In his masterly preface to this play, August Strindberg writes: "The
fact that my tragedy makes a sad impression on many is the fault of the
many. When we become strong, as were the first French revolutionaries,
it will make an exclusively pleasant and cheerful impression to see the
royal parks cleared of rotting, superannuated trees which have too long
stood in the way of others with equal right to vegetate their full
lifetime; it will make a good impression in the same sense as does the
sight of the death of an incurable."
What a wealth of revolutionary thought,--were we to realize that those
who will clear society of the rotting, superannuated trees that have so
long been standing in the way of others entitled to an equal share in
life, must be as strong as the great revolutionists of the past!
Indeed, Strindberg is no trimmer, no cheap reformer, no patchworker;
therefore his inability to remain fixed, or to content himself with
accepted truths. Therefore also, his great versatility, his deep grasp
of the subtlest phases of life. Was he not forever the seeker, the
restless spirit roaming the earth, ever in the death-throes of the Old,
to give birth to the New? How, then, could he be other than relentless
and grim and brutally frank.
"Countess Julie," a one-act tragedy, is no doubt a brutally frank
portrayal of the most intimate thoughts of man and of the age-long
antagonism between classes. Brutally frank, because August Strindberg
strips both of their glitter, their sham and pretense, that we may see
that "at bottom there's not so much difference between people
and--people."
Who in modern dramatic art is there to teach us that lesson with the
insight of an August Strindberg? He who had been tossed about all his
life between the decadent traditions of his aristocratic father and the
grim, sordid reality of the class of his mother. He who had been
begotten through the physical mastery of his father and the physical
subserviency of his mother. Verily, Strindberg knew whereof he
spoke--for he spoke with his soul, a language whose significance is
illuminating, compelling.
_Countess Julie_ inherited the primitive, intense passion of her mother
and the neurotic aristocratic tendencies of her father. Added to this
heritage is the call of the wild, the "intense summer heat when the
blood turns to fire, and when all are in a holiday spirit, full of
gladness, and rank is flung aside." _Countess Julie_ feels, when too
late, that the barrier of rank reared through the ages, by wealth and
power, is not flung aside with impunity. Therein the vicious brutality,
the boundless injustice of rank.
The people on the estate of _Julie's_ father are celebrating St. John's
Eve with dance, song and revelry. The Count is absent, and _Julie_
graciously mingles with the servants. But once having tasted the simple
abandon of the people, once having thrown off the artifice and
superficiality of her aristocratic decorum, her suppressed passions leap
into full flame, and _Julie_ throws herself into the arms of her
father's valet, _Jean_--not because of love for the man, nor yet openly
and freely, but as persons of her station may do when carried away by
the moment.
The woman in _Julie_ pursues the male, follows him into the kitchen,
plays with him as with a pet dog, and then feigns indignation when
_Jean_, aroused, makes advances. How dare he, the servant, the lackey,
even insinuate that she would have him! "I, the lady of the house! I
honor the people with my presence. I, in love with my coachman? I, who
step down."
How well Strindberg knows the psychology of the upper classes! How well
he understands that their graciousness, their charity, their interest in
the "common people" is, after all, nothing but arrogance, blind conceit
of their own importance and ignorance of the character of the people.
Even though _Jean_ is a servant, he has his pride, he has his dreams. "I
was not hired to be your plaything," he says to _Julie_; "I think too
much of myself for that."
Strange, is it not, that those who serve and drudge for others, should
think so much of themselves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger
still that they should indulge in dreams. _Jean_ says:
Do you know how people in high life look from the under-world?...
They look like hawks and eagles whose backs one seldom sees, for
they soar up above. I lived in a hovel provided by the State, with
seven brothers and sisters and a pig; out on a barren stretch where
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 angels with flaming
swords protecting it; but for all that I and other boys found the
way to the tree of life--now you despise me.... I thought if it is
true that the thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell among
the angels it was strange that a pauper child on God's earth could
not go into the castle park and play with the Countess' daughter....
What I wanted--I don't know. You were unattainable, but through the
vision of you I was made to realize how hopeless it was to rise
above the conditions of my birth.
What rich food for thought in the above for all of us, and for the
Jeans, the people who do not know what they want, yet feel the cruelty
of a world that keeps the pauper's child out of the castle of his
dreams, away from joy and play and beauty! The injustice and the
bitterness of it all, that places the stigma of birth as an impassable
obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one from the table of life, with
the result of producing such terrible effects on the Julies and the
Jeans. The one unnerved, made helpless and useless by affluence, ease
and idleness; the other enslaved and bound by service and dependence.
Even when _Jean_ wants to, he cannot rise above his condition. When
_Julie_ asks him to embrace her, to love her, he replies:
I can't as long as we are in this house.... There is the Count, your
father.... 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 that I see his boots standing there so
stiff and proper, I feel like bowing and scraping.... I can't
account for it but--but ah, it is that damned servant in my back--I
believe if the Count came here now, and told me to cut my throat, I
would do it on the spot.... Superstition and prejudice taught in
childhood can't be uprooted in a moment.
No, superstition and prejudice cannot be uprooted in a moment; nor in
years. The awe of authority, servility before station and wealth--these
are the curse of the Jean class that makes such cringing slaves of them.
Cringing before those who are above them, tyrannical and overbearing
toward those who are below them. For _Jean_ has the potentiality of the
master in him as much as that of the slave. Yet degrading as "the damned
servant" reacts upon _Jean_, it is much more terrible in its effect upon
_Kristin_, the cook, the dull, dumb animal who has so little left of the
spirit of independence that she has lost even the ambition to rise above
her condition. Thus when _Kristin_, the betrothed of Jean, discovers
that her mistress _Julie_ had given herself to him, she is indignant
that her lady should have so much forgotten her station as to stoop to
her father's valet.
_Kristin._ I don't want to be here in this house any longer where
one cannot respect one's betters.
_Jean._ Why should one respect them?
_Kristin._ Yes, you can say that, you are so smart. But I don't want
to serve people who behave so. It reflects on oneself, I think.
_Jean._ Yes, but it's a comfort that they're not a bit better than
we.
_Kristin._ No, I don't think so, for if they are not better there's
no use in our trying to better ourselves in this world. And to think
of the Count! Think of him who has had so much sorrow all his days.
No, I don't want to stay in this house any longer! And to think of
it being with such as you! If it had been the Lieutenant-- ... I
have never lowered my position. Let any one say, if they can, that
the Count's cook has had anything to do with the riding master or
the swineherd. Let them come and say it!
Such dignity and morality are indeed pathetic, because they indicate how
completely serfdom may annihilate even the longing for something higher
and better in the breast of a human being. The Kristins represent the
greatest obstacle to social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between
the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with all their longing for
higher possibilities, often become brutalized in the hard school of
life; though in the conflict with _Julie_, _Jean_ shows brutality only
at the critical moment, when it becomes a question of life and death, a
moment that means discovery and consequent ruin, or safety for both.
_Jean_, though the male is aroused in him, pleads with _Julie_ not to
play with fire, begs her to return to her room, and not to give the
servants a chance for gossip. And when later _Jean_ suggests his room
for a hiding place that _Julie_ may escape the approaching merry-makers,
it is to save her from their songs full of insinuation and ribaldry.
Finally when the inevitable happens, when as a result of their closeness
in _Jean's_ room, of their overwrought nerves, their intense passion,
the avalanche of sex sweeps them off their feet, forgetful of station,
birth and conventions, and they return to the kitchen, it is again
_Jean_ who is willing to bear his share of the responsibility. "I don't
care to shirk my share of the blame," he tells _Julie_, "but do you
think any one of my position would have dared to raise his eyes to you
if you had not invited it?"
There is more truth in this statement than the Julies can grasp, namely,
that even servants have their passions and feelings that cannot long be
trifled with, with impunity. The Jeans know "that it is the glitter of
brass, not gold, that dazzles us from below, and that the eagle's back
is gray like the rest of him." For _Jean_ says, "I'm sorry to have to
realize that all that I have looked up to is not worth while, and it
pains me to see you fallen lower than your cook, as it pains me to see
autumn blossoms whipped to pieces by the cold rain and transformed
into--dirt!"
* * * * *
It is this force that helps to transform the blossom into dirt that
August Strindberg emphasizes in "The Father." For the child born against
the will of its parents must also be without will, and too weak to bear
the stress and storm of life. In "Countess Julie" this idea recurs with
even more tragic effect. _Julie_, too, had been brought into the world
against her mother's wishes. Indeed, so much did her mother dread the
thought of a child that she "was always ill, she often had cramps and
acted queerly, often hiding in the orchard or the attic." Added to this
horror was the conflict, the relentless war of traditions between
_Julie's_ aristocratic father and her mother descended from the people.
This was the heritage of the innocent victim, _Julie_--an autumn blossom
blown into fragments by lack of stability, lack of love and lack of
harmony. In other words, while _Julie_ is broken and weakened by her
inheritance and environment, _Jean_ is hardened by his.
When _Jean_ kills the bird which _Julie_ wants to rescue from the ruins
of her life, it is not so much out of real cruelty, as it is because the
character of _Jean_ was molded in the relentless school of necessity,
in which only those survive who have the determination to act in time of
danger. For as _Jean_ says, "Miss Julie, I see that you are unhappy, I
know that you are suffering, but I cannot 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 as you."
Here we have the key to the psychology of the utter helplessness and
weakness of the Julie type, and of the brutality of the Jeans. The one,
the result of an empty life, of parasitic leisure, of a useless,
purposeless existence. The other, the effect of too little time for
development, for maturity and depth; of too much toil to permit the
growth of the finer traits in the human soul.
August Strindberg, himself the result of the class conflict between his
parents, never felt at home with either of them. All his life he was
galled by the irreconcilability of the classes; and though he was no
sermonizer in the sense of offering a definite panacea for individual or
social ills, yet with master touch he painted the degrading effects of
class distinction and its tragic antagonisms. In "Countess Julie" he
popularized one of the most vital problems of our age, and gave to the
world a work powerful in its grasp of elemental emotions, laying bare
the human soul behind the mask of social tradition and class culture.