Miss Julie and Other Plays

by August Strindberg

  Adolf. Yes.

  Gustav. [Gets up and fetches a glass of water front the table on the right near the center door.] Here, drink this, and let’s change the subject.

  Adolf. [Drinks, limp.] Thanks, go on.

  Gustav. Good! When he woke up he had no idea what had taken place. [He takes the glass back to the table.] He had simply lost consciousness. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?

  Adolf. Now and again I have attacks of dizziness. The doctor puts it down to anaemia.

  Gustav. [On the right of ADOLF.] That’s just how the thing starts, mark you. Take it from me, you’re in danger of contracting epilepsy; if you aren’t on your guard, if you don’t live a careful and abstemious life, all round.

  Adolf. What can I do to effect that?

  Gustav. Above all, you must exercise the most complete continence.

  Adolf. For how long?

  Gustav. Six months at least.

  Adolf. I can’t do it. It would upset all our life together.

  Gustav. Then it’s all up with you.

  Adolf. I can’t do it.

  Gustav. You can’t save your own life? But tell me, as you’ve taken me into your confidence so far, haven’t you any other wound that hurts you?—some other secret trouble in this multifarious life of ours, with all its numerous opportunities for jars and complications? There is usually more than one motif which is responsible for a discord. Haven’t you got a skeleton in the cupboard, old chap, which you hide even from yourself? You told me a minute ago you’d given your child to people to look after. Why didn’t you keep it with you? [He goes behind the square table on the left and then behind the sofa.]

  Adolf. [Covers the figure on the small table with a cloth.] It was my wife’s wish to have it nursed outside the house.

  Gustav. The motive? Don’t be afraid.

  Adolf. Because when the kid was three years old she thought it began to look like her first husband.

  Gustav. Re-a-lly? Ever seen the first husband?

  Adolf. No, never. I just once cast a cursory glance over a bad photograph, but I couldn’t discover any likeness.

  Gustav. Oh, well, photographs are never like, and besides, his type of face may have changed with time. By the by, didn’t that make you at all jealous?

  Adolf. Not a bit. The child was born a year after our marriage, and the husband was traveling when I met Thekla, here—in this watering place—in this very house. That’s why we come here every summer.

  Gustav. Then all suspicion on your part was out of the question? But so far as the intrinsic facts of the matter are concerned you needn’t be jealous at all, because it not infrequently happens that the children of a widow who marries again are like the deceased husband. Very awkward business, no question about it; and that’s why, don’t you. know, the widows are burned alive in India. Tell me, now, didn’t you ever feel jealous of him, of the survival of his memory in your own self? Wouldn’t it have rather gone against the grain if he had just met you when you were out for a walk, and, looking straight at Thekla, said “We,” instead of “I”? “We.”

  Adolf. I can’t deny that the thought has haunted me.

  Gustav. [Sits down opposite ADOLF on the sofa on the left.] I thought as much, and you’ll never get away from it. There are discords in life, you know, which never get resolved, so you must stuff your ears with wax, and work. Work, get older, and heap up over the coffin a mass of new impressions, and then the corpse will rest in peace.

  Adolf. Excuse my interrupting you—but it is extraordinary at times how your way of speaking reminds me of Thekla. You’ve got a trick, old man, of winking with your right eye as though you were counting, and your gaze has the same power over me as hers has.

  Gustav. No, really?

  Adolf. And now you pronounce your “No, really?” in the same indifferent tone that she does. “No, really?” is one of her favorite expressions, too, you know.

  Gustav. Perhaps there is a distant relationship between us : all men and women are related of course. Anyway, there’s no getting away from the strangeness of it, and it will be interesting for me to make the acquaintance of your wife, so as to observe this remarkable characteristic.

  Adolf. But just think of this, she doesn’t take a single expression from me; why, she seems rather to make a point of avoiding all my special tricks of speech; all the same, I have seen her make use of one of my gestures; but it is quite the usual thing in married life for a husband and a wife to develop the so-called marriage likeness.

  Gustav. Quite. But look here now. [He stands up.] That woman has never loved you.

  Adolf. Nonsense.

  Gustav. Pray excuse me, woman’s love consists simply in this—in taking in, in receiving. She does not love the man from whom she takes nothing: she has never loved you. [He turns round behind the square table and walks fa ADOLF’S right.]

  Adolf. I suppose you don’t think that she’d be able to love more than once?

  Gustav. No. Once bit, twice shy. After the first time, one keeps one’s eyes open, but you have never been really bitten yet. You be careful of those who have, they’re dangerous customers. [He goes round the circular table on the right.]

  Adolf. What you say jabs a knife into my flesh. I’ve got a feeling as though something in me were cut through, but I can do nothing to stop it all by myself, and it’s as well it should be so, for abscesses will be opened in that way which would otherwise never be able to come to a head. She never loved me? Why did she marry me, then?

  Gustav. Tell me first how it came about that she did marry you, and whether she married you or you her?

  Adolf. God knows! That’s much too hard a question to be answered offhand, and how did it take place? —it took more than a day.

  Gustav. Shall I guess? [He goes behind the round table, toward the left, then sits on the sofa.]

  Adolf. You’ll get nothing for your pains.

  Gustav. Not so fast! From the insight which you’ve given me into your own character, and that of your wife, I find it pretty easy to work out the sequence of the whole thing. Listen to me and you’ll be quite convinced. [Dispassionately and in an almost jocular tone.] The husband happened to be traveling on study and she was alone. At first she found a pleasure in being free. Then she imagined that she felt the void, for I presume that she found it pretty boring after being alone for a fortnight. Then he turned up, and the void begins gradually to be filled—the picture of the absent man begins gradually to fade in comparison, for the simple reason that he is a long way off—you know of course the psychological algebra of distance?And when both of them, alone as they were, felt the awakening of passion, they were frightened of themselves, of him, of their own conscience. They sought for protection, skulked behind the fig-leaf, played at brother and sister, and the more sensual grew their feelings the more spiritual did they pretend their relationship really was.

  Adolf. Brother and sister! How did you know that?

  Gustav. I just thought that was how it was. Children play at mother and father, but of course when they grow older they play at brother and sister—so as to conceal what requires concealment; they then discard their chaste desires; they play blind man’s- buff till they’ve caught each other in some dark corner, where they’re pretty sure not to be seen by anybody. [With increased severity.] But they are warned by their inner consciences that an eye sees them through the darkness. They are afraid— and in their panic the absent man begins to haunt their imagination—to assume monstrous proportions—to become metamorphosed—he becomes a nightmare who opposes them in that love’s young dream of theirs. He becomes the creditor [he raffs slowly on the table three times with his finger, as though knocking at the door] who knocks at the door. They see his black hand thrust itself between them when their own are reaching after the dish of pottage. They hear his unwelcome voice in the stillness of the night, which is only broken by the beating of their own pulses. He doesn’t prevent their belonging to each other, but he is enough to mar their happi
ness, and when they have felt this invisible power of his, and when at last they want to run away, and make their futile efforts to escape the memory which haunts them, the guilt which they have left behind, the public opinion which they are afraid of, and they lack the strength to bear their own guilt, then a scapegoat has to be exterminated and slaughtered. They posed as believers in Free Love, but they didn’t have the pluck to go straight to him, to speak straight out to him and say, “We love each other.” They were cowardly, and that’s why the tyrant had to be assassinated. Am I not right?

  Adolf. Yes; but you’re forgetting that she trained me, gave me new thoughts.

  Gustav. I haven’t forgotten it. But tell me, how was it that she wasn’t able to succeed in educating the other man—in educating him into being really modern?

  Adolf. He was an utter ass.

  Gustav. Right you are—he was an ass, but that’s 3 fairly elastic word, and according to her description of him, in her novel, his asinine nature seemed to have consisted principally in the fact that he didn’t understand her. Excuse the question, but is your wife really as deep as all that? I haven’t found anything particularly profound in her writings.

  Adolf. Nor have I. I must really own that I too find it takes me all my time to understand her. It’s as though the machinery of our brains couldn’t catch on to each other properly—as though something in my head got broken when. I try to understand her.

  Gustav. Perhaps you’re an ass as well.

  Adolf. No, I flatter myself I’m not that, and I nearly always think that she’s in the wrong—and, for the sake of argument, would you care to read this letter which I got from her to-day? [He takes a letter out of his pocketbook.]

  Gustav. [Reads it cursorily.] Hum, I seem to - know the style so well.

  Adolf. Like a man’s, almost.

  Gustav. Well, at any rate, I knew a man who had a style like that. [Standing up.] I see she goes on calling you brother all the time—do you always keep up the comedy for the benefit of your two selves? Do you still keep on using the fig leaves, even though they’re a trifle withered—you don’t use any term of endearment?

  Adolf. No. In my view, I couldn’t respect her quite so much if I did.

  Gustav. [Hands back the letter.] I see, and she calls herself “sister” so as to inspire respect. [He turns round and passes the square table on ADOLF’S right.]

  Adolf. I want to esteem her more than I do myself. I want her to be my better self.

  Gustav. Oh, you be your better self; though I quite admit it’s less convenient than having somebody else to do it for you. Do you want, then, to be your wife’s inferior?

  Adolf. Yes, I do. I find pleasure in always allowing myself to be beaten by her a little. For instance, I taught her swimming, and it amuses me when she boasts about being better and pluckier than I am. At the beginning I simply pretended to be less skillful and courageous than she was, in order to give her pluck, but one day, God knows how it came about, I was actually the worse swimmer and the one with less pluck. It seemed as though she’d taken all my grit away in real earnest.

  Gustav. And haven’t you taught her anything else?

  Adolf. Yes—but this is in confidence —I taught her spelling, because she didn’t know it. Just listen. When she took over the correspondence of the household I gave up writing letters, and —will you believe it?— simply from lack of practice I’ve lost one bit of grammar after another in the course of the year. But do you think she ever remembers that she has to thank me really for her proficiency? Not for a minute. Of course, I’m the ass now.

  Gustav. Ah! really? You’re the ass now, are you?

  Adolf. I’m only joking, of course.

  Gustav. Obviously. But this is pure cannibalism, isn’t it? Do you know what I mean? Well, the savages devour their enemies so as to acquire their best qualities. Well, this woman has devoured your soul, your pluck, your knowledge.

  Adolf. And my faith. It was I who kept her up to the mark and made her write her first book.

  Gustav. [With facial expression.] Re-a-lly?

  Adolf. It was I who fed her up with praise, even when I thought her work was no good. It was I who introduced her into literary sets, and tried to make her feel herself in clover; defended her against criticism by my personal intervention. I blew courage into her, kept on blowing it for so long that I got out of breath myself. I gave and gave and gave—until nothing was left for me myself. Do you know—I’m going to tell you the whole story—do you know how the thing seems to me now? One’s temperament is such an extraordinary thing, and when my artistic successes looked as though they would eclipse her—her prestige—I tried to buck her up by belittling myself and by representing that my art was one that was inferior to hers. I talked so much of the general insignificant role of my particular art, and harped on it so much, thought of so many good reasons for my contention, that one fine day I myself was soaked through and through with the worthlessness of the painter’s art; so all that was left was a house of cards for you to blow down.

  Gustav. Excuse my reminding you of what you said, but at the beginning of our conversation you were asserting that she took nothing from you.

  Adolf. She doesn’t—now, at any rate; now there is nothing left to take.

  Gustav. So the snake has gorged herself, and now she vomits.

  Adolf. Perhaps she took more from me than I knew of.

  Gustav. Oh, you can reckon on that right enough—she took without your noticing it. [He goes behind the square table and comes in front of the sofa.] That’s what people call stealing.

  Adolf. Then what it conies to is that she hasn’t educated me at all?

  Gustav. Rather you her. Of course she knew the trick well enough of making you believe the contrary. Might I ask how she pretended to educate you?

  Adolf. Oh—at first— hum!

  Gustav. Well? [He leans his arms on the table.]

  Adolf. Well, I

  Gustav. No, it was sh—she.

  Adolf. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t say which it was.

  Gustav. You see.

  Adolf. Besides, she destroyed my faith as well, and so I went backward until you came, old chap, and gave me a new faith.

  Gustav. [He laughs.] In sculpture? [He turns around by the square table and comes to ADOLF’S right.]

  Adolf. [Hesitating.] Yes.

  Gustav. And you believed in it?—in that abstract, obsolete art from the childhood of the world. Do you believe that by means of pure form and three dimensions —no, you don’t really—that you can produce an effect on the real spirit of this age of ours, that you can create illusions without color? Without color, I say. Do you believe that?

  Adolf. [Tonelessly.] No.

  Gustav. Nor do I.

  Adolf. But why did you say you did?

  Gustav. You make me pity you.

  Adolf. Yes, I am indeed to be pitied. And now I’m bankrupt, absolutely—and the worst of it is I haven’t got her any more.

  Gustav. [With a few steps toward the right.] What good would she be to you? She would be what God above was to me before I became an atheist—a subject on which I could lavish my reverence. You keep your feeling of reverence dark, and let something else grow on top of it—a healthy contempt, for instance.

  Adolf. I can’t live without someone to reverence.

  Gustav. Slave! [He goes, round the fable on the right.]

  Adolf. And without a woman to reverence, to worship.

  Gustav. Oh, the deuce! Then you go back to that God of yours—if you. really must have something on which you can crucify yourself; but you call yourself an atheist when you’ve got the superstitious belief in women in your own blood; you call yourself a free thinker when you can’t think freely about a lot of silly women. Do you know what all this illusive quality, this sphinx-like mystery, this profundity in your wife’s temperament all really comes to? The whole thing is sheer stupidity; why, the woman can’t distinguish between A.B. and a bull’s foot for the life of h
er. And look here, it’s something shoddy in the mechanism, that’s where the fault lies. Outside it looks like a fifty-guinea hunting watch, open it and you find it’s tuppenny-halfpenny gun-metal. [He comes up to ADOLF.] Put her in trousers, draw a mustache under her nose with a piece of coal, and then listen to her in the same state of mind, and then you’ll be perfectly convinced that it is quite a different kettle of fish altogether—a gramophone which reproduces, with rather less volume, your words and other people’s words. Do you know how a woman is constituted? Yes, of course you do. A boy with the breasts of a mother, an immature man, a precocious child whose growth has been stunted, a chronically anaemic creature that has a regular emission of blood thirteen times in the year. What can you do with a thing like that?

  Adolf. Yes—but—but then how can I believe—that we are really on an equality?

  Gustav. [Moves away from, and again toward the right.] Sheer hallucination! The fascination of the petticoat. But it is so, perhaps, in fact you have become like each other, the levelling has taken place. But I say.

  [He takes out his watch.] We’ve been chatting for quite long enough. Your wife’s bound to be here shortly. Wouldn’t it be better to leave off now, so that you can rest for a little? [He comes nearer and holds out his hand to say good-bye. ADOLF grips his hand all the tighter.]

  Adolf. No, don’t leave me. I haven’t got the pluck to be alone.

  Gustav. Only for a little while. Your wife will be coming in a minute.

  Adolf. Yes, yes—she’s coming. [Pause.] Strange, isn’t it? I long for her and yet I’m frightened of her. She caresses me, she is tender, but her kisses have something in them which smothers one, something which sucks, something which stupefies. It is as though I were the child at the circus whose face the clown is making up in the dressing-room, so that it can appear red-cheeked before the public.

  Gustav. [Leaning on the arm of ADOLF’S chair.] I’m sorry for you, old man. Although I’m not a doctor, I am in a position to tell you that you are a dying man. One has only to look at your last pictures to be quite clear on the point.

  Adolf. What do you say—what do you mean?