August Strindberg

“ JULIA. Splendid, splendid!
JEAN. Yes, in Roumania the title of count can be had for cash, and so you'll be a countess after all. My countess!
JULIA. What do I care about all I now cast behind me! Tell me that you love me: otherwise—yes, what am I otherwise?
JEAN. I will tell you so a thousand times—later. But not here. And above all, no sentimentality, or everything will be lost. We must look at the matter in cold blood, like sensible people. [Takes out a cigar, cuts of the point, and lights it] Sit down there now, and I'll sit here, and then we'll talk as if nothing had happened. ”

“ JEAN. But no baggage! That would only give us away.
JULIA. No, nothing at all! Only what we can take with us in the car.
JEAN. [Has taken down his hat] What have you got there? What is it?
JULIA. It's only my finch. I can't leave it behind.
JEAN. Did you ever! Dragging a bird-cage along with us! You must be raving mad! Drop the cage!
JULIA. The only thing I take with me from my home! The only living creature that loves me since Diana deserted me! Don't be cruel! Let me take it along!
JEAN. Drop the cage, I tell you! And don't talk so loud—Christine can hear us. ”

“ HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] Well, are you not going to congratulate
Maurice on his great success?
ADOLPHE. Oh, yes! Your success is the real thing, and envy itself cannot deny it. Everything is giving way before you, and even I have a sense of my own smallness in your presence.
MAURICE. Nonsense!—Henriette, are you not going to offer Adolphe a glass of wine?
ADOLPHE. Thank you, not for me—nothing at all!
HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] What's the matter with you? Are you ill?
ADOLPHE. Not yet, but—
HENRIETTE. Your eyes—
ADOLPHE. What of them?
MAURICE. What happened at the Crêmerie last night? ”

“ Oh, my little birdie, must it die and go away from its mistress!
JEAN. Don't make a scene, please. Don't you know it's a question of your life, of your future? Come, quick! [Snatches the bird away from her, carries it to the chopping block and picks up an axe. MISS JULIA turns away.]
JEAN. You should have learned how to kill chickens instead of shooting with a revolver— [brings down the axe] —then you wouldn't have fainted for a drop of blood.
JULIA. [Screaming] Kill me too! Kill me! You who can take the life of an innocent creature without turning a hair! Oh, I hate and despise you! ”

“ MAURICE. Tell me about your crime. Now is the time for it.
HENRIETTE. No, I should regret it afterward, and you would despise me—no, no, no!—Have you ever heard that a person could be hated to death? Well, my father incurred the hatred of my mother and my sisters, and he melted away like wax before a fire. Ugh! Let us talk of something else. And, above all, let us get away. The air is poisoned here. To-morrow your laurels will be withered, the triumph will be forgotten, and in a week another triumphant hero will hold the public attention. Away from here, to work for new victories! ”

“ Do you know that Adolphe is just that kind of a third person who cannot enjoy his mistress without having his friend along?
MAURICE. That's why I had to be called in to entertain you—Hush!
There is somebody outside—It must be he.
HENRIETTE. No, don't you know these are the hours when ghosts walk, and then you can see so many things, and hear them also. To keep awake at night, when you ought to be sleeping, has for me the same charm as a crime: it is to place oneself above and beyond the laws of nature.
MAURICE. But the punishment is fearful—I am shivering or quivering, with cold or with fear. ”

“ MAURICE. What did I say?
ADOLPHE. You said that you had killed Marion.
MAURICE. Is there a human being here who could believe me a murderer, and who could hold me capable of taking my own child's life? You who know me, Madame Catherine, tell me: do you believe, can you believe—
MME. CATHERINE. I don't know any longer what to believe. What the heart thinketh the tongue speaketh. And your tongue has spoken evil words.
MAURICE. She doesn't believe me!
ADOLPHE. But explain your words, man! Explain what you meant by saying that "your love would kill everything that stood in its way." ”

“ JEAN. Why should you have any respect for them?
CHRISTINE. And you who are such a smarty can't tell that! You wouldn't serve people who don't act decently, would you? It's to lower oneself, I think.
JEAN. Yes, but it ought to be a consolation to us that they are not a bit better than we.
CHRISTINE. No, I don't think so. For if they're no better, then it's no use trying to get up to them. And just think of the count! Think of him who has had so much sorrow in his day! No, I don't want to stay any longer in this house—And with a fellow like you, too. ”

“ JEAN. Yes!
CHRISTINE. Well, well! Listen to him!
JEAN. Yes, it would be better for you to listen a little more and talk a little less. Miss Julia is your mistress, and what makes you disrespectful to her now should snake you feel the same way about yourself.
CHRISTINE. Oh, I have always had enough respect for myself—
JEAN. To have none for others!
CHRISTINE. —not to go below my own station. You can't say that the count's cook has had anything to do with the groom or the swineherd. You can't say anything of the kind!
JEAN. Yes, it's your luck that you have had to do with a gentleman. ”

“ HENRIETTE. Is it true?
ADOLPHE. The official report is printed in today's paper.
HENRIETTE. I don't take any stock in it. They can make up that kind of thing.
ADOLPHE. Beware, Henriette—or you may, without knowing it, pass across that border line. Beware especially of throwing out accusations that may put you into prison. Beware! [He places his hand on her head] You hate Maurice?
HENRIETTE. Beyond all bounds!
ADOLPHE. When love turns into hatred, it means that it was tainted from the start.
HENRIETTE. [In a quieter mood] What am I to do? Tell me, you who are the only one that understands me. ”

“ JEAN. No, Miss Julia, they don't love you. They take your food and spit at your back. Believe me. Listen to me—can't you hear what they are singing?—No, don't pay any attention to it!
JULIA. [Listening] What is it they are singing?
JEAN. Oh, something scurrilous. About you and me.
JULIA. How infamous! They ought to be ashamed! And the treachery of it!
JEAN. The mob is always cowardly. And in such a fight as this there is nothing to do but to run away.
JULIA. Run away? Where to? We cannot get out. And we cannot go into
Christine's room.
JEAN. Oh, we cannot? ”

“ ADOLPHE. How strange it is that you can admit your faults and yet not repent of them.
HENRIETTE. It must be because I don't feel quite responsible for them. They are like the dirt left behind by things handled during the day and washed off at night. But tell me one thing: do you really think so highly of humanity as you profess to do?
ADOLPHE. Yes, we are a little better than our reputation—and a little worse.
HENRIETTE. That is not a straightforward answer.
ADOLPHE. No, it isn't. But are you willing to answer me frankly when I ask you: do you still love Maurice? ”

“ JULIA. I can't understand what you are thinking of. You couldn't possibly imagine—
JEAN. No, not I, but the people.
JULIA. What? That I am fond of the valet?
JEAN. I am not at all conceited, but such things have happened—and to the people nothing is sacred.
JULIA. You are an aristocrat, I think.
JEAN. Yes, I am.
JULIA. And I am stepping down—
JEAN. Take my advice, Miss Julia, don't step down. Nobody will believe you did it on purpose. The people will always say that you fell down.
JULIA. I think better of the people than you do. Come and see if I am not right. Come along! [She ogles him.] ”

“ JULIA. Christine!—Did you ever see such a sleeper.
CHRISTINE. [In her sleep] The count's boots are polished—put on the coffee—yes, yes, yes—my-my—pooh!
JULIA. [Pinches her nose] Can't you wake up?
JEAN. [Sternly] You shouldn't bother those that sleep.
JULIA. [Sharply] What's that?
JEAN. One who has stood by the stove all day has a right to be tired at night. And sleep should be respected.
JULIA. [Changing tone] It is fine to think like that, and it does you honour—I thank you for it. [Gives JEAN her hand] Come now and pick some lilacs for me. ”

“ JEAN. You're mighty queer, do you know!
JULIA. Perhaps. But so are you. And for that matter, everything is queer. Life, men, everything—just a mush that floats on top of the water until it sinks, sinks down! I have a dream that comes back to me ever so often. And just now I am reminded of it. I have climbed to the top of a column and sit there without being able to tell how to get down again. I get dizzy when I look down, and I must get down, but I haven't the courage to jump off. I cannot hold on, and I am longing to fall, and yet I don't fall. ”

“ Madame Catherine?
MME. CATHERINE. No, I believe in a good God, who protects us against evil powers if we ask Him in the right way.
MAURICE. So there are evil powers after all! I think I can hear them in the hallway now.
MME. CATHERINE. Yes, her clothes rustle as when the clerk tears off a piece of linen for you. Get away now—through the kitchen.
(MAURICE rushes toward the kitchen door, where he bumps into
EMILE.)
EMILE. I beg your pardon. [He retires the way he came.]
ADOLPHE. [Comes in first; after him HENRIETTE] Why, there's Maurice. How are you? ”

“ MAURICE. Your wisdom is as great as the goodness of your heart. Yes, I am sure no other woman would have sacrificed a pleasure to serve her husband—I must have my hands free tonight, and there is no place for women and children on the battle-field—and this you understood!
JEANNE. Don't think too highly of a poor woman like myself, and then you'll have no illusions to lose. And now you'll see that I can be as forgetful as you—I have bought you a tie and a pair of gloves which I thought you might wear for my sake on your day of honour. ”

“ JEAN. For the last time: what do you mean? Am I to weep? Am I to jump over your whip? Am I to kiss you, and lure you down to Lake Como for three weeks, and so on? What am I to do? What do you expect? This is getting to be rather painful! But that's what comes from getting mixed up with women. Miss Julia! I see that you are unhappy; I know that you are suffering; but I cannot understand you. We never carry on like that. There is never any hatred between us. Love is to us a play, and we play at it when our work leaves us time to do so. ”

“ It is the finger-point of Providence, the signal to man that he must beware. Mystery is the gospel: the secret knitting of man to man, of fact to fact, deep beneath the surface of visible and audible existence. Few writers could take us into such a realm of probable impossibilities and possible improbabilities without losing all claim to serious consideration. If Strindberg has thus ventured to our gain and no loss of his own, his success can be explained only by the presence in the play of that second, parallel current of thought and feeling. ”

“ MAURICE. The dark angels that want to drive us out of the garden.
HENRIETTE. And force us back upon each other as if we were chained together.
MAURICE. Or as if we were condemned to lifelong marriage. Are we really to marry? To settle down in the same place? To be able to close the door behind us and perhaps get peace at last?
HENRIETTE. And shut ourselves up in order to torture each other to death; get behind locks and bolts, with a ghost for marriage portion; you torturing me with the memory of Adolphe, and I getting back at you with Jeanne—and Marion. ”

“ HENRIETTE. [Changing tone] Your child will kill our love.
MAURICE. No, girl, our love will kill whatever stands in its way, but it will not be killed.
HENRIETTE. [Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece] Look at it! Five-spot of diamonds—the scaffold! Can it be possible that our fates are determined in advance? That our thoughts are guided as if through pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to stop them? But I don't want it, I don't want it!—Do you realise that I must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered? ”

“ MAURICE. I miss the only thing that gives value to life.
HENRIETTE. So you love her no longer then?
MAURICE. Not in the way I understand love. Do you think she has read my play, or that she wants to see it? Oh, she is so good, so self-sacrificing and considerate, but to go out with me for a night's fun she would regard as sinful. Once I treated her to champagne, you know, and instead of feeling happy over it, she picked up the wine list to see what it cost. And when she read the price, she wept—wept because Marion was in need of new stockings. ”

“ MAURICE. Probably both.
HENRIETTE. Do they take me for a locomotive that has to have flagmen ahead of it?
MAURICE. And switchmen! The danger is always greatest at the switches.
HENRIETTE. How nasty you can be!
MME. CATHERINE. Monsieur Maurice isn't nasty at all. So far nobody has been kinder than he to those that love him and trust in him.
MAURICE. Sh, sh, sh!
HENRIETTE. [To MAURICE] The old lady is rather impertinent.
MAURICE. We can walk over to the boulevard, if you care to do so.
HENRIETTE. With pleasure. This is not the place for me. I can just feel their hatred clawing at me. [Goes out.] ”

“ MAURICE. [Rising] And what a morning after such a night! I feel as if it were the world's first day that is now being illumined by the rising sun. Only this minute was the earth created and stripped of those white films that are now floating off into space. There lies the Garden of Eden in the rosy light of dawn, and here is the first human couple—Do you know, I am so happy I could cry at the thought that all mankind is not equally happy—Do you hear that distant murmur as of ocean waves beating against a rocky shore, as of winds sweeping through a forest? ”

“ JULIA. Alone? Where?—I can't do it.
JEAN. You must! And before the count gets back. If you stay, then you know what will happen. Once on the wrong path, one wants to keep on, as the harm is done anyhow. Then one grows more and more reckless—and at last it all comes out. So you must get away! Then you can write to the count and tell him everything, except that it was me. And he would never guess it. Nor do I think he would be very anxious to find out.
JULIA. I'll go if you come with me.
JEAN. Are you stark mad, woman? Miss Julia to run away with her valet! ”

“ HENRIETTE. Well, there you can see that we are no worse than others. And yet we are being hounded day and night as if devils were after us.
MAURICE. He, also! Then mankind has not been slandered—But if he has been capable of one crime, then you may expect anything of him. Perhaps it was he who sent the police after you yesterday. Coming to think of it now, it was he who sneaked away from us when he saw that we were in the papers, and he lied when he insisted that those fellows were not detectives. But, of course, you may expect anything from a deceived lover. ”