and
you have to be a pig to feel at home in such a mess.--But when you
have been looking long enough at blue mists, then you turn your eyes
the other way and begin to look into your own soul? There you find
something really worth looking at.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. And what is it you see?
STRANGER. Your own self. But when you have looked at that you must die.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Covers her eyes with her hands; after a pause she
says_] Do you want to help me?
STRANGER. If I can.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Try.
STRANGER. Wait a moment!--No, I cannot. He is innocently accused. Only
you can set him free again. But that you cannot do. It's a net that has
not been tied by men----
MRS. WALSTRÖM. But he is not guilty.
STRANGER. Who is guilty? [_Pause_.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. No one! It was an accident!
STRANGER. I know it.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. What am I to do?
STRANGER. Suffer. It will pass. For that, too, is vanity.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Suffer?
STRANGER. Yes, suffer! But with hope!
MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Holding out her hand to him_] Thank you!
STRANGER. And let it be your consolation
MRS. WALSTRÖM. What?
STRANGER. That you don't suffer innocently.
MRS. WALSTRÖM _walks out with her head bent low_.
_The_ STRANGER _climbs the pile of debris marking the site of
the burned house_.
RUDOLPH. [_Comes in, looking happy_] Are you playing the ghost among
the ruins?
STRANGER. Ghosts feel at home among ruins--And now you are happy?
RUDOLPH. Now I am happy.
STRANGER. And brave?
RUDOLPH. Whom have I got to fear, or what?
STRANGER. I conclude from your happiness that you are ignorant of one
important fact--Have you the courage to bear a piece of misfortune?
RUDOLPH. What is it?
STRANGER. You turn pale?
RUDOLPH. I?
STRANGER. A serious misfortune!
RUDOLPH. Speak out!
STRANGER. The detective was here a moment ago, and he told me--in
confidence----
RUDOLPH. What?
STRANGER. That the premium on your insurance was paid up two hours too
late.
RUDOLPH. Great S----! what are you talking of? I sent my wife to pay
the premium.
STRANGER. And she sent the bookkeeper--and he got there too late.
RUDOLPH. Then I am ruined? [_Pause_.
STRANGER. Are you crying?
RUDOLPH. I am ruined!
STRANGER. Well, is that something that cannot be borne?
RUDOLPH. How am I to live? What am I to do?
STRANGER. Work!
RUDOLPH. I am too old--I have no friends Stranger. Perhaps you'll get
some now. A man in misfortune always seems sympathetic. I had some of
my best hours while fortune went against me.
RUDOLPH. [_Wildly_] I am ruined!
STRANGER. But in my days of success and fortune I was left alone. Envy
was more than friendship could stand.
RUDOLPH. Then I'll sue the bookkeeper.
STRANGER. Don't!
RUDOLPH. He'll have to pay----
STRANGER. How little you have changed! What's the use of living, when
you learn so little from it?
RUDOLPH. I'll sue him, the villain!--He hates me because I gave him a
cuff on the ear once.
STRANGER. Forgive him--as I forgave you when I didn't demand my
inheritance.
RUDOLPH. What inheritance?
STRANGER. Always the same! Merciless! Cowardly! Disingenuous!--Depart
in peace, brother!
RUDOLPH. What inheritance is that you are talking of?
STRANGER. Now listen, Rudolph--my brother after all: my own mother's
son! You put the stone-cutter in jail because he did some erasing--all
right! But how about your own erasures from my book, "Christopher
Columbus, or the Discovery of America"?
RUDOLPH. [_Taken aback_] What's that? Columbus?
STRANGER. Yes, _my_ book that became yours!
RUDOLPH _remains silent_.
STRANGER. Yes, and I understand now that it was you who put the
student's lamp in the closet--I understand everything. But do _you_
know that the dinner-table was not of ebony?
RUDOLPH. It wasn't?
STRANGER. It was nothing but maple.
RUDOLPH. Maple!
STRANGER. The pride and glory of the house--valued at two thousand
crowns!
RUDOLPH. That, too? So that was also humbug!
STRANGER. Yes!
RUDOLPH. Ugh!
STRANGER. Thus the debt is settled. The case is dropped--the issue is
beyond the court--the parties can withdraw----
RUDOLPH. [_Rushing out_] I am ruined!
STRANGER. [_Takes his wreath from the table_] I meant to take this
wreath to the cemetery--to my parents' grave--but I will place it here
instead--on the ruins of what was once their home--my childhood's home!
[_He bends his head in silent prayer_] And now, wanderer, resume thy
pilgrimage!
_Curtain_.
PLAYS BY AUGUST STRINDBERG
PLAYS. FIRST SERIES: The Dream Play, The
Link, The Dance of Death--Part I and Part II.
PLAYS. SECOND SERIES: There are Crimes
and Crimes, Miss Julia, The Stronger, Creditors,
Pariah.
PLAYS. THIRD SERIES: Swanwhite, Simoom,
Debit and Credit, Advent, The Thunder
Storm, After the Fire.
PLAYS. FOURTH SERIES: The Bridal Crown,
The Spook Sonata, The First Warning, Gustavus Vasa.
CREDITORS. PARIAH.
MISS JULIA. THE STRONGER.
THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES.