August Strindberg

“ 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. You don't need to be without a woman—you?
MAURICE. Well, that's the question.
HENRIETTE. Don't you know that a man is irresistible in his hour of success and fame?
MAURICE. No, I don't know, for I have had no experience of it.
HENRIETTE. You are a queer sort! At this moment, when you are the most envied man in Paris, you sit here and brood. Perhaps your conscience is troubling you because you have neglected that invitation to drink chicory coffee with the old lady over at the milk shop? ”

“ 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. 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? ”

“ HENRIETTE. [Holding out her hand to him] Here you can feel that you are not dreaming.
MAURICE. It is not a dream, but it has been one. As a poor young man, you know, when I was walking in the woods down there, and looked up to this Pavilion, it looked to me like a fairy castle, and always my thoughts carried me up to this room, with the balcony outside and the heavy curtains, as to a place of supreme bliss. To be sitting here in company with a beloved woman and see the sun rise while the candles were still burning in the candelabra: that was the most audacious dream of my youth. ”

“ MAURICE. It is the child.
HENRIETTE. The child! Another woman's child! And for the sake of it I am to suffer. Why must that child block the way where I want to pass, and must pass?
MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed.
HENRIETTE. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed! But now it does exist. Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground, immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.
MAURICE. The triumphal chariot!—The ass is driven to death, but the rock remains. Curse it! [Pause.]
HENRIETTE. There is nothing to do. ”

“ HENRIETTE. [After a pause] Is conscience fear of punishment?
ADOLPHE. No, it is the horror inspired in our better selves by the misdeeds of our lower selves.
HENRIETTE. Then I must have a conscience also?
ADOLPHE. Of course you have, but—
HENRIETTE, Tell me, Adolphe, are you what they call religious?
ADOLPHE. Not the least bit.
HENRIETTE. It's all so queer—What is religion?
ADOLPHE. Frankly speaking, I don't know! And I don't think anybody else can tell you. Sometimes it appears to me like a punishment, for nobody becomes religious without having a bad conscience. ”

“ Your friends understood, and they regarded your failure to come with sympathetic forbearance. Madame Catherine herself defended you and proposed your health. We all rejoiced in your success as if it had been our own.
HENRIETTE. Well, those are nice people! What good friends you have, Maurice.
MAURICE. Yes, better than I deserve.
ADOLPHE. Nobody has better friends than he deserves, and you are a man greatly blessed in his friends—Can't you feel how the air is softened to-day by all the kind thoughts and wishes that stream toward you from a thousand breasts? ”

“ 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. ”

“ ADOLPHE. Try to turn your hatred against yourself. Put the knife to the evil spot in yourself, for it is there that YOUR trouble roots.
HENRIETTE. Explain yourself.
ADOLPHE. Part from Maurice first of all, so that you cannot nurse your qualms of conscience together. Break off your career as an artist, for the only thing that led you into it was a craving for freedom and fun—as they call it. And you have seen now how much fun there is in it. Then go home to your mother. ”

“ MAURICE. Well, how did you find it?
HENRIETTE. It was greater than to perform a good deed, for by that we are placed on equality with others; it was greater than to perform some act of heroism, for by that we are raised above others and rewarded. That crime placed me outside and beyond life, society, and my fellow-beings. Since then I am living only a partial life, a sort of dream life, and that's why reality never gets a hold on me. ”

“ HENRIETTE. [Controlling herself and changing her tone] Listen. There is one person on whom you have cast no suspicion whatever—for what reason, I don't know. Have you thought of Madame Catherine's wavering attitude in this matter? Didn't she say finally that she believed you capable of anything?
MAURICE. Yes, she did, and that shows what kind of person she is. To think evil of other people without reason, you must be a villain yourself.
(HENRIETTE looks hard at him. Pause.)
HENRIETTE. To think evil of others, you must be a villain yourself. ”

“ ADOLPHE. Well, then—Marion is dead.
MAURICE. Marion—dead?
ADOLPHE. Yes, she died this morning.
MAURICE. [To JEANNE] So that's why you are in mourning. Jeanne, Jeanne, who has done this to us?
JEANNE. He who holds life and death in his hand.
MAURICE. But I saw her looking well and happy this morning. How did it happen? Who did it? Somebody must have done it? [His eyes seek HENRIETTE.]
ADOLPHE. Don't look for the guilty one here, for there is none to he found. Unfortunately the police have turned their suspicion in a direction where none ought to exist. ”

“ ADOLPHE. You are always so severe, Madame Catherine. Tell me: have you never done anything wrong?
MME. CATHERINE. [Startled] Of course, as I am a sinful human creature. But if you have been on thin ice and fallen in, you have a right to tell others to keep away. And you may do so without being held severe or uncharitable. Didn't I say to Monsieur Maurice the moment that lady entered here: Look out! Keep away! And he didn't, and so he fell in. Just like a naughty, self-willed child. And when a man acts like that he has to have a spanking, like any disobedient youngster. ”

“ MAURICE. It's like passing on a disease to save one's self-respect.
HENRIETTE. And how vulgar you have become, too!
MAURICE. Yes, I notice it myself, and I hardly recognise myself since that night in the cell. They put in one person and let out another through that gate which separates us from the rest of society. And now I feel myself the enemy of all mankind: I should like to set fire to the earth and dry up the oceans, for nothing less than a universal conflagration can wipe out my dishonour. ”

“ 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? ”

“ MAURICE. And can you see that I actually look like a murderer? And then it is suggested that my play was stolen. So there isn't a vestige left of the victorious hero from yesterday. In place of my own, the name of Octave, my enemy, appears on the bill-boards, and he is going to collect my one hundred thousand francs. O Solon, Solon! Such is fortune, and such is fame! You are fortunate, Adolphe, because you have not yet succeeded.
HENRIETTE. So you don't know that Adolphe has made a great success in London and carried off the first prize? ”

“ In fact, I ask, I beg you to do so—And if you don't want to wait outside the theatre, you can meet us at the Auberge des Adrets—That's settled then, isn't it?
ADOLPHE. Wait a little. You have a way of settling things to suit yourself, before other people have a chance to consider them.
MAURICE. What is there to consider—whether you are to see your lady home or not?
ADOLPHE. You never know what may be involved in a simple act like that, but I have a sort of premonition.
HENRIETTE. Hush, hush, hush! Don't talk of spooks while the sun is shining. Let him come or not, as it pleases him. ”

“ HENRIETTE. Give them to me.
MAURICE. No, she's better than we, better than everybody else.
HENRIETTE. I don't believe it. She is simply stupider and stingier. One who weeps because you order champagne—
MAURICE. When the child was without stockings. Yes, she is a good woman.
HENRIETTE. Philistine! You'll never be an artist. But I am an artist, and I'll make a bust of you with a shopkeeper's cap instead of the laurel wreath—Her name is Jeanne? ”

“ To-day you are ugly, clumsy, insipid, repulsive.
(Two men in civilian clothes have quietly seated themselves at a table in the background.)
ADOLPHE. Wait a little and get your thoughts together. That you have been discharged and cleared of all suspicion must appear in some of the evening papers. And that puts an end to the whole matter. Your play will be put on again, and if it comes to the worst, you can write a new one. Leave Paris for a year and let everything become forgotten. You who have exonerated mankind will be exonerated yourself.
MAURICE. Ha-ha! Mankind! ”

“ EMILE. [Smiling] You don't tell me! But listen: are you hard up for money?
JEANNE. No, nothing of that kind.
EMILE. Well, then the worst hasn't come yet—Look! Over there! There he comes. And I'll leave you. Good-bye, little girl.
JEANNE. Is he coming? Yes, that's him.
EMILE. Don't make him mad now—with your jealousy, Jeanne! [Goes out.]
JEANNE. No, I won't.
(MAURICE enters.)
MARION. [Runs up to him and is lifted up into his arms] Papa, papa!
MAURICE. My little girl! [Greets JEANNE] Can you forgive me, Jeanne, that I have kept you waiting so long?
JEANNE. Of course I can. ”

“ JEANNE. I don't know, but I am afraid of something, afraid of something terrible—
MAURICE. You are tired out and depressed by your long wait, which once more I ask you to forgive. What have you to be afraid of?
JEANNE. The unexpected: that which you may foresee without having any particular reason to do so.
MAURICE. But I foresee only success, and I have particular reasons for doing so: the keen instincts of the management and their knowledge of the public, not to speak of their personal acquaintance with the critics. ”

“ I saw Maurice's girl friend, Jeanne, and her child. Struck down, crushed by his triumphal chariot, they seemed aware of the full extent of their misfortune.
MME. CATHERINE. Well, children, I don't know in what kind of shape you keep your consciences. But how a decent fellow, a careful and considerate man like Monsieur Maurice, can all of a sudden desert a woman and her child, that is something I cannot explain.
ADOLPHE. Nor can I explain it, and he doesn't seem to understand it himself. ”

“ 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. ”