SCENE I

PLAYS

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG

[Illustration--August Strindberg]

PLAYS

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG

THE DREAM PLAY

THE LINK

THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part I

THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part II

TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

EDWIN BJÖRKMAN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1912

NOTE

This translation is authorised by

Mr. Strindberg, and he has also

approved the selection of the

plays included in this volume.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUGUST STRINDBERG'S MAIN WORKS

THE DREAM PLAY

THE LINK

THE DANCE of DEATH, PART I

THE DANCE of DEATH, PART II

INTRODUCTION

To the first volume of his remarkable series of autobiographical

novels, August Strindberg gave the name of "The Bondwoman's

Son." The allusion was twofold--to his birth and to the position

which fate, in his own eyes, seemed to have assigned him both as

man and artist.

If we pass on to the third part of his big trilogy, "To

Damascus," also an autobiographical work, but written nearly

twenty years later, we find _The Stranger_, who is none but the

author, saying: "I was the Bondwoman's Son, concerning whom it

was writ--Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of

the bondwoman shall not be heir with the free woman's son.'"

And _The Lady_, back of whom we glimpse Strindberg's second

wife, replies: "Do you know why Ishmael was cast out? It is to

be read a little further back--because he was a scoffer! And

then it is also said: 'He will be a wild man; his hand will be

against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he

shall dwell in opposition to all his brethren.'"

These quotations should be read in conjunction with still

another, taken from Strindberg's latest play, "The Great

Highway," which, while being a sort of symbolical summary of his

life experience, yet pierces the magic circle of self-concern

within which too often he has remained a captive. There _The

Hermit_ asks: "You do not love your fellow-men?" And Strindberg,

masquerading as _The Hunter_, cries in answer: "Yes, far too

much, and fear them for that reason, too."

August Strindberg was born at Stockholm, Sweden, on January

22, 1849. His father was a small tradesman, who had lost his

business just before August was born, but who had the energy and

ability to start all over again as a steam-ship agent, making a

decided success of his second venture. The success, however, was

slow in coming, and the boy's earliest years were spent in the

worst kind of poverty--that poverty which has to keep up outward

appearances.

The mother had been a barmaid in one of the numerous inns

forming one of the Swedish capital's most characteristic

features. There the elder Strindberg had met her and fallen

deeply in love with her. August was their third child, born a

couple of months after their relationship had become legalized

in spite of bitter opposition from the husband's family. Other

children followed, many of them dying early, so that August

could write in later years that one of his first concrete

recollections was of the black-jacketed candy which used to be

passed around at every Swedish funeral.

Though the parents were always tired, and though the little

home was hopelessly overcrowded--ten persons living in three

rooms--yet the family life was not without its happiness. Only

August seemed to stand apart from the rest, having nothing in

common with his parents or with the other children. In fact, a

sort of warfare seems to have been raging incessantly between

him and his elder brothers. Thus a character naturally timid and

reserved had those traits developed to a point where its whole

existence seemed in danger of being warped.

At school he was not much happier, and as a rule he regarded

the tasks set him there as so much useless drudgery. Always and

everywhere he seemed in fear of having his personality violated,

until at last that apprehension, years later, took on a form

so morbid that it all but carried him across the limits of

rationality. With this suspiciousness of his environment went,

however, a keen desire to question and to understand. He has

said of himself that the predominant traits of his character

have been "doubt and sensitiveness to pressure." In these two

traits much of his art will, indeed, find its explanation.

At the age of thirteen he lost his mother, and less than a year

later his father remarried--choosing for his second wife the

former housekeeper. That occurrence made the boy's isolation at

home complete. During the years that followed he threw himself

with his usual passionate surrender into religious broodings and

practices. This mood lasted until he left for the university

at Upsala. He was then eighteen. During his first term at the

university he was so poor that he could buy no books. Worse

even--he could not buy the wood needed to heat the bare garret

where he lived.

Returning to Stockholm, he tried to teach in one of the public

schools--the very school which he had attended during the

unhappiest part of his childhood. From that time dates the theme

of eternal repetition, of forced return to past experiences,

which recurs constantly in his works. Another recurring theme is

that of unjust punishment, and it has also come out of his own

life--from an occasion when, as a boy of eight, he was suspected

of having drunk some wine that was missing, and when, in spite

of his indignant protests, he was held guilty and finally

compelled to acknowledge himself so in order to escape further

punishment.

But while still teaching school, he made certain acquaintances

that set his mind groping for some sort of literary expression.

He tried time and again to write verse, only to fail--until

one day, in a sort of trance, he found himself shaping words

into measured lines, and it suddenly dawned on him that he had

accomplished the feat held beyond him. From the first the stage

drew him, and his initial work was a little comedy, concerning

which nothing is known now. Then he wrote another one-act play

with the Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen for central figure, and

this was accepted by the Royal Theatre and actually played

with some success. Finally he produced a brief historical play

in prose, "The Outlaw," which was spurned by the critics and

the public, but which brought him the personal good-will and

financial support of King Charles XV.

Thus favoured, he returned to the university with the thought

of taking a degree. Instead he read everything not required in

the courses, quarrelled with every professor to whom he had to

submit himself for examination, and spent the major part of his

time with a set of youngsters whose sole ambition was to make

literature. Of that coterie, Strindberg was the only one to

reach the goal which all dreamt of. On the sudden death of the

king, when his little stipend ceased, he went up to the capital

again, bent on staying away for ever from the university.

During the next couple of years, he studied medicine for a

while, tried himself as an actor, conducted a trade journal, and

failed rather than succeeded to make a living as a hack writer

for various obscure newspapers. All this life he has pictured

with biting humour in his first big novel, "The Red Room."

At last, when he was twenty-three and had withdrawn in sheer

desperation to one of the little islands between Stockholm and

the open sea, he conceived and completed a five-act historical

play, named "Master Olof," after Arch-bishop Olaus Petri, the

Luther of Sweden.

The three main figures of that play, _Master Olof, King

Gustavus Vasa_, and _Gert the Printer_, were designed by the

author to represent three phases of his own character. The

_King_ was the opportunist, _Olof_ the idealist, and _Gert_ the

"impossibilist." The title first chosen for the play was "The

Renegade." It was suggested by the cry with which _Gert_ greets

the surrender of _Olof_ in the final scene.

The indifference shown that first big work came near turning

Strindberg away from a literary career for ever. It took him

several years to recover from the shock of disappointment--a

shock the more severe because he felt so uncertain of his own

gifts. But those years of seeming inactivity were not lost. He

had obtained a position in the Royal Library, which gave him a

living and free access to all the books he wanted. At first he

sought forgetfulness in the most exotic studies, such as the

Chinese language. The honours of the savant tempted him, and he

wrote a monograph which was accepted by the French Institute.

Gradually, however, he was drawn back to his own time. And there

was hardly a field of human thought to which he did not give

some attention. Already as a student at Upsala, his conception

of life had been largely determined by the study of the Danish

individualistic philosopher Kierkegaard, the English determinist

Buckle, and the German pessimist Eduard von Hartmann. Among

novelists, Hugo and Dickens were his favourites. They together

with the brothers de Goncourt, and not Zola, helped principally

to shape his artistic form until he was strong enough to stand

wholly on his own feet.

At the age of twenty-six he met the woman who was to play the

double part of muse and fate to him. She was already married.

In the end she obtained a divorce and became Strindberg's wife.

To begin with they were very happy, and under the stimulus of

this unfamiliar feeling Strindberg began once more to write--but

now in a manner such that recognition could no longer be denied

him. The novel already mentioned was his first popular success.

It drew bitter attacks from the conservative elements, but the

flavour of real life pervading it conquered all opposition.

To this day that first work of social criticism has not been

forgiven Strindberg by the official guardians of Swedish

literature.

After a while Strindberg threw himself with passion into the

study of Swedish history. One of the results was a daring work

named "The Swedish People," which is still, next to the Bible,

the most read book among the Swedes in this country. He wrote

also a series of short stories on historical themes which

combined artistic value with a truly remarkable insight into the

life of by-gone days. This series was named "Swedish Events and

Adventures." About the same time he administered some scathing

strictures on social and political conditions in a volume of

satirical essays entitled "The New Kingdom."

His plays from this period include "The Secret of the Guild" and

"Sir Bengt's Lady," both historical dramas of romantic nature.

To these must be added his first fairy play, "The Wanderings

of Lucky-Per," concerning which he declared recently that it

was meant for children only and must not be counted among his

more serious efforts. But this play has from the start been a

great favourite with the public, combining in its rapidly moving

scenes something of a modern "Everyman" and not a little of a

Swedish "Peer Gynt."

After he had resigned from the Royal Library and retired to

Switzerland for the purpose of devoting all his time to writing,

he produced the volume of short stories, "Marriage," which led

him up to the first turning point in his artistic career. It

dealt with modern marital conditions in a manner meant to reveal

the economic reefs on which so many unions are wrecked. His

attitude toward women had already become critical in that work,

but it was not yet hostile.

The book was confiscated. Criminal proceedings were brought

against its publisher. The charge was that it spoke offensively

of rites held sacred by the established religion of Sweden.

Everybody knew that this was a mere pretext, and that the true

grievance against the book lay in its outspoken utterances on

questions of sex morality. Urged by friends, Strindberg hastened

home and succeeded in assuming the part of defendant in place of

the publisher. The jury freed him, and the youth of the country

proclaimed him their leader and spokesman.

But the impression left on Strindberg's mind by that episode was

very serious and distinctly unfavourable. As in his childhood,

when he found himself disbelieved though telling the truth, so

he felt now more keenly than anything else the questioning of

his motives, which he knew to be pure. And the leaders of the

feminist movement, then particularly strong in Sweden, turned

against him with a bitterness not surpassed by that which

Ibsen had to face from directly opposite quarters after the

publication of "A Doll's House." Add finally that his marriage,

which had begun so auspiciously, was rapidly changing into

torture for both parties concerned in it.

Yet his growing embitterment did not make itself felt at once.

In 1885 he published four short stories meant to em-body the

onward trend of the modern spirit and the actual materialisation

of some of its fondest dreams. Collectively he named those

stories "Real Utopias," and they went far toward winning him a

reputation in Germany, where he was then living.

But with the appearance of the second part of "Marriage" in

1886, it was plain that a change had come over him. Its eighteen

stories constituted an unmistakable protest against everything

for which the feminist movement stood. The efforts of Ibsen and

Björnson to abolish the so-called "double code of morality"--one

for men and another one for women were openly challenged on the

ground that different results made male and female "immorality"

two widely different things. Right here it should be pointed

out, however, that Strindberg always, and especially in his

later years, has demanded as high a measure of moral purity from

men as from women--the real distinction between him and the two

great Norwegians lying in the motives on which he based that

demand.

The second part of "Marriage" shows a change not only in spirit

but in form, and this change becomes more accentuated in every

work published during the next few years. Until then Strindberg

had shown strong evidence of the Romantic origin of his art.

From now on, and until the ending of the great mental crisis in

the later nineties, he must be classed as an ultra-naturalist,

with strong materialistic and sceptical leanings. At the same

time he becomes more and more individualistic in his social

outlook, spurning the mass which, as he then felt, had spurned

him. And after a while the works of Nietzsche came to complete

what his personal experience had begun. His attitude toward

woman, as finally developed during this period, may be summed up

in an allegation not only of moral and mental but of biological

inferiority. And though during his later life he has retracted

much and softened more of what he said in those years of rampant

masculine rebellion, he continues to this day to regard women as

an intermediary biological form, standing between the man and

the child.

With the publication, in 1887, of "The Father," a modern

three-act tragedy, Strindberg reached a double climax. That work

has been hailed as one of his greatest, if not the greatest,

as far as technical perfection is concerned. At the same time

it presents that duel of the sexes--which to him had taken the

place of love--in its most startling and hideous aspects. The

gloom of the play is almost unsurpassed. The ingeniousness of

its plot may well be called infernal. By throwing doubt on her

husband's rights as father of the child held to be theirs in

common, the woman in the play manages to undermine the reason of

a strong and well-balanced man until he becomes transformed into

a raving maniac.

"The Comrades," a modern four-act comedy, portrays the marriage

of two artists and shows the woman as a mental parasite, drawing

both her inspiration and her skill from the husband, whom she

tries to shake off when she thinks him no longer needed for her

success. Then came the play of his which is perhaps the most

widely known--I mean the realistic drama which, for want of a

better English equivalent, must be named here "Miss Juliet." It

embodied some startling experiments in form and has undoubtedly

exercised a distinct influence on the subsequent development

of dramatic technique. On the surface it appears to offer

little more than another version of the sex duel, but back of

the conflict between man and woman we discover another one,

less deep-going perhaps, but rendered more acute by existing

conditions. It is the conflict between the upper and partly

outlived elements of society and its still unrefined, but

vitally unimpaired, strata. And it is the stronger vitality,

here represented by the man, which carries the day.

The rest of Strindberg's dramatic productions during this

middle, naturalistic period, lasting from 1885 to 1894, included

eight more one-act plays, several of which rank very high, and

another fairy play, "The Keys to Heaven," which probably marks

his nearest approach to a purely negative conception of life.

Paralleling the plays, we find a series of novels and short

stories dealing with the people on those islands where

Strindberg fifteen years earlier had written his "Master

Olof." Two things make these works remarkable: first, the rare

understanding shown in them of the life led by the tough race

that exists, so to speak, between land and sea; and secondly,

their genuine humour, which at times, as in the little story

named "The Tailor Has a Dance," rises into almost epic

expression. The last of these novels, "At the Edge of the Sea,"

embodies Strindberg's farthest advance into Nietzschean dreams

of supermanhood. But led by his incorruptible logic, he is

forced to reduce those dreams to the absurdity which they are

sure to involve whenever the superman feels himself standing

apart from ordinary humanity.

Finally he wrote, during the earlier part of this marvellously

prolific period, five autobiographical novels. One of these was

not published until years later. Three others were collectively

known as "The Bondwoman's Son," and carried his revelations up

to the time of his marriage. The first volume in the series is

especially noteworthy because of its searching and sympathetic

study of child psychology. But all the novels in this series

are of high value because of the sharp light they throw on

social conditions. Strindberg's power as an acute and accurate

observer has never been questioned, and it has rarely been more

strikingly evidenced than in his autobiographical writings. A

place by itself, though belonging to the same series, is held by

"A Fool's Confession," wherein Strindberg laid bare the tragedy

of his first marriage. It is the book that has exposed him to

more serious criticism than any other. He wrote it in French and

consented to its publication only as a last means of escaping

unendurable financial straits. Against his vain protests,

unauthorised translations were brought out in German and Swedish.

The dissolution of his marriage occurred in 1891. The

circumstances surrounding that break were extremely painful

to Strindberg. Both the facts of the legal procedure and

the feelings it evoked within himself have been almost

photographically portrayed in the one-act play, "The Link,"

which forms part of this volume. The "link" which binds man and

woman together even when their love is gone and the law has

severed all external ties is the child--and it is always for the

offspring that Strindberg reserves his tenderest feelings and

greatest concern.

After the divorce Strindberg left for Germany, where his works

in the meantime had been making steady headway. A couple of

years later he was taken up in France, and there was a time

during the first half of the nineties, when he had plays running

simultaneously at half a dozen Parisian theatres. While at

Berlin, he met a young woman writer of Austrian birth who soon

after became his second wife. Their marriage lasted only a few

years, and while it was not as unhappy as the first one, it

helped to bring on the mental crisis for which Strindberg had

been heading ever since the prosecution of "Marriage," in 1884.

He ceased entirely to write and plunged instead into scientific

speculation and experimentation. Chemistry was the subject

that had the greatest fascination for him, and his dream was

to prove the transmutability of the elements. In the course

of a prolonged stay at Paris, where he shunned everybody and

risked both health and life in his improvised laboratory,

his mental state became more and more abnormal, without ever

reaching a point where he ceased to realise just what was going

on within himself. He began to have psychic experiences of a

character that to him appeared distinctly supernatural. At the

same time he was led by the reading of Balzac to the discovery

of Swedenborg. By quick degrees, though not without much

mental suffering, he rejected all that until then had to him

represented life's highest truths. From being a materialistic

sceptic, he became a believing mystic, to whom this world seemed

a mere transitory state of punishment, a "hell" created by his

own thoughts.

The crisis took him in the end to a private sanitarium kept by

an old friend in the southern part of Sweden, but it would be

far from safe to assume that he ever reached a state of actual

insanity. His return to health began in 1896 and was completed

in a year. In 1897 he resumed his work of artistic creation once

more, and with a new spirit that startled those who had held him

lost for ever. First of all a flood of personal experiences and

impressions needed expression. This he accomplished by his two

autobiographical novels, "Inferno" and "Legends," the former

of which must be counted one of the most remarkable studies in

abnormal psychology in the world's literature. Next came "The

Link" and another one-act play. In 1898 he produced the first

two parts of "To Damascus," a play that--in strikingly original

form, and with a depth of thought and feeling not before

achieved--embodied his own soul's long pilgrimage in search of

internal and external harmony. The last part of the trilogy was

not added until 1904.

Then followed ten years of production so amazing that it

surpassed his previous high-water mark during the middle

eighties, both in quality and quantity. Once for all the mood

and mode of his creation had been settled. He was still a

realist in so far as faithfulness to life was concerned, but

the reality for which he had now begun to strive was spiritual

rather than material. He can, during this final period, only be

classed as a symbolist, but of the kind typified by Ibsen in the

series of masterpieces beginning with "Rosmersholm" and ending

with "Little Eyolf."

More and more as he pushes on from one height to another, he

manages to fuse the two offices of artist and moralist without

injury to either of them. His view of life is still pessimistic,

but back of man's earthly disappointments and humiliations and

sufferings he glimpses a higher existence to which this one

serves merely as a preparation. Everything that happens to

himself and to others seems to reveal the persistent influence

of secret powers, pulling and pushing, rewarding and punishing,

but always urging and leading man to some goal not yet bared to

his conscious vision. Resignation, humility, kindness become

the main virtues of human existence. And the greatest tragedy

of that existence he sees in man's--that is, his own--failure

to make all his actions conform to those ideals. Thus, in the

closing line of his last play, "The Great Highway," he pleads

for mercy as one who has suffered more than most "from the

inability to be that which we will to be."

Among the earliest results of his autumnal renascence was a

five-act historical drama named "Gustavus Vasa." It proved the

first of a dozen big plays dealing with the main events in his

country's history from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.

As a rule they were built about a monarch whose reign marked

some national crisis. Five stand out above the rest in artistic

value: "Gustavus Vasa," "Erie XIV," "Gustavus Adolphus,"

"Charles XII," and "The Last Knight." At once intensely

national and broadly human in their spirit, these plays won for

Strindberg a higher place in his countrymen's hearts than he

had ever before held--though notes of discord were not missing

on account of the freedom with which he exposed and demolished

false idols and outlived national ideals. As they stand to-day,

those dramas have in them so much of universal appeal that I

feel sure they must sooner or later win the same attention in

the English-speaking countries that they have already received

in Germany.

While thus recalling the past to new life, he was also busy

with another group of plays embodying what practically amounts

to a new dramatic form. The literary tendency underlying them

might be defined as realistic symbolism or impressionistic

mysticism--you can take your choice! The characters in those

plays are men and women very much belonging to our own day. They

speak as you or I might do. And yet there is in them and about

them a significance surpassing not only that of the ordinary

individual, but also that of ordinary poetical portrayals of

such individuals.

"There Are Crimes and Crimes," "Christmas," "Easter," and

"Midsummer" are the principal plays belonging to this group.

With them must be classed the trio of fairy or "dream" plays

written under the acknowledged influence of Maeterlinck. In the

first of these, the charming dramatic legend named "Swanwhite,"

the impetus received from the Belgian makes itself clearly felt.

In the last of them, "The Dream Play," Strindberg has worked out

a form that is wholly new and wholly his own. As the play in

question forms part of this volume, I shall not need to speak of

it here in the manner it would otherwise deserve.

Related to the group just described, and yet not confinable

within it, stands the double drama, "The Dance of Death," which

also appears in this volume. Numerous critics have declared

it Strindberg's greatest play, and there is much in the work

to warrant such a judgment. Its construction is masterly. Its

characters are almost shockingly real. And yet the play as a

whole is saturated with that sense of larger relationships which

we are wont to dispose of by calling it "mysticism." Like all

of Strindberg's work belonging to this period, it constitutes

a huge piece of symbolism--but the subject of its symbolical

interpretation seems to be nothing less than the sum of human

interrelationships.

During the last three or four years of the decade we are now

dealing with, Strindberg was very much interested in the project

of establishing a theatre at Stockholm, where nothing but his

own productions were to be staged. The plan was actually carried

out and a building arranged that held only about two hundred

people. It was called the Intimate Theatre. There Strindberg

made some highly interesting experiments in the simplification

and standardising of scenery, until at last some of his plays

were given with no other accessories than draperies. The effects

thus obtained proved unexpectedly successful. For this stage

Strindberg wrote five dramas which he defined as "chamber

plays." In form they harked back to "Miss Juliet," and they were

meant to be played without interruptions. But in spirit they

were marked by the same blend of mysticism and realism that

forms such a striking feature of "The Dream Play," for instance.

Add to these another fairy play, "The Slippers of Abu Casem,"

and a final autobiographical drama named "The Great Highway,"

and we get a total of twenty-nine dramatic works in ten years.

For more critical treatment of Strindberg's art I would refer

the reader to my articles in _The Forum_ of February and March,

1912.

But at the same time Strindberg's pen was no less active in

other fields. There are two more autobiographical volumes, two

novels displaying vast social canvasses, four collections of

short stories, and one collection of poems; also three bulky

volumes named collectively "The Blue Books" and containing the

most wonderful medley of scientific speculations, philosophical

pronouncements, personal polemics, and aphoristic embodiments

of the author's rich store of wisdom; and finally a score of

pamphlets--analytical studies of Shakespeare plays, instructions

to the members of the Intimate Theatre, satirical studies of

contemporary social and literary conditions, propositions for

a more complete democratisation of the government, and so

on almost endlessly. And notwithstanding much supercilious

criticism as well as some warranted regrets for the tone at

times employed in these works, it is pretty generally admitted

that Strindberg never has approached any topic without saying

something worth while about it.

Outwardly Strindberg's life has been very quiet since he

returned to his native country in 1897. A third marriage,

contracted in 1901 and dissolved three years later, served only

to reconcile him once for all to the solitude that has always

surrounded him more or less, even in the midst of admiring

or condemning multitudes. He is now sixty-three years old,

and the last news indicates that, at last, his iron health is

failing him. In the sheltered nook which he has established

for himself at Stockholm, he busies himself with philological

studies, interrupted mainly by visits from his children, of

which there are five from the three marriages. Two of these--his

eldest daughter, who is now happily married, and the youngest,

a vivacious lass of nine to whom "The Slippers of Abu Casem"

was dedicated--are in the habit of calling daily. Flowers and

music are what he loves next to his children and his work. From

that corner where he hears nothing but echoes of the storms

that are still raging at times about his public utterances, he

follows with keen eye whatever is happening in the world of

deeds as well as in the world of letters. And in the meantime

his fame is steadily spreading and growing. On the European

continent his name is constantly mentioned together with those

of Ibsen and Björnson. In the English-speaking countries it has

hitherto remained merely a name. The time has surely come for

a realisation of some of the things that name stands for, and

it is my earnest hope that this volume may help to change a

condition that reflects more on those who do not know than on

him who is not known.

In regard to the style of my translations, I wish to quote

some words written before the task now finished had ever been

suggested to me. They are from an article on "Slaughtering

Strindberg," which appeared in "The Drama," of August, 1911:

"Strindberg is the man who has raised modern Swedish to its

utmost potency of beauty and power. It may also be said, and

with equal truth, that he has made the literary language of this

country truly modern. This he has achieved not by polishing

study-born mannerisms, but by watching and developing the

living idiom that flows from the lips of men and women around

him--observed at home and in the office, on the street and in

the restaurant, while loving and dying, while chatting and

quarrelling. Never was a man more keen on catching the life

breath of his own time, and never was a man more scornful of

mere fads and fashions, born one moment and forgotten in the

next. To transplant the work of such a man may be difficult, but

it involves no impossibility, provided only that we observe his

own practical attitude toward what constitutes 'good form' and

'bad form' in a pulsing and growing language. We, on this side

of the ocean, ought to be able to read Strindberg and receive

impressions virtually identical with those received by a Swedish

reader at Stockholm. And I believe that it will be easier to

find equivalents for his clean-cut and flexible prose out of

what is called English here than out of what bears that name in

England."

Finally, I wish to mention that the prologue now attached

to "The Dream Play" has never before been published in any

language. It was written last year as an afterthought, and was

by the author kindly placed at my disposal in manuscript.

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUGUST STRINDBERG'S MAIN WORKS

_Plays_: "Hermione," 1869; "The Outlaw," 1871; "Master Olof,"

1872; "The Secret of the Guild," 1880; "Sir Bengt's Lady,"

1882; "The Wanderings of Lucky-Per," 1883; "The Father," 1887;

"The Comrades," 1888; "Miss Juliet," 1888; "Creditors," 1890;

"Pariah," 1890; "Samum," 1890; "The Stronger," 1890; "The

Keys of Heaven," 1892; "The First Warning," 1893; "Debit and

Credit," 1893; "Mother-Love," 1893; "Facing Death," 1893;

"Playing with Fire," 1897; "The Link," 1897; "To Damascus," I

and II, 1898; "There are Crimes and Crimes," 1899; "Christmas,"

1899; "Gustavus Vasa," 1899; "Eric XIV," 1899; "The Saga of

the Folkungs," 1899; "Gustavus Adolphus," 1900; "The Dance of

Death," I and II, 1901; "Easter," 1901; "Midsummer," 1901;

"Engelbreckt," 1901; "Charles XII," 1901; "The Crown Bride,"

1902; "Swanwhite," 1902; "The Dream Play," 1902; "Gustavus III,"

1903; "Queen Christina," 1903; "The Nightingale of Wittenberg,"

1903; "To Damascus," III, 1904; "Storm," 1907; "The Burned

Lot," 1907; "The Spook Sonata," 1907; "The Pelican," 1907; "The

Slippers of Abu Casem," 1908; "The Last Knight," 1908; "The

National Director," 1909; "The Earl of Bjällbo," 1909; "The

Black Glove," 1909; "The Great Highway," 1909.

_Novels and Short-story Collections_: "The Red Room," 1879;

"Swedish Events and Adventures," 1882-91; "Marriage," I, 1884;

"Real Utopias," 1885; "Marriage," II, 1886; "The People at

Hemsö," 1887; "Fisher Folks," 1888; "Chandalah," 1889; "At the

Edge of the Sea," 1890; "Fables," 1890-7; "Sagas," 1903; "The

Gothic Rooms," 1904; "Historical Miniatures," 1905; "New Swedish

Events," 1906; "Black Flags," 1907; "The Scapegoat," 1907.

_Autobiographical Fiction_: "The Bondwoman's Son," I--III,

1886-7; "The Author," 1887; "A Fool's Confession," 1888;

"Inferno," 1897; "Legends," 1898; "Fairhaven and Foulstrand,"

1902; "Alone," 1903.

_History, Essays, Etc_.: "The New Kingdom," 1882; "The Swedish

People," 1882; "Little Studies of Plants and Animals," 1888;

"Among French Peasants," 1889; "A Blue Book," I--III, 1907-8;

"Speeches to the Swedish Nation," 1910; "Religious Renascence,"

1910; "The Origins of Our Mother Tongue," 1910; "Biblical Proper

Names," 1910.

THE DREAM PLAY

1902

A REMINDER

As he did in his previous dream play,[1] so in this one the

author has tried to imitate the disconnected but seemingly

logical form of the dream. Anything may happen; everything

is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On an

insignificant background of reality, imagination designs and

embroiders novel patterns: a medley of memories, experiences,

free fancies, absurdities and improvisations.

The characters split, double, multiply, vanish, solidify, blur,

clarify. But one consciousness reigns above them all--that

of the dreamer; and before it there are no secrets, no

incongruities, no scruples, no laws. There is neither judgment

nor exoneration, but merely narration. And as the dream is

mostly painful, rarely pleasant, a note of melancholy and of

pity with all living things runs right through the wabbly tale.

Sleep, the liberator, plays often a dismal part, but when the

pain is at its worst, the awakening comes and reconciles the

sufferer with reality, which, however distressing it may be,

nevertheless seems happy in comparison with the torments of the

dream.

[Footnote 1: The trilogy "To Damascus."]

PROLOGUE

_The background represents cloud banks that resemble

corroding slate cliffs with ruins of castles and

fortresses_.

_The constellations of Leo, Virgo, and Libra are

visible, and from their midst the planet Jupiter is

shining with a strong light_.

THE DAUGHTER OF INDRA _stands on the topmost cloud_.

THE VOICE OF INDRA [_from above_].

Where are you, daughter, where?

THE DAUGHTER.

Here, father, here.

THE VOICE.

You've lost your way, my child--beware, you sink--How got you

there?

THE DAUGHTER.

I followed from ethereal heights the ray

Of lightning, and for car a cloud I took--

It sank, and now my journey downward tends.

O, noble father, Indra, tell what realms

I now draw near? The air is here so close,

And breathing difficult.

THE VOICE.

Behind you lies the second world; the third

Is where you stand. From Cukra, morning star

You have withdrawn yourself to enter soon

The vapoury circle of the earth. For mark

The Seventh House you take. It's Libra called:

There stands the day-star in the balanced hour

When Fall gives equal weight to night and day.

THE DAUGHTER.

You named the earth--is that the ponderous world

And dark, that from the moon must take its light?

THE VOICE.

It is the heaviest and densest sphere

Of all that travel through the space.

THE DAUGHTER.

And is it never brightened by the sun?

THE VOICE.

Of course, the sun does reach it--now and then--

THE DAUGHTER.

There is a rift, and downward goes my glance----

THE VOICE.

What sees my child?

THE DAUGHTER.

I see--O beautiful!--with forests green,

With waters blue, white peaks, and yellow fields

THE VOICE.

Yes, beautiful as all that Brahma made--

But still more beautiful it was of yore,

In primal morn of ages. Then occurred

Some strange mishap; the orbit was disturbed;

Rebellion led to crime that called for check----

THE DAUGHTER.

Now from below I hear some sounds arise--

What sort of race is dwelling there?

THE VOICE.

See for yourself--Of Brahma's work no ill

I say: but what you hear, it is their speech.

THE DAUGHTER.

It sounds as if--it has no happy ring!

THE VOICE.

I fear me not--for even their mother-tongue

Is named complaint. A race most hard to please,

And thankless, are the dwellers on the earth

THE DAUGHTER.

O, say not so--for I hear cries of joy,

Hear noise and thunder, see the lightnings flash--

Now bells are ringing, fires are lit,

And thousand upon thousand tongues

Sing praise and thanks unto the heavens on high--

Too harshly, father, you are judging them.

THE VOICE.

Descend, that you may see and hear, and then

Return and let me know if their complaints

And wailings have some reasonable ground----

THE DAUGHTER.

Well then, I go; but, father, come with me.

THE VOICE.

No, there below I cannot breathe----

THE DAUGHTER.

Now sinks the cloud--what sultriness--I choke!

I am not breathing air, but smoke and steam--

With heavy weight it drags me down,

And I can feel already how it rolls--

Indeed, the best of worlds is not the third

THE VOICE.

The best I cannot call it, nor the worst.

Its name is Dust; and like them all, it rolls:

And therefore dizzy sometimes grows the race,

And seems to be half foolish and half mad--

Take courage, child--a trial, that is all!

THE DAUGHTER. [_Kneeling as the cloud sinks downward_]

I sink!

_Curtain_.

_The background represents a forest of gigantic

hollyhocks in bloom. They are white, pink, crimson,

sulphureous, violet; and above their tops is seen

the gilded roof of a castle, the apex of which is

formed by a bud resembling a crown. At the foot of

the castle walls stand a number of straw ricks,

and around these stable litter is scattered. The

side-scenes, which remain unchanged throughout the

play, show conventionalised frescoes, suggesting

at once internal decoration, architecture, and

landscape_.

_Enter_ THE GLAZIER _and_ THE DAUGHTER.

THE DAUGHTER. The castle is growing higher and higher above the

ground. Do you see how much it has grown since last year?

THE GLAZIER. [_To himself_] I have never seen this castle

before--have never heard of a castle that grew, but--[_To_ THE

DAUGHTER, _with firm conviction_] Yes, it has grown two yards,

but that is because they have manured it--and it you notice, it

has put out a wing on the sunny side.

THE DAUGHTER. Ought it not to be blooming soon, as we are

already past midsummer?

THE GLAZIER. Don't you see the flower up there?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, I see! [_Claps her hands_] Say, father, why

do flowers grow out of dirt?

THE GLAZIER, [_Simply_] Because they do not feel at home in the

dirt, and so they make haste to get up into the light in order

to blossom and die.

THE DAUGHTER. Do you know who lives in that castle?

THE GLAZIER. I have known it, but cannot remember.

THE DAUGHTER. I believe a prisoner is kept there--and he must be

waiting for me to set him free.

THE GLAZIER. And what is he to pay for it?

THE DAUGHTER. One does not bargain about one's duty. Let us go

into the castle.

THE GLAZIER. Yes, let us go in.

_They go toward the background, which opens and slowly

disappears to either side_.

_The stage shows now a humble, bare room, containing only a

table and a few chairs. On one of the chairs sits an officer,

dressed in a very unusual yet modern uniform. He is tilting the

chair backward and beating the table with his sabre_.

THE DAUGHTER. [_Goes to the officer, from whose hand she gently

takes the sabre_] Don't! Don't!

THE OFFICER. Oh, Agnes dear, let me keep the sabre.

THE DAUGHTER. No, you break the table. [_To_ THE GLAZIER] Now

you go down to the harness-room and fix that window pane. We'll

meet later.

[THE GLAZIER _goes out_.

THE DAUGHTER. You are imprisoned in your own rooms--I have come

to set you free.

THE OFFICER. I have been waiting for you, but I was not sure you

were willing to do it.

THE DAUGHTER. The castle is strongly built; it has seven walls,

but--it can be done!--Do you want it, or do you not?

THE OFFICER. Frankly speaking, I cannot tell--for in either

case I shall suffer pain. Every joy that life brings has to be

paid for with twice its measure of sorrow. It is hard to stay

where I am, but if I buy the sweets of freedom, then I shall

have to suffer twice as much--Agnes, I'll rather endure it as it

is, if I can only see you.

THE DAUGHTER. What do you see in me?

THE OFFICER. Beauty, which is the harmony of the universe--There

are lines of your body which are nowhere to be found, except

in the orbits of the solar system, in strings that are singing

softly, or in the vibrations of light--You are a child of

heaven----

THE DAUGHTER. So are you.

THE OFFICER. Why must I then keep horses, tend stable, and cart

straw?

THE DAUGHTER. So that you may long to get away from here.

THE OFFICER. I am longing, but it is so hard to find one's way

out.

THE DAUGHTER. But it is a duty to seek freedom in the light.

THE OFFICER. Duty? Life has never recognised any duties toward

me.

THE DAUGHTER. You feel yourself wronged by life?

THE OFFICER. Yes, it has been unjust----

_Now voices are heard from behind a 'partition, which

a moment later is pulled away_. THE OFFICER _and_

THE DAUGHTER _look in that direction and stop as if

paralysed in the midst of a gesture_.

_At a table sits_ THE MOTHER, _looking very sick. In

front of her a tallow candle is burning, and every

little while she trims it with, a pair of snuffers.

The table is piled with new-made shirts, and these

she is marking with a quill and ink. To the left

stands a brown-coloured wardrobe_.

THE FATHER. [_Holds out a silk mantilla toward_ THE MOTHER _and

says gently_] You don't want it?

THE MOTHER. A silk mantilla for me, my dear--of what use would

that be when I am going to die shortly?

THE FATHER. Do you believe what the doctor says?

THE MOTHER. Yes, I believe also what he says, but still more

what the voice says in here.

THE FATHER. [_Sadly_] It is true then?--And you are thinking of

your children first and last.

THE MOTHER. That has been my life and my reason for living--my

joy and my sorrow

THE FATHER. Christine, forgive me--everything!

THE MOTHER. What have I to forgive? Dearest, you forgive _me_!

We have been tormenting each other. Why? That we may not know.

We couldn't do anything else--However, here is the new linen for

the children. See that they change twice a week--Wednesdays and

Sundays--and that Louise washes them--their whole bodies--Are

you going out?

THE FATHER. I have to be in the Department at eleven o'clock.

THE MOTHER. Ask Alfred to come in before you go.

THE FATHER. [_Pointing to_ THE OFFICER] Why, he is standing

right there, dear heart.

THE MOTHER. So my eyes are failing, too--Yes, it is turning

dark. [_Trims the candle_] Come here, Alfred.

THE FATHER _goes out through the middle of the wall,

nodding good-bye as he leaves_.

THE OFFICER _goes over to_ THE MOTHER.

THE MOTHER. Who is that girl?

THE OFFICER, [_Whispers_] It is Agnes.

THE MOTHER. Oh, is that Agnes?--Do you know what they say?--That

she is a daughter of the god Indra who has asked leave to

descend to the earth in order that she may find out what the

conditions of men are--But don't say anything about it.

THE OFFICER. A child of the gods, indeed!

THE MOTHER. [_Aloud_] My Alfred, I must soon part from you and

from the other children--But let me first speak a word to you

that bears on all the rest of your life.

THE OFFICER. [_Sadly_] Speak, mother.

THE MOTHER. Only a word: don't quarrel with God!

THE OFFICER. What do you mean, mother?

THE MOTHER. Don't go around feeling that life has wronged you.

THE OFFICER. But when I am treated unjustly----

THE MOTHER. You are thinking of the time when you were unjustly

punished for having taken a penny that later turned up?

THE OFFICER. Yes, and that one wrong gave a false twist to my

whole life----

THE MOTHER. Perhaps. But please take a look into that wardrobe

now----

THE OFFICER. [_Embarrassed_] You know, then? It is----

THE MOTHER. The Swiss Family Robinson--for which----

THE OFFICER. Don't say any more!

THE MOTHER. For which your brother was punished--and which you

had torn and hidden away.

THE OFFICER. Just think that the old wardrobe is still standing

there after twenty years--We have moved so many times, and my

mother died ten years ago.

THE MOTHER. Yes, and what of it? You are always asking all sorts

of questions, and in that way you spoil the better part of your

life--There is Lena, now.

LENA. [_Enters_] Thank you very much, ma'am, but I can't go to

the baptism.

THE MOTHER. And why not, my girl?

LENA. I have nothing to put on.

THE MOTHER. I'll let you use my mantilla here

LENA. Oh, no, ma'am, that wouldn't do!

THE MOTHER. Why not?--It is not likely that I'll go to any more

parties.

THE OFFICER. And what will father say? It is a present from

him----

THE MOTHER. What small minds----

THE FATHER. [_Puts his head through the wall_] Are you going to

lend my present to the servant girl?

THE MOTHER. Don't talk that way! Can you not remember that I

was a servant girl also? Why should you offend one who has done

nothing?

THE FATHER. Why should you offend me, your husband?

THE MOTHER. Oh, this life! If you do anything nice, there is

always somebody who finds it nasty. If you act kindly to one, it

hurts another. Oh, this life!

_She trims the candle so that it goes out. The stage

turns dark and the partition is pushed back to its

former position_.

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied.

THE OFFICER. You think so?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, life is hard--but love overcomes everything.

You shall see for yourself.

[_They go toward the background.

The background is raised and a new one revealed,

showing an old, dilapidated party-wall. In the

centre of it is a gate closing a passageway. This

opens upon a green, sunlit space, where is seen a

tremendous blue monk's-hood (aconite). To the left of

the gate sits_ THE PORTRESS. _Her head and shoulders

are covered by a shawl, and she is crocheting at a

bed-spread with a star-like pattern. To the right of

the gate is a billboard, which_ THE BILLPOSTER _is

cleaning. Beside him stands a dipnet with a green

pole. Further to the right is a door that has an

air-hole shaped like a four-leaved clover. To the

left of the gate stands a small linden tree with

coal-black trunk and a few pale-green leaves. Near it

is a small air-hole leading into a cellar._[1]

THE DAUGHTER. [_Going to_ THE PORTRESS] Is the spread not done

yet?

THE PORTRESS. No, dear. Twenty-six years on such a piece of work

is not much.

THE DAUGHTER. And your lover never came back?

THE PORTRESS. No, but it was not his fault. He had to go--poor

thing! That was thirty years ago now.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE BILLPOSTER] She belonged to the ballet?

Up there in the opera-house?

THE BILLPOSTER. She was number one--but when _he_ went, it was

as if her dancing had gone with him--and so she didn't get any

more parts.

THE DAUGHTER. Everybody complains--with their eyes, at least,

and often with words also----

THE BILLPOSTER. I don't complain very much--not now, since I

have a dipnet and a green cauf[2]----

THE DAUGHTER. And that can make you happy?

THE BILLPOSTER. Oh, I'm so happy, so--It was the dream of my

youth, and now it has come true. Of course, I have grown to be

fifty years----

THE DAUGHTER. Fifty years for a dipnet and a cauf----

THE BILLPOSTER. A _green_ cauf--mind you, _green_----

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE PORTRESS] Let me have the shawl now,

and I shall sit here and watch the human children. But you must

stand behind me and tell me about everything.

[_She takes the shawl and sits down at the gate._

THE PORTRESS. This is the last day, and the house will be closed

up for the season. This is the day when they learn whether their

contracts are to be renewed.

THE DAUGHTER. And those that fail of engagement----

THE PORTRESS. O, Lord have mercy! I pull the shawl over my head

not to see them.

THE DAUGHTER. Poor human creatures!

THE PORTRESS. Look, here comes one--She's not one of the chosen.

See, how she cries.

THE SINGER _enters from the right; rushes through the

gate with her handkerchief to her eyes; stops for a

moment in the passageway beyond the gate and leans

her head against the wall; then out quickly_.

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!

THE PORTRESS. But look at this one. That's the way a happy

person looks.

THE OFFICER _enters through the passageway; dressed

in Prince Albert coat and high hat, and carrying a

bunch of roses in one hand; he is radiantly happy_.

THE PORTRESS. He's going to marry Miss Victoria.

THE OFFICER. [_Far down on the stage, looks up and sings_]

Victoria!

THE PORTRESS. The young lady will be coming in a moment.

THE OFFICER. Good! The carriage is waiting, the table is set,

the wine is on ice--Oh, permit me to embrace you, ladies! [_He

embraces_ THE PORTRESS _and_ THE DAUGHTER. _Sings_] Victoria!

A WOMAN'S VOICE FROM ABOVE. [_Sings_] I am here!

THE DAUGHTER. Do you know me?

THE OFFICER. No, I know one woman only--Victoria. Seven years

I have come here to wait for her--at noon, when the sun touched

the chimneys, and at night, when it was growing dark. Look at

the asphalt here, and you will see the path worn by the steps

of a faithful lover. Hooray! She is mine. [_Sings_] Victoria!

[_There is no reply_] Well, she is dressing, I suppose.

[_To_ THE BILLPOSTER] There is the dipnet, I see. Everybody

belonging to the opera is crazy about dipnets--or rather about

fishes--because the fishes are dumb and cannot sing!--What is

the price of a thing like that?

THE BILLPOSTER. It is rather expensive.

THE OFFICER. [_Sings_] Victoria! [_Shakes the linden tree_]

Look, it is turning green once more. For the eighth time.

[_Sings_] Victoria!--Now she is fixing her hair. [_To_ THE

DAUGHTER] Look here, madam, could I not go up and get my bride?

THE PORTRESS. Nobody is allowed on the stage.

THE OFFICER. Seven years I have been coming here. Seven times

three hundred and sixty-five makes two thousand five hundred and

fifty-five. [_Stops and pokes at the door with the four-leaved

clover hole_] And I have been looking two thousand five hundred

and fifty-five times at that door without discovering where it

leads. And that clover leaf which is to let in light--for whom

is the light meant? Is there anybody within? Does anybody live

there?

THE PORTRESS. I don't know. I have never seen it opened.

THE OFFICER. It looks like a pantry door which I saw once

when I was only four years old and went visiting with the maid

on a Sunday afternoon. We called at several houses--on other

maids--but I did not get beyond the kitchen anywhere, and I had

to sit between the water barrel and the salt box. I have seen

so many kitchens in my days, and the pantry was always just

outside, with small round holes bored in the door, and one big

hole like a clover leaf--But there cannot be any pantry in the

opera-house as they have no kitchen. [_Sings_] Victoria!--Tell

me, madam, could she have gone out any other way?

THE PORTRESS. No, there is no other way.

THE OFFICER. Well, then I shall see her here.

STAGE PEOPLE _rush out and are closely watched by_

THE OFFICER _as they pass_.

THE OFFICER. Now she must soon be coming--Madam, that blue

monk's-hood outside--I have seen it since I was a child. Is it

the same?--I remember it from a country rectory where I stopped

when I was seven years old--There are two doves, two blue doves,

under the hood--but that time a bee came flying and went into

the hood. Then I thought: now I have you! And I grabbed hold

of the flower. But the sting of the bee went through it, and I

cried--but then the rector's wife came and put damp dirt on the

sting--and we had strawberries and cream for dinner--I think it

is getting dark already. [_To_ THE BILLPOSTER] Where are you

going?

THE BILLPOSTER. Home for supper.

THE OFFICER. [_Draws his hand across his eyes_] Evening? At

this time?--O, please, may I go in and telephone to the Growing

Castle?

THE DAUGHTER. What do you want there?

THE OFFICER. I am going to tell the Glazier to put in double

windows, for it will soon be winter, and I am feeling horribly

cold. [_Goes into the gatekeeper's lodge_.

THE DAUGHTER. Who is Miss Victoria?

THE PORTRESS. His sweetheart.

THE DAUGHTER. Right said! What she is to us and others matters

nothing to him. And what she is to him, that alone is her real

self.

_It is suddenly turning dark_.

THE PORTRESS. [_Lights a lantern_] It is growing dark early

to-day.

THE DAUGHTER. To the gods a year is as a minute.

THE PORTRESS. And to men a minute may be as long as a year.

THE OFFICER. [_Enters again, looking dusty; the roses are

withered_] She has not come yet?

THE PORTRESS. No.

THE OFFICER. But she will come--She will come! [_Walks up and

down_] But come to think of it, perhaps I had better call off

the dinner after all--as it is late? Yes, I will do that.

[_Goes back into the lodge and telephones_.

THE PORTRESS. [_To_ THE DAUGHTER] Can I have my shawl back now?

THE DAUGHTER. No, dear, be free a while. I shall attend to your

duties--for I want to study men and life, and see whether things

really are as bad as they say.

THE PORTRESS. But it won't do to fall asleep here--never sleep

night or day----

THE DAUGHTER. No sleep at night?

THE PORTRESS. Yes, if you are able to get it, but only with the

bell string tied around the wrist--for there are night watchmen

on the stage, and they have to be relieved every third hour.

THE DAUGHTER. But that is torture!

THE PORTRESS. So you think, but people like us are glad enough

to get such a job, and if you only knew how envied I am----

THE DAUGHTER. Envied?--Envy for the tortured?

THE PORTRESS. Yes--But I can tell you what is harder than all

drudging and keeping awake nights, harder to bear than draught

and cold and dampness--it is to receive the confidences of all

the unhappy people up there--They all come to me. Why? Perhaps

they read in the wrinkles of my face some runes that are graved

by suffering and that invite confessions--In that shawl, dear,

lie hidden thirty years of my own and other people's agonies.

THE DAUGHTER. It is heavy, and it burns like nettles.

THE PORTRESS. As it is your wish, you may wear it. When it grows

too burdensome, call me, and I shall relieve you.

THE DAUGHTER. Good-bye. What can be done by you ought not to

surpass my strength.

THE PORTRESS. We shall see!--But be kind to my poor friends, and

don't grow impatient of their complaints.

[_She disappears through the passageway. Complete

darkness covers the stage, and while it lasts the

scene is changed so that the linden tree appears

stripped of all its leaves. Soon the blue monk's-hood

is withered, and when the light returns, the verdure

in the open space beyond the passageway has changed

into autumnal brown_.

THE OFFICER. [_Enters when it is light again. He has gray hair

and a gray beard. His clothes are shabby, his collar is soiled

and wrinkled. Nothing but the bare stems remain of the bunch of

roses. He walks to and fro_] To judge by all signs, Summer is

gone and Fall has come. The linden shows it, and the monk's-hood

also. [_Walks_] But the Fall is _my_ Spring, for then the opera

begins again, and then she must come. Please, madam, may I sit

down a little on this chair?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, sit down, friend--I am able to stand.

THE OFFICER. [_Sits down_] If I could only get some sleep, then

I should feel better--[_He falls asleep for a few moments. Then

he jumps up and walks back and forth again. Stops at last in

front of the door with the clover leaf and pokes at_] This door

here will not leave me any peace--what is behind it? There must

be something. [_Faint dance music is heard from above_] Oh, now

the rehearsals have begun. [_The light goes out and flares up

again, repeating this rhythmically as the rays of a lighthouse

come and go_] What does this mean? [_Speaking in time with the

blinkings of the light_] Light and dark--light and dark?

THE DAUGHTER. [_Imitating him_] Night and day--night and day! A

merciful Providence wants to shorten your wait. Therefore the

days are flying in hot pursuit of the nights.

_The light shines unbrokenly once more_.

THE BILLPOSTER _enters with his dipnet and his

implements_.

THE OFFICER. There is the Billposter with his dipnet. Was the

fishing good?

THE BILLPOSTER. I should say so. The Summer was hot and a little

long--the net turned out pretty good, but not as I had expected.

THE OFFICER. [_With emphasis_] Not as I had expected!--That is

well said. Nothing ever was as I expected it to be--because the

thought is more than the deed, more than the thing.

_Walks to and fro, striking at the wall with the rose

stems so that the last few leaves fall off_.

THE BILLPOSTER. Has she not come down yet?

THE OFFICER. Not yet, but she will soon be here--Do you know

what is behind that door, Billposter?

THE BILLPOSTER. No, I have never seen that door open yet.

THE OFFICER. I am going to telephone for a locksmith to come and

open it. [_Goes into the lodge_.

[THE BILLPOSTER _posts a bill and goes toward the

right_.

THE DAUGHTER. What is the matter with the dipnet?

THE BILLPOSTER. Matter? Well, I don't know as there is anything

the matter with it--but it just didn't turn out as I had

expected, and the pleasure of it was not so much after all.

THE DAUGHTER. How did you expect it to be?

THE BILLPOSTER. How?--Well, I couldn't tell exactly----

THE DAUGHTER. I can tell you! You had expected it to be what it

was not. It had to be green, but not that kind of green.

THE BILLPOSTER. You have it, madam. You understand it all--and

that is why everybody goes to you with his worries. If you would

only listen to me a little also----

THE DAUGHTER. Of course, I will!--Come in to me and pour out

your heart. [_She goes into the lodge_.

[THE BILLPOSTER _remains outside, speaking to her.

The stage is darkened again. When the light is turned

on, the tree has resumed its leaves, the monk's-hood

is blooming once more, and the sun is shining on the

green space beyond the passageway_.

THE OFFICER _enters. Now he is old and white-haired,

ragged, and wearing worn-out shoes. He carries the

bare remnants of the rose stems. Walks to and fro

slowly, with the gait of an aged man. Reads on the

posted bill_.

A BALLET GIRL _comes in from the right_.

THE OFFICER. Is Miss Victoria gone?

THE BALLET GIRL. No, she has not gone yet.

THE OFFICER. Then I shall wait. She will be coming soon, don't

you think?

THE BALLET GIRL. Oh, yes, I am sure.

THE OFFICER. Don't go away now, for I have sent word to the

locksmith, so you will soon see what is behind that door.

THE BALLET GIRL. Oh, it will be awfully interesting to see that

door opened. That door, there, and the Growing Castle--have you

heard of the Growing Castle?

THE OFFICER. Have I?--I have been a prisoner in it.

THE BALLET GIRL. No, was that you? But why do they keep such a

lot of horses there?

THE OFFICER. Because it is a stable castle, don't you know.

THE BALLET GIRL. [_With confusion_] How stupid of me not to

guess that!

A MALE CHORUS SINGER _enters from the right_.

THE OFFICER. Has Miss Victoria gone yet?

THE CHORUS SINGER. [_Earnestly_] No, she has not. She never goes

away.

THE OFFICER. That is because she loves me--See here, don't go

before the locksmith comes to open the door here.

THE CHORUS SINGER. No, is the door going to be opened? Well,

that will be fun!--I just want to ask the Portress something.

THE PROMPTER enters from the right.

THE OFFICER. Is Miss Victoria gone yet?

THE PROMPTER. Not that I know of.

THE OFFICER. Now, didn't I tell you she was waiting for

me!--Don't go away, for the door is going to be opened.

THE PROMPTER. Which door?

THE OFFICER. Is there more than one door?

THE PROMPTER. Oh, I know--that one with the clover leaf. Well,

then I have got to stay--I am only going to have a word with

the Portress.

THE BALLET GIRL, THE CHORUS SINGER, and THE PROMPTER

gather beside THE BILLPOSTER in front of the lodge

window and talk by turns to THE DAUGHTER.

THE GLAZIER enters through the gate.

THE OFFICER. Are you the locksmith?

THE GLAZIER. No, the locksmith had visitors, and a glazier will

do just as well.

THE OFFICER. Yes, of course, of course--but did you bring your

diamond along?

THE GLAZIER. Why, certainly!--A glazier without his diamond,

what would that be?

THE OFFICER. Nothing at all!--Let us get to work then.

[_Claps his hands together_.

ALL _gather in a ring around the door_.

_Male members of the chorus dressed as Master Singers

and Ballet Girls in costumes from the opera "Aïda"

enter from the right and join the rest_.

THE OFFICER. Locksmith--or glazier--do your duty!

THE GLAZIER _goes up to the door with the diamond in

his hand_.

THE OFFICER. A moment like this will not occur twice in a man's

life. For this reason, my friends, I ask you--please consider

carefully----

A POLICEMAN. [_Enters_] In the name of the law, I forbid the

opening of that door!

THE OFFICER. Oh, Lord! What a fuss there is as soon as anybody

wants to do anything new or great. But we will take the matter

into court--let us go to the Lawyer. Then we shall see whether

the laws still exist or not--Come along to the Lawyer.

_Without lowering of the curtain, the stage changes

to a lawyer's office, and in this manner. The gate

remains, but as a wicket in the railing running clear

across the stage. The gatekeeper's lodge turns into

the private enclosure of the Lawyer, and it is now

entirely open to the front. The linden, leafless,

becomes a hat tree. The billboard is covered with

legal notices and court decisions. The door with the

four-leaved clover hole forms part of a document

chest_.

THE LAWYER, _in evening dress and white necktie, is

found sitting to the left, inside the gate, and in

front of him stands a desk covered with papers. His

appearance indicates enormous sufferings. His face

is chalk-white and full of wrinkles, and its shadows

have a purple effect. He is ugly, and his features

seem to reflect all the crimes and vices with which

he has been forced by his profession to come into

contact_.

_Of his two clerks, one has lost an arm, the other an

eye_.

_The people gathered to witness "the opening of the

door" remain as before, bid they appear now to be

waiting for an audience with the Lawyer. Judging

by their attitudes, one would think they had been

standing there forever_.

THE DAUGHTER, _still wearing the shawl, and_ THE

OFFICER _are near the footlights_.

THE LAWYER. [Goes _over to_ THE DAUGHTER] Tell me, sister, can

I have that shawl? I shall keep it here until I have a fire in

my grate, and then I shall burn it with all its miseries and

sorrows.

THE DAUGHTER. Not yet, brother. I want it to hold all it

possibly can, and I want it above all to take up your agonies

--all the confidences you have received about crime, vice,

robbery, slander, abuse----

THE LAWYER. My dear girl, for such a purpose your shawl would

prove totally insufficient. Look at these walls. Does it not

look as if the wall-paper itself had been soiled by every

conceivable sin? Look at these documents into which I write

tales of wrong. Look at myself--No smiling man ever comes here;

nothing is to be seen here but angry glances, snarling lips,

clenched fists--And everybody pours his anger, his envy, his

suspicions, upon me. Look--my hands are black, and no washing

will clean them. See how they are chapped and bleeding--I can

never wear my clothes more than a few days because they smell

of other people's crimes--At times I have the place fumigated

with sulphur, but it does not help. I sleep near by, and I

dream of nothing but crimes--Just now I have a murder case in

court--oh, I can stand that, but do you know what is worse than

anything else?--That is to separate married people! Then it is

as if something cried way down in the earth and up there in the

sky--as if it cried treason against the primal force, against

the source of all good, against love--And do you know, when

reams of paper have been filled with mutual accusations, and at

last a sympathetic person takes one of the two apart and asks,

with a pinch of the ear or a smile, the simple question: what

have you really got against your husband?--or your wife?--then

he, or she, stands perplexed and cannot give the cause.

Once--well, I think a lettuce salad was the principal issue;

another time it was just a word--mostly it is nothing at all.

But the tortures, the sufferings--these I have to bear--See how

I look! Do you think I could ever win a woman's love with this

countenance so like a criminal's? Do you think anybody dares to

be friendly with me, who has to collect all the debts, all the

money obligations, of the whole city?--It is a misery to be man!

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!

THE LAWYER. They are. And what people are living on puzzles me.

They marry on an income of two thousand, when they need four

thousand. They borrow, of course--everybody borrows. In some

sort of happy-go-lucky fashion, by the skin of their teeth, they

manage to pull through--and thus it continues to the end, when

the estate is found to be bankrupt. Who pays for it at last no

one can tell.

THE DAUGHTER. Perhaps He who feeds the birds.

THE LAWYER. Perhaps. But if He who feeds the birds would only

pay a visit to this earth of His and see for Himself how the

poor human creatures fare--then His heart would surely fill with

compassion.

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!

THE LAWYER. Yes, that is the truth!--[_To_ THE OFFICER] What do

you want?

THE OFFICER. I just wanted to ask if Miss Victoria has gone yet.

THE LAWYER. No, she has not; you can be sure of it--Why are you

poking at my chest over there?

THE OFFICER. I thought the door of it looked exactly----

THE LAWYER. Not at all! Not at all!

_All the church bells begin to ring_.

THE OFFICER. Is there going to be a funeral?

THE LAWYER. No, it is graduation day--a number of degrees will

be conferred, and I am going to be made a Doctor of Laws.

Perhaps you would also like to be graduated and receive a laurel

wreath?

THE OFFICER. Yes, why not. That would be a diversion, at least.

THE LAWYER. Perhaps then we may begin upon this solemn function

at once--But you had better go home and change your clothes.

[THE OFFICER _goes out_.

_The stage is darkened and the following changes are

made. The railing stays, but it encloses now the

chancel of a church. The billboard displays hymn

numbers. The linden hat tree becomes a candelabrum.

The Lawyer's desk is turned into the desk of the

presiding functionary, and the door with the clover

leaf leads to the vestry_.

_The chorus of Master Singers become heralds with

staffs, and the Ballet Girls carry laurel wreaths.

The rest of the people act as spectators_.

_The background is raised, and the new one thus

discovered represents a large church organ, with the

keyboards below and the organist's mirror above_.

_Music is heard. At the sides stand figures

symbolising the four academic faculties: Philosophy,

Theology, Medicine, and Jurisprudence_.

_At first the stage is empty for a few moments_.

HERALDS _enter from the right_.

BALLET GIRLS _follow with laurel wreaths carried high

before them_.

THREE GRADUATES _appear one after another from the

left, receive their wreaths from the_ BALLET GIRLS,

_and go out to the right_.

THE LAWYER _steps forward to get his wreath_.

The BALLET GIRLS _turn away from him and refuse to

place the wreath on his head. Then they withdraw from

the stage_.

THE LAWYER, _shocked, leans against a column. All

the others withdraw gradually until only_ THE LAWYER

_remains on the stage_.

THE DAUGHTER. [_Enters, her head and shoulders covered by a

white veil_] Do you see, I have washed the shawl! But why are

you standing there? Did you get your wreath?

THE LAWYER. No, I was not held worthy.

THE DAUGHTER. Why? Because you have defended the poor, put in a

good word for the wrong-doing, made the burden easier for the

guilty, obtained a respite for the condemned? Woe upon men: they

are not angels--but they are to be pitied!

THE LAWYER. Say nothing evil of men--for after all it is my task

to voice their side.

THE DAUGHTER. [_Leaning against the organ_] Why do they strike

their friends in the face?

THE LAWYER. They know no better.

THE DAUGHTER. Let us enlighten them. Will you try? Together with

me?

THE LAWYER. They do not accept enlightenment--Oh, that our

plaint might reach the gods of heaven!

THE DAUGHTER. It shall reach the throne--[_Turns toward the

organ_] Do you know what I see in this mirror?--The world turned

the right way!--Yes indeed, for naturally we see it upside down.

THE LAWYER. How did it come to be turned the wrong way?

THE DAUGHTER. When the copy was taken----

THE LAWYER. You have said it! The copy--I have always had the

feeling that it was a spoiled copy. And when I began to recall

the original images, I grew dissatisfied with everything. But

men called it soreheadedness, looking at the world through the

devil's eyes, and other such things.

THE DAUGHTER. It is certainly a crazy world! Look at the four

faculties here. The government, to which has fallen the task

of preserving society, supports all four of them. Theology,

the science of God, is constantly attacked and ridiculed by

philosophy, which declares itself to be the sum of all wisdom.

And medicine is always challenging philosophy, while refusing

entirely to count theology a science and even insisting on

calling it a mere superstition. And they belong to a common

Academic Council, which has been set to teach the young

respect--for the university. It is a bedlam. And woe unto him

who first recovers his reason!

THE LAWYER. Those who find it out first are the theologians. As

a preparatory study, they take philosophy, which teaches them

that theology is nonsense. Later they learn from theology that

philosophy is nonsense. Madmen, I should say!

THE DAUGHTER. And then there is jurisprudence which serves all

but the servants.

THE LAWYER. Justice, which, when it wants to do right, becomes

the undoing of men. Equity, which so often turns into iniquity!

THE DAUGHTER. What a mess you have made of it, you man-children.

Children, indeed!--Come here, and I will give you a wreath--one

that is more becoming to you. [_Puts a crown of thorns on his

head_] And now I will play for you.

_She sits down at the keyboards, but instead of organ-notes

human voices are heard_.

VOICES OF CHILDREN. O Lord everlasting!

[_Last note sustained_.

VOICES OF WOMEN. Have mercy upon us!

[_Last note sustained_.

VOICES OF MEN. [_Tenors_] Save us for Thy mercy's sake!

[_Last note sustained_.

VOICES OF MEN. [Basses] Spare Thy children, O Lord, and deliver

us from Thy wrath!

ALL. Have mercy upon us! Hear us! Have pity upon the mortals!--?

O Lord eternal, why art Thou afar?--Out of the depths we call

unto Thee: Make not the burden of Thy children too heavy! Hear

us! Hear us!

_The stage turns dark_. THE DAUGHTER _rises and draws

close to_ THE LAWYER. _By a change of light, the

organ becomes Fingal's Cave. The ground-swell of the

ocean, which can be seen rising and falling between

the columns of basalt, produces a deep harmony that

blends the music of winds and waves_.

THE LAWYER. Where are we, sister?

THE DAUGHTER. What do you hear?

THE LAWYER. I hear drops falling----

THE DAUGHTER. Those are the tears that men are weeping--What

more do you hear?

THE LAWYER. There is sighing--and whining--and wailing----

THE DAUGHTER. Hither the plaint of the mortals has reached--and

no farther. But why this never-ending wailing? Is there then

nothing in life to rejoice at?

THE LAWYER. Yes, what is most sweet, and what is also most

bitter--love--wife and home--the highest and the lowest!

THE DAUGHTER. May I try it?

THE LAWYER. With me?

THE DAUGHTER. With you--You know the rocks, the

stumbling-stones. Let us avoid them.

THE LAWYER. I am so poor.

THE DAUGHTER. What does that matter if we only love each other?

And a little beauty costs nothing.

THE LAWYER. I have dislikes which may prove your likes.

THE DAUGHTER. They can be adjusted.

THE LAWYER. And if we tire of it?

THE DAUGHTER. Then come the children and bring with them a

diversion that remains for ever new.

THE LAWYER. You, you will take me, poor and ugly, scorned and

rejected?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes--let us unite our destinies.

THE LAWYER. So be it then!

_Curtain_.

[Footnote 1: Though the author says nothing about it here,

subsequent stage directions indicate a door and a window behind

the place occupied by THE PORTRESS. Both lead into her room or

lodge, which contains a telephone.]

[Footnote 2: A floating wooden box with holes in it used to hold

fish.]

_An extremely plain room inside_ THE LAWYER's

_office. To the right, a big double bed covered by

a canopy and curtained in. Next to it, a window. To

the left, an iron heater with cooking utensils on top

of it_. CHRISTINE _is pasting paper strips along the

cracks of the double windows. In the background, an

open door to the office. Through the door are visible

a number of poor clients waiting for admission_.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE DAUGHTER. [_Pale and emaciated, sits by the stove_] You shut

out all the air. I choke!

CHRISTINE. Now there is only one little crack left.

THE DAUGHTER. Air, air--I cannot breathe!

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE LAWYER. That's right, Christine! Heat is expensive.

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, it feels as if my lips were being glued

together.

THE LAWYER. [_Standing in the doorway, with a paper in his

hand_] Is the child asleep?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, at last.

THE LAWYER. [_Gently_] All this crying scares away my clients.

THE DAUGHTER. [_Pleasantly_] What can be done about it?

THE LAWYER. Nothing.

THE DAUGHTER. We shall have to get a larger place.

THE LAWYER. We have no money for it.

THE DAUGHTER. May I open the window--this bad air is suffocating.

THE LAWYER. Then the heat escapes, and we shall be cold.

THE DAUGHTER. It is horrible!--May we clean up out there?

THE LAWYER. You have not the strength to do any cleaning, nor

have I, and Christine must paste. She must put strips through

the whole house, on every crack, in the ceiling, in the floor,

in the walls.

THE DAUGHTER. Poverty I was prepared for, but not for dirt.

THE LAWYER. Poverty is always dirty, relatively speaking.

THE DAUGHTER. This is worse than I dreamed!

THE LAWYER. We are not the worst off by far. There is still food

in the pot.

THE DAUGHTER. But what sort of food?

THE LAWYER. Cabbage is cheap, nourishing, and good to eat.

THE DAUGHTER. For those who like cabbage--to me it is repulsive.

THE LAWYER. Why didn't you say so?

THE DAUGHTER. Because I loved you, I wanted to sacrifice my own

taste.

THE LAWYER. Then I must sacrifice my taste for cabbage to

you--for sacrifices must be mutual.

THE DAUGHTER. What are we to eat, then? Fish? But you hate fish?

THE LAWYER. And it is expensive.

THE DAUGHTER. This is worse than I thought it!

THE LAWYER. [_Kindly_] Yes, you see how hard it is--And the

child that was to become a link and a blessing--it becomes our

ruin.

THE DAUGHTER. Dearest, I die in this air, in this room, with

its backyard view, with its baby cries and endless hours of

sleeplessness, with those people out there, and their whinings,

and bickerings, and incriminations--I shall die here!

THE LAWYER. My poor little flower, that has no light and no

air----

THE DAUGHTER. And you say that people exist who are still worse

off?

THE LAWYER. I belong with the envied ones in this locality.

THE DAUGHTER. Everything else might be borne if I could only

have some beauty in my home.

THE LAWYER. I know you are thinking of flowers--and especially

of heliotropes--but a plant costs half a dollar, which will buy

us six quarts of milk or a peck of potatoes.

THE DAUGHTER. I could gladly get along without food if I could

only have some flowers.

THE LAWYER. There is a kind of beauty that costs nothing--but

the absence of it in the home is worse than any other torture to

a man with a sense for the beautiful.

THE DAUGHTER. What is it?

THE LAWYER. If I tell, you will get angry.

THE DAUGHTER. We have agreed not to get angry.

THE LAWYER. We have agreed--Everything can be over-come, Agnes,

except the short, sharp accents--Do you know them? Not yet!

THE DAUGHTER. They will never be heard between us.

THE LAWYER. Not as far as it lies on me!

THE DAUGHTER. Tell me now.

THE LAWYER. Well--when I come into a room, I look first of all

at the curtains--[_Goes over to the window and straightens

out the curtains_] If they hang like ropes or rags, then I

leave soon. And next I take a glance at the chairs--if they

stand straight along the wall, then I stay. [_Puts a chair

back against the wall_] Finally I look at the candles in their

sticks--if they point this way and that, then the whole house is

askew. [_Straightens up a candle on the chest of drawers_] This

is the kind of beauty, dear heart, that costs nothing.

THE DAUGHTER. _With bent head_] Beware of the short accents,

Axel!

THE LAWYER. They were not short.

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, they were.

THE LAWYER. Well, I'll be----

THE DAUGHTER. What kind of language is that?

THE LAWYER. Pardon me, Agnes! But I have suffered as much from

your lack of orderliness as you have suffered from dirt. And I

have not dared to set things right myself, for when I do so, you

get as angry as if I were reproaching you--ugh! Hadn't we better

quit now?

THE DAUGHTER. It is very difficult to be married--it is more

difficult than anything else. One has to be an angel, I think!

THE LAWYER. I think so, too.

THE DAUGHTER. I fear I shall begin to hate you after this!

THE LAWYER. Woe to us then!--But let us forestall hatred. I

promise never again to speak of any untidiness--although it is

torture to me!

THE DAUGHTER. And I shall eat cabbage though it means agony to

me.

THE LAWYER. A life of common suffering, then! One's pleasure,

the other one's pain!

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!

THE LAWYER. You see that?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, but for heaven's sake, let us avoid the

rocks, now when we know them so well.

THE LAWYER. Let us try! Are we not decent and intelligent

persons? Able to forbear and forgive?

THE DAUGHTER. Why not smile at mere trifles?

THE LAWYER. We--only we--can do so. Do you know, I read this

morning--by the bye, where is the newspaper?

THE DAUGHTER. [_Embarrassed_] Which newspaper?

THE LAWYER. [_Sharply_] Do I keep more than one?

THE DAUGHTER. Smile now, and don't speak sharply--I used your

paper to make the fire with----

THE LAWYER. [_Violently_] Well, I'll be damned!

THE DAUGHTER. Why don't you smile?--I burned it because it

ridiculed what is holy to me.

THE LAWYER. Which is unholy to me! Yah! [_Strikes one clenched

fist against the open palm of the other hand_] I smile, I smile

so that my wisdom teeth show--Of course, I am to be nice, and I

am to swallow my own opinions, and say yes to everything, and

cringe and dissemble! [_Tidies the curtains around the bed_]

That's it! Now I am going to fix things until you get angry

again--Agnes, this is simply impossible!

THE DAUGHTER. Of course it is!

THE LAWYER. And yet we must endure--not for the sake of our

promises, but for the sake of the child!

THE DAUGHTER. You are right--for the sake of the child. Oh,

oh--we have to endure!

THE LAWYER. And now I must go out to my clients. Listen to

them--how they growl with impatience to tear each other, to get

each other fined and jailed--Lost souls!

THE DAUGHTER. Poor, poor people! And this pasting!

[_She drops her head forward in dumb despair_.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE LAWYER _stands at the door, twisting the

door-knob nervously_.

THE DAUGHTER. How that knob squeaks! It is as if you were

twisting my heart-strings----

THE LAWYER. I twist, I twist!

THE DAUGHTER. Don't!

THE LAWYER. I twist!

THE DAUGHTER. No!

THE LAWYER. I----

THE OFFICER. [_In the office, on the other side of the door,

takes hold of the knob_] Will you permit me?

THE LAWYER. [_Lets go his hold_] By all means. Seeing that you

have your degree!

THE OFFICER. Now all life belongs to me. Every road lies open.

I have mounted Parnassus. The laurel is won. Immortality, fame,

all is mine!

THE LAWYER. And what are you going to live on?

THE OFFICER. Live on?

THE LAWYER. You must have a home, clothes, food----

THE OFFICER. Oh, that will come--if you can only find somebody

to love you!

THE LAWYER. You don't say so!--You don't--Paste, Christine,

paste until they cannot breathe!

[_Goes out backward, nodding_.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste--until they cannot breathe.

THE OFFICER. Will you come with me now?

THE DAUGHTER. At once! But where?

THE OFFICER. To Fairhaven. There it is summer; there the sun is

shining; there we find youth, children, and flowers, singing and

dancing, feasting and frolicking.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I will go there.

THE OFFICER. Come!

THE LAWYER. [_Enters again_] Now I go back to my first

hell--this was the second and greater. The sweeter the hell, the

greater--And look here, now she has been dropping hair-pins on

the floor again. [_He picks up some hair-pins_.

THE OFFICER. My! but he has discovered the pins also.

THE LAWYER. Also?--Look at this one. You see two prongs, but it

is only one pin. It is two, yet only one. If I bend it open, it

is a single piece. If I bend it back, there are two, but they

remain one for all that. It means: these two are one. But if I

break--like this!--then they become two.

[_Breaks the pin and throws the pieces away_.

THE OFFICER. All that he has seen!--But before breaking, the

prongs must diverge. If they point together, then it holds.

THE LAWYER. And if they are parallel, then they will never

meet--and it neither breaks nor holds.

THE OFFICER. The hair-pin is the most perfect of all created

things. A straight line which equals two parallel ones.

THE LAWYER. A lock that shuts when it is open.

THE OFFICER. And thus shuts in a braid of hair that opens up

when the lock shuts.

THE LAWYER. It is like this door. When I close it, then I

open--the way out--for you, Agnes!

[_Withdraws and closes the door behind him_.

THE DAUGHTER. Well then?

_The stage changes. The bed with its curtains becomes

a tent_.

_The stove stays as it was. The background is

raised. To the right, in the foreground, are seen

hills stripped of their trees by fire, and red

heather growing between the blackened tree stumps.

Red-painted pig-sties and outhouses. Beyond these, in

the open, apparatus for mechanical gymnastics, where

sick persons are being treated on machines resembling

instruments of torture_.

_To the left, in the foreground, the quarantine

station, consisting of open sheds, with ovens,

furnaces, and pipe coils_.

_In the middle distance, a narrow strait_.

_The background shows a beautiful wooded shore. Flags

are flying on its piers, where ride white sailboats,

some with sails set and some without. Little Italian

villas, pavilions, arbors, marble statues are

glimpsed through the foliage along the shore_.

THE MASTER OF QUARANTINE, _made up like a blackamoor,

is walking along the shore_.

THE OFFICER. [_Meets him and they shake hands_] Why,

Ordström![3] Have you landed here?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, here I am.

THE OFFICER. Is this Fairhaven?

MASTER OF Q. No, that is on the other side. This is Foulstrand.

THE OFFICER. Then we have lost our way.

MASTER OF Q. We?--Won't you introduce me?

THE OFFICER. No, that wouldn't do. [_In a lowered voice_] It is

Indra's own daughter.

MASTER OF Q. Indra's? And I was thinking of Varuna

himself--Well, are you not surprised to find me black in the

face?

THE OFFICER. I am past fifty, my boy, and at that age one has

ceased to be surprised. I concluded at once that you were bound

for some fancy ball this afternoon.

MASTER OF Q. Right you were! And I hope both of you will come

along.

THE OFFICER. Why, yes--for I must say--the place does not look

very tempting. What kind of people live here anyhow?

MASTER OF Q. Here you find the sick; over there, the healthy.

THE OFFICER. Nothing but poor folk on this side, I suppose.

MASTER OF Q. No, my boy, it is here you find the rich. Look at

that one on the rack. He has stuffed himself with paté de foie

gras and truffles and Burgundy until his feet have grown knotted.

THE OFFICER. Knotted?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, he has a case of knotted feet. And that one

who lies under the guillotine--he has swilled brandy so that his

backbone has to be put through the mangle.

THE OFFICER. There is always something amiss!

MASTER OF Q. Moreover, everybody living on this side has some

kind of canker to hide. Look at the fellow coming here, for

instance.

_An old dandy is pushed on the stage in a wheel-chair, he is

accompanied by a gaunt and grisly coquette in the sixties, to

whom_ THE FRIEND, _a man of about forty, is paying court_.

THE OFFICER. It is the major--our schoolmate!

MASTER OF Q. Don Juan. Can you see that he is still enamored of

that old spectre beside him? He does not notice that she has

grown old, or that she is ugly, faithless, cruel.

THE OFFICER. Why, that is love! And I couldn't have dreamt that

a fickle fellow like him would prove capable of loving so deeply

and so earnestly.

MASTER OF Q. That is a mighty decent way of looking at it.

THE OFFICER. I have been in love with Victoria myself--in fact I

am still waiting for her in the passageway----

MASTER OF Q. Oh, you are the fellow who is waiting in the

passageway?

THE OFFICER. I am the man.

MASTER OF Q. Well, have you got that door opened yet?

THE OFFICER. No, the case is still in court--THE BILLPOSTER is

out with his dipnet, of course, so that the taking of evidence

is always being put off--and in the meantime the Glazier has

mended all the window panes in the castle, which has grown half

a story higher--This has been an uncommonly good year--warm and

wet----

MASTER OF Q. But just the same you have had no heat comparing

with what I have here.

THE OFFICER. How much do you have in your ovens?

MASTER OF Q. When we fumigate cholera suspects, we run it up to

one hundred and forty degrees.

THE OFFICER. Is the cholera going again?

MASTER OF Q. Don't you know that?

THE OFFICER. Of course, I know it, but I forget so often what I

know.

MASTER OF Q. I wish often that I could forget--especially

myself. That is why I go in for masquerades and carnivals and

amateur theatricals.

THE OFFICER. What have you been up to then?

MASTER OF Q. If I told, they would say that I was boasting; and

if I don't tell, then they call me a hypocrite.

THE OFFICER. That is why you blackened your face?

MASTER OF Q. Exactly--making myself a shade blacker than I am.

THE OFFICER. Who is coming there?

MASTER OF Q. Oh, a poet who is going to have his mud bath.

THE POET _enters with his eyes raised toward the sky

and carrying a pail of mud in one hand_.

THE OFFICER. Why, he ought to be having light baths and air

baths.

MASTER OF Q. No, he is roaming about the higher regions so much

that he gets homesick for the mud--and wallowing in the mire

makes the skin callous like that of a pig. Then he cannot feel

the stings of the wasps.

THE OFFICER. This is a queer world, full of contradictions.

THE POET. [_Ecstatically_] Man was created by the god Phtah out

of clay on a potter's wheel, or a lathe--[_sceptically_], or any

damned old thing! [_Ecstatically_] Out of clay does the sculptor

create his more or less immortal masterpieces--[_sceptically_],

which mostly are pure rot. [_Ecstatically_] Out of clay they

make those utensils which are so indispensable in the pantry and

which generically are named pots and plates--[_sceptically_],

but what in thunder does it matter to me what they are called

anyhow? [_Ecstatically_] Such is the clay! When clay becomes

fluid, it is called mud--C'est mon affaire!--[_shouts_] Lena!

Lena _enters with a pail in her hand_.

THE POET. Lena, show yourself to Miss Agnes--She knew you

ten years ago, when you were a young, happy and, let us say,

pretty girl--Behold how she looks now. Five children, drudgery,

baby-cries, hunger, ill-treatment. See how beauty has perished

and joy vanished in the fulfilment of duties which should have

brought that inner satisfaction which makes each line in the

face harmonious and fills the eye with a quiet glow.

MASTER OF Q. [_Covering the poet's mouth with his hand_] Shut

up! Shut up!

THE POET. That is what they all say. And if you keep silent,

then they cry: speak! Oh, restless humanity!

THE DAUGHTER. [_Goes to_ Lena] Tell me your troubles.

LENA. No, I dare not, for then they will be made worse.

THE DAUGHTER. Who could be so cruel?

LENA. I dare not tell, for if I do, I shall be spanked.

THE POET. That is just what will happen. But I will speak, even

though the blackamoor knock out all my teeth--I will tell that

justice is not always done--Agnes, daughter of the gods, do you

hear music and dancing on the hill over there?--Well, it is

Lena's sister who has come home from the city where she went

astray--you understand? Now they are killing the fatted calf;

but Lena, who stayed at home, has to carry slop pails and feed

the pigs.

THE DAUGHTER. There is rejoicing at home because the stray has

left the paths of evil, and not merely because she has come

back. Bear that in mind.

THE POET. But then they should give a ball and banquet every

night for the spotless worker that never strayed into paths of

error--Yet they do nothing of the kind, but when Lena has a free

moment, she is sent to prayer-meetings where she has to hear

reproaches for not being perfect. Is this justice?

THE DAUGHTER. Your question is so difficult to answer

because--There are so many unforeseen cases THE POET. That much

the Caliph, Haroun the Just, came to understand. He was sitting

on his throne, and from its height he could never make out what

happened below. At last complaints penetrated to his exalted

ears. And then, one fine day, he disguised himself and descended

unobserved among the crowds to find out what kind of justice

they were getting.

THE DAUGHTER. I hope you don't take me for Haroun the Just!

THE OFFICER. Let us talk of something else--Here come visitors.

_A white boat, shaped like a viking ship, with a dragon for

figure-head, with a pale-blue silken sail on a gilded yard, and

with a rose-red standard flying from the top of a gilded mast,

glides through the strait from the left._ He _and_ She _are

seated in the stern with their arms around each other_.

THE OFFICER. Behold perfect happiness, bliss without limits,

young love's rejoicing!

_The stage grows brighter_.

HE. [_Stands up in the boat and sings_]

Hail, beautiful haven,

Where the Springs of my youth were spent,

Where my first sweet dreams were dreamt--

To thee I return,

But lonely no longer!

Ye hills and groves,

Thou sky o'erhead,

Thou mirroring sea,

Give greeting to her:

My love, my bride,

My light and my life!

_The flags at the landings of Fairhaven are dipped in

salute; white handkerchiefs are waved from verandahs

and boats, and the air is filled with tender chords

from harps and violins_.

THE POET. See the light that surrounds them! Hear how the air is

ringing with music!--Eros!

THE OFFICER. It is Victoria.

MASTER OF Q. Well, what of it?

THE OFFICER. It is his Victoria--My own is still mine. And

nobody can see _her_--Now you hoist the quarantine flag, and I

shall pull in the net.

[The MASTER OF QUARANTINE _waves a yellow flag._ THE OFFICER.

[_Pulling a rope that turns the boat toward Foulstrand_] Hold on

there!

HE _and_ SHE _become aware of the hideous view and

give vent to their horror_.

MASTER OF Q. Yes, it comes hard. But here every one must stop

who hails from plague-stricken places.

THE POET. The idea of speaking in such manner, of acting in such

a way, within the presence of two human beings united in love!

Touch them not! Lay not hands on love! It is treason!--Woe to

us! Everything beautiful must now be dragged down--dragged into

the mud!

[HE _and_ SHE _step ashore, looking sad and

shamefaced_.

HE. Woe to us! What have we done?

MASTER OF Q. It is not necessary to have done anything in order

to encounter life's little pricks.

SHE. So short-lived are joy and happiness!

HE. How long must we stay here?

MASTER OF Q. Forty days and nights.

SHE. Then rather into the water!

HE. To live here--among blackened hills and pig-sties?

THE POET. Love overcomes all, even sulphur fumes and carbolic

acid.

MASTER OF Q. [_Starts a fire in the stove; blue, sulphurous

flames break forth_] Now I set the sulphur going. Will you

please step in?

SHE. Oh, my blue dress will fade.

MASTER OF Q. And become white. So your roses will also turn

white in time.

HE. Even your cheeks--in forty days!

SHE. [_To_ The OFFICER] That will please you.

THE OFFICER. No, it will not!--Of course, your happiness was

the cause of my suffering, but--it doesn't matter--for I am

graduated and have obtained a position over there--heigh-ho

and alas! And in the Fall I shall be teaching school--teaching

boys the same lessons I myself learned during my childhood and

youth--the same lessons throughout my manhood and, finally, in

my old age--the self-same lessons! What does twice two make?

How many times can four be evenly divided by two?--Until I

get a pension and can do nothing at all--just wait around for

meals and the newspapers--until at last I am carted to the

crematorium and burned to ashes--Have you nobody here who is

entitled to a pension? Barring twice two makes four, it is

probably the worst thing of all--to begin school all over again

when one already is graduated; to ask the same questions until

death comes----

_An elderly man goes by, with his hands folded behind

his back_.

THE OFFICER. There is a pensioner now, waiting for himself to

die. I think he must be a captain who missed the rank of major;

or an assistant judge who was not made a chief justice. Many are

called but few are chosen--He is waiting for his breakfast now.

THE PENSIONER. No, for the newspaper--the morning paper.

THE OFFICER. And he is only fifty-four years old. He may spend

twenty-five more years waiting for meals and newspapers--is it

not dreadful?

THE PENSIONER. What is not dreadful? Tell me, tell me!

THE OFFICER. Tell that who can!--Now I shall have to teach

boys that twice two makes four. And how many times four can be

evenly divided by two. [_He clutches his head in despair_] And

Victoria, whom I loved and therefore wished all the happiness

life can give--now she has her happiness, the greatest one known

to her, and for this reason I suffer--suffer, suffer!

SHE. Do you think I can be happy when I see you suffering? How

can you think it? Perhaps it will soothe your pains that I am to

be imprisoned here for forty days and nights? Tell me, does it

soothe your pains?

THE OFFICER. Yes and no. How can I enjoy seeing you suffer? Oh!

SHE. And do you think my happiness can be founded on your

torments?

THE OFFICER. We are to be pitied--all of us!

ALL. [_Raise their arms toward the sky and utter a cry of

anguish that sounds like a dissonant chord_] Oh!

THE DAUGHTER. Everlasting One, hear them! Life is evil! Men are

to be pitied!

ALL. [_As before_] Oh!

_For a moment the stage is completely darkened, and

during that moment everybody withdraws or takes up

a new position. When the light is turned on again,

Foulstrand is seen in the background, lying in deep

shadow. The strait is in the middle distance and

Fairhaven in the foreground, both steeped in light.

To the right, a corner of the Casino, where dancing

couples are visible through the open windows. Three

servant maids are standing outside on top of an empty

box, with arms around each other, staring at the

dancers within. On the verandah of the Casino stands

a bench, where_ "Plain" EDITH _is sitting. She is

bare-headed, with an abundance of tousled hair, and

looks sad. In front of her is an open piano_.

_To the left, a frame house painted yellow. Two

children in light dresses are playing ball outside_.

_In the centre of the middle distance, a pier with

white sailboats tied to it, and flag poles with

hoisted flags. In the strait is anchored a naval

vessel, brig-rigged, with gun ports. But the entire

landscape is in winter dress, with snow on the ground

and on the bare trees_.

THE DAUGHTER _and_ THE OFFICER _enter_.

THE DAUGHTER. Here is peace, and happiness, and leisure. No more

toil; every day a holiday; everybody dressed up in their best;

dancing and music in the early morning. [_To the maids_] Why

don't you go in and have a dance, girls?

THE MAIDS. We?

THE OFFICER. They are servants, don't you see!

THE DAUGHTER. Of course!--But why is Edith sitting there instead

of dancing?

[EDITH _buries her face in her hands_.

THE OFFICER. Don't question her! She has been sitting there

three hours without being asked for a dance.

[_Goes into the yellow house on the left_.

THE DAUGHTER. What a cruel form of amusement!

THE MOTHER. [_In a low-necked dress, enters from the Casino and

goes up to_ EDITH] Why don't you go in as I told you?

EDITH. Because--I cannot throw myself at them. That I am ugly, I

know, and I know that nobody wants to dance with me, but I might

be spared from being reminded of it.

_Begins to play on the piano, the Toccata Con Fuga,

Op_. 10, by Sebastian Bach.

[Illustration: music.]

_The waltz music from within is heard faintly at

first. Then it grows in strength, as if to compete

with the Bach Toccata_. EDITH _prevails over it and

brings it to silence. Dancers appear in the doorway

to hear her play. Everybody on the stage stands still

and listens reverently_.

A NAVAL OFFICER. [_Takes_ ALICE, _one of the dancers, around the

waist and drags her toward the pier_] Come quick!

EDITH _breaks off abruptly, rises and stares at the

couple with an expression of utter despair; stands as

if turned to stone_.

_Now the front wall of the yellow house disappears,

revealing three benches full of schoolboys. Among

these_ THE OFFICER _is seen, looking worried and

depressed. In front of the boys stands_ THE TEACHER,

_bespectacled and holding a piece of chalk in one

hand, a rattan cane in the other_.

THE TEACHER. [_To_ THE OFFICER] Well, my boy, can you tell me

what twice two makes?

THE OFFICER _remains seated while he racks his mind

without finding an answer_.

THE TEACHER. You must rise when I ask you a question.

THE OFFICER. [_Harassed, rises_] Two--twice--let me see. That

makes two-two.

THE TEACHER. I see! You have not studied your lesson.

THE OFFICER. [_Ashamed_] Yes, I have, but--I know the answer,

but I cannot tell it----

THE TEACHER. You want to wriggle out of it, of course. You know

it, but you cannot tell. Perhaps I may help you.

[_Pulls his hair_.

THE OFFICER. Oh, it is dreadful, it is dreadful!

THE TEACHER. Yes, it is dreadful that such a big boy lacks all

ambition----

THE OFFICER. [_Hurt_] Big boy--yes, I am big--bigger than all

these others--I am full-grown, I am done with school--[_As if

waking up_] I have graduated--why am I then sitting here? Have I

not received my doctor's degree?

THE TEACHER. Certainly, but you are to sit here and mature, you

know. You have to mature--isn't that so?

THE OFFICER. [_Feels his forehead_] Yes, that is right, one

must mature--Twice two--makes two--and this I can demonstrate

by analogy, which is the highest form of all reasoning.

Listen!--Once one makes one; consequently twice two must make

two. For what applies in one case must also apply in another.

THE TEACHER. Your conclusion is based on good logic, but your

answer is wrong.

THE OFFICER. What is logical cannot be wrong. Let us test it.

One divided by one gives one, so that two divided by two must

give two.

THE TEACHER. Correct according to analogy. But how much does

once three make?

THE OFFICER. Three, of course.

THE TEACHER. Consequently twice three must also make three.

THE OFFICER. [_Pondering_] No, that cannot be right--it

cannot--or else--[_Sits down dejectedly_] No, I am not mature

yet.

THE TEACHER. No, indeed, you are far from mature.

THE OFFICER. But how long am I to sit here, then?

THE TEACHER. Here--how long? Do you believe that time and space

exist?--Suppose that time does exist, then you should be able to

say what time is. What is time?

THE OFFICER. Time--[_Thinks_] I cannot tell, but I know what it

is. Consequently I may also know what twice two is without being

able to tell it. And, teacher, can you tell what time is?

THE TEACHER. Of course I can.

ALL THE BOYS. Tell us then!

THE TEACHER. Time--let me see. [_Stands immovable until

one finger on his nose_] While we are talking, time flies.

Consequently time is something that flies while we talk.

A BOY. [_Rising_] Now you are talking, teacher, and while you

are talking, I fly: consequently I am time. [_Runs out_.

THE TEACHER. That accords completely with the laws of logic.

THE OFFICER. Then the laws of logic are silly, for Nils who ran

away, cannot be time.

THE TEACHER. That is also good logic, although it is silly.

THE OFFICER. Then logic itself is silly.

THE TEACHER. So it seems. But if logic is silly, then all the

world is silly--and then the devil himself wouldn't stay here to

teach you more silliness. If anybody treats me to a drink, we'll

go and take a bath.

THE OFFICER. That is a _posterus prius_, or the world turned

upside down, for it is customary to bathe first and have the

drink afterward. Old fogy!

THE TEACHER. Beware of a swelled head, doctor!

THE OFFICER. Call me captain, if you please. I am an officer,

and I cannot understand why I should be sitting here to get

scolded like a schoolboy----

THE TEACHER. [_With raised index finger_] We were to mature!

MASTER OF Q. [_Enters_] The quarantine begins.

THE OFFICER. Oh, there you are. Just think of it, this fellow

makes me sit among the boys although I am graduated.

MASTER OF Q. Well, why don't you go away?

THE OFFICER. Heaven knows!--Go away? Why, that is no easy thing

to do.

THE TEACHER. I guess not--just try!

THE OFFICER. [_To_ MASTER OF QUARANTINE] Save me! Save me from

his eye!

MASTER OF Q. Come on. Come and help us dance--We have to dance

before the plague breaks out. We must!

THE OFFICER. Is the brig leaving?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, first of all the brig must leave--Then there

will be a lot of tears shed, of course.

THE OFFICER. Always tears: when she comes and when she goes--Let

us get out of here.

_They go out_. THE TEACHER _continues his lesson in

silence_.

THE MAIDS _that were staring through the window of

the dance hall walk sadly down to the pier_. EDITH,

_who has been standing like a statue at the piano,

follows them_.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE OFFICER] Is there not one happy person

to be found in this paradise?

THE OFFICER. Yes, there is a newly married couple. Just watch

them.

THE NEWLY MARRIED COUPLE _enter_.

HUSBAND. [_To his_ WIFE] My joy has no limits, and I could now

wish to die----

WIFE. Why die?

HUSBAND. Because at the heart of happiness grows the seed of

disaster. Happiness devours itself like a flame--it cannot burn

for ever, but must go out some time. And this presentiment of

the coming end destroys joy in the very hour of its culmination.

WIFE. Let us then die together--this moment!

HUSBAND. Die? All right! For I fear happiness--that cheat!

[_They go toward the water_.

THE DAUGHTER. Life is evil! Men are to be pitied!

THE OFFICER. Look at this fellow. He is the most envied mortal

in this neighbourhood.

THE BLIND MAN _is led in_.

THE OFFICER. He is the owner of these hundred or more Italian

villas. He owns all these bays, straits, shores, forests,

together with the fishes in the water, the birds in the air,

the game in the woods. These thousand or more people are his

tenants. The sun rises upon his sea and sets upon his land----

THE DAUGHTER. Well--is he complaining also?

THE OFFICER. Yes, and with right, for he cannot see.

MASTER OF Q. He is blind.

THE DAUGHTER. The most envied of all!

THE OFFICER. Now he has come to see the brig depart with his son

on board.

THE BLIND MAN. I cannot see, but I hear. I hear the anchor bill

claw the clay bottom as when the hook is torn out of a fish and

brings up the heart with it through the neck--My son, my only

child, is going to journey across the wide sea to foreign lands,

and I can follow him only in my thought! Now I hear the clanking

of the chain--and--there is something that snaps and cracks like

clothes drying on a line--wet handkerchiefs perhaps. And I hear

it blubber and snivel as when people are weeping--maybe the

splashing of the wavelets among the seines--or maybe girls along

the shore, deserted and disconsolate--Once I asked a child why

the ocean is salt, and the child, which had a father on a long

trip across the high seas, said immediately: the ocean is salt

because the sailors shed so many tears into it. And why do the

sailors cry so much then?--Because they are always going away,

replied the child; and that is why they are always drying their

handkerchiefs in the rigging--And why does man weep when he is

sad? I asked at last--Because the glass in the eyes must be

washed now and then, so that we can see clearly, said the child.

_The brig has set sail and is gliding off. The

girls along the shore are alternately waving their

handkerchiefs and wiping off their tears with them.

Then a signal is set on the foremast--a red ball in a

white field, meaning "yes." In response to it_ Alice

_waves her handkerchief triumphantly_.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE OFFICER] What is the meaning of that

flag?

THE OFFICER. It means "yes." It is the lieutenant's troth--red

as the red blood of the arteries, set against the blue cloth of

the sky.

THE DAUGHTER. And how does "no" look?

THE OFFICER. It is blue as the spoiled blood in the veins--but

look, how jubilant Alice is.

THE DAUGHTER. And how Edith cries.

THE BLIND MAN. Meet and part. Part and meet. That is life. I met

his mother. And then she went away from me. He was left to me;

and now he goes.

THE DAUGHTER. But he will come back.

THE BLIND MAN. Who is speaking to me? I have heard that voice

before--in my dreams; in my youth, when vacation began; in the

early years of my marriage, when my child was born. Every time

life smiled at me, I heard that voice, like a whisper of the

south wind, like a chord of harps from above, like what I feel

the angels' greeting must be in the Holy Night----

THE LAWYER _enters and goes up to whisper something

into_ THE BLIND MAN's _ear_.

THE BLIND MAN. Is that so?

THE LAWYER. That's the truth. [_Goes to_ THE DAUGHTER] Now you

have seen most of it, but you have not yet tried the worst of it.

THE DAUGHTER. What can that be?

THE LAWYER. Repetition--recurrence. To retrace one's own tracks;

to be sent back to the task once finished--come!

THE DAUGHTER. Where?

THE LAWYER. To your duties.

THE DAUGHTER. What does that mean?

THE LAWYER. Everything you dread. Everything you do not want but

must. It means to forego, to give up, to do without, to lack--it

means everything that is unpleasant, repulsive, painful.

THE DAUGHTER. Are there no pleasant duties?

THE LAWYER. They become pleasant when they are done.

THE DAUGHTER. When they have ceased to exist--Duty is then

something unpleasant. What is pleasant then?

THE LAWYER. What is pleasant is sin.

THE DAUGHTER. Sin?

THE LAWYER. Yes, something that has to be punished. If I have

had a pleasant day or night, then I suffer infernal pangs and a

bad conscience the next day.

THE DAUGHTER. How strange!

THE LAWYER. I wake up in the morning with a headache; and then

the repetitions begin, but so that everything becomes perverted.

What the night before was pretty, agreeable, witty, is presented

by memory in the morning as ugly, distasteful, stupid. Pleasure

seems to decay, and all joy goes to pieces. What men call

success serves always as a basis for their next failure. My own

successes have brought ruin upon me. For men view the fortune

of others with an instinctive dread. They regard it unjust that

fate should favour any one man, and so they try to restore

balance by piling rocks on the road. To have talent is to be

in danger of one's life, for then one may easily starve to

death!--However, you will have to return to your duties, or I

shall bring suit against you, and we shall pass through every

court up to the highest--one, two, three!

THE DAUGHTER. Return?--To the iron stove, and the cabbage pot,

and the baby clothes----

THE LAWYER. Exactly! We have a big wash to-day, for we must wash

all the handkerchiefs----

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, must I do it all over again?

THE LAWYER. All life is nothing but doing things over again.

Look at the teacher in there--He received his doctor's degree

yesterday, was laurelled and saluted, climbed Parnassus and was

embraced by the monarch--and to-day he starts school all over

again, asks how much twice two makes, and will continue to do

so until his death--However, you must come back to your home!

THE DAUGHTER. I shall rather die!

THE LAWYER. Die?--That is not allowed. First of all, it is a

disgrace--so much so that even the dead body is subjected to

insults; and secondly, one goes to hell--it is a mortal sin!

THE DAUGHTER. It is not easy to be human!

ALL. Hear!

THE DAUGHTER. I shall not go back with you to humiliation and

dirt--I am longing for the heights whence I came--but first the

door must be opened so that I may learn the secret--It is my

will that the door be opened!

THE LAWYER. Then you must retrace your own steps, cover the road

you have already travelled, suffer all annoyances, repetitions,

tautologies, recopyings, that a suit will bring with it----

THE DAUGHTER. May it come then--But first I must go into the

solitude and the wilderness to recover my own self. We shall

meet again! [_To_ THE POET] Follow me.

_Cries of anguish are heard from a distance_. Woe!

Woe! Woe!

THE DAUGHTER. What is that?

THE LAWYER. The lost souls at Foulstrand.

THE DAUGHTER. Why do they wail more loudly than usual to-day?

THE LAWYER. Because the sun is shining here; because here we

have music, dancing, youth. And it makes them feel their own

sufferings more keenly.

THE DAUGHTER. We must set them free.

THE LAWYER. Try it! Once a liberator appeared, and he was nailed

to a cross.

THE DAUGHTER. By whom?

THE LAWYER. By all the right-minded.

THE DAUGHTER. Who are they?

THE LAWYER. Are you not acquainted with all the right-minded?

Then you must learn to know them.

THE DAUGHTER. Were they the ones that prevented your graduation?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I know them!

_Curtain_.

_On the shores of the Mediterranean. To the left,

in the foreground, a white wall, and above it

branches of an orange tree with ripe fruit on them.

In the background, villas and a Casino placed on a

terrace. To the right, a huge pile of coal and two

wheel-barrows. In the background, to the right, a

corner of blue sea_.

_Two coalheavers, naked to the waist, their faces,

hands, and bodies blackened by coal dust, are seated

on the wheel-barrows. Their expressions show intense

despair_.

THE DAUGHTER _and_ THE LAWYER _in the background_.

THE DAUGHTER. This is paradise!

FIRST COALHEAVER. This is hell!

SECOND COALHEAVER. One hundred and twenty degrees in the shadow.

FIRST HEAVER. Let's have a bath.

SECOND HEAVER. The police won't let us. No bathing here.

FIRST HEAVER. Couldn't we pick some fruit off that tree?

SECOND HEAVER. Then the police would get after us.

FIRST HEAVER. But I cannot do a thing in this heat--I'll just

chuck the job----

SECOND HEAVER. Then the police will get you for sure!--

[_Pause_] And you wouldn't have anything to eat anyhow.

FIRST HEAVER. Nothing to eat? We, who work hardest, get least

food; and the rich, who do nothing, get most. Might one

not--without disregard of truth--assert that this is injustice

--What has the daughter of the gods to say about it?

THE DAUGHTER. I can say nothing at all--But tell me, what have

you done that makes you so black and your lot so hard?

FIRST HEAVER. What have we done? We have been born of poor and

perhaps not very good parents--Maybe we have been punished a

couple of times.

THE DAUGHTER. Punished?

FIRST HEAVER. Yes, the unpunished hang out in the Casino up

there and dine on eight courses with wine.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE LAWYER] Can that be true?

THE LAWYER. On the whole, yes.

THE DAUGHTER. You mean to say that every man at some time has

deserved to go to prison?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. You, too?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. Is it true that the poor cannot bathe in the sea?

THE LAWYER. Yes. Not even with their clothes on. None but those

who intend to take their own lives escape being fined. And those

are said to get a good drubbing at the police station.

THE DAUGHTER. But can they not go outside of the city, out into

the country, and bathe there?

THE LAWYER. There is no place for them--all the land is fenced

in.

THE DAUGHTER. But I mean in the free, open country.

THE LAWYER. There is no such thing--it all belongs to somebody.

THE DAUGHTER. Even the sea, the great, vast sea----

THE LAWYER. Even that! You cannot sail the sea in a boat and

land anywhere without having it put down in writing and charged

for. It is lovely!

THE DAUGHTER. This is not paradise.

THE LAWYER. I should say not!

THE DAUGHTER. Why don't men do something to improve their lot?

THE LAWYER. Oh, they try, of course, but all the improvers end

in prison or in the madhouse----

THE DAUGHTER. Who puts them in prison?

THE LAWYER. All the right-minded, all the respectable----

THE DAUGHTER. Who sends them to the madhouse?

THE LAWYER. Their own despair when they grasp the hopelessness

of their efforts.

THE DAUGHTER. Has the thought not occurred to anybody, that for

secret reasons it must be as it is?

THE LAWYER. Yes, those who are well off always think so.

THE DAUGHTER. That it is all right as it is?

FIRST HEAVER. And yet we are the foundations of society. If the

coal is not unloaded, then there will be no fire in the kitchen

stove, in the parlour grate, or in the factory furnace; then the

light will go out in streets and shops and homes; then darkness

and cold will descend upon you--and, therefore, we have to sweat

as in hell so that the black coals may be had--And what do you

do for us in return?

THE LAWYER. [_To_ THE DAUGHTER] Help them!--[_Pause_] That

conditions cannot be quite the same for everybody, I understand,

but why should they differ so widely?

A GENTLEMAN _and_ A LADY _pass across the stage_.

THE LADY. Will you come and play a game with us?

THE GENTLEMAN. No, I must take a walk, so I can eat something

for dinner.

FIRST HEAVER. So that he _can_ eat something?

SECOND HEAVER. So that he _can_----?

_Children enter and cry with horror when they catch

sight of the grimy workers_.

FIRST HEAVER. They cry when they see us. They cry----

SECOND HEAVER. Damn it all!--I guess we'll have to pull out the

scaffolds soon and begin to operate on this rotten body----

FIRST HEAVER. Damn it, I say, too! [_Spits_.

THE LAWYER. [_To_ THE DAUGHTER] Yes, it is all wrong. And men

are not so very bad--but----

THE DAUGHTER. But----

THE LAWYER. But the government----

THE DAUGHTER. [_Goes out, hiding her face in her hands_] This is

not paradise.

COALHEAVERS. No, hell, that's what it is!

_Curtain_.

[Footnote 3: Means literally "wordspout."]

_Fingal's Cave. Long green waves are rolling slowly

into the cave. In the foreground, a siren buoy is

swaying to and fro in time with the waves, but

without sounding except at the indicated moment.

Music of the winds. Music of the waves_.

THE DAUGHTER _and_ THE POET.

THE POET. Where are you leading me?

THE DAUGHTER. Far away from the noise and lament of the

man-children, to the utmost end of the ocean, to the cave that

we name Indra's Ear because it is the place where the king of

the heavens is said to listen to the complaints of the mortals.

THE POET. What? In this place?

THE DAUGHTER. Do you see how this cave is built like a shell?

Yes, you can see it. Do you know that your ear, too, is built

in the form of a shell? You know it, but have not thought of

it. [_She picks up a shell from the beach_] Have you not as a

child held such a shell to your ear and listened--and heard the

ripple of your heart-blood, the humming of your thoughts in the

brain, the snapping of a thousand little worn-out threads in the

tissues of your body? All that you hear in this small shell.

Imagine then what may be heard in this larger one!

THE POET. [_Listening_] I hear nothing but the whispering of the

wind.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I shall interpret it for you. Listen. The

wail of the winds. [_Recites to subdued music_:

Born beneath the clouds of heaven,

Driven we were by the lightnings of Indra

Down to the sand-covered earth.

Straw from the harvested fields soiled our feet;

Dust from the high-roads,

Smoke from the cities,

Foul-smelling breaths,

Fumes from cellars and kitchens,

All we endured.

Then to the open sea we fled,

Filling our lungs with air,

Shaking our wings,

And laving our feet.

Indra, Lord of the Heavens,

Hear us!

Hear our sighing!

Unclean is the earth;

Evil is life;

Neither good nor bad

Can men be deemed.

As they can, they live,

One day at a time.

Sons of dust, through dust they journey;

Born out of dust, to dust they return.

Given they were, for trudging,

Feet, not wings for flying.

Dusty they grow--

Lies the fault then with them,

Or with Thee?

THE POET. Thus I heard it once----

THE DAUGHTER. Hush! The winds are still singing.

[_Recites to subdued music_:

We, winds that wander,

We, the air's offspring,

Bear with us men's lament.

Heard us you have

During gloom-filled Fall nights,

In chimneys and pipes,

In key-holes and door cracks,

When the rain wept on the roof:

Heard us you have

In the snowclad pine woods

Midst wintry gloom:

Heard us you have,

Crooning and moaning

In ropes and rigging

On the high-heaving sea.

It was we, the winds,

Offspring of the air,

Who learned how to grieve

Within human breasts

Through which we passed--

In sick-rooms, on battle-fields,

But mostly where the newborn

Whimpered and wailed

At the pain of living.

We, we, the winds,

We are whining and whistling:

Woe! Woe! Woe!

THE POET. It seems to me that I have already----

THE DAUGHTER. Hush! Now the waves are singing.

[_Recites to subdued music_:

We, we waves,

That are rocking the winds

To rest--

Green cradles, we waves!

Wet are we, and salty;

Leap like flames of fire--

Wet flames are we:

Burning, extinguishing;

Cleansing, replenishing;

Bearing, engendering.

We, we waves,

That are rocking the winds

To rest!

THE DAUGHTER. False waves and faithless! Everything on earth

that is not burned, is drowned--by the waves. Look at this.

[_Pointing to pile of debris_] See what the sea has taken

and spoiled! Nothing but the figure-heads remain of the

sunken ships--and the names: _Justice_, _Friendship, Golden

Peace, Hope_--this is all that is left of _Hope_--of fickle

_Hope_--Railings, tholes, bails! And lo: the life buoy--which

saved itself and let distressed men perish.

THE POET. [_Searching in the pile_] Here is the name-board of

the ship _Justice_. That was the one which left Fairhaven with

the Blind Man's son on board. It is lost then! And with it are

gone the lover of Alice, the hopeless love of Edith.

THE DAUGHTER. The Blind Man? Fairhaven? I must have been

dreaming of them. And the lover of Alice, "Plain" Edith,

Foulstrand and the Quarantine, sulphur and carbolic acid, the

graduation in the church, the Lawyer's office, the passageway

and Victoria, the Growing Castle and the Officer--All this I

have been dreaming----

THE POET. It was in one of my poems.

THE DAUGHTER. You know then what poetry is----

THE POET. I know then what dreaming is--But what is poetry?

THE DAUGHTER. Not reality, but more than reality--not dreaming,

but daylight dreams----

THE POET. And the man-children think that we poets are only

playing--that we invent and make believe.

THE DAUGHTER. And fortunate it is, my friend, for otherwise the

world would lie fallow for lack of ministration. Everybody would

be stretched on his back, staring into the sky. Nobody would be

touching plough or spade, hammer or plane.

THE POET. And you say this, Indra's daughter, you who belong in

part up there----

THE DAUGHTER. You do right in reproaching me. Too long have I

stayed down here taking mud baths like you--My thoughts have

lost their power of flight; there is clay on their wings--mire

on their feet--and I myself--[_raising her arms_] I sink, I

sink--Help me, father, Lord of the Heavens! [_Silence_] I can

no longer hear his answer. The ether no longer carries the

sound from his lips to my ear's shell the silvery thread has

snapped--Woe is me, I am earthbound!

THE POET. Do you mean to ascend--soon?

THE DAUGHTER. As soon as I have consigned this mortal shape to

the flames--for even the waters of the ocean cannot cleanse me.

Why do you question me thus?

THE POET. Because I have a prayer----

THE DAUGHTER. What kind of prayer?

THE POET. A written supplication from humanity to the ruler of

the universe, formulated by a dreamer.

THE DAUGHTER. To be presented by whom?

THE POET. By Indra's daughter.

THE DAUGHTER. Can you repeat what you have written?

THE POET. I can.

THE DAUGHTER. Speak it then.

THE POET. Better that you do it.

THE DAUGHTER. Where can I read it?

THE POET. In my mind--or here.

[_Hands her a roll of paper._

THE DAUGHTER. [_Receives the roll, but reads without looking at

it_] Well, by me it shall be spoken then:

"Why must you be born in anguish?

Why, O man-child, must you always

Wring your mother's heart with torture

When you bring her joy maternal,

Highest happiness yet known?

Why to life must you awaken,

Why to light give natal greeting,

With a cry of anger and of pain?

Why not meet it smiling, man-child,

When the gift of life is counted

In itself a boon unmatched?

Why like beasts should we be coming,

We of race divine and human?

Better garment craves the spirit

Than one made of filth and blood!

Need a god his teeth be changing----"

--Silence, rash one! Is it seemly

For the work to blame its maker?

No one yet has solved life's riddle.

"Thus begins the human journey

O'er a road of thorns and thistles;

If a beaten path be offered.

It is named at once forbidden;

If a flower you covet, straightway

You are told it is another's;

If a field should bar your progress,

And you dare to break across it,

You destroy your neighbour's harvest;

Others then your own will trample,

That the measure may be evened!

Every moment of enjoyment

Brings to some one else a sorrow,

But your sorrow gladdens no one,

For from sorrow naught but sorrow springs.

"Thus you journey till you die,

And your death brings others' bread."

--Is it thus that you approach,

Son of Dust, the One Most High?

THE POET.

Could the son of dust discover

Words so pure and bright and simple

That to heaven they might ascend----?

Child of gods, wilt thou interpret

Mankind's grievance in some language

That immortals understand?

THE DAUGHTER. I will.

THE POET. [_Pointing to the buoy_] What is that floating

there?--A buoy?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes.

THE POET. It looks like a lung with a windpipe.

THE DAUGHTER. It is the watchman of the seas. When danger is

abroad, it sings.

THE POET. It seems to me as if the sea were rising and the waves

growing larger----

THE DAUGHTER. Not unlikely.

THE POET. Woe! What do I see? A ship bearing down upon the reef.

THE DAUGHTER. What ship can that be?

THE POET. The ghost ship of the seas, I think.

THE DAUGHTER. What ship is that?

THE POET. The _Flying Dutchman_.

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, that one. Why is he punished so hard, and why

does he not seek harbour?

THE POET. Because he had seven faithless wives.

THE DAUGHTER. And for this he should be punished?

THE POET. Yes, all the right-minded condemned him----

THE DAUGHTER. Strange world, this!--How can he then be freed

from his curse?

THE POET. Freed?--Oh, they take good care that none is set free.

THE DAUGHTER. Why?

THE POET. Because--No, it is not the _Dutchman_! It is an

ordinary ship in distress. Why does not the buoy cry out now?

Look, how the sea is rising--how high the waves are--soon we

shall be unable to get out of the cave! Now the ship's bell is

ringing--Soon we shall have another figure-head. Cry out, buoy!

Do your duty, watchman! [_The buoy sounds a four-voice chord

of fifths and sixths, reminding one of fog horns_] The crew is

signalling to us--but we are doomed ourselves.

THE DAUGHTER. Do you not wish to be set free?

THE POET. Yes, of course--of course, I wish it--but not just

now, and not by water.

THE CREW. [_Sings in quartet_] Christ Kyrie!

[Illustration: music.]

THE POET. Now they are crying aloud, and so is the sea, but no

one gives ear.

THE CREW. [_As before_] Christ Kyrie!

THE DAUGHTER. Who is coming there?

THE POET. Walking on the waters? There is only one who does

that--and it is not Peter, the Rock, for he sank like a stone----

_A white light is seen shining over the water at some

distance_.

THE CREW. Christ Kyrie!

THE DAUGHTER. Can this be He?

THE POET. It is He, the crucified----

THE DAUGHTER. Why--tell me--why was He crucified?

THE POET. Because He wanted to set free----

THE DAUGHTER. Who was it--I have forgotten--that crucified Him?

THE POET. All the right-minded.

THE DAUGHTER. What a strange world!

THE POET. The sea is rising. Darkness is closing in upon us. The

storm is growing----

[THE CREW _set up a wild outcry_.

THE POET. The crew scream with horror at the sight of their

Saviour--and now--they are leaping overboard for fear of the

Redeemer----

[THE CREW _utter another cry_.

THE POET. Now they are crying because they must die. Crying when

they are born, and crying when they pass away!

[_The rising waves threaten to engulf the two in the

cave_.

THE DAUGHTER. If I could only be sure that it is a ship----

THE POET. Really--I don't think it is a ship--It is a

two-storied house with trees in front of it--and--a telephone

tower--a tower that reaches up into the skies--It is the

modern Tower of Babel sending wires to the upper regions--to

communicate with those above----

THE DAUGHTER. Child, the human thought needs no wires to make a

way for itself--the prayers of the pious penetrate the universe.

It cannot be a Tower of Babel, for if you want to assail the

heavens, you must do so with prayer.

THE POET. No, it is no house--no telephone tower--don't you see?

THE DAUGHTER. What are you seeing?

THE POET. I see an open space covered with snow--a drill

ground--The winter sun is shining from behind a church on a

hill, and the tower is casting its long shadow on the snow--Now

a troop of soldiers come marching across the grounds. They march

up along the tower, up the spire. Now they have reached the

cross, but I have a feeling that the first one who steps on the

gilded weathercock at the top must die. Now they are near it--a

corporal is leading them--ha-ha! There comes a cloud sweeping

across the open space, and right in front of the sun, of

course--now everything is gone--the water in the cloud put out

the sun's fire!--The light of the sun created the shadow picture

of the tower, but the shadow picture of the cloud swallowed the

shadow picture of the tower----

_While_ THE POET _is still speaking, the stage is

changed and shows once more the passageway outside

the opera-house_.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE PORTRESS] Has the Lord Chancellor

arrived yet?

THE PORTRESS. No.

THE DAUGHTER. And the Deans of the Faculties?

THE PORTRESS. No.

THE DAUGHTER. Call them at once, then, for the door is to be

opened----

THE PORTRESS. Is it so very pressing?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, it is. For there is a suspicion that the

solution of the world-riddle may be hidden behind it. Call the

Lord Chancellor, and the Deans of the Four Faculties also.

[THE PORTRESS _blows in a whistle_.

THE DAUGHTER. And do not forget the Glazier and his diamond, for

without them nothing can be done.

STAGE PEOPLE _enter from the left as in the earlier

scene_.

THE OFFICER. [_Enters from the background, in Prince Albert and

high hat, with a bunch of roses in his hand, looking radiantly

happy_] Victoria!

THE PORTRESS. The young lady will be coming in a moment.

THE OFFICER. Good! The carriage is waiting, the table is set,

the wine is on ice--Permit me to embrace you, madam! [_Embraces_

THE PORTRESS] Victoria!

A WOMAN'S VOICE FROM ABOVE. [_Sings_] I am here!

THE OFFICER. [_Begins to walk to and fro_] Good! I am waiting.

THE POET. It seems to me that all this has happened before----

THE DAUGHTER. So it seems to me also.

THE POET. Perhaps I have dreamt it.

THE DAUGHTER. Or put it in a poem, perhaps.

THE POET. Or put it in a poem.

THE DAUGHTER. Then you know what poetry is.

THE POET. Then I know what dreaming is.

THE DAUGHTER. It seems to me that we have said all this to each

other before, in some other place.

THE POET. Then you may soon figure out what reality is.

THE DAUGHTER. Or dreaming!

THE POET. Or poetry!

_Enter the_ LORD CHANCELLOR _and the_ DEANS _of the_

THEOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, MEDICAL, _and_ LEGAL

FACULTIES.

LORD CHANCELLOR. It is about the opening of that door, of

course--What does the Dean of the Theological Faculty think of

it?

DEAN OF THEOLOGY. I do not think--I believe--_Credo_----

DEAN OF PHILOSOPHY. I hold----

DEAN OF MEDICINE. I know----

DEAN OF JURISPRUDENCE. I doubt until I have evidence and

witnesses.

LORD CHANCELLOR. Now they are fighting again!--Well, what does

Theology believe?

THEOLOGY. I believe that this door must not be opened, because

it hides dangerous truths----

PHILOSOPHY. Truth is never dangerous.

MEDICINE. What is truth?

JURISPRUDENCE. What can be proved by two witnesses.

THEOLOGY. Anything can be proved by two false witnesses--thinks

the pettifogger.

PHILOSOPHY. Truth is wisdom, and wisdom, knowledge, is

philosophy itself--Philosophy is the science of sciences, the

knowledge of knowing, and all other sciences are its servants.

MEDICINE. Natural science is the only true science--and

philosophy is no science at all. It is nothing but empty

speculation.

THEOLOGY. Good!

PHILOSOPHY. [_To_ THEOLOGY] Good, you say! And what are you,

then? You are the arch-enemy of all knowledge; you are the very

antithesis of knowledge; you are ignorance and obscuration----

MEDICINE. Good!

THEOLOGY. [_To_ MEDICINE] You cry "good," you, who cannot see

beyond the length of your own nose in the magnifying glass; who

believes in nothing but your own unreliable senses--in your

vision, for instance, which may be far-sighted, near-sighted,

blind, purblind, cross-eyed, one-eyed, colour-blind, red-blind,

green-blind----

MEDICINE. Idiot!

THEOLOGY. Ass! [_They fight_.

LORD CHANCELLOR. Peace! One crow does not peck out the other's

eye.

PHILOSOPHY. If I had to choose between those two, Theology and

Medicine, I should choose--neither!

JURISPRUDENCE. And if I had to sit in judgment on the three of

you, I should find--all guilty! You cannot agree on a single

point, and you never could. Let us get back to the case in

court. What is the opinion of the Lord Chancellor as to this

door and its opening?

LORD CHANCELLOR. Opinion? I have no opinion whatever. I am

merely appointed by the government to see that you don't break

each other's arms and legs in the Council--while you are

educating the young! Opinion? Why, I take mighty good care to

avoid everything of the kind. Once I had one or two, but they

were refuted at once. Opinions are always refuted--by their

opponents, of course--But perhaps we might open the door now,

even with the risk of finding some dangerous truths behind it?

JURISPRUDENCE. What is truth? What is truth?

THEOLOGY. I am the truth and the life----

PHILOSOPHY. I am the science of sciences----

MEDICINE. I am the only exact science----

JURISPRUDENCE. I doubt---- [_They fight_.

THE DAUGHTER. Instructors of the young, take shame!

JURISPRUDENCE. Lord Chancellor, as representative of the

government, as head of the corps of instructors, you must

prosecute this woman's offence. She has told all of you to

take shame, which is an insult; and she has--in a sneering,

ironical sense--called you instructors of the young, which is a

slanderous speech.

THE DAUGHTER. Poor youth!

JURISPRUDENCE. She pities the young, which is to accuse us. Lord

Chancellor, you must prosecute the offence.

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, I accuse you--you in a body--of sowing doubt

and discord in the minds of the young.

JURISPRUDENCE. Listen to her--she herself is making the young

question our authority, and then she charges us with sowing

doubt. Is it not a criminal act, I ask all the right-minded?

ALL RIGHT-MINDED. Yes, it is criminal.

JURISPRUDENCE. All the right-minded have condemned you. Leave in

peace with your lucre, or else----

THE DAUGHTER. My lucre? Or else? What else?

JURISPRUDENCE. Else you will be stoned.

THE POET. Or crucified.

THE DAUGHTER. I leave. Follow me, and you shall learn the riddle.

THE POET. Which riddle?

THE DAUGHTER. What did he mean with "my lucre"?

THE POET. Probably nothing at all. That kind of thing we call

talk. He was just talking.

THE DAUGHTER. But it was what hurt me more than anything else!

THE POET. That is why he said it, I suppose--Men are that way.

ALL RIGHT-MINDED. Hooray! The door is open.

LORD CHANCELLOR. What was behind the door?

THE GLAZIER. I can see nothing.

LORD CHANCELLOR. He cannot see anything--of course, he cannot!

Deans of the Faculties: what was behind that door?

THEOLOGY. Nothing! That is the solution of the world-riddle. In

the beginning God created heaven and the earth out of nothing----

PHILOSOPHY. Out of nothing comes nothing.

MEDICINE. Yes, bosh--which is nothing!

JURISPRUDENCE. I doubt. And this is a case of deception. I

appeal to all the right-minded.

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE POET] Who are the right-minded?

THE POET. Who can tell? Frequently all the right-minded consist

of a single person. To-day it is me and mine; to-morrow it is

you and yours. To that position you are appointed--or rather,

you appoint yourself to it.

ALL RIGHT-MINDED. We have been deceived.

LORD CHANCELLOR. Who has deceived you?

ALL RIGHT-MINDED. The Daughter!

LORD CHANCELLOR. Will the Daughter please tell us what she meant

by having this door opened?

THE DAUGHTER. No, friends. If I did, you would not believe me.

MEDICINE. Why, then, there is nothing there.

THE DAUGHTER. You have said it--but you have not understood.

MEDICINE. It is bosh, what she says!

ALL. Bosh!

THE DAUGHTER. [_To_ THE POET] They are to be pitied.

THE POET. Are you in earnest?

THE DAUGHTER. Always in earnest.

THE POET. Do you think the right-minded are to be pitied also?

THE DAUGHTER. They most of all, perhaps.

THE POET. And the four faculties, too?

THE DAUGHTER. They also, and not the least. Four heads, four

minds, and one body. Who made that monster?

ALL. She has not answered!

LORD CHANCELLOR. Stone her then!

THE DAUGHTER. I have answered.

LORD CHANCELLOR. Hear--she answers.

ALL. Stone her! She answers!

THE DAUGHTER. Whether she answer or do not answer, stone her!

Come, prophet, and I shall tell you the riddle--but far away

from here--out in the desert, where no one can hear us, no one

see us, for----

THE LAWYER. [_Enters and takes_ THE DAUGHTER _by the arm_] Have

you forgotten your duties?

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, heavens, no! But I have higher duties.

THE LAWYER. And your child?

THE DAUGHTER. My child--what of it?

THE LAWYER. Your child is crying for you.

THE DAUGHTER. My child! Woe, I am earth-bound! And this pain in

my breast, this anguish--what is it?

THE LAWYER. Don't you know?

THE DAUGHTER. No.

THE LAWYER. It is remorse.

THE DAUGHTER. Is that remorse?

THE LAWYER. Yes, and it follows every neglected duty; every

pleasure, even the most innocent, if innocent pleasures exist,

which seems doubtful; and every suffering inflicted upon one's

fellow-beings.

THE DAUGHTER. And there is no remedy?

THE LAWYER. Yes, but only one. It consists in doing your duty at

once----

THE DAUGHTER. You look like a demon when you speak that word

duty--And when, as in my case, there are two duties to be met?

THE LAWYER. Meet one first, and then the other.

THE DAUGHTER. The highest first--therefore, you look after my

child, and I shall do my duty----

THE LAWYER. Your child suffers because it misses you--can you

bear to know that a human being is suffering for your sake?

THE DAUGHTER. Now strife has entered my soul--it is rent in two,

and the halves are being pulled in opposite directions!

THE LAWYER. Such, you know, are life's little discords.

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, how it is pulling!

THE POET. If you could only know how I have spread sorrow and

ruin around me by the exercise of my calling--and note that

I say _calling_, which carries with it the highest duty of

all--then you would not even touch my hand.

THE DAUGHTER. What do you mean?

THE POET. I had a father who put his whole hope on me as his

only son, destined to continue his enterprise. I ran away from

the business college. My father grieved himself to death. My

mother wanted me to be religious, and I could not do what she

wanted--and she disowned me. I had a friend who assisted me

through trying days of need--and that friend acted as a tyrant

against those on whose behalf I was speaking and writing. And

I had to strike down my friend and benefactor in order to save

my soul. Since then I have had no peace. Men call me devoid of

honour, infamous--and it does not help that my conscience says,

"you have done right," for in the next moment it is saying, "you

have done wrong." Such is life.

THE DAUGHTER. Come with me into the desert.

THE LAWYER. Your child!

THE DAUGHTER. [_Indicating all those present_] Here are my

children. By themselves they are good, but if they only come

together, then they quarrel and turn into demons--Farewell!

_Outside the castle. The same scenery as in the first

scene of the first act. But now the ground in front

of the castle wall is covered with flowers--blue

monk's-hood or aconite. On the roof of the castle, at

the very top of its lantern, there is a chrysanthemum

bud ready to open. The castle windows are illuminated

with candles_.

THE DAUGHTER _and_ THE POET.

THE DAUGHTER. The hour is not distant when, with the help of the

flames, I shall once more ascend to the ether. It is what you

call to die, and what you approach in fear.

THE POET. Fear of the unknown.

THE DAUGHTER. Which is known to you.

THE POET. Who knows it?

THE DAUGHTER. All! Why do you not believe your prophets?

THE POET. Prophets have always been disbelieved. Why is that

so? And "if God has spoken, why will men not believe then?" His

convincing power ought to be irresistible.

THE DAUGHTER. Have you always doubted?

THE POET. No. I have had certainty many times. But after a while

it passed away, like a dream when you wake up.

THE DAUGHTER. It is not easy to be human!

THE POET. You see and admit it?

THE DAUGHTER. I do.

THE POET. Listen! Was it not Indra that once sent his son down

here to receive the complaints of mankind?

THE DAUGHTER. Thus it happened--and how was he received?

THE POET. How did he fill his mission?--to answer with another

question.

THE DAUGHTER. And if I may reply with still another--was not

man's position bettered by his visit to the earth? Answer truly!

THE POET. Bettered?--Yes, a little. A very little--But instead

of asking questions--will you not tell the riddle?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes. But to what use? You will not believe me.

THE POET. In you I shall believe, for I know who you are.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I shall tell! In the morning of the ages,

before the sun was shining, Brahma, the divine primal force, let

himself be persuaded by Maya, the world-mother, to propagate

himself. This meeting of the divine primal matter with the

earth-matter was the fall of heaven into sin. Thus the world,

existence, mankind, are nothing but a phantom, an appearance, a

dream-image----

THE POET. My dream!

THE DAUGHTER. A dream of truth! But in order to free themselves

from the earth-matter, the offspring of Brahma seek privation

and suffering. There you have suffering as a liberator. But this

craving for suffering comes into conflict with the craving for

enjoyment, or love--do you now understand what love is, with its

utmost joys merged into its utmost sufferings, with its mixture

of what is most sweet and most bitter? Can you now grasp what

woman is? Woman, through whom sin and death found their way into

life?

THE POET. I understand!--And the end?

THE DAUGHTER. You know it: conflict between the pain of

enjoyment and the pleasure of suffering--between the pangs of

the penitent and the joys of the prodigal----

THE POET. A conflict it is then?

THE DAUGHTER. Conflict between opposites produces energy, as

fire and water give the power of steam----

THE POET. But peace? Rest?

THE DAUGHTER. Hush! You must ask no more, and I can no longer

answer. The altar is already adorned for the sacrifice--the

flowers are standing guard--the candles are lit--there are white

sheets in the windows--spruce boughs have been spread in the

gateway----

THE POET. And you say this as calmly as if for you suffering did

not exist!

THE DAUGHTER. You think so?--I have suffered all your

sufferings, but in a hundredfold degree, for my sensations were

so much more acute----

THE POET. Relate your sorrow!

THE DAUGHTER. Poet, could you tell yours so that not one word

went too far? Could your word at any time approach your thought?

THE POET. No, you are right! To myself I appeared like one

struck dumb, and when the mass listened admiringly to my song,

I found it mere noise--for this reason, you see, I have always

felt ashamed when they praised me.

THE DAUGHTER. And then you ask me--Look me straight in the eye!

THE POET. I cannot bear your glance----

THE DAUGHTER. How could you bear my word then, were I to speak

in your tongue?

THE POET. But tell me at least before you go: from what did you

suffer most of all down here?

THE DAUGHTER. From--_being_: to feel my vision weakened by an

eye, my hearing blunted by an ear, and my thought, my bright and

buoyant thought, bound in labyrinthine coils of fat. You have

seen a brain--what roundabout and sneaking paths----

THE POET. Well, that is because all the right-minded think

crookedly!

THE DAUGHTER. Malicious, always malicious, all of you!

THE POET. How could one possibly be otherwise?

THE DAUGHTER. First of all I now shake the dust from my

feet--the dirt and the clay--

[_Takes off her shoes and puts them into the fire_.

THE PORTRESS. [_Puts her shawl into the fire_] Perhaps I may

burn my shawl at the same time? [_Goes out_.

THE OFFICER. [_Enters_] And I my roses, of which only the thorns

are left. [_Goes out_.

THE BILLPOSTER. [_Enters_] My bills may go, but never the

dipnet! [_Goes out_.

THE GLAZIER. [_Enters_] The diamond that opened the

door--good-bye! [_Goes out_.

THE LAWYER. [_Enters_] The minutes of the great process

concerning the pope's beard or the water loss in the sources of

the Ganges. [_Goes out_.

MASTER OF QUARANTINE. [_Enters_] A small contribution in shape

of the black mask that made me a blackamoor against my will!

[_Goes out_.

VICTORIA. [_Enters_] My beauty, my sorrow! [_Goes out_.

EDITH. [_Enters_] My plainness, my sorrow! [_Goes out_.

THE BLIND MAN. [_Enters; puts his hand into the fire_] I give my

hand for my eye. [_Goes out_.

DON JUAN _in his wheel chair_; SHE _and_ THE FRIEND.

DON JUAN. Hurry up! Hurry up! Life is short!

[_Leaves with the other two_.

THE POET. I have read that when the end of life draws near,

everything and everybody rushes by in continuous review--Is

this the end?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, it is my end. Farewell!

THE POET. Give us a parting word.

THE DAUGHTER. No, I cannot. Do you believe that your words can

express our thoughts?

DEAN OF THEOLOGY. [_Enters in a rage_] I am cast off by God and

persecuted by man; I am deserted by the government and scorned

by my colleagues! How am I to believe when nobody else believes?

How am I to defend a god that does not defend his own? Bosh,

that's what it is!

[_Throws a book on the fire and goes out_.

THE POET. [_Snatches the book out of the fire_] Do you know what

it is? A martyrology, a calendar with a martyr for each day of

the year.

THE DAUGHTER. Martyr?

THE POET. Yes, one that has been tortured and killed on

account of his faith! Tell me why?--Do you think that all who

are tortured suffer, and that all who are killed feel pain?

Suffering is said to be salvation, and death a liberation.

CHRISTINE. [_With slips of paper_] I paste, I paste until there

is nothing more to paste----

THE POET. And if heaven should split in twain, you would try to

paste it together--Away!

CHRISTINE. Are there no double windows in this castle?

THE POET. Not one, I tell you.

CHRISTINE. Well, then I'll go. [_Goes out_.

THE DAUGHTER.

The parting hour has come, the end draws near.

And now farewell, thou dreaming child of man,

Thou singer, who alone knows how to live!

When from thy winged flight above the earth

At times thou sweepest downward to the dust,

It is to touch it only, not to stay!

And as I go--how, in the parting hour,

As one must leave for e'er a friend, a place,

The heart with longing swells for what one loves,

And with regret for all wherein one failed!

O, now the pangs of life in all their force

I feel: I know at last the lot of man

Regretfully one views what once was scorned;

For sins one never sinned remorse is felt;

To stay one craves, but equally to leave:

As if to horses tied that pull apart,

One's heart is split in twain, one's feelings rent,

By indecision, contrast, and discord.

Farewell! To all thy fellow-men make known

That where I go I shall forget them not;

And in thy name their grievance shall be placed

Before the throne. Farewell!

_She goes into the castle. Music is heard. The

background is lit up by the burning castle and

reveals a wall of human faces, questioning, grieving,

despairing. As the castle breaks into flames, the

bud on the roof opens into a gigantic chrysanthemum

flower_.

_Curtain_.

THE LINK

A TRAGEDY IN ONE ACT

1877

CHARACTERS

THE JUDGE, 27 _years_

THE PASTOR, 60 _years_

THE BARON, 42 _years_

THE BARONESS, 40 _years_

ALEXANDER EKLUND }

EMMANUEL WICKBERG }

CARL JOHAN SJÖBERG }

ERIC OTTO BOMAN }

ÄRENFRID SÖDERBERG }

OLOF ANDERSSON OF WIK } _Jurors_

CARL PETER ANDERSSON OF BERGA }

ALEX WALLIN }

ANDERS ERIC RUTH }

SWEN OSCAR ERLIN }

AUGUST ALEXANDER VASS }

LUDWIG ÖSTMAN }

THE CLERK OF THE COURT

THE SHERIFF

THE CONSTABLE

THE LAWYER

ALEXANDERSSON, _a farmer_

ALMA JONSSON, _a servant girl_

THE MILKMAID

THE FARM HAND

SPECTATORS

THE LINK

_A court-room. Door and windows in the background. Through the

windows are seen the churchyard and the bell-tower. Door on the

right. On the left, the desk of the judge on a platform. The

front side of the desk is decorated in gold, with the judicial

emblems of the sword and the scales. On both sides of the desk

are placed chairs and small tables for the twelve jurors. In the

centre of the room, benches for the spectators. Along the sides

of the room are cupboards built into the walls. On the doors of

these are posted court notices and schedules of market tolls_.

SCENE I

THE SHERIFF _and_ THE CONSTABLE

THE SHERIFF. Did you ever see such a lot of people at the summer

sessions before?

THE CONSTABLE. Not in fifteen years, or since we had the big

murder at Alder Lake.

SHERIFF. Well, this story here is almost as good as a double

parricide. That the Baron and the Baroness are going to separate

is scandal enough, but when on top of it the families take to

wrangling about properties and estates, then it's easy to see

that there's going to be a hot time. The only thing wanting now

is that they get to fighting over the child, too, and then King

Solomon himself can't tell what's right.

CONSTABLE. What is there behind this case anyhow? Some say this

and some say that, but the blame ought to rest on somebody?

SHERIFF. I don't know about that. Sometimes it is nobody's

fault when two quarrel, and then again one alone is to blame

for the quarrel of two. Now take my old shrew, for instance,

she's running around at home scolding for dear life all by

herself when I am away, they tell me. Besides, this is not just

a quarrel, but a full-fledged criminal case, and in most such

one party is complainant, or the one that has been wronged, and

the other is defendant, or the one that has committed the crime.

But in this case it is not easy to tell who is guilty, for both

parties are at once complainants and defendants.

CONSTABLE. Well, well, queer things do happen these days. It's

as if the women had gone crazy. My old one has spells when she

says that I should bear children also, if there was any justice

in things--just as if the Lord didn't know how he made his own

creatures. And then I get long rigmaroles about her being human

also, just as if I didn't know that before, or had said anything

to the contrary; and of her being tired of acting as my servant

girl, when, for a fact, I am not much better than her hired man.

SHERIFF. So-o. So you have got that kind of plague in your house

too. Mine reads a paper she gets at the manor, and then she

tells me as something wonderful, one day, that some farmer's

lass has turned mason, and the next that an old woman has set

upon and beaten her sick husband. I cannot quite get at what's

the meaning of it all, but it looks most as if she was mad at me

for being a man.

CONSTABLE. Mighty queer, that's what it is. [_Offers snuff_]

Fine weather we're having. The rye is standing as thick as the

hairs in a fox fell, and we got over the black frosts without a

hitch.

SHERIFF. There is nothing of mine growing, and good years are

bad for me: no executions and no auctions. Do you know anything

about the new judge who is going to hold court to-day?

CONSTABLE. Not much, but I understand he's a youngster who has

just got his appointment and is going to sit for the first time

now----

SHERIFF. And they say he is religious. Hm!

CONSTABLE. Hm-hm!--They're taking an awful time over the church

services this year.

SHERIFF. [_Puts a big Bible on the judge's desk and a smaller

one on each one of the jurors' tables_] It cannot be long till

they're done now, for they have been at it most of an hour.

CONSTABLE. He's a wonder at preaching, is the Pastor, once he

gets going. [_Pause_] Are the parties to put in a personal

appearance?

SHERIFF. Both of them, so I guess we'll have some scrapping--

[_The bell in the tower begins to ring_] There, now they're

done--Just give the tables a wiping, and I think we are ready to

start.

CONSTABLE. And there's ink in all the wells?