Chapter II: Part 2

Especially is this true of woman. For centuries she has been lulled into a trance by the songs of the troubadours who paid homage to her goodness, her sweetness, her selflessness and, above all, her noble motherhood. And though she is beginning to appreciate that all this incense has befogged her mind and paralyzed her soul, she hates to give up the tribute laid at her feet by sentimental moonshiners of the past.

To be sure, it is rude to turn on the full searchlight upon a painted face. But how is one to know what is back of the paint and artifice? August Strindberg hated artifice with all the passion of his being; hence his severe criticism of woman. Perhaps it was his tragedy to see her as she really is, and not as she appears in her trance. To love with open eyes is, indeed, a tragedy, and Strindberg loved woman. All his life long he yearned for her love, as mother, as wife, as companion. But his longing for, and his need of her, were the crucible of Strindberg, as they have been the crucible of every man, even of the mightiest spirit.

Why it is so is best expressed in the words of the old nurse, _Margret_, in "The Father": "Because all you men, great and small, are woman's children, every man of you."

The child in man--- and the greater the man the more dominant the child in him--has ever succumbed to the Earth Spirit, Woman, and as long as that is her only drawing power, Man, with all his strength and genius, will ever be at her feet.

The Earth Spirit is motherhood carrying the race in its womb; the flame of life luring the moth, often against its will, to destruction.

In all of Strindberg's plays we see the flame of life at work, ravishing man's brain, consuming man's faith, rousing man's passion. Always, always the flame of life is drawing its victims with irresistible force. August Strindberg's arraignment of that force is at the same time a confession of faith. He, too, was the child of woman, and utterly helpless before her.

THE FATHER

"The Father" portrays the tragedy of a man and a woman struggling for the possession of their child. The father, a cavalry captain, is intellectual, a freethinker, a man of ideas. His wife is narrow, selfish, and unscrupulous in her methods when her antagonism is wakened.

Other members of the family are the wife's mother, a Spiritualist, and the _Captain's_ old nurse, _Margret_, ignorant and superstitious. The father feels that the child would be poisoned in such an atmosphere:

_The Captain._ This house is full of women who all want to have
their say about my child. My mother-in-law wants to make a
Spiritualist of her. Laura wants her to be an artist; the governess
wants her to be a Methodist, old Margret a Baptist, and the
servant-girls want her to join the Salvation Army! It won't do to
try to make a soul in patches like that. I, who have the chief right
to try to form her character, am constantly opposed in my efforts.
And that's why I have decided to send her away from home.

But it is not only because the _Captain_ does not believe in "making a soul in patches," that he wants to rescue the child from the hot-house environment, nor because he plans to make her an image of himself. It is rather because he wants her to grow up with a healthy outlook on life.

_The Captain._ I don't want to be a procurer for my daughter and
educate her exclusively for matrimony, for then if she were left
unmarried she might have bitter days. On the other hand, I don't
want to influence her toward a career that requires a long course of
training which would be entirely thrown away if she should marry. I
want her to be a teacher. If she remains unmarried she will be able
to support herself, and at any rate she wouldn't be any worse off
than the poor schoolmasters who have to share their salaries with a
family. If she marries she can use her knowledge in the education
of her children.

While the father's love is concerned with the development of the child, that of the mother is interested mainly in the possession of the child. Therefore she fights the man with every means at her command, even to the point of instilling the poison of doubt into his mind, by hints that he is not the father of the child. Not only does she seek to drive her husband mad, but through skillful intrigue she leads every one, including the Doctor, to believe that he is actually insane. Finally even the old nurse is induced to betray him: she slips the straitjacket over him, adding the last touch to the treachery. Robbed of his faith, broken in spirit and subdued, the _Captain_ dies a victim of the Earth Spirit--of motherhood, which slays the man for the sake of the child. Laura herself will have it so when she tells her husband, "You have fulfilled your function as an unfortunately necessary father and breadwinner. You are not needed any longer, and you must go."

* * * * *

Critics have pronounced "The Father" an aberration of Strindberg's mind, utterly false and distorted. But that is because they hate to face the truth. In Strindberg, however, the truth is his most revolutionary significance.

"The Father" contains two basic truths. Motherhood, much praised, poetized, and hailed as a wonderful thing, is in reality very often the greatest deterrent influence in the life of the child. Because it is not primarily concerned with the potentialities of character and growth of the child; on the contrary, it is interested chiefly in the birthgiver,--that is, the mother. Therefore, the mother is the most subjective, self-centered and conservative obstacle. She binds the child to herself with a thousand threads which never grant sufficient freedom for mental and spiritual expansion. It is not necessary to be as bitter as Strindberg to realize this. There are of course exceptional mothers who continue to grow with the child. But the average mother is like the hen with her brood, forever fretting about her chicks if they venture a step away from the coop. The mother enslaves with kindness,--a bondage harder to bear and more difficult to escape than the brutal fist of the father.

Strindberg himself experienced it, and nearly every one who has ever attempted to outgrow the soul strings of the mother.

In portraying motherhood, as it really is, August Strindberg is conveying a vital and revolutionary message, namely, that true motherhood, even as fatherhood, does not consist in molding the child according to one's image, or in imposing upon it one's own ideas and notions, but in allowing the child freedom and opportunity to grow harmoniously according to its own potentialities, unhampered and unmarred.

The child was August Strindberg's religion,--perhaps because of his own very tragic childhood and youth. He was like Father Time in "Jude the Obscure," a giant child, and as he has _Laura_ say of the _Captain_ in "The Father," "he had either come too early into the world, or perhaps was not wanted at all."

"Yes, that's how it was," the _Captain_ replies, "my father's and my mother's will was against my coming into the world, and consequently I was born without a will."

The horror of having been brought into the world undesired and unloved, stamped its indelible mark on August Strindberg. It never left him. Nor did fear and hunger--the two terrible phantoms of his childhood.

Indeed, the child was Strindberg's religion, his faith, his passion. Is it then surprising that he should have resented woman's attitude towards the man as a mere means to the child; or, in the words of _Laura_, as "the function of father and breadwinner"? That this is the attitude of woman, is of course denied. But it is nevertheless true. It holds good not only of the average, unthinking woman, but even of many feminists of to-day; and, no doubt, they were even more antagonistic to the male in Strindberg's time.

It is only too true that woman is paying back what she has endured for centuries--humiliation, subjection, and bondage. But making oneself free through the enslavement of another, is by no means a step toward advancement. Woman must grow to understand that the father is as vital a factor in the life of the child as is the mother. Such a realization would help very much to minimize the conflict between the sexes.

Of course, that is not the only cause of the conflict. There is another, as expressed by _Laura_: "Do you remember when I first came into your life, I was like a second mother?... I loved you as my child. But ... when the nature of your feelings changed and you appeared as my lover, I blushed, and your embraces were joy that was followed by remorseful conscience as if my blood were ashamed."

The vile thought instilled into woman by the Church and Puritanism that sex expression without the purpose of procreation is immoral, has been a most degrading influence. It has poisoned the life of thousands of women who similarly suffer "remorseful conscience"; therefore their disgust and hatred of the man; therefore also the conflict.

Must it always be thus? Even Strindberg does not think so. Else he would not plead in behalf of "divorce between man and wife, so that lovers may be born." He felt that until man and woman cease to have "remorseful consciences" because of the most elemental expression of the joy of life, they cannot realize the purity and beauty of sex, nor appreciate its ecstasy, as the source of full understanding and creative harmony between male and female. Till then man and woman must remain in conflict, and the child pay the penalty.

August Strindberg, as one of the numberless innocent victims of this terrible conflict, cries out bitterly against it, with the artistic genius and strength that compel attention to the significance of his message.

COUNTESS JULIE

In his masterly preface to this play, August Strindberg writes: "The fact that my tragedy makes a sad impression on many is the fault of the many. When we become strong, as were the first French revolutionaries, it will make an exclusively pleasant and cheerful impression to see the royal parks cleared of rotting, superannuated trees which have too long stood in the way of others with equal right to vegetate their full lifetime; it will make a good impression in the same sense as does the sight of the death of an incurable."

What a wealth of revolutionary thought,--were we to realize that those who will clear society of the rotting, superannuated trees that have so long been standing in the way of others entitled to an equal share in life, must be as strong as the great revolutionists of the past!

Indeed, Strindberg is no trimmer, no cheap reformer, no patchworker; therefore his inability to remain fixed, or to content himself with accepted truths. Therefore also, his great versatility, his deep grasp of the subtlest phases of life. Was he not forever the seeker, the restless spirit roaming the earth, ever in the death-throes of the Old, to give birth to the New? How, then, could he be other than relentless and grim and brutally frank.

"Countess Julie," a one-act tragedy, is no doubt a brutally frank portrayal of the most intimate thoughts of man and of the age-long antagonism between classes. Brutally frank, because August Strindberg strips both of their glitter, their sham and pretense, that we may see that "at bottom there's not so much difference between people and--people."

Who in modern dramatic art is there to teach us that lesson with the insight of an August Strindberg? He who had been tossed about all his life between the decadent traditions of his aristocratic father and the grim, sordid reality of the class of his mother. He who had been begotten through the physical mastery of his father and the physical subserviency of his mother. Verily, Strindberg knew whereof he spoke--for he spoke with his soul, a language whose significance is illuminating, compelling.

_Countess Julie_ inherited the primitive, intense passion of her mother and the neurotic aristocratic tendencies of her father. Added to this heritage is the call of the wild, the "intense summer heat when the blood turns to fire, and when all are in a holiday spirit, full of gladness, and rank is flung aside." _Countess Julie_ feels, when too late, that the barrier of rank reared through the ages, by wealth and power, is not flung aside with impunity. Therein the vicious brutality, the boundless injustice of rank.

The people on the estate of _Julie's_ father are celebrating St. John's Eve with dance, song and revelry. The Count is absent, and _Julie_ graciously mingles with the servants. But once having tasted the simple abandon of the people, once having thrown off the artifice and superficiality of her aristocratic decorum, her suppressed passions leap into full flame, and _Julie_ throws herself into the arms of her father's valet, _Jean_--not because of love for the man, nor yet openly and freely, but as persons of her station may do when carried away by the moment.

The woman in _Julie_ pursues the male, follows him into the kitchen, plays with him as with a pet dog, and then feigns indignation when _Jean_, aroused, makes advances. How dare he, the servant, the lackey, even insinuate that she would have him! "I, the lady of the house! I honor the people with my presence. I, in love with my coachman? I, who step down."

How well Strindberg knows the psychology of the upper classes! How well he understands that their graciousness, their charity, their interest in the "common people" is, after all, nothing but arrogance, blind conceit of their own importance and ignorance of the character of the people.

Even though _Jean_ is a servant, he has his pride, he has his dreams. "I was not hired to be your plaything," he says to _Julie_; "I think too much of myself for that."

Strange, is it not, that those who serve and drudge for others, should think so much of themselves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger still that they should indulge in dreams. _Jean_ says:

Do you know how people in high life look from the under-world?...
They look like hawks and eagles whose backs one seldom sees, for
they soar up above. I lived in a hovel provided by the State, with
seven brothers and sisters and a pig; out on a barren stretch where
nothing grew, not even a tree, but from the window I could see the
Count's park walls with apple trees rising above them. That was the
garden of paradise; and there stood many angry angels with flaming
swords protecting it; but for all that I and other boys found the
way to the tree of life--now you despise me.... I thought if it is
true that the thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell among
the angels it was strange that a pauper child on God's earth could
not go into the castle park and play with the Countess' daughter....
What I wanted--I don't know. You were unattainable, but through the
vision of you I was made to realize how hopeless it was to rise
above the conditions of my birth.

What rich food for thought in the above for all of us, and for the Jeans, the people who do not know what they want, yet feel the cruelty of a world that keeps the pauper's child out of the castle of his dreams, away from joy and play and beauty! The injustice and the bitterness of it all, that places the stigma of birth as an impassable obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one from the table of life, with the result of producing such terrible effects on the Julies and the Jeans. The one unnerved, made helpless and useless by affluence, ease and idleness; the other enslaved and bound by service and dependence. Even when _Jean_ wants to, he cannot rise above his condition. When _Julie_ asks him to embrace her, to love her, he replies:

I can't as long as we are in this house.... There is the Count, your
father.... I need only to see his gloves lying in a chair to feel
my own insignificance. I have only to hear his bell, to start like a
nervous horse.... And now that I see his boots standing there so
stiff and proper, I feel like bowing and scraping.... I can't
account for it but--but ah, it is that damned servant in my back--I
believe if the Count came here now, and told me to cut my throat, I
would do it on the spot.... Superstition and prejudice taught in
childhood can't be uprooted in a moment.

No, superstition and prejudice cannot be uprooted in a moment; nor in years. The awe of authority, servility before station and wealth--these are the curse of the Jean class that makes such cringing slaves of them. Cringing before those who are above them, tyrannical and overbearing toward those who are below them. For _Jean_ has the potentiality of the master in him as much as that of the slave. Yet degrading as "the damned servant" reacts upon _Jean_, it is much more terrible in its effect upon _Kristin_, the cook, the dull, dumb animal who has so little left of the spirit of independence that she has lost even the ambition to rise above her condition. Thus when _Kristin_, the betrothed of Jean, discovers that her mistress _Julie_ had given herself to him, she is indignant that her lady should have so much forgotten her station as to stoop to her father's valet.

_Kristin._ I don't want to be here in this house any longer where
one cannot respect one's betters.

_Jean._ Why should one respect them?

_Kristin._ Yes, you can say that, you are so smart. But I don't want
to serve people who behave so. It reflects on oneself, I think.

_Jean._ Yes, but it's a comfort that they're not a bit better than
we.

_Kristin._ No, I don't think so, for if they are not better there's
no use in our trying to better ourselves in this world. And to think
of the Count! Think of him who has had so much sorrow all his days.
No, I don't want to stay in this house any longer! And to think of
it being with such as you! If it had been the Lieutenant-- ... I
have never lowered my position. Let any one say, if they can, that
the Count's cook has had anything to do with the riding master or
the swineherd. Let them come and say it!

Such dignity and morality are indeed pathetic, because they indicate how completely serfdom may annihilate even the longing for something higher and better in the breast of a human being. The Kristins represent the greatest obstacle to social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with all their longing for higher possibilities, often become brutalized in the hard school of life; though in the conflict with _Julie_, _Jean_ shows brutality only at the critical moment, when it becomes a question of life and death, a moment that means discovery and consequent ruin, or safety for both.

_Jean_, though the male is aroused in him, pleads with _Julie_ not to play with fire, begs her to return to her room, and not to give the servants a chance for gossip. And when later _Jean_ suggests his room for a hiding place that _Julie_ may escape the approaching merry-makers, it is to save her from their songs full of insinuation and ribaldry. Finally when the inevitable happens, when as a result of their closeness in _Jean's_ room, of their overwrought nerves, their intense passion, the avalanche of sex sweeps them off their feet, forgetful of station, birth and conventions, and they return to the kitchen, it is again _Jean_ who is willing to bear his share of the responsibility. "I don't care to shirk my share of the blame," he tells _Julie_, "but do you think any one of my position would have dared to raise his eyes to you if you had not invited it?"

There is more truth in this statement than the Julies can grasp, namely, that even servants have their passions and feelings that cannot long be trifled with, with impunity. The Jeans know "that it is the glitter of brass, not gold, that dazzles us from below, and that the eagle's back is gray like the rest of him." For _Jean_ says, "I'm sorry to have to realize that all that I have looked up to is not worth while, and it pains me to see you fallen lower than your cook, as it pains me to see autumn blossoms whipped to pieces by the cold rain and transformed into--dirt!"

* * * * *

It is this force that helps to transform the blossom into dirt that August Strindberg emphasizes in "The Father." For the child born against the will of its parents must also be without will, and too weak to bear the stress and storm of life. In "Countess Julie" this idea recurs with even more tragic effect. _Julie_, too, had been brought into the world against her mother's wishes. Indeed, so much did her mother dread the thought of a child that she "was always ill, she often had cramps and acted queerly, often hiding in the orchard or the attic." Added to this horror was the conflict, the relentless war of traditions between _Julie's_ aristocratic father and her mother descended from the people. This was the heritage of the innocent victim, _Julie_--an autumn blossom blown into fragments by lack of stability, lack of love and lack of harmony. In other words, while _Julie_ is broken and weakened by her inheritance and environment, _Jean_ is hardened by his.

When _Jean_ kills the bird which _Julie_ wants to rescue from the ruins of her life, it is not so much out of real cruelty, as it is because the character of _Jean_ was molded in the relentless school of necessity, in which only those survive who have the determination to act in time of danger. For as _Jean_ says, "Miss Julie, I see that you are unhappy, I know that you are suffering, but I cannot understand you. Among my kind there is no nonsense of this sort. We love as we play--when work gives us time. We haven't the whole day and night for it as you."

Here we have the key to the psychology of the utter helplessness and weakness of the Julie type, and of the brutality of the Jeans. The one, the result of an empty life, of parasitic leisure, of a useless, purposeless existence. The other, the effect of too little time for development, for maturity and depth; of too much toil to permit the growth of the finer traits in the human soul.

August Strindberg, himself the result of the class conflict between his parents, never felt at home with either of them. All his life he was galled by the irreconcilability of the classes; and though he was no sermonizer in the sense of offering a definite panacea for individual or social ills, yet with master touch he painted the degrading effects of class distinction and its tragic antagonisms. In "Countess Julie" he popularized one of the most vital problems of our age, and gave to the world a work powerful in its grasp of elemental emotions, laying bare the human soul behind the mask of social tradition and class culture.

COMRADES

Although "Comrades" was written in 1888, it is in a measure the most up-to-date play of Strindberg,--so thoroughly modern that one at all conversant with the _milieu_ that inspired "Comrades" could easily point out the type of character portrayed in the play.

It is a four-act comedy of marriage--the kind of marriage that lacks social and legal security in the form of a ceremony, but retains all the petty conventions of the marriage institution. The results of such an anomaly are indeed ludicrous when viewed from a distance, but very tragic for those who play a part in it.

_Axel Alberg_ and his wife _Bertha_ are Swedish artists residing in Paris. They are both painters. Of course they share the same living quarters, and although each has a separate room, the arrangement does not hinder them from trying to regulate each other's movements. Thus when _Bertha_ does not arrive on time to keep her engagement with her model, _Axel_ is provoked; and when he takes the liberty to chide her for her tardiness, his wife is indignant at the "invasiveness" of her husband, because women of the type of _Bertha_ are as sensitive to fair criticism as their ultra-conservative sisters. Nor is _Bertha_ different in her concept of love, which is expressed in the following dialogue:

_Bertha._ Will you be very good, very, very good?

_Axel._ I always want to be good to you, my friend.

_Bertha_, who has sent her painting to the exhibition, wants to make use of _Axel's_ "goodness" to secure the grace of one of the art jurors.

_Bertha._ You would not make a sacrifice for your wife, would you?

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

_Bertha_ immediately concludes that he does not love her and that, moreover, he is jealous of her art. There is a scene.

_Bertha_ soon recovers. But bent on gaining her purpose, she changes her manner.

_Bertha._ 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 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!

Yet though _Bertha_ gracefully accepts everything _Axel_ does for her, with as little compunction as the ordinary wife, she does not give as much in return as the latter. On the contrary, she exploits _Axel_ in a thousand ways, squanders his hard-earned money, and lives the life of the typical wifely parasite.

August Strindberg could not help attacking with much bitterness such a farce and outrage parading in the disguise of radicalism. For _Bertha_ is not an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when Strindberg satirized the all-too-feminine, the majority of so-called emancipated women are willing to accept, like _Bertha_, everything from the man, and yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return the simple comforts of married life. The ordinary wife, at least, does not pretend to play an important rôle in the life of her husband. But the Berthas deceive themselves and others with the notion that the "emancipated" wife is a great moral force, an inspiration to the man. Whereas in reality she is often a cold-blooded exploiter of the work and ideas of the man, a heavy handicap to his life-purpose, retarding his growth as effectively as did her grandmothers in the long ago. _Bertha_ takes advantage of _Axel's_ affection to further her own artistic ambitions, just as the Church and State married woman uses her husband's love to advance her social ambitions. It never occurs to _Bertha_ that she is no less despicable than her legally married sister. She cannot understand _Axel's_ opposition to an art that clamors only for approval, distinction and decorations.

However, _Axel_ can not resist _Bertha's_ pleadings. He visits the patron saint of the salon, who, by the way, is not M. Roubey, but Mme. Roubey; for she is the "President of the Woman-Painter Protective Society." What chance would _Bertha_ have with one of her own sex in authority? Hence her husband must be victimized. During _Axel's_ absence _Bertha_ learns that his picture has been refused by the salon, while hers is accepted. She is not in the least disturbed, nor at all concerned over the effect of the news on _Axel_. On the contrary, she is rather pleased because "so many women are refused that a man might put up with it, and be made to feel it once."

In her triumph _Bertha's_ attitude to _Axel_ becomes overbearing; she humiliates him, belittles his art, and even plans to humble him before the guests invited to celebrate _Bertha's_ artistic success.

But _Axel_ is tearing himself free from the meshes of his decaying love. He begins to see _Bertha_ as she is: her unscrupulousness in money matters, her ceaseless effort to emasculate him. In a terrible word tussle he tells her: "I had once been free, but you clipped the hair of my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole my best blood."

In the last act _Bertha_ discovers that _Axel_ had generously changed the numbers on the paintings in order to give her a better chance. It was _his_ picture that was chosen as _her_ work. She feels ashamed and humiliated; but it is too late. _Axel_ leaves her with the exclamation, "I want to meet my comrades in the café, but at home I want a wife."

A characteristic sidelight in the play is given by the conversation of _Mrs. Hall_, the divorced wife of _Doctor Ostermark_. She comes to Bertha with a bitter tirade against the Doctor because he gives her insufficient alimony.

_Mrs. Hall._ And now that the girls are grown up and about to start
in life, now he writes us that he is bankrupt and that he can't send
us more than half the allowance. Isn't that nice, just now when the
girls are grown up and are going out into life?

_Bertha._ We must look into this. He'll be here in a few days. Do
you know that you have the law on your side and that the courts can
force him to pay? And he shall be forced to do so. Do you
understand? So, he can bring children into the world and then leave
them empty-handed with the poor deserted mother.

_Bertha_, who believes in woman's equality with man, and in her economic independence, yet delivers herself of the old sentimental gush in behalf of "the poor deserted mother," who has been supported by her husband for years, though their relations had ceased long before.

* * * * *

A distorted picture, some feminists will say. Not at all. It is as typical to-day as it was twenty-six years ago. Even to-day some "emancipated" women claim the right to be self-supporting, yet demand their husband's support. In fact, many leaders in the American suffrage movement assure us that when women will make laws, they will force men to support their wives. From the leaders down to the simplest devotee, the same attitude prevails, namely, that man is a _blagueur_, and that but for him the Berthas would have long ago become Michelangelos, Beethovens, or Shakespeares; they claim that the Berthas represent the most virtuous half of the race, and that they have made up their minds to make man as virtuous as they are.

That such ridiculous extravagance should be resented by the Axels is not at all surprising. It is resented even by the more intelligent of _Bertha's_ own sex. Not because they are opposed to the emancipation of woman, but because they do not believe that her emancipation can ever be achieved by such absurd and hysterical notions. They repudiate the idea that people who retain the substance of their slavery and merely escape the shadow, can possibly be free, live free, or act free.

The radicals, no less than the feminists, must realize that a mere external change in their economic and political status, cannot alter the inherent or acquired prejudices and superstitions which underlie their slavery and dependence, and which are the main causes of the antagonism between the sexes.

The transition period is indeed a most difficult and perilous stage for the woman as well as for the man. It requires a powerful light to guide us past the dangerous reefs and rocks in the ocean of life. August Strindberg is such a light. Sometimes glaring, ofttimes scorching, but always beneficially illuminating the path for those who walk in darkness, for the blind ones who would rather deceive and be deceived than look into the recesses of their being. Therefore August Strindberg is not only "the spiritual conscience of Sweden," as he has been called, but the spiritual conscience of the whole human family, and, as such, a most vital revolutionary factor.

THE GERMAN DRAMA

HERMANN SUDERMANN

It has been said that military conquest generally goes hand in hand with the decline of creative genius, with the retrogression of culture. I believe this is not a mere assertion. The history of the human race repeatedly demonstrates that whenever a nation achieved great military success, it invariably involved the decline of art, of literature, of the drama; in short, of culture in the deepest and finest sense. This has been particularly borne out by Germany after its military triumph in the Franco-Prussian War.

For almost twenty years after that war, the country of poets and thinkers remained, intellectually, a veritable desert, barren of ideas. Young Germany had to go for its intellectual food to France,--Daudet, Maupassant, and Zola; or to Russia--Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoyevski; finally also to Ibsen and Strindberg. Nothing thrived in Germany during that period, except a sickening patriotism and sentimental romanticism, perniciously misleading the people and giving them no adequate outlook upon life and the social struggle. Perhaps that accounts for the popular vogue of Hermann Sudermann: it may explain why he was received by the young generation with open arms and acclaimed a great artist.

It is not my intention to discuss Hermann Sudermann as an artist or to consider him from the point of view of the technic of the drama. I intend to deal with him as the first German dramatist to treat social topics and discuss the pressing questions of the day. From this point of view Hermann Sudermann may be regarded as the pioneer of a new era in the German drama. Primarily is this true of the three plays "Honor," "Magda," and "The Fires of St. John." In these dramas Hermann Sudermann, while not delving deeply into the causes of the social conflicts, nevertheless touches upon many vital subjects.

In "Honor" the author demolishes the superficial, sentimental conception of "honor" that is a purely external manifestation, having no roots in the life, the habits, or the customs of the people. He exposes the stupidity of the notion that because a man looks askance at you, or fails to pay respect to your uniform, you must challenge him to a duel and shoot him dead. In this play Sudermann shows that the conception of honor is nothing fixed or permanent, but that it varies with economic and social status, different races, peoples and times holding different ideas of it. With "Honor" Sudermann succeeded in undermining to a considerable extent the stupid and ridiculous notion of the Germans ruled by the rod and the Kaiser's coat.

But I particularly wish to consider "Magda," because, of all the plays written by Hermann Sudermann, it is the most revolutionary and the least national. It deals with a universal subject,--the awakening of woman. It is revolutionary, not because Sudermann was the first to treat this subject, for Ibsen had preceded him, but because in "Magda" he was the first to raise the question of woman's right to motherhood with or without the sanction of State and Church.

MAGDA

Lieutenant Colonel Schwartze, _Magda's_ father, represents all the conventional and conservative notions of society.

_Schwartze._ Modern ideas! Oh, pshaw! I know them. But come into the
quiet homes where are bred brave soldiers and virtuous wives. There
you'll hear no talk about heredity, no arguments about
individuality, no scandalous gossip. There modern ideas have no
foothold, for it is there that the life and strength of the
Fatherland abide. Look at this home! There is no luxury,--hardly
even what you call good taste,--faded rugs, birchen chairs, old
pictures; and yet when you see the beams of the western sun pour
through the white curtains and lie with such a loving touch on the
old room, does not something say to you, "Here dwells true
happiness"?

The _Colonel_ is a rigid military man. He is utterly blind to the modern conception of woman's place in life. He rules his family as the Kaiser rules the nation, with severe discipline, with terrorism and despotism. He chooses the man whom _Magda_ is to marry, and when she refuses to accept his choice, he drives her out of the house.

At the age of eighteen _Magda_ goes out into the world yearning for development; she longs for artistic expression and economic independence. Seventeen years later she returns to her native town, a celebrated singer. As _Madelene dell'Orto_ she is invited to sing at the town's charity bazaar, and is acclaimed, after the performance, one of the greatest stars of the country.

_Magda_ has not forgotten her home; especially does she long to see her father whom she loves passionately, and her sister, whom she had left a little child of eight. After the concert _Magda_, the renowned artist, steals away from her admirers, with their flowers and presents, and goes out into the darkness of the night to catch a glimpse, through the window at least, of her father and her little sister.

_Magda's_ father is scandalized at her mode of life: what will people say if the daughter of the distinguished officer stops at a hotel, associates with men without a chaperon, and is wined and dined away from her home? _Magda_ is finally prevailed upon to remain with her parents. She consents on condition that they should not pry into her life, that they should not soil and besmirch her innermost being. But that is expecting the impossible from a provincial environment. It is not that her people really question; but they insinuate, they speak with looks and nods; burning curiosity to unearth _Magda's_ life is in the very air.

_Schwartze._ I implore you--Come here, my child--nearer--so--I
implore you--let me be happy in my dying hour. Tell me that you have
remained pure in body and soul, and then go with my blessing on your
way.

_Magda._ I have remained--true to myself, dear father.

_Schwartze._ How? In good or in ill?

_Magda._ In what--for me--was good.

_Schwartze._ I love you with my whole heart, because I have sorrowed
for you--so long. But I must know who you are.

Among the townspeople who come to pay homage to _Magda_ is _Councillor von Keller_. In his student days he belonged to the bohemian set and was full of advanced ideas. At that period he met _Magda_, young, beautiful, and inexperienced. A love affair developed. But when _Von Keller_ finished his studies, he went home to the fold of his family, and forgot his sweetheart _Magda_. In due course he became an important pillar of society, a very influential citizen, admired, respected, and feared in the community.

When _Magda_ returns home, _Von Keller_ comes to pay her his respects. But she is no longer the insignificant little girl he had known; she is now a celebrity. What pillar of society is averse to basking in the glow of celebrities? _Von Keller_ offers flowers and admiration. But _Magda_ discovers in him the man who had robbed her of her faith and trust,--the father of her child.

_Magda_ has become purified by her bitter struggle. It made her finer and bigger. She does not even reproach the man, because--

_Magda._ I've painted this meeting to myself a thousand times, and
have been prepared for it for years. Something warned me, too, when
I undertook this journey home--though I must say I hardly expected
just here to--Yes, how is it that, after what has passed between us,
you came into this house? It seems to me a little-- ... I can see it
all. The effort to keep worthy of respect under such difficulties,
with a bad conscience, is awkward. You look down from the height of
your pure atmosphere on your sinful youth,--for you are called a
pillar, my dear friend.

_Von Keller._ Well, I felt myself called to higher things. I
thought--Why should I undervalue my position? I have become
Councillor, and that comparatively young. An ordinary ambition might
take satisfaction in that. But one sits and waits at home, while
others are called to the ministry. And this environment,
conventionality, and narrowness, all is so gray,--gray! And the
ladies here--for one who cares at all about elegance--I assure you
something rejoiced within me when I read this morning that you were
the famous singer,--you to whom I was tied by so many dear memories
and--

_Magda._ And then you thought whether it might not be possible with
the help of these dear memories to bring a little color into the
gray background?

_Von Keller._ Oh, pray don't--

_Magda._ Well, between old friends--

_Von Keller._ Really, are we that, really?

_Magda._ Certainly, _sans rancune_. Oh, if I took it from the other
standpoint, I should have to range the whole gamut,--liar, coward,
traitor! But as I look at it, I owe you nothing but thanks, my
friend.

_Von Keller._ This is a view which--

_Magda._ Which is very convenient for you. But why should I not make
it convenient for you? In the manner in which we met, you had no
obligations towards me. I had left my home; I was young and
innocent, hot-blooded and careless, and I lived as I saw others
live. I gave myself to you because I loved you. I might perhaps have
loved anyone who came in my way. That--that seemed to be all over.
And we were so happy,--weren't we?... Yes, we were a merry set; and
when the fun had lasted half a year, one day my lover vanished.

_Von Keller._ An unlucky chance, I swear to you. My father was ill.
I had to travel. I wrote everything to you.

_Magda._ H'm! I didn't reproach you. And now I will tell you why I
owe you thanks. I was a stupid, unsuspecting thing, enjoying freedom
like a runaway monkey. Through you I became a woman. For whatever I
have done in my art, for whatever I have become in myself, I have
you to thank. My soul was like--yes, down below there, there used to
be an Æolian harp which was left moldering because my father could
not bear it. Such a silent harp was my soul; and through you it was
given to the storm. And it sounded almost to breaking,--the whole
scale of passions which bring us women to maturity,--love and hate
and revenge and ambition, and need, need, need,--three times
need--and the highest, the strongest, the holiest of all, the
mother's love!--All I owe to you!

_Von Keller._ My child!

_Magda._ Your child? Who calls it so? Yours? Ha, ha! Dare to claim
portion in him and I'll kill you with these hands. Who are you?
You're a strange man who gratified his lust and passed on with a
laugh. But I have a child,--my son, my God, my all! For him I lived
and starved and froze and walked the streets; for him I sang and
danced in concert-halls,--for my child who was crying for his
bread!

_Von Keller._ For Heaven's sake, hush! someone's coming.

_Magda._ Let them come! Let them all come! I don't care, I don't
care! To their faces I'll say what I think of you,--of you and your
respectable society. Why should I be worse than you, that I must
prolong my existence among you by a lie! Why should this gold upon
my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase my
infamy? Have I not worked early and late for ten long years? Have I
not woven this dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built up my
career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why should I blush
before anyone? I am myself, and through myself I have become what I
am.

_Magda's_ father learns about the affair and immediately demands that the _Councillor_ marry his daughter, or fight a duel. _Magda_ resents the preposterous idea. _Von Keller_ is indeed glad to offer _Magda_ his hand in marriage: she is so beautiful and fascinating; she will prove a great asset to his ambitions. But he stipulates that she give up her profession of singer, and that the existence of the child be kept secret. He tells _Magda_ that later on, when they are happily married and firmly established in the world, they will bring their child to their home and adopt it; but for the present respectability must not know that it is theirs, born out of wedlock, without the sanction of the Church and the State.

That is more than _Magda_ can endure. She is outraged that she, the mother, who had given up everything for the sake of her child, who had slaved, struggled and drudged in order to win a career and economic independence--all for the sake of the child--that she should forswear her right to motherhood, her right to be true to herself!

_Magda._ What--what do you say?

_Von Keller._ Why, it would ruin us. No, no, it is absurd to think
of it. But we can make a little journey every year to wherever it is
being educated. One can register under a false name; that is not
unusual in foreign parts, and is hardly criminal. And when we are
fifty years old, and other regular conditions have been fulfilled,
that can be arranged, can't it? Then we can, under some pretext,
adopt it, can't we?

_Magda._ I have humbled myself, I have surrendered my judgment, I
have let myself be carried like a lamb to the slaughter. But my
child I will not leave. Give up my child to save his career!

_Magda_ orders _Von Keller_ out of the house. But the old _Colonel_ is unbending. He insists that his daughter become an honorable woman by marrying the man who had seduced her. Her refusal fires his wrath to wild rage.

_Schwartze._ Either you swear to me now ... that you will become the
honorable wife of your child's father, or--neither of us two shall
go out of this room alive.... You think ... because you are free
and a great artist, that you can set at naught--

_Magda._ Leave art out of the question. Consider me nothing more
than the seamstress or the servant-maid who seeks, among strangers,
the little food and the little love she needs. See how much the
family with its morality demand from us! It throws us on our own
resources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet, in
our loneliness, we must live according to the laws which it has
planned for itself alone. We must still crouch in the corner, and
there wait patiently until a respectful wooer happens to come. Yes,
wait. And meanwhile the war for existence of body and soul is
consuming us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair, and yet
shall we not once dare to give what we have of youth and strength to
the man for whom our whole being cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us
up in harems or in cloisters--and that perhaps would be best. But if
you give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage of it.

But morality and the family never understand the Magdas. Least of all does the old Colonel understand his daughter. Rigid in his false notions and superstitions, wrought up with distress, he is about to carry out his threat, when a stroke of apoplexy overtakes him.

In "Magda," Hermann Sudermann has given to the world a new picture of modern womanhood, a type of free motherhood. As such the play is of great revolutionary significance, not alone to Germany, but to the universal spirit of a newer day.

THE FIRES OF ST. JOHN

In "The Fires of St. John," Sudermann does not go as far as in "Magda." Nevertheless the play deals with important truths. Life does not always draw the same conclusions; life is not always logical, not always consistent. The function of the artist is to portray Life--only thus can he be true both to art and to life.

In this drama we witness the bondage of gratitude,--one of the most enslaving and paralyzing factors. _Mr. Brauer_, a landed proprietor, has a child, _Gertrude_, a beautiful girl, who has always lived the sheltered life of a hot-house plant. The Brauers also have an adopted daughter, _Marie_, whom they had picked up on the road, while traveling on a stormy night. They called her "the calamity child," because a great misfortune had befallen them shortly before. _Mr. Brauer's_ younger brother, confronted with heavy losses, had shot himself, leaving behind his son _George_ and a heavily mortgaged estate. The finding of the baby, under these circumstances, was considered by the Brauers an omen. They adopted it and brought it up as their own.

This involved the forcible separation of _Marie_ from her gypsy mother, who was a pariah, an outcast beggar. She drank and stole in order to subsist. But with it all, her mother instinct was strong and it always drove her back to the place where her child lived. _Marie_ had her first shock when, on her way home from confirmation, the ragged and brutalized woman threw herself before the young girl, crying, "Mamie, my child, my Mamie!" It was then that _Marie_ realized her origin. Out of gratitude she consecrated her life to the Brauers.

_Marie_ never forgot for a moment that she owed everything--her education, her support and happiness--to her adopted parents. She wrapped herself around them with all the intensity and passion of her nature. She became the very spirit of the house. She looked after the estate, and devoted herself to little _Gertrude_, as to her own sister.

_Gertrude_ is engaged to marry her cousin _George_, and everything is beautiful and joyous in the household. No one suspects that _Marie_ has been in love with the young man ever since her childhood. However, because of her gratitude to her benefactors, she stifles her nature, hardens her heart, and locks her feelings behind closed doors, as it were. And when _Gertrude_ is about to marry _George_, _Marie_ throws herself into the work of fixing up a home for the young people, to surround them with sunshine and joy in their new love life.

Accidentally _Marie_ discovers a manuscript written by _George_, wherein he discloses his deep love for her. She learns that he, even as she, has no other thought, no other purpose in life than his love for her. But he also is bound by gratitude for his uncle _Brauer_ who had saved the honor of his father and had rescued him from poverty. He feels it dishonorable to refuse to marry _Gertrude_.

_George._ All these years I have struggled and deprived myself with
only one thing in view--to be free--free--and yet I must bow--I must
bow. If it were not for the sake of this beautiful child, who is
innocent of it all, I would be tempted to--But the die is cast, the
yoke is ready--and so am I!... I, too, am a child of misery, a
calamity child; but I am a subject of charity. I accept all they
have to give.... Was I not picked up from the street, as my uncle so
kindly informed me for the second time--like yourself? Do I not
belong to this house, and am I not smothered with the damnable
charity of my benefactors, like yourself?

It is St. John's night. The entire family is gathered on the estate of the Brauers, while the peasants are making merry with song and dance at the lighted bonfires.

It is a glorious, dreamy night, suggestive of symbolic meaning. According to the servant _Katie_, it is written that "whoever shall give or receive their first kiss on St. John's eve, their love is sealed and they will be faithful unto death."