Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter by August Strindberg

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PLAYS:
Comrades
Facing Death
Pariah
Easter

by AUGUST STRINDBERG

Translated by Edith and Waerner Oland

CONTENTS

COMRADES
A Comedy in IV Acts.

FACING DEATH
A Play in I Act.

PARIAH
A Play in I Act.

EASTER
A Play in III Acts.

FOREWORD

August Strindberg died at Stockholm On May 14, 1912, just ten days
after the first of his plays given in English in the United States
had completed a month's engagement. This play was "The Father,"
which, on April 9, 1912, was produced at the Berkeley Theatre in
New York, the same little theatre that witnessed in 1894 the first
performance in this country of Ibsen's "Ghosts."

It happened that August Lindberg, the eminent Swedish actor and
friend of Strindberg [who, by the way, was the first producer of
"Ghosts" in any language], was visiting this country and came to
see a performance of "The Father." His enthusiasm over the
interpretation given Strindberg, in the English rendering of the
play as well as in the acting, led him to cable a congratulatory
message to Strindberg; and upon departing for Stockholm, he asked
for some of the many letters of appreciation from significant
sources which the production of "The Father" had called forth.
These he wished to give to Strindberg as further assurance "that he
has," to use Herr Lindberg's words, "the right representatives in
this country." It is gratifying to those who esteem it a rare
privilege to be the introducers of Strindberg's powerful dramatic
art to the American stage to know that he finally found his genius
recognized on this side of the ocean.

"Comrades," the first play in the present volume, belongs to the
same momentous creative period as "The Father" and "Countess
Julie," although there is little anecdotic history attaching to
this vigorous comedy. It was written in Denmark, where Strindberg,
after finishing "The Father" in Switzerland in 1887, went with his
family to live for two years, and was published March 21, 1888.

Although the scene of the comedy is laid in Paris, all the
characters are Swedish, which may be accounted for by the fact that
the feminist movement, of which "Comrades" is a delicious, stinging
satire, had been more agitated at that time in Scandinavia than
elsewhere. That Paris was chosen as a background for this group of
young artists and writers was probably reminiscent of the time, the
early eighties, when Strindberg with his wife and children left
Sweden and, after spending some time with a colony of artists not
far from Fontainebleau, came to Paris, where there were many
friends of other days, and established themselves in that "sad,
silent Passy," as Strindberg's own chronicle of those times reads.
There he took his walks in the deserted arcades of the empty
Trocadero Palace, back of which he lived; went to the Theatre
Francais, where he saw the great success of the day, and was
startled that "an undramatic bagatelle with threadbare scenery,
stale intrigues and superannuated theatrical tricks, could be
playing on the foremost stage of the world;" saw at the Palais de
l'Industrie the triennial exhibition of art works, "the creme de la
creme of three salons, and found not one work of consequence."
After some time he came to the conclusion that "the big city is not
the heart that drives the pulses," but that it is "the boil that
corrupts and poisons," and so betook himself and his family to
Switzerland, where they lived in the vicinity of Lake Leman, which
environment was made use of years later in the moving one-act play,
"Facing Death," presented herewith.

"Pariah," the other one-act play appearing in this volume, is the
generally recognized masterpiece of all the short one-act plays.
The dialogue is so concentrated that it seems as if not one line
could be cut without the whole structure falling to pieces, and in
these terse speeches a genius is revealed that, with something of
the divine touch, sounds the depths of the human heart and reveals
its inmost thoughts. "Pariah" was published in 1890 and "Facing
Death" in 1898.

The period of Strindberg's sojourn in Switzerland, 1884-87, was
most important in the evolution of the character and work of the
man who, throughout his career, was to engage himself so
penetratingly and passionately in the psychology of woman, and
love, and the problems of marriage, as to acquire the reputation,
undeserved though it was, of woman-hater. That this observation and
analysis of woman was not induced by natural antipathy to the sex,
nor by unhappiness in his own married experience, is made clear by
the facts of his life up to the time when such investigation was
undertaken. What, then, did sway him to such a choice of theme?
Examination of the data of this period from Strindberg's own annals
reveals the following influences: Ibsen from his Norwegian throne
had hailed woman and the laborer as the two rising ranks of
nobility, and Strindberg asked himself if this was ironic, as
usual, or prophetic. Feminine individualism was the cult of the
hour. The younger generation had, through the doctrines of
evolution, become atheistic. Strindberg tells of asking a young
writer how he could get along without God. "We have woman instead,"
was the reply. This was the last stage of Madonna worship! And how
had it happened that the new generation had replaced God with
woman? "God was the remotest source; when he failed they grasped
at the next, the mother. But then they should at least choose the
real mother, the real woman, before whom, no matter how strong his
spirit, man will always bow when she appears with her life-giving
attributes. But the younger generation had pronounced contempt for
the mother, and in her place had set up the loathsome, sterile,
degenerate amazon--the blue-stocking!"

Earnestly pondering these matters, Strindberg at length decided to
write a book about woman, a subject, he declares, which up to this
time he had not wanted to think about, as he himself "lived in a
happy erotic state, ennobled and beautified by the rejuvenating and
expiatory arrival of children." But nevertheless he decided to
write such a book, and so with sympathy and much old-fashioned
veneration for motherhood the task was undertaken.

Regarding the mother as down-trodden, he wanted to think out a
means for her deliverance. To obtain a clear vision he chose as a
method the delineation of as large a number as possible of marriage
cases that he had seen--and he had seen many, as most of his
contemporary friends were married. Of these he chose twelve, the
most characteristic, and then he went to work. When he had written
about half that number, he stopped and reviewed the collection. The
result was entirely different from what he had expected.

Then chance came to his aid, for in the pension where he was
living, thirty women were stopping. He saw them at all meals,
between meals, and all about, idle, gossiping, pretentious, longing
for pleasure. "There were learned ladies who left the Saturday
Review behind them on the chairs; there were literary ladies, young
ladies, beautiful ladies." When he saw their care-free, idle life,
with concern he asked himself: "Whom do these parasites and their
children live on?" Then he discovered the bread-winners. "The
husband sat in his dark office far away in London; the husband
was far away with a detachment in Tonkin; the husband was at work
in his bureau in Paris; the husband had gone on a business trip to
Australia." And the three men who were there gave him occasion to
reflect about the so-called female slave. "There was a husband who
had a fiercely hot attic room, while the wife and daughter had a
room with a balcony on the first floor. An elderly man passed by,
who, although himself a brisk walker, was now leading his sickly
wife step by step, his hand supporting her back when making an
ascent; he carried her shawls, chair, and other little necessities,
reverently, lovingly, as if he had become her son when she had
ceased to be his wife. And there sat King Lear with his daughter,--
it was terrible to see. He was over sixty, had had eight children,
six of whom were daughters, and who, in his days of affluence, he
had allowed to manage his house and, no doubt, the economy thereof.
Now he was poor, had nothing, and they had all deserted him except
one daughter who had inherited a small income from an aunt. And the
former giant, who had been able to work for a household of twelve,
crushed by the disgrace of bankruptcy, was forced to feel the
humiliation of accepting support from his daughter, who went about
with her twenty-nine women friends, receiving their comfort and
condolence, weeping over her fate, and sometimes actually wishing
the life out of her father."

The immediate result of all this observation and consequent
analysis was the collection of short stories in two volumes called
"Marriages," the first of which, published in 1884, gave rise to
Strindberg's reputation of being a pessimist, and the second, two
years later, to that of woman-hater, which became confirmed by the
portrayals of women in his realistic dramas that soon followed,
notably that of Laura in "The Father." That part of the woman-hater
legend which one encounters most often is that Strindberg was
revealing his own marital miseries in the sex conflicts of these
dramas, particularly in "The Father," notwithstanding the fact that
this play was written five years before his first marriage was
dissolved, and little more than two years after his avowed
hesitancy to undertake the dissection of womankind on account of
the "happy erotic state" in which he was living.

And that his analytical labors and personal experiences, far from
bringing about an acquired aversion for woman, never even let him
be warned, is attested by the fact of his having founded three
families. One is forced to suspect that instead of being a woman-
hater, he was rather a disguised and indefatigable lover of woman,
and that his wars on woman and his fruitless endeavors to get into
harmony with the other half of the race were, fundamentally, a
warring within himself of his own many-sided, rich nature. He said
of himself that he had been sentenced by his nature to be the
faultfinder, to see the other side of things. He hated the Don
Juans among men as intensely as he did the lazy parasites among
women--the rich and spoiled ones who declaimed loudest about
woman's holy duties as wife and mother, but whose time was given
up to being hysterical and thinking out foolish acts,--these women
enraged him.

However, the psychology of woman represents but one phase of
Strindberg. In a book called "The Author," styled by him "a
self-evolutionary history," which was written during the
germinating period of the realistic dramas, but was not given out
for publication until 1909, there is a foreword which contains the
following significant avowal from the Strindberg of the last years:
"The author had not arrived in 1886; perhaps only came into being
then. The book presented herewith is consequently only of secondary
interest as constituting a fragment; and the reader should bear in
mind that it was written over twenty years ago. The personality of
the author is consequently as unfamiliar to me as to the reader--
and as unsympathetic. As he no longer exists, I can no longer
assume any responsibility for him, and as I took part in his
execution [1898] I believe I have the right to regard the past as
expiated and stricken out of the Big Book." The "execution" in 1898
referred to was the spiritual crisis through which Strindberg
passed when he emerged from the abysmal pessimism of "The Inferno;"
then began the gradual return to spiritual faith which, in the end,
caused him to declare himself a Swedenborgian.

The play, "Easter," included in the present collection, belongs to
this period; it is a strange mingling of symbolism and realism,
bearing the spiritual message of the resurrection. It was the most
popular play produced at the Intimate Theatre in Stockholm, having
been given there over two hundred times; and in Germany, also, it
has been one of the plays most appreciated. That "Easter" is
representative of the last phase, spiritually, of the great man is
evidenced by the closing incident of his life. His favorite
daughter, Kirtlin, was in the room as death approached. Strindberg
called to her, and asked for the Bible; receiving the book, he
opened it, and placing it across his breast, said, "This is the
best book of all," and then, with his last breath, "Now everything
personal is obliterated."

E. O. and W. O.

COMRADES
Comedy in Four Acts

CHARACTERS

AXEL, an artist
BERTHA, his wife, artist
ABEL, her friend
WILLMER, litterateur
OESTERMARK, a doctor
MRS. HALL, his divorced wife
THE MISSES HALL, her daughters by a second marriage
CARL STARCK, lieutenant
MRS. STARCK, his wife
MAID

COMRADES

[SCENE for the whole play.--An artist's studio in Paris; it is on
the ground floor, has glass windows looking out on an orchard. At
back of scene a large window and door to hall. On the walls hang
studies, canvases, weapons, costumes and plaster casts. To right
there is a door leading to Axel's room; to left a door leading to
Bertha's room. There is a model stand left center. To right an
easel and painting materials. A large sofa, a large store through
the doors of which one sees a hot coal fire. There is a hanging-lamp
from ceiling. At rise of curtain Axel and Doctor Oestermark are
discovered.]

AXEL [Sitting, painting]. And you, too, are in Paris!

DR. OESTERMARK. Everything gathers here as the center of the world;
and so you are married--and happy?

AXEL. Oh, yes, so, so. Yes, I'm quite happy. That's understood.

DR. OESTERMARK. What's understood?

AXEL. Look here, you're a widower. How was it with your marriage?

DR. OESTERMARK. Oh, very nice--for her.

AXEL. And for you?

DR. OESTERMARK. So, so! But you see one must compromise, and we
compromised to the end.

AXEL. What do you mean by compromise?

DR. OESTERMARK. I mean--that I gave in!

AXEL. You?

DR. OESTERMARK. Yes, you wouldn't think that of a man like me, would
you?

AXEL. No, I would never have thought that. Look here, don't you
believe in woman, eh?

DR. OESTERMARK. No, sir! I do not. But I love her.

AXEL. In your way--yes!

DR. OESTERMARK. In my way--yes. How about your way?

AXEL. We have arranged a sort of comradeship, you see, and
friendship is higher and more enduring than love.

DR. OESTERMARK. H'm--so Bertha paints too. How? Well?

AXEL. Fairly well.

DR. OESTERMARK. We were good friends in the old days, she and I,--
that is, we always quarreled a little.--Some visitors. Hush! It is
Carl and his wife!

AXEL [Rising]. And Bertha isn't at home! Sacristi! [Enter
Lieutenant Carl Starck and his wife.] Welcome! Well, well, we
certainly meet here from all corners of the world! How do you do,
Mrs. Starck? You're looking well after your journey.

MRS. STARCK. Thanks, dear Axel, we have certainly had a delightful
trip. But where is Bertha?

CARL. Yes, where is the young wife?

AXEL. She's out at the studio, but she'll be home at any moment
now. But won't you sit down?

[The doctor greets the visitors.]

CARL. Hardly. We were passing by and thought we would just look in
to see how you are. But we shall be on hand, of course, for your
invitation for Saturday, the first of May.

AXEL. That's good. You got the card then?

MRS. STARCK. Yes, we received it while we were in Hamburg. Well,
what is Bertha doing nowadays?

AXEL. Oh, she paints, as I do. In fact, we're expecting her model,
and as he may come at any moment, perhaps I can't risk you to sit
down after all, if I'm going to be honest.

CARL. Do you think we would blush, then?

MRS. STARCK. He isn't nude, is he?

AXEL. Of course.

CARL. A man? The devil!--No, I couldn't allow my wife to be mixed
up with anything of that sort. Alone with a naked man!

AXEL. I see you still have prejudices, Carl.

CARL. Yes, you know--

MRS. STARCK. Fie!

DR. OESTERMARK. Yes, that's what I say, too.

AXEL. I can't deny that it, is not altogether to my taste, but as
long as I must have a woman model--

MRS. STARCK. That's another matter.

AXEL. Another?

MRS. STARCK. Yes, it is another matter--although it resembles the
other, it is not the same. [There is a knock.]

AXEL. There he is!

MRS. STARCK. We'll go, then. Good-bye and au revoir. Give my love
to Bertha.

AXEL. Good-bye, then, as you're so scared. And au revoir.

CARL and DR. OESTERMARK. Good-bye, Axel.

CARL [To Axel]. You stay in here, at least, while--

AXEL. No, why should I?

CARL [Goes shaking his head]. Ugh!

[Axel alone starts to paint. There is a knock.]

AXEL. Come in. [The model enters.] So, you are back again. Madame
hasn't returned yet.

THE MODEL. But it's almost twelve, and I must keep another
appointment.

AXEL. Is that so? It's too bad, but--h'm--something must have
detained her at the studio. How much do I owe you?

THE MODEL. Five francs, as usual.

AXEL [Paying him]. There. Perhaps you'd better wait awhile,
nevertheless.

THE MODEL. Yes, if I'm needed.

AXEL. Yes, be kind enough to wait a few minutes.

[The model retires behind a screen. Axel alone, draws and whistles.
Bertha comes in after a moment.]

AXEL. Hello, my dear! So you're back at last?

BERTHA. At last?

AXEL. Yes, your model is waiting.

BERTHA [Startled]. No! No! Has he been here again?

AXEL. You had engaged him for eleven o'clock.

BERTHA. I? No! Did he say that?

AXEL. Yes. But I heard you when you made the engagement yesterday.

BERTHA. Perhaps it's so, then, but anyway the professor wouldn't
let us leave and you know how nervous one gets in the last hours.
You're not angry with me, Axel?

AXEL. Angry? No. But this is the second time, and he gets his five
francs for nothing, nevertheless.

BERTHA. Can I help it if the professor keeps us? Why must you
always pick on me?

AXEL. Do I pick on you?

BERTHA. What's that? Didn't you--

AXEL. Yes, yes, yes! I picked on you--forgive me--forgive me--for
thinking that it was your fault.

BERTHA. Well, it's all right there. But what did you pay him with?

AXEL. To be sure. Gaga paid back the twenty francs he owed me.

BERTHA [Takes out account-book.] So, he paid you back? Come on,
then, and I'll put it down, for the sake of order. It's your money,
so of course you can dispose of it as you please, but as you wish
me to take care of the accounts--[Writes] fifteen francs in, five
francs out, model. There.

AXEL. No. Look here. It's twenty francs in.

BERTHA. Yes, but there are only fifteen here.

AXEL. Yes, but you should put down twenty.

BERTHA. Why do you argue?

AXEL. Did I--Well, the man's waiting--

BERTHA. Oh, yes. Be good and get things ready for me.

AXEL. [Puts model stand in place. Calls to model]. Are you
undressed yet?

THE MODEL [From back of screen]. Soon, monsieur.

BERTHA [Closes door, puts wood in stove]. There, now you must go
out.

AXEL [Hesitating]. Bertha!

BERTHA. Yes?

AXEL. Is it absolutely necessary--with a nude model?

BERTHA. Absolutely!

AXEL. H'm--indeed!

BERTHA. We have certainly argued that matter out.

AXEL. Quite true. But it's loathsome nevertheless--[Goes out
right.]

BERTHA [Takes up brushes and palette. Calls to model]. Are you
ready?

THE MODEL. All ready.

BERTHA. Come on, then. [Pause.] Come on. [There is a knock.] Who is
it? I have a model.

WILLMER [Outside]. Willmer. With news from the salon.

BERTHA. From the salon! [To model]. Dress yourself! We'll have to
postpone the sitting.--Axel! Willmer is here with news from the
salon.

[Axel comes in, also Willmer; the model goes out unnoticed during
the following scene.]

WILMER. Hello, dear friends! Tomorrow the jury will begin its work.
Oh, Bertha, here are your pastels. [Takes package from pocket.]

BERTHA. Thanks, my good Gaga; how much did they cost? They must
have been expensive.

WILLMER. Oh, not very.

BERTHA. So they are to start tomorrow. So soon? Do you hear, Axel?

AXEL. Yes, my friend.

BERTHA. Now, will you be very good, very, very good?

AXEL. I always want to be good to you, my friend.

BERTHA. You do? Now, listen. You know Roubey, don't you?

AXEL. Yes, I met him in Vienna mid we became good friends, as it's
called.

BERTHA. You know that he is on the jury?

AXEL. And then what?

BERTHA. Well--now you'll be angry, I know you will.

AXEL. You know it? Don't prove it, then.

BERTHA [Coaxing]. You wouldn't make a sacrifice for your wife,
would you?

AXEL. Go begging? No, I don't want to do that.

BERTHA. Not for me? You'll get in anyway, but for your wife!

AXEL. Don't ask me.

BERTHA. I should really never ask you for anything!

AXEL. Yes, for things that I can do without sacrificing--

BERTHA. Your man's pride!

AXEL. Let it go at that.

BERTHA. But I would sacrifice my woman's pride if I could help you.

AXEL. You women have no pride.

BERTHA. Axel!

AXEL. Well, well, pardon, pardon!

BERTHA. You must be jealous. I don't believe you would really like
it if I were accepted at the salon.

AXEL. Nothing would make me happier. Believe me, Bertha.

BERTHA. Would you be happy, too, if I were accepted and you were
refused?

AXEL. I must feel and see. [Puts his hand over his heart.] No, that
would be decidedly disagreeable, decidedly. In the first place,
because I paint better than you do, and because--

BERTHA [Walking up and down]. Speak out. Because I am a woman!

AXEL. Yes, just that. It may seem strange, but to me it's as if you
women were intruding and plundering where we have fought for so
long while you sat by the fire. Forgive me, Bertha, for talking
like this, but such thoughts have occurred to me.

BERTHA. Has it ever occurred to you that you're exactly like all
other men?

AXEL. Like all others? I should hope so!

BERTHA. And you have become so superior lately. You didn't use to
be like that.

AXEL. It must be because I am superior! Doing something that we men
have never done before!

BERTHA. What! What are you saving! Shame on you!

WILLMER. There, there, good friends! No, but, dear friends--Bertha,
control yourself.

[He gives her a look which she tries to make out.]

BERTHA [Changing]. Axel, let's be friends! And hear me a moment. Do
you think that my position in your house--for it is yours--is
agreeable to me? You support me, you pay for my studying at
Julian's, while you yourself cannot afford instruction. Don't you
think I see how you sit and wear out yourself and your talent on
these pot-boiling drawings, and are able to paint only in leisure
moments? You haven't been able to afford models for yourself, while
you pay mine five hard-earned francs an hour. You don't know how
good--how noble--how sacrificing you are, and also you don't know
how I suffer to see you toil so for me. Oh, Axel, you can't know
how I feel my position. What am I to you? Of what use am I in your
house? Oh, I blush when I think about it!

AXEL. What, what, what! Aren't you my wife?

BERTHA. Yes, but--

AXEL. Well, then?

BERTHA. But you support me.

AXEL. Well, isn't that the right thing to do?

BERTHA. It was formerly--according to the old scheme of marriage,
but we weren't to have it like that. We were to be comrades.

AXEL. What talk! Isn't a man to support his wife?

BERTHA. I don't want it. And you, Axel, you must help me. I'm not
your equal when it's like that, but I could be if you would humble
yourself once, just once! Don't think that you are alone in going
to one of the jury to say a good word for another. If it were for
yourself, it would be another matter, but for me--Forgive me! Now I
beg of you as nicely as I know how. Lift me from my humiliating
position to your side, and I'll be so grateful I shall never
trouble you again with reminding you of my position. Never, Axel!

AXEL. Don't ask me; you know how weak I am.

BERTHA [Embracing him].Yes, I shall ask you--beg of you, until you
fulfil my prayer. Now, don't look so proud, but be human! So!
[Kisses him.]

AXEL [To Willmer]. Look here, Gaga, don't you think that women are
terrible tyrants?

WILLMER [Pained]. Yes, and especially when they are submissive.

BERTHA. See, now, the sky is clear again. You'll go, won't you,
Axel? Get on your black coat now, and go. Then come home, and we'll
strike out together for something to eat.

AXEL. How do you know that Roubey is receiving now?

BERTHA. Don't you think that I made sure of that?

AXEL. What a schemer you are!

BERTHA [Takes a black cutaway coat from wardrobe]. Well, one would
never get anywhere without a little wire-pulling, you know. Here's
your black coat. So!

AXEL. Yes. But this is awful. What am I to say to the man?

BERTHA. H'm. Oh, you'll hit, on something on the way. Say that--
that--that your wife--no--that you're expecting a christening--

AXEL. Fie, Bertha.

BERTHA. Well, say that you can get him decorated, then.

AXEL. Really you frighten me, Bertha!

BERTHA. Say what you please, then. Come, now, and I'll fix your
hair so you'll be presentable. Do you know his wife?

AXEL. No, not at all.

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