THE ARTIST

[1]The first Swedish edition will shortly appear amongst the collected works of Strindberg which are being issued by Messrs. Albert Bonnier.

[2]En bok om Strindberg, af Holger Drachmann, Knut Hamsun, Justin Huntly McCarthy, Björnstjerne Björnson, Jonas Lie, Georg Brandes, etc. (Karlstad, 1894).

[3]The Confession of a Fool. English translation by Ellie Schleussner.

[4]The name of this play has been wrongly translated into English. It is generally written of asThe Journal of Lucky Peter, a mistake which even appears in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

[5]A third and unaltered edition of this book, which is now regarded as one of the classical works on the subject, was issued during 1912 (H. Gebers Förlag, Stockholm).

[6]En Bok om Strindberg(Karlstad, 1894).

Whilst fighting the battle of realism in fiction Strindberg had prepared the dramatic form which was to be his contribution to the "new" theatre, on which the curtain was about to rise. The demand for a new dramatic art had become imperative. Tired of the admonitions and stale declamations of the old rhetorical play, the public had asked for a representation of life. Dumas père had responded by writing the drama of personality, Dumasfilsby establishing the play of moral problems. Ibsen had built the psychological play on the foundation of Dumas and had endowed the Norwegian language with a new sonority. Scribe had supplied fine technique and neat carpentry for the new French stage, but Paris, the petulant playgoer, sighed for other things.

Zola raised the cry of naturalism. The artificial plots of Dumas, Augier and Sardouwere to be superseded by dramatic flashes of reality. "I yearn for life, with its shiver, its breath and its strength; I long for life as it is," cried the author ofThérèse Raquin, and Strindberg responded. In September, 1887,The Fatherwas published, the first of the series of naturalistic plays through which Strindberg's European reputation as a modern dramatist and a woman-hater was established. The institution in the same year of the Théâtre Libre, by M. André Antoine, provided a stage which was wholly adapted to the revolt against old-fashioned theatricality.

M. Antoine was an employee at the gas-works who had a passionate faith in realistic drama. With a group of sympatheticdilettantihe began evening performances in a large room in Place Pigalle without the stage mechanism of the commercial theatre. Success attended the enthusiastic players, and the performances at the Théâtre Libre became the rendezvous of the intellectual and artistic world which gravitates to Paris. The soul of the enterprise, M. Antoine, was manager, actor, scene-painter, and mechanic. The theatre was semi-private. Special invitation cards to elect audiences protectedthe actors from the attention of gallery-opinion. The actors and authors of the new plays were the hosts in this home of dramatic revolution, where every original playwright was welcome. Strindberg'sThe Father, Lady JulieandCreditorswere amongst the first plays produced, and he, therefore, had the satisfaction of being played in Paris before any appearance on the French stage of the "famous Norwegian blue-stocking." Tolstoy'sPowers of Darkness, Zola'sThérèse Raquin, Emile Fabre'sL'Argent, an adaptation of the brothers de Goncourt's Sœur Philomène and Villiers' "L'Evasion," belonged to the early repertoire.Ghostswas the first of Ibsen's plays to appear; it was followed byRosmersholm. The Théâtre Libre lasted eight years. It had time to create a "modernity" in taste and dramatic expression which produced similar free theatres in Berlin and London, and a vogue of naturalism which included every variety of "life," and which, occasionally, gave undue preference to lubricity and morbidity.

The Swedish edition ofThe Fatherwas followed by a French edition, containing a sympathetic prefatory letter by Zola. The three acts of this tragedy present a drawn-outduel between man and woman for the possession of the soul of the child. The father, a cavalry captain, is intellectual, serious, studious, lovable. His wife is stupid, selfish and diabolically resourceful in the choice of weapons for the final defeat of the ill-used man. He is mentally poisoned by the suggestion that he is not the father of the child. Laura, the wife, has herself administered the poison in order to shatter the man's peace of mind, and break the foundation of his love for the child. Her hatred knows no bounds. She not only seeks to drive him mad, but contrives by skilful intrigue to procure evidence of his insanity. She informs the doctor that her husband suffers from extraordinary delusions regarding the uncertainty of paternity, and that he talks of little else. When the doctor meets the Captain the question which is eating his mind shows itself as an obsessing idea. Everybody and everything conspires to make the man appear a raving lunatic. Finally, even the old nurse who has been a true and good woman is induced to betray him. He believes in her kindness of heart, and allows her to approach him. She slips the strait-jacket over him, thereby adding the last link to the chain of feminine treacheryand cruelty which has enslaved him. Subjugated, robbed of his faith and his mind, the man dies—the victim of woman.

In the preface Zola expressed his interest in the boldness of the idea. "Your Laura," he wrote, "is woman as she is in her conceit and in her mystical unconsciousness of her qualities and faults."The Fatherwas one of the few dramatic works which had the power of moving him deeply. But he found a certain want of reality in the characters and the construction of the play. The nameless captain and his cruel entourage were thought-forms, lacking the solid dimensions which Zola identified with reality. In a critical appreciation of Strindberg, published in 1894, Georg Brandes praisedThe Fatheras a tragedy of concentrated energy, magnificent in its composition and powerful in its effect. "There is something eternal in The Father," he writes, "an unforgettable psychology of woman, showing typically feminine weakness and vice." Brandes thinks the symbolism of the final scene, in which the man of intellect is ruined by woman, inherently true. He adds: "The strength of the indignation and the hatred which have produced the drama are impressive. This tragedy is a cry of anguishwhich clings to one's memory, which grips and terrifies through the depth of the passionate suffering that uttered the cry."

Laura may be regarded as the most complete type of Strindberg's Inferno-women. She has not even thebeauté du diablewhich creates an illusion of goodness in some of his types. She is the man-eater, the destroyer of all that is noble, consistent, progressive in man. Strindberg sees a cannibalistic tendency in woman which makes marriage a feast of horror, and this is a theme to which he often returns. InThe Fatherthe distraught man says to his child: "You see, I am a cannibal, and I will eat you. Your mother wanted to eat me, but she could not. I am Saturn who ate his children, because it had been prophesied that they would eat him. To eat or to be eaten? That is the question. If I do not eat you, you will eat me, and you have already showed me your teeth." ...

The callous egotism with which Laura kills her husband is shown by the following words, with which she assaults him: "Now you have fulfilled your function as an unfortunately necessary father and bread-winner, you are not needed any longer, and you must go. You must go, since you have realised that myintellect is as strong as my will, and since you will not stay to acknowledge it."

It is perhaps not unnatural that the Captain should throw a lighted lamp at Laura after listening to this speech. But the speech itself is certainly unnatural, and would be more in keeping with the sentiments of a female spider—if that callous insect could formulate her generative philosophy—than those of a woman. As a self-expository wife Laura severely taxes our credulity.

Lady Julie[1]is a different type. She is the pretty, neurotic, sensual, useless woman, blue-blooded and empty-minded, destined to total extinction in the process of natural selection. Her tragedy is unfolded in a play of one act, which is the quintessence of Strindberg as a"naturalistic" dramatist. The scene is laid in the Count's kitchen. The Count's daughter, Lady Julie, is alone in the house with Jean, the valet, and Christine, the cook. It is St. John's Eve; the farm hands belonging to the estate are assembled for the annual midsummer dance. They do not dance in the kitchen, but there is midsummer madness in the air. Christine is betrothed to Jean who treats the products of her culinary art with epicurean disdain. He knows his value as a man and a servant. Jean is an excellent valet, well-made, well-behaved, who knows when to show self-confidence and when to cringe. Lady Julie has graced the servants' dance with her presence. She has favoured Jean with such marked attention that the people have begun to gossip. Alone with him in the kitchen she encourages him to make love to her. The valet is uneasy; the man is eager to make himself master of the Count's daughter, but the servant shrinks from the sacrilege. But Lady Julie taunts him with his unmanliness, tempts him with her beauty, and the effervescence of her highly-strung nerves. A strange love-scene follows.

The sound of approaching country-folk forces Jean and Lady Julie to hide from theirprying eyes. They do not wish to be found alone in the kitchen. Jean's room is near at hand and becomes their refuge, whilst the peasants make the kitchen the scene of their midsummer merry-making.

When the kitchen is deserted, Lady Julie and Jean reappear. There is an autumnal chill in the air. For Lady Julie is no longer Lady Julie. The valet is master. They are both conscious of the monstrous breach of social etiquette which has been committed. And the grey dawn will not only bring the shame of day, but the home-coming of the Count.

Jean is chivalrous. He proposes immediate flight to Switzerland or the Italian lakes. There, he thinks, they can start an hotel—a first-class hotel for first-class guests. He waxes enthusiastic over the joys of the hotel-owner. She will be mistress of the house, queen of the accounts, before whom the guests will humbly lay their gold.

She cannot rise to his enthusiasm. She wants the comfort of love:

Julie. That is all very fine. But, Jean, you must give me courage. Say that you love me. Come and take me in your arms.Jean(hesitating). I would like to, but I dare not.Not here in this house. I love you without doubt. Can you doubt it?Julie(shyly, with true womanly feeling). You! Say "thou" to me. Between us there are no longer any barriers. Say "thou."Jean(troubled). I cannot. There are still barriers between us so long as we remain in this house. There is the past, there is the Count. I have never met anyone who compelled such respect from me. I have only to see his gloves lying on a chair to feel quite small. I have only to hear his bell, and I start like a shying horse. And when I now look at his boots, standing there so stiff and stately, it is as if something made my back bend. (He kicks the boots.) Superstition, prejudice which have been driven into us from childhood, but which may be as easily forgotten again. If you will only come into another country, into a republic, people will cringe before my porter's livery. People shall cringe, but I shall not cringe. I was not born to cringe, for there is stuff in me; there is character in me; and if once I grip the lowest branch, you shall watch me climb. To-day I am a lackey, but next year I am a proprietor; in ten years I shall be independent, and then I go to Roumania and get myself an order. I can—mark well I say Ican—a count.Julie. Fine, fine!Jean. Ah, in Roumania a man can buy a count's title, and then you will be a countess—my countess.Julie. What do I care for what I have cast aside!Say that you love me, or else—ah, what am I else?Jean. I will say it a thousand times—later on. But not here. And, above all, no sentimentality, or all is lost. We must keep cool like sensible people. (He takes out a cigar, cuts the end, and lights it.) Sit down there, and I will sit here, and then we can chat as if nothing had happened.Julie(in despair). Oh, my God! Have you no feelings?Jean. I! Why, there is no one more sensitive than I, but I can command my feelings.Julie. A short time ago you would have kissed my shoe, and now——Jean (coldly). Yes, before. But now we have something else to think about.

Julie. That is all very fine. But, Jean, you must give me courage. Say that you love me. Come and take me in your arms.

Jean(hesitating). I would like to, but I dare not.Not here in this house. I love you without doubt. Can you doubt it?

Julie(shyly, with true womanly feeling). You! Say "thou" to me. Between us there are no longer any barriers. Say "thou."

Jean(troubled). I cannot. There are still barriers between us so long as we remain in this house. There is the past, there is the Count. I have never met anyone who compelled such respect from me. I have only to see his gloves lying on a chair to feel quite small. I have only to hear his bell, and I start like a shying horse. And when I now look at his boots, standing there so stiff and stately, it is as if something made my back bend. (He kicks the boots.) Superstition, prejudice which have been driven into us from childhood, but which may be as easily forgotten again. If you will only come into another country, into a republic, people will cringe before my porter's livery. People shall cringe, but I shall not cringe. I was not born to cringe, for there is stuff in me; there is character in me; and if once I grip the lowest branch, you shall watch me climb. To-day I am a lackey, but next year I am a proprietor; in ten years I shall be independent, and then I go to Roumania and get myself an order. I can—mark well I say Ican—a count.

Julie. Fine, fine!

Jean. Ah, in Roumania a man can buy a count's title, and then you will be a countess—my countess.

Julie. What do I care for what I have cast aside!Say that you love me, or else—ah, what am I else?

Jean. I will say it a thousand times—later on. But not here. And, above all, no sentimentality, or all is lost. We must keep cool like sensible people. (He takes out a cigar, cuts the end, and lights it.) Sit down there, and I will sit here, and then we can chat as if nothing had happened.

Julie(in despair). Oh, my God! Have you no feelings?

Jean. I! Why, there is no one more sensitive than I, but I can command my feelings.

Julie. A short time ago you would have kissed my shoe, and now——

Jean (coldly). Yes, before. But now we have something else to think about.

They cannot flee without money. Jean suggests that she can steal the necessary sum in her father's room. He taunts her with her weakness until she robs her father. They prepare to leave the house. The girl wants to bring her greenfinch. Infuriated by her sentimentality, Jean snatches the bird from her and kills it. The man's brutality and meanness are suddenly revealed to her; her brain reels under the humiliation which she has brought upon herself. She hurls curses at the head of the impudent domestic. The morning has come, and Christine enters thekitchen on her way to church. The girl appeals to her, seeks her sympathy, but Christine's feelings of propriety are too shocked to allow of any pity for the fallen girl. She leaves them. The Count returns. They hear him in his room, know that he will discover the theft. His daughter is half demented with fear, remorse, shame; she is incapable of deciding what to do. Jean's servant conscience has been awakened by the arrival of his master. The Count is there to command, Jean to obey. And when Lady Julie wants him to tell her what to do he hands her a razor—with the complacency with which he might hand his mistress the riding-whip. She leaves the kitchen and kills herself.

Such are the outlines of this painful play, the most "successful" of Strindberg's naturalistic dramas. Again we have a struggle between man and woman, but this time the opposites of class and blood are added to those of sex. The healthy egotism, the common instincts of self-preservation in the valet endow him with a physical stability against which Lady Julie's emotions break like foam against a rock. She goes, he remains. LikeThe Admirable Crichton, Jean knows that there must be masters and servants in this worldof inequality, and, though his passions for once mastered his conviction, he is soundly submissive to social law and order. In Lady Julie, Strindberg has sketched the useless, unnatural, pleasure-loving, hysterical woman of the leisured classes whom he detests.

In the preface to the play he analyses this type of woman. "Lady Julie is a modern character," he writes, "not as if the half-woman, the man-hater, had not existed in all times, but because she has now been discovered, has appeared on the scene, and created a disturbance." In such women he sees a danger to the race, for, as a rule, they attract degenerate men, and transmit their own misery to another generation. They sell themselves for "power, decorations, distinctions, diplomas," and produce beings of undecided sex to whom life is useless. For such psycho-pathological creatures Strindberg sees no hope beyond that of elimination through contact with reality (Jean was "reality" to Lady Julie), or a fatal outburst of long-suppressed sexual instincts. "The type is tragic," he concludes, "offering the spectacle of a desperate struggle against nature; tragic as a romantic inheritance which is now being destroyed by the naturalism which only seekshappiness; and only strong and good species are compatible with happiness."

Justin McCarthy translatedLady Julieinto English, and expressed his admiration for the unalloyed realism of the piece in an article inThe Fortnightly Review. The mental intensity with which Strindberg visualised the character of Lady Julie is strangely impressive. There is no extravagant or jejune theorising; it is drama vehemently conceived and true to its creator. But the horror which moved Justin McCarthy when reading the play, and which most readers experience, is a product of Strindberg's peculiar misogyny which, for the purposes of the play, he coupled with the ordinary standard of convention and morality. Lady Julie's disgrace is unpardonable from the point of view of society. She dies in deference to its verdict. We cannot imagine a drama by Strindberg, in which tragedy is woven out of the misconduct of a Lord Julius instead of a Lady Julie. A young "blood," neurotic, suffering from ennui, and seeking temporary distraction in the company of Jeanne, the valet's daughter, would not have inspired a naturalistic drama of sex and caste. There is a wealth of material which can be used toépater le bourgeoisin the idea of awell-bred woman's precipitous "return to nature." The commonplace spectacle of a similar descent on the part of a well-bred man affords none.

InComradeswe meet the type of woman who surpassesLady Juliein anti-social attributes. Laura is something of a female tigress, the mother whose claws are ready to tear all but the cub; Lady Julie, with her hysteria I and her caprices is still the womanly woman. But Bertha who is united to her "comrade" Axel in a marriage of equality is worse than they. She is plain, mannish, ambitious; a mental parasite who suppresses her womanhood and simulates her husband's talents. The rival of man, the unsexed, simian-brained shrew, Strindberg'sbête noire.

Comradesis a four-act comedy of marriage. Axel Alberg and his wife are Swedish painters in Paris. They have each painted a picture which has been submitted to the Salon. In Act I we find Axel at work in the studio. He is a good fellow, honest, painstaking, generous. Friends call and discover his embarrassing position as a married comrade. There is the doctor, mature in experience and philosophical in outlook, who when Axel asks him if he does not believe in woman answers: "No, Idon't. But I love her." There is the sensible, matter-of-fact Lieutenant Starck, who will stand no nonsense from women, and whose happy, normal wife knows that woman's real happiness is found in subjection unto her husband. They are shocked to hear of Bertha's tastes and habits. Bertha comes home. She has kept her nude male model waiting, and her poor husband has had to pay five francs in consequence of her unpunctuality. This is a small part of the sacrifices he has made for her artistic career. In the scenes that follow we see Bertha insisting on keeping the household accounts, though her head cannot grapple with the simplest problems of addition and subtraction. She has made false entries, and deliberately deceives Axel as to the manner in which the funds of the comradeship are expended. She coquettes with Willmer, a young writer, and receives presents from him. Intent upon securing the acceptance of her picture, she makes nefarious use of Axel's love for her.

Bertha. Will you be very kind to me? Very?Axel. I always want to be kind to you, my dear.Bertha. Do you? Look here, you know Roubey, don't you?Axel. Yes, I met him in Vienna, and we became good friends.Bertha. You know that he is a member of the jury?Axel. Well, what about that?Bertha. Yes, now you will be angry. I know it.Axel. If you know it, don't make me angry.Bertha(caresses him). You won't sacrifice anything for your wife—nothing.Axel. Go and beg? No, that I won't do.Bertha. Not for yourself, for your picture will probably be accepted all the same, but for your wife?Axel. Don't ask me.Bertha. I should really never ask anything of you.Axel. Yes, things which I can do without sacrificing....Bertha. Your manly pride.Axel. Let us leave it at that.Bertha. But I should sacrifice my womanly pride, if I could help you.Axel. You have no pride.Bertha. Axel!Axel. There, there, forgive me.Bertha. I am sure you are jealous of me. I am sure you would not like my picture to be accepted.Axel. Nothing would delight me more, I assure you, Bertha.Bertha. Would it also delight you if I were accepted and you were refused?Axel. I must feel (laying his hand on his heart).I am sure it would be an unpleasant feeling—sure. Both because I paint better than you, and because....Bertha. Say it straight out,—because I am a woman.Axel. Yes, also for that reason. It is strange, but I have a feeling as if you women were intruders, forcing your way in and demanding the spoils of the battle which we men have fought whilst you sat by the fireside. Forgive me, Bertha, for saying this, but such thoughts come to me.Bertha. You are just like all other men, exactly.Axel. Like all other men. I hope so.Bertha. And lately you have assumed such superiority; you used not to be like that.Axel. I suppose that is because I am superior. Do something which we men have not already done.Bertha. What! What are you saying? Are you not ashamed?

Bertha. Will you be very kind to me? Very?

Axel. I always want to be kind to you, my dear.

Bertha. Do you? Look here, you know Roubey, don't you?

Axel. Yes, I met him in Vienna, and we became good friends.

Bertha. You know that he is a member of the jury?

Axel. Well, what about that?

Bertha. Yes, now you will be angry. I know it.

Axel. If you know it, don't make me angry.

Bertha(caresses him). You won't sacrifice anything for your wife—nothing.

Axel. Go and beg? No, that I won't do.

Bertha. Not for yourself, for your picture will probably be accepted all the same, but for your wife?

Axel. Don't ask me.

Bertha. I should really never ask anything of you.

Axel. Yes, things which I can do without sacrificing....

Bertha. Your manly pride.

Axel. Let us leave it at that.

Bertha. But I should sacrifice my womanly pride, if I could help you.

Axel. You have no pride.

Bertha. Axel!

Axel. There, there, forgive me.

Bertha. I am sure you are jealous of me. I am sure you would not like my picture to be accepted.

Axel. Nothing would delight me more, I assure you, Bertha.

Bertha. Would it also delight you if I were accepted and you were refused?

Axel. I must feel (laying his hand on his heart).I am sure it would be an unpleasant feeling—sure. Both because I paint better than you, and because....

Bertha. Say it straight out,—because I am a woman.

Axel. Yes, also for that reason. It is strange, but I have a feeling as if you women were intruders, forcing your way in and demanding the spoils of the battle which we men have fought whilst you sat by the fireside. Forgive me, Bertha, for saying this, but such thoughts come to me.

Bertha. You are just like all other men, exactly.

Axel. Like all other men. I hope so.

Bertha. And lately you have assumed such superiority; you used not to be like that.

Axel. I suppose that is because I am superior. Do something which we men have not already done.

Bertha. What! What are you saying? Are you not ashamed?

Bertha changes her tone, and plays the humble comrade who is sorely in need of a little encouragement. Axel rejects her arguments, but eventually goes to Monsieur Roubey. During Axel's absence a letter arrives containing the information that his picture has been refused. Bertha guesses its contents and revels in the luxury of pity andschadenfreude. Axel returns, after finding Madame Roubey at home, (a meeting cleverlyforeseen by Bertha) with the news that Bertha's picture has already been accepted. He congratulates Bertha on her success. He is confident that his picture will also be accepted. She hands him the letter. Thescène de ruptureis inevitable.

Axel(lays his hand on his heart and sits down). What ... (controls himself). This is a blow which I did not expect. This is most unpleasant.Bertha. Well, perhaps I can help you now.Axel. You look as if you enjoyed my defeat, Bertha. Oh, I feel a great hatred of you stirring within me!Bertha. I look happy, perhaps, because I have had a success, but when one is tied to a man who cannot rejoice in one's happiness it is difficult to feel sorry when he is unhappy.Axel. I don't know what has happened, but it seems to me that we have become enemies now. The struggle for a position has come between us, and we can no longer be friends.Bertha. Does not your sense of justice tell you that the one who was most competent won the battle?Axel. You were not the most competent.Bertha. But the jury thought so.Axel. The jury? But you know very well that you cannot paint as well as I do.Bertha. Are you sure of that?

Axel(lays his hand on his heart and sits down). What ... (controls himself). This is a blow which I did not expect. This is most unpleasant.

Bertha. Well, perhaps I can help you now.

Axel. You look as if you enjoyed my defeat, Bertha. Oh, I feel a great hatred of you stirring within me!

Bertha. I look happy, perhaps, because I have had a success, but when one is tied to a man who cannot rejoice in one's happiness it is difficult to feel sorry when he is unhappy.

Axel. I don't know what has happened, but it seems to me that we have become enemies now. The struggle for a position has come between us, and we can no longer be friends.

Bertha. Does not your sense of justice tell you that the one who was most competent won the battle?

Axel. You were not the most competent.

Bertha. But the jury thought so.

Axel. The jury? But you know very well that you cannot paint as well as I do.

Bertha. Are you sure of that?

The dialogue that follows is a crescendo of the sex-against-sex quarrel. "A comrade," concludes Axel, "is a more or less loyal competitor, but we are enemies." Bertha, selfish, mean, inebriated by her triumph, goes out to celebrate her victory in the company of friends. Axel stays at home to nurse his sorrow. The curtain descends upon the dejected husband begging his wife not to come home drunk.

Act II shows us Bertha usurping Axel's place as teacher. She finds fault with his technique, and snatches the brush out of his hand to show him how to paint. Her puny mind reels with the desire to humiliate him. Malicious tongues have whispered that he has painted her picture, that he has good-humouredly let her reap the honour of his toil. Bertha is casting about for a means of crushing Axel for ever. To-morrow they will give an evening-party. Her friend Abel—another of the emancipated, heartless, false, perverse, masculine women of artistic Bohemia—makes a welcome suggestion. Why not arrange to have Axel's rejected picture sent home at the very hour when their friends are assembled in the studio? The idea fascinates Bertha, but she dare not beresponsible. "I should like it to be done, but I don't want to be concerned in it," she says. "I want to stand guiltless and to be able to swear that I am innocent." And Abel undertakes to manage the matter.

The sex-war reaches its climax in Act III. Axel has tom himself free from the meshes of his decaying love. Now he knows Bertha as she really is. He has discovered her dishonest book-keeping, her money transactions with Willmer, her insidious efforts to emasculate his soul—he realises the full horror of her short hair, and of their union. He has broken his marriage-vows, and throws down the wedding-ring. He is free. But Bertha's malignity clings to him:

Bertha. And this, all this noble revenge, simply because you were inferior to me.Axel. I was your superior when I painted your picture.Bertha. When you painted my picture! Say that again and I will strike you.Axel. You who despise brute force are always the first to appeal to it. Strike me if you like.Bertha(advancing towards him). You think I have not the strength.Axel(seizing both her wrists and holding them). No, not that. Are you convinced now that I amalso physically the stronger? Bow down, or I will break you!Bertha. Dare you strike me?Axel. Why not? I only know of one reason why I should not.Bertha. And that is——?Axel. That you are irresponsible.Bertha(struggling to free herself). Ah, let me go!Axel. Not until you have begged my pardon. Down on your knees. (He forces her down with one hand.) Now look up to me from below. That is your place, the place you yourself have chosen.Bertha(gives in). Axel, Axel, I don't know you e any longer. Can this be you who swore to love me, you who begged to be allowed to support me?Axel. Yes, I was strong then and believed I had strength to do it. But you clipped the hair of my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole my best blood, and yet enough remains to subdue you. Stand up, and let us have done with speeches. There is business to be talked over. (Bertha gets up, then sits down on the sofa, weeping.)Axel. Why are you crying?Bertha. I don't know. Perhaps because I am weak.Axel. You see! I was your strength. When I took back what was my own you had nothing left. You were like a rubber ball which I blew out; when I threw you down you collapsed.Bertha(without looking up). I don't know if it isas you say, but since we quarrelled my strength has left me. Axel, believe me, I have never felt for you what I now feel.Axel. Really! What do you feel?Bertha. I can't say. I don't know if it is love, but....Axel. What do you mean by love? Is it not a secret longing to eat me alive once more? You begin to love me. Why not formerly, when I was good to you? Goodness is stupidity. Let us be wicked. What do you think?Bertha. Yes, I would rather have you a little wicked than weak. (Gets up.) Axel, forgive me, but don't desert me. Love me, oh, love me!

Bertha. And this, all this noble revenge, simply because you were inferior to me.

Axel. I was your superior when I painted your picture.

Bertha. When you painted my picture! Say that again and I will strike you.

Axel. You who despise brute force are always the first to appeal to it. Strike me if you like.

Bertha(advancing towards him). You think I have not the strength.

Axel(seizing both her wrists and holding them). No, not that. Are you convinced now that I amalso physically the stronger? Bow down, or I will break you!

Bertha. Dare you strike me?

Axel. Why not? I only know of one reason why I should not.

Bertha. And that is——?

Axel. That you are irresponsible.

Bertha(struggling to free herself). Ah, let me go!

Axel. Not until you have begged my pardon. Down on your knees. (He forces her down with one hand.) Now look up to me from below. That is your place, the place you yourself have chosen.

Bertha(gives in). Axel, Axel, I don't know you e any longer. Can this be you who swore to love me, you who begged to be allowed to support me?

Axel. Yes, I was strong then and believed I had strength to do it. But you clipped the hair of my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole my best blood, and yet enough remains to subdue you. Stand up, and let us have done with speeches. There is business to be talked over. (Bertha gets up, then sits down on the sofa, weeping.)

Axel. Why are you crying?

Bertha. I don't know. Perhaps because I am weak.

Axel. You see! I was your strength. When I took back what was my own you had nothing left. You were like a rubber ball which I blew out; when I threw you down you collapsed.

Bertha(without looking up). I don't know if it isas you say, but since we quarrelled my strength has left me. Axel, believe me, I have never felt for you what I now feel.

Axel. Really! What do you feel?

Bertha. I can't say. I don't know if it is love, but....

Axel. What do you mean by love? Is it not a secret longing to eat me alive once more? You begin to love me. Why not formerly, when I was good to you? Goodness is stupidity. Let us be wicked. What do you think?

Bertha. Yes, I would rather have you a little wicked than weak. (Gets up.) Axel, forgive me, but don't desert me. Love me, oh, love me!

But Axel is not caught again. He consents to allow the party to take place, as if they were still good comrades, but he is determined to obtain a divorce. In Act IV we again meet the happy pair, Starck, Willmer, Abel, Dr. Östermark, theraisonneurof the play, and his divorced wife, Mrs. Hall, a dubious middle-aged woman whom Bertha imagines to be a victim of man's brutality and a living argument in favour of the woman's movement. She and Abel have arranged, not only to punish Axel by confronting him with his unsuccessful picture, but to disconcert Dr. Östermark by confronting him with the wife and daughters whom he has not seen foreighteen years. But Bertha's calculations are faulty, as usual. The picture is carried into the studio by order of theconciergewho has protested against its unexpected appearance at the door. Axel is annoyed. She wants everybody to see the picture, to look at it closely. They do, and it turns out to be Bertha's picture.

August Strindberg—Portrait in Oil by Chr. Krogh, 1893

August Strindberg—Portrait in Oil by Richard Bergh, 1906.

The last scenes of the play show us a shame-faced Bertha recovering from the fainting-fit which followed upon the sight of the picture. She knows that Axel has nobly changed the numbers in order to give her a better chance. She knows that circumstances have combined to unmask her completely. He is the stronger, and she offers him her love. Relentless in his masculine strength, Axel shakes her off, turns her out into the street. "You once asked me to forget that you are a woman," he cries, "well, I have forgotten it." She reminds him of a man's duty to his wife. Axel hands her some bank-notes. Bertha departs consoled and Axel goes to meet his mistress. "I want comrades at thecafé, but at home I want my wife," he cries, before the final exit of Bertha.

Comradeshas been confounded with the typicalcomédie rosse. But here, as inLadyJulie, the collision of character is presented with the intensity which is possible only when a dramatist treats of a question which to him is vital. One inadequately described as a "tragedy," the other as a "comedy," there is in both plays the pessimistic despair of the absolutely sincere anti-feminist. It raises them high above the facile farce of passion, satiety and change. Bertha is to Strindberg the New Woman—a creature to be shunned and exterminated. Nietzsche thought that the "beautiful and dangerous cat," which is woman, should never be visited without a whip. Strindberg would not only bring the whip, but poison to the defeminised monster who wishes to be the rival of man.

InComradesthe dramatist presents his characters with that ironical smile which is the condiment of life's bitter draughts. There is a general consciousness ofblaguepervading the studio. The doctor who finds the wife, on whom he once lavished a romantic love, a drunken slattern, her daughters in a second union in the service of vice, helps the reeling woman out of the house and expresses his feelings thus: "Oh, Dolce Napoli! Joy of life, where art thou? Went away as she did. Such was the bride of my youth!... Oh,Dolce Napoli! I wonder if the cholera-sick fishing harbour is so sweet, after all! Blague probably. Blague, blague! Brides, love, Naples,joie de vivre, ancient, modern, liberal, conservative, ideal, real, natural—blague. Blague all the way."

Creditorsis a one-act play in which we meet the erotic woman, the alluring, treacherous, unmoral creature of instinct and passion, who battens on men's souls—in short, the vampire. After theblagueofComradesthe anguish ofCreditors. There are two men and one woman in the piece. Tekla has been married to Adolf, a painter, for seven years. Adolf adores her—their love has been a ceaseless giving on his part. He has merged his personality in hers, he has laid his art as a sacrifice on the altar of his devotion. He has thought of her, painted her, modelled her, given her the treasures of his mind, filled her soul until his own is empty, and now he is weak whilst she is strong. They are staying at the seaside place, to which they come every summer. Tekla has been away for a week when the curtain rises on Adolf engaged in modelling the figure of his wife. He is a nervous wreck, semi-epileptic, with crutches by his side. He is talking confidentially to Gustaf, whoseacquaintance he has made during Tekla's absence. He does not know that Gustaf is the husband from whom Tekla was separated before he married her, does not know that Gustaf is thecreditorto whom they are both in debt. Gustaf induces Adolf to tell the story of his married life, of his sacrifices, his self-effacement, his reckless giving. He subtly leads Adolf to realise Tekla's voracious egotism, her falseness, her voluptuousness, plays upon his jealousy, rouses his suspicions, wrecks his peace of mind. Adolf is fascinated against his will by the force and coolly analysing mind of Gustaf. He cannot understand why there is something in Gustaf's manner of speaking, and in his eye which reminds him of Tekla. Gustaf replies that Tekla and he may be distant relatives, as are all human beings.

They discuss Tekla's first husband. Adolf has never seen him, but knows that he is an idiot, for Tekla has written a book in which the ridiculous man is described. Gustaf shows Adolf that he is treated as the second idiot by Tekla. He asks why Tekla sent away her child. Adolf hesitates to tell his friend, then confesses that at the age of three the child showed a likeness to the first husbandwhich Tekla found unendurable. Gustaf asks Adolf if he has never felt jealous of the first husband. "Would it not nauseate you to meet him when out for a walk, when his eyes on your Tekla would say to you: We instead of I—We?" Adolf admits that the thought has haunted him. Gustaf draws a picture of the torment caused by the indelible memory of the third. "But they know thatonesees them in the darkness—and then they are frightened and in their fright the figure of the absent one begins to haunt them, to assume dimensions, to change until he becomes a nightmare disturbing their sleep of love, a creditor who knocks at the door, and they see his black hand between theirs, they hear his grating voice in the silence of the night which should only be disturbed by their beating pulses. He does not prevent their union, but he disturbs their happiness. And when they feel his invisible power of disturbing their happiness, when at last they flee—but flee in vain from the memory which persecutes them—from the debt they have left behind, and the judgment which frightens them, they lack the strength to bear their transgression and find a scapegoat which must be slaughtered...."

Tortured by the suggestion that Tekla has now been unfaithful to him, which every sentence spoken by Gustaf drives more deeply into the inflamed brain, Adolf consents to test Tekla's fidelity by means devised by Gustaf. When she comes home Adolf is to study her manner, and lead her to reveal her real self, whilst Gustaf listens in another room. When the husband has reached the limit of his power of deduction he is to go out, and leave to Gustaf the rôle of inquisitor. Adolf is to be a secret witness of the second examination. He can hear all in the adjoining room.

Tekla comes home. She is playful, loving, treats him as her naughty child—just as Gustaf said she would, if guilty. She has enjoyed herself, and Adolf's solemn tones of reproach and impending disaster cause a revulsion of feeling, in which she shows herself as the heartless coquette, themangeuse d'hommes, to whom conjugal monotony is insupportably dull. Adolf goads her vanity by saying that she has reached the age, when admirers are no longer troublesome. She wishes to assure him of the contrary, warns him, threatens that in future he will have to play the ridiculous part of the jealous anddeceived husband who, lacking evidence, can only injure himself.

Adolf tells her that her plumes are borrowed, that he has endowed her with sense, electrified her once empty brain, made her famous by his pictures and his deification. She concludes that he means to tell her that he has written her books. The rhythm of the quarrel rises until Adolf in the throes of an approaching fit, cries: "Be quiet. Leave me. You destroy my brain with your clumsy pincers—you thrust your claws in my thoughts and tear them to pieces."

At the sight of Adolf's condition Tekla grows tender. He recovers, and she makes him beg her forgiveness. After summoning his remaining strength he leaves her. Gustaf enters the room. There is a touching scene of recognition, embarrassment and assurances of mutual respect. The virile mind of Gustaf soothes Tekla's overwrought nerves. She allows him to understand that her present husband is feeble, backboneless, and unreasonably jealous.

They revive memories. Gustaf observes that she still wears the ear-rings which he gave her. The magnetism of old associations, old regrets, draws them together. Gustafputs his arm round her waist; she resists and confesses herself afraid of his presence. She does not wish to do any real wrong to Adolf, for she knows that he loves her. But Gustaf knows more than she does. He shows her the tom pieces of her photograph, thrown on the floor by Adolf some time before. He makes her see clearly that Adolf treats her with contempt. He begs her to liberate herself from Adolf's sick fancies, and to come back to the man of will. Some scruples, a short struggle, and she promises to meet him in the evening when Adolf will be away.

The sound of something falling comes from the adjoining room. Gustaf assures her that it is nothing—probably a dog that has been locked up. But Tekla is smitten with sudden understanding. She sees through Gustaf's plot, knows that her husband has heard everything. The horrible revenge of the man she betrayed revolts her, yet impresses her by its diabolical consistency. Gustaf is about to leave her, declaring that the debt has been paid, when the door is opened, and Adolf appears, deadly pale, a cut across the cheek, his eyes vacant, and foaming at the mouth. He falls. Tekla throws herself over the body, from which life is fast ebbing. "Adolf, mybeloved child, say that you are alive, forgive, forgive; Oh, God! he does not hear, he is dead. Oh, God in Heaven!" And the curtain falls as Gustaf exclaims: "Really, she loves him too! Poor thing!"

Creditorshas added an important psychological factor to Strindberg's usual duel of sex. Here we have, not only the sinful nature of woman, the instinctive selfishness, the absence of moral sense, but the operation of a mysterious law of unity, which assists in the downfall of the woman and the victory of the stronger man. Tekla, once mother of Gustaf's child, is held to him by cords of a sympathy which may be called physiological, and which constitutes nature's irrefrangible banns of marriage.

The thesis has since been fully developed in Paul Hervieu'sLe Dédale. Here the dissonance of divorce and re-marriage resounds through a highly artistic presentment of the conflict between religion, morality, affection and "nature." Marianne de Pogis has left Max, her husband, because of his infidelities. She re-marries and finds in Le Breuil, her second husband, the virtues which her former husband lacked. Her child by the first marriage falls ill, and she meets her firsthusband by its bedside. She remains in his house to nurse the child, and succumbs to the old love which has never died. The end is tragic. She cannot go back to Le Breuil. Hervieu cuts short the agony of three souls by the death of the two men. Le Breuil kills Max and himself; together they go over the rock into the foaming waters where human passion is extinguished. Strindberg also summons death as the only solution of Adolf's martyrdom, but, with characteristic sense of the hideous interminableness of life's complexities, leaves Tekla and Gustaf to loathe the tie which they cannot break. Gustaf is the strong man who, knowing woman, despises her and masters her. Adolf is the woman-worshipper, the slave who has sold his masculine birthright for worthless favours. He is killed by disillusionment.

The production ofThe Father, Lady Julie,andCreditorsat the Théâtre Libre was followed by their performance at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in Paris, another experimental theatre which was founded in 1893 by M. Lugné-Poë.Lady Juliewas part of the early repertory of the Freie Bühne, an advanced playhouse which had been established in Berlin in 1889 to meet the demand for realism on the stage.The FatherandCreditorswere performed in Copenhagen in 1889, and the latter play was soon presented at the Residenz Theater in Berlin. The Independent Theatre in London, founded by Mr. J.T. Grein in 1891, introduced Ibsenism to England, and suffered the penalty of the pioneer. Strindbergism might have wrecked the undertaking before the work was accomplished. Mr. Grein's services to the British playgoer have not yet been fully appreciated. He broke one or two windows in the suffocating theatre of banalities and bon-bon amours. Thanks to his courage we can now enjoy an increased amount of oxygen. But the West-End stage still thrives on airlessness. The popular long-run play, in which the charming actress appears as mannequin for the best costumier, whilst social inanities are paraded as absorbing problems—with a happy ending—contracts the lungs of all who in the drama seek a mirror and a criticism of life. To find modern dramatic art they must perforce go to the sporadic centres of unconventional and non-commercial performances, or to the semi-private stages of societies which fight the prevalent stagnation by bold experimental presentation of new dramatic ideas. Strindberg's plays are practicallyunknown in England. The Adelphi Players producedThe Fatherin July, 1911, andLady Juliein April, 1912. The Stage Society, which is the descendant of Mr. Grein's Independent Theatre, has playedCreditors. The Stronger, an atmospheric sketch with two characters, of whom the one maintains silence, whilst the other uses her tongue, was acted by Madame Lydia Yavorskaia and Lady Tree in 1909. Of the remainder of the fifty-one plays by which he has encompassed many "schools" of playwriting, evolved new dramatic forms, and tested different methods of expression the British public knows little or nothing.

Naturalism has passed away. The shallow materialism, the false simplicity of presentation, with which it sought to kill romantic methods of dramaturgy, proved fatal. They were found to be as unreal as the old-fashioned conventions of the stage. But there were other qualities in the movement which have not died, but profoundly influenced the character-drawing and scenic development of the modern drama. Hauptmann, Hervieu, Wedekind, Schnitzler, Gorky, Tchekhov have transmuted and individualised the permanent elements of the early realism.As an exponent of naturalism Strindberg's personality towered high above the first noisy purveyors of what M. Jullien named "slices of life"—some distressingly indigestible. It is true that the fabric of his drama was woven out of the ever-recurring theme of sexual antagonism. He described it with the undertone of personal suffering—the suffering of experience and of pity—with which Tolstoy made his peasants articulate inPowers of Darkness, or Henry Becque the ill-used women inLes Corbeaux.

But Strindberg's plays are highly "unpleasant," says some defender of the morality of the stage. True, but they are honestly unpleasant. They differ from the popular play of amorous escapades and half-uttered indecencies, as the mountain torrent differs from the garden fountain. They are written by the impelling force of an idea, whilst the conventional immorality play exists in the interests of frivolous entertainment. However much we may disagree with theleitmotifin Strindberg's naturalistic plays, and realise the limitations of his theses, we cannot ignore them. And do they not, after all, treat of "love," the obsessing object of dramatic interest from the plaintive demi-monde ofDumasfilsto the man-hunting Ann of Bernard Shaw? From Sudermann and Pinero to Schnitzler and Capus, through sentimentalism, conventionalism, and cynicism, the theme persists in absorbing dramatic imagination. Compared with Schnitzler, the prince of amorists, Strindberg'smilieuis sombre with fateful retribution. Like Strindberg, Schnitzler dramatises the illusion and disillusionment of love; his lovers and mistresses are also on the road to knowledge. The ten couples who pass over the stage inReigenmight be sparks from Strindberg's anvil. But on closer inspection we find that there has been no fire. Schnitzler's world is the play-room of the passions, Strindberg's their inferno.

InLady JulieandCreditors, both one-act plays and each with only three speaking parts, he created a new dramatic form. He now assailed the old theatre with the same vigour with which he had attacked old social institutions. In the preface toLady Juliehe contemptuously writes:

"The theatre has long appeared to me, as art in general, to be aBiblia Pauperum, a bible in pictures for those who cannot read writing or print, and the playwright as a lay preacher who disseminates the thoughts of theperiod in popular form, so popular that the middle classes, which chiefly fill the theatres, can understand what it is all about without much mental exertion. The theatre has therefore always been a board-school for young people, the half-educated, and women who still possess the primitive capacity for deceiving themselves, and allowing themselves to be deceived, i.e. to accept illusion, receive suggestion from the author."

The influence of Edmond de Goncourt, who called the theatre an exhibition of spouting marionettes and a place for the exercise of educated dogs, can be traced in this passage. Rudimentary, incomplete processes of thought, dependent on imagination, are, concluded Strindberg, necessary to theatrical enjoyment. With the development of reflection, investigation, and the higher mental attributes, decay of pleasure in theatrical performances would follow as the shell drops from the ripe fruit. In the theatrical crisis which raged in Europe at this time (1888), and in the moribund state of drama in England and Germany he saw evidence of an approaching extinction of the theatre.

It would, however, be a mistake to invest these views with a greater seriousness thanthey contained. As Henry Becque pointed out in his "Souvenirs,"la fin du théâtrehas repeatedly been proclaimed by dissatisfied critics, without causing the slightest impediment in the ceaseless flow of dramatic production. In the preface toLe Fils Naturel, Dumas had compared the moralising functions of the stage to those of the Church. Strindberg replied, twenty years later, by predicting the downfall of both as vehicles of human progress. Hot-headed attacks on the theatre precede the evolution of new dramatic forms; they are the outcome of the modernity which is ever at war with methods which have become classic. "To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague," is the sweeping verdict of Eleonora Duse,[2]but there is no disparagement in the reflection that the melancholy prophecies are often uttered by dramatists who are misunderstood and rejected. In Anton Tchekhov'sThe Seagull, published in 1900, the familiar protest is heard: "To me the theatre of to-day," says the poet Constantine, through whom the author speaks, "is no more than an antiquated prejudice, a dull routine." Heprotests against the trivialities, the commonplace morality, the repeated dishing up of the same story in a thousand varieties. He wants to flee, as Maupassant fled from the Eiffel Tower. Each malcontent finds solution in his own new method of drama. Rousseau's letter to d'Alembert contains the genuine criticism of the theatre, with which no born dramatist can sympathise. From the effect of fostering artificial emotions, of indulging in sham joys and sorrows, there is no escape through improvement of dramatic form. Whether for good or ill it remains with us. But there is happily little danger of the rationality, in which Strindberg saw the doom of the theatre.

The choice of naturalistic subjects was to be a contributing factor in the process of rationalism. Of the painful impression created byLady JulieStrindberg writes:

"When I chose this subject from life, just as it was told to me some years ago when it stirred me deeply, I found it suitable for a tragedy, for it still makes a painful impression to see a happily placed individual go to the wall, and still more to see a family die out. But the time may come when we shall be sufficiently evolved andenlightened to contemplate with indifference the coarse, cynical, and heartless drama which life offers, when we have laid aside the inferior and unreliable registration-machines which we call feelings, and which will be superfluous and injurious when our organs of judgment are fully developed....

"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 life-time; it will make a good impression in the same sense as does the sight of the death of an incurable.

"The reproach was levelled against my tragedy,The Father, that it was so sad, as though one wanted merry tragedies. People clamour for the joy of life, and theatrical managers order farces, as though the joy of life consisted in being foolish, and in describing people as if they were each and all afflicted with St. Vitus's Dance or idiocy. I find the joy of life in the powerful, cruel struggle of life, and my enjoyment in discoveringsomething, in learning something. Therefore I have chosen an unusual, though instructive, case, in other words, an exception, but a great exception which confirms the rule, and which is sure to offend the lovers of the banal. The simple brain will further be shocked by the fact that my motives behind the action are not simple, and that there is not one view alone to be taken of it. An event in life—and this is a comparatively new discovery—is generally produced by a whole series of more or less deep-seated motives, but the spectator chooses for the most part the one which is easiest for him to grasp, or the one most advantageous to the reputation of his judgment. Take a case of suicide as an example. 'Bad business,' says the bourgeois. 'Unhappy love!' say the women. 'Sickness!' says the disease-ridden man. 'Shattered hopes!' the bankrupt. But it is possible that the motives lay in all of these causes, or in none, and that the dead man hid the real one by putting forward another which has thrown a more favourable light on his memory."

In an essay entitledOn Modern Drama and the Modern Theatre, written in March, 1889, and published in the first volume of a collection of plays and essays under the titleThingsPrinted and Unprinted, Strindberg proclaims the regenerating powers of the Naturalistic Theatre in the following words:

"Let us have a theatre, where we can be horrified by the horrible, where we can laugh at what is laughable, play with playthings; where we can see everything without being shocked, if that which has hitherto been concealed behind theological and æsthetical hangings is revealed. Though old, conventional laws may have to be broken, let us have a free theatre, where everything is admitted except the talentless, the hypocritical and the stupid."

He distinguishes between true and false naturalism, and deprecates the commonplace dulness of the subject chosen by Henry Becque inLes Corbeaux. To Strindberg the choice of such subjects depends on a soullessness or a lack of temperament, which must bore the spectator instead of stimulate him. He calls such a dramatic method simple photography which "includes everything, even the speck of dust upon the lens of the camera. This is realism," he writes; "a method, latterly exalted to an art, a little art which cannot see the wood for the trees. This is the false Naturalism which believedthat art consisted merely in sketching a piece of nature in a natural manner, but it is not the true naturalism which seeks out those points in life, where the great conflicts occur, which loves to see that which cannot be seen every day, rejoices in the battle of elemental powers, whether they be called love or hatred, revolt or sociability; which cares not, whether a subject be beautiful or ugly, if only it is great."

"I do not know the modes," cried Socrates, "but leave me one which will imitate the tones and accents of a brave man, enduring danger or distress, fighting with constancy against fortune." The Naturalism of which Strindberg was a prophet might have chosen these words as a motto. Socrates continued: "And also one fitted for the work of peace, for prayer heard by the gods, for the successful persuasion or exhortation of men, and generally for the sober enjoyment of ease and prosperity." With this side of man's natural life young Naturalism had no sympathy. That came with years of discretion.

The transformation of the diffuse drama in many acts into the concise and dynamic one-act play with few characters, and the simplification of stage technique, were the salientpoints in Strindberg's proclamation of Theatre Reform. He held that there is generally but one scene, towards which the playwright mounts on devious paths, and that author and audience alike are made to endure painful side-shows for the sake of one thing worth seeing. A man's dramatic talent may outlast his one-act play, but it is taxed to depletion in the construction of five acts, just as the imaginative patience of the audience is exhausted by the long intervals.

The Greek art of the one-act play had been revived in the eighteenth century in theProverbes Dramatiquesof Carmontelle, developed by Musset and Feuillet, and had finally found a modern interpretation in the style of theQuart d'Heureof whichEntre Frèresby Guiche and Lavedan is a typical example. When writingLady Julie, Strindberg had in mind the monographic novels of the brothers de Goncourt. The dialogue in Lady Julie is interrupted twice. There is singing and a folk-dance. Such diversions do not leave the spectator time to escape from the suggestion of the playwright, or to lose the precious illusion. The performance of Lady Julie lasts an hour and a half, and Strindberg saw no reason why the publicshould not be educated to endure one act which lasts the whole evening. There may be mental diversions, such as are provided by monologue, pantomime and ballet; but people can listen for hours to sermons and speeches, and may consequently learn true dramatic concentration.

The scenery should be simple. "With the aid of a table and two chairs the strongest conflicts which life offers could be presented," he writes of the genre of the proverbe, "and by that form of art it became possible to popularise the discoveries of modern psychology." The decorations should only be suggestive of place and time. An impressionistic representation of a corner of a room and its furniture—not the whole room—is all that is needed. Grotesque scene-painting should be abolished together with the stagey villain who can create no illusion of wickedness. Footlights were an abomination to Strindberg. M. Ludovic Céller[3]tells us of their humble and smoky origin in the tallow candles which, for economical reasons, were placed on the floor to illuminate the darkness of stage and auditorium. Whatevertheir origin, they have a power of distorting facial expression against which Strindberg vehemently protested. His protest has been echoed by numerous reformers of the theatre. But the footlights remain to disfigure noses and blacken eyes in accordance with time-honoured custom. With proper side-lighting and less paint on the faces of the actors Strindberg saw possibilities for the mimic art, which are hidden under shadows and heavy layers of powder and rouge. The visible orchestra was another obstacle to scenic progress; in the shrinking of stage and auditorium to a size compatible with artistic presentation, he saw another means of improvement. In the small, simplified theatre, with well-regulated light effects and actors with natural intonation and gestures, Strindberg found a chance for the continuance of the theatre. Many of his ideas have been realised in the Künstler Theater of Munich.

In the preface toLady Juliehe deals with the all-important subject of characterisation. "As modern characters," he writes, "living in a period of transition more hurried and hysterical than its immediate predecessor, I have drawn my characters vacillating, broken, mixtures of old and new.... My souls(characters) are conglomerations of past and present stages of culture, scraps of books and newspapers, fragments of men and women, tom shreds of Sunday attire that are now rags, such as go to make up a soul. And I have thrown in some history of origins in letting the weaker steal and repeat the words of the stronger, in letting the souls borrow ideas, or so-called suggestions from one another."

He ridicules the ordinary idea of a strong character. The person "who has acquired a fixed temperament or accommodated himself to a certain rôle in life, who in a word has ceased to grow, was supposed to have character; whilst one who developed, the skilful navigator on the stream of life who does not sail with close-tied sheets, but who knows when to fall off before the wind and when to luff again, was deemed deficient in character.... This bourgeois conception of the fixity of the soul was transferred to the stage, where all that is bourgeois has ever reigned supreme. Such a character became synonymous with a gentleman, fixed and ready-made, one who invariably appeared drunk, jocular, melancholy.... I do not, therefore, believe in simple theatricalcharacters. And the summary judgments which authors pass on human beings, such as: this one is stupid; that one is brutal; he is jealous; he is mean, etc., should be refuted by naturalists who know the rich complexity of the soul, and who realise that 'vice has an obverse which shows a considerable likeness to virtue.'"

The secret of Strindberg's great influence on the theatre of twenty years ago lay in this very conception of character. His men and women arealive, moving, changing, growing, shrinking in ceaseless response to the pressure of existence. He is the dramatist of theperpetuum mobilein the modern heart, the interpreter of inexhaustible discontent in himself and others. His personality vibrates in the dialogue, and lifts the idea of the play to the surface in every consecutive scene, but the artist in him is stronger than the idealogue. The curtain and the settled problem do not drop together. Strindberg has answered a question or two, tentatively, in his own manner, but others crowd in upon him and his audience. The absence of finality is felt through the tragic endings, through the strong blend of moods, emotions and desires of his exceptional characters, through theunreasonableness of his prejudices. In spite of pessimism and cynicism a hope of change is communicated to the spectator, which penetrates depression and stimulates the curiosity to live.

Amongst the one-act plays which were written between 1887 and 1897,Samum,Pariah, The Stronger, Playing with FireandThe Linkpresent the typical characters of psychic intensity and neuropathic activity.Samumis the story of the revenge of an Arabian girl and her lover upon a hapless Frenchman, lieutenant in a Zouave regiment. She kills him, not with a dagger, for that might involve the punishment of her tribe, but with words. With the help of "Samum," the hot, suffocating wind of the desert which blows phantoms into the white man's brain, she thrusts suggestion after suggestion into his mind. She makes the sick man believe that he has been bitten by a mad dog; she offers him sand instead of water in the drinking bowl, and rejoices when he dreads the drink; she invokes hideous pictures of the defeat of his regiment, the faithlessness of his wife, the death of his child, before his fevered imagination. She finally makes him stare in a mirror at the ghastly image of a skull, andtells him that this is his face, that he is dead. And when the Frenchman, murdered by horror, sinks back dead, Youssef, her lover, proud of race and proud of the woman's black magic, hails her as the worthy mother of his child.

Pariahis a dialogue which bears the mark of the master-craftsman in the dramatic presentation of psychological events. It is a contest of minds founded on a tale by Ola Hansson. Two middle-aged men, one an archæologist, the other a somewhat mysterious man of unknown occupation, who has returned to Sweden from America, have met in the country. The archæologist is engaged in recovering antique ornaments from the bowels of the earth. In the room where the two men face each other there stands a box, containing bracelets and trinkets of gold which he has found. Herr X., the archæologist, talks of his poverty, of how easily he might appropriate to his own use some of the gold he has found. Debts could be paid, and his wife's anxiety allayed by one single bracelet. So simple and yet impossible to do. Herr Y. listens to the reasons which prevent Herr X. from becoming a thief though there can be no fear of detection.Incapable of stealing himself, Herr X. expresses his pity for others who fall under similar temptation. He suspects that the man by his side is in need of such pity—his conduct has already betrayed the convict. By a series of psychologically timed questions Herr X. unmasks Herr Y., who, taken by surprise, confesses that he has served a term of imprisonment for fraud. The wild anger which for a moment surged through the brain of the criminal has given way to servile admiration of the superior mind. He kisses the archæologist's hand. All is known, and yet there is no condescension on the part of the stronger man. Herr Y. tells the story of how he came to write a false signature; he wishes to persuade Herr X. of his spiritual innocence, show him that he was the victim of an uncontrollable impulse which never defiled his real self. Herr X. has fallen into an introspective mood. Hesitating, half afraid of what he is doing, he confides to Herr Y. that he has killed a man—a worthless, drunken old servant, and without intention to inflict deadly injury, it is true, but such is the fact: he is a murderer. In reply to Herr Y.'s eager questions why he escaped without punishment, Herr X. gives the reasons, why he believed it to bea greater wrong to give himself up to justice than to conceal the deed—there were his parents, his career, his fitness for life. Herr Y. has the scoundrel's alert sense of opportunity. He begins by pointing out his moral superiority over Herr X., and ends by trying to extort money. Let Herr X. only put his hand in the box, and transfer some of its contents to Herr Y., and nothing more will be said of the crime. Let him refuse to do this, and the whole story will be told at the nearest police-station. The end of this incisive piece of psychology shows us Herr Y., driven to flight by the cold-blooded logic of Herr X., who demonstrates that the would-be accuser is a forger who is "wanted," and whose dread of the police authorities is a guarantee of his discretion in the matter.

The Strongeris a contest of temperaments carried out by one voice only. Two women—the wife and the mistress of one man—have met in a café. Mademoiselle Y. sits silent, whilst Madame X. talks. But her silence conveys more than speech. It drives Madame X. to reveal the humiliation she has suffered, it drives her through jealous and angry recriminations to a triumphant andvindictive assertion of her superior position as the legal wife and mother. As an ironical and adroit study of two types of the soul feminine, and by the skilful handling of the monologue the piece is one of the best of its genre.

Playing with Fireis a triangular comedy of marriage, in which conjugal fidelity is saved at the eleventh hour through sudden and truly Strindbergian disillusionment which makes the friend of husband and wife depart like a rocket from the house of temptation, whilst the peace of an orderly lunch descends upon the family.The First Warningis a conjugal squabble, and one of the weakest dramatic episodes conceived by Strindberg. The character of the jealous and enslaved husband, who has made six vain attempts to flee from the devastating charm of his wife, is a diluted réchauffé of an incident related inThe Confession of a Fool, including the significant moment when the wife is subjugated by the shock of losing her first front tooth, and the attendant discovery of the vanity of all things of beauty. The dialogue is unreal, and Strindberg's sketch of the young girl so unnatural that we may be grateful that the type has not been more frequently chosen for "naturalistic" treatment.

The Link, a tragedy published in 1897, is a masterly divorce-court scene. Here Strindberg draws the shame and agony of the broken marriage-tie with bitter realism, and yet with a delicate touch of that all-human compassion before which the flowers of satire wither. The Baron and the Baroness have decided to separate, and proceedings for a deed of separation have been entered by the husband. There is a link between them which cannot be broken—the child whom they both love; and for his sake they are determined not to expose their differences before the hungry eyes of scandal-mongers. The husband is willing to let the mother have the custody of the child. But the questions of the judge pierce the veneer of amiability. Who is the cause of dissension? What has brought them before the Court? The answers bring accusations and recriminations, a parade of quarrels and dissensions, angry revelations of infidelity, disgust, espionage, lies, hatred, and, when the Court exercises its legal power of depriving both parents of the custody of the child, the torture of vain regret and empty lives. There is consummate art in the picture of the emotional revolution, through which husband and wife are forced into self-damning revelations.The minor characters of the jurymen and court officials are drawn with a calm observation and quiet humour which form an effective background to its central tragic figures. Incidentally, the inadequacy of the law to secure justice for the wronged is shown, and the lawyer in the play has some affinity with the legal luminaries in M. Brieux'sLa Robe Rouge. But Strindberg's judge is a righteous man who chafes under the limitations and responsibilities of his profession.

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