Although "Comrades" was written in 1888, it is in a measure the most
up-to-date play of Strindberg,--so thoroughly modern that one at all
conversant with the _milieu_ that inspired "Comrades" could easily point
out the type of character portrayed in the play.
It is a four-act comedy of marriage--the kind of marriage that lacks
social and legal security in the form of a ceremony, but retains all the
petty conventions of the marriage institution. The results of such an
anomaly are indeed ludicrous when viewed from a distance, but very
tragic for those who play a part in it.
_Axel Alberg_ and his wife _Bertha_ are Swedish artists residing in
Paris. They are both painters. Of course they share the same living
quarters, and although each has a separate room, the arrangement does
not hinder them from trying to regulate each other's movements. Thus
when _Bertha_ does not arrive on time to keep her engagement with her
model, _Axel_ is provoked; and when he takes the liberty to chide her
for her tardiness, his wife is indignant at the "invasiveness" of her
husband, because women of the type of _Bertha_ are as sensitive to fair
criticism as their ultra-conservative sisters. Nor is _Bertha_ different
in her concept of love, which is expressed in the following dialogue:
_Bertha._ Will you be very good, very, very good?
_Axel._ I always want to be good to you, my friend.
_Bertha_, who has sent her painting to the exhibition, wants to make use
of _Axel's_ "goodness" to secure the grace of one of the art jurors.
_Bertha._ You would not make a sacrifice for your wife, would you?
_Axel._ Go begging? No, I don't want to do that.
_Bertha_ immediately concludes that he does not love her and that,
moreover, he is jealous of her art. There is a scene.
_Bertha_ soon recovers. But bent on gaining her purpose, she changes her
manner.
_Bertha._ Axel, let's be friends! And hear me a moment. Do you think
that my position in your house--for it is yours--is agreeable to me?
You support me, you pay for my studying at Julian's, while you
yourself cannot afford instruction. Don't you think I see how you
sit and wear out yourself and your talent on these pot-boiling
drawings, and are able to paint only in leisure moments? You haven't
been able to afford models for yourself, while you pay mine five
hard-earned francs an hour. You don't know how good--how noble--how
sacrificing you are, and also you don't know how I suffer to see you
toil so for me. Oh, Axel, you can't know how I feel my position.
What am I to you? Of what use am I in your house? Oh, I blush when
I think about it!
_Axel._ What talk! Isn't a man to support his wife?
_Bertha._ I don't want it. And you, Axel, you must help me. I'm not
your equal when it's like that, but I could be if you would humble
yourself once, just once! Don't think that you are alone in going to
one of the jury to say a good word for another. If it were for
yourself, it would be another matter, but for me--Forgive me! Now I
beg of you as nicely as I know how. Lift me from my humiliating
position to your side, and I'll be so grateful I shall never trouble
you again with reminding you of my position. Never, Axel!
Yet though _Bertha_ gracefully accepts everything _Axel_ does for her,
with as little compunction as the ordinary wife, she does not give as
much in return as the latter. On the contrary, she exploits _Axel_ in a
thousand ways, squanders his hard-earned money, and lives the life of
the typical wifely parasite.
August Strindberg could not help attacking with much bitterness such a
farce and outrage parading in the disguise of radicalism. For _Bertha_
is not an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when Strindberg
satirized the all-too-feminine, the majority of so-called emancipated
women are willing to accept, like _Bertha_, everything from the man, and
yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return the simple comforts of
married life. The ordinary wife, at least, does not pretend to play an
important rôle in the life of her husband. But the Berthas deceive
themselves and others with the notion that the "emancipated" wife is a
great moral force, an inspiration to the man. Whereas in reality she is
often a cold-blooded exploiter of the work and ideas of the man, a heavy
handicap to his life-purpose, retarding his growth as effectively as did
her grandmothers in the long ago. _Bertha_ takes advantage of _Axel's_
affection to further her own artistic ambitions, just as the Church and
State married woman uses her husband's love to advance her social
ambitions. It never occurs to _Bertha_ that she is no less despicable
than her legally married sister. She cannot understand _Axel's_
opposition to an art that clamors only for approval, distinction and
decorations.
However, _Axel_ can not resist _Bertha's_ pleadings. He visits the
patron saint of the salon, who, by the way, is not M. Roubey, but Mme.
Roubey; for she is the "President of the Woman-Painter Protective
Society." What chance would _Bertha_ have with one of her own sex in
authority? Hence her husband must be victimized. During _Axel's_ absence
_Bertha_ learns that his picture has been refused by the salon, while
hers is accepted. She is not in the least disturbed, nor at all
concerned over the effect of the news on _Axel_. On the contrary, she is
rather pleased because "so many women are refused that a man might put
up with it, and be made to feel it once."
In her triumph _Bertha's_ attitude to _Axel_ becomes overbearing; she
humiliates him, belittles his art, and even plans to humble him before
the guests invited to celebrate _Bertha's_ artistic success.
But _Axel_ is tearing himself free from the meshes of his decaying love.
He begins to see _Bertha_ as she is: her unscrupulousness in money
matters, her ceaseless effort to emasculate him. In a terrible word
tussle he tells her: "I had once been free, but you clipped the hair of
my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole
my best blood."
In the last act _Bertha_ discovers that _Axel_ had generously changed
the numbers on the paintings in order to give her a better chance. It
was _his_ picture that was chosen as _her_ work. She feels ashamed and
humiliated; but it is too late. _Axel_ leaves her with the exclamation,
"I want to meet my comrades in the café, but at home I want a wife."
A characteristic sidelight in the play is given by the conversation of
_Mrs. Hall_, the divorced wife of _Doctor Ostermark_. She comes to
Bertha with a bitter tirade against the Doctor because he gives her
insufficient alimony.
_Mrs. Hall._ And now that the girls are grown up and about to start
in life, now he writes us that he is bankrupt and that he can't send
us more than half the allowance. Isn't that nice, just now when the
girls are grown up and are going out into life?
_Bertha._ We must look into this. He'll be here in a few days. Do
you know that you have the law on your side and that the courts can
force him to pay? And he shall be forced to do so. Do you
understand? So, he can bring children into the world and then leave
them empty-handed with the poor deserted mother.
_Bertha_, who believes in woman's equality with man, and in her economic
independence, yet delivers herself of the old sentimental gush in behalf
of "the poor deserted mother," who has been supported by her husband for
years, though their relations had ceased long before.
* * * * *
A distorted picture, some feminists will say. Not at all. It is as
typical to-day as it was twenty-six years ago. Even to-day some
"emancipated" women claim the right to be self-supporting, yet demand
their husband's support. In fact, many leaders in the American suffrage
movement assure us that when women will make laws, they will force men
to support their wives. From the leaders down to the simplest devotee,
the same attitude prevails, namely, that man is a _blagueur_, and that
but for him the Berthas would have long ago become Michelangelos,
Beethovens, or Shakespeares; they claim that the Berthas represent the
most virtuous half of the race, and that they have made up their minds
to make man as virtuous as they are.
That such ridiculous extravagance should be resented by the Axels is not
at all surprising. It is resented even by the more intelligent of
_Bertha's_ own sex. Not because they are opposed to the emancipation of
woman, but because they do not believe that her emancipation can ever be
achieved by such absurd and hysterical notions. They repudiate the idea
that people who retain the substance of their slavery and merely escape
the shadow, can possibly be free, live free, or act free.
The radicals, no less than the feminists, must realize that a mere
external change in their economic and political status, cannot alter the
inherent or acquired prejudices and superstitions which underlie their
slavery and dependence, and which are the main causes of the antagonism
between the sexes.
The transition period is indeed a most difficult and perilous stage for
the woman as well as for the man. It requires a powerful light to guide
us past the dangerous reefs and rocks in the ocean of life. August
Strindberg is such a light. Sometimes glaring, ofttimes scorching, but
always beneficially illuminating the path for those who walk in
darkness, for the blind ones who would rather deceive and be deceived
than look into the recesses of their being. Therefore August Strindberg
is not only "the spiritual conscience of Sweden," as he has been called,
but the spiritual conscience of the whole human family, and, as such, a
most vital revolutionary factor.