CORNELL 
 
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 The Joseph Whitmore Barry- 
 Dramatic Library 
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 1934 
 
Social sfanlflcance of the modern drama 
 
 3 1924 026 071 179 
 
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Prinlrd by pcrmissioii of S. T. Kajiwara 
 
 P^MMA (tOLDMAN 
 
THE 
 
 SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 
 OF THE MODERN 
 
 DRAMA 
 
 EMMA GOLDMAN 
 
 BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO.. LIMITED 
 
Copyright, igi4, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 In order to understand the social and dynamic 
 significance of modern dramatic art it is necessary, 
 I believe, to ascertain the difference between the 
 functions of art for art's sake and art as the mir- 
 ror of life. 
 
 Art for art's sake presupposes an attitude of 
 aloofness on the part of the artist toward the com- 
 plex struggle of life : he must rise above the ebb 
 and tide of life. He is to be merely an artistic 
 conjurer of beautiful forms, a creator of pure 
 fancy. 
 
 That is not the attitude of modern art, which is 
 preeminently the reflex, the mirror of life. The 
 artist being a part of life cannot detach himself 
 from the events and occurrences that pass pan- 
 orama-like before his eyes, impressing themselves 
 upon his emotional and intellectual vision. 
 
 The modern artist is, in the words of August 
 Strindberg, " a lay preacher popularizing the press- 
 ing questions of his time." Not necessarily be- 
 cause his aim is to proselyte, but because he can 
 best express himself by being true to life. 
 
 Millet, Meunier, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Em- 
 erson, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Strindberg, 
 
 3 
 
4 Foreword 
 
 Hauptmann and a host of others mirror in their 
 work as much of the spiritual and social revolt as is 
 expressed by the most fiery speech of the propa- 
 gandist. And more important still, they compel 
 far greater attention. Their creative genius, im- 
 bued with the spirit of sincerity and truth, strikes 
 root where the ordinary word often falls on barren 
 soil. 
 
 The reason that many radicals as well as conser- 
 vatives fail to grasp the powerful message of art is 
 perhaps not far to seek. The average radical is 
 as hidebound by mere terms as the man devoid of 
 all ideas. " Bloated plutocrats," " economic de- 
 terminism," " class consciousness," and similar ex- 
 pressions sum up for him the symbols of revolt. 
 But since art speaks a language of its own, a lan- 
 guage embracing the entire gamut of human emo- 
 tions, it often sounds meaningless to those whose 
 hearing has been dulled by the din of stereotyped 
 phrases. 
 
 On the other hand, the conservative sees danger 
 only in the advocacy of the Red Flag. He has too 
 long been fed on the historic legend that it is only 
 the " rabble " which makes revolutions, and not 
 those who wield the brush or pen. It is therefore 
 legitimate to applaud the artist and hound the rab- 
 ble. Both radical and conservative have to learn 
 that any mode of creative work, which with true 
 perception portrays social wrongs earnestly and 
 
Foreword 5 
 
 boldly, may be a greater menace to our social 
 fabric and a more powerful inspiration than the 
 wildest harangue of the soapbox orator. 
 
 Unfortunately, we in America have so far 
 looked upon the theater as a place of amusement 
 only, exclusive of Ideas and inspiration. Because 
 the modern drama of Europe has till recently been 
 inaccessible in printed form to the average theater- 
 goer in this country, he had to content himself with 
 the interpretation, or rather misinterpretation, of 
 our dramatic critics. As a result the social signif- 
 icance of the Modern Drama has well nigh been 
 lost to the general public. 
 
 As to the native drama, America has so far pro- 
 duced very little worthy to be considered in a social 
 light. Lacking the cultural and evolutionary tra- 
 dition of the Old World, America has necessarily 
 first to prepare the soil out of which sprouts 
 creative genius. 
 
 The hundred and one springs of local and sec- 
 tional life must have time to furrow their common 
 dhannel into the seething sea of life at large, and 
 social questions and problems make themselves 
 felt, if not crystallized, before the throbbing pulse 
 of the big national heart can find its reflex in a 
 great literature — and specifically in the drama — 
 of a social character. This evolution has been go- 
 ing on in this country for a considerable time, 
 shaping the wide-spread unrest that is now begin- 
 
6 Foreword 
 
 ning to assume more or less definite social form 
 and expression. 
 
 Therefore, America could not so far produce its 
 own social drama. But in proportion as the crys- 
 tallization progresses, and sectional and national 
 questions become clarified as fundamentally social 
 problems, the drama develops. Indeed, very com- 
 mendable beginnings in this direction have been 
 made within recent years, among them " The 
 Easiest Way," by Eugene Walter, " Keeping Up 
 Appearances," and other plays by Butler Daven- 
 port, " Nowadays " and two others volumes of 
 one-act plays, by George Middleton, — attempts 
 that hold out an encouraging promise for the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 The Modern Drama, as all modern literature, 
 mirrors the complex struggle of life, — the strug- 
 gle which, whatever its individual or topical expres- 
 sion, ever has its roots in the depth of human na- 
 ture and social environment, and hence is, to that 
 extent, universal. Such literature, such drama, is 
 at once the reflex and the inspiration of mankind in 
 its eternal seeking for things higher and better. 
 Perhaps those who learn the great truths of the so- 
 cial travail in the school of life, do not need the 
 message of the drama. But there is another class 
 whose number is legion, for whom that message is 
 
Foreword 7 
 
 indispensable. In countries where political oppres- 
 sion affects all classes, the best intellectual element 
 have made common cause with the people, have 
 become their teachers, comrades, and spokesmen. 
 But in America political pressure has so far affected 
 only the " common " people. It is they who are 
 thrown into prison; they who are persecuted and 
 mobbed, tarred and deported. Therefore another 
 medium is needed to arouse the intellectuals of this 
 country, to make them realize their relation to the 
 people, to the social unrest permeating the atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 The medium which has the power to do that is 
 the Modern Drama, because it mirrors every phase 
 of life and embraces every strata of society, — the 
 Modern Drama, showing each and all caught in 
 the throes of the tremendous changes going on, and 
 forced either to become part of the process or be 
 left behind. 
 
 Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Tolstoy, Shaw, 
 Galsworthy and the other dramatists contained in 
 this volume represent the social iconoclasts of our 
 time. They know that society has gone beyond 
 the stage of patching up, and that man must throw 
 off the dead weight of the past, with all its ghosts 
 and spooks, if he is to go foot free to meet the 
 future. 
 
 This is the social significance which differentiates 
 
8 Foreword 
 
 modern dramatic art from art for art's sake. It 
 is the dynamite which undermines superstition, 
 shakes the social pillars, and prepares men and 
 women for the reconstruction. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword 3 
 
 The Scandinavian Drama 
 
 Henrik Ibsen ' 11 
 
 ^The Pillars of Society 13 
 
 XA Doll's House 18 
 
 >^Ghosts 25 
 
 9^ An Enemy of Society 34 
 
 August Strindberg 43 
 
 J^The Father 45 
 
 K Countess Julie 51 
 
 >< Comrades 61 
 
 The German Drama 
 
 Hermann Sudermann 69 
 
 J^Magda 71 
 
 XThe Fires of St. John .80 
 
 Gerhart Hauptmann — 87 
 
 K Lonely Lives 87 
 
 XThe Weavers 98 
 
 KThe Sunicen Bell 108 
 
 Frank Wedekind 118 
 
 The Awakening of Spring 118 
 
 The French Drama 
 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 129 
 
 X^ Monna Vanna 129 
 
 Edmond Rostand 138 
 
 ;CChantecler 138 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 FAGE 
 
 Br'ieux I47'< 
 
 X Damaged Goods . I47 
 
 ^Maternity .......... l6i 
 
 The English Drama 
 
 George Bernard Shaw 173- 
 
 KMrs. Warren's Profession 176 
 
 ^Major Barbara * » 186 
 
 John Galsworthy igfr 
 
 KStrife 197 
 
 Kjustice 208 
 
 j^The Pigeon . » 215 
 
 Stanley Houghton 226 
 
 KHindle Wakes 226 
 
 Githa Sowerby 235 
 
 KRutherford and Son ....... 235 
 
 The Irish Drama 
 
 William Butler Yeats 250 
 
 J4 Where There Is Nothing 252 
 
 Lenox Robinson 261 
 
 1^ Harvest 261 
 
 T. G. Murray 267 
 
 K Maurice Harte 267 
 
 The Russian Drama 
 
 Leo Tolstoy ' 275* 
 
 >^ The Power of Darkness 276 
 
 Anton Tchekhof . 283 
 
 KThe Seagull 284 
 
 J^^The Cherry Orchard 290 
 
 Maxim Gorki 294 
 
 X A Night's Lodging 294 
 
 Leonid Andreyev 302 
 
 K King-Hunger . . 302 
 
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE 
 OF THE MODERN DRAMA 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN DRAMA 
 
 HENRIK IBSEN 
 
 IN a letter to George Brandes, shortly after 
 the Paris Commune, Henrik Ibsen wrote 
 concerning the State and political liberty: 
 " iThe State is the curse of the individ- 
 ual. How has the national strength of Prussia 
 been purchased? By the sinking of the individual 
 in a political and geographical formula. . . . The 
 State must go ! That will be a revolution which 
 will find me on Its side. Undermine the idea of 
 the State, set up in its place spontaneous action, 
 and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only 
 thing that makes for unity, and you will start the 
 elements of a liberty which will be something 
 worth possessing." 
 
 The State was not the only bete noire of Henrik 
 Ibsen. Every other institution which, like the 
 State, rests upon a lie, was an iniquity to him. 
 Uncompromising demolisher of all false idols and 
 dynamiter of all social shams and hypocrisy, Ibsen 
 
12 Henrik Ihsen 
 
 consistently strove to uproot every stone of our 
 social structure. Above all did he thunder his 
 fiery indictment against the four cardinal sins of 
 modern society: the Lie inherent in oyr social 
 arrangements; Sacrifice and Duty, the twin curses 
 that fetter the spirit of man; the narrow-minded- 
 ness and pettiness of Provincialism, that stifles all 
 growth ; and the Lack of Joy and Purpose in Work 
 which turns life into a vale of misery and tears. 
 
 So strongly did Ibsen feel on these matters, that 
 in none of his works did he lose sight of them. 
 'Indeed, they recur again and again, like a Leit- 
 motif in music, in everything he wrote. These 
 issues form the keynote to the revolutionary sig- 
 nificance of his dramatic works, as well as to the 
 psychology of Henrik Ibsen himself. 
 
 It is, therefore, not a little surprising that most 
 of the interpreters and admirers of Ibsen so en- 
 thusiastically accept his art, and yet remain utterly 
 indifferent to, not to say ignorant of, the message 
 contained in it. That is mainly because they are, 
 in the words of Mrs. Alving, " so pitifully afraid 
 of the light." Hence they go about seeking mys- 
 teries and hunting symbols, and completely losing 
 sight of the meaning that is as clear as daylight 
 in all of the works of Ibsen, and mainly in the 
 group of his social plays, " The Pillars of So- 
 ciety," " A Doll's House," " Ghosts," and " An 
 Enemy of the People." 
 
The Pillars of Society 13 
 
 THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY 
 
 The disintegrating effect of the Social Lie, of 
 Duty, as an imposition and outrage, and of the 
 spirit of Provincialism, as a stifling factor, are 
 brought out with dynamic force in " The Pillars 
 of Society." 
 
 Consul Bernick, driven by the conception of his 
 duty toward the House of Bernick, begins his 
 career with a terrible lie. He sells his love for 
 Lena Hessel in return for the large dowry of her 
 step-sister Betty, whom he does not love. To for- 
 get his treachery, he enters into a clandestine re- 
 lationship with an actress of the town. When sur- 
 prised in her room by the drunken husband, young 
 Bernick jumps out of the window, and then gra- 
 ciously accepts the offer of his bosom friend, 
 Johan, to let him take the blame. 
 
 Johan, together with his faithful sister Lona, 
 leaves for America. In return for his devotion, 
 young Bernick helps to rob his friend of his good 
 name, by acquiescing in the rumors circulating in 
 the town that Johan had broken into the safe of 
 the Bernicks and stolen a large sum of money. 
 
 In the opening scene of " The Pillars of So- 
 ciety," we find Consul Bernick at the height of his 
 career. The richest, most powerful and respected 
 citizen of the community, he is held up as the 
 
14 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 model of an ideal husband and devoted father. 
 In short, a worthy pillar of society. 
 
 The best ladies of the town come together in 
 the home of the Bernicks. They represent the 
 society for the " Lapsed and Lost," and they 
 gather to do a little charitable sewing and a lot 
 of charitable gossip. It is through them we learn 
 that Dina Dorf, the ward of Bernick, is the issue 
 of the supposed escapade of Johan and the actress. 
 
 With them, giving unctuous spiritual advice and 
 representing the purity and morality of the com- 
 munity, is Rector Rorlund, hidebound, self-right- 
 eous, and narrow-minded. 
 
 Into this deadening atmosphere of mental and 
 social provincialism comes Lona Hessel, refreshing 
 and invigorating as the wind of the plains. She 
 has returned to her native town together with 
 Johan. 
 
 The moment she enters the house of Bernick, 
 the whole structure begins to totter. For in 
 Londs own words, " Fie, fie — this moral linen 
 here smells so tainted — just like a shroud. I am 
 accustomed to the air of the prairies now, I can 
 tell you. . . . Wait a little, wait a little — we'll 
 soon rise from the sepulcher. We must have 
 broad daylight here when my boy comes." 
 
 Broad daylight Is indeed needed in the com- 
 munity of Consul Bernick, and above all in the 
 life of the Co«i«/ Jilmself. 
 
The Pillars of Society i^ 
 
 It seems to be the psychology of a lie that it 
 can never stand alone. Consul Bernick is com- 
 pelled to weave a network of lies to sustain his 
 foundation. In the disguise of a good husband, 
 he upbraids, nags, and tortures his wife on the 
 slightest provocation. In the mask of a devoted 
 father, he tyrannizes and bullies his only child as 
 only a despot used to being obeyed can do. Un- 
 der the cloak of a benevolent citizen he buys up 
 public land for his own profit. Posing as a true 
 Christian, he even goes so far as to jeopardize 
 human life. Because of business considerations 
 he sends The Indian Girl, an unseaworthy, rotten 
 vessel, on a voyage, although he is assured 
 by one of his most capable and faithful workers 
 that the ship cannot make the journey, that it is 
 sure to go down. But Consul Bernick is a pillar 
 of society; he needs the respect and good will of 
 his fellow citizens. He must go from precipice 
 to precipice, to keep up appearances. 
 
 Lona alone sees the abyss facing him, and tells 
 him : " What does it matter whether such a so- 
 ciety is supported or not? What is it that passes 
 current here? Lies and shams — nothing else. 
 Here are you, the first man in the town, living in 
 wealth and pride, in power and honor, you, who 
 have set the brand of crime upon an innocent 
 man." She might have added, many innocent 
 
1 6 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 men, for Johan was not the only one at whose 
 expense Karsten Bernick built up his career. 
 
 The end is inevitable. In the words of Lona: 
 " All this eminence, and you yourself along with 
 it, stand on a trembling quicksand; a moment may 
 come, a word may be spoken, and, if you do not , 
 save yourself in time, you and your whole 
 grandeur go to the bottom." 
 
 But for Lona, or, rather, what she symbolizes, 
 Bernick — even as The Indian Girl — would go 
 to the bottom. 
 
 In the last act, the whole town is preparing to 
 give the great philanthropist and benefactor, the 
 eminent pillar of society, an ovation. There are 
 fireworks, music, gifts and speeches in honor of 
 Consul Bernick. At that very moment, the only 
 child of the Consul is hiding in The Indian Girl to 
 escape the tyranny of his home. Johan, too, is 
 supposed to sail on the same ship, and with him, 
 Dina, who has learned the whole truth and is eager 
 to escape from her prison, to go to a free atmos- 
 phere, to become independent, and then to unite 
 with Johan in love and freedom. As Dina says: 
 " Yes, I will be your wife. But first I will work, 
 and become something for myself, just as you are. 
 I win give myself, I will not be taken." 
 
 Consul Bernick, too, is beginning to realize 
 himself. The strain of events and the final shock 
 that he had exposed his own child to such peril, 
 
The Pillars of Society 17 
 
 act like a stroke of lightning on the Consul. It 
 makes him see that a house built on lies, shams, 
 and crime must eventually sink by its own weight. 
 Surrounded by those who truly love and therefore 
 understand him. Consul Bernick, no longer the 
 pillar of society, but the man becomes conscious 
 of his better self. 
 
 "Where have I been?" he exclaims. "You 
 will be horrified when you know. Now, I feel 
 as if I had just recovered my senses after being 
 poisoned. But I feel — I feel that I can be 
 young and strong again. Oh, come nearer — 
 closer around me. Come, Betty 1 Come, Olaf I 
 Come, Martha I Oh, Martha, it seems as though 
 I had never seen you in all these years. And we 
 — we have a long, earnest day of work before 
 us; I most of all. But let it come; gather close 
 around me, you true and faithful women. I have 
 learned this, in these days: it is you women who 
 are the Pillars of Society." 
 
 Lona: " Then you have learned a poor wis- 
 dom, brother-in-law. No, no; the spirit of Truth 
 and of Freedom — these are the Pillars of Soci- 
 ety." 
 
 The spirit of truth and freedom is the socio- 
 revolutionary significance of " The Pillars of Soci- 
 ety." Those, who, like Consul Bernick, fail to 
 realize this all-important fact, go on patching up 
 ^The Indian Girl, which is Ibsen's symbol for our 
 
1 8 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 society. But they, too, must learn that society is 
 rotten to the core ; that patching up or reforming 
 one sore spot merely drives the social poison 
 deeper into the system, and that all must go to the 
 bottom unless the spirit of Truth and Freedom 
 revolutionize the world. 
 
 A DOLL'S HOUSE 
 
 In "A Doll's House ^' Ibsen returns to the 
 subject so vital to him, — the Social Lie and Duty, 
 — this time as manifesting themselves in the sacred 
 institution of the home and in the position of 
 woman in her gilded cage. 
 
 Nora is the beloved, adored wife of Torvald 
 Helmer. He is an admirable man, rigidly hon- 
 est, of high moral ideals, and passionately devoted 
 to his wife and children. In short, a good man 
 and an enviable husband. Almost every mother 
 would be proud of such a match for her daughter, 
 and the latter would consider herself fortunate 
 to become the wife of such a man. 
 
 Nora, too, considers herself fortunate. In- 
 deed, she worships her husband, believes in him 
 implicitly, and is sure that if ever her safety should 
 be menaced, Torvald, her idol, her god, would 
 perform the miracle. 
 
 When a woman loves as Nora does, nothing 
 
A Doll's House 19 
 
 else matters; least of all, social, legal or moral 
 considerations. Therefore, when her husband's 
 life is threatened. It Is no effort, It Is joy for Nora 
 to forge her father's name to a note and borrow 
 800 cronen on it, In order to take her sick husband 
 to Italy. 
 
 In her eagerness to serve her husband, and in 
 perfect innocence of the legal aspect of her act, 
 she does not give the matter much thought, except 
 for her anxiety to shield him from any emergency 
 that may call upon him to perform the miracle in 
 her behalf. She works hard, and saves every 
 penny of her pin-money to pay back the amount 
 she borrowed on the forged check. 
 
 Nora Is light-hearted and gay, apparently with- 
 out depth. Who, indeed, would expect depth of 
 a doll, a "squirrel," a song-bird? Her purpose 
 in life is to be happy for her husband's sake, for 
 the sake of the children; to sing, dance, and play 
 with them. Besides, Is she not shielded, pro- 
 tected, and cared for? Who, then, would suspect 
 Nora of depth? But already In the opening 
 scene, when Torvald Inquires what his precious 
 " squirrel " wants for a Christmas present, Nora 
 quickly asks him for money. Is It to buy maca- 
 roons or finery? In her talk with Mrs. Linden, 
 Nora reveals her Inner self, and forecasts the In- 
 evitable debacle of her doll's house. 
 
 After telling her friend how she had saved her 
 
20 Henrtk Ibsen 
 
 husband, Nora says: "When Torvald gave me 
 money for clothes and so on, I never used more 
 than half of It; I always bought the simplest 
 things. . . . Torvald never noticed anything. 
 But it was often very hard, Christina dear. For 
 it's nice to be beautifully dressed. Now, isn't 
 it ? . . . Well, and besides that, I made money in 
 other ways. Last winter I was so lucky — I got 
 a heap of copying to do. I shut myself up every 
 evening and wrote far into the night. Oh, some- 
 times I was so tired, so tired. And yet it was 
 splendid to work in that way and earn money. I 
 almost felt as if I was a man." 
 
 Down deep in the consciousness of Nora there 
 evidently slumbers personality and character, 
 which could come into full bloom only through a 
 great miracle — not the kind Nora hopes for, but 
 a miracle just the same. 
 
 Nora had borrowed the money from Nils 
 Krogstad, a man with a shady past in the eyes of 
 the community and of the righteous moralist, Tor- 
 vald Helmer. So long as Krogstad is allowed 
 the little breathing space a Christian people 
 grants to him who has once broken its laws, he is 
 reasonably human. He does not molest Nora. 
 But when Helmer becomes director of the bank in 
 which Krogstad is employed, and threatens the 
 man with dismissal, Krogstad naturally fights back. 
 For as he says to Nora: " If need be, I shall 
 
A Doll's House 21 
 
 fight, as though for my life to keep my little place 
 in the bank. . . . It's not only for the money: 
 that matters least to me. It's something else. 
 Well, I'd better make a clean breast of it. Qf 
 course you know, like every one else, that some 
 years ago I — got into trouble. . . . The matter 
 never came into court; but from that moment all 
 paths were barred to me. Then I took up the 
 business you know about. I was obliged to grasp 
 at something; and I don't think I've been one of 
 the worst. But now I must clear out of it all. 
 My sons are growing up; for their sake I must 
 try to win back as much respectability as I can. 
 This place in the bank was the first step, and now 
 your husband wants to kick me off the ladder, 
 back into the mire. Mrs. Helmer, you evidently 
 have no clear idea what you have really done. 
 But I can assure you that it was nothing more 
 and nothing worse that made me an outcast from 
 society. . . . But this I may tell you, that if I'm 
 flung into the gutter a second time, you shall keep 
 me company." 
 
 Even when Nora is confronted with this awful 
 threat, she does not fear for herself, only for 
 Torvald, — so good, so true, who has such an 
 aversion to debts, but who loves her so devotedly 
 that for her sake he would take the blame upon 
 himself. But this must never be. Nora, too, be- 
 gins a fight for life, for her husband's life and that 
 
22 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 of her children. Did not Helmer tell her that 
 the very presence of a criminal like Krogstad 
 poisons the children? And is she not a criminal? 
 
 Torvald Helmer assures her, in his male con- 
 ceit, that " early corruption generally comes from 
 the mother's side, but of course the father's in- 
 fluence may act in the same way. And this Krog- 
 stad has been poisoning his own children for years 
 past by a life of lies and hypocrisy — that's why 
 I call him morally ruined." 
 
 Poor Nora, who cannot understand why a 
 daughter has no right to spare her dying father 
 ahxiety, or why a wife has no right to save her 
 husband's life, is surely not aware of the true 
 character of her idol. But gradually the veil is 
 lifted. At first, when in reply to her desperate 
 pleading for Krogstad, her husband discloses the 
 true reason for wanting to get rid of him : " The 
 fact is, he was a college chum of mine — there 
 was one of those rash friendships between us that 
 one so often repents later. I don't mind con- 
 fessing it — he calls me by my Christian name; 
 and he insists on doing it even when others are 
 present. He delights in putting on airs of fa- 
 miliarity — Torvald here, Torvald there! I as- 
 sure you it's most painful to me. He would make 
 my position at the bank perfectly unendurable." 
 
 And then again when the final blow comes. 
 For forty-eight hours Nora battles for her ideal, 
 
A Doll's House 23 
 
 never doubting Torvald for a moment. Indeed, 
 so absolutely sure is she of her strong oak, her 
 lord, her god, that she would rather kill herself 
 than have him take the blame for her act. The 
 end comes, and with it the doll's house tumbles 
 down, and Nora discards her doll's dress — she 
 sheds her skin, as it were. Torvald Helmer 
 proves himself a petty Philistine, a bully and a 
 coward, as so many good husbands when they 
 throw off their respectable cloak. 
 
 Helmer's rage over Nora's crime subsides the 
 moment the danger of publicity is averted — prov- 
 ing that Helmer, like many a moralist, is not so 
 much incensed at Nora's offense as by the fear 
 of being found out. Not so Nora. Finding out 
 is her salvation. It is then that she realizes how 
 much she has been wronged, that she is only a 
 plaything, a doll to Helmer. In her disillusion- 
 ment she says, " You have never loved me. You 
 only thought it amusing to be in love with me." 
 
 Helmer. Why, Nora, what a thing to say! 
 
 Nora. Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home 
 with father he used to tell me all his opinions and I 
 held the same opinions. If I had others I concealed them, 
 because he would not have liked it. He used to call me 
 his doll child, and play with me as I played with my 
 
 dolls. Then I came to live in your house ... I 
 
 mean I passed from father's hands into yours. You 
 settled everything according to your taste; and I got the 
 
24 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 same tastes as you; or I pretended to — T don't know 
 which — both ways perhaps. When I look back on it 
 now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from 
 hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, 
 Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father 
 have done me a great wrong. It's your fault that my 
 life has been wasted. . . . 
 
 Helmer. It's exasperating! Can you forsake your 
 holiest duties in this way? 
 
 Nora. What do you call my holiest duties? 
 
 Helmer. Do you ask me that? Your duties to your 
 husband and your children. 
 
 Nora. I have other duties equally sacred. 
 
 Helmer. Impossible! What duties do you mean? 
 
 Nora. My duties toward myself. 
 
 Helmer. Before all else you are a wife and a mother. 
 
 Nora. That I no longer believe. I think that before 
 all else I am a human being, just as much as you are 
 — or, at least, I wall try to become one. I know that 
 most people agree with you, Torvald, and that they say 
 so in books. But henceforth I can't be satisfied with 
 what most people say, and what is in books. I must 
 think things out for myself and try to get dear about 
 them. ... I had been living here these eight years with 
 a strange man, and had borne him three children — Oh ! 
 I can't bear to think of it — I could tear myself to pieces! 
 ... I can't spend the night in a strange man's house. 
 
 Is there anything more degrading to woman 
 than to live with a stranger, and bear him chil- 
 dren? Yet, the lie of the marriage institution de- 
 
Ghosts ! 25 
 
 crees that she shall continue to do so, and the 
 social conception of duty insists that for the sake 
 of that lie she need be nothing else than a play- 
 thing, a doll, a nonentity. 
 
 When Nora closes behind her the door of her 
 doll's house, she opens -wide the gate of life for 
 woman, and proclaims the revolutionary message 
 that only ptrfect freedom and communion make a 
 true bond between man. and woman, meeting in 
 the open, without lies, without shame, free from 
 the bondage of duty. 
 
 GHOSTS 
 
 The social and revolutionary significance of 
 Henrik Ibsen is brought out with even greater 
 force in " Ghosts " than in his preceding works. 
 
 Not only does this pioneer of modern dramatic 
 art undermine in " Ghosts " the Social Lie and 
 the paralyzing effect of Duty, but the uselessness 
 and evil of Sacrifice, the dreary Lack of Joy and 
 of Purpose in Work are brought to light as most 
 pernicious and destructive elements in life. 
 
 Mrs. Apving, having made what her family 
 called a most admirable match, discovers shortly 
 after her marriage that her husband is a drunkard 
 and a roue. In her despair she flees to her young 
 friend, the divinity student Manders. But he, 
 preparing to save souls, even though they be en- 
 
26 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 cased in rotten bodies, sends Mrs. Jiving back to 
 her husband and her duties toward her home. 
 
 Helen Alving is young and immature. Besides, 
 she loves young Manders; his command Is law to 
 her. She returns home, and for twenty-five years 
 suffers all the misery and torture of the damned. 
 That she survives is due mainly to her passionate 
 love for the child born of that horrible relation- 
 ship — her boy Oswald, her all in life. He must 
 be saved at any cost. To do that, she had sacri- 
 ficed her great yearning for him and sent him 
 away from the poisonous atmosphere of her home. 
 
 And now he has returned, fine and free, much 
 to the disgust of Pastor Manders, whose limited 
 vision cannot conceive that out in the large world 
 free men and women can live a decent and cre- 
 ative life. 
 
 Manders. But how is it possible that a — a young 
 man or young woman with any decent principles can 
 endure to live in that way? — in the eyes of all the 
 world ! 
 
 Oswald. What are they to do? A poor young artist 
 — a poor girl. It costs a lot of money to get married. 
 What are they to do? 
 
 Manders. What are they to do? Let me tell you, 
 Mr. Alving, what they ought to do. They ought to 
 exercise self-restraint from the first; that's what they 
 ought to do. 
 
Ghosts 27 
 
 Oswald. Such talk as that won't go far with warm- 
 blooded young people, over head and ears in love. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. No, it wouldn't go far, 
 
 Manders. How can the authorities tolerate such 
 things? Allow it to go on in the light of day? {To 
 Mrs. Alving.) Had I not cause to be deeply concerned 
 about your son? In circles where open immorality pre- 
 vails, and has even a sort of prestige ! 
 
 Oswald. Let me tell you, sir, that I have been a con- 
 stant Sunday-guest in one or two such irregular 
 homes 
 
 Manders. On Sunday of all days! 
 
 Oswald. Isn't that the day to enjoy one's self ? Well, 
 never have I heard an offensive word, and still less have 
 I ever witnessed anything that could be called immoral. 
 No; do you know when and where I have found immo- 
 rality in artistic circles? 
 
 Manders. No! Thank heaven, I don't! 
 
 Oswald. Well, then, allow me to inform you. I have 
 met with it when one or other of our pattern husbands 
 and fathers has come to Paris to have a look around on 
 his own account, and has done the artists the honor of 
 visiting their humble haunts. They knew what was 
 what. These gentlemen could tell us all about places 
 and things we had never dreamt of. 
 
 Manders. What? Do you mean to say that respect- 
 able men from home here would ? 
 
 Oswald. Have you never heard these respectable men, 
 when they got home again, talking about the way in 
 which immorality was running rampant abroad? 
 
28 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 Manders. Yes, of course. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. I have, too; 
 
 Oswald. Well, you may take their word for it. 
 They know what they are talking about! Oh! that that 
 great, free, glorious life out there should be defiled in 
 such a way! 
 
 Pastor Manders is outraged, and when Oswald 
 leaves, he delivers himself of a tirade against Mrs. 
 Alving for her " irresponsible proclivities to shirk 
 her duty." 
 
 Manders. It is only the spirit of rebellion that craves 
 for happiness in this life. What right have we human 
 beings to happiness? No, we have to do our duty! 
 And your duty was to hold firmly to the man you had 
 once chosen and to whom you were bound by a holy tie. 
 ... It was your duty to bear with humility the cross 
 which a Higher Power had, for your own good, laid 
 upon you. But instead of that you rebelliously cast away 
 the cross. ... I was but a poor instrument in a Higher 
 Hand. And what a blessing has it not been to you all 
 the days of your life, that I got you to resume the yoke 
 of duty and obedience! 
 
 The price Mrs. Alving had to pay for her yoke, 
 her duty and obedience, staggers even Dr. Man- 
 ders, when she reveals to him the martyrdom she 
 had endured those long years. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. You have now spoken out, Pastor Man- 
 ders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory 
 
Ghosts 29 
 
 of my husband, I shall not speak to-morrow. But now 
 I will speak out a little to you, as you have spoken to 
 me. ... I want you to know that after nineteen years 
 of marriage my husband remained as dissolute in his de- 
 sires as he was when you married us. After Oswald's 
 birth, I thought Alving seemed to be a little better. But 
 it did not last long. And then I had to struggle twice 
 as hard, fighting for life or death, so that nobody should 
 know what sort of a man my child's father was. I had 
 my little son to bear it for. But when the last insult 
 
 was added; when my own servant-maid Then I 
 
 swore to myself: This shall come to an end. And so I 
 took the upper hand in the house — the whole control 
 over him and over everything else. For now I had a 
 weapon against him, you see; he dared not oppose me. 
 It was then that Oswald was sent from home. He was 
 in his seventh year, and was beginning to observe and 
 ask questions, as children do. That I could not bear. 
 I thought the child must get poisoned by merely breath- 
 ing the air in this polluted home. That was why I 
 placed him out. And now you can see, too, why he was 
 never allowed to set foot inside his home so long as his 
 father lived. No one knows what it has cost me. . . . 
 From the day after to-morrow it shall be for me as 
 though he who is dead had never lived in this house. 
 No one shall be here but my boy and his mother. {From 
 within the dining-room comes the noise of a chair over- 
 turned, and at the same moment is heard:) 
 
 Regina {sharply, but whispering). Oswald! take care! 
 are you mad? let me go! 
 
 Mrs. diving {starts in terror). Ah! {She stares 
 
30 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 wildly toward the half-opened door. Oswald is heard 
 coughing and humming inside. 
 
 Manders {excited). What in the world is the mat- 
 ter? What is it, Mrs. Alving? 
 
 Mrs. Ahing {hoarsely). Ghosts! The couple from 
 the conservatory has risen again! 
 
 Ghosts, indeed ! Mrs. Alving sees this but toa 
 clearly when she discovers that though she did not 
 want Oswald to inherit a single penny from the 
 purchase money Captain Alving had paid for her, 
 all her sacrifice did not save Oswald from the 
 poisoned heritage of his father. She learns soon 
 enough that her beloved boy had inherited a terri- 
 ble disease from his father, as a result of which he 
 will never again be able to work. She also finds 
 out that, for all her freedom, she has remained in 
 the clutches of Ghosts, and that she has fostered 
 in Oswald's mind an ideal of his father, the more 
 terrible because of her own loathing for the man. 
 Too late she realizes her fatal mistake: 
 
 Mrs. Alving. I ought never to have concealed the 
 facts of Alving's life. But ... in my superstitious awe 
 for Duty and Decency I lied to my boy, year after year. 
 Oh! what a coward, what a coward I have been! . . . 
 Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, 
 it was as though I saw the Ghosts before me. But I 
 almost think we are all of us Ghosts, Pastor Manders. 
 It is not only what we have inherited from our father 
 and mother that " walks " in us. It is all sorts of dead 
 
Ghosts 3 1 
 
 ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have 
 no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we 
 can't get rid of them. , . . There must be Ghosts all 
 the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And 
 then wt art, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light. 
 . . . When you forced me under the yoke you called 
 Duty and Obligation; when you praised as right and 
 proper what my whole soul rebelled against, as some- 
 thing loathsome. It was then that I began to look into 
 the seams of your doctrine. I only wished to pick at a 
 single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole 
 thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was 
 all machine-sewn. ... It was a crime against us both. 
 
 Indeed, a crime on which the sacred institution 
 is built, and for which thousands of innocent chil- 
 dren must pay with their happiness and life, while 
 their mothers continue to the very end without 
 ever learning how hideously criminal their life is. 
 
 Not so Mrs. Alving who, though at a terrible 
 price, works herself out to the truth ; aye, even to 
 the height of understanding the dissolute life of 
 the father of her child, who had lived in cramped 
 provincial surroundings, and could find no purpose 
 in life, no outlet for his exuberance. It is through 
 her child, through Oswald, that all this becomes 
 illumed to her. 
 
 Oswald. Ah, the joy of life, mother; that's a thing 
 you don't know much about in these parts. I have 
 never felt it here. . . . And then, too, the joy of work. 
 
32 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 At bottom, it's the same thing. But that too you know 
 nothing about. . . . Here people are brought up to be- 
 lieve that work is a curse and a punishment for sin, and 
 that life is something miserable, something we want to 
 be done with, the sooner the better. . . . Have you 
 noticed that everything I have painted has turned upon 
 the joy of life? always, always upon the joy of life? — 
 light and sunshine and glorious air, and faces radiant 
 with happiness? That is why I am afraid of remaining 
 at home with you. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. Oswald, you spoke of the joy of life; 
 and at that word a new light burst for me over my life 
 and all it has contained. . . . You ought to have known 
 your father when he was a young lieutenant. He^ was 
 brimming over with the joy of life! ... He had no 
 object in life, but only an official position. He had no 
 work into which he could throw himself heart and soul; 
 he had only business. He had not a single comrade that 
 knew what the joy of life meant — only loafers and boon 
 
 companions ... So that happened which was sure 
 
 to happen. . . . Oswald, my dear boy; has it shaken 
 you very much? 
 
 Oswald. Of course it came upon me as a great sur- 
 prise, but, after all, it can't matter much to me. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. Can't matter! That your father was 
 so infinitely miserable! 
 
 Oswald. Of course I can pity him as I would any- 
 body else; but 
 
 Mrs. Alving. Nothing more? Your own father! 
 
 Oswald. Oh, there! " Father," " father " ! I never 
 
Ghosts 33 
 
 knew anything of father. I don't remember anything 
 about him except — that he once made me sick. 
 
 Mrs. Alving. That's a terrible way to speak! 
 Should not a son love his father, all the same? 
 
 Oswald. When a son has nothing to thank his father 
 for? has never known him? Do you really cling to the 
 old superstition? — you who are so enlightened in other 
 ways? 
 
 Mrs. Alving. Is that only a superstition? 
 
 In truth, a superstition — one that is kept like 
 the sword of Damocles over the child who does 
 not ask to be given life, and is yet tied with a 
 thousand chains to those who bring him into a 
 cheerless, joyless, and wretched world. 
 
 The voice of Henrik Ibsen in " Ghosts " sounds 
 like the trumpets before the walls of Jericho. 
 Into the remotest nooks and corners reaches his 
 voice, with its thundering indictment of our moral 
 cancers, our social poisons, our hideous crimes 
 against unborn and born victims. Verily a more 
 revolutionary condemnation has never been ut- 
 tered in dramatic form before or since the great 
 Henrik Ibsen. / 
 
 We need, therefore, not be surprised at the vile 
 abuse and denunciation heaped upon Ibsen's head 
 by the Church, the State, and other moral eunuchs. 
 But the spirit of Henrik Ibsen could not be 
 
34 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 daunted. It asserted itself with even greater de- 
 fiance in " An Enemy of Society," — a powerful 
 arraignment of the political and economic Lie, 
 — Ibsen's own confession of faith. 
 
 AN ENEMY OF SOCIETY 
 
 Dr. Thomas Stockmann Is called to the po- 
 sition of medical adviser to the management of 
 the " Baths," the main resource of his native town. 
 
 A sincere man of high ideals, Dr. Stockmann 
 returns home after an absence of many years, full 
 of the spirit of enterprise and progressive inno- 
 vation. For as he says to his brother Peter, the 
 town Burgomaster, " I am so glad and content. 
 I feel so unspeakably happy in the midst of all 
 this growing, germinating life. After all, what a 
 glorious time we do live in. It is as if a new 
 world were springing up around us." 
 
 Burgomaster. Do you really think so? 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. Well, of course, you can't see this 
 as clearly as I do. You've spent all your life in this 
 place, and so your perceptions have been dulled. But I, 
 who had to live up there in that small hole in the north 
 all those years, hardly ever seeing a soul to speak a 
 stimulating word to me — all this affects me as if I were 
 carried to the midst of a crowded city — I know well 
 enough that the conditions of life are small compared 
 with many other towns. But here is life, growth, an 
 
An Enemy of Society 35 
 
 infinity of things to work for and to strive for; and that 
 is the main point. 
 
 In this spirit Dr. Stockmann sets to his task. 
 After two years of careful investigation, he finds 
 that the Baths are built on a swamp, full of poi- 
 sonous germs, and that people who come there for 
 their health will be infected with fever. 
 
 Thomas Stockmann is a conscientious physician. 
 He loves his native town, but he loves his 
 fellow-men more. He considers it his duty to 
 communicate his discovery to the highest authority 
 of the town, the Burgomaster, his brother Peter 
 Stockmann. 
 
 Dr. Stockmann is indeed an idealist; else he 
 would know that the man is often lost in the of- 
 ficial. Besides, Peter Stockmann is also the 
 president of the board of directors and one of the 
 heaviest stockholders of the Baths. Sufficient rea- 
 son to upbraid his reckless medical brother as a 
 dangerous man : 
 
 Burgomaster. Anyhow, you've an ingrained propen- 
 sity for going your own way. And that in a well-or- 
 dered community is almost as dangerous. The individual 
 must submit himself to the whole community, or, to speak 
 more correctly, bow to the authority that watches over 
 the welfare of all. 
 
 But the Doctor is not disconcerted: Peter is 
 an official; he is not concerned with ideals. But 
 
36 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 there is the press, — that is the medium for his 
 purpose 1 The staff of the People's Messenger 
 — Hovstad, Billings, and Aslaksen, are deeply 
 impressed by the Doctor's discovery. With one 
 eye to good copy and the other to the political 
 chances, they immediately put the People's Mes- 
 senger at the disposal of Thomas Stockmann. 
 Hovstad sees great possibilities for a thorough 
 radical reform of the whole life of the commun- 
 ity. 
 
 Hovstad, To you, as a doctor and a man of science, 
 this business of the water-works in an isolated affair. 
 I fancy it hasn't occurred to you that a good many other 
 things are connected with it. . . . The swamp our whole 
 municipal life stands and rots in. . . . I think a journal- 
 ist assumes an immense responsibility when he neglects 
 an opportunity of aiding the masses, the poor, the op- 
 pressed. I know well enough that the upper classes will 
 call this stirring up the people, and so forth, but they can 
 do as they please, if only my conscience is clear. 
 
 Aslaksen, printer of the People's Messenger, 
 chairman of the Householders' Association, and 
 agent for the Moderation Society, has, like Hov- 
 stad, a keen eye to business. He assures the 
 Doctor of his whole-hearted cooperation, espe- 
 cially emphasizing that, " It might do you no harm 
 to have us middle-class men at your back. We 
 now form a compact majority in the town — 
 when we really make up our minds to. And it's 
 
An Enemy of Society 37 
 
 always as well, Doctor, to have the majority with 
 you. . . . And so I think it wouldn't be amiss if 
 we made some sort of a demonstration. ... Of 
 course with great moderation. Doctor. I am al- 
 ways in favor of moderation; for moderation is a 
 citizen's first virtue — at least those are my senti- 
 ments." 
 
 Truly, Dr. Stockmann is an idealist; else he 
 would not place so much faith in the staff of the 
 People's Messenger, who love the people so well 
 that they constantly feed them with high-sounding 
 phrases of democratic principles and of the noble 
 function of the press, while they pilfer their pock- 
 ets. 
 
 That is expressed in Hovstad's own words, 
 when Petra, the daughter of Dr. Stockmann, re- 
 turns a sentimental novel she was to translate for 
 the People's Messenger: " This can't possibly 
 go into the Messenger," she tells Hovstad; " it is 
 in direct contradiction to your own opinion." 
 
 Hovstad. Well, but for the sake of the cause — 
 
 Petra. You don't understand me yet. It is all about 
 a supernatural power that looks after the so-called good 
 people here on earth, and turns all things to their ad- 
 vantEfge at last, and all the bad people are punished. 
 
 Hovstad. Yes, but that's very fine. It's the very 
 thing the public like. 
 
 Petra. And would you supply the public with such 
 stuff? Why, you don't believe one word of it yourself. 
 
38 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 You know well enough that things don't really happen 
 like that, 
 
 Hovstad. You're right there; but an editor can't 
 always do as he likes. He often has to yield to public 
 opinion in small matters. After all, politics is the chief 
 thing in life — at any rate for a newspaper; and if I 
 want the people to follow me along the path of emanci- 
 pation and progress, I mustn't scare them away. If they 
 find such a moral story down in the cellar, they're much 
 more willing to stand what is printed above it — they 
 feel themselves safer. 
 
 Editors of the stamp of Hovstad seldom dare 
 to express their real opinions. They cannot af- 
 ford to " scare away " their readers. They gen- 
 erally yield to the most ignorant and vulgar public 
 opinion; they do not set themselves up against 
 constituted authority. Therefore the Peoples 
 Messenger drops the " greatest man" in town 
 when it learns that the Burgomaster and the influ- 
 ential citizens are determined that the truth shall 
 be silenced. The Burgomaster soundly de- 
 nounces his brother's " rebellion," 
 
 Burgomaster. The public doesn't need new ideas. 
 The public is best served by the good old recognized 
 ideas that they have already. ... As an official, you've 
 no right to have any individual conviction. 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. The source is poisoned, man! Are 
 you mad? We live by trafficking in filth and garbage. 
 The whole of our developing social life is rooted in a lie ! 
 
An Enemy of Society 39 
 
 Burgomaster. Idle fancies — or something worse. 
 The man who makes such offensive insinuations against 
 his own native place must be an enemy of society. 
 
 Dr. Stocktnann. And I must bear such treatment! 
 In my own house. Katrine! What do you think of it? 
 
 Mrs. Stockmann. Indeed, it is a shame and an insult, 
 
 Thomas . . . But, after all, your brother has the 
 
 power 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. Yes, but I have the right! 
 
 Mrs. Stockmann. Ah, yes, right, right ! What is the 
 good of being right when you haven't any might? 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. What! No good in a free society to 
 have right on your side? You are absurd, Katrine. And 
 besides, haven't I the free and independent press with me? 
 The compact majority behind me ? That's might enough, 
 I should think! 
 
 Katrine Stockmann is wiser than her husband. 
 For he who has no might need hope for no right. 
 The good Doctor has to drink the bitter cup to the 
 last drop before he realizes the wisdom of his 
 wife. 
 
 Threatened by the authorities and repudiated 
 by the People's Messenger, Dr. Stockmann at- 
 tempts to secure a hall wherein to hold a public 
 meeting. A free-born citizen, he believes in the 
 Constitution and its guarantees; he is determined 
 to maintain his right of free expression. But like 
 so many others, even most advanced liberals 
 blinded by the spook of constitutional rights and 
 
40 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 free speech, Dr. Stockmann inevitably has to pay 
 the penalty of his credulity. He finds every hall 
 in town closed against him. Only one solitary 
 citizen has the courage to open his doors to the 
 persecuted Doctor, — his old friend Horster. 
 But the mob follows him even there and howls 
 him down as an enemy of society. Thomas 
 Stockmann makes the discovery in his battle with 
 ignorance, stupidity, and vested interests that " the 
 most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in 
 our midst are the compact majority, the damned 
 compact liberal majority." His experiences lead 
 him to the conclusion that " the majority is never 
 right. . . . That is one of those conventional lies 
 against which a free, thoughtful man must rebel. 
 . . . [The majority has might unhappily — but 
 right it has not." 
 
 Hovstad. The man who would ruin a whole com- 
 munity must be an enemy of society! 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. It doesn't matter if a lying com- 
 munity is ruined! . . . You'll poison the whole country 
 in time; you will bring it to such a pass that the whole 
 country will deserve to perish. And should it come to 
 this, I say, from the bottom of my heart: Perish the 
 country! Perish all its people! 
 
 Driven out of the place, hooted and jeered by 
 the mob. Dr. Stockmann barely escapes with his 
 life, and seeks safety in his home, only to find 
 
An Enemy of Society 41 
 
 everything demolished there. In due time he is 
 repudiated by the grocer, the baker, and the can- 
 dlestick maker. The landlord, of course, is very 
 sorry for him. The Stockmanns have always 
 paid their rent regularly, but it would injure his 
 reputation to have such an avowed rebel for a 
 tenant. The grocer is sorry, and the butcher, 
 too; but they can not jeopardize their business. 
 Finally the board of education sends expressions 
 of regret: ^jetra is an excellent teacher and the 
 boys of Stockmann splendid pupils, but it would 
 contaminate the other children were the Stock- 
 manns allowed to remain at school. And again 
 Dr. Stockmann learns a vital lesson. But he will 
 not submit ; he will be strong. 
 
 Dr. Stockmann. Should I let myself be beaten off the 
 field by public opinion, and the compact majority, and 
 such deviltry? No, thanks. Besides, what I want is so 
 simple, so clear and straightforward. I only want to 
 drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are 
 the worst foes of free men ; that party-programmes wring 
 the necks of all young living truths; that considerations 
 of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside 
 down, until life is simply hideous. ... I don't see any 
 man free and brave enough to dare the Truth. . . . The 
 strongest man is he who stands most alone. 
 
 A confession of faith, indeed, because Henrik 
 Ibsen, although recognized as a great dramatic 
 
42 Henrik Ibsen 
 
 artist, remained alone in his stand as a revolution- 
 ist. 
 
 His dramatic art, without his glorious rebellion 
 against every authoritative institution, against 
 every social and moral lie, against every vestige 
 of bondage, were inconceivable. Just as his art 
 would lose human significance, were his love of 
 truth and freedom lacking. Already in " Brand," 
 Henrik Ibsen demanded all or nothing, no weak- 
 kneed moderation, — no compromise of any sort in 
 the struggle for the ideal. His proud defiance, 
 his enthusiastic daring, his utter indifference to 
 consequences, are Henrik Ibsen's bugle call^ her- 
 alding a new dawn and the birth of a new race. 
 
STRINDBERG 
 
 **^ ■ ^HE reproach was levelled against my 
 I tragedy, 'The Father,' that it was 
 I so sad, as though one wanted merry 
 ■^^ tragedies. People clamour for the 
 joy of life, and the 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. Vltus's dance or 
 idiocy. I find the joy of life In the powerful, 
 cruel struggle of life, and my enjoyment in dis- 
 covering something, in learning something." 
 
 The passionate desire to discover something, 
 to learn something, has made of August Strlnd- 
 berg a keen dissector of souls. Above all, of his 
 own soul. 
 
 Surely there is no figure In contemporary litera- 
 ture, outside of Tolstoy, that laid bare the most 
 secret nooks and corners of his own soul with the 
 sincerity of August Strindberg. One so relent- 
 lessly honest with himself, could be no less with 
 others. 
 
 That explains the bitter opposition and hatred 
 of his critics. They did not object so much to 
 Strindberg's self-torture; but that he should have 
 
 43 
 
44 "> Strindberg 
 
 dared to torture them, to hold up his searching 
 mirror to their sore spots, that they could not 
 forgive. 
 
 Especially is this true of woman. For cen- 
 turies she has been lulled into a trance by the songs 
 of the troubadours who paid homage to her good- 
 ness, her sweetness, her selflessness and, above all, 
 her noble motherhood. And though she is begin- 
 ning to appreciate that all this incense has be- 
 fogged her mind and paralyzed her soul, she hates 
 to give up the tribute laid at her feet by senti- 
 mental moonshiners of the past. 
 
 To be sure, it is rude to turn on the full search- 
 light upon a painted face. But how is one to 
 know what is back of the paint and artifice ? Au- 
 gust 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 Strind- 
 berg 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 cruci- 
 ble 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 wom- 
 an's children, every man of you." 
 
The Father 45 
 
 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, al- 
 ways the flame of life is drawing its victims with 
 irresistible force. August Strindberg's arraign- 
 ment of that force is at the same time a confes- 
 sion 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 intel- 
 lectual, a freethinlcer, 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 
 
46 Strindberg 
 
 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 en- 
 vironment, 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 un- 
 married she will be able to support herself, and at any 
 rate she wouldn't be any worse off than the poor school- 
 masters who have to share their salaries with a family. 
 
The Father 47 
 
 If she marries she can use her knowledge in the educa- 
 tion 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 Doc- 
 tor, 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 breadwin- 
 ner. You are not needed arty 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. 
 
48 Strindberg 
 
 "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 po- 
 tentialities of character and growth of the child; 
 on the contrary, it is interested chiefly in the birth- 
 giver, — that is, the mother. Therefore, the 
 mother is the most subjective, self -centered and 
 conservative obstacle. She binds the child to her- 
 self with a thousand threads which never grant 
 suiEcient freedom for mental and spiritual ex- 
 pansion. 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, Au- 
 gust Strindberg is conveying a vital and revolu- 
 tionary message, namely, that true motherhood, 
 even as fatherhood, does not consist in molding 
 the child according to one's image, or in imposing 
 
The Father 49 
 
 upon it one's own ideas and notions, but in allow- 
 ing 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 indeli- 
 ble mark on August Strindberg. It never left 
 him. Nor did fear and hunger — the two ter- 
 rible 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 neverthe- 
 less true. It holds good not only of the average, 
 unthinking woman, but even of many feminists of 
 
50' Strindberg 
 
 to-day; and, no doubt, they were even more an- 
 tagonistic 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 mini- 
 mize 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? ... 1 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 
 
Countess Julie 51 
 
 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 o\at 
 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 ex- 
 clusively 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 incura- 
 ble," 
 
52 Strindberg 
 
 What a wealth of revolutionary thought, — 
 were we to realize that those who will clear soci- 
 ety 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 re- 
 former, no patchworker; therefore his inability 
 to remain fixed, or to content himself with ac- 
 cepted truths. Therefore also, his great versatil- 
 ity, 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 Strind- 
 berg? He who had been tossed about all his life 
 between the decadent traditions of his aristocratic 
 father and the grim, sordid reality of the cla§s 
 
Countess Julie 53 
 
 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, in- 
 tense passion of her mother and the neurotic aris- 
 tocratic tendencies of her father. Added to this 
 heritage is the call of the wild, the " intense sum- 
 mer 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 gra- 
 ciously mingles with the servants. But once hav- 
 ing 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 be- 
 cause of love for the man, nor yet openly and 
 freely, but as persons of her station may do when 
 carried away by the moment. 
 
54 Strindberg 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 noth- 
 ing grew, not even a tree, but from the window I could 
 see the Count's park walls with apple trees rising above 
 
Countess Julie 55 
 
 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 I The injustice and the bitterness of 
 it all, that places the stigma of birth as an im- 
 passable obstacle, a fatal imperative excluding one 
 from the table of life, with the result of producing 
 such terrible effects oh 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 condi- 
 tion. 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 
 
^6 Strindberg 
 
 gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I 
 have only to hear his bell, to start like a nervous horse. 
 . . . And novi^ 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 up- 
 rooted 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 over- 
 bearing 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, dis- 
 covers 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. 
 
Countess Julie 57 
 
 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 re- 
 flects 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 bet- 
 ter 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, witTi 
 all their longing for higher possibilities, often 
 become brutalized in the hard school of lifei 
 though in the conflict with Julie, Jean shows bru- 
 tality only at the critical moment, when it be- 
 
^8 Strindberg 
 
 comes a question of life and dedth, 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 re- 
 turn 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, for- 
 getful of station, birth and conventions, and they 
 return to the kitchen, it is again Jean who is will- 
 ing 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 
 
Countess Julie 59 
 
 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 blos- 
 som 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. In- 
 deed, 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 be- 
 tween Julie's aristocratic father and her mother 
 descended from the people. This was the 
 heritage of the innocent victim, Julie — an au- 
 tumn 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 hard- 
 ened 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 
 
6o Strindberg 
 
 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 un- 
 happy, I know that you are suffering, but I cannot 
 understand you. Among my kind there is no non- 
 sense 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 ma- 
 turity 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 offer- 
 ing a definite panacea for Individual or social ills, 
 yet with master touch he painted the degrading 
 effects of class distinction and its tragic antago- 
 msms. 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 ele- 
 mental emotions, laying bare the human soul be- 
 
Comrades 6 1 
 
 hind 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 " Com- 
 rades " 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 re- 
 sults of such an anomaly are indeed ludicrous when 
 viewed from a distance, but very tragic for those 
 who play a part in it. 
 
 Axel Alherg 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 arrange- 
 ment 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 sensi- 
 
62 Strindberg 
 
 tive 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 exhibi- 
 tion, 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. 
 
 Berthd 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 your- 
 self 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 
 
Comrades 
 
 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 re- 
 turn 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 ma- 
 jority 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 ordi- 
 
64 Strindberg 
 
 nary wife, at least, does not pretend tQL.plajLanjl5- 
 portant role in the life of her husband. But the 
 Berthas deceive^hemselves and others with the'no^ 
 tion that the " emancipated " wife is a great nioral 
 force, an inspiration to the man.^ Whereas in 
 reality she is often a cold-bloodedjexploiter 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 le- 
 gaily married sister. She cannot understand 
 Axel's opposition to an art that clamors only for 
 approval, distinction and decorations. 
 
 However, Axel can not resist Berthc^s plead- 
 ings. 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 con- 
 cerned over the effect of the news on Axel. On 
 the contrary, she is rather pleased because " so 
 
Comrades 65 
 
 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 Jxel be- 
 comes overbearing; she humiliates him, belittles 
 his art, and even plans to humble him before the 
 guests invited to celebrate Bertha's artistic suc- 
 cess. 
 
 But Jxel 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 Jxel 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. Jxel 
 leaves her with the exclamation, " I want to meet 
 my comrades in the cafe, 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. 
 
66 Strindberg 
 
 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 Mp and are going oiit 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 undel^tand ? , So, he 
 can"^bring children into the world and then,,ieaYe (them 
 empty-handed with the poor deserted ipother. \ 
 
 '^■'- ■ ■, ■" ■ ., 
 
 Bertha, who believes in woman's equality with 
 man, and in her economic independence, yet de-, 
 livers herself of the old sentimental gush in be- 
 half of " the poor deserted mother^" wWhasoeen 
 supported by her husband ^or 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 be- 
 
Comrades 67 
 
 come Michelangelos, Beethovens, or Shakes- 
 peares ; they claim th^ 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 re- 
 sented by the Axels Is not at all surprising. It is 
 resented- even bj^ the more intelligent of Bertha's 
 own fee^j'i Not Bec-ause they are opposed to the 
 emancipation (s(i"^bman, but because they do not 
 believfrSs^hfijr'emancipation can ever be achieved 
 by such aliisurd arid h^steriical notions. They re- 
 piiciiate the idea that pfeople who retain the sub- 
 stance of thfeir sjavery 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 eco- 
 nomic and political status, cannot alter the inher- 
 ent 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 diiScult 
 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 Strlndberg Is such a light. Some- 
 times glaring, ofttimes scorching, but always bene- 
 ficially Illuminating the path for those who walk 
 
68 Strindberg 
 
 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 hurhan family, and, as such, a most vital 
 revolutionary factor. 
 
THE GERMAN DRAMA 
 
 HERMANN SUDERMANN 
 
 IT has been said that military conquest gen- 
 erally 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 re- 
 peatedly demonstrates that whenever a nation 
 achieved great military success, it invariably in- 
 volved 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, intellectu- 
 ally, 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 
 
 69 
 
70 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 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 Suder- 
 mann as an artist or to consider him from the 
 point of view of the technic of the drama. I in- 
 tend to deal with him as the first German drama- 
 tist to treat social topics and discuss the pressing 
 questions of the day. From this point of view 
 Hermann Sudermann may be regarded as the pio- 
 neer of a new era in the German drama.* Pri- 
 marily 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 con- 
 flicts, nevertheless touches upon many vital sub- 
 jects. 
 
 In " Honor " the author demolishes the super- 
 ficial, 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 be- 
 cause 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 Suder- 
 mann shows that the conception of honor is noth- 
 ing fixed or .permanent, but that it varies with 
 
Mag da 71 
 
 economic and social status, different races, peo- 
 ples 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 sub- 
 ject, — the awakening of woman. It is revo- 
 lutionary, 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 Vright to motherhood with or 
 without the sanction of State and Church. 
 
 MAGDA 
 
 Lieutenant Colonel Schwartze, iW«^<i«'j 
 father, represents all the conventional and con- 
 servative 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 foot- 
 hold, 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 
 
72 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 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 hap- 
 piness " ? 
 
 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 ter- 
 rorism and depotism. He chooses the man whom 
 Magda is to marry, and when she refuses to ac- 
 cept 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 admir- 
 ers, 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 73 
 
 Magdc^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 be- 
 smirch her innermost being. But that is expect- 
 ing the impossible from a provincial environment. 
 It is not that her people really question; but they 
 insinuate, ,they speak with looks and nods ; burn- 
 ing 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 
 
74 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 he met Magda, young, beautiful, and inexperi- 
 enced. 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, dis- 
 covers 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 strug- 
 gle. It made her finer and bigger. She does not 
 even reproach the man, because -^ 
 
 Magda. I've painted this meeting to myself a thou- 
 sand 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. 
 
Magda 75 
 
 Von Keller. Well, I felt myself called to higher 
 things. I thought — Why should I undervalue my posi- 
 tion? 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, conven- 
 tionality, and narrowness, all is so gray, — gray! And 
 the ladies here — for one who cares at all about e) egance 
 — 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 per- 
 haps have loved anyone who came in my way. That — 
 that seemed to be all over. And we were so happy, — 
 
76 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 weren't we? . . . Yes, we were a merry set; and when 
 the fun had lasted half a year, one day my lover van- 
 ished. 
 
 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, un- 
 suspecting thing, enjoying freedom like a runaway mon- 
 key. 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 iEolian 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! 
 
Magda yy 
 
 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 im- 
 mediately 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 beau- 
 tiful 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 pres- 
 ent respectability must not know that it is theirs, 
 born out of wedlock, without the sanction of the 
 Church and the State. 
 
78 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 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 her- 
 self! 
 
 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 for- 
 eign 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. 
 
Magda 79 
 
 . . . 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 re- 
 sources, 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 re- 
 spectful wooer happens to come. Yes, wait. And mean- 
 while the war for existence of body and soul is consum- 
 ing 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 no- 
 tions 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 wo- 
 manhood, a type of free motherhood. As such 
 the play is of great revolutionary significance, not 
 
8o Hermann Sudermann 
 
 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 al- 
 ways 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 grati- 
 tude, — 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 hothouse plant. The 
 Brauers also have an adopted daughter, Marie, 
 whom they had picked up on the road, while travel- 
 ing 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 
 
The Fires of St. John 8i; 
 
 from her gypsy mother, who was a pariah, an out- 
 cast beggar. She drank and stole in order to sub- 
 sist. 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 be- 
 fore the young girl, crying, " Mamie, my child, my 
 Mamie I " 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 hap- 
 piness — to her adopted parents. She wrapped 
 herself around them with all the intensity and pas- 
 sion of her nature. She became the very spirit of 
 the house. She looked after the estate, and de- 
 voted herself to little Gertrude, as to her own sis- 
 ter. 
 
 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 fix- 
 ing up a home for the young people, to ?urround 
 
Bz Hermann Sudermann 
 
 them with sunshine and joy in their new love life. 
 
 Accidentally Marie discovers a manuscript writ- 
 ten 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 Ger- 
 trude. 
 
 George. All these years I have struggled and de- 
 prived 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 be- 
 long 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 re- 
 
The Fires of St. John 83 
 
 celve their first kiss on St. John's eve, their 
 love ^ is sealed and they will be faithful unto 
 death." 
 
 In the opinion of the Pastor, St. John's night 
 represents a religious phase, too holy for flippant 
 pagan joy. 
 
 Pastor. On such a dreamy night, different emotions 
 are aroused within us. We seem to be able to look into 
 the future, and imagine ourselves able to fathom all mys- 
 tery and heal all wounds. The common becomes ele- 
 vated, our wishes become fate; and now we ask our- 
 selves: What is it that causes all this within us — all 
 these desires and wishes? It is love, brotherly love, that 
 has been planted in our souls, that fills our lives: and, it 
 is life itself. Am I not right? And now, with one 
 bound, I will come to the point. In the revelation you 
 will find : " God is love." Yes, God is love ; and that 
 is the most beautiful trait of our religion — that the 
 best, the most beautiful within us, has been granted us 
 by Him above. Then how could I, this very evening, 
 so overcome with feeling for my fellow-man — how could 
 I pass Him by? Therefore, Mr. Brauer, no matter, 
 whether pastor or layman, I must confess my inability 
 to grant your wish, and decline to give you a genuine 
 pagan toast — 
 
 But Christian symbolism having mostly de- 
 scended from primitive pagan custom, George's 
 view is perhaps the most significant. 
 
 George. Since the Pastor has so eloquently with- 
 
84 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 drawn, I will give you a toast. For, you see, my dear 
 Pastor, something of the old pagan, a spark of heathen- 
 ism, is still glowing somewhere within us all. It has 
 outlived century after century, from the time of the old 
 Teutons. Once every year that spark is fanned into 
 flame — it flames up high, and then it is called "The 
 Fires of St. John." Once every year we have " free 
 night." Then the witches ride upon their brooms — 
 the same brooms with which their witchcraft was once 
 driven out of them — with scornful laughter the wild 
 hordes sweep across the tree-tops, up, up, high upon the 
 Blocksberg! Then it is, when in our hearts awake those 
 wild desires which our fates could not fulfill — 
 and, understand me well, dared not fulfill — then, 
 no matter what may be the name of the law that governs 
 the world on that day, in order that one single wish may 
 become a reality, by whose grace we prolong our miser- 
 able existence, thousand others must miserably perish, 
 part because they were never attainable; but the others, 
 yes, the others, because we allowed them to escape us 
 like wild birds, which, though already in our hands, but 
 too listless to profit by opportunity, we failed to grasp 
 at the right moment. But no matter. Once every year 
 we have " free night." And yonder tongues of fire 
 shooting up towards the heavens — do you know what 
 they are? They are the spirits of our dead perished 
 wishes! That is the red plumage of our birds of para- 
 dise we might have petted and nursed through our entire 
 lives, but have escaped us! That is the old chaos, the 
 heathenism within us; and though we be happy in sun- 
 shine and according to law, to-night is St. John's night. 
 
The Fires of St. John 85 
 
 To its ancient pagan fires I empty this glass. To-night 
 they shall burn and flame up high — high and again 
 high! 
 
 George and Marie meet. They, too, have had 
 their instinct locked away even from their own 
 consciousness. And on this night they break loose 
 with tremendous, primitive force. They are 
 driven into each other's arms because they feel 
 that they- belong to each other ; they know that if 
 they had the strength they could take each other by 
 the hand, face their benefactor and tell him the 
 truth : tell him, that it would be an unpardonable 
 crime for George to marry Gertrude when he 
 loves another woman. 
 
 Now they all but find courage and strength for 
 it, when the pitiful plaint reaches them, " Oh, 
 mine Mamie, mine daughter, mine child." And 
 Marie is cast down from the sublime height of her 
 love and passion, down to the realization that she 
 also, like her pariah mother, must go out into the 
 world to struggle, to fight, to become free from 
 the bondage of gratitude, of charity and depend- 
 ence. 
 
 Not so George. He goes to the altar, like 
 many another man, with a lie upon his lips. He 
 goes to swear that all his life long he will love, 
 protect and shelter the woman who is to be his 
 wife. 
 
86 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 This play is rich in thought and revolutionary 
 significance. For is it not true that we are all 
 bbund by gratitude, tied and fettered by what we 
 think we owe to others ? Are we not thus turned 
 into weaklings and cowards, and do we not enter 
 into new relationships with lies upon our lips? 
 Do we not become a lie to ourselves and a lie to 
 those we associate with? And whether we have 
 the strength to be true to the dominant spirit, 
 warmed into being by the fires of St. John; 
 whether we have the courage to live up to it al- 
 ways or whether it manifests itself only on oc- 
 casion, it is nevertheless true that there is the po- 
 tentiality of freedom in the soul of every man and 
 every woman; that there is the possibility of great- 
 ness and fineness in all beings, were they not bound 
 and gagged by gratitude, by duty and shams, — a 
 vicious network that enmeshes body and soul. 
 
GERHART HAUPTMANN 
 
 LONELY LIVES 
 
 ERHART HAUPTMANN is the 
 dramatist of whom it may be justly said 
 
 M^ ■ that he revolutionized the spirit of dram 
 ^*— ^ atic art in Germany: the last Mohican of 
 a group of four — Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, and 
 Hauptmann — who illumined the horizon of the 
 nineteenth century. Of these Hauptmann, un- 
 doubtedly the most human, is also the most uni- 
 versal. 
 
 It is unnecessary to make comparisons between 
 great artists: life is sufficiently complex to give 
 each his place in the great scheme of things. If, 
 then, I consider Hauptmann more human, it is 
 because of his deep kinship with every stratum of 
 life. While Ibsen deals exclusively with one at- 
 titude, Hauptmann embraces all, understands all, 
 and portrays all, because nothing human is alien 
 to him. 
 
 Whether it be the struggle of the transition 
 stage in " Lonely Lives," or the conflict between 
 the Ide^l and the Real in " The Sunken Bell," or 
 
 87 
 
88 Gerhart Uauptmann 
 
 the brutal background of poverty in " The 
 Weavers," Hauptmann is never aloof as the icono- 
 clast Ibsen, never as bitter as the soul dissector 
 Strindberg, nor yet as set as the crusader Tolstoy. 
 And that because of his humanity, his boundless 
 love, his oneness with the disinherited of the 
 earth, and his sympathy with the struggles and 
 the travail, the hope and the despair of every 
 human soul. That accounts for the bitter opposi- 
 tion which met Gerhart Hauptmann when he made 
 his first appearance as a dramatist; but it also 
 accounts for the love and devotion of those to 
 whom he was a battle cry, a clarion call against 
 all iniquity, injustice and wrong. 
 
 In " Lonely Lives " we see the wonderful sym- 
 pathy, the tenderness of Hauptmann permeating 
 every figure of the drama. 
 
 Dr. Vockerat is not a fighter, not a propagand- 
 ist or a soap-box orator; he is a dreamer, a poet, 
 and above all a searcher for truth; a scientist, a 
 man who lives in the realm of thought and ideas, 
 and is out of touch with reality and his immediate 
 surroundings. 
 
 His parents are simple folk, religious and de- 
 voted. To them the world is a book with seven 
 seals. Having lived all their life on a farm, 
 everything with them is regulated and classified 
 into simple ideas — good or bad, great or small, 
 strong or weak. How can they know the infinite 
 
Lonely Lives 89 
 
 shades between strong and weak, how could they 
 grasp the endless variations between the good and 
 the bad? To them life is a daily routine of work 
 and prayer. God has arranged everything, and 
 God manages everything. Why bother your 
 head? Why spend sleepless nights? "Leave it 
 all to God." What pathos in this childish sim- 
 plicity I 
 
 They love their son John, they worship him, 
 and they consecrate their lives to their only boy; 
 and because of their love for him, also to his wife 
 and the newly born baby. They have but one 
 sorrow : their son has turned away from religion. 
 Still greater their grief that John is an admirer of 
 Darwin, Spencer and Haeckel and other such 
 men, — sinners, heathens all, who will burn in 
 purgatory and hell. To protect their beloved 
 son from the punishment of God, the old folks 
 continuously pray, and give still more devotion 
 and love to their erring child. 
 
 Kitty, Dr. Fockerafs wife, is a beautiful type 
 of the Gretchen, reared without any ideas about 
 life, without any consciousness of her position in 
 the world, a tender, helpless flower. She loves 
 John; he is her Ideal; he Is her all. But she 
 cannot understand him. She does not live in his 
 sphere, nor speak his language. She has never 
 dreamed his thoughts, — not because she is not 
 willing or not eager to give the man all that he 
 
90 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 needs, but because she does not understand and 
 does not know how. 
 
 Into this atmosphere comes Jnna Mahr like a 
 breeze from the plains. Jnna is a Russian girl, 
 a woman so far produced in Russia only, perhaps 
 because the conditions, the life struggles of that 
 country have been such as to develop a different 
 type of woman. Anna Mahr h^s spent most of 
 her life on the firing line. She has no conception 
 of the personal: she is universal in her feelings 
 and thoughts, with deep sympathies going out in 
 abundance to all mankind. 
 
 When she comes to the Vockerats, their whole 
 life is disturbed, especially that of John Vockerat, 
 to whom she is like a balmy spring to the parched 
 wanderer in the desert. She understands him, 
 for has she not dreamed such thoughts as his, 
 associated with men and women who, for the sake 
 of the ideal, sacrificed their lives, went to Siberia, 
 and suffered in the underground dungeons? 
 How then could she fail a Vockerat? It is quite 
 natural that John should find in Anna what his 
 own little world could not give him, — understand- 
 ing, comradeship, deep spiritual kinship. 
 
 The Anna Mahrs give the same to any one, be 
 it man, woman or child. For theirs is not a feel- 
 ing of sex, of the personal; it is the selfless, the 
 human, the all-embracing fellowship. 
 
 In the invigorating presence of Anna Mahr, 
 
Lonely Lives 91 
 
 John Vockerat begins to live, to dream and work. 
 Another phase of him, as it were, comes into be- 
 ing; larger vistas open before his eyes, and his 
 life is filled with new aspiration for creative work 
 in behalf of a liberating purpose. 
 
 Alas, the inevitability that the ideal should be 
 besmirched and desecrated when it comes in con- 
 tact with sordid reality 1 This tragic fate befalls 
 Anna Mahr and John Vockerat. 
 
 Old Mother Vockerat, who, in her simplicity 
 of soul cannot conceive of an intimate friendship 
 between a man and a woman, unless they be hus- 
 band and wife, begins first to suspect and insinuate, 
 then to nag and interfere. Of course, it is her 
 love for John, and even more so her love for her 
 son's wife, who is suffering in silence and wear- 
 ing out her soul in her realization of how little she 
 can mean to her husband. 
 
 Mother Vockerat interprets Kitty's grief in a 
 different manner: jealousy, and antagonism to 
 the successful rival is her most convenient explana- 
 tion for the loneliness, the heart-hunger of love. 
 But as a matter of fact, it is something deeper 
 and more vital that is born in Kitty's soul. It is 
 the awakening of her own womanhood, of her 
 personality. 
 
 Kitty. I agree with Miss Mahr on many points. She 
 was saying lately that we women live in a condition of 
 degradation. I think she is quite right there. It is 
 
92 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 what I feel very often. . . . It's as clear as daylight 
 that she is right. We are really and truly a despised and 
 ill-used sex. Only think that there is still a law — so 
 she told me yesterday — which allows the husband to 
 inflict a moderate amount of corporal punishment on his 
 wife. 
 
 And yet, corporal punishment is not half as 
 terrible as the punishment society inflicts on the 
 Kittys by rearing them as dependent and useless 
 beings, as hot-house flowers, ornaments for a fine 
 house, but of no substance to the husband and cer- 
 tainly of less to her children. 
 
 And Mother Vockerat, without any viciousness, 
 instills poison into the innocent soul of Kitty and 
 embitters the life of her loved son. Ignorantly, 
 Mother Kockerat meddles, interferes, and tram- 
 ples upon the most sacred feelings, the innocent 
 joys of true comradeship. 
 
 And all the time John and Anna are quite 
 unaware of the pain and tragedy they are the 
 cause of: they are far removed from the com- 
 monplace, petty world about them. They walk 
 and discuss, read and argue about the wonders of 
 life, the needs of humanity, the beauty of the 
 ideal. They have both been famished so long: 
 John for spiritual communion, Anna for warmth 
 of home that she had known so little before, and 
 which in her simplicity she has accepted at the 
 hand of Mother Vockerat and Kitty, oblivious of 
 
Lonely Lives 93 
 
 the fact that nothing is so enslaving as hospitality 
 prompted by a sense of duty. 
 
 Miss Mahr. It is a great age that we live in. That 
 which has so weighed upon people's minds and darkened 
 their lives seems to me to be gradually disappearing. 
 Do you not think so, Di*. Vockerat? 
 
 John. How do you mean? 
 
 Miss Mahr. On the one hand we were oppressed by 
 a sense of uncertainty, of apprehension, on the other by 
 gloomy fanaticism. This exaggerated tension is calming 
 down, is yielding to the influence of something like a 
 current of fresh air, that is blowing in upon us from — 
 let us say from the twentieth century, 
 
 John. But I don't find it possible to arrive at any 
 real joy in life yet. I don't know. , . . 
 
 Miss Mahr, It has no connection with our individual 
 fates — our little fates. Dr. Vockerat! ... I have 
 something to say to you — but you are not to get angry; 
 you are to be quite quiet and good. . . . Dr. Vockerat! 
 we also are falling into the error of weak natures. We 
 must look at things more impersonally. We must learn 
 to take ourselves less seriously. 
 
 John. But we'll not talk about that at present. . . . 
 And is one really to sacrifice everything that one has 
 gained to this cursed conventionality? Are people in- 
 capable of understanding that there can be no crime in a 
 situation which only tends to make both parties better 
 and nobler? Do parents, lose by their son becoming a 
 better, wiser man? Does a wife lose by the spiritual 
 growth of her husband? 
 
 Miss Mahr. You are both right and wrong. . . . 
 
94 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 Your parents have a different standard from you. 
 Kitty's again, differs from theirs. It seems to me that 
 in this we cannot judge for them. 
 
 John. Yes, but you have always said yourself that one 
 should not allow one's self to be ruled by the opinion of 
 others — that one ought to be independent? 
 
 Miss Mahr. You have often said to me that you fore- 
 see a new, a nobler state of fellowship between man and 
 woman. 
 
 John. Yes, I feel that it will come some time — a 
 relationship in which the human will preponderate over 
 the animal tie. Animal will no longer be united to 
 animal, but one human being to another. Friendship is 
 the foundation on which this love will rise, beautiful, 
 unchangeable, a miraculous structure. And I foresee 
 more than this — something nobler, richer, freer still. 
 
 Miss Mahr. But will you get anyone, except me, to 
 believe this? Will this prevent Kitty's grieving herself 
 to death? . . . Don't let us speak of ourselves at all. 
 Let us suppose, quite generally, the feeling of a new, 
 more perfect relationship between two people to exist, as 
 it were prophetically. It is only a feeling, a young and 
 all too tender plant which must be carefully watched and 
 guarded. Don't you think so, Dr. Vockerat? That this 
 plant should come to perfection during our lifetime is 
 not to be expected. We shall not see or taste its fruits. 
 But we may help to propagate it for future generations. 
 I could imagine a person accepting this as a life-task. 
 
 John. And hence you conclude that we must part. 
 
 Miss Mahr. I did not mean to speak of ourselves. 
 But it is as you say ... we must part. Another idea 
 
Lonely Lives 95 
 
 . . . had sometimes suggested itself to me too . . . 
 momentarily. But I could not entertain it now. I too 
 have felt as if it were the presentiment of better things. 
 And since then the old aim seems to me too poor a one 
 for us — too common, to tell the truth. It is like com- 
 ing down from the mountain-top with its wide, free view, 
 and feeling the narrowness, the nearness of everything in 
 the valley. 
 
 Those who feel the narrow, stifling atmosphere 
 must either die or leave. Anna Mahr is not made 
 for the valley. She must live on the heights. 
 But John Vockerat, harassed and whipped on by 
 those who love him most, is unmanned, broken 
 and crushed. He clings to Anna Mahr as one 
 condemned to death. 
 
 John. Help me, Miss Anna! There is no manliness, 
 no pride left in me. I am quite changed. At this 
 moment I am not even the man I was before you came 
 to us. The one feeling left in me is disgust and weari- 
 ness of life. Everything has lost its worth to me, is 
 soiled, polluted, desecrated, dragged through the mire. 
 When I think what you, your presence, your words made 
 me, I feel that if I cannot be that again, then — then all 
 the rest no longer means anything to me. I draw a line 
 through it all and — close my account. 
 
 Miss Mahr. It grieves me terribly, Dr. Vockerat, to 
 see you like this. I hardly know how I am to help you. 
 But one thing you ought to remember — that we fore- 
 saw this. We knew that we must be prepared for this 
 sooner or later. 
 
96 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 John. Our prophetic feeling of a new, a free existence, 
 a far-off state of blessedness — that feeling we will keep. 
 It shall never be forgotten, though it may never be real- 
 ized. It shall be my guiding light; when this light is 
 extinguished, my life will be extinguished too. 
 
 Miss Mahr. John! one word more! This ring — 
 was taken from the finger of a dead woman, who had 
 followed her — her husband to Siberia — and faithfully 
 shared his suffering to the end. Just the opposite to our 
 case. ... It is the only ring I have ever worn. Its 
 story is a thing to think of when one feels weak. And 
 when you look at it — in hours of weakness — then — 
 think of her — who, far away — lonely like yourself — 
 is fighting the same secret fight — Good-bye! 
 
 But John lacks the strength for the fight. Life 
 to him is too lonely, too empty, too unbearably 
 desolate. He has to die — a suicide. 
 
 What wonderful grasp of the deepest and most 
 hidden tones of the human soul! What signif- 
 icance in the bitter truth that those who struggle 
 for an ideal, those who attempt to cut themselves 
 loose from the old, from the thousand fetters 
 that hold them down, are doomed to lonely 
 lives ! 
 
 Gerhart Hauptmann has dedicated this play 
 *' to those who have lived this life." And there 
 are many, oh, so many who must live this life, 
 torn out root and all from the soil of their birth, 
 of their surroundings and past. [The ideal they 
 
Lonely Lives 97 
 
 see only in the distance — sometimes quite near, 
 again in the far-off distance. These are the lonely 
 lives. 
 
 This drama also emphasizes the important 
 point that not only the parents and the wife of 
 John Vockerat fail to understand him, but even 
 his own comrade, one of his own world, the 
 painter Broun, — the type of fanatical revolution- 
 ist who scorns human weaknesses and ridicules 
 those who make concessions and compromises. 
 But not even this arch-revolutionist can grasp the 
 needs of John. Referring to his chum's friend- 
 ship with Anna, Braun upbraids him. He 
 charges John with causing his wife's unhappiness 
 and hurting the feelings of his parents. This 
 very man who, as a propagandist, demands that 
 every one live up to his ideal, is quick to condemn 
 his friend when the latter, for the first time in his 
 life, tries to be consistent, to be true to his own 
 innermost being. 
 
 The revolutionary, the social and human sig- 
 nificance of " Lonely Lives " consists in the les- 
 son that the real revolutionist, — the dreamer, the 
 creative artist, the Iconoclast in whatever line, — 
 is fated to be misunderstood, not only by his own 
 kin, but often by his own comrades. That is the 
 doom of all great spirits: they are detached 
 from their environment. Theirs is a lonely life 
 — the life of the transition stage, the hardest and 
 
98 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 the most difficult period for the individual as well 
 as for a people. 
 
 THE WEAVERS 
 
 When " The Weavers " first saw the light, 
 pandemonium broke out in the " land of thinkers 
 and poets." "What!" cried Philistia, " work- 
 ingmen, dirty, emaciated and starved, to be placed 
 on the stage 1 Poverty, in all its ugliness, to be 
 presented as an after-dinner amusement? That 
 is too much ! " 
 
 Indeed it i& too much for the self-satisfied 
 bourgeoisie to be brought face to face with the 
 horrors of the weaver's existence. It is too much, 
 because of the truth and reality that thunders in 
 the placid ears of society a terrific J' accuse! 
 
 Gerhart Hauptmann is a child of the people; 
 his grandfather was a weaver, and the only way 
 his father could escape the fate of his parents 
 was by leaving his trade and opening an inn. 
 Little Gerhart's vivid and impressionable mind 
 must have received many pictures from the stories 
 told about the life of the weavers. Who knows 
 but that the social panorama which Hauptmann 
 subsequently gave to the world, had not slum- 
 bered in the soul of the child, gaining form and 
 substance as he grew to manhood. At any rate 
 
The Weavers 99 
 
 " The Weavers," like the canvases of Millet and 
 the heroic figures of Meunier, represent the epic 
 of the age-long misery of labor, a profoundly 
 stirring picture. 
 
 The background of " The Weavers " is the 
 vi^eaving district in Silesia, during the period of 
 home industry — a gruesome sight of human 
 phantoms, dragging on their emaciated existeryje 
 almost by superhuman effort. Life is a tenacious 
 force that clings desperately even to the most 
 meager chance in an endeavor to assert itself. 
 But what is mirrored in " The Weavers " is so 
 appalling, so dismally hopeless that it stamps the 
 damning brand upon our civilization. 
 
 One man and his hirelings thrive on the sinew 
 and bone, on the very blood, of an entire com- 
 munity. The manufacturer Dreissiger spends 
 more for cigars in a day than an entire family 
 earns in a week. Yet so brutalizing, so terrible 
 is the effect of wealth that neither pale hunger 
 nor black despair can move the master. 
 
 There is nothing in literature to equal the cruel 
 reality of the scene in the office of Dreissiger, 
 when the weavers bring the finished cloth. For 
 hours they are kept waiting in the stuffy place, 
 waiting the pleasure of the rich employer after 
 they had walked miles on an empty stomach and 
 little sleep. For as one of the men says, " What's 
 
lOO Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 to hinder a weaver waitin' for an hour, or for a 
 day? What else is he there for ? " 
 
 Indeed what else, except to be always waiting 
 in humility, to be exploited and degraded, always 
 at the mercy of the few pence thrown to them 
 ^ter an endless wait. 
 
 Necessity knows no law. Neither does it know 
 pride. The weavers, driven by the whip of 
 hunger, bend their backs, beg and cringe before 
 their " superior. 
 
 , '» 
 
 Weavers wife. No one can't call me idle, but I am 
 not fit now for what I once was. I've twice had a mis- 
 carriage. As to John, he's but a poor creature. He's 
 been to the shepherd at Zerlau, but he couldn't do him 
 no good, and . . . you can't do more than you've strength 
 for. . . . We works as hard as ever we can. This many 
 a week I've been at it till far into the night. An' we'll 
 keep our heads above water right enough if I can just 
 get a bit o' strength into me. But you must have pity 
 on us, Mr. Pfeifer, sir. You'll please be so very kind as 
 to let me have a few pence on the next job, sir? Only 
 a few pence, to buy bread with. We can't get no more 
 credit. We've a lot o' little ones. 
 
 " Suffer little children to come unto me." 
 Christ loves the children of the poor. The more 
 the better. Why, then, care if they starve? 
 Why care if they faint away with hunger, like 
 the little boy in Dreissiffer's office? For "little 
 Philip is one of nine and the tenth's coming, and 
 
The Weavers lOl 
 
 the rain comes through their roof — and the 
 mother hasn't two shirts among the nine." 
 
 Who is to blame ? Ask the Dreissigers. They 
 will tell you, " The poor have too many chil- 
 dren." Besides — 
 
 Dreissiger. It was nothing serious. The boy is all 
 right again. But all the same it's a disgrace. The 
 child's so weak that a puff of wind would blow him over. 
 How people, how any parents can be so thoughtless is 
 what passes my comprehension. Loading him with two 
 heavy pieces of fustian to carry six good miles! No one 
 would believe it that hadn't seen it. It simply means 
 that I shall have to make a rule that no goods brought 
 by children will be taken over. I sincerely trust that 
 such things will not occur again. — Who gets all the 
 blame for it? Why, of course the manufacturer. It's 
 entirely our fault. If some poor little fellow sticks in 
 the snow in winter and goes to sleep, a special correspond- 
 ent arrives post-haste, and in two days we have a blood- 
 curdling story served up in all the papers. Is any blame 
 laid on the father, the parents, that send such a child ? — 
 Not a bit of it. How should they be to blame ? It's all 
 the manufacturer's fault — he's made the -scapegoat. 
 They flatter the weaver, and give the manufacturer 
 nothing but abuse — he's a cruel man, with a heart like 
 a stone, a dangerous fellow, at whose calves every cur of 
 a journalist may take a bite. He lives on the fat of the 
 land, and pays the poor weavers starvation wages. In 
 the flow of his eloquence the writer forgets to mention 
 that such a man has his cares too and his sleepless nights; 
 
I02 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 that he runs risks of which the workman never dreams; 
 that he is often driven distracted by all the calculations 
 he has to make, and all the different things he has to take 
 into account; that he has to struggle for his very life 
 against competition ; and that no day passes without some 
 annoyance or some loss. And think of the manufactur- 
 er's responsibilities, think of the numbers that depend on 
 him, that look to him for their daily bread. No, No! 
 none of you need wish yourselves in my shoes — you 
 would soon have enough of it. You all saw how that 
 fellow, that scoundrel Becker, behaved. Now he'll go 
 and spread about all sorts of tales of my hardhearted- 
 ness, of how my weavers are turned off for a mere trifle, 
 without a moment's notice. Is that true? Am I so very 
 unmerciful ? 
 
 The weavers are too starved, too subdued, too 
 terror-stricken not to accept Dreissiger^s plea 
 in his own behalf. What would become of these 
 living corpses were it not for the rebels like 
 Becker, to put fire, spirit, and hope in them? 
 Verily the Beckers are dangerous. 
 
 Appalling as the scene in the ofHce of Dreis- 
 siger is, the life in the home of the old weaver 
 Baumert is even more terrible. His decrepit old 
 wife, his idiotic son August, who still has to wind 
 spools, his two daughters weaving their youth and 
 bloom into the cloth, and Ansorge, the broken 
 remnant of a heroic type of man, bent over his 
 baskets, all live in cramped quarters lit up only 
 
The Weavers lo^ 
 
 by two small windows. They are waiting anx- 
 iously for the few pence old Baumert is to bring, 
 that they may indulge in a long-missed meal. 
 " What . . . what . . . what is to become of us 
 if he don't come home?" laments Mother 
 Baumert. " There is not so much as a handful 
 o' salt in the house — not a bite o' bread, nor a 
 bit o' wood for the fire." 
 
 But old Baumert has not forgotten his family. 
 He brings them a repast, the first " good meal " 
 they have had in two years. It is the meat of 
 their faithful little dog, whom Baumert could not 
 kill himself because he loved him so. But hunger 
 knows no choice; Baumert had his beloved dog 
 killed, because " a nice little bit o' meat like that 
 does you a lot o' good." 
 
 It did not do old Baumert much good. His 
 stomach, tortured and abused so long, rebelled, 
 and the old man had to " give up the precious 
 dog." And all this wretchedness, all this horror 
 almost within sight of the palatial home of Dreis- 
 siger, whose dogs are better fed than his human 
 slaves. 
 
 Man's endurance is almost limitless. Almost, 
 yet not quite. For there comes a time when the 
 Baumerts, even like their stomachs, rise in re- 
 bellion, when they hurl themselves, even though 
 in blind fury, against the pillars of their prison 
 house. Such a moment comes to the weavers, the 
 
I04 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 most patient, docile and subdued of humanity, 
 when stirred to action by the powerful poem read 
 to them by the Jaeger. 
 
 The justice to us weavers dealt 
 
 Is bloody, cruel, and hateful; 
 Our life's one torture, long drawn out : 
 
 For Lynch law we'd be grateful. 
 
 Stretched on the rack day after day. 
 
 Heart sick and bodies aching, 
 Our heavy sighs their witness bear 
 
 To spirit slowly breaking. 
 
 The Dreissigers true hangmen are. 
 Servants no whit behind them; 
 
 Masters and men with one accord 
 Set on the poor to grind them. 
 
 You villains all, you brood of hell . . . 
 
 You fiends in fashion human, 
 A curse 'will fall on all like you. 
 
 Who prey on man and woman. 
 
 The suppliant knows he asks in vain. 
 Vain every word that's spoken. 
 
 " If not content, then go and starve — 
 Our rules cannot be broken." 
 
 Then think of all our woe and want, 
 
 O ye, who hear this ditty! 
 Our struggle vain for daily bread 
 
 Hard hearts would move to pity. 
 
The Weavers 105 
 
 But pity's what you've never known, — 
 You'd take both skin and clothing, 
 
 You cannibals, whose cruel deeds 
 Fill all good men with loathing. 
 
 The Dreissigers, however, will take no heed. 
 Arrogant and secure in the possession of their 
 stolen wealth, supported by the mouthpieces of 
 the Church and the State, they feel safe from 
 the wrath of the people — till it is too late. But 
 when the storm breaks, they show the yellow 
 streak and cravenly run to cover. 
 
 The weavers, roused at last by the poet's de- 
 scription of their condition, urged on by the In- 
 spiring enthusiasm of the Beckers and the Jaegers, 
 become indifferent to the threats of the law and 
 ignore the soft tongue of the dispenser of the pure 
 word of God, — "the God who provides shelter 
 and food for the birds and clothes the lilies of the 
 field." Too long they had believed in Him. No 
 wonder Pastor Kittelhaus is now at a loss to under- 
 stand the weavers, heretofore " so patient, so hum- 
 ble, so easily led." The Pastor has to pay the 
 price for his stupidity : the weavers have outgrown 
 even him. 
 
 The spirit of revolt sweeps their souls. It 
 gives them courage and strength to attack the rot- 
 ten structure, to drive the thieves out of the tem- 
 ple, aye, even to rout the soldiers who come to 
 save the sacred institution of capitalism. The 
 
lo6 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 women, too, are imbued with the spirit of revolt 
 and become an avenging force. Not even the 
 devout faith of Old Hilse, who attempts to stem 
 the tide with his blind belief In his Saviour, can 
 stay them. 
 
 Old Hilse. O Lord, we know not how to be thankful 
 enough to Thee, for that Thou hast spared us. this night 
 again in Thy goodness ... an' hast had pity on us . . . 
 an' hast suffered us to take no harm. Thou art the All- 
 merciful, an' we are poor, sinful children of men — that 
 bad that we are not worthy to be trampled under Thy 
 feet. Yet Thou art our loving Father, an' Thou wilt 
 look upon us an' accept us for the sake of Thy deaf Son, 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. " Jesus' blood and 
 righteousness, Our covering is and glorious dress." An' 
 if we're sometimes too sore cast down under Thy chas- 
 tening — when the fire of Thy purification burns too 
 ragin' hot — oh, lay it not to our charge; forgive us our 
 sin. Give us patience, heavenly Father, that after all 
 these sufEerin's we may be made partakers of Thy eternal 
 blessedness. Amen. 
 
 The tide is rushing on, Luise, Old Hike's 
 own daughter-in-law, Is part of the tide. 
 
 Luise, You an' your piety an' religion — did they 
 serve to keep the life in my poor children? In rags an' 
 dirt they lay, all the four — it didn't as much as keep 
 'em dry. Yes! I sets up to be a mother, that's what I 
 do — an' if you'd like to know it, that's why I'd send 
 
The Weavers 107 
 
 all the manufacturers to hell — because I am a mother! 
 — Not one of the four could I keep in life! It was 
 cryin' more than breathin' with me from the time each 
 poor little thing came into the world till death toolc pity 
 on it. The devil a bit you cared ! You sat there prayin' 
 and singin', and let me run about till my feet bled, tryin' 
 to get one little drop 0' skim milk. How many hundred 
 nights has I lain an' racked my head to think what I 
 could do to cheat the churchyard of my little one ? What 
 harm has a baby like that done that it must come to such 
 a miserable end — eh? An' over there at Dittrich's 
 they're bathed in wine an' washed in milk. No ! you may 
 talk as you like, but if they begins here, ten horses won't 
 hold me back. An' what's more — if there's a rush on 
 Dittrich's, you will see me in the forefront of it — an' 
 pity the man as tries to prevent me — I've stood it long 
 enough, so now you know it. 
 
 Thus the tide sweeps over Old Hilse, as it must 
 sweep over every obstacle, every hindrance, once 
 labor awakens to the consciousness of its solidaric 
 power. 
 
 An epic of misery and revolt never before 
 painted with such terrific force, such inclusive art- 
 istry. Hence its wide human appeal, its incon- 
 trovertible indictment and its ultra-revolutionary 
 significance, not merely to Silesia or Germany, but 
 to our whole pseudo-civilization built on the mis- 
 ery and exploitation of the wealth producers, of 
 Labor. None greater, none more universal than 
 
io8 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 this stirring, all-embracing message of the most 
 humanly creative genius of our time — Gerhart 
 Hauptmann. 
 
 THE SUNKEN BELL 
 
 ■ The great versatility of Gerhart Hauptmann 
 is perhaps nowhere so apparent as in " The 
 Sunken Bell," the poetic fairy tale of the tragedy 
 of Man, a tragedy as rich in symbolism as it is 
 realistically true — a tragedy as old as mankind, 
 as elemental as man's ceaseless struggle to cut 
 loose from the rock of ages. 
 
 Heinrich, the master bell founder, is an idealist 
 consumed by the fire of a great purpose. He has 
 already set a hundred bells ringing in a hundred 
 different towns, all singing his praises. But his 
 restless spirit is not appeased. Ever it soars to 
 loftier heights, always yearning to reach the sun. 
 
 Now once more he has tried his powers, and 
 the new bell, the great Master Bell, Is raised aloft, 
 — only to sink into the mere, carrying its maker 
 with It. 
 
 His old Ideals are broken, and Heinrich is lost 
 in the wilderness of life. 
 
 Weak and faint with long groping in the dark 
 woods, and bleeding, HSinrich reaches the moun- 
 tain top and there beholds Rautendelein, the spirit 
 of freedom, that has allured him on in the work 
 
The Sunken Bell 109 
 
 which he strove — " in one grand Bell, to weld 
 the silver music of thy voice with the warm gold 
 of a Sun-holiday. It should have been a master- 
 work! I failed, then wept I tears of blood." 
 Heinrich returns to his faithful wife Magda, his 
 children, and his village friends — to die. The 
 bell that sank into the mere was not made for the 
 heights — it was not fit to wake the answering 
 echoes of the peaks I 
 
 Heinrich. 
 
 'Twas for the valley — not the mountain-top! 
 I choose to die. The service of the valleys 
 Charms me no longer, . . . since on the peak I stood. 
 Youth — a new youth — I'd need, if I should live: 
 Out of some rare and magic mountain flower 
 Marvelous juices I should need to press — 
 Heart-health, and strength, and the mad lust of triumph, 
 Steeling my hand to work none yet have dreamed of! 
 
 Rautendelein, the symbol of youth and freedom, 
 the vision of new strength and expression, wakes 
 Heinrich from his troubled sleep, kisses him back 
 to life, and inspires him with faith and courage 
 to work toward greater heights. 
 
 Heinrich leaves his wife, his hearth, his native 
 place, and rises to the summit of his ideal, there 
 to create, to fashion a marvel bell whose iron 
 throat shall send forth 
 
no Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 The first waking peal 
 
 Shall shake the skies — when, from the somber clouds 
 
 That weighed upon us through the winter night, 
 
 Rivers of jewels shall go rushing down 
 
 Into a million hands outstretched to clutch! 
 
 Then all who drooped, with sudden power inflamed, 
 
 Shall bear their treasure homeward to their huts. 
 
 There to unfurl, at last, the silken banners, 
 
 Waiting — so long, so long — to be upraised. 
 
 Aid Yiow the wondrous chime again rings out. 
 Filling the air with such sweet, passionate sound 
 As makes each breast to sob with rapturous pain. 
 It sings a song, long lost and long forgotten, 
 A song of home — a childlike song of Love, 
 Born in the waters of some fairy well — 
 Known to all mortals, and yet heard of none! 
 
 ......a* 
 
 And as it rises, softly first, and low, 
 
 The nightingale and dove seem singing, too; 
 
 And all the ice in every human breast 
 
 Is melted, and the hate, and pain, and woe, 
 
 Stream out in tears. 
 
 Indeed a wondrous bell, as only those can forge 
 who have reached the mountain top, — they who 
 can soar upon the wings of their imagination high 
 above the valley of the commonplace, above the 
 dismal gray of petty consideration, beyond the 
 reach of the cold, stifling grip of reality, — higher, 
 ever higher, to kiss the sun-lit sky. 
 
The Sunken Bell ill, 
 
 Heinrich spreads his wings. Inspired by the 
 divine fire of Rautendelein, he all but reaches the 
 pinnacle. But there is the Vicar, ready to wrestle 
 with the devil for a poor human soul; to buy it 
 free, if need be, to drag it back to its cage that it 
 may never rise again in rebellion to the will of 
 God. 
 
 The Vicar, 
 You shun the church, take refuge in the mountains; 
 This many a month you have not seen the home 
 Where your poor wife sits sighing, while, each day, 
 Your children drink their lonely mother's tears! 
 
 For this there is no name but madness, 
 And wicked madness. Yes. I speak the truth. 
 Here stand I, Master, overcome with horror 
 At the relentless cruelty of your heart. 
 Now Satan, aping God, hath dealt a blow — 
 Yes, I must speak my mind — a blow so dread 
 That even he must marvel at his triumph. 
 
 . . . Now — I have done. 
 Too deep, yea to the neck, you are sunk in sin! 
 Your Hell, decked out in beauty as high Heaven, 
 Shall hold you fast. I will not waste more words. 
 Yet mark this, Master : witches make good fuel. 
 Even as heretics, for funeral-pyres. 
 
 , . . Your ill deeds, 
 Heathen, and secret once, are now laid bare. 
 Horror they wake, and soon there shall come hate. 
 
^12 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 Then, go your way! Farewell! My task is done. 
 
 The hemlock of your sin no man may hope 
 
 To rid your soul of. May God pity you! 
 
 But this remember! There's a word named rue! 
 
 And some day, some day, as your dreams you dream, 
 
 A sudden arrow, shot from out the blue, 
 
 Shall pierce your breast! And yet you shall not die. 
 
 Nor shall you live. In that dread day you'll curse 
 
 All you now cherish — God, the world, your work. 
 
 Your wretched self you'll curse. Then . . . think of 
 
 me! 
 That bell shall ring again! Then think of me! 
 
 Barely does Heinrich escape the deadly flutch 
 of outlived creeds, superstitions, and conventions 
 embodied in the Vicar, than he is in the throes of 
 other foes who conspire his doom. 
 
 Nature herself has decreed the death of Hein- 
 rich. For has not man turned his back upon her, 
 has he not cast her off, scorned her beneficial of- 
 ferings, robbed her of her beauty, devastated her 
 charms and betrayed her trust — all for the 
 ephemeral glow of artifice and sham? Hence 
 Nature, too, is Heinrich's foe. Thus the Spirit 
 of the Earth, with all its passions and lusts, sym- 
 bolized in the Wood Sprite, and gross materialism 
 in the person of the Nickelmann, drive the in- 
 truder back. 
 
 The Wood Sprite. 
 He crowds us from our hills. He hacks and hews. 
 
The Sunken Bell 113 
 
 Digs up our metals, sweats, and smelts, and brews. 
 The earth-man and the water-sprite he takes 
 To drag his burdens, and, to harness, breaks. 
 
 She steals my cherished flowers, my red-brown ores. 
 My gold, my precious stones, my resinous stores. 
 She serves him like a slave, by night and day. 
 'Tis he she kisses — us she keeps at bay. 
 Naught stands against him. Ancient trees he fells. 
 The earth quakes at his tread, and all the dells 
 Ring with the echo of his thunderous blows. 
 His crimson smithy furnace glows and shines 
 Into the depths of my most secret mines. 
 What he is up to, only Satan knows ! 
 
 The Nickelmann. 
 Brekekekex! Hadst thou the creature slain, 
 A-rotting in the mere long since he had lain — 
 The maker of the bell, beside the bell. 
 And so when next I had wished to throw the stones. 
 The bell had been my box — the dice, his bones! 
 
 But even they are powerless to stem the tide of 
 the Ideal: they are helpless in the face of Hein- 
 rich's new-born faith, of his burning passion to 
 complete his task, and give voice to the thousand- 
 throated golden peal. 
 
 Heinrich works and toils, and when doubt casts 
 its black shadow athwart his path, Rautendelein 
 charms back hope. She alone has boundless faith 
 in her Balder, — god of the joy of Life — for he 
 is part of her, of the great glowing force her spirit 
 
114 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 breathed into the Heinrichs since Time was born 
 — • Liberty, redeemer of man. 
 
 Heinrich. 
 I am thy Balder? 
 
 Make me believe it — make me know it, child! 
 Give my faint soul the rapturous joy it needs, 
 To nerve it to its task. For, as the hand, 
 Toiling with tong and hammer, on and on, 
 To hew the marble and to guide the chisel, 
 Now bungles here, now there, yet may not halt. 
 
 . . . But — enough of this, 
 Still straight and steady doth the smoke ascend 
 From my poor human sacrifice to heaven. 
 Should now a Hand on high reject my gift. 
 Why, it may do so. Then the priestly robe 
 Falls from my shoulder — by no act of mine; 
 While I, who erst upon the heights was set. 
 Must look my last on Horeb, and be dumb! 
 But now bring torches! Lights! And show thine Art! 
 Enchantress! Fill the wine-cup! We will drink! 
 Ay, like the common herd of mortal men, 
 With resolute hands our fleeting joy we'll grip! 
 Our unsought leisure we will fill with life. 
 Not waste it, as the herd, in indolence. 
 We will have music! 
 
 While Heinrich and Rautendelein are in the 
 ecstasy of their love and work, the spirits 
 weave their treacherous web — they threaten, 
 they plead, they cling, — spirits whose pain and 
 
The Sunken Bell 115 
 
 grief are harder to bear than the enmity or 
 menace of a thousand foes. Spirits that entwine 
 one's heartstrings with tender touch, yet are heav- 
 ier fetters, more oppressive than leaden weights. 
 Heinrich's children, symbolizing regret that par- 
 alyzes one's creative powers, bring their mother's 
 tears and with them a thousand hands to pull 
 Heinrich down from his heights, back to the val- 
 ley. 
 
 "The bell I The bell I" The old, long buried 
 bell again ringing and tolling. Is it not the echo 
 from the past? The superstitions instilled from 
 birth, the prejudices that cling to man with cruel 
 persistence, the conventions which fetter the wings 
 of the idealist: the Old wrestling with the New 
 for the control of man. 
 
 " The Sunken Bell " is a fairy tale in its poetic 
 beauty and glow of radiant color. But stripped 
 of the legendary and symbolic, it is the life story 
 of every seeker for truth, of the restless spirit of 
 rebellion ever striving onward, ever reaching out 
 toward the sun-tipped mountain, ever yearning 
 for a new-born light. 
 
 Too long had Heinrich lived in the valley. It 
 has sapped his strength, has clipped his wings. 
 "Too late I Thy heavy burdens weigh thee 
 down; thy dead ones are too mighty for thee." 
 Heinrich has to die. '* He who has flown so high 
 
Ii6 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 into the very Light, as thou hast flown, must per- 
 ish, if he once fall back to earth." 
 
 Thus speak the worldly wise. As if death 
 could still the burning thirst for light; as if the 
 hunger for the ideal could ever be appeased by the 
 thought of destruction I The worldly wise never 
 feel the irresistible urge to dare the cruel fates. 
 With the adder in Maxim Gorki's " Song of the 
 Falcon" they sneer, "What is the sky? An 
 empty place. . . . Why disturb the soul with the 
 desire to soar into the sky? . . . Queer birds," 
 they laugh at the falcons. " Not knowing the 
 earth and grieving on it, they yearn for the sky, 
 seeking for light in the sultry desert. For it is 
 only a desert, with no food and no supporting 
 place for a living body." 
 
 The Heinrichs are the social falcons, and 
 though they perish when they fall to earth, they 
 die in the triumphant glory of having beheld the 
 sun, of having braved the storm, defied the clouds 
 and mastered the air. 
 
 The sea sparkles m the glowing light, the waves 
 dash against the shore. In their lion-like roar a 
 song resounds about the proud falcons : " O dar- 
 ing Falcon, in the battle with sinister forces you 
 lose your life. But the time will come when your 
 precious blood will illumine, like the burning torch 
 of truth, the dark horizon of man; when your 
 
The Sunken Bell 117 
 
 blood shall inflame many brave hearts with a burn- 
 ing desire for freedom." 
 
 The time when the peals of Heinrich's Bell will 
 call the strong and daring to battle for light and 
 joy. "Hark! . . . 'Tis the music of the Sun- 
 bells' songl The Sun . . . the Sun . . . draws 
 near I " . . . and though " the night is long," 
 dawn breaks, its first rays falling on the dying 
 Heinrichs. 
 
FRANK WEDEKIND 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF SPRING 
 
 FRANK WEDEKIND is perhaps the 
 most daring dramatic spirit in Germany. 
 Coming to the fore much later than Sud- 
 ermann and Hauptmann, he did not fol- 
 low in their path, but set out in quest of new truths. 
 More boldly than any other dramatist Prank 
 Wedekind has laid bare the shams of morality 
 in reference to sex, especially attacking the igno- 
 rance surrounding the sex life of the child and 
 its resultant tragedies. 
 
 Wedekind became widely known through his 
 great drama " The Awakening of Spring," which 
 he called a tragedy of childhood, dedicating the 
 work to parents and teachers. Verily an appro- 
 priate dedication, because parents and teachers 
 are. In relation to the child's needs, the most 
 Ignorant and mentally indolent class. Needless 
 to say, this element entirely failed to grasp the 
 social ^significance of Wedeklnd's work. On the 
 contrary, they saw In it an invasion of their tradi- 
 tional authority and an outrage on the sacred 
 rights of parenthood. 
 
 ii8 
 
The Awakening of Spring 119 
 
 The critics also could see naught in Wedekind, 
 except a base, perverted, almost diabolic nature 
 bereft of all finer feeling. But professional critics 
 seldom see below the surface; else they would 
 discover beneath the grin and satire of Frank 
 Wedekind a sensitive soul, deeply stirred by the 
 heart-rending tragedies about him. Stirred and 
 grieved especially by the misery and torture of 
 the child, — the helpless victim unable to explain 
 the forces germinating in its nature, often crushed 
 and destroyed by mock modesty, sham decencies, 
 and the complacent morality that greet its blind 
 gropings. 
 
 Never was a more powerful Indictment hurled 
 against society, which out of sheer hypocrisy and 
 cowardice persists that boys and girls must grow 
 up In ignorance of their sex functions, that they 
 must be sacrificed on the altar of stupidity and 
 convention which taboo the enlightenment of the 
 child in questions of such elemental importance 
 to health and well-being. 
 
 The most criminal phase of the indictment, how- 
 ever, is that it Is generally the most promising 
 children who are sacrificed to sex ignorance and 
 to the total lack of appreciation on the part of 
 teachers of the latent qualities and tendencies in 
 the child: the one slaying the body and soul, the 
 other paralyzing the function of the brain; and 
 
I20 Frank Wedekind 
 
 both conspiring to give to the world mental and 
 physical mediocrities. 
 
 " The Awakening of Spring " is laid in three 
 acts and fourteen scenes, consisting almost entirely 
 of dialogues among the children. So close is 
 Wedekind to the soul of the child that he suc- 
 ceeds in unveiling before our eyes, with a most 
 gripping touch, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and 
 despair, its struggles and tragedies. 
 
 The play deals with a group of school children 
 just entering the age of puberty, — imaginative be- 
 ings speculating about the mysteries of life. 
 Wendla, sent to her grave by her loving but 
 prudish mother, is an exquisite, lovable child; 
 Melchior, the innocent father of Wendla' s unborn 
 baby, is a gifted boy whose thirst for knowledge 
 leads him to inquire into the riddle of life, and 
 to share his observations with his school chums, 
 — a youth who, in a free and intelligent atmos- 
 phere, might have developed into an original 
 thinker. That such a boy should be punished as 
 a moral pervert, only goes to prove the utter un- 
 fitness of our educators and parents. Moritz, 
 Melchior's playfellow, is driven to suicide because 
 he cannot pass his examinations, thanks to our 
 stupid and criminal system of education which con- 
 sists in cramming the mind to the bursting point. 
 
 Wedekind has been accused of exaggerating 
 his types, but any one familiar with child life 
 
The Awakening of Spring I2l 
 
 knows that every word in "fThe Awakening of 
 Spring " is vividly true. The conversation be- 
 tween Melchior and Moritz, for instance, is typi- 
 cal of all boys not mentally inert. 
 
 Melchior. I'd like to know why we really are on 
 earth ! 
 
 Moritz. I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to 
 school! — Why do we go to school? — We go to 
 school so that somebody can examine us! — And why 
 do they examine us? — In order that we may fail. 
 Seven must fail, because the upper classroom will hold 
 only sixty. — I feel so queer since Christmas. — The 
 devil take me, if it were not for Papa, I'd pack my 
 bundle and go to Altoona, to-day! 
 
 Moritz. Do you believe, Melchior, that the feeling 
 of shame in man is only a product of his education ? 
 
 Melchior. I was thinking over that for the first time 
 the day before yesterday. It seems to me deeply rooted in 
 human nature. Only think, you must appear entirely 
 clothed before your best friend. You wouldn't do so if 
 he didn't do the same thing. — Therefore, it's more or 
 less of a fashion. 
 
 Moritz. Have you experienced it yet? 
 
 Melchior. What? 
 
 Moritz. How do you say it? 
 
 Melchior. Manhood's emotion? 
 
 Moritz. M — 'hm. 
 
 Melchior. Certainly. 
 
 Moritz. I also . . . 
 
 Melchior. I've known that for a long while! — Al- 
 most for a year. 
 
122 Frank Wedekind 
 
 Moriiz. I was startled as if by lightning. 
 
 Melchior. Did you dream? 
 
 Morifz. Only for a little while — of legs in light 
 blue tights, that strode over the cathedral -^ to be cor- 
 rect, I thought they wanted to go over it. I only saw 
 them for an instant. 
 
 Melchior. George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother. 
 
 Moriiz. Did he tell you that? ... I thought I was 
 incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward 
 hurt. — Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot 
 down the recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Mel- 
 chior, the last three weeks have been a Gethsemane for 
 me. . . . Truly they play a remarkable game with us. 
 And we're expected to give thanks for it. I don't re- 
 member to have had any longing for this kind of excite- 
 ment. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all 
 was still again. My dear parents might have had a hun- 
 dred better children. I came here, I don't know how, 
 and must be responsible myself for not staying away. — 
 Haven't you often wondered, Melchior, by what means 
 we were brought into this whirl? 
 
 Melchior. Don't you know that yet either, Moritz? 
 
 Moritz. How should I know it? I see how the hens 
 lay eggs, and hear that Mamma had to carry me under 
 her heart. But is that enough? ... I have gone 
 through Meyer's " Little Encyclopedia " from A to Z. 
 Words — nothing but words and words! Not a single 
 plain explanation. Oh, this feeling of shame ! — What 
 good to me is an encyclopedia that won't answer me con- 
 cerning the most important question in life? 
 
The Awakening of Spring 123 
 
 Yes, of what good is an encyclopedia or the 
 other wise books to the quivering, restless spirit 
 of the child? No answer anywhere, least of all 
 from your own mother, as Wendla and many an- 
 other like her have found out. 
 
 The girl, learning that her sister has a new 
 baby, rushes to her mother to find out how it came 
 into the world. 
 
 Wendla. I have a sister who has been married for 
 two and a half years, I myself have beeri made an aunt 
 for the third time, and I haven't the least idea how it all 
 comes about — Don't be cross, Mother dear, don't 
 be cross! Whom in the world should I ask but you! 
 Please tell me, dear Mother! Tell me, dear Mother! 
 I am ashamed for myself. Please, Mother, speak! 
 Don't scold me for asking you about it. Give me an 
 answer — How does it happen? — How does it all 
 come about? — You cannot really deceive yourself that 
 I, who am fourteen years old, still believe in the stork. 
 
 Frau Bergmann. Good Lord, child, but you are pecu- 
 liar ! — What ideas you have ! — I really can't do 
 that! 
 
 Wendla. But why not. Mother? — Why not? — 
 It can't be anything ugly if everybody is delighted over it ! 
 
 Frau Bergmann. O — O God, protect me! — I de- 
 serve — Go get dressed, child, go get dressed. 
 
 Wendla. I'll go — And suppose your child went out 
 and asked the chimney sweep? 
 
 Frau Bergmann. But that would be madness ! — 
 
124 Frank Wedekind 
 
 Come here, child, come here, I'll tell you! I'll tell you 
 everything — ... In order to have a child — one must 
 love — the man — to whom one is married — love him, 
 I tell you — as one can only love a man ! One must love 
 him so much with one's whole heart, so — so that one 
 can't describe it! One must love him, Wendla, as you 
 at your age are still unable to love — Now you know it 1 
 
 How much Wendla knew, her mother found 
 out when too late. 
 
 Wendla and Melchior, overtaken by a storm, 
 seek shelter in a haystack, and are drawn by what 
 Melchior calls the " first emotion of manhood " 
 and curiosity into each other's arms. Six mdnths 
 later Wendla' s mother discovers that her child is 
 to become a mother. To save the family honor, 
 the girl is promptly placed in the hands of a quack 
 who treats her for chlorosis. 
 
 Wendla. No, Mother, no! I know it. I feel it. I 
 haven't chlorosis. I have dropsy — I won't get better. 
 I have the dropsy, I must die, Mother — O, Mother, 
 I must die! 
 
 Frau Bergmann, You must not die, child! You 
 must not die — Great heavens, you must not die! 
 
 Wendla. But why do you weep so frightfully, then? 
 
 Frau Bergmann. You must not die, child! You 
 haven't the dropsy, you have a child, girl! You have a 
 child! Oh, why did you do that to me? 
 
 Wendla. I haven't done anything to you. 
 
 Frau Bergmann. Oh, don't deny it any more, 
 
The Awakening of Spring '125 
 
 Wendla! — I know everything. See, I didn't want to 
 say a word to you. — Wendla, my Wendla — ! 
 
 Wendla. But it's not possible. Mother. ... I have 
 loved nobody in the world as I do you, Mother. 
 
 The pathos of it, that such a loving mother 
 should be responsible for the death of her own 
 child ! Yet Frau Bergmann is but one of the many 
 good, pious mothers who lay their children to 
 " rest in God," with the inscription on the tomb- 
 stone: "Wendla Bergmann, born May 5th, 
 1878, died from chlorosis, Oct. 27, 1892. 
 Blessed are the pure of heart." 
 
 Melchior, like Wendla, was also " pure of 
 heart " ; yet how was he " blessed " ? Surely not 
 by his teachers who, discovering his essay on the 
 mystery of life, expel the boy from school. Only 
 Wedekind could inject such grim humor into the 
 farce of education — the smug importance of the 
 faculty of the High School sitting under the por- 
 traits of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and pronounc- 
 ing judgment on their " immoral " pupil Melchior. 
 
 Rector Sonnemtich. Gentlemen: We cannot help 
 moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the Na- 
 tional Board of Education; there are the strongest reasons 
 why we cannot: we cannot, because we must expiate the 
 misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot, 
 because of our need to protect ourselves from similar 
 blows in the future; we cannot, because we must chas- 
 tise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he 
 
126 Frank Wedekind 
 
 exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, above all, because 
 we must hinder him from exerting the same influence 
 upon his remaining classmates. We cannot ignore the 
 charge — and this, gentlemen, is possibly the weightiest 
 of all — on any pretext concerning a ruined career, be- 
 cause it is our duty to protect ourselves from an epidemic 
 of suicide similar to that which has broken out recently 
 in various grammar schools, and which until to-day has 
 mocked all attempts of the teachers to shackle it by any 
 means known to advanced education. . . . We see our- 
 selves under the necessity of judging the guilt-laden that 
 we may not be judged guilty ourselves. . . . Are you the 
 author of this obscene manuscript? 
 
 Melchior. Yes — I request you, sir, to show me any- 
 thing obscene in it. 
 
 Sonnenst'tch. You have as little respect for the dig- 
 nity of your assembled teachers as you have a proper 
 appreciation of mankind's innate sense of shame which 
 
 belongs to a moral world. 
 
 f^ 
 
 Melchior' s mother, a modern type, has greater 
 faith in her child than in school education. But 
 even she cannot hold out against the pressure of 
 public opinion; still less against the father of 
 Melchior, a firm believer in authority and dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 Herr Gabor. Anyone who can write what Melchior 
 wrote must be rotten to the core of his being. The mark 
 is plain. A half-healthy nature wouldn't do such a 
 thing. None of us are saints. Each of us wanders from 
 
The Awakening of Spring 127 
 
 the straight path. His writing, on the contrary, 
 tramples on principles. His writing is no evidence of 
 a chance slip in the usual way; it sets forth with dread- 
 ful plainness and a frankly definite purpose that natural 
 longing, that propensity for immorality, because it is im- 
 morality. His writing manifests that exceptional state 
 of spiritual corruption which we jurists classify under 
 the term " moral imbecility." 
 
 Between the parents and the educators, 
 Melchior is martyred even as FFendla. He is 
 sent to the House of Correction; but being of 
 sturdier stock than the girl, he survives. 
 
 Not so his chum Moritz. Harassed by the im- 
 pelling forces of his awakened nature, and unable 
 to grapple with the torturous tasks demanded by 
 his " educators " at the most critical period of his 
 life, Moritz fails in the examinations. He can- 
 not face his parents: they have placed all their 
 hope in him, and have lashed him, by the subtle 
 cruelty of gratitude, to the grindstone till his brain 
 reeled. Moritz is the third victim in the tragedy, 
 the most convenient explanation of which is given 
 by Pastor Kahlbauch in the funeral sermon. 
 
 Pastor Kahlbauch. He who rejects the grace with 
 which the Everlasting Father has blessed those born in 
 sin, he shall die a spiritual death ! — He, however, who 
 in willful carnar abnegation of God's proper honor, lives 
 for and serves evil, shall die the death of the body ! — 
 Who, however, wickedly throws away from him the cross 
 
128 'Frank Wedekind 
 
 which the All Merciful has laid upon him for his sins, 
 verily, verily, I say unto you, he shall die the everlasting 
 death! Let us, however, praise the All Gracious Lord 
 and thank Him for His inscrutable grace in order that 
 we may travel the thorny path more and more surely. 
 For as truly as this one died a triple death, as truly will 
 the Lord God conduct the righteous unto happiness and 
 everlasting life. . . . 
 
 It is hardly necessary to point out the revolu- 
 tionary significance of this extraordinary play. It 
 speaks powerfully for itself. One need only add 
 that " The Awakening of Spring " has done much 
 to dispel the mist enveloping the paramount issue 
 of sex in the education of the child. To-day it is 
 conceded even by conservative elements that the 
 conspiracy of silence has been a fatal mistake. 
 And while sponsors of the Church and of moral 
 fixity still clamor for the good old methods, the 
 message of Wedekind is making Itself felt 
 throughout the world, breaking down the barriers. 
 
 The child is the unit of the race, and only 
 through its unhampered unfoldment can humanity 
 come into its heritage. "The Awakening of 
 Spring" is one of the great forces of modern 
 times that is paving the way for the birth of a free 
 race. 
 
THE FRENCH DRAMA 
 MAETERLINCK 
 
 TO those who are conversant with the 
 works of Maeterlinck it may seem 
 rather far-fetched to discuss him from 
 the point of view of revolutionary and 
 social significance. Above all, Maeterlinck is the 
 portrayer of the remote, the poet of symbols; 
 therefore it may seem out of place to bring him 
 down to earth, to simplify him, or to interpret his 
 revolutionary spirit. To some extent these ob- 
 jections have considerable weight; but on the other 
 hand, if one keeps in mind that only those who 
 go to the remote are capable of understanding the 
 obvious, one will readily see how very significant 
 Maeterlinck is as a revolutionizing factor. Be- 
 sides, we have Maeterlinck's own conception of 
 the significance of the revolutionary spirit. In a 
 very masterly article called " The Social Revolu- 
 tion," he discusses the objection on the part of the 
 conservative section of society to the introduction 
 of revolutionary methods. He says that they 
 
 129 
 
130 Maeterlinck 
 
 would like us to " go slow "; that they object to 
 the use of violence and the forcible overthrow 
 \of the evils of society. And Maeterlinck answers 
 in these significant words: 
 
 " We are too ready to forget that the heads- 
 men of misery are less noisy, less theatrical, but 
 Infinitely more numerous, more cruel and active 
 than those of the most terrible revolutions." 
 
 Maeterlinck realizes that there are certain 
 grievances in society, iniquitous conditions which 
 demand immediate solution, and that if we do not 
 solve them with the readiest and quickest methods 
 at our command, they will react upon society and 
 upon life a great deal more terribly than even the 
 most terrible revolutions. No wonder, then, that 
 his works were put under the ban by the Catholic 
 Church which forever sees danger in light and 
 emancipation. Surely if Maeterlinck were not 
 primarily the spokesman of truth, he would be 
 embraced by the Catholic Church. 
 
 In " Monna Vanna " Maeterlinck gives a won- 
 derful picture of the new woman — not the new 
 woman as portrayed in the newspapers, but the 
 new woman as a reborn, regenerated spirit; the 
 woman who h^s emancipated herself from her 
 narrow outlook upon life, and detached herself 
 from the confines of the home; the woman, in 
 short, who has become race-conscfous and there- 
 fore understands that she is a unit in the great 
 
Monna Vanna 131 
 
 ocean of life, and that she must take her place as 
 an independent factor in order to rebuild and re- 
 mold life. In proportion as she learns to become 
 race-conscious, does she become a factor in the 
 reconstruction of society, valuable to herself, to 
 her children, and to the race. 
 
 Pisa is subdued by the forces of Florence; it is 
 beaten and conquered. The city is in danger of 
 being destroyed, and the people exposed to famine 
 and annihilation. There is only one way of sav- 
 ing Pisa. Marco Colonna, the father of the Com- 
 mander of Pisa, brings the ultimatum of the 
 enemy : 
 
 Marco. Know, then, that I saw Prinzivalle and spoke 
 with him. ... I thought to find some barbarian, arro- 
 gant and heavy, always covered with blood or plunged 
 in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they have told 
 us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the battle- 
 field, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man 
 knows whence. I thought to meet the demon of combat, 
 blind, unreasoning, vain and cruel, faithless and disso- 
 lute. ... I found a man who bowed before me as a 
 loving disciple bows before the master. He is lettered, 
 eager for knowledge, and obedient to the voice of wis- 
 dom. . . . He loves not war; his smile speaks of under- 
 standing and gentle humanity. He seeks the reason of 
 passions and events. He looks into his own heart; he is 
 endowed with conscience and sincerity, and it is against 
 his will that he serves a faithless State. ... I have told 
 
132 Maeterlinck 
 
 you that Prinzivalle seems wise, that he is humane and 
 reasonable. But where is the wise man that hath not 
 his private madness, the good man to whom no monstrous 
 idea has ever come? On one side is reason and pity and 
 justice ; on the other — ah ! there is desire and passion 
 and what you will — the insanity into which we all fall 
 at times. I have fallen into it myself, and shall, belike, 
 again — so have you. Man is made in that fashion. A 
 grief which should not be within the experience of man is 
 on the point of touching you. . . . Hearken: this great 
 convoy, the victuals that I have seen, wagons running 
 over with corn, others full of wine and fruit; flocks of 
 sheep and herds of cattle, enough to feed a city for 
 months; all these tuns of powder and bars of lead, with 
 which you may vanquish Florence and make Pisa lift her 
 head — all this will enter the city to-night, ... if you 
 send in exchange, to give her up to Prinzivalle until to- 
 morrow's dawn, ... for he will send her back when 
 the first faint gray shows in the sky, . . , only, he exacts 
 that, in sign of victory and submission, she shall come 
 alone, and her cloak for all her covering. . . . 
 
 Guido. Who? Who shall thus come? 
 
 Marco. Giovanna. 
 
 Guido. My wife? Vanna? 
 
 Marco. Ay, your Vanna. 
 
 Guido Colonna, in the consciousness that the 
 woman belongs to him, that no man may even 
 look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty, re- 
 sents this mortal insult. He is willing that all 
 the other women should face danger, that the lit- 
 
Monna Vanna 133 
 
 tie children of Pisa should be exposed to hunger 
 and destruction, rather than that he give up his 
 possession. But Monna Vanna does not hesitate. 
 When she is before the issue of saving her people, 
 she does not stop to consider. She goes into the 
 enemy's tent, as a child might go, without con- 
 sciousness of self, imbued solely with the impulse 
 to save her people. 
 
 The meeting of Monna Vanna and Prinzivalle 
 is an exquisite interpretation of love — the sweet- 
 ness, purity, and fragrance of Prinzivalle' s love 
 for the woman of his dream — the one he had 
 known when she was but a child, and who re- 
 mained an inspiring vision all through his career. 
 He knows he cannot reach her ; he also knows that 
 he will be destroyed by the political intriguers of 
 Florence, and he stakes his all on this one step 
 to satisfy the dream of his life to see Vanna and 
 in return to save Pisa. 
 
 Prinzivalle. Had there come ten thousand of you into 
 my tent, all clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sis- 
 ters whom even their mother would not know apart, I 
 should have risen, should have taken your hand, and said, 
 " This is she ! " Is it not strange that a beloved image 
 can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in 
 mine that each day it changed as in real life — the image 
 of to-day replaced that of yesterday — it blossomed out, 
 it became always fairer; and the years adorned it with 
 all that they add to a child that grows in grace and 
 
134 Maeterlinck 
 
 beauty. But when I saw you again, It seemed to me at 
 first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so 
 fair and so fond — but they had been too slow and too 
 timid — they had not dared to give you all the splendor 
 which appeared so suddenly to dazzle me. I was as a 
 man that recalled to mind a flower he had but seen in 
 passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be 
 suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in 
 a field bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your 
 hair, your brow, your eyes, and I found all the soul of 
 the face I had adored — but how its beauty shames that 
 which I had treasured in silence through endless days, 
 through years whose only light w^s a memory that had 
 taken too long a road and found itself outshone by the 
 reality! ... Ah! I knew not too well what I meant 
 to do. I felt that I was lost — and I desired to drag 
 with me all I could. . . . And I hated you, because of the 
 love, . . . Yes, I should have gone to the end had it 
 not been you. . . . Yet any other would have seemed 
 odious to me — you yourself would have had to be other 
 than you are. ... I lose my reason when I think of 
 it. . . . One word would have been enough that was 
 different from your words — one gesture that was not 
 yours — the slightest thing would have inflamed my hate 
 and let loose the monster. But when I saw you, I saw 
 in that same moment that it was impossible, 
 
 Vanna. I felt a change, too. , , , I marveled that I 
 could speak to you as I have spoken since the first mo- 
 ment, ... I am silent by nature — I have never spoken 
 thus to any man, unless it be to Marco, Guido's 
 father. , . . And even with him it is not the same. He 
 
Monna Vanna 135 
 
 has a thousand dreams that take up all his mind, . . . 
 and we have talked but a few times. The others have 
 always a desire in their eyes that will not suffer one to 
 tell them that one loves them and would fain know what 
 they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing 
 burns; but it is not the same — it does not affright me 
 nor fill me with loathing. I felt at once that I knew 
 you before I remembered that I had ever seen you. . . . 
 
 Vanna, awed by the character and personality 
 of this despised and hated outlaw, pleads with 
 him to come with her to Pisa under the protec- 
 tion of herself and her husband. She Is sure that 
 he will be safe with them, and that he will be 
 hailed as the redeemer of the people of Pisa. 
 Like innocent children they walk to their doom. 
 
 Vanna is honored by the people whom she has 
 saved, but scorned by her husband who, like the 
 true male, does not credit her story. 
 
 Vanna. Hear me, I say! I have never lied — but 
 to-day, above all days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth 
 that can be told but once and brings life or death. . . . 
 Hearken, Guido, then — and look upon me, if you have 
 never known me until this hour, the first and only hour 
 when you have it in your power to love me as I would 
 be loved, I speak in the name of our life, of all that I 
 am, of all that you are to me. ... Be strong enough 
 to believe that which is incredible. This man has spared 
 my honor, ... He had all power — I was given over 
 to him. Yet he has not touched me — I have issued 
 
136 Maeterlinck 
 
 from his tent as I might from my brother's house. . . . 
 I gave him one only kiss upon the brow — and he gave 
 it me again. 
 
 Guido. Ah, that was what you were to tell us — that 
 was the miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I 
 divined something beneath them that I understood 
 not. ... It passed me like a flash — I took no heed of 
 it . . . But I see now that I must look more closely. 
 So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for 
 all your covering, all night long, you say he spared 
 you ? . . . Am I a man to believe that the stars are frag- 
 ments of hellebore, or that one may drop something into 
 a well and put out the moon? . . . What! a man de- 
 sires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake 
 all that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever, 
 and do it basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought 
 to do before him, and make the world uninhabitable to 
 himself forever ! And this man has you there in his tent, 
 alone and defenseless, and he has but this single night 
 that he has bought at such a price — and he contents 
 himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither 
 to make us give him credence! No, let us reason fairly 
 and not too long mock at misfortune. If he asked but 
 that, what need was there that he should plunge a whole 
 people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery such 
 that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years? 
 Ah! Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might 
 have saved us without torturing us so! He had but to 
 come like a god to our rescue. . . . But a kiss upon the 
 brow is not demanded and prepared for after his fash- 
 
Monna Vanna 137 
 
 ion. . . . The truth is found in our cries of anguish and 
 despair. . . . 
 
 It is only at this psychological moment, a mo- 
 ment that sometimes changes all our conceptions, 
 all our thoughts, our very life, that Monna 
 Fanna feels the new love for Prinzivalle stirring 
 in her soul, a love that knows no doubt. The 
 conception of such a love is revolutionary in 
 the scope of its possibilities — a love that is preg- 
 nant with the spirit of daring, of freedom, that lifts 
 woman out of the ordinary and inspires her with 
 the strength and joy of molding a new and free 
 race. 
 
ROSTAND 
 
 CHANTECLER 
 
 IN view of the progress the modern drama 
 has made as an interpreter of social ideas and 
 portrayer of the human struggle against in- 
 ternal and external barriers, it is difficult to 
 say what the future may bring in the way of great 
 dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is 
 hardly anything to compare with " Chantecler " in 
 philosophic depth and poetic beauty. 
 
 Chantecler is the intense Idealist, whose mission 
 is light and truth. His soul Is aglow with deep 
 human sympathies, and his great purpose in life 
 is to dispel the night. He keeps aloof from 
 mediocrity ; indeed, he has little knowledge of his 
 immediate surroundings. Like all great vision- 
 aries, Chantecler is human, " all too human " ; 
 therefore subject to agonizing soul depressions and 
 doubts. Always, however, he regains confidence 
 and strength when he Is close to the soil; when 
 he feels the precious sap of the earth surging 
 through his being. At such times he feels the 
 mysterious power that gives him strength to pro- 
 
 138 
 
Chantecler 139 
 
 claim the truth, to call forth the golden glory of 
 the day. 
 
 The pheasant hen is the eternal female, bewitch- 
 ingly beautiful, but self-centered and vain. True 
 to her destiny, she must possess the man and is 
 jealous of everything that stands between her and 
 him she loves. She therefore employs every de- 
 vice to kill Chantecler' s faith in himself, for, as 
 she tells him, "You can be, all in all to me, but 
 nothing to the dawn." 
 
 The blackbird is the modernist who has become 
 blase, mentally and spiritually empty. He is a 
 cynic and scoffer; without principle or sincerity 
 himself, he sees only small and petty intentions in 
 everybody else. 
 
 Patau, true and stanch, is the symbol of honest 
 conviction and simplicity of soul. He loathes the 
 blackbird because he sees in him the embodiment 
 of a shallow, superficial modernity, a modernity 
 barren of all poetic vision, which aims only at ma- 
 terial success and tinseled display, without regard 
 for worth, harmony or peace. 
 
 The peacock is the overbearing, conceited, in- 
 tellectual charlatan ; the spokesman of our present- 
 day culture ; the idle prater of " art for art's sake." 
 As such he sets the style and pace for the idle 
 pursuits of an idle class. 
 
 , The guinea hen is none other than our most 
 illustrious society lady. Sterile of mind and empty 
 
140 Rostand 
 
 of soul, she flits from one social function to an- 
 other, taking up every fad, clinging to the coat- 
 tails of every newcomer, provided he represent 
 station and prestige. She is the slave of fashion, 
 the imitator of ideas, the silly hunter after effect — 
 in short, the parasite upon the labor and efforts 
 of others. 
 
 The night birds are the ignorant, stupid main- 
 tainers of the old. They detest the light because 
 it exposes their mediocrity and stagnation. They 
 hate Chantecler because, as the old owl remarks, 
 " Simple torture it is to hear a brazen throat for- 
 ever reminding you of what you know to be only 
 too true ! " This is a crime mediocrity never for- 
 gives, and it conspires to kill Chantecler. 
 
 The woodpecker is our very learned college 
 professor. Dignified and important, he loudly 
 proclaims the predigested food of his college as 
 the sole source of all wisdom. 
 
 The toads represent the cringing, slimy hangers- 
 on, the flunkies and lickspittles who toady for the 
 sake of personal gain. 
 
 " Chantecler," then, is a scathing arraignment 
 of the emptiness of our so-called wise and cultured, 
 of the meanness of our conventional lies, the petty 
 jealousies of the human breed in relation to each 
 other. At the same time " Chantecler " character- 
 izes the lack of understanding for, and apprecia- 
 tion of, the ideal and the idealists — the mob 
 
Chantecler I41 
 
 spirit, whether on top or at the bottom, using the 
 most cruel and contemptible methods to drag the 
 idealist down ; to revile and persecute him — aye, 
 even to kill him — for the unpardonable sin of 
 proclaiming the ideal. They cannot forgive 
 Chantecler for worshiping the sun : 
 
 Chantecler. 
 Blaze forth in glory! . . . 
 
 thou that driest the tears of the meanest among weeds 
 And dost of a dead flower make a living butterfly — 
 Thy miracle, wherever almond-trees 
 
 Shower down the wind their scented shreds, 
 Dead petals dancing in a living swarm — 
 
 1 worship thee, O Sun! whose ample light, 
 Blessing every forehead, ripening every fruit, 
 Entering every flower and every hovel, 
 Pours itself forth and yet is never less, 
 
 Still spending and unspent — like mother's love! 
 
 I sing of thee, and will be thy high priest, 
 Who disdainest not to glass thy shining face 
 In the humble basin of blue suds. 
 Or see the lightning of thy last farewell 
 Reflected in an humble cottage pane! 
 
 Glory to thee in the vineyards! Glory to thee in the 
 
 fields! 
 Glory among the grass and on the roofs, 
 In eyes of lizards and on wings of swans, — 
 Artist who making splendid the great things 
 
142 Rostand 
 
 Forgets not to make exquisite the small! 
 
 'Tis thou that, cutting out a silhouette, 
 
 To all thou beamest on dost fasten this dark twin, 
 
 Doubling the number of delightful shapes, 
 
 Appointing to each thing its shadow. 
 
 More charming often than itself. 
 
 I praise thee, Sun! Thou sheddest roses on the air, 
 Diamonds on the stream, enchantment on the hill; 
 A poor dull tree thou takest and turnest to green • rapture, 
 O Sun, without whose golden magic — things 
 Would be no more than what they are! 
 
 In the atmosphere of persecution and ha|red 
 Chantecler continues to hope and to work for his 
 sublime mission of bringing the golden day. But 
 his passion for the pheasant hen proves his Water- 
 loo. It is through her that he grows weak, dis- 
 closing his secret. Because of her he attends the 
 silly five o'clock function at the guinea hen's, and 
 is involved in a prize fight. His passion teaches 
 him to understand life and the frailties of his fel- 
 low creatures. He learns the greatest of all truths, 
 — that " it is the struggle for, rather than the 
 attainment of, the ideal, which must forever in- 
 spire the sincere, honest idealist." Indeed, it is 
 life which teaches Chantecler that if he cannot 
 wake the dawn, he must rouse mankind to greet 
 the sun. 
 
 Chantecler finds himself in a trying situation 
 
Chantecler 143 
 
 when he comes into the gathering at the guinea 
 hen's five o'clock tea, to meet the pompous, over- 
 bearing cocks representing the various govern- 
 ments. When he arrives in the midst of these 
 distinguished society people, he is plied with the 
 query, " How do you sing? Do you sing the 
 Italian school or the French school or the German 
 school?" Poor Chantecler, in the simplicity of 
 his idealism, replies, " I don't know how I sing, 
 but I know why I sing." Why need the chante- 
 clers know how they sing? They represent the 
 truth, which needs no stylish clothes or expensive 
 feathers. That is the difference between truth 
 and falsehood. Falsehood must deck herself out 
 beyond all semblance of nature and reality. 
 
 Chantecler. I say . . . that these resplendent gen- 
 tlemen are manufactured wares, the work of merchants 
 with highly complex brains, who to fashion a ridiculous 
 chicken have taken a wing from that one, a topknot from 
 this. I say that in such Cocks nothing remains of the 
 true Cock. They are Cocks of shreds and patches, idle 
 bric-a-brac, fit to figure in a catalogue, not in a barnyard 
 with its decent dunghill and its dog. I say that those 
 befrizzled, beruffled, bedeviled Cocks were never stroked 
 and cherished by Nature's maternal hand. . . . And I 
 add that the whole duty of a Cock is to be an embodied 
 crimson cry! And when a Cock is not that, it matters 
 little that his comb be shaped like a toadstool, or his 
 quills twisted like a screw, he will soon vanish and be 
 
144 Rostand 
 
 heard of no more, having been nothing but a variety of 
 a variety! 
 
 The Game Cock appears. He greets Chante- 
 cler with the announcement that he is the Cham- 
 pion fighter, that he has killed so and so many 
 Cocks in one day and an equal number on other 
 occasions. Chantecler replies simply, " I have 
 never killed anything. But as I have at different 
 times succored, defended, protected this one and 
 that, I might perhaps be called, in my fashion, 
 brave." 
 
 The fight begins. Chantecler is wounded and 
 about to succumb, when suddenly all the guests 
 present rush to Chantecler for protection : the com- 
 mon enemy, the Hawk is seen to approach. 
 Chantecler mistakes the cowardice of those who 
 come to seek his aid, for friendship; but the 
 moment the danger is over, the crowd again cir- 
 cles around the fighters, inciting the Game Cock 
 to kill Chantecler. But at the critical moment the 
 Game Cock mortally wounds himself with his own 
 spurs, and is jeered and driven off the scene by the 
 same mob that formerly cheered him on. Chante- 
 cler, weak and exhausted from loss of blood, 
 disillusioned and stung to the very soul, follows 
 the pheasant hen to the Forest. 
 
 Soon he finds himself a henpecked husband: he 
 may not crow to his heart's content any more, he 
 
Chantecler 145 
 
 may not wake the sun, for his lady love is jealous* 
 The only time he can crow is when her eyes are 
 closed in sleep. 
 
 But leave it to the pheasant hen to ferret out a 
 secret. Overhearing Chantecler's conversation 
 with the woodpecker, she is furious. " I will 
 not let the sun defraud me of my love," she 
 cries. But Chantecler replies, " There is no great 
 love outside of the shadow of the ideal." She 
 makes use of her beauty and charm to win him 
 from the sun. She embraces him and pleads, 
 " Come to my soft bosom. Why need you bother 
 about the sun? " 
 
 Chantecler hears the nightingale and, like all 
 great artists, he recognizes her wonderful voice, 
 her inspiring powers compared with which his own 
 must seem hard and crude. Suddenly a shot is 
 heard, and the little bird falls dead to the ground. 
 Chantecler is heart-broken. And as he mourns 
 the sweet singer, the dawn begins to break. The 
 pheasant hen covers him with her wing, to keep 
 him from seeing the sun rise, and then mocks him 
 because the sun has risen without his crowing. 
 The shock is terrible to poor Chantecler, yet in 
 his desperation he gives one tremendous cock-a- 
 doodle-do, 
 
 " Why are yoii crowing? " the hen asks. 
 
 " As a warning to myself, for thrice have I 
 denied the thing I love." 
 
146 Rostand 
 
 i 
 
 Chantecler is In despair. But now he hears 
 another Nightingale, more silvery and beautiful 
 than the first, " Learn, comrade, this sorrowful 
 and reassuring fact, that no one. Cock of the morn- 
 ing or evening nightingale, has quite the song of 
 his dreams." 
 
 A wonderful message, for there must always be 
 " in the soul a faith so faithful that it comes back 
 even after it has been slain." It is vital to under- 
 stand that it is rather the consciousness that though 
 we cannot wake the dawn, we must prepare the 
 people to greet the rising sun. 
 
BRIEUX 
 
 DAMAGED GOODS 
 
 IN the preface to the English edition of 
 " Damaged Goods," George Bernard Shaw 
 relates a story concerning Lord Melbourne, 
 in the early days of Queen Victoria. When 
 the cabinet meeting threatened to break up in con- 
 fusion, Lord Melbourne put his back to the door 
 and said: " Gentlemen, we can tell the house the 
 truth or we can tell it a lie. I don't give a damn 
 which it is. All I insist on is that we shall all tell 
 the same lie, and you shall not leave the room until 
 you have settled what it is to be." 
 
 This seems to characterize the position of our 
 middle-class morality to-day. Whether a thing 
 be right or wrong, we are all to express the same 
 opinion on the subject. All must agree on the 
 same lie, and the lie upon which all agree, more 
 than on any other. Is the lie of purity, which must 
 be kept up at all costs. 
 
 How slow our moralists move is best proved by 
 the fact that although the great scientist Neisser 
 had discovered, as far back as 1879, that sup- 
 posedly insignificant venereal afflictions are due to 
 
 147 
 
148 Brieux 
 
 a malignant micro-organism often disastrous not 
 only to the Immediate victim, but also to those who 
 come in touch with him, the subject is still largely 
 tabooed and must not be discussed. 
 
 To be sure, there is a small contingent of men 
 and women who realize the necessity of a frank 
 discussion of the very important matter of ven- 
 ereal disease. But unfortunately they are attempt- 
 ing to drive out the devil with fire. They are en- 
 lightening the public as to the gravity of gonorrhea 
 and syphilis, but are implanting an evil by no means 
 less harmful, namely, the element of fear. The 
 result often is that the victims who contract an in- 
 fection are as little capable of taking care of them- 
 selves now as In the past when they knew little 
 about the subject. 
 
 Brieux is among the few who treats the question 
 in a frank manner, showing that the most danger- 
 ous phase of venereal disease Is Ignorance and fear, 
 and that If treated openly and Intelligently, it is 
 perfectly curable. Brieux also emphasizes the im- 
 portance of kindness and consideration for those 
 who contract the affliction, since it has nothing to 
 do with what is commonly called evil. Immorality, 
 or impurity. 
 
 Therein lies the superiority of " Damaged 
 Goods " to most scientific treatises. Without 
 lacking logic and clarity, it has greater humanity 
 and w^jrmjlj. 
 
Damaged Goods 149 
 
 But " Damaged Goods " contains more than an 
 expose of venereal disease. It touches upon the 
 whole of our social life. It points out the cold- 
 blooded indifference of the rich toward those who 
 do not belong to their class, to the poor, the 
 workers, the disinherited whom they sacrifice with- 
 out the slightest compunction on the altar of their 
 own comforts. Moreover, the play also treats of 
 the contemptible attitude towards love not backed 
 by property or legal sanction. In short, it un- 
 covers and exposes not only sexual disease but that 
 which is even more terrible — our social disease, 
 our social syphilis. 
 
 George Dupont, the son of wealthy people, is 
 informed by a specialist that he has contracted a 
 venereal disease of a most serious nature ; but that 
 with patience and time he will be cured. Dupont 
 is crushed by the news, and decides to blow out 
 his brains. His only regret is that he cannot in 
 the least account for his trouble. 
 
 George. I'm not a rake, Doctor. My life might be 
 held up as an example to all young men. I assure you, 
 no one could possibly be more prudent, no one. See 
 here; supposing I told you that in all my life I have only 
 had two mistresses, what would you say to that? 
 
 Doctor. That would have been enough to bring you 
 here. 
 
 George. No, Doctor. Not one of those two. No 
 
1^0 Brieux 
 
 one in the world has dreaded this so much as I have; no 
 one has taken such infinite precautions to avoid it. My 
 first mistress was the wife of my best friend. I chose 
 her on account of him ; and him, not because I cared most 
 for him, but because I knew he was a man of the most 
 rigid morals, who watched his wife jealously and didn't 
 let her go about forming imprudent connections. As 
 for her, I kept her in absolute terror of this disease, I 
 told her that almost all men were taken with it, so that 
 she mightn't dream of being false to me. My friend 
 died in my arms. That was the only thing that could 
 have separated me from her. Then I took up with a 
 young seamstress. . . . Well, this was a decent girl with 
 a family in needy circumstances to support. Her grand- 
 mother was an invalid, and there was an ailing father and 
 three little brothers. It was by my means that they all 
 lived. ... I told her and I let the others know that if 
 she played me false I should leave her at once. So then 
 they all watched her for me. It became a regular thing 
 that I should spend Sunday with them, and in that sort 
 of way I was able to give her a lift up. Church-going 
 was a respectable kind of outing for her. I rented a 
 pew for them and her mother used to go with her to 
 church; they liked seeing their name engraved on the 
 card. She never left the house alone. Three months 
 ago, when the question of my marriage came up, I had 
 to leave her. 
 
 Doctor. You were very happy, why did you want to 
 change? 
 
 George. I wanted to settle down. My father was a 
 notary, and before his death he expressed a wish that I 
 
Damaged Goods 151 
 
 should marry my cousin. It was a good match; her 
 dowry will help to get me a practice. Besides, I simply 
 adore her. She's fond of me, too. I had everything one 
 could want to make my life happy. And then a lot of 
 idiots must give me a farewell dinner and make me gad 
 about with them. See what has come of it! I haven't 
 any luck, I've never had any luck! I know fellows who 
 lead the most racketty life: nothing happens to them, 
 the beasts! But I — for a wretched lark — what is 
 there left for a leper like me? My future is ruined, my 
 whole life poisoned. Well then, isn't it better for me 
 to clear out of it? Anyway, I shan't suffer any more. 
 You see now, no one could be more wretched than I am. 
 
 The doctor explains to him that there is no need 
 for despair, but that he must postpone his mar- 
 riage if he does not wish to ruin his wife and pos- 
 sibly make her sterile for life. It is imperative 
 especially because of the offspring, which is certain 
 to be syphilitic. 
 
 Doctor. Twenty cases identical with yours have been 
 carefully observed — from the beginning to the end. 
 Nineteen times — you hear, nineteen times in twenty — 
 the woman was contaminated by her husband. You 
 think that the danger is negligible: you think you have 
 the right to let your wife take her chance, as you said, 
 of being one of the exceptions for which we can do 
 nothing! Very well then; then you shall know what 
 you are doing. You shall know what sort of a disease 
 it is that your wife will have five chances per cent, of 
 contracting without so much as having her leave asked. 
 
1^2 Brieux 
 
 . . . But there is not only your wife, — there are her 
 children, your children, whom you may contaminate, too. 
 It is in the name of those innocent little ones that I 
 appeal to you; it is the future of the race that I am 
 defending. 
 
 But George Dupont will not postpone the mar- 
 riage for several years. He would have to give 
 an explanation, break his word, and lose his in- 
 heritance, — things infinitely more important than 
 any consideration for the girl he " adores " or for 
 their children, should they have any. In short, 
 he is actuated by the morality of the bourgeoisie: 
 the silly conception of honor, the dread of public 
 opinion and, above all, the greed for property. 
 
 The second act is laid at the home of George 
 Dupont. George and his wife Henriette are child- 
 ishly happy, except for the regret that their mar- 
 riage could not have taken place six months earlier 
 because poor George had been declared consump- 
 tive. How stupid of doctors to suspect the 
 healthy strong George Dupont of consumption! 
 But, then, " all doctors are stupid." But now that 
 they are together, nothing shall part them in their 
 great happiness, and especially in their great love 
 for their baby. True, a little cloud obscures their 
 sunny horizon. The baby is not very strong; but 
 with the care and devotion of the grandmother, out 
 in the country air, it is sure to recover. 
 
Damaged Goods 153 
 
 The grandmother unexpectedly arrives, an- 
 nouncing that she has brought the baby back to 
 town : it is very ill and she has consulted a specialist 
 who has promised to come at once to examine the 
 child. Presently the doctor arrives. He insists 
 that the wet nurse be dismissed immediately, as the 
 child would infect her and she in return would in- 
 fect her own husband and baby. Madame Dupont 
 is scandalized. What, leave her precious grand- 
 child 1 Rob him of the milk, he needs I 
 
 Mme. Dupont. If there is one way to save its life, 
 it is to give it every possible attention, and you want me 
 to^ treat it in a way that you doctors condemn even for 
 healthy children. You think I will let her die like that ! 
 Oh, I shall take good care she does not! Neglect the 
 one single thing that can save her! It would be crim- 
 inal! As for the nurse, we will indemnify her. We 
 will do everything in our power, everything but that. 
 
 Doctor. This is not the first time I have found my- 
 self in this situation, and I must begin by telling you 
 that parents who have refused to be guided by my advice 
 have invariably repented of it most bitterly. . . . You 
 propose to profit by her ignorance and her poverty. Be- 
 sides, she could obtain the assistance of the court. . . . 
 You can convince yourself. In one or two cases the 
 parents have been ordered to pay a yearly pension to the 
 nurse; in the others sums of money varying from three 
 to eight thousand francs. 
 
 Mme. Dupont. If we had to fight an action, we 
 should retain the very best lawyer on our side. Thank 
 
154 Brteux 
 
 heaven we are rich enough. No doubt he would make 
 it appear doubtful whether the child hadn't caught this dis- 
 ease from the nurse, rather than the nurse from the child. 
 
 Indeed, what matters a peasant woman I ,They 
 are so numerous. In vain the doctor tries to con- 
 vince Mme. Dupont that it is not a question of 
 money. It is a question of humanity, of decency; 
 he would not and could not be a party to such a 
 crime. 
 
 After the doctor leaves to examine the child, 
 Mme. Dupont and her worthy son clinch the bar- 
 gain with the unsuspecting and ignorant servant. 
 They tell her that the baby has a cold which it 
 might communicate to her. The poor peasant girl 
 had lived in the cold all her life, and as she justly 
 says : " We of the country are not as delicate as 
 the Parisian ladies." She realizes that a thou- 
 sand francs would mean a great fortune to her, and 
 that it would help her people to pay the mortgage 
 and become independent. She consents to stay 
 and signs away her health. 
 
 The doctor returns with the dreaded news that 
 the child has congenital syphilis. He informs 
 them that with care and patience the child might 
 be cured, but that it will have to be put on bottle 
 milk, because otherwise it would be disastrous to 
 the nurse. When he is told that the nurse has 
 consented to remain, he grows indignant, declar- 
 ing: 
 
Damaged Goods 155 
 
 " You must not ask me to sacrifice the health of a young 
 and strong woman to that of a sickly infant. I will be 
 no party to giving this woman a disease that would em- 
 bitter the lives of her whole family, and almost certainly 
 render her sterile. Besides, I cannot even do it from a 
 legal standpoint. . . . If you do not consent to have the 
 child fed by hand, I shall either speak to the nurse or 
 give up the case." 
 
 But there is no need for the doctor to interfere. 
 Fortunately for the servant, she discovers the 
 miserable transaction. She learns from the but- 
 ler the real condition of the child, and announces 
 to the Duponts that she must refuse to stay. " I 
 know your brat isn't going to live. I know it's 
 rotten through and through because its father's 
 got a beastly disease that he caught from some 
 woman of the streets." 
 
 At this terrible moment the unsuspecting, light- 
 headed and light-hearted mother, Henriette, ar- 
 rives. She overhears the horrible news and falls 
 screaming to the floor. 
 
 The last act takes place in the hospital — the 
 refuge of the unfortunate victims of poverty, ig- 
 norance and false morality. M. Loche, the 
 Deputy, is announced. The doctor is overjoyed 
 because he believes that the representative of the 
 people comes to inform himself of the causes of 
 the widespread misery. But he is mistaken. 
 M. Loche is the father-in-law of George Dupont. 
 
1^6 Brieux 
 
 He wants to secure the signature of the doctor as 
 evidence in the divorce sought -by his daughter. 
 
 Doctor. I regret that I am unable to furnish you 
 with such a certificate. . . . The rule of professional 
 secrecy is absolute. And I may add that even were I 
 free, I should refuse your request. I should regret hav- 
 ing helped you to obtain a divorce. It would be in your 
 daughter's own interest that I should refuse. You ask 
 me for a certificate in order to prove to the court that 
 your son-in-law has contracted syphilis? You do not 
 consider that in doing so you will publicly acknowledge 
 that your daughter has been exposed to the infection. 
 Do you suppose that after that your daughter is likely to 
 find a second husband ? . . . Do you think that this poor 
 little thing has not been unlucky enough in her start in 
 life? She has been blighted physically. You wish be- 
 sides indelibly to stamp her with the legal proof of con- 
 genital syphilis. 
 
 Loche. Then what am I to do? 
 
 Doctor. Forgive. . . . When the marria;ge was pro- 
 posed you doubtless made inquiries concerning your 
 future son-in-law's income; you investigated his securi- 
 ties; you satisfied yourself as to his character. You only 
 omitted one point, but it was the most important of all: 
 you made no inquiries concerning his health. 
 
 Loche. No, I did not do that. It is not the cus- 
 tom. ... I think a law should be passed. 
 
 Doctor. No, no! We want no new laws. There 
 are too many already. All that is needed is for people 
 to understand the nature of this disease rather better. 
 It would soon become the custom for a man who pro- 
 
Damaged Goods 157 
 
 posed for a girl's hand to add to the other things for 
 which he is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness, 
 which would make it certain that he did not bring this 
 plague into the family with him. . , . Well, there is 
 one last argument which, since I must, I will put to you. 
 Are you yourself without sin, that you are so relentless 
 to others? 
 
 Loche. I have never had any shameful disease, sir. 
 
 Doctor. I was not asking you that. I was asking 
 you if you had never exposed yourself to catching one. 
 Ah, you see! Then it is not virtue that has saved you; 
 it is luck. Few things exasperate me more than that 
 term " shameful disease," which you used just now. 
 This disease is like all other diseases: it is one of our 
 afflictions. There is no shame in being wretched — even 
 if one deserves to be so. Come, come, let us have a little 
 plain speaking! I should like to know how many of 
 these rigid moralists, who are so shocked with their mid- 
 dle-class prudery, that they dare not mention the name 
 syphilis, or when they bring themselves to speak of it do 
 so with expressions of every sort of disgust, and treat its 
 victims as criminals, have never run the risk of contract- 
 ing it themselves? It is those alone who have the right 
 to talk. How many do you think there are? Four out 
 of a thousand? Well, leave those four aside: between 
 all the rest and those who catch the disease there is no 
 difference but chance, and by heavens, those who escape 
 won't get much sympathy from me: the others at least 
 have paid their fine of suffering and remorse, while they 
 have gone scot free! Let's have done, if you pleas?, 
 jpnce .for ,all with .this sort of hypocrisy. 
 
158 Brteux 
 
 The doctor, who is not only a sincere scientist 
 but also a humanitarian, realizes that as things 
 are to-day no one is exempt from the possibility 
 of contracting an infection; that those who are 
 responsible for the spread of the disease are they 
 who constantly excuse themselves with the inane 
 " I did not know," as if ignorance were not the 
 .crime of all crimes. The doctor demonstrates to 
 M. Loche a number of cases under his observation, 
 all of them the result of ignorance and of poverty. 
 
 There is, for instance, the woman whose hus- 
 band died of the disease. He " didn't know " ; 
 so he infected her. She, on the other hand, is 
 poor and cannot afford the treatment she needs. 
 A private physician is beyond her means, and she 
 has too much pride to stand the indignities heaped 
 upon the poor who are at the mercy of dispensaries 
 and charity. Therefore she neglects her disease 
 and perhaps is unconsciously instrumental in in- 
 fecting others. 
 
 Then there is the man whose young son has con- 
 tracted the disease. His father " didn't know," 
 and therefore he did not inform his son, as a re- 
 sult of which the boy became half paralyzed. 
 
 Man. We are small trades-people; we have regularly 
 bled ourselves in order to send him to college, and 
 now — I only wish the same thing mayn't happen to 
 others. It was at the very college gates that my poor 
 boy was got hold of by one of these women. Is it right, 
 
Damaged Goods 159 
 
 sir, that that should be allowed? Aren't there enough 
 police to prevent children of fifteen from being seduced 
 like that? I ask, is it right? 
 
 The poor man, in his ignorance, did not know 
 that " these women " are the most victimized, as 
 demonstrated by the doctor himself in the case of 
 the poor girl of the street. She was both ig- 
 norant and innocent when she found a place as 
 domestic servant and was seduced by her master. 
 Then she was kicked out into the street, and in 
 her endless search for work found every door 
 closed in her face. She was compelled to stifle 
 her feeling of motherhood, to send her baby to a 
 foundling asylum, and finally, in order to exist, be- 
 come a street-walker, ' If in return she infected 
 the men who came to her, including her erstwhile 
 seducer, she was only paying back in a small 
 measure what society had done to her, — the in- 
 jury, the bitterness, the misery and tears heaped 
 upon her by a cruel and self-satisfied world. 
 
 It is to be expected that a political representa- 
 tive of the people like Loche should suggest the 
 same stereotyped measures as his predecessors: 
 legal enactments, prosecution, imprisonment. But 
 the doctor, a real social student, knows that " the 
 true remedy lies in a change of our ways." 
 
 Doctor. Syphilis must cease to be treated like a mys- 
 terious evil, the very name of which cannot be pro- 
 
i6o Brieux 
 
 nounced. . . . People ought to be taught that there is 
 nothing immoral in the act that reproduces life by means 
 of love. But for the benefit of our children we organize 
 round about it a gigantic conspiracy of silence. A re- 
 spectable man will take his son and daughter to one of 
 these grand music halls, where they will hear things of 
 the most loathsome description; but he won't let them 
 hear a word spoken seriously on the subject of the great 
 act of love. The mystery and humbug in which phy- 
 sical facts are enveloped ought to be swept away and 
 young men be given some pride in the creative power 
 with which each one of us is endowed. 
 
 In other words, what we need is more general 
 enlightenment, greater frankness and, abovd* all, 
 different social and economic conditions. The 
 revolutionary significance of " Damaged Goods " 
 consists in the lesson that not syphilis but the causes 
 that lead to it are the terrible curse of society. 
 Those who rant against syphilis and clamor for 
 more laws, for marriage certificates, for registra- 
 tion and segregation, do not touch even the sur- 
 face of the evil. Brieux is among the very few 
 modern dramatists who go to the bottom of this 
 question by insisting on a complete social and 
 economic change, which alone can free us from 
 the scourge of syphilis and other social plagues. 
 
Maternity i6i 
 
 MATERNITY 
 
 Motherhood to-day is on the lips of every 
 penny-a-liner, every social patch-worker and polit- 
 ical climber. It is so much prated about that one 
 is led to believe that motherhood, in its present con- 
 dition, is a force for good. It therefore re- 
 quired a free spirit combined with great dramatic 
 power to tear the mask off the lying face of 
 motherhood, that we may see that, whatever its 
 possibilities in a free future, motherhood is to-day 
 a sickly tree setting forth diseased branches. For 
 its sake thousands of women are being sacrificed 
 and children sent into a cold and barren world 
 without the slightest provision for their physical 
 and mental needs. It was left to Brieux to in- 
 scribe with letters of fire the crying shame of the 
 motherhood of to-day. 
 
 Brignac, a provincial lawyer and an unscrupu- 
 lous climber for political success, represents the 
 typical pillar of society. He believes implicitly 
 in the supremacy of God over the destiny of man. 
 He swears by the State and the army, and cringes 
 before the power of money. Naturally he is the 
 champion of large families as essential to the wel- 
 fare of society, and of motherhood, as the most 
 sacred and sole function of woman. 
 
 He is the father of three children, all of whom 
 are in a precarious condition. He resents the idea 
 
162 Brieux 
 
 that society ought to take care of the children 
 already in existence, rather than continue indis- 
 criminately breeding more. Brignac himself 
 wants more children. In vain his wife Lucie, 
 weakened by repeated pregnancies, pleads with 
 him for a respite. 
 
 Lucie. Listen, Julien, since we are talking about this. 
 I wanted to tell you — I haven't had much leisure since 
 our marriage. We have not been able to take advantage 
 of a single one of your holidays. I really have a right 
 to a little rest. . . . Consider, we have not had any time 
 to know one another, or to love one another. Besides, 
 remember that we already have to find dowries for three 
 girls. 
 
 Brignac. I tell you this is going to be a boy. 
 
 Lucie. A boy is expensive. 
 
 Brignac. We are going to be rich. 
 
 Lucie. How ? 
 
 Brignac. Luck may come in several ways. I may stay 
 in the civil service and get promoted quickly. I may go 
 back to the bar. ... I am certain we shall be rich. 
 After all, it's not much good your saying so, if I say yes. 
 
 Lucie. Evidently. My consent was asked for before 
 I was given a husband, but my consent is not asked for' 
 before I am given a child. . . . This is slavery — yes, 
 slavery. After all you are disposing of my health, my 
 sufferings, my life — of a year of my existence, calmly, 
 without consulting me. 
 
 Brignac. Do I do it out of selfishness? Do you sup- 
 pose I am not a most unhappy husband all the time I 
 
Maternity 163 
 
 have a future mother at my side instead of a loving 
 vidfe? ... A father is a man all the same, 
 
 Lucie. Rubbish! You evidently take me for a fool. 
 I know what you do at those times. . . . Don't deny it. 
 You must see that I know all about it. . . . Do you want 
 me to tell you the name of the person you go to see over 
 at Villeneuve, while I am nursing or " a future mother," 
 as you call it? We had better say no more about it. 
 
 Brignac goes off to his political meeting to pro- 
 claim to his constituency the sacredness of mother- 
 hood, — the deepest and highest function of 
 woman. 
 
 Lucie has a younger sister, Annette, a girl of 
 eighteen. Their parents being dead, Lucie takes 
 the place of the mother. She is passionately fond 
 of her little sister and makes it her purpose to 
 keep the girl sheltered and protected from the 
 outside world. Annette arrives and announces 
 with great enthusiasm that the son of the wealthy 
 Bernins has declared his love and asked her to 
 marry him, and that his mother, Mme. Bernin, 
 Is coming to talk the matter over with Lucie. 
 
 Mme. Bernin does arrive, but not for the pur- 
 pose poor Annette had hoped. Rather is it to 
 tell Lucie that her son cannot marry the girl. 
 Oh, not because she isn't beautiful, pure or at- 
 tractive. Indeed not! Mme. Bernin herself 
 says that her son could not wish for a more suit- 
 able match. But, then, she has no money, and 
 
164 Brieux 
 
 her son must succeed in the world. He must ac- 
 quire social standing and position; that cannot be 
 had without money. When Lucie pleads with her 
 that after all the Bernins themselves had begun at 
 the bottom, and that it did not prevent their being 
 happy, Mme. Bernin replies: 
 
 No, no; we are not happy, because we have worn our- 
 selves out hunting after happiness. We wanted to " get 
 on," and we got on. But what a price we paid for it! 
 First, when we were both earning wages, our life was 
 one long drudgery of petty economy and meanness. 
 When we set up on our own account, we lived in an 
 atmosphere of trickery, of enmity, of lying; flattering the 
 customers, and always in terror of bankruptcy. Oh, I 
 know the road to fortune! It means tears, lies, envy, 
 hate; one suffers — and one makes other people suffer. 
 I have had to go through it : my children shan't. We've 
 only had two children: we meant only to have one. 
 Having two we had to be doubly hard upon ourselves. 
 Instead of a husband and wife helping one another, we 
 have been partners spying upon one another; calling one 
 another to account for every little expenditure or 
 stupidity; and on our very pillows disputing about our 
 business. That's how we got rich; and now we can't 
 enjoy our money because we don't know how to use it; 
 and we aren't happy because our old age is made bitter 
 by the memories and the rancor left by the old bad days; 
 because we have suffered too much and hated too much. 
 My children shall not go through this. I endured it that 
 they might be spared. 
 
Maternity 165 
 
 Learning the price Mme. Bernin has paid for 
 her wealth, we need not blame her for turning a 
 deaf ear to the entreaties of Lucie in behalf of 
 her sister. N-either can Lucie be held responsible 
 for her stupidity in keeping her sister in ignorance 
 until she was incapable of protecting herself when 
 the occasion demanded. Poor Annette, one of 
 the many offered up to the insatiable monster of 
 ignorance and social convention ! 
 
 When Annette is informed of the result of 
 Mme. Bernin's visit, the girl grows hysterical, 
 and Lucie learns that her little sister is about to 
 become a mother. Under the pretext of love and 
 marriage young, pampered Jaques Bernin has 
 taken advantage of the girl's inexperience and in- 
 nocence. In her despair Annette rushes out in 
 search of her lover, only to be repelled by him 
 in a vulgar and cruel manner. She then attempts 
 suicide by trying to throw herself under the train 
 which is to carry off her worthless seducer. She 
 is rescued by the faithful nurse Catherine, and 
 brought back to her anxious sister Lucie. Ann- 
 ette, in great excitement, relates: 
 
 Annette. You'll never guess what he said. He got 
 angry, and he began to abuse me. He said he guessed 
 what I was up to; that I wanted to make a scandal to 
 force him to marry me — oh, he spared me nothing — to 
 force him to marry me because he was rich. And when 
 that made me furious, he threatened to call the police! 
 
1 66 Brieux 
 
 I ought to have left him, run away, come home, oughtn't 
 I ? But I couldn't believe it of him all at once, like that ! 
 And I couldn't go aviray while I had any hope. ... As 
 long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was en- 
 gaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable 
 ruined girl, like dozens of others. . . . My life was at 
 stake : and to save myself I went down into the very low- 
 est depths of vileness and cowardice. I cried, I im- 
 plored. I lost all shame. . . . What he said then I can- 
 not tell you — not even you — it was too much — too 
 much — I did not understand at first. It was only after- 
 wards, coming back, going over all his words, that I made 
 out what he meant. . . . Then he rushed to the train, 
 and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fin- 
 gers in the door ; and he went and hid behind his mother, 
 and she threatened, too, to have me arrested. ... I wish 
 I was dead ! Lucie, dear, I don't want to go through all 
 that's coming — I am too little — I am too weak, I'm 
 too young to bear it. Really, I haven't the strength. 
 
 But Lucie has faith in her husband. In all the 
 years of their married life she has heard him pro- 
 claim from the very housetops that motherhood is 
 the most sacred function of woman ; that the State 
 needs large numbers ; that commerce and the army 
 require an increase of the population, and " the 
 government commands you to further this end to 
 the best of your ability, each one of you in his own 
 commune." She has heard her husband repeat, 
 over and over again, that the woman who refuses 
 to abide by the command of God and the laws to 
 
Maternity 167 
 
 become a mother is immoral, Is criminal. Surely 
 he would understand the tragedy of Annette, who 
 had been placed in this condition not through her 
 own fault but because she had been confiding and 
 trusting in the promise of the man. Surely Brig- 
 nac would come to the rescue of Annette; would 
 help and comfort her in her trying and difficult 
 moment. But Lucie, like many wives, does not 
 know her husband; she does not know that a man 
 who is so hide-bound by statutes and codes cannot 
 have human compassion, and that he will not stand 
 by the little girl who has committed the " unpar- 
 donable sin." Lucie does not know, but she is 
 soon to learn the truth. 
 
 Lucie. I tell you Annette is the victim of this wretch. 
 If you are going to do nothing but insult her, we had 
 better stop discussing the matter. 
 
 Brignac. I am in a nice fix now! There is nothing 
 left for us but to pack our trunks and be off. I am done 
 for. Ruined! Smashed! I tell you if she was caught 
 red handed stealing, the wreck wouldn't be more complete. 
 . . . We must make some excuse. We will invent an 
 aunt or cousin who has invited her to stay. I will find a 
 decent house for her in Paris to go to. She'll be all right 
 there. When the time comes she can put the child out 
 to nurse in the country, and come back to us. 
 
 Lucie. You seriously propose to send that poor child 
 to Paris, where she doesn't know a soul? 
 
 Brignac. What do you mean by that? I will go to 
 Paris myself, if necessary. There are special boarding 
 
1 68 Brieux 
 
 houses: very respectable ones. I'll inquire: of course 
 without letting out that it is for anyone I know. And 
 I'll pay what is necessary. What more can you want? 
 
 Lucie. Just when the child is most in need of every 
 care, you propose to send her ofE alone ; alone, do you un- 
 derstand, alone! To tear her away from here, put her 
 into a train, and send her off to Paris, like a sick animal 
 you want to get rid of. If I consented to that I should 
 feel that I was as bad as the man who seduced her. Be 
 honest, Julien: remember it is in our interest you pro- 
 pose to sacrifice her. We shall gain peace and quiet at 
 the price of her loneliness and despair. To save our- 
 selves — serious troubles, I admit — we are to abandon 
 this child to strangers . . . away from all love and care 
 and comfort, without a friend to put kind arms around 
 her and let her sob her grief away. I implore you, 
 Julien, I entreat you, for our children's sake, don't keep 
 me from her, don't ask me to do this shameful thing. 
 
 Brignac. There would have been no question of mis- 
 ery if she had behaved herself. 
 
 Lucie. She is this man's victim! But she won't go. 
 You'll have to drive her out as you drove out the serv- 
 ant. . . . And then — after that — she is to let her child 
 go; to stifle her strongest instinct; to silence the cry of 
 love that consoles us all, for the tortures we have to go 
 through ; to turn away her eyes and say, " Take him away, 
 I don't want him." And at that price she is to be 
 forgiven for another person's crime. . . . Then that is 
 Society's welcome to the new born child? 
 
 Brignac. To the child born outside of marriage, yes. 
 If it wasn't for that, there would soon be nothing but 
 
Maternity 169 
 
 illegitimate births. It is to preserve the family that 
 society condemns the natural child. 
 
 Lucie. You say you want a larger number of births, 
 and at the same time you say to women : " No mother- 
 hood without marriage, and no marriage without money." 
 As long as you've not changed that, all your circulars will 
 be met with shouts of derision — half from hate, half 
 from pity. ... If you drive Annette out, I shall go with 
 her. 
 
 Lucie and Annette go out into the world. As 
 middle-class girls they have been taught a little 
 of everything and not much of anything. They 
 try all kinds of work to enable them to make a 
 living, but though they toil hard and long hours, 
 they barely earn enough for a meager existence. 
 As long as Annette's condition is not noticeable, 
 life is bearable; but soon everybody remarks her 
 state. She and Lucie are driven from place to 
 place. In her despair Annette does what many 
 girls in her position have done before her and will 
 do after her so long as the Brignacs and their 
 morality are dominant. She visits a midwife, and 
 one more victim is added to the large number 
 slaughtered upon the altar of morality. 
 
 The last act is in the court room. Mme. 
 Thomas, the midwife, is on trial for criminal 
 abortion. With her are a number of women 
 whose names have been found on her register. 
 
 Bit by bit we learn the whole tragedy of each of 
 
170 Brieux 
 
 the defendants; we see all the sordidness of pov- 
 erty, the Inability to procure the bare necessities of 
 life, and the dread of the unwelcome child. 
 
 A schoolmistress, although earning a few hun- 
 dred francs, and living with her husband, is com- 
 pelled to have an abortion performed because an- 
 other child would mean hunger for all of them. 
 
 Schoolmistress. We just managed to get along by 
 being most careful; and several times we cut down ex- 
 penses it did not seem possible to cut down. A third 
 child coming upset everything. We couldn't have lived. 
 We should have all starved. Besides, the inspectors and 
 directresses don't like us to have many children, espe- 
 cially if we nurse them ourselves. They told me to hide 
 myself when I w^as suckling the last one. I only had ten 
 minutes to do it in, at the recreation, at ten o'clock and 
 at two o'clock; and when my mother brought baby to me 
 I had to shut myself up with him in a dark closet. 
 
 The couple Tupin stand before the bar to de- 
 fend themselves against the charge of criminal 
 abortion. Tupin has been out of work for a long 
 time and is driven by misery to drink. He is 
 known to the police as a disreputable character. 
 One of his sons is serving a sentence for theft, 
 and a daughter is a woman of the streets. But 
 Tupin is a thinking man. He proves that his 
 earnings at best are not enough to supply the 
 needs of an already large family. The daily 
 nourishment of five children consists of a four- 
 
Maternity 171 
 
 pound loaf, soup of vegetables and dripping, and 
 a stew which costs 90 centimes. Total, 3f. 75c. 
 This is the expenditure of the father: Return 
 ticket for tram, 30c. Tobacco, 15c. Dinner, 
 if. 25c. The rent, 30of. Clothing for the whole 
 family, and boots: 16 pairs of boots for the chil- 
 dren at 4f. 50c. each, 4 for the parents at 8f., 
 total again 30of. Total for the year, 2,6oof. 
 Tupin, who is an exceptional workman, earns 1 6of . 
 a month, that is to say, 2,ioof. a year. There is 
 therefore an annual deficit of 50of., provided 
 Tupin keeps at work all the time, which never 
 happens in the life of a workingman. Under such 
 circumstances no one need be surprised that one of 
 his children is imprisoned for theft, and the other 
 is walking the streets, while Tupin himself is 
 driven to drink. 
 
 Tupin. When we began to get short in the house, my 
 wife and I started to quarrel. Every time a child came 
 we were mad at making it worse for the others. And 
 so ... I ended up in the saloon. It's warm there, and 
 you can't hear the children crying nor the mother com- 
 plaining. And besides, when you have drink in you, you 
 forget. . . . And that's how we got poorer and poorer. 
 My fault, if you like. . . . Our last child was a cripple. 
 He was born in starvation, and his mother was worn out. 
 And they nursed him, and they nursed him, and they 
 nursed him. They did not leave him a minute. They 
 made^im live in spite of himself. And they let the other 
 
172 Brieux 
 
 children — the strong ones — go to the bad. With half 
 the money and the fuss they wasted on the cripple, they 
 could have made fine fellows of all the others. 
 
 Mme. Tupin. I have to add that all this Is not my 
 fault. My husband and I worked like beasts; we did 
 without every kind of pleasure to try and bring up our 
 children. If we had wanted to slave more, I declare to 
 you we couldn't have done it. And now that we have 
 given our lives for them, the oldest is in hospital, ruined 
 and done for because he worked in " a dangerous trade " 
 as they call it. . . . There are too many people in the 
 world. . . . My little girl had to choose between starva- 
 tion and the street. . . . I'm only a poor woman, and I 
 know what it means to have nothing to eat, so I fprgave 
 her. 
 
 Thus Mme. Tupin also understands that it is 
 a crime to add one more victim to those who are 
 born ill and for whom society has no place. 
 
 Then Lucie faces the court, — Lucie who loved 
 her sister too well, and who, driven by the same 
 conditions that killed Annette, has also been 
 compelled to undergo an abortion rather than have 
 a fourth child by the man she did not love any 
 more. Like the Schoolmistress and the Tupins, 
 she is dragged before the bar of justice to explain 
 her crime, while her husband, who had forced 
 both Annette and Lucie out of the house, has 
 meanwhile risen to a high position as a supporter 
 
Maternity 173 
 
 of the State with his favorite slogan, " Mother- 
 hood is the highest function of woman." 
 
 Finally the midwife Thomas is called upon for 
 her defense. 
 
 Thomas. A girl came to me one day; she was a serv- 
 ant. She had been seduced by her master. I refused to 
 do what she asked me to do: she went and drowned her- 
 self. Another I refused to help was brought up before 
 you here for infanticide. Then when the others came, I 
 said, " Yes." I have prevented many a suicide and many 
 a' crime. 
 
 / 
 It is not likely that the venerable judge, the 
 
 State's attorney or the gentlemen of the jury can 
 see in Mme. Thomas a greater benefactress to 
 society than they; any more than they can grasp 
 the deep importance of the concluding words of 
 the counsel for the defense in this great social trag- 
 edy. 
 
 Counsel for the Defense. Their crime is not an indi- 
 vidual crime; it is a social crime. ... It is not a crime 
 against nature. It is a revolt against nature. And with 
 all the warmth of a heart melted by pity, with all the 
 indignation of my outraged reason, I look for that glori- 
 ous hour of liberation when some master mind shall dis- 
 cover for us the means of having only the children we 
 need and desire, release forever from the prison of hypoc- 
 risy and absolve us from the profanation of love. That 
 would indeed be a conquest of nature — savage nature — 
 
174 Brieux 
 
 which pours out life with culpable profusion, and sees it 
 disappear with indifference. 
 
 Surely there can be no doubt as to the revolu- 
 tionary significance of " Maternity " : the demand 
 thajt woman must be given means to prevent con- 
 ception of undesired and unloved children; that 
 she must become free and strong to choose the 
 father of her child and to decide the number of 
 children she is to bring into the world, and under 
 what conditions. That is the only kind of mother- 
 hood which can endure. 
 
I 
 
 THE ENGLISH DRAMA 
 
 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 
 **"^ AM not an ordinary playwright in general 
 practice. I am a specialist in immoral and 
 heretical plays. My reputation has been 
 gained by my persistent struggle to force 
 the public to reconsider its morals. In particular, 
 I regard much current morality as to economic and 
 sexual relations as disastrously wrong ; and I regard 
 certain doctrines of the Christian religion as under- 
 stood in England to-day with abhorrence. I write 
 plays with the deliberate object of converting the 
 nation to my opinions in these matters." 
 
 This confession of faith should leave no doubt 
 as to the place of George Bernard Shaw in modern 
 dramatic art. Yet, strange to say, he is among the 
 most doubted of his time. That is partly due to 
 the fact that humor generally serves merely to 
 amuse, touching only the lighter side of life. But 
 there is a kind of humor that fills laughter with 
 tears, a humor that eats into the soul like acid, leav- 
 ing marks often deeper than those made by the 
 tragic form. 
 
 There is another, reason why Shaw's sincerity is 
 regarded lightly : it is to be found in the difference 
 
 I7S 
 
176 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 of his scope as propagandist and as artist. As the 
 propagandist Shaw is limited, dogmatic, and set. 
 Indeed, the most zealous Puritan could not be more 
 antagonistic to social theories differing from his 
 own. But the artist, if he is sincere at all, must go 
 to life as the source of his inspiration, and life is 
 beyond dogmas, beyond the House of Commons, 
 beyond even the " eternal and irrevocable law " of 
 the materialistic conception of history. If, then, 
 the Socialist propagandist Shaw is often lost in the 
 artist Shaw, it is not because he lacks sincerity, but 
 because life will not be curtailed. 
 
 It may be contended that Shaw is much more the 
 propagandist than the artist because he paints in 
 loud colors. But that is rather because of the in- 
 dolence of the human mind, especially of the An- 
 glo-Saxon mind, which has settled down snugly to 
 the self-satisfied notion of its purity, justice, and 
 charity, so that naught but the strongest current of 
 light will make it wince. In " Mrs. Warren's Pro- 
 fession " and " Major Barbara," George Ber- 
 nard Shaw has accomplished even more. He has 
 pulled off the mask of purity and Christian kind- 
 ness that we may see their hidden viciousness at 
 work. 
 
 MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION 
 
 Mrs. Warren is engaged in a profession which 
 has existed through all the ages. It was at home 
 
Mrs. Warren's Profession 177 
 
 In Egypt, played an important role in Greece and 
 Rome, formed one of the influential guilds in the 
 Middle Ages, and has been one of the main sources 
 of income for the Christian Church. 
 
 But it was left to modern times to make of Mrs. 
 Warren's profession a tremendous social factor, 
 ministering to the needs of man in every station of 
 life, froni the brownstone mansion to the hovel, 
 from the highest official to the poorest drag. 
 
 Time was when the Mrs. Warrens were looked 
 upon as possessed by the devil, — lewd, depraved 
 creatures who would not, even If they had the 
 choice, engage in any other profession, because 
 they are vicious at heart, and should therefore be 
 held up to condemnation and obloquy. And 
 while we continue to drive them from pillar to 
 post, while we still punish them as criminals and 
 deny them the simplest humanities one gives even 
 to the dumb beast, the light turned on this subject 
 by men like George Bernard Shaw has helped to 
 expose the lie of Inherent evil tendencies and nat- 
 ural depravity. Instead we learn : 
 
 Mrs. Warren. Do you think I did what I did be- 
 cause I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn't rather 
 have gone to college and been a lady if I'd had the 
 chance? . . . Oh, it's easy to talk, very easy, isn't it? 
 Here! — Would you like to know what my circum- 
 stances were? D'you know what your gran'mother was? 
 No, you don't. I do. She called herself a widow and 
 
17-8 George .Bernard Shaw 
 
 had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept her- 
 self and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sis- 
 ters : that was me and Liz ; and we were both good look- 
 ing and well made. I suppose our father was a well fed 
 man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don't 
 know. The other two were only half sisters — under- 
 sized, ugly, starved, hard working, honest poor creatures: 
 Liz and I would have half murdered them if mother 
 hadn't half murdered us to keep our hands off them. 
 They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they 
 get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them 
 worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for 
 nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. 
 She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed ; 
 but she died. The other was always held up to us as a 
 model because she married a Government laborer in the 
 Deptford victualling yard, and kept ' his room and the 
 three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week 
 — until he took to drink. That was worth being re- 
 spectable for, wasn't it? 
 
 Vivie. Did you and your sister think so ? 
 
 Mrs. Warren. Liz didn't, I can tell you; she had 
 more spirit. We both went to a Church School — that 
 was part of the lady-like airs we gave ourselves to be 
 superior to the children that knew nothing and went no- 
 where — and we stayed there until Liz went out one 
 night and never came back. I knew the schoolmistress 
 thought I'd soon follow her example; for the clerg5Tnan 
 was always warning me that Lizzie 'd end by jumping 
 off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all that he 
 knew about it ! But I was more afraid of the whitelead 
 
Mrs. Warren's Profession 179 
 
 factory than I was of the river; and so would you have 
 been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as 
 a scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they 
 sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress; 
 and then I went to the bar at Waterloo Station — four- 
 teen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for 
 four shillings a week and my board. That was consid- 
 ered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched 
 night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself 
 awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but 
 Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with 
 a lot of sovereigns in her purse. 
 
 Vivie. My aunt Lizzie? 
 
 Mrs. Warren. Yes. . . . She's living down at Win- 
 chester, now, close to the cathedral, one of the most re- 
 spectable ladies there — chaperones girls at the country 
 ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You 
 remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business 
 woman — saved money from the beginning — never let 
 herself look too like what she was — never lost her head 
 or threw away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up 
 good-looking she said to me across the bar: "What are 
 you doing there, you little fool? Wearing out your 
 health and your appearance for other people's profit! " 
 Liz was saving money then to take a house for herself 
 in Brussels: and she thought we two could save faster 
 than one. So she lent me some money and gave me a 
 start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and 
 then went into business with her as her partner. Why 
 shouldn't I have done it? The house in Brussels was 
 real high class — a much better place for a woman to 
 
i8o George Bernard Shaw 
 
 be in than the factory where Anne Jane got poisoned. 
 None of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in 
 the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo 
 bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them 
 and become a worn-out old drudge before I was forty? 
 . . . Yes, saving money. But where can a woman get the 
 money to save in any other business? Could you save 
 out of four shillings a week and keep yourself dressed 
 as well? Not you. Of course, if you're a plain woman 
 and can't earn anything more: or if you have a turn for 
 music, or the stage, or newspaper writing: that's differ- 
 ent. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things: 
 all we had was our appearance and our turn for pleas- 
 ing men. Do you think we were such fools as to let 
 other people trade in our good looks by employing us as 
 shop-girls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could 
 trade in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of 
 starvation wages? Not likely. , . . Everybody dislikes 
 having to work and make money; but they have to do it 
 all the same. I'm sure I've often pitied a poor girl, tired 
 out and in low spirits, having to try to please some man 
 that she doesn't care two straws for — some half-drunken 
 fool that thinks he's making himself agreeable when he's 
 teasing and worrying and disgusting a woman so that 
 hardly any money could pay her for putting up with it. 
 But she has to bear with disagreeables and take the rough 
 with the smooth, just like a nurse in a hospital or any- 
 one else. It's not work that any woman would do for 
 pleasure, goodness knows; though to hear the pious peo- 
 ple talk you would suppose it was a bed of roses. Oi 
 course it's worth while to a poor girl, if she can resist 
 
Mrs. Warren's Profession i8i 
 
 temptation and is good looking and well-conducted and 
 sensible. It's far better than any other employment open 
 to her. I always thought that oughtn't to be. It can't 
 be right, Vivie, that there shouldn't be better opportu- 
 nities for women. I stick to that: It's wrong. But it's 
 so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the best of it. 
 But, of course, it's not worth while for a lady. If you 
 took to it you'd be a fool; but I should have been a fool 
 if I'd taken to anything else. . . . Why am I independ- 
 ent and able to give my daughter a first-rate education, 
 when other women that had just as good opportunities 
 are in the gutter? Because I always knew how to re- 
 spect myself and control myself. Why is Liz looked up 
 to in a cathedral town? The same reason. Where 
 would we be now if we'd minded the clergyman's foolish- 
 ness? Scrubbing floors for one and sixpence a day and 
 nothing to look forward to but the workhouse infirmary. 
 Don't you be led astray by people who don't know the 
 world, my girl. The only way for a woman to provide 
 for herself decently is for her to be good to some man 
 that can afEord to be good to her. If she's in his own 
 station of life, let her make him marry her; but if she's 
 far beneath him, she can't expect it — why should she? 
 It wouldn't be for her own happiness. Ask any lady in 
 London society that has daughters; and she'll tell you the 
 same, except that I tell you straight and she'll tell you 
 crooked. That's all the difference. . . . It's only good 
 manners to be ashamed of it; it's expected from a woman. 
 Women have to pretend a great deal that they don't feel. 
 Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the truth 
 about it. She used to say that when every woman would 
 
182 George Bernard Shaw. 
 
 learn enough from what was going on in the world before 
 her eyes, there was no need to talk about it to her. But 
 then Liz was such a perfect lady! She had the true in- 
 stinct of it; while I was always a bit of a vulgarian. I 
 used to be so pleased when you sent me your photographs 
 to see that you were growing up like Liz; you've just her 
 lady-like determined way. But I can't stand saying one 
 thing when everyone knows I mean another. What's the 
 use in such hypocrisy? If people arrange the world that 
 way for women, there's no use pretending that it's ar- 
 ranged the other way. I never was a bit ashamed really, 
 I consider that I had a right to be proud that we man- 
 aged everything so respectably, and never had a word 
 against us, and that the girls were so well taken care of. 
 Some of them did very well: one of them married an 
 ambassador. But of course now I daren't talk about 
 such things: whatever would they think of us. 
 
 No, it is not respectable to talk about these 
 things, because respectability cannot face the 
 truth. Yet everybody knows that the majority 
 of women, " if they wish to provide for them- 
 selves decently must be good to some man that 
 can afford to be good to them." The only differ- 
 ence then between Sister Liz, the respectable girl, 
 and Mrs. Warren, is hypocrisy and legal sanc- 
 tion. Sister Liz uses her money to buy back her 
 reputation from the Church and Society. The re- 
 spectable girl uses the sanction of the Church to 
 buy a decent income legitimately, and Mrs. Wttr- 
 
Mrs. Warren's Profession 183 
 
 ren plays her game without the sanction of either. 
 Hence she is the greatest criminal in the eyes of 
 the world. Yet Mrs. Warren is no less human 
 than most other women. In fact, as far as her 
 love for her daughter Vivian is concerned, she is 
 a superior sort of mother. That her daughter 
 may not have to face the same alternative as she, 
 -r- slave in a scullery for four shillings a week — 
 Mrs. Warren surrounds the girl with comfort 
 and ease, gives her an education, and thereby es- 
 tablishes between her child and herself an abyss 
 which nothing can bridge. Few respectable 
 mothers would do as much for their daughters^. 
 However, Mrs. Warren remains the outcast, 
 while all those who benefit by her profession, in- 
 cluding even her daughter Vivian, move in the 
 best circles. 
 
 Sir John Crofts, Mrs. Warren's business part- 
 ner, who has invested 40,000 pounds in Mrs. 
 Warren's house, drawing an income of 35 per 
 cent, out of it in the worst years, is a recognized 
 pillar of society and an honored member of his 
 class. Why not I 
 
 Crofts. The fact is, it's not what would be considered 
 exactly a high-class business in my set — the county set, 
 you know. . . . Not that there is any mystery about it: 
 don't think that. Of course you know by your mother's 
 being in it that it's perfectly straight and honest. I've 
 known her for many years; and I can say of her that 
 
184 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 she'd cut off her hands sooner than touch anything that 
 was not what it ought to be. . . , But you see you can't 
 mention such things in society. Once let out the word 
 hotel and everybody says you keep a public-house. You 
 wouldn't lilce people to say that of your mother, would 
 you? That's why we're so reserved about it. . . . Don't 
 turn up your nose at business, Miss Vivie: where would 
 your Newnhams and Girtons be without it? . . . You 
 wouldn't refuse the acquaintance of my mother's cousin, 
 the Duke of Belgravia, because some of the rents he gets 
 are earned in queer ways. You wouldn't cut the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, I suppose, because the Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Commissioners have a few publicans and sinners 
 among their tenants? Do you remember your iProfts 
 scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by 
 my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent, out of a 
 factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting 
 wages enough to live on. How d' ye suppose most of 
 them manage? Ask your mother. And do you expect 
 me to turn my back on 35 per cent, when all the rest are 
 pocketing what they can, like sensible men? No such 
 fool! If you're going to pick and choose your acquaint- 
 ances on moral principles, you'd better clear out of this 
 country, unless you want to cut yourself out of all decent 
 society. . . . The world isn't such a bad place as the 
 croakers make out. So long as you don't fly openly in 
 the face of society, society doesn't ask any inconvenient 
 questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads 
 who do. There are no secrets better kept than the 
 secrets that everybody guesses. In the society I can in- 
 troduce you to, no lady or gentleman would so far forget 
 
Mrs. Warren's Profession 185 
 
 themselves as to discuss my business affairs or your 
 mother's. 
 
 Indeed, no lady or gentleman would discuss the 
 profession of Mrs. Warren and her confreres. 
 But they partake of the dividends. When the 
 evil becomes too crying, they engage in vice cru- 
 sades, and call down the wrath of the Lord and 
 the brutality of the police upon the Mrs. Warrens" 
 and her victims. While the victlmlzers, the 
 Crofts, the Canterburys, Rev. Gardner — 
 Fivian's- own father and pious mouthpiece of the 
 Church — and the other patrons of Mrs. War- 
 ren's houses parade as the protectors of woman, 
 the home and the family. 
 
 To-day no one of the least intelligence denies 
 the cruelty, the injustice, the outrage of such a 
 state of affairs, any more than it is being denied 
 that the training of woman as a sex commodity 
 has left her any other source of income except to 
 sell herself to one man within marriage or to many 
 men outside of marriage. Only bigots and inex- 
 perienced girls like Vivian can say that " every- 
 body has some choice. The poorest girl alive 
 may not be able to choose between being Queen of 
 England or Principal of Newnham; but she can 
 choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, ac- 
 cording to her taste." 
 
 It is astonishing how little education and col- 
 lege degrees teach people. Had Vivian been 
 
1 86 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 compelled to shift for herself, she would have dis- 
 covered that neither rag-picking nor flower-sell- 
 ing brings enough to satisfy one's " taste." It is 
 not a question of choice, but of necessity, which 
 is the determining factor in most people's lives. 
 
 When Shaw flung Mrs. Warren into the smug 
 midst of society, even the educated Vivians knew 
 little of the compelling force which whips thou- 
 sands of women into prostitution. As to the 
 ignorant, their minds are a mental and spiritual 
 desert. Naturally the play caused consternation. 
 It still continues to serve as the red rag to the so- 
 cial bull. "Mrs. Warren's Prof ession " - infu- 
 'fiates because it goes to the bottom of our evils; 
 because it places the accusing finger upon the 
 sorest and most damnable spot in our social fabric 
 — SEX as woman's only commodity in the competi- 
 tive market of life. " An immoral and heretical 
 play," indeed, of very deep social significance. 
 
 MAJOR BARBARA 
 
 " Major Barbara " is of still greater social 
 importance, inasmuch as it points to the fact that 
 while charity and religion are supposed to minis- 
 ter to the poor, both institutions derive the|ir main 
 revenue from the poor by the perpetuation of the 
 evils both pretend to fight. 
 
 Major Barbara, the daughter of the world re- 
 
Major Barbara 187 
 
 nowned cannon manufacturer XJndershaft, has 
 joined die Salvation Army. The latter lays claim 
 to being the most humane religious institution, he- 
 cause — unlike other soul savers — it does not en- 
 tirely forget the needs of the body. It also 
 teaches that the greater the sinner the more glor- 
 ious the saving. But as no one is quite as black 
 as he is painted, it becomes necessary for those 
 who want to be saved, and incidentally to profit by 
 the Salvation Army, to invent sins — the blacker 
 the better. 
 
 Rummy. What am I to do? I can't starve. Them 
 Salvation lasses is dear girls; but the better you are the 
 worse they likes to think you were before they rescued 
 you. Why shouldn't they 'av' a bit o' credit, poor loves? 
 They're worn to rags by their work* And where would 
 they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on we're 
 no worse than other people? You know what ladies 
 and gentlemen are. 
 
 Price. Thievin' swine! . . . We're companions in 
 misfortune, Rummy. . . . 
 
 Rummy. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major 
 Barbara? 
 
 Price. No: I come here on my own. I'm goin' to 
 be Bronterre O'Brien Price, the converted painter. I 
 know wot they like. I'll tell 'em how I blasphemed and 
 gambled and wopped my poor old mother — 
 
 Rummy. Used you to beat your mother? 
 
 Price, Not likely. She used to beat me. No mat- 
 ter: you come and listen to the converted painter, and 
 you'll hear how she was a pious woman that taught me 
 
1 88 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 me prayers at 'er knee, an' how I used to come home 
 drunk and drag her out o' bed be 'er snow-white 'airs, 
 and lam into 'er with the poker. 
 
 Rummy. That's what's so unfair to us women. Your 
 confessions is just as big lies as ours : you don't tell what 
 you really done no more than us; but you men ckn tell 
 your lies right out at the meetin's and be made much of 
 for it; while the sort o' confessions we az to make 'as 
 to be whispered to one lady at a time. It ain't right, 
 spite of all their piety. 
 
 Price. Right! Do you suppose the Army'd be al- 
 lowed if it went and did right? Not much. It combs 
 our 'air and makes us good little blokes to be robbed and 
 put upon. But I'll play the game as good as any of 'em. 
 I'll see somebody struck by lightnin', or hear a voice 
 sayin', " Snobby Price: where will you spend eternity? " 
 I'll 'ave a time of it, I tell you. 
 
 / It is Inevitable that the Salvation Army, like all 
 (^ther religious and charitable institutions, should 
 by its very character foster cowardice and hypoc- 
 riW as a premium securing entry into heaven. 
 
 Major Barbara, being a novice, is as ignorant 
 of this as she is unaware of the source of the money 
 , which sustains her and the work of the Salva- 
 tion Army. She consistently refuses to accept 
 the " conscience sovereign " of Bill Walker for 
 beating up a Salvation lassie. Not so Mrs. 
 Baines, the Army Commissioner. She is dyed in 
 the wool in the profession of begging and will 
 take money from the devil himself " for the 
 
Major Barbara 189 
 
 Glory of God," — the Glory of God which con- 
 sists in " taking out the anger and bitterness 
 against the rich from the hearts of the poor," a 
 service " gratifying and convenient for all large 
 employers." No wonder the whisky distiller 
 Bodger makes the generous contribution of 5000 
 pounds and Undershaft adds his own little mite 
 of another 5000. 
 
 Barbara is indeed ignorant or she would not 
 protest against a fact so notorious: 
 
 Barbara. Do you know what my father is? Have 
 you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the 
 whisky man? Do you remember how we implored the 
 County Council to stop him from writing Bodger's 
 Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor 
 drink-ruined creatures on the embankment could not 
 wake up from their snatches of sleep without being re- 
 minded of their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? 
 Do you know that the worst thing that I have had to 
 fight here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger 
 with his whisky, his distilleries, and his tied houses? 
 Are you going to make our shelter another tied house, for 
 him, and ask me to keep it? 
 
 Undershaft. My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very 
 necessary article. It heals the sick — ... It assists the 
 doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of put- 
 ting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who 
 could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. 
 It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night 
 that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. 
 
190 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 Mrs. Baines. Barbara: Lord Saxmundham gives us 
 the money to stop drinking — to take his own business 
 from him. 
 
 Undershaft. I also, Mrs. Baines, may claim a little 
 disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the 
 widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces 
 with shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite! the oceans of 
 blood, not one drop of which is shed in a really just 
 cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants forced, 
 women and men, to till their fields under the fire of op- 
 posing armies on pain of starvation ! the bad blood of the 
 fierce cowards at home who egg on others to fight for 
 the gratification of national vanity! All this makes 
 money for me : I am never richer, never busier than when 
 the papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach 
 peace on earth and good will to men. Every convert 
 you make is a vote against war. Yet I give you this 
 money to hasten my own commercial ruin. 
 
 Barbara. Drunkenness and Murder! My God, why 
 hast thou forsaked me? 
 
 However, Barbare^s indignation does not last 
 very long, any more than that of her aristocratic 
 mother, Lady Britomart, who has no use for her 
 plebeian husband except when she needs his 
 money. Similarly Stephen, her son, has become 
 converted, like Barbara, not to the Glory Halle- 
 lujah of the Salvation Army but to the power 
 of money and cannon. Likewise the rest of the 
 family, including the Greek Scholar Cusins, Bar- 
 bara's suitor. 
 
Major Barbara 191 
 
 During the visit to their father's factory thd 
 Undershaft family makes several discoveries. 
 They learn that the best modern method of ac- 
 cumulating a large fortune consists in organizing 
 industries in such a manher as to make the work- 
 ers content with their slavery. It's a model fac- 
 tory. 
 
 Undershaft. It is a spotlessly clean and beautiful hill- 
 side town. There are two chapels: a Primitive one and 
 a sophisticated one. There's even an ethical society; but 
 it is not much patronized, as my men are all strongly 
 religious. In the high explosives sheds they object to the 
 presence of agnostics as unsafe. 
 
 The family further learns that it is not high 
 moral precepts, patriotic love of country, or sim- 
 ilar sentiments that are the backbone of the life 
 of the nation. It is Undershaft again who en- 
 lightens them of the power of money and its role 
 in dictating governmental policies, making war or 
 peace, and shaping the destinies of man. 
 
 Undershaft. The government of your country. I am 
 the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. Do 
 you suppose that you and a half a dozen amateurs like 
 you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can 
 govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you 
 will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits 
 usj and keep peace when it doesn't. You will find out 
 that trade requires certain measures when we have de- 
 
192 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 cided on those measures. When I want anything to 
 keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is 
 a national need. When other people want something to 
 keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and 
 military. And in return you shall have the support and 
 applause of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining 
 that you are a great statesman. Government of your 
 country! Be off with youj my boy, and play with your 
 caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great 
 leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys. 
 I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper 
 and call the tune. . . . To give arms to all men who 
 offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons 
 or principles: to Aristocrat and Republican, to Nihilist 
 and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and 
 Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man, white 
 man, and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all na- 
 tionalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and all crimes. 
 ... I will take an order from a good man as cheerfully 
 as from a bad one. If you good people prefer preaching 
 and shirking to buying my weapons and fighting the ras- 
 cals, don't blame me. I can make cannons: I cannot 
 make courage and conviction. 
 
 That is just it. The Undershafts cannot make 
 conviction and courage; yet both are indispens- 
 able if one is to see that, in the words of Under- 
 shaft: 
 
 " Cleanliness and respectability do not need justifica- 
 tion : they justify themselves. There are millions of poor 
 people, abject people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed 
 
'Major Barbara 193 
 
 people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill 
 the happiness of society: they force us to do away with 
 our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for 
 fear they should rise against us and drag us down into 
 their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. 
 I had rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be 
 a murderer than a slave. I don't want to be either; but 
 if you force the alternative on me, then, by Heaven, I'll 
 choose the braver and more moral one. I hate poverty 
 and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever." 
 
 Cusins, the scientist, realizes the force of Un- 
 dershaffs argument. Long enough have the 
 people been preached at, and intellectual power 
 used to enslave them. 
 
 Cusins. As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual 
 man weapons against the common man. I now want to 
 give the common man weapons against the intellectual 
 man. I love the common people. I want to arm them 
 against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the literary 
 man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who, 
 once in authority, are the most dangerous, disastrous, and 
 tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors. 
 
 This thought is perhaps the most revolutionary 
 sentiment in the whole play, in view of the fact 
 that the people everywhere are enslaved by the 
 awe of the lawyer, the professor, arid the poli- 
 tician, even more than by the club and gun. It is 
 the lawyer and the politician who poison the 
 
194 George Bernard Shaw 
 
 people with " the germ of briefs and politics," 
 thereby unfitting them for the only effective course 
 in the great social struggle — action, resultant 
 from the realization that poverty and inequality 
 never have been, never can be, preached or voted 
 out of existence. 
 
 Vndershaft, Poverty and slavery have stood up for 
 centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they will 
 not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them ; 
 don't reason with them. Kill them. 
 
 Barbara. Killing. Is that your remedy for every- 
 thing? 
 
 Undershaft. It is the final test of conviction, thp only 
 lever strong enough to overturn a social system, the only 
 way of saying Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools 
 loose in the street; and three policemen can scatter them. 
 But huddle them together in a certain house in West- 
 minster; and let them go through certain ceremonies and 
 call themselves certain names until at last they get the 
 courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools 
 become a government. Your pious mob fills up ballot 
 papers and imagines it is governing its masters; but the 
 ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a 
 bullet wrapped up in it. . . . Vote! Bah! When you 
 vote you only change the names of the cabinet. When 
 you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new 
 epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that his- 
 torically true, Mr. Learned Man, or is it not? 
 
 Cusins. It is historically true. I loathe having to 
 admit it. I repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your 
 
Major Barbara 195 
 
 nature. I defy you in every possible way. Still, it is 
 true. But it ought not to be true. 
 
 Undershaft. Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! 
 Are you going to spend your life saying ought, like the 
 rest of our moralists? Turn your oughts into shells, 
 man. Come and make explosives with me. The history 
 of the world is the history of those who had the courage 
 to embrace this truth. 
 
 " Major Barbara " is one of the most revolu- 
 tionary plays. In any other but dramatic form 
 the sentiments uttered therein would have con- 
 demned the author to long imprisonment for in- 
 citing to sedition and violence. 
 
 Shaw the Fabian would be the first to repudiate 
 such utterances as rank Anarchy, " impractical, 
 brain cracked and criminal." But Shaw the 
 dramatist is closer to life — closer to reality, 
 closer to the historic truth that the pec^ple wrest 
 only as much liberty as they have the intelligence 
 to want and the courage to take. 
 
JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 
 THE power of the modern drama as an 
 interpreter of the pressing questions of 
 our time is perhaps nowhere evident 
 as clearly as it is in England to-day. 
 
 Indeed, while other countries have come al- 
 most to a standstill in dramatic art, England is the 
 most productive at the present time. Nor can it 
 be said that quantity has been achieved at the ex- 
 pense of quality, which is only too often the case. 
 
 The most prolific English dramatist, John 
 Galsworthy, is at the same time a great artist 
 whose dramatic quality can be compared with that 
 of only one other living writer, namely, Gerhart 
 Hauptmann. Galsworthy, even as Hauptmann, is 
 neither a propagandist nor a moralist. His 
 background is life, " that palpitating life," which 
 is the root of all sorrow and joy. 
 
 His attitude toward dramatic art Is given in 
 the following words : 
 
 " I look upon the stage as the great beacon light 
 of civilization, but the drama should lead the so- 
 cial thought of the time and not direct or dictate it. 
 
 " The great duty of the dramatist is to present 
 life as it really is. A true story, if told sincerely, 
 
 196 
 
Strife 197 
 
 IS the strongest moral argument that can be put on 
 the stage. It Is the business of the dramatist so 
 to present the characters in his picture of life that 
 the inherent moral is brought to light without any 
 lecturing on his part, 
 
 " Moral codes in themselves are, after all, not 
 lasting, but a true picture of life is. A man may 
 preach a strong lesson in a play which may exist 
 for a day, but if he succeeds in presenting real life 
 itself in such a manner as to carry with it a certain 
 moral inspiration, the force of the message need 
 never be lost, for a new interpretation to fit the 
 spirit of the time can renew its vigor and power." 
 
 John Galsworthy has undoubtedly succeeded in 
 presenting real life. It is this that makes him so 
 thoroughly human and universal. 
 
 STRIFE 
 
 Not since Hauptmann's " Weavers " was 
 placed before the thoughtful public, has there ap- 
 peared anything more stirring than " Strife." 
 
 Its theme is a strike in the Trenartha Tin 
 Plate Works, on the borders of England and 
 Wales. The play largely centers about the two 
 dominant figures : John Anthony, the President of 
 the Company, rigid, autocratic and uncompromis- 
 ing; he is unwilling to make the slightest conces- 
 sion, although the men have been out for six 
 
198 John Galsworthy 
 
 months and are in a condition of semi-starvation. 
 On the other hand there is David Roberts, an un- 
 compromising revolutionist, whose devotion to 
 die workers and the cause of freedom is at red- 
 white heat. Between them are the strikers, worn 
 and weary with the terrible struggle, driven and 
 tortured by the awful sight of poverty at home. 
 
 At a directors' meeting, attended by the Com- 
 pany's representatives from London, Edgar An- 
 thony, the President's son and a man of kindly 
 feeling, pleads in behalf of the strikers. 
 
 Edgar. I don't see how we can get over it that to go 
 on like this means starvation to the men's wives and' fam- 
 ilies ... It won't kill the shareholders to miss a divi- 
 dend or two; I don't see that that's reason enough for 
 knuckling under. 
 
 Wilder, H'm! Shouldn't be a bit surprised if that 
 brute Roberts hadn't got us down here with the very 
 same idea. I hate a man with a grievance. 
 
 Edgar. We didn't pay him enough for his discovery. 
 I always said that at the time. 
 
 Wilder. We paid him five hundred and a bonus of 
 two hundred three years later. If that's not enough! 
 What does he want, for goodness' sake? 
 
 Tench. Company made a hundred thousand out of his 
 brains, and paid him seven hundred — that's the way he 
 goes on, sir. 
 
 Wilder. The man's a rank agitator! Look here, I 
 hate the Unions. But now we've got Harness here let's 
 get him to settle the whole thing. 
 
Strife 199 
 
 Harness, the trade union ofScial, speaks in 
 favor of compromise. In the beginning of the 
 strike the union had withdrawn its support, be- 
 cause the workers had used their own judgment in 
 deciding to strike. 
 
 Harness. I'm quite frank with you. We were forced 
 to withhold our support from your men because some of 
 their demands are in excess of current rates. I expect to 
 make them withdraw those demands to-day. . . • Now, I 
 want to see something fixed upon before I go back to- 
 night. Can't we have done with this old-fashioned tug- 
 of-war business? What good's it doing you? Why 
 don't you recognize once for all that these people are 
 men like yourselves, and want what's good for them just 
 as you want what's good for you. . . . There's just one 
 very simple question I'd like to put to you. Will you pay 
 your men one penny more than they force you to pay 
 them? 
 
 Of course not. With trade unionism lacking\ 
 in true solidarity, and the workers not conscious \ 
 of their power, why should the Company pay oney' 
 penny more ? David Roberts is the only one who 
 fully understands the situation. 
 
 Roberts. Justice from London? What are you talk- 
 ing about, Henry Thomas? Have you gone silly? We 
 know very well what we are — discontented dogjs — 
 never satisfied. What did the Chairman tell me up in 
 London ? That I didn't know what I was talking about. 
 I was a foolish, uneducated man, that knew nothing of 
 
200 John Galsworthy 
 
 the vrants of the men I spoke for. ... I have this to 
 say — and first as to their condition. ... Ye can't 
 squeeze them any more. Every man of us is well nigh 
 starving. Ye wonder why I tell ye that? Every man 
 of us is going short. We can't be no worse off than 
 we've been these weeks past. Ye needn't think that by 
 waiting ye'll drive us to come in. We'll die first, the 
 whole lot of us. The men have sent for ye to know, 
 once and for all, whether ye are going to grant them their 
 demands. . . . Ye know best whether ye can afford your 
 tyranny — but this I tell ye: If ye think the men will 
 give way the least part of an inch, ye're making the worst 
 mistake ye ever made. Ye think because the Union is 
 not supporting us — more shame to it! — that we'll be 
 coming on our knees to you one fine morning. Ye think 
 because the men have got their wives an' families to 
 think of — that it's just a question of a vireek or 
 two — . . . 
 
 The appalling state of the strikers is dem- 
 onstrated by the women : Anna Roberts, sick with 
 heart trouble and slowly dying for want of 
 warmth and nourishment; Mrs. Rous, so accus- 
 tomed to privation that her present poverty seems 
 easy compared with the misery of her whole life. 
 
 Into this dismal environment comes Enid, the 
 President's daughter, with delicacies and jams for 
 Annie. Like many women of her station she im- 
 agines that a little sympathy will bridge the chasm 
 between the classes, or as her father says, " You 
 
Strife 201 
 
 think with your gloved hands you can cure the 
 troubles of the century." 
 
 Enid does not know the life of Annie Roberts' 
 class : that it is all a gamble from the " time 'e 's 
 born to the time 'e dies." 
 
 Mrs. Roberts. Roberts says workin' folk have al- 
 ways lived from hand to mouth. Sixpence to-day is 
 worth more than a shillin' to-morrow, that's what they 
 say. . . . He says that when a working man's baby is 
 born, it's a toss-up from breath to breath whether it ever 
 draws another, and so on all 'is life; an' when he comes 
 to be old, it's the workhouse or the grave. He says that 
 without a man is very near, and pinches and stints 'imself 
 and 'is children to save, there can be neither surplus nor 
 security. That's why he wouldn't have no children, not 
 though I wanted them. 
 
 The strikers' meeting is a masterly study of 
 mass psychology, — the men swayed hither and 
 thither by the different speakers and not knowing 
 "whither to go. It is the smooth-tongued Harness 
 who first weakens their determination to hold out. 
 
 Harness. Cut your demands to the right pattern, and 
 we'll see you through; refuse, and don't expect me to 
 waste my time coming down here again. I'm not the 
 sort that speaks at random, as you ought to know by 
 this time. If you're the sound men I take you for — no 
 matter who advises you against it — you'll make up your 
 minds to come in, and trust to us to get your terms. 
 
202 John Galsworthy 
 
 Which is it to be ? Hands together, and victory — or — 
 the starvation you've got now? 
 
 Then Old Thomas appeals to their religious 
 sentiments : 
 
 Thomas. It iss not London; it iss not the Union — 
 it iss Nature. It iss no disgrace whateffer to a potty to 
 give in to Nature. For this Nature iss a fery pig thing; 
 it is pigger than what a man is. There is more years to 
 my hett than to the hett of anyone here. It is a man's 
 pisness to pe pure, honest, just, and merciful. That's 
 what Chapel tells you. . . . We're going the roat to 
 tamnation. An' so I say to allvpf you. If ye co against 
 Chapel I will not pe with you, nor will any other Got- 
 fearing man. 
 
 At last Roberts makes his plea, Roberts who 
 has given his all — brain, heart, and blood — aye, 
 sacrificed even his wife to the cause. By sheer 
 force of eloquence and sincerity he stays his fickle 
 comrades long enough at least to listen to him, 
 though they are too broken to rise to his great dig- 
 "nity and courage. 
 
 Roberts. You don't want to hear me then? You'll 
 listen to Rous and to that old man, but not to me. You'll 
 listen to Sim Harness of the Union that's treated you so 
 fair; maybe you'll listen to those men from London. . . . 
 You love their feet on your necks, don't you? . , . Am 
 I a liar, a coward, a traitor? If only I were, ye'd listen 
 to me, I'm sure. Is there a man of you here who has 
 
Strife 203 
 
 less to gain by striking? Is there a man of you that had 
 more to lose? Is there a man among you who has given 
 up eight hundred pounds since this trouble began? 
 Come, now, is there? How much has Thomas given up 
 — ten pounds or five or what? You listened to him, 
 and what had he to say? " None can pretend," he said, 
 " that I'm not a believer in principle — but when Nature 
 says : ' No further,' 'tes going against Nature ! " I 
 tell you if a man cannot say to Nature : " Budge me from 
 this if ye can ! " — his principles are but his belly. " Oh, 
 but," Thomas says, " a man can be pure and honest, just 
 and merciful, and take off his hat to Nature." I tell you 
 Nature's neither pure nor honest, just nor merciful. You 
 chaps that live over the hill, an' go home dead beat in the 
 dark on a snowy night — don't ye fight your way every 
 inch of it? Do ye go lyin' down an' trustin' to the ten- 
 der mercies of this merciful Nature? Try it and you'll 
 soon know with what ye've got to deal. 'Tes only by 
 that {he strikes a blow with his clenched fist) in Nature's 
 face that a man can be a man. " Give in," says Thomas ; 
 " go down on your knees ; throw up your foolish fight, an' 
 perhaps," he said, " perhaps your enemy will chuck you 
 down a crust." . . . And what did he say about Chapel ? 
 " Chapel's against it," he said. " She's against it." 
 Well, if Chapel and Nature go hand in hand, it's the 
 first I've ever heard of it. Surrendering's the work of 
 cowards and traitors. . . . You've felt the pinch o't in 
 your bellies. You've forgotten what that fight 'as been ; 
 many times I have told you ; I will tell you now this 
 once again. The fight o' the country's body and blood 
 against a blood-sucker. The fight of those that spend 
 
204 John Galsworthy 
 
 themselves with every blow they strike and every breath 
 they draw, against a thing that fattens on them, and 
 grows and grows by the law of merciful Nature. That 
 thing is Capital! A thing that buys the sweat o' men's 
 brows, and the tortures o' their brains, at its own price. 
 Don't I know that? Wasn't the work o' my brains 
 bought for seven hundred pounds, and hasn't one hun- 
 dred thousand pounds been gained them by that seven 
 hundred without the stirring of a finger. It is a thing 
 that will take as much and give you as little as it can. 
 That's Capital ! A thing that will say — " I'm very 
 sorry for you, poor fellows — you have a cruel time of it, 
 I know," but will not give one sixpence of its dividends 
 to help you have a better time. That's Capital!, Tell 
 me, for all their talk, is there one of them that will con- 
 sent to another penny on the Income Tax to help the 
 poor? That's Capital! A white-faced, stony-hearted 
 monster! Ye have got it on its knees; are ye to give up 
 at the last minute to save your miserable bodies pain? 
 When I went this morning to those old men from Lon- 
 don, I looked into their very 'earts. One of them was 
 sitting there — Mr. Scantlebury, a mass of flesh nour- 
 ished on us: sittin' there for all the world like the share- 
 holders in this Company, that sit not moving tongue nor 
 finger, takin' dividends — a great dumb ox that can only 
 be roused when its food is threatened. I looked into his 
 eyes and I saw he was afraid — afraid for himself and 
 his dividends, afraid for his fees, afraid of the very share- 
 holders he stands for ; and all but one of them's afraid — 
 like children that get into a wood at night, and start at 
 every rustle of the leaves. I ask you, men — give me a 
 
Strife 205 
 
 free hand to tell them : " Go you back to London. The 
 men have nothing for you ! " Give me that, and I swear 
 to you, within a week you shall have from London all 
 you want. 'Tis not for this little moment of time we're 
 fighting, not for ourselves, our own little bodies, and their 
 wants, 'tis for all those that come after throughout all 
 time. Oh ! men — for the love o' them, don't roll up 
 another stone upon their heads, don't help to blacken the 
 sky, an' let the bitter sea in over them. They're welcome 
 to the worst that can happen to me, to the worst that can 
 happen to us all, aren't they — aren't they? If we can 
 shake the white-faced monster with the bloody lips, that 
 has sucked the life out of ourselves, our wives, and chil- 
 dren, since the world began. If we have not the hearts 
 of men to stand against it breast to breast, and eye to eye, 
 and force it backward till it cry for mercy, it will go 
 on sucking life; and we shall stay forever what we are, 
 less than the very dogs. 
 
 Consistency is the greatest crime of our com- 
 mercial age. No matter how intense the spirit or 
 how important the man, the moment he will not 
 allow himself to be used or sell his principles, he 
 is thrown on the dust heap. Such is the fate of 
 Anthony, the President of the Company, and of 
 David Roberts. To be sure they represent oppo- 
 site poles — poles antagonistic to each other, 
 poles divided by a terrible gap that can never be 
 bridged over. Yet they share a common fate. 
 Anthony is the embodiment of conservatism, of 
 old ideas, of iron methods : 
 
2o6 John Galsworthy 
 
 Anthony. I have been Chairman of this Company 
 since its inception two and thirty years ago. ... I have 
 had to do vi^ith " men " for fifty years; I've always stood 
 up to them ; I have never been beaten yet. I have fought 
 the men of this Company four times, and four times I 
 have beaten them. . . . The men have been treated 
 justly, they have had fair wages, we have always been 
 ready to listen to complaints. It has been said that times 
 have changed; if they have, I have not changed with 
 them. Neither will I. It has been said that masters 
 and men are equal ! Cant ! There can only be one mas- 
 ter in a house! Where two men meet the better man 
 will rule. It has been said that Capital and Labor have 
 the same interests. Cant! Their interests are as wide 
 asunder as the poles. It has been said that the Board is 
 only part of a machine. Cant! We are the machine; 
 its brains and sinews ; it is for us to lead and to determine 
 what is to be done; and to do it without fear or favor. 
 Fear of the men! Fear of the shareholders! Fear of 
 our own shadows! Before I am like that, I hope to die. 
 There is only one way of treating " men " — with the 
 iron hand. This half-and-half business, the half-and-half 
 manners of this generation, has brought all this upon us. 
 Sentiments and softness and what this young man, no 
 doubt, would call his social policy. You can't eat cake 
 and have it! This middle-class sentiment, or socialism, 
 or whatever it may be, is rotten. Masters are masters, 
 men are men! Yield one demand, and they will make 
 it six. They are like Oliver Twist, asking for more. 
 If I were in their place I should be the same. But I am 
 not in their place. ... I have been accused of being a 
 
Strife 207 
 
 domineering tyrant, thinking only of my pride — I am 
 thinking of the future of this country, threatened with 
 the black waters of confusion, threatened with mob gov- 
 ernment, threatened with what I cannot say. If by any 
 conduct of mine I help to bring this on us, I shall be 
 ashamed to look my fellows in the face. Before I put 
 this amendment to the Board, I have one more word to 
 say. If it is carried, it means that we shall fail in what 
 we set ourselves to do. It means that we shall fail in 
 the duty that we owe to all Capital. It means that we 
 shall fail in the duty that we owe ourselves. 
 
 We may not like this adherence to old, reaction- 
 ary notions, and yet there is something admirable 
 in the courage and consistency of this man; nor 
 is he half as dangerous to the interests of the op- 
 pressed as our sentimental and soft reformers who 
 rob with nine fingers, and give libraries with the 
 tenth ; who grind human beings and spend millions 
 of dollars in social research work. Anthony is a 
 worthy foe ; to fight such a foe, one must learn to 
 meet him in open battle. 
 
 David Roberts has all the mental and moral at- 
 tributes of his adversary, coupled with the spirit 
 of revolt and the inspiration of modern ideas. 
 He, too, is consistent: he wants nothing for his 
 class short of complete victory. 
 
 It is inevitable that compromise and petty in- 
 terest should triumph until the masses become im- 
 bued with the spirit of a David Roberts. Will 
 
2o8 John Galsworthy 
 
 they ever? Prophecy is not the vocation of the 
 dramatist, yet the moral lesson is evident. One 
 cannot help realizing that the workingmen will 
 have to use methods hitherto unfamiliar to them ; 
 that they will have to discard the elements in their 
 midst that are forever seeking to reconcile the ir- 
 reconcilable — Capital and Labor. They will 
 have to learn that men like David Roberts are the 
 very forces that have revolutionized the world and 
 thus paved the way for emancipation out of the 
 clutches of the " white-faced monster with bloody 
 lips," toward a brighter horizon, a freer life, and a 
 truer recognition of human values. 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 No subject of equal social Import has received 
 such thoughtful consideration in recent years as 
 the question of Crime and Punishment. A num- 
 ber of books by able writers, both in Europe and 
 this country — preeminently among them " Prison 
 Memoirs of an Anarchist," by Alexander Berk- 
 man — discuss this topic from the historic, psycho- 
 logic, and social standpoint, the consensus of opin- 
 ion being that present penal Institutions and our 
 methods of coping with crime have in every re- 
 spect proved inadequate as well as wasteful. 
 This new attitude toward one of the gravest so- 
 
Justice 209 
 
 cial wrongs has now also found dramatic Interpre- 
 tation In Galsworthy's " Justice." 
 
 The play opens In the office of James How Of 
 Sons, solicitors. The senior clerk, Robert Coke- 
 son, discovers that a check he had Issued for nine 
 pounds has been forged to ninety. By elimina- 
 tion, suspicion falls upon William Falder, the 
 junior office clerk. The latter is in love with a 
 married woman, the abused and ill-treated wife of 
 a brutal drunkard. Pressed by his employer, a 
 severe yet not unkindly man, Falder confesses the 
 forgery, pleading the dire necessity of his sweet- 
 heart, Ruth Honeywill, with whom he had planned 
 to escape to save her from the unbearable bru- 
 tality of her husband. 
 
 Falder. Oh! sir, look over it! I'll pay the money 
 back — I will, I promise. 
 
 Notwithstanding the entreaties of young. Walter 
 How, who holds modem ideas, his father, a 
 moral and law-respecting citizen, turns Falder 
 over to the police. 
 
 The second act. In the court room, shows Justice 
 in the very process of manufacture. The scene 
 equals In dramatic power and psychologic verity 
 the great court scene in " Resurrection." Young 
 Falder, a nervous and rather weakly youth of 
 twenty-three, stands before the bar. Ruth, his 
 
2IO John Galsworthy 
 
 faithful sweetheart, full of love and devotion, 
 bui-ns with anxiety to save the young man, whose 
 affection for her has brought about his present pre- 
 dicament. Falder is defended by Lawyer Frame, 
 whose speech to the jury is a masterpiece of social 
 philosophy. He does not attempt to dispute the 
 mere fact that his client had altered the check; and 
 though he pleads temporary aberration in his de- 
 fense, the argument is based on a social conscious- 
 ness as fundamental and all-embracing as the roots 
 of our social ills — " the background of life, that 
 palpitating life which always lies behind the com- 
 mission of a crime." He shows Falder to have 
 faced the alternative of seeing the beloved woman 
 murdered by her brutal husband, whom she can- 
 not divorce, or of taking the law into his own 
 hands. He pleads with the jury not to turn the 
 weak young man into a criminal by condemning 
 him to prison. 
 
 Frome. Men, like the prisoner are destroyed daily 
 under our law for want of that human insight which sees 
 them as they are, patients, and not criminals. . . . Justice 
 is a machine that, when someone has given it a starting 
 push, rolls on of itself. ... Is this young man to be 
 ground to pieces under this machine for an act which, at 
 the worst, was one of weakness ? Is he to become a mem- 
 ber of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred 
 ships called prisons? ... I urge you, gentlemen, do not 
 ruin this young man. For as a result of those four min- 
 
Justice 211 
 
 utes, ruin, utter and irretrievable, stares him in the face. 
 . . . The rolling of the chariot wheels of Justice over 
 this boy began when it was decided to prosecute him. 
 
 But the chariot of Justice rolls mercilessly on, 
 for — as the learned Judge says — 
 
 " Your counsel has made an attempt to trace your of- 
 fense back to what he seems to suggest is a defect in the 
 marriage law; he has made an attempt also to show that 
 to punish you with further imprisonment would be un- 
 just. I do not follow him in these flights. The Law is 
 what it is — a majestic edifice, sheltering all of us, each 
 stone of which rests on another. I am concerned only 
 with its administration. The crime you have committed 
 is a very serious one. I cannot feel it in accordance with 
 my duty to Society to exercise the powers I have in your 
 favor. You will go to penal servitude for three years." 
 
 In prison the young, inexperienced convict soon 
 finds himself the victim of the terrible " system." 
 The authorities admit that young Falder is men- 
 tally and physically " in bad shape," but nothing 
 can be done in the matter: many others are in a 
 similar position, and " the quarters are inade- 
 quate." 
 
 The third scene of the third act is heart-gripping 
 in its silent force. The whole scene is a panto- 
 mime, taking place in Falder' s prison cell. 
 
 " In fast-falling daylight, Falder, in his stock- 
 ings, is seen standing motionless, with his head in- 
 
212 John Galsivorthy 
 
 cllned towards the door, listening. He moves a 
 little closer to the door, his stockinged feet making 
 no noise. He stops at the door. He is trying 
 harder and harder to hear something, any little 
 thing that is going on outside. He springs sud- 
 denly upright — as if at a sound — and remains 
 perfectly motionless. Then, with a heavy sigh, 
 he moves to his work, and stands looking at it, 
 with his head down ; he does a stitch or two, hav- 
 ing the air of a man so lost in sadness that each 
 stitch is, as it were, a coming to life. Then, turn- 
 ing abruptly, he begins pacing his cell, moving his 
 head, like an animal pacing its cage. He stops 
 again at the door, listens, and, placing the palms 
 of his hands against it, with his fingers spread out, 
 leans his forehead against the iron. Turning 
 from it, presently, he moves slowly back towards 
 the window, tracing his way with his finger along 
 the top line of the distemper that runs round 
 the wall. He stops under the window, and, pick- 
 ing up the lid of one of the tins, peers into it. It 
 has grown very nearly dark. Suddenly the lid 
 falls out of his hand with a clatter — the only 
 sound that has broken the silence — and he stands 
 staring intently at the wall where the stuff of the 
 shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness — he 
 seems to be seeing somebody or something there. 
 There is a sharp tap and click; the cell light be- 
 hind the glass screen hgis bpeja turned up. The 
 
Justice 213 
 
 cell is brightly lighted. Folder is seen gasping 
 for breath. 
 
 "A sound from far away, as of distant, dull 
 beating on thick metal, is suddenly audible. Falder 
 shrinks back, not able to bear this sudden clamor. 
 But the sounds grows, as though some great tum- 
 bril were rolling towards the cell. And gradu- 
 ally it seems to hypnotize him. He begins creep- 
 ing inch by inch nearer to the door. The banging 
 sound, traveling from cell to cell, draws closer 
 and closer; F alder's hands are seen moving as if 
 his spirit had already joined in this beating; and 
 the sound swells until it seems to have entered the 
 very cell. He suddenly raises his clenched fists. 
 
 " Panting violently, he flings himself at his door, 
 and beats on it." 
 
 Falder leaves the prison, a broken ticket-of- 
 leave man, the stamp of the convict upon his brow, 
 the iron of misery in his souL 
 
 Falder. I seem to be struggling against a thing that's 
 all round me. I can't explain it: it's as if I was in a 
 net; as fast as I cut it here, it grows up there. I didn't 
 act as I ought to have, about references; but what are 
 you to do? You must have them. And that made me 
 afraid, and I left. In fact, I'm — I'm afraid all the time 
 now. 
 
 Thanks to Ruth's pleading, the firm of James 
 How £sf Son is willing to take Falder back in their 
 
214 John Galsworthy 
 
 employ, on condition that he give up Ruth. Fol- 
 der resents this : 
 
 Folder. I couldn't give her up. I couldn't! Oh, 
 sir! I'm all she's got to look to. And I'm sure she's all 
 I've got. 
 
 It is then that Folder learns the awful news that 
 the woman he loves had been driven by the chariot 
 wheel of Justice to sell herself. 
 
 Ruth. I tried making skirts . . . cheap things. It 
 was the best I could get, but I never made more than ten 
 shillings a week, buying my own cotton and working all 
 day; I hardly ever got to bed till past twelve. I kept at 
 it for nine months. ... It was starvation for the chil- 
 dren. . . . And then ... my employer happened — he's 
 happened ever since. 
 
 At this terrible psychologic moment the police 
 appear to drag Folder back to prison for failing 
 to report to the authorities as ticket-of-leave man. 
 
 Completely overcome by the inexorability of his 
 fate. Folder throws himself down the stairs, break- 
 ing his neck. 
 
 The socio-irevolutionary significance of " Jus- 
 tice " consists not only in the portrayal of the In- 
 human system which grinds the Falders and 
 HoneywIUs, but even more so in the utter helpless- 
 ness of society as expressed in the words of the 
 Senior Clerk, Cokeson, " No one'U touch him 
 
The Pigeon 215 
 
 now! Never again I He's safe with gentle 
 Jesus 1" 
 
 THE PIGEON 
 
 John Galsworthy calls this play a fantasy. 
 To me it seems cruelly real: it demonstrates that 
 the best human material is crushed in the fatal 
 imechanism of our life. " The Pigeon " also dis- 
 closes to us the inadequacy of charity, individual 
 and organized, to cope with poverty, as well as the 
 absurdity of reformers and experimenters who at- 
 tempt to patch up efFects while they ignore the 
 causes. 
 
 Christopher fVellwyn, an artist, a man deeply 
 in sympathy with all human sorrow and failings, 
 generously shares his meager means with everyone 
 who applies to him for help. 
 
 His daughter Ann is of a more practical turn 
 of mind. She cannot understand that giving isi 
 as natural and necessary to her father as light and 
 air; indeed, the greatest joy in life. 
 
 Perhaps Ann is actuated by anxiety for her 
 father who is so utterly " hopeless " that he would 
 give away his " last pair of trousers." From her 
 point of view " people who beg are rotters " : de- 
 cent folk would not stoop to begging. But Chris- 
 topher Wellwyn's heart- is too full of humanity to 
 admit of such a straight-laced attitude. " We're 
 
2i6 John Galsworthy 
 
 not all the same. . . . One likes to be friendly. 
 What's the use of being alive if one isn't? " 
 
 Unfortunately most people are not alive to the 
 tragedies around them. They are often unthinking 
 mechanisms, mere tabulating machines, like Alfred 
 Calway, the Professor, who believes that " we're 
 to give the State all we can spare, to make the 
 undeserving deserving." Or as Sir Hoxton, the 
 Justice of the Peace, who insists that " we ought to 
 support private organizations for helping the de- 
 serving, and damn the undeserving." Finally 
 there is the Canon who religiously seeks the mid- 
 dle road and " wants a little of both." 
 
 When Ann concludes that her father is the de- 
 spair of all social reformers, she is but expressing 
 a great truism ; namely, that social reform is a cold 
 and bloodless thing that can find no place in the 
 glowing humanity of Christopher Wellwyn. 
 
 It is Christmas Eve, the birth of Him who came 
 to proclaim " Peace on earth, good will to all." 
 Christopher Wellwyn is about to retire when he is 
 disturbed by a knock on the door. 
 
 The snow-covered, frost-pinched figure of 
 Guinevere Megan appears. She is a flower-seller 
 to whom Wellwyn had once given his card that 
 she might find him in case of need. She comes to 
 him when the rest of the world has passed her by,. 
 
The Pigeon 217 
 
 forlorn and almost as dead as her violets which no 
 one cares to buy. 
 
 At sight of her misery Wellwyn forgets his 
 daughter's practical admonition and his promise 
 to her not to be " a fool." He treats the flower- 
 seller tenderly, makes her warm and comfortable. 
 He has barely time to show Guinevere into his 
 model's room, when another knock is heard. 
 This time it is Ferrand, " an alien," a globe trot- 
 ter without means, — a tramp whom Wellwyn had 
 once met in the Champs-Elysees. Without food 
 for days and unable to endure the cold, Ferrand 
 too comes to the artist. 
 
 Ferrand. If I had not found you, Monsieur — I 
 would have been a little hole in the river to-night — I 
 was so discouraged. . . . And to think that in a few min- 
 utes He will be born! . . . The world would reproach 
 you for your goodness to me. Monsieur, if He himself 
 were on earth now, there would be a little heap of gen- 
 tlemen writing to the journals every day to call him 
 sloppee sentimentalist! And what is veree funny, these 
 gentlemen they would all be most strong Christians. 
 But that will not trouble you, Monsieur; I saw well 
 from the first that you are no Christian. You have so 
 kind a face, 
 
 Ferrand has deeper insight into the character of 
 Christopher Wellwyn than his daughter. He 
 knows that the artist would not judge nor could he 
 
2i8 John Galsworthy 
 
 refuse one whom misery stares in the face. Even 
 the third visitor of fVellwyn, the old cabman Tim- 
 son, with more whisky than bread in his stomach, 
 receives the same generous reception as the other 
 two. 
 
 The next day Ann calls a council of war. The 
 learned Professor, Alfred Calway; the wise judge, 
 Sir Thomas Hoxton; and the professional Chris- 
 tian, Edmard Bertley — the Canon — are sum- 
 moned to decide the fate of the three outcasts. 
 
 There are few scenes in dramatic literature so 
 rich in satire, so deep in the power of analysis as 
 the one in which these eminent gentlemen discuss 
 human destiny. Canon Bertley is emphatic that it 
 is necessary to " remove the temptation and re- 
 form the husband of the flower-seller." 
 
 Bertley. Now, what is to be done? 
 
 Mrs. Megan. I could get an unfurnished room, if I'd 
 the money to furnish it. 
 
 Bertley. Never mind the money. What I want to 
 find in you is repentance. 
 
 Those who are engaged in saving souls cannot 
 be interested in such trifles as money matters, nor 
 to understand the simple truth that if the Megans 
 did not have to bother with making a " livin'," 
 repentance would take care of itself. 
 
 The other two gentlemen are more worldly, 
 since law and science cannot experiment with 
 
The Pigeon 219 
 
 such elusive things as the soul. Professor Calway 
 opines that Timson is a congenital case, to be put 
 under observation, while Judge Hoxton decides 
 that he must be sent to prison. 
 
 Calway. Is it, do you think, chronic unemployment 
 with a vagrant tendency? Or would it be nearer the 
 mark to say: Vagrancy — Dipsomaniac? ... By the 
 look of his face, as far as one can see it, I should say 
 there was a leaning towards mania. I know the treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Hoxton. Hundreds of these fellows before me in my 
 time. The only thing is a sharp lesson! 
 
 Calway. I disagree. I've seen the man; what he re- 
 quires is steady control, and the Dobbins treatment. 
 
 Hoxton. Not a bit of it ! He wants one for his knob ! 
 Bracing him up! It's the only thing! 
 
 Calway. You're moving backwards. Sir Thomas. 
 I've told you before, convinced reactionaryism, in these 
 days — The merest sense of continuity — a simple instinct 
 for order — 
 
 Hoxton. The only way to get order, sir, is to bring 
 the disorderly up with a round turn. You people with- 
 out practical experience — 
 
 Calway. The question is a much wider one. Sir 
 Thomas. 
 
 Hoxton. No, sir, I repeat, if the country once com- 
 mits itself to your views of reform, it's as good as doomed. 
 
 Calway. I seem to have heard that before, Sir 
 Thomas. And let me say at once that your hitty-missy 
 cart-load of bricks regime — 
 
220 John Galsworthy 
 
 Hoxton. Is a deuced sight better, sir, than your grand- 
 motherly methods. What the old fellow wants is a 
 shock! With all this socialistic molly-coddling, you're 
 losing sight of the individual. 
 
 Calway. You, sir, with your " devil take the hind- 
 most," have never seen him. 
 
 The farce ends by each one insisting on the su- 
 periority of his own pet theory, while misery con- 
 tinues to stalk white-faced through the streets. 
 
 Three months later Ann determines to rescue 
 her father from his disreputable proclivities by 
 removing with him to a part of the city where their 
 address will remain unknown to his beggar friends 
 and acquaintances. 
 
 While their belongings are being removed, 
 Canon Bertley relates the trouble he had with 
 Mrs. Megan. 
 
 Bertley. I consulted with Calway and he advised me 
 to try a certain institution. We got her safely in — 
 excellent place; but, d'you know, she broke out three 
 weeks ago. And since — I've heard — hopeless, I'm 
 afraid — quite! ... I'm sometimes tempted to believe 
 there's nothing for some of these poor folk but to pray 
 for death. 
 
 Wellwyn. The Professor said he felt there was noth- 
 ing for some of these poor devils but a lethal chamber. 
 
 What is science for if not to advise a lethal 
 chamber? It's the easiest way to dispose of " the 
 
The Pigeon 22i 
 
 unfit " and to supply learned professors with the 
 means of comfortable livelihood. 
 
 Yet there is Ferrand, the vagabond, the social 
 outcast who has never seen the inside of a uni- 
 versity, propounding a philosophy which very few 
 professors even dream of: 
 
 Ferrand. While I was on the road this time I fell ill 
 of a fever. It seemed to me in my illness that I saw the 
 truth — how I was wasting in this world — I would 
 never be good for anyone — nor anyone for me — all 
 would go by, and I never of it — fame, and fortune, and 
 peace, even the necessities of life, ever mocking me. And 
 I saw, so plain, that I should be vagabond all my days, 
 and my days short ; I dying in the end the death of a dog. 
 I saw it all in my fever — clear as that flame — there 
 was nothing for us others, but the herb of death. And 
 so I wished to die. I told no one of my fever. I lay out 
 on the ground — it was verree cold. But they would 
 not let me die on the roads of their parishes — They 
 took me to an Institution. I looked in their eyes while 
 I lay there, and I saw more clear than the blue heaven 
 that they thought it best that I should die, although they 
 would not let me. Then naturally my spirit rose, and I 
 said : " So much the worse for you. I will live a little 
 more." One is made like that! Life is sweet. That 
 little girl you had here. Monsieur — in her too there is 
 something of wild savage. She must have joy of life. 
 I have seen her since I came back. She has embraced 
 the life of joy. It is not quite the same thing. She is 
 lost, Monsieur, as a stone that sinks in water. I can 
 
222 John Galsworthy 
 
 see, if she cannot. . . . For the great part of mankind, 
 to see anything — is fatal. No, Monsieur. To be so 
 near to death has done me good; I shall not lack courage 
 any more till the wind blows on my grave. Since I saw 
 you, Monsieur, I have been in three Institutions. They 
 are palaces. . . . One little thing they lack — those pal- 
 aces. It is understanding of the 'uman heart. In them 
 tame birds pluck wild birds naked. Ah! Monsieur, I 
 am loafer, waster — what you like — for all that, pov- 
 erty is my only crime. If I were rich, should I not be 
 simply verree original, 'ighly respected, with soul above 
 commerce, traveling to see the world? And that young 
 girl, would she not be " that charming ladee," " veree 
 chic, you know ! " And the old Tims — good old-fash- 
 ioned gentleman — drinking his liquor well. Eh ! bien 
 
 — what are we now? Dark beasts, despised by all. 
 That is life. Monsieur. Monsieur, it is just that. You 
 understand. When we are with you we feel something 
 
 — here — If I had one prayer to make, it would be, 
 " Good God, give me to understand ! " Those sirs, with 
 their theories, they can clean our skins and chain our 
 'abits — that soothes for them the aesthetic sense; it gives 
 them too their good little importance. But our spirits 
 they cannot touch, for they nevare understand. Without 
 that, Monsieur, all is dry as a parched skin of orange. 
 Monsieur, of their industry I say nothing. They do a 
 good work while they attend with their theories to the 
 sick and the tame old, and the good unfortunate deserv- 
 ing. Above all to the little children. But, Monsieur, 
 when all is done, there are always us hopeless ones. 
 What can they do with me. Monsieur, with that girl, or 
 
The Pigeon 223 
 
 with that old man? Ah! Monsieur, we too, 'ave our 
 qualities, we others — it wants you courage to undertake 
 a career lilce mine, or like that young girl's. We wild 
 ones — we know a thousand times more of life than ever 
 will those sirs. They waste their time trying to make 
 rooks white. Be kind to us if you will, or let us alone 
 like Mees Ann, but do not try to change our skins. 
 Leave us to live, or leave us to die when we like in the 
 free air. If you do not wish of us, you have but to shut 
 your pockets and your doors — we shall die the faster. 
 ... If you cannot, how is it our fault? The harm we 
 do to others — is it so much? If I am criminal, dan- 
 gerous — shut me up! I would not pity myself — 
 nevare. But we in whom something moves — like that 
 flame, Monsieur, that cannot keep still — we others — 
 we are not many — that must have motion in our lives, 
 do not let them make us prisoners, with their theories, 
 because we are not like them — it is life itself they would 
 enclose! . . . The good God made me so that I would 
 rather walk a whole month of nights, hungry, with the 
 stars, than sit one single day making round business on 
 an office stool! It is not to my advantage. I cannot 
 help it that I am a vagabond. What would you have? 
 It is stronger than me. Monsieur, I say to you things 
 I have never said. Monsieur! Are you really English? 
 The English are so civilized. 
 
 Truly the English are highly " civilized " ; else 
 it would be impossible to explain why of all the na- 
 tions on earth, the Anglo-Saxons should be the 
 only ones to punish attempts at suicide. 
 
224 John Galsworthy 
 
 Society makes no provision whatever for the 
 Timsons, the Ferrands and Mrs. Megans. It has 
 closed the door in their face, denying them a seat 
 at the table of life. Yet when Guinevere Megan 
 attempts to drown herself, a benevolent constable 
 drags her out and a Christian Judge sends her to 
 the workhouse. 
 
 Constable. Well, sir, we can't get over the facts, can 
 we? . . . You know what soocide amounts to — it's an 
 awkward job. 
 
 Wellwyn. But look here, Constable, as a reasonable 
 man — This poor wretched little girl — you know what 
 that life means better than anyone! Why! It's to her 
 credit to try and jump out of it! 
 
 Constable. Can't neglect me duty, sir; that's impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Wellwyn. Of all the d d topsy-turvy — ! Not 
 
 a soul in the world wants her alive — and now she is to 
 be prosecuted for trying to go where everyone wishes her. 
 
 Is it necessary to dwell on the revolutionary sig- 
 nificance of this cruel reality? It is so all-embrac- 
 ing in its sweep, so penetrating of the topsy-tur- 
 viness of our civilization, with all its cant and arti- 
 fice, so powerful in its condemnation of our cheap 
 theories and cold institutionalism which freezes the 
 soul and destroys the best and finest in our being. 
 The Wellwyns, Ferrands, and Megans are the stuff 
 out of which a real humanity might be fashioned. 
 They feel the needs of their fellows, and what- 
 
The Pigeon 225 
 
 ever is in their power to give, they give as nature 
 does, unreservedly. But the Hoxtons, Calways 
 and Bertleys have turned the world into a dismal 
 prison and mankind into monotonous, gray, dull 
 shadows. 
 
 The professors, judges, and preachers cannot 
 meet the situation. Neither can Wellwyn, to be 
 sure. And yet his very understanding of the dif- 
 ferentiation of human nature, and his sympathy 
 with the inevitable reaction of conditions upon it, 
 bring the Wellwyns much closer to the solution 
 of our evils than all the Hoxtons, Calways and 
 Bertleys put together. This deep conception of 
 social factors is in Itself perhaps the most signifi- 
 cant lesson taught in " The Pigeon." 
 
STANLEY HOUGHTON 
 
 HINDLE WAKES 
 
 IN Stanley Houghton, who died last year, the 
 drama lost a talented and brave artist. 
 Brave, because he had the courage to touch 
 one of the most sensitive spots of Puritanism 
 — woman's virtue. Whatever else one may criti- 
 cise or attack, the sacredness of virtue must re- 
 main untouched. It is the last fetich which even 
 so-called liberal-minded people refuse to destroy. 
 To be sure, the attitude towards this holy of 
 holies has of late years undergone a considerable 
 change. It is beginning to be felt in ever-growing 
 circles that love is its own justification, requiring 
 no sanction of either religion or law. The revolu- 
 tionary idea, however, that woman may, even as 
 man, follow the urge of her nature, has never be- 
 fore been so sincerely and radically expressed/ 
 
 The message of " Hindle Wakes " is therefore 
 of inestimable value, inasmuch as it dispels the fog 
 of the silly sentimentalism and disgusting bombast 
 that declares woman a thing apart from nature — 
 one who neither does nor must crave the joys of 
 life permissible to man. 
 
 Hindle is a small weaving town, symbolically 
 
 226 
 
Hindle Wakes 227 
 
 representing the wakefulness of every small com- 
 munity to the shortcomings of its neighbors. 
 
 Christopher Hawthorne and Nathaniel Jeffcote 
 had begun life together as lads in the cotton mill. 
 But while Christopher was always a timid and 
 shrinking boy, Nathaniel was aggressive and am- 
 bitious. When the play opens, Christopher, 
 though an old man, is still a poor weaver; Na- 
 thaniel, on the contrary, has reached the top of fi- 
 nancial and social success. He is the owner of the 
 biggest mill; is wealthy, influential, and withal a 
 man of power. For Nathaniel Jeffcote always 
 loved power and social approval. Speaking of 
 the motor he bought for his only son Alan, he tells 
 his wife : 
 
 Jeffcote. Why did I buy a motor-car? Not because 
 I wanted to go motoring. I hate it. I bought it so that 
 people could see Alan driving about in it, and say, 
 " There's JefEcote's lad in his new car. It cost five hun- 
 dred quid." 
 
 However, Nathaniel is a " square man," and 
 when facing an emergency, not chary with jus- 
 tice and always quick to decide in its favor. 
 
 The Jeffcotes center all their hopes on Alan, 
 their only child, who is to inherit their fortune and 
 business. Alan is engaged to Beatrice, the lovely, 
 sweet daughter of Sir Timothy Farrar, and all is 
 joyous at the Jeffcotes'. 
 
228 Stanley Houghton 
 
 Down in the valley of Hindle live the Haw- 
 thornes, humble and content, as behooves God- 
 fearing workers. They too have ambitions in be- 
 half of their daughter Fanny, strong, willful and 
 self-reliant, — qualities molded in the hard grind 
 of Jef cote's mill, where she had begun work as a 
 tot. 
 
 During the " bank holiday " Fanny with her 
 chum Mary goes to a neighboring town for an 
 outing. There they meet two young men, Alan 
 Jef cote and his friend. Fanny departs with Alan, 
 and they spend a glorious time together. On the 
 way home Mary is drowned. As a result of the 
 accident the Hawthornes learn that their daughter 
 had not spent her vacation with Mary. When 
 Fanny returns, they question her, and though she 
 at first refuses to give an account of herself, 
 they soon discover that the girl had passed the 
 time with a man, — young Alan Jef cote. Her 
 parents are naturally horrified, and decide to force 
 the Jef cotes to have Alan marry Fanny. 
 
 In the old mother of Fanny the author has suc- 
 ceeded in giving a most splendid characterization 
 of the born drudge, hardened by her long struggle 
 with poverty, and grown shrewd In the ways of the 
 world. She knows her daughter so little, how- 
 ever, that she believes Fanny had schemed the af- 
 fair with Alan in the hope that she might force him 
 to marry her. In her imagination the old woman 
 
H indie Wakes 229 
 
 already sees Fanny as the mistress of the Jeffcote 
 estate. She persuades her husband to go immedi- 
 ately to the Jeffeotes, and though it is very late at 
 night, the old man is forced to start out on his dis- 
 agreeable errand. 
 
 Jeffcote, a man of integrity, is much shocked at 
 the news brought to him by old Hawthorne. 
 Nevertheless he will not countenance the wrong. 
 
 Jeffcote. I'll see you're treated right. Do you hear? 
 Christopher. I can't ask for more than that. 
 Jeffcote. I'll see you're treated right. 
 
 Young /^lan had never known responsibility. 
 Why should he, with so much wealth awaiting 
 him? When confronted by his father and told 
 that he must marry Fanny, he fights hard against 
 it. It may be said, in justice to Jlan, that he 
 really loves his betrothed, Beatrice, though such a 
 circumstance has never deterred the Alans from 
 having a lark with another girl. 
 
 The young man resents his father's command to 
 marry the mill girl. But when even Beatrice in- 
 sists that he belongs to Fanny, Alan unwillingly 
 consents. Beatrice, a devout Christian, believes 
 in renunciation. 
 
 Beatrice. I do need you, Alan. So much that noth- 
 ing on earth could make me break off our engagement, 
 if I felt that it was at all possible to let it go on. But 
 it isn't. It's impossible. 
 
230 Stanley Houghton 
 
 Alan. And you want me to marry Fanny? 
 
 Beatrice. Yes. Oh, Alan! can't you see what a 
 splendid sacrifice you have it in your power to make? 
 Not only to do the right thing, but to give up so much 
 in order to do it. 
 
 The Jef cotes and the Hawthornes gather to ar- 
 range the. marriage of their children. It does not 
 occur to them to consult Fanny in the matter. 
 Much to their consternation, Fanny refuses to 
 abide by the decision of the family council. 
 
 Fanny. It's very good of you. You'll hire the par- 
 son and get the license and make all the arrangements 
 on your own without consulting me, and I shall have 
 nothing to do save turn up meek as a lamb at the church 
 or registry office or whatever it is. . . . That's just where 
 ^you make the mistake. I don't want to marry Alan. . . . 
 I mean what I say, and I'll trouble you to talk to me 
 without swearing at me. I'm not one of the family yet. 
 
 The dismayed parents, and even Alan, plead 
 with her and threaten. But Fanny is obdurate. 
 At last Alan asks to be left alone with her, confi- 
 dent that he can persuade the girl, 
 
 Alan. Look here, Fanny, what's all this nonsense 
 about? . . . Why won't you marry me? 
 
 Fanny. You can't understand a girl not jumping at 
 you when she gets the chance, can you? . . . How is it 
 that you aren't going to marry Beatrice Farrar? 
 Weren't you fond of her? 
 
Hindle Wakes 231 
 
 Alan. Very. ... I gave her up because my father 
 made me. 
 
 Fanny. Made you ? Good Lord, a chap of your age ! 
 
 Alan. My father's a man who will have his own 
 way. . . . He can keep me short of brass. 
 
 Fanny. Earn some brass. 
 
 Alan. I can earn some brass, but it will mean hard 
 work and it'll take time. And, after all, I shan't earn 
 anything like what I get now. 
 
 Fanny. Then all you want to wed me for is what 
 you'll get with me ? I'm to be given away with a pound 
 of tea, as it were? 
 
 Alan. I know why you won't marry me. . . . You're 
 doing it for my sake. 
 
 Fanny. Don't you kid yourself, my lad! It isn't be- 
 cause I'm afraid of spoiling your life that I'm refusing 
 you, but because I'm afraid of spoiling mine! That 
 didn't occur to you? 
 
 Alan. Look here, Fanny, I promise you I'll treat you 
 fair all the time. You don't need to fear that folk'U 
 look down on you. We shall have too much money for 
 that. 
 
 Fanny. I can manage all right on twenty-five bob a 
 week. 
 
 Alan. I'm going to fall between two stools. It's all 
 up with Beatrice, of course. And if you won't have me 
 I shall have parted from her to no purpose; besides get- 
 ting kicked out of the house by my father, more than 
 likely ! You said you were fond of me once, but it hasn't 
 taken you long to alter. 
 
 Fanny. All women aren't built alike. Beatrice is 
 
232 Stanley Houghton 
 
 religious. She'll be sorry for you. I was fond of you 
 in a way. 
 
 Alan. But you didn't ever really love me ? 
 
 Fanny. Love you? Good heavens, of course not! 
 Why on earth should I love you? You were just some- 
 one to have a bit of fun with. You were an amuse- 
 ment — a lark. How much more did you care for me? 
 
 Alan. But it's not the same. I'm a man. 
 
 Fanny. You're a man, and I was your little fancy. 
 Well, I'm a woman, and you were my little fancy. You 
 wouldn't prevent a woman enjoying herself as well as a 
 man, if she takes it into her head? 
 
 Alan. But do you mean to say that you didn't care 
 any more for me than a fellow cares for any girl he hap- 
 pens to pick up? 
 
 Fanny. Yes. Are you shocked? 
 
 Alan. It's a bit thick; it is really! 
 
 Fanny. You're a beauty to talk! 
 
 Alan. It sounds so jolly immoral. I never thought 
 of a girl looking on a chap just like that! I made sure 
 you wanted to marry me if you got the chance. 
 
 Fanny. No fear! You're not good enough for me. 
 The chap Fanny Hawthorn weds has got to be made of 
 different stuff from you, my lad. My husband, if ever 
 I have one, will be a man, not a fellow who'll throw over 
 his girl at his father's bidding! Strikes me the sons of 
 these rich manufacturers are all much alike. They seem 
 a bit weak in the upper story. It's their father's brass 
 that's too much for them, happen! . . . You've no call 
 to be afraid. I'm not going to disgrace you. But so 
 
H in die Wakes 233 
 
 long as I've to live my own life I don't see why I 
 shouldn't choose what it's to be. 
 
 Unheard of, is it not, that a Fanny should re- 
 fuse to be made a " good woman," and that she 
 should dare demand the right to live in her own 
 way? It has always been considered the most 
 wonderful event in the life of a girl if a young 
 man of wealth, of position, of station came into 
 her life and said, " I will take you as my wife until 
 death do us part." 
 
 But a new type of girlhood is in the making. 
 We are developing the Fannies who learn in the 
 school of life, the hardest, the crudest and at the 
 same time the most vital and instructive school. 
 Why should Fanny marry a young man in order to 
 become " good," any more than that he should 
 marry her in order to become good? Is it not be- 
 cause we have gone on for centuries believing that 
 woman's value, her integrity and position in so- 
 ciety center about her sex and consist only in her 
 virtue, and that all other usefulness weighs naught 
 in the balance against her " purity " ? If she dare 
 express her sex as the Fannies do, we deny her in- 
 dividual and social worth, and stamp her fallen. 
 
 The past of a man is never questioned: no 
 one inquires how many Fannies have been in his 
 life. Yet man has the impudence to expect the 
 Fannies to abstain till he is ready to bestow on 
 them his name. 
 
234 Stanley Houghton 
 
 " Hindle Wakes " is a much needed and Impor- 
 tant social lesson, — not because it necessarily in- 
 volves the idea that every girl must have sex ex- 
 perience before she meets the man she loves, but 
 rather that she has the right to satisfy, if she so 
 chooses, her emotional and sex demands like any 
 other need of her mind and body. When the 
 Fannies become conscious of that right, the rela- 
 tion of the sexes will lose the shallow romanticism 
 and artificial exaggeration that mystery has sur- 
 rounded It with, and assume a wholesome, natural, 
 and therefore healthy and normal expression. 
 
GITHA SOWERBY 
 
 RUTHERFORD AND SON 
 
 THE women's rights women who claim 
 for their sex the most wonderful things 
 in the way of creative achievement, will 
 find it difficult to explain the fact that 
 until the author of " Rutherford and Son " made 
 her appearance, no country had produced a single 
 woman dramatist of note. 
 
 That is the more remarkable because woman 
 has since time immemorial been a leading figure in 
 histrionic art. Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, Elea- 
 nore Duse, and scores of others have had few male 
 peers. 
 
 It can hardly be that woman is merely a repro- 
 ducer and not a creator. We have but to recall 
 such creative artists as Charlotte and Emily 
 Bronte, George Sand, George Eliot, Mary WoU- 
 stonecraft, Marie Bashkirtshev, Rosa Bonheur, 
 Sophia Kovalevskaya and a host of others, to ap- 
 preciate that woman has been a creative factor in 
 literature, art and science. Not so in the drama, 
 so far the stronghold exclusively of men. 
 
 It is therefore an event for a woman to come 
 
 835 
 
236 Githa Sowerby 
 
 to the fore who possesses such dramatic power, 
 realistic grasp and artistic penetration as evi- 
 denced by Githa Sowerby. 
 
 The circumstance is the more remarkable be- 
 cause Githa Sowerby is, according to her pub- 
 lishers, barely out of her teens ; and though she be 
 a genius, her exceptional maturity is a phenomenon 
 rarely observed. Generally maturity comes only 
 with experience and suffering. No one who has 
 not felt the crushing weight of the Rutherford 
 atmosphere could have painted such a vivid and 
 life-like picture. 
 
 The basic theme in " Rutherford and Son " is 
 not novel. Turgenev, Ibsen and such lesser art- 
 ists as Sudermann and Stanley Houghton have 
 dealt with it: the chasm between the old and the 
 young,— the tragic struggle of parents against 
 their children, the one frantically holding on, the 
 other recklessly letting go. But " Rutherford 
 ^nd Son " is more than that. It is a picture of the 
 paralyzing effect of tradition and institutionalism 
 ^ all human life, growth, and change. 
 
 John Rutherford, the owner of the firm 
 " Rutherford and Son," is possessed by the phan- 
 tom of the past — the thing handed down to him 
 by his father and which he must pass on to his son 
 with undiminished luster; the thing that has turned 
 his soul to iron and his heart to stone; the thing 
 for the sake of which he has never known joy and 
 
Rutherford and Son 237 
 
 because of which no one else must know joy, — 
 " Rutherford and Son." 
 
 The crushing weight of this inexorable monster 
 on Rutherford and his children is significantly 
 summed up by young John : 
 
 John. Have you ever heard of Moloch? No. . . . 
 Well, Moloch was a sort of a God . . . some time ago, 
 you know, before Dick and his kind came along. They 
 built his image with an ugly head ten times the size of 
 a real head, with great wheels instead of legs, and set him 
 up in the middle of a great dirty town. And they 
 thought him a very important person indeed, and made 
 sacrifices to him . . . human sacrifices ... to keep him 
 going, you know. Out of every family they set aside one 
 child to be an offering to him when it was big enough, and 
 at last it became a sort of honor to be dedicated in this 
 way, so much so, that the victims came themselves gladly 
 to be crushed out of life under the great wheels. That 
 was Moloch. 
 
 Janet. Dedicated — we are dedicated — all of us — 
 to Rutherfords'. 
 
 Not only the Rutherford chUdren, their with- 
 ered Junt Ann, and old Rutherford himself, but 
 even Martin, the faithful servant in the employ of 
 the Rutherfords for twenty-five years, is " dedi- 
 cated," and when he ceases to be of use to their 
 Moloch, he Is turned into a thief and then cast 
 off, even as Janet and John, 
 
 Not love for John, his oldest son, or sympathy 
 
238 Githa Sowerby 
 
 with the latter's wife and child Induces old Ruther- 
 ford to forgive his son's marriage with a mere 
 shop-girl, but because he needs John to serve the 
 house of Rutherford. The one Inexorable pur- 
 pose, always and ever I 
 
 His second son Richard, who Is In the ministry, 
 and " of no use " to old Rutherford' s God of 
 stone, receives the loving assurance : " You were 
 no good for my purpose, and there's the end; for 
 the matter o' that, you might just as well never 
 ha' been born." 
 
 For that matter, his daughter Janet might also 
 never have been born, except that she was " good 
 enough " to look after her father's house, serve 
 him, even helping take off his boots, and submitting 
 without a murmur to the loveless, dismal life In 
 the Rutherford home. Her father has sternly 
 kept every suitor away, " because no one in Grant- 
 ley's good enough for us." Janet has become 
 faded, sour and miserable with yearning for love, 
 for sunshine and warmth, and when she at last 
 dares to partake of it secretly with her father's 
 trusted man Maftin, old Rutherford sets his iron 
 heel upon her love, and drags it through the mud 
 till it lies dead. 
 
 Again, when he faces the spirit of rebellion In 
 his son John, Rutherford crushes it without the 
 slightest hesitation In behalf of his one obsession, 
 his one God — the House of Rutherford. 
 
Rutherford and Son 239 
 
 ,\ 
 John has made an invention which holds great: 
 possibilities. By means of it he hopes to shake 
 off the deadly grip of the Rutherfords'. He 
 wants to become a free man and mold a new life 
 for himself, for his wife and child. He knows his 
 father will not credit the value of his invention. 
 He dare not approach him: the Rutherford chil- 
 dren have been held in dread of their parent too 
 long. 
 
 John turns to Martin, the faithful servant, the 
 only one in the confidence of Rutherford. John 
 feels himself safe with Martin. But he does not 
 know that Martin, too, is dedicated to Moloch, 
 broken by his twenty-five yeais of service, left 
 without will, without purpose outside of the 
 Rutherfords'. 
 
 Martin tries to enlist Rutherford's interest in 
 behalf of John. But the old man decides that 
 John must turn over his invention to the House of 
 Rutherford. 
 
 Rutherford. What's your receipt? 
 
 John. I want to know where I stand. ... I want 
 my price. 
 
 Rutherford. Your price — your price? Damn your 
 impudence, sir. ... So that's your line, is it? . • . This 
 is what I get for all I've done for you. . . . This is the 
 result of the schooling I gave you. I've toiled and 
 sweated to give you a name you'd be proud to own — 
 worked early and late, toiled like a dog when other men 
 
240 Githa Sowerby 
 
 were taking their ease — plotted and planned to get my 
 chance, taken it and held it when it come till I could ha' 
 burst with the struggle. Sell ! You talk o' selling to me, 
 when everything you'll ever make couldn't pay back the 
 life I've given to you! 
 
 John. Oh, I know, I know. I've been both for five 
 years. Only I've had no salary. 
 
 Rutherford. You've been put to learn your business 
 like any other young fellow. I began at the bottom — 
 you've got to do the same. . . . Your father has lived 
 here, and your grandfather before you. It's your in- 
 heritance — can't you realize that? — what you've got to 
 come to when I'm under ground. We've made it for 
 you, stone by stone, penny by penny, fighting through 
 thick and thin for close on a hundred years. . . . It's 
 what you've got to do — or starve. You're my son — 
 you've got to come after me. 
 
 Janet knows her father better than John; she 
 knows that " no one ever stands out against 
 father for long — or else they get so knocked 
 about, they don't matter any more." Janet 
 knows, and when the moment arrives that brings 
 her father's blow upon her head, it does not come 
 as a surprise to her. When old Rutherford dis- 
 covers her relation with Martin, his indignation is 
 as characteristic of the man as everything else in 
 his life. It is not outraged morality or a father's 
 love. It is always and forever the House of 
 Rutherford. Moreover, the discovery of the 
 affair between his daughter and his workman 
 
Rutherford and Son 241 
 
 comes at a psychologic moment: Rutherford is 
 determined to get hold of John's invention — for 
 the Rutherfords, of course — and now that Mar- 
 tin has broken faith with his master, his offense 
 serves an easy pretext for Rutherford to break 
 faith with Martin. He calls the old servant to his 
 office and demands the receipt of John's invention, 
 entrusted to Martin. On the latter's refusal to 
 betray John, the master plays on the man's loyalty 
 to the Rutherfords. 
 
 Rutherford. Rutherfords' is going down — down. I 
 got to pull her up, somehow. There's one way out. . . . 
 Mr. John's made this metal — a thing, I take your word 
 for it, that's worth a fortune. And we're going to sit 
 by and watch him fooling it away — selling it for a song 
 to Miles or Jarvis, that we could break to-morrow if we 
 had half a chance. . . . You've got but to put your hand 
 in your pocket to save the place and you don't do it. 
 You're with them — you're with the money-grubbing lit- 
 tle souls that can't see beyond the next shilling they put 
 in their pockets. • . . When, men steal, Martin, they 
 do it to gain something. If I steal this, what'U I gain 
 by it? If I make money, what'll I buy with it? Pleas- 
 ure, maybe? Children to come after me — glad o' what 
 I done? Tell me anything in the wide world that'd 
 bring me joy, and I'll swear to you never to touch it. 
 ... If you give it to me what'll you gain by it? Not 
 a farthing shall you ever have from me — no more than 
 I get myself. 
 
 Martin. And what will Mr. John get for it? 
 
242 Githa Sowerby 
 
 Rutherford. Rutherfords' — when I'm gone. He'll 
 thank you in ten years — he'll come to laugh at himself 
 — him and his price. He'll see the Big Thing one day, 
 mebbe, like what I've done. He'll see that it was no 
 more his than 'twas yours to give nor mine to take. . . . 
 It's Rutherfords'. . . . Will you give it to me? 
 
 Martin. I take shame to be doing it now. ... He 
 worked it out along o' me. Every time it changed he 
 come running to show me like a bairn wi' a new toy. 
 
 Rutherford. It's for Rutherfords'. . . . 
 
 Rutherfords' ruthlessly marches on. If the 
 Rutherford purpose does not shrink from corrupt- 
 ing its most trusted servant, it surely will not bend 
 before a daughter who has dared, even once in her 
 life, to assert herself. 
 
 Rutherford. How far's it gone? 
 
 Janet. Right at first — I made up my mind that if 
 you ever found out, I'd go right away, to put things 
 straight. He wanted to tell you at the first. But I knew 
 that it would be no use. ... It was I said not to tell 
 you. 
 
 Rutherford. Martin . . . that I trusted as I trust 
 myself. 
 
 Janet. You haven't turned him away — you couldn't 
 do that! 
 
 Rutherford. That's my business. 
 
 Janet, You couldn't do that . . . not Martin. . . . 
 
 Rutherford, Leave it — leave it . . . Martin's my 
 servant, that I pay wages to. I made a name for my 
 children — a name respected in all the countryside — and 
 
Rutherford and Son 243 
 
 you go with a workingman, . . . To-morrow you leave 
 my house. D'ye understand? I'll have no light ways 
 under my roof. No one shall say I winked at it. You 
 can bide the night. To-morrow when I come in I'm to 
 find ye gone. . . . Your name shan't be spoken in my 
 house . . . never again. 
 
 Janet. Oh, you've no pity. ... I was thirty-six. 
 Gone sour. Nobody'd ever come after me. Not even 
 when I was young. You took care 0' that. Half of my 
 life was gone, well-nigh all of it that mattered. . . . 
 Martin loves me honest. Don't you come near! Don't 
 you touch that! . . . You think that I'm sorry you've 
 found out — you think you've done for me when you use 
 shameful words on me and turn me out o' your house. 
 You've let me out o' jail! Whatever happens to me 
 now, I shan't go on living as I lived here. Whatever 
 Martin's done, he's taken me from you. You've ruined 
 my life, you with your getting on. I've loved in wretch- 
 edness, all the joy I ever had made wicked by the 
 fear o' you. . . . Who are you? Who are you? A 
 man — a man that takes power to himself, power to 
 gather people to him and use them as he wills — a man 
 that'd take the blood of life itself and put it into the 
 Works — into Rutherfords'. And what ha' you got by it 
 — what ? You've got Dick, that you've bullied till he's a 
 fool — John, that's waiting for the time when he can 
 sell what you've done — and you got me — me to take 
 your boots off at night — to well-nigh wish you dead 
 when I had to touch you. , . . Now! . . , Now you 
 know it! 
 
244 Githa Sowerby 
 
 But for the great love in her heart, Janet could 
 not have found courage to face her father as she 
 did. But love gives strength; it instills hope and 
 faith, and kindles anew the fires of life. Why, 
 then, should it not be strong enough to break the 
 fetters of even Rutherfords' ? Such a love only 
 those famished for affection and warmth can feel, 
 and Janet was famished for life. 
 
 Janet. I had a dream — a dream that I was in a place 
 wi' flowers, in the summer-time, white and thick like they 
 never grow on the moor — but it was the moor — a place 
 near Martin's cottage. And I dreamt that he came to 
 me with the look he had when I was a little lass, with his 
 head up and the He gone out of his eyes. All the time 
 I knew I was on my bed in my room here — but it was 
 as if sweetness poured into me, spreading and covering 
 me like the water in the tarn when the rains are heavy 
 in the fells. . . . That's why I dreamt of him so last 
 night. It was as if all that was best in me was in that 
 dream — what I was as a bairn and what I'm going to 
 be. He couldn't help but love me. It was a message — 
 I couldn't have thought of it by myself. It's something 
 that's come to me — here {putting her hands on her 
 breast). Part of me! 
 
 All that lay dormant in Janet now turns into 
 glowing fire at the touch of Spring. But in 
 Martin life has been marred, strangled by the iron 
 hand of Rutherfords'. ' 
 
Rutherford and Son 245 
 
 Martin. Turned away I am, sure enough. Twenty- 
 five years. And in a minute it's broke. Wi' two words. 
 
 Janet. You say that now because your heart's cold 
 with the trouble. But it'll warm again — it'll warm 
 again. I'll warm it out of my own heart, Martin — my 
 heart that can't be made cold. 
 
 Martin. I'd rather ha' died than he turn me away. 
 I'd ha' lost everything in the world to know that I was 
 true to 'm, like I was till you looked at me wi' the love 
 in your face. It was a great love ye gave me — you in 
 your grand hoose wi' your delicate ways. But it's broke 
 me. 
 
 Janet. , But — it's just the same with us. Just the 
 same as ever it was. 
 
 Martin. Aye. But there's no mending, wi' the likes 
 o' him. 
 
 Janet. What's there to mend ? What's there to mend 
 except what's bound you like a slave all the years? 
 You're free — free for the first time since you were a 
 lad mebbe. We'll begin again. We'll be happy — 
 happy. You and me, free in the world! All the time 
 that's been '11 be just like a dream that's past, a waiting 
 time afore we found each other — the long winter afore 
 the flowers come out white and thick on the moors — 
 
 Martin. Twenty-five years ago he took me. . . . It's 
 too long to change. . . . I'll never do his work no more; 
 but it's like as if he'd be my master just the same — 
 till I die — 
 
 Janet. Listen, Martin. Listen to me. You've 
 worked all your life for him, ever since you were a little 
 
246 Githa Sowerby 
 
 lad. Early and late you've been at the Works — work- 
 ing — working — for him. 
 
 Martin. Gladly! 
 
 Janet. Now and then he give you a kind word — 
 when you were wearied out mebbe — and your thoughts 
 might ha' turned to what other men's lives were, wi' 
 time for rest and pleasure. You didn't see through him, 
 you wi' your big heart, Martin. You were too near to 
 see, like I was till Mary came. You worked gladly 
 maybe — but all the time your life was going into 
 Rutherfords' — your manhood into the place he's built. 
 He's had you, Martin, — like he's had me, and all of us. 
 We used to say he was hard and ill-tempered. Bad to 
 do with in the house — we fell silent when he came in 
 — we couldn't see for the little things, — we couldn't see 
 the years passing because of the days. And all the time 
 it was our lives he was taking bit by bit — our lives that 
 we'll never get back. • . , Now's our chance at last! 
 He's turned us both away, me as well as you. We two 
 he's sent out into the world together. Free. He's done 
 it himself of his own will. It's ours to take, Martin — 
 our happiness. We'll get it in spite of him. He'd kill 
 it if he could. 
 
 The cruelty of it, that the Rutherfords never 
 kill with one blow : never so merciful are they. In 
 their ruthless march they strangle inch by inch, 
 shed the blood of life drop by drop, until they 
 have broken the very spirit of man and made him 
 as helpless and pitiful as Martin, — a trembling 
 leaf tossed about by the winds. 
 
Rutherford and Son 247 
 
 A picture of such stirring social and human im- 
 portance that no one, except he who has reached 
 the stage of Martin, can escape its effect. Yet 
 even more significant is the inevitability of the 
 doom of the Rutherfords as embodied in the wis- 
 dom of Mary, John's wife. 
 
 When her husband steals his father's money — 
 a very small part indeed compared with what the 
 father had stolen from him — he leaves the hate- 
 ful place and Mary remains to face the master. 
 For the sake of her child she strikes a bargain with 
 Rutherford. 
 
 Mary. A bargain is where one person has something 
 to sell that another wants to buy. There's no love in it 
 — only money — money that pays for life. I've got 
 something to sell that you want to buy. 
 
 Rutherford. What's that? 
 
 Mary. My son. You've lost everything you've had 
 in the world. John's gone — and Richard — and Janet. 
 They won't come back. You're alone now and getting 
 old, with no one to come after you. When you die 
 Rutherfords' will be sold — somebody'!! buy it and give 
 it a new name perhaps, and no one will even remember 
 that you made it. That'll be the end of all your work. 
 Just — nothing. You've thought of that. . . . It's for 
 my boy. I want — a chance of life for him — his place 
 in the world. John can't give him that, because he's 
 made so. If I went to London and worked my hardest 
 I'd get twenty-five shillings a week. We've failed. 
 From you I can get when I want for my boy. I want 
 
248 Githa Sowerby 
 
 — all the good common things: a good house, good food, 
 warmth. He's a delicate little thing now, but he'll grow 
 strong like other children. . . . Give me what I ask, 
 and in return I'll give you — him. On one condition. 
 I'm to stay on here. I won't trouble you — you needn't 
 speak to me or see me unless you want to. For ten years 
 he's to be absolutely mine, to do what I like with. You 
 mustn't interfere — you mustn't tell him to do things or 
 frighten him. He's mine for ten years more. 
 
 Rutherford. And after that? 
 
 Mary, He'll be yours. 
 
 Rutherford. To train up. For Rutherfords' ? 
 
 Mary. Yes. 
 
 Rutherford. After all? After Dick, that I've bullied 
 till he's a fool? John, that's wished me dead ? 
 
 Mary. In ten years you'll be an old man; you won't 
 be able to make people afraid of you any more. 
 
 When I saw the masterly presentation of the 
 play on the stage, Mary's bargain looked unreal 
 and incongruous. It seemed impossible to me 
 that a mother who really loves her child should 
 want it to be in any way connected with the Ruther- 
 fords'. But after repeatedly rereading the play, 
 I was convinced by Mary's simple statement: 
 " In ten years you'll be an old man; you won't be 
 able to make people afraid of you any more." 
 Most deeply true. The Rutherfords are bound 
 by time, by the eternal forces of change. Their 
 influence on human life is indeed terrible. Not- 
 
Rutherford and Son 249 
 
 withstanding it all, however, they are fighting a^ 
 losing game. They are growing old, already too 
 old to make anyone afraid. Change and innova- 
 tion are marching on, and the Rutherfords must 
 make place for the young generation knocking at 
 the gates. 
 
THE IRISH DRAMA 
 
 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 
 
 MOST Americans know about the Irish 
 people only that they are not averse 
 to drink, and that they make brutal 
 policemen and corrupt politicians. 
 But those who are familiar with the revolutionary 
 movements of the past are aware of the fortitude 
 and courage, aye, of the heroism of the Irish, 
 manifested during their uprisings, and especially 
 in the Fenian movement — the people's revolt 
 against political despotism and land robbery. 
 
 And though for years Ireland has contributed to 
 the very worst features of American life, those in- 
 terested in the fate of its people did not despair; 
 they knew that the spirit of unrest in Ireland was 
 not appeased, and that it would make itself felt 
 again in no uncertain form. 
 
 The cultural and rebellious awakening in that 
 country within the last twenty-five years once more 
 proves that neither God nor King can for long 
 suppress the manifestation of the latent possibili- 
 ties of a people. The possibilities of the Irish 
 
 250 
 
The Irish Drama 251 
 
 •must indeed be great if they could inspire the rich 
 humor of a Lady Gregory, the deep symbolism of' 
 a Yeats, the poetic fancy of a Synge, and the re- 
 bellion of a Robinson and Murray. 
 
 Only a people unspoiled by the dulling hand 
 of civilization and free from artifice can retain 
 such simplicity of faith and remain so imaginative, 
 so full of fancy and dreams, wild and fiery, which 
 have kindled the creative spark In the Irish dram- 
 atists of our time. It Is true that the work of only 
 the younger element among them Is of social sig- 
 nificance, yet all of them have rendered their peo- 
 ple and the rest of the world a cultural service of 
 no mean value. William Butler Yeats is among 
 the latter, together with Synge and Lady Gregory ; 
 his art, though deep in human appeal, has no bear- 
 ing on the pressing questions of our time. Mr. 
 Yeats himself would repudiate any Implication 
 of a social character, as he considers such dramas 
 too " topical " and therefore " half bad " plays. 
 In view of this attitude, It Is difficult to reconcile 
 his standard of true art with the repertoire of the 
 Abbey Theater, which consists mainly of social 
 dramas. Still more difficult is it to account for his 
 work, " Where There is Nothing," which is no 
 less social in Its philosophy and tendency than Ib- 
 sen's " Brand." 
 
252 William Butler Yeats 
 
 / WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 
 
 " Where There Is Nothing " is as true an inter- 
 pretation of the philosophy of Anarchism as could 
 be given by its best exponents. I, say this not out 
 of any wish to tag Mr. Yeats, but because the ideal 
 of Paul Ruttledge, the hero of the play, is nothing 
 ;>Jess than Anarchism applied to everyday life. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge, a man of wealth, comes to the 
 conclusion, after a long process of development 
 and growth, that riches are wrong, and that the 
 life of the propertied is artificial, useless and in- 
 ane. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. When I hear these people talking I 
 always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or 
 quack, as it does in the newspapers. I would like to 
 have great iron daws, and to put them about the pillars, 
 and to pull and pull till everything fell into pieces. . . . 
 Sometimes I dream I am pulling down my own house, 
 and sometimes it is the whole world that I am pulling 
 down. . . . When everything was pulled down we would 
 have more room to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out 
 of the cup of life, out of the drunken cup of life. 
 
 He decides to give up his position and wealth 
 and cast his lot in with the tinkers — an element 
 we in America know as " hoboes," men who tramp 
 the highways making their living as they go about, 
 mending kettles and pots, earning an honest penny 
 without obligation or responsibility to anyone. 
 
Where There Is Nothing 253 
 
 Paul Ruttledge longs for the freedom of the road, 
 — ■ to sleep under the open sky, to count the stars, 
 to be free. He throws off all artificial restraint 
 and is received with open arms by the tinkers. 
 To identify himself more closely with their life, he 
 marries a tinker's daughter — not according to 
 the rites of State or Church, but in true tinker 
 fashion — in freedom — bound only by the prom- 
 ise to be faithful and " not hurt each other." 
 
 In honor of the occasion, Paul tenders to his 
 comrades and the people of the neighborhood a 
 grand feast, full of the spirit of life's joy, — an out- 
 pouring of gladness that lasts a whole week. 
 
 Paul's brother, his friends, and the authorities 
 are incensed over the carousal. They demand 
 that he terminate the " drunken orgy." 
 
 Mr. Joyce. This is a disgraceful business, Paul; the 
 whole countryside is demoralized. There is not a man 
 who has come to sensible years who is not drunk. 
 
 Mr. Dowler. This is a flagrant violation of all pro- 
 priety. Society is shaken to its roots. My own serv- 
 ants have been led astray by the free drinks that are being 
 given in the village. My butler, who has been with me 
 for seven years, has not been seen for the last two days. 
 
 Mr. Algie, I endorse his sentiments completely. 
 There has not been a stroke of work done for the last 
 week. The hay is lying in ridges where it has been cut, 
 there is not a man to be found to water the cattle. It is 
 impossible to get as much as a horse shod in the vil- 
 lage. 
 
254 William Butler Yeats 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. I think you have something to say, 
 Colonel Lawley? 
 
 Colonel Lawley. I have undoubtedly. I want to 
 know when law and order are to be reestablished. The 
 police have been quite unable to cope with the disorder. 
 Some of them have themselves got drunk. If my advice 
 had been taken the military would have been called in. 
 
 Mr. Green. The military are not indispensable on 
 occasions like the present. There are plenty of police 
 coming now. We have wired to Dublin for them, they 
 will be here by the four o'clock train. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. But you have not told me what you 
 have come here for. Is there anything I can do for 
 you? 
 
 Mr. Green. We have come to request you to go to the 
 public-houses, to stop the free drinks, to send the people 
 back to their work. As for those tinkers, the law will 
 deal with them when the police arrive. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. I wanted to give a little pleasure to 
 my fellow-creatures. 
 
 Mr. Dowler. This seems rather a low form of pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. I daresay it seems to you a little vio- 
 lent. But the poor have very few hours in which to en- 
 joy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they 
 haven't the time to cook it. Have we not tried sobriety? 
 Do you like it? I found it very dull, . . . Think what 
 it is to them to have their imagination like a blazing tar- 
 barrel for a whole week. Work could never bring them 
 such blessedness as that. 
 
Where There Is Nothing 255 
 
 Mr. Dowler. Everyone knows there is no more valua- 
 ble blessing than work. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge decides to put his visitors " on 
 trial," to let them see themselves as they are in all 
 their hypocrisy, all their corruption. 
 
 He charges the military man, Colonel Lawley, 
 with calling himself a Christian, yet following the 
 business of man-killing. The Colonel is forced to 
 admit that he had ordered his men to fight in a 
 war, of the justice of which they knew nothing, or 
 did not believe in, and yet it is " the doctrine of 
 your Christian church, of your Catholic church, 
 that he who fights in an unjust war, knowing it to 
 be unjust, loses his own soul." Of the rich man 
 Dowler, Paul Ruttledge demands whether he could 
 pass through the inside of a finger ring, and on 
 Paul's attention being called by one of the tinkers 
 to the fine coat of Mr. Dowler, he tells him to help 
 himself to it. Threatened by Mr. Green, the 
 spokesman of the law, with encouraging robbery, 
 Ruttledge admonishes him. 
 
 Ruttledge. Remember the commandment, " Give to 
 him that asketh thee " ; and the hard commandment goes 
 even farther, " Him that taketh thy cloak forbid not to 
 take thy coat also." 
 
 But the worst indictment Ruttledge hurls against 
 Mr. Green. The other professed Christians kill. 
 
256 William Butler Yeats 
 
 murder, do not love their enemies, and do not give 
 to any man that asks of them. But the Greens, 
 Ruttledge says, are the worst of all. For the 
 others break the law of Christ for their own 
 pleasure, but " you take pay for breaking it; when 
 their goods are taken away you condemn the taker; 
 when they are smitten on one cheek you punish the 
 smiter. You encourage them in their breaking of 
 the Law of Christ." 
 
 For several years Ruttledge lives the life of the 
 tinkers. But of weak physique, he finds himself 
 unable to withstand the rigors of the road. His 
 health breaks down, and his faithful comrades 
 carry him to his native town and bring him to a 
 monastery where Paul is cared for by the priests. 
 While there he begins to preach a wonderful 
 gospel, a gospel strange to the friars and the su- 
 perior, — so rebellious and terrible that he is de- 
 clared a disenter, a heathen and a dangerous char- 
 acter. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. Now I can give you the message that 
 has come to me. . . . Lay down your palm branches be- 
 fore this altar; you have brought them as a sign that the 
 walls are beginning to be broken up, that we are going 
 back to the joy of the green earth. . . . For a long time 
 after their making men and women wandered here and 
 there, half blind from the drunkenness of Eternity; they 
 had not yet forgotten that the green Earth was the Love 
 of God, and that all Life was the Will of God, and so 
 
Where There Is Nothing 257 
 
 they wept and laughed and hated according to the impulse 
 of their hearts. They gathered the great Earth to their 
 breasts and their lips, ... in what they believed would 
 be an eternal kiss. It was then that the temptation be- 
 gan. The men and women listened to them, and be- 
 cause when they had lived ... in mother wit and nat- 
 ural kindness, they sometimes did one another an injury, 
 they thought that it would be better to be safe than to be 
 blessed, they made the Laws. The Laws were the first 
 sin. They were the first mouthful of the apple ; the mo- 
 ment man had made them he began to die; we must put 
 out the Laws as I put out this candle. And when they 
 had lived amidst the green Earth that is the Love of 
 God, they were sometimes wetted by the rain, and some- 
 times cold and hungry, and sometimes alone from one 
 another; they thought it would be better to be com- 
 fortable than to be blessed. They began to build big 
 houses and big towns. They grew wealthy and they sat 
 chattering at their doors; and the embrace that was to 
 have been eternal ended. . . . We must put out the 
 towns as I put out this candle. But that is not all, for 
 man created a worse thing. . . . Man built up the 
 Church. We must destroy the Church, we must put it 
 out as I put out this candle. . . . We must destroy 
 everything that has Law and Number. 
 
 The rebel is driven from the monastery. He is 
 followed by only two faithful friars, his disciples, 
 who go among the people to disseminate the new 
 gospel. But the people fail to understand them. 
 Immersed in darkness and superstition, they look 
 
. 258 William Butler Yeats 
 
 upon these strange men as evildoers. They ac- 
 cuse them of casting an evil spell on their cattle 
 and disturbing the people's peace. The path of 
 the crusader is thorny, and Colman, the friar dis- 
 ciple of Paul, though faithful for a time, becomes 
 discouraged in the face of opposition and persecu- 
 tion. He weakens. 
 
 Colman. It's no use stopping waiting for the wind; 
 if we have anything to say that's worth the people lis- 
 tening to, we must bring them to hear it one way or an- 
 other. Now, it is what I was saying to Aloysius, we 
 must begin teaching them to make things, they never had 
 the chance of any instruction of this sort here. Those 
 and other things, we got a good training in the old days. 
 And we'll get a grant from the Technical Board. The 
 Board pays up to four hundred pounds to some of its 
 instructors. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I understand ; you will sell them. 
 And what about the dividing of the money? You will 
 need to make laws about that. Oh, we will grow quite 
 rich in time. 
 
 Colman. We'll build workshops and houses for those 
 who come to work from a distance, good houses, slated, 
 not thatched. . . . They will think so much more of 
 our teaching when we have got them under our influence 
 by other things. Of course we will teach them their 
 meditations, and give them a regular religious life. We 
 must settle out some little place for them to pray in — 
 there's a high gable over there where we could hang a 
 bell — 
 
Where There Is Nothing 259 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes, I understand. You would 
 weave them together like this, you would add one thing 
 to another, laws and money and church and bells, till you 
 had got everything back again that you have escaped 
 from. But it is my business to tear things asunder. 
 
 Aloysius. Brother Paul, it is what I am thinking; 
 now the tinkers have come back to you, you could begin 
 to gather a sort of an army; you can't fight your battle 
 without an army. They would call to the other tinkers, 
 and the tramps and the beggars, and the sieve-makers and 
 all the wandering people. It would be a great army. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that would be a great army, a 
 great wandering army. 
 
 Aloysius. The people would be afraid to refuse us 
 then ; we would march on — 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. We could march on. We could 
 march on the towns, and we could break up all settled or- 
 der; we could bring back the old joyful, dangerous, indi- 
 vidual life. We would have banners. We will have 
 one great banner that will go in front, it will take two 
 men to carry it, and on it we will have Laughter — 
 
 Aloysius. That will be the banner for the front. 
 We will have different troops, we will have captains to 
 organize them, to give them orders. 
 
 Paul Ruttledge. To organize? That is to bring in 
 law and number. Organize — organize — that is how 
 all the mischief has been done. I was forgetting, — we 
 cannot destroy the world with armies; it is inside our 
 minds that it must be destroyed. 
 
260 William Butler Yeats 
 
 Deserted, Paul Ruttledge stands alone in his 
 crusade, like most iconoclasts. Misunderstood 
 and persecuted, he finally meets his death at the 
 hands of the infuriated mob. 
 / " Where There Is Nothing " is of great social 
 /significance, deeply revolutionary in the sense that 
 it carries the message of the destruction of every 
 institution — State, Property, and Church — that 
 \enslaves humanity. For where there is nothing, 
 there man begins. 
 
 A certain critic characterized this play as a 
 " statement of revolt against the despotism of 
 facts." Is there a despotism more compelling and 
 destructive than that of the facts of property, of 
 the State and Church? But "Where There Is 
 Nothing " is not merely a " statement " of revolt. 
 It embodies the spirit of revolt itself, of that most 
 constructive revolt which begins with the destruc- 
 tion of every obstacle in the path of the new life 
 that is to grow on the debris of the old, when the 
 paralyzing yoke of institutionalism shall have been 
 ^broken, and man left free to enjoy Life and 
 Laughter. 
 
LENOX ROBINSON 
 
 HARVEST 
 
 TIMOTHY HURLEY, an old farmer, 
 slaves all his life and mortgages his farm 
 in order to enable his children to lead an 
 idle, parasitic life. 
 Started on this road toward so-called culture by 
 the school-master, William Lordan, Hurley's chil- 
 dren leave their father's farm and in due time es- 
 tablish themselves in society as priest, lawyer, sec- 
 retary and chemist, respectively. -^ 
 The secretary son is ashamed of his lowly origin 
 and denies it. The lawyer son is much more con- 
 cerned with his motor car than with the condition 
 of the farm that has helped him on his feet. The 
 priest has departed for America, there to collect 
 funds for Church work. Only Maurice, the 
 youngest son of Timothy Hurley, remains at home 
 as the farm drudge, the typical man with the hoe. ^ 
 Jack Hurley, the chemist, and Timothy's only 
 daughter Mary, retain some loyalty to the old 
 place, but when they return after an absence of 
 years, they find themselves out of touch with farm 
 life, and they too turn their back on their native 
 
 86l 
 
262 Lenox Rohtnion 
 
 heath. Jack Hurley's notion of the country is 
 that of most city people : nature is beautiful, the 
 scenery lovely, so long as it Is someone else who 
 has to labor in the scorching sun, to plow and toil 
 in the sweat of his brow. 
 
 Jack and his wife Mildred are both extremely 
 romantic about the farm. 
 
 Jack. It stands to reason farming must pay enor- 
 mously. Take a field of oats, for instance; every grain 
 that's sown gives a huge percentage in return. ... I 
 don't know exactly how many grains a stalk carries, but 
 several hundred I'm sure . . . why, there's no invest- 
 ment in the world would give you a return like that. 
 
 But soon they discover that every grain of corn 
 does not yield hundreds of dollars. 
 
 Maurice. You can't have a solicitor, and a priest, and 
 a chemist in a family without spending money, and for 
 the last ten years you've been all drawing money out of 
 the farm . . . there's no more to drain now. . . . Oh, 
 I suppose you think I'm a bloody fool not to be able to 
 make it pay; but sure what chance have I and I never 
 taught how to farm? There was money and education 
 wanted to make priests and doctors and gentlemen of you 
 all, and wasn't there money an' education wanted to make 
 a farmer of me? No; nothing taught me only what I 
 picked up from my father and the men, and never a bit of 
 fresh money to put into the farm only it all kept to make 
 a solicitor of Bob and a chemist of you. 
 
Harvest 263 
 
 During Jack's visit to the farm a fire breaks out 
 and several buildings on the place are destroyed. 
 Much to the horror of the well-bred Jack, he learns 
 that his father himself had lit the match in order 
 to get " compensation." He sternly upbraids the 
 old farmer. 
 
 Jack. Didn't you see yourself how dishonest it was ? 
 
 Timothy. Maybe I did, but I saw something more, 
 and that was that I was on the way to being put out of 
 the farm. 
 
 Jack is outraged; he threatens to inform on his 
 own people and offers to stay on the farm to help 
 with the work. But two weeks' experience in the 
 field beneath the burning sun is more than delicate 
 Jack can stand. He suffers fainting spells, and 
 is in the end prevailed upon by his wife to leave. 
 
 Mary, old Hurley's daughter, also returns to the 
 farm for rest and quiet. But she finds no peace 
 there, for the city is too much in her blood. There 
 is, moreover, another lure she cannot escape. 
 
 Mary. I was too well educated to be a servant, and 
 I was never happy as one, so to better myself I learned 
 typing. . . . It's a hard life. Jack, and I soon found out 
 how hard it was, and I was as dissatisfied as ever. Then 
 there only seemed one way out of it . . . and he . . . 
 my employer, I mean. ... I went into it deliberately 
 with my eyes open. You see, a woman I knew chucked 
 typing and went in for this . . . and I saw what a splen- 
 
264 Lenox Robinson 
 
 did time she had, and how happy she was — and I was so 
 miserably unhappy — and how she had everything she 
 wanted and I had nothing, and .... and . . . But this 
 life made me unhappy, too, and so in desperation I came 
 home; but I've grown too far away from it all, and now 
 I'm going back. Don't you see. Jack, I'm not happy 
 here. I thought if I could get home to the farm and the 
 old simple life it would be all right, but it isn't. Every- 
 thing jars on me, the roughness and the hard living and 
 the coarse food — oh, it seems ridiculous — but they make 
 me physically ill. I always thought, if I could get away 
 home to Knockmalgloss I could start fair again. . . . 
 So I came home, and everything is the same, and every- 
 one thinks that I'm as pure and innocent as wheq I went 
 away, but . . . but . . . But, Jack, the dreadful thing 
 is I want to go back. ... I'm longing for that life, and 
 its excitement and splendor and color. 
 
 In her misery and struggle a great faith sus- 
 tains Mary and keeps her from ruin. It is the 
 thought of her father, in whom she believes im- 
 plicitly as her ideal of honesty, strength and Incor- 
 ruptibility. The shock is terrible when she learns 
 that her father, even her father, has fallen a victim 
 to the cruel struggle of life, — that her father him- 
 self set fire to the buildings. 
 
 Mary. And I thought he was so simple, so innocent, 
 so unspoiled! . . . Father, the simple, honest peasant, 
 the only decent one of us. I cried all last night at the 
 contrast! His unselfishness, his simplicity. . . . Why, 
 we're all equally bad now — he and I — we both sell 
 
Harvest 265 
 
 ourselves, he for the price of those old houses and I for 
 a few years of splendor and happiness. . . . 
 
 The only one whom life seems to teach nothing 
 is Schoolmaster Lordan. Oblivious of the stress 
 and storm of reality, he continues to be enraptured 
 with education, with culture, with the opportunities 
 offered by the large cities. He is particularly 
 proud of the Hurley children. 
 
 Lordan. The way you've all got on ! I tell you what, 
 if every boy and girl I ever taught had turned out a fail- 
 ure I'd feel content and satisfied when I looked at all of 
 you and saw what I've made of you. 
 
 Mary. What you've made of us? I wonder do you 
 really know what you've made of us? 
 
 Lordan. Isn't it easily seen? One with a motor car, 
 no less. ... It was good, sound seed I sowed long ago 
 in the little schoolhouse and it's to-day you're all reaping 
 the harvest. 
 
 " Harvest " is a grim picture of civilization in 
 its especially demoralizing effects upon the people 
 who spring from the soil. The mock culture and 
 shallow education which inspire peasant folk with 
 awe, which lure the children away from home, 
 only to crush the vitality out of them or to turn 
 them into cowards and compromisers. The trag-\ 
 edy of a civilization that dooms the tillers of the 
 soil to a dreary monotony of hard toil with little 
 return, or charms them to destruction with the 
 
266 Lenox Robinson 
 
 false glow of city culture and ease ! Greater still 
 this tragedy in a country like Ireland, its people 
 taxed to the very marrow and exploited to the 
 verge of starvation, leaving the young genera- 
 tion no opening, no opportunity in life. 
 
 It is inevitable that the sons and daughters of 
 Ireland, robust in body and spirit, yearning for 
 things better and bigger, should desert her. For 
 as Mary says, " When the sun sets here, it's all so 
 dark and cold and dreary." But the young need 
 light and warmth — and these are not in the 
 valley of ever-present misery and want. 
 
 " Harvest " is an expressive picture of the so- 
 cial background of the Irish people, a background 
 somber and unpromising but for the streak of 
 dawn that pierces that country's dark horizon in 
 the forni of the inherent and irrepressible fighting 
 spirit of the true Irishman, the spirit of the Fenian 
 revolt whose fires often slumber but are never put 
 out, all the ravages of our false civilization not- 
 swithstanding. 
 
T. G. MURRAY 
 
 MAURICE HARTE 
 
 Mi 
 
 "^ ^AURICE HARTE " portrays the 
 most sinister force which holds the 
 Irish people in awe — that heaviest 
 ■of all bondage, priestcraft. 
 
 Michael Harte, his wife Ellen, and their son 
 Owen are bent on one purpose; to make a priest 
 of their youngest child Maurice. The mother es- 
 pecially has no other ambition in life than to see 
 her son " priested." No higher ideal to most 
 Catholic mothers than to consecrate their favorite 
 son to the glory of God. 
 
 What it has cost the Hartes to attain their am- 
 bition and hope is revealed by Ellen Harte in the 
 conversation with her sister and later with her 
 husband, when he informs her that he cannot bor- 
 row any more money to continue the boy in the 
 seminary. 
 
 Mrs. Harte. If Michael and myself have our son 
 nearly a priest this day, 'tis no small price at all we have 
 paid for it. . . . Isn't it the terrible thing, every time you 
 look through that window, to have the fear in your heart 
 
 267 
 
268 T. G. Murray 
 
 that 'tis the process-server you'll see and he coming up 
 the boreen? 
 
 Old Harte impoverishes himself to enable his 
 son to finish his studies. He has borrowed right 
 and left, till his resources are now entirely ex- 
 hausted. But he is compelled to try another 
 loan. 
 
 Michael. He made out 'twas as good as insulting him 
 making such a small payment, and the money that's on us 
 to be so heavy. " If you don't wish to sign that note," 
 says he, " you needn't. It don't matter at all to me one 
 way or the other, for before the next Quarter Sessions 
 'tis Andy Driscoll, the process-server, will be marching 
 up to your door." So what could I do but sign ? Why, 
 'twas how he turned on me in a red passion. " And 
 isn't it a scandal, Michael Harte," says he, " for the like 
 o' you, with your name on them books there for a hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds, and you with only the grass of nine 
 or ten cows, to be making your son a priest ? The like of 
 it," says he, " was never heard of before." 
 
 Mrs. Harte. What business was it of his, I'd like to 
 know? Jealous of us! There's no fear any of his sons 
 will ever be anything much! 
 
 Michael. I was thinking it might do Maurice some 
 harm with the Bishop if it came out on the papers that 
 we were up before the judge for a civil bill. 
 
 Mrs. Harte. . . . 'Tisn't once or twice I told you 
 that I had my heart set on hearing Maurice say the mar- 
 riage words over his own brother. 
 
Maurice Harte 269 
 
 Maurice comes home for the summer vacation, 
 looking pale and emaciated. His mother ascribes 
 his condition to the bad city air and hard study at 
 school. But Maurice 'suffers from a different 
 cause. His is a mental struggle: the maddening 
 struggle of doubt, the realization that he has lost 
 his faith, that he has no vocation, and that he must 
 give up his divinity studies. He knows how fa- 
 natically bent his people are on having him or- 
 dained, and he is tortured by the grief his decision 
 will cause his parents. His heart is breaking as he 
 at last determines to inform them. 
 
 He reasons and pleads with his parents and im- 
 plores them not to drive him back to college. But 
 they cannot understand. They remain deaf to his 
 arguments ; pitifully they beg him not to fail them, 
 not to disappoint the hope of a lifetime. When it 
 all proves of no avail, they finally disclose to 
 Maurice their gnawing secret: the farm has been 
 mortgaged and many debts incurred for the sake 
 of enabling him to attain to the priesthood. 
 
 Michael. Maurice, would you break our hearts? 
 
 Maurice. Father, would you have your son live a life 
 of sacrilege? Would you, Father? Would you? 
 
 Mrs. Harte. That's only foolish talk. Aren't you 
 every bit as good as the next? 
 
 Maurice. I may be, but I haven't a vocation. . . . 
 My mind is finally made up. 
 
 Mrs. Harte. Maurice, listen to me — listen to me! 
 
270 T. G. Murray 
 
 ... If it went out about you this day, isn't it destroyed 
 forever we'd be? Look! The story wouldn't be east in 
 Macroom when we'd have the bailiffs walking in that 
 door. The whole world knows he is to be priested next 
 June, and only for the great respect they have for us 
 through the means o' that, 'tisn't James McCarthy alone, 
 but every other one o' them would come down on us 
 straight for their money. In one week there wouldn't 
 be a cow left by us, nor a horse, nor a lamb, nor anything 
 at all! . . , Look at them books. 'Tis about time you 
 should know how we stand here. . . . God knows, I 
 wouldn't be hard on you at all, but look at the great load 
 o' money that's on us this day, and mostly all on your ac- 
 count. 
 
 Maurice. Mother, don't make my cross harder ' to 
 bear. 
 
 Mrs. Harte. An' would you be seeing a heavier cross 
 put on them that did all that mortal man and woman 
 could do for you ? 
 
 Maurice. Look! I'll wear the flesh off my bones, but 
 in pity spare me! 
 
 Mrs. Harte. And will you have no pity at all on us 
 and on Owen here, that have slaved for you all our 
 lives ? 
 
 Maurice. Mother ! Mother ! 
 
 Mrs. Harte. You'll go back? 'Tis only a mistake? 
 
 Maurice. Great God of Heaven! . . . you'll kill me. 
 
 Michael. You'll go back, Maurice? The vocation 
 will come to you in time with the help of God. It will, 
 surely. 
 
 Maurice. Don't ask me! Don't ask me! 
 
Maurice Harte 271 
 
 Mrs. Harte. If you don't how can I ever face outside 
 this door or lift my head again? . . . How could I listen 
 to the neighbors making pity for me, and many a one o' 
 them only glad in their hearts? How could I ever face 
 again into town o' Macroom? 
 
 Maurice. Oh, don't. 
 
 Mrs. Harte. I tell you, Maurice, I'd rather be lying 
 dead a thousand times in the graveyard over Killnamar- 
 tyra — 
 
 Maurice. Stop, Mother, stop! I'll — I'll go back — 
 as — as you all wish it. 
 
 Nine months later there is general rejoicing at 
 the Hartes': Maurice has passed his examina- 
 tions with flying colors ; he is about to be ordained, 
 and he is to officiate at the wedding of his brother 
 Owen and his wealthy bride. 
 
 Ellen Harte plans to give her son a royal wel- 
 come. Great preparations are on foot to greet 
 the return of Maurice. He comes back — not in 
 the glory and triumph expected by his people, but 
 a driveling idiot. His mental struggle, the agony 
 of whipping himself to the hated task, proved too 
 much for him, and Maurice is sacrificed on the 
 altar of superstition and submission to paternal 
 authority. 
 
 In the whole range of the Irish drama " Mau- 
 rice Harte " is the most Irish, because nowhere 
 does Catholicism demand so many victims as in 
 that unfortunate land. But in a deeper sense the 
 
272 T. G. Murray 
 
 play is of that social importance that knows no 
 limit of race or creed. 
 
 There is no boundary of land or time to the re- 
 sistance of the human mind to coercion ; it is world- 
 wide. Equally so is the rebellion of youth against 
 the tyranny of parents. But above all does this 
 play mirror the self-centered, narrow, ambitious 
 love of the mother, so disastrous to the happiness 
 and peace of her child. For it is Ellen Harte, 
 rather than the father, who forces Maurice back to 
 his studies. From whatever viewpoint, however, 
 " Maurice Harte " be considered. It carries a 
 dramatically powerful message of wide social sig- 
 nificance. 
 
THE RUSSIAN DRAMA 
 
 PEOPLE outside of Russia, especially 
 Anglo-Saxons, have one great objection 
 to the Russian drama: it is too sad, too 
 gloomy. It is often asked, " Why is the 
 Russian drama so pessimistic? " The answer is\ 
 the Russian drama, like all Russian culture, has 
 been conceived in the sorrow of the people; it was 
 born in their woe and struggle. Anything thusy 
 conceived cannot be very joyous or amusing. / 
 It is no exaggeration to say that in no oth^ 
 country are the creative artists so interwoven, so 
 much at one with the people. This is not only' 
 true of men like Turgenev, Tolstoy and the dram- 
 atists of modern times. It applies also to Gogol, 
 who in " The Inspector " and " Dead Souls " 
 spoke in behalf of the people, appealing to the 
 conscience of Russia. The same is true of Dos- 
 toyevsky, of the poets Nekrassov, Nadson, and 
 others. In fact, all the great Russian artists have 
 gone to the people for their inspiration, as to the 
 source of all life. That explains the depth and 
 the humanity of Russian literature. 
 
 373 
 
274 "^^^ Russian Drama 
 
 The modern drama naturally suggests Henrik 
 Ibsen as its pioneer. But prior to him, Gogol 
 utilized the drama as a vehicle for popularizing the 
 social issues of his time. In " The Inspector," 
 (Revizor) he portrays the corruption, graft and 
 extortion rampant in the governmental depart- 
 ments. If we were to Anglicize the names of the 
 characters in " The Inspector," and forget for a 
 moment that it was a Russian who wrote the play, 
 the criticism contained therein would apply with 
 similar force to present-day America, and to every 
 other modern country. Gogol touched the deep- 
 est sores of social magnitude and marked |he be- 
 ginning of the realistic drama in Russia. 
 
 However, it is not within the scope of this work 
 to discuss the drama of Gogol's era. I shall be- 
 gin with Tolstoy, because he is closer to our own 
 generation, and voices more definitely the social 
 significance of the modern drama. 
 
TOLSTOY 
 
 WHEN Leo Tolstoy died, the represen- 
 tatives of the Church proclaimed him 
 as their own. " He was with us," 
 they said. It reminds one of the 
 Russian fable about the fly and the ox. The fly 
 was lazily resting on the horn of the ox while he 
 plowed the field, but when the ox returned home 
 exhausted with toil, the fly bragged, " We have 
 been plowing." The spokesmen of the Church 
 are, in relation to Tolstoy, in the same position. 
 It is true that Tolstoy based his conception of hu^ 
 man relationships on a new interpretation of the 
 Gospels. But he was as far removed frorn pres- 
 ent-day Christianity as Jesus was alien to the insti- 
 tutional religion of his time. 
 
 Tolstoy was the last true Christian, and as such 
 he undermined the stronghold of the Church with 
 all its pernicious power of darkness, with all its 
 injustice and cruelty. 
 
 For this he was persecuted by the Holy Synod 
 and excommunicated from the Church; for this 
 he was feared by the Tsar and his henchmen ; for 
 this his works have been, condemned and pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 375 
 
276 Tolstoy 
 
 The only reason Tolstoy himself escaped the 
 fate of other great Russians was that he was 
 mightier than the Church, mightier than the ducal 
 clique, mightier even than the Tsar. He was the 
 powerful conscience of Russia exposing her 
 crimes and evils before the civilized world. 
 
 How deeply Tolstoy felt the grave problems 
 of his time, how closely related he was to the peo- 
 ple, he demonstrated in various works, but in 
 none so strikingly as in " The Power of Dark- 
 ness." 
 
 ^ THE POWER OF DARKNESS ,^ 
 
 " The Power of Darkness " is the tragedy of 
 
 sordid misery and dense ignorance. It deals with 
 
 a group of peasants steeped in poverty and utter 
 
 I darkness. This appalling condition, especially in 
 
 delation to the women folk, Is expressed by one 
 
 of the characters In the play: 
 
 Mitrich. There are millions of you women and girls, 
 but you are all like the beasts of the forest. Just as one 
 has been born, so she dies. She has neither seen or heard 
 anything. A man will learn something; if nowhere else, 
 at least in the inn, or by some chance, in prison, or in the 
 army, as I have. But what about a woman? She does 
 not know a thing about God, — nay, she does not know 
 one day from another. They creep about like blind pups, 
 and stick their heads into the manure. 
 
The Power' of Darkness 277 
 
 Peter, a rich peasant, is in a dying condition. 
 Yet he clings to his money and slave-drives his 
 young wife, Anisya, his two daughters by a first 
 marriage, and his peasant servant Nikita. He 
 will not allow them any rest from their toil, for 
 the greed of money is in his blood and the fear 
 of death in his bones. Anisya hates her husband : 
 he forces her to drudge, and he is old and ill. She 
 loves Nikita. The latter, young and irresponsi- 
 ble, cannot resist women, who are his main weak- 
 ness and final undoing. Before he came to old 
 Peter's farm, he had wronged an orphan girl. 
 When she becomes pregnant, she appeals to Ni- 
 kita's father, Akim, a simple and honest peasant. 
 He urges his son to marry the girl, because " it is 
 a sin to wrong an orphan. Look out, Nikita! 
 A tear of offense does not flow past, but upon a 
 man's head. Look out, or the same will happen 
 with you." 
 
 Akim's kindness and simplicity are opposed by 
 the viciousness and greed of his wife Matrena. 
 Nikita remains on the farm, and Anisya, urged 
 and influenced by his mother, poisons old Peter 
 and steals his money. 
 
 When her husband dies, Anisya marries Nikita 
 and turns the money over to him. Nikita be- 
 comes the head of the house, and soon proves him- 
 self a rake and a tyrant. Idleness and afiluence 
 
278 Tolstoy 
 
 undermine whatever good is latent in him. 
 Money, the destroyer of souls, together with the 
 consciousness that he has been indirectly a party 
 to Jnisya's crime, turn Nikita's love for the 
 woman into bitter hatred. He takes for his mis- 
 tress Akulina, Peter's oldest daughter, a girl of six- 
 teen, deaf and silly, and forces Anisya to serve 
 them. She had strength to resist her old husband, 
 but her love for Nikita has made her weak, 
 " The moment I see him my heart softens. I have 
 no courage against him." 
 
 Old Akim comes to ask for a little money from 
 his newly rich son. He quickly senses the swamp 
 of corruption and vice into which Nikita has sunk. 
 He tries to save him, to bring him back to himself, 
 to arouse the better side of his nature. But he 
 fails. 
 
 The ways of life are too evil for Akim. He 
 leaves, refusing even the money he needs so badly 
 to purchase a horse. 
 
 Akim. One sin holds on to another and pulls you 
 along. Nikita, you are stuck in sins. You are stuck, I 
 see, in sins. You are stuck fast, so to speak. I have 
 heard that nowadays they pull fathers' beards, so to speak, 
 — but this leads only to ruin, to ruin, so to speak. . . . 
 There is your money. I will go and beg, so to speak, 
 but I will not, so to speak, take the money. . . . Let me 
 gol I will not stay! I would rather sleep near the 
 fence than in your nastiness. 
 
The Power of Darkness 279 
 
 The type of Akim is most vividly characterized 
 by Tolstoy in the talk between the old peasant and 
 the new help on the farm. 
 
 Mitrich. Let us suppose, for example, you have 
 money, and I, for example, have my land lying fallow; 
 it is spring, and I have no seed; or I have to pay the 
 taxes. So I come to you, and say : " Akim, give me ten 
 roubles! I will have the harvest in by St. Mary's Inter- 
 cession and then I will give it back to you, with a tithe 
 for the accommodation." You, for example, see that I 
 can be flayed, having a horse or a cow, so you say: 
 " Give me two or three roubles for /the accommodation." 
 The noose is around my neck, and I cannot get along 
 without it. " Very well," says I, " I will take the ten 
 roubles." In the fall I sell some things, and I bring you 
 the money, and you skin me in addition for three rou- 
 bles. 
 
 Akim. But this is, so to speak, a wrong done to a peas- 
 ant. If one forgets God, so to speak, it is not good. 
 
 Mitrich. Wait a minute! So remember what you 
 have done: you have fleeced me, so to speak, and Anisya, 
 for example, has some money which is lying idle. She 
 has no place to put it in and, being a woman, does not 
 know what to do with it. So she comes to you : " Can't 
 I," says she, " make some use of my money? " " Yes, you 
 can," you say. And so you wait. Next summer I come 
 to you once more. " Give me another ten roubles," says 
 I, " and I will pay you for the accommodation." So you 
 watch me to see whether my hide has not been turned 
 yet, whether I can be flayed again, and if I can, you give 
 
280 Tolstoy 
 
 me Anisya's money. But if I have not a blessed thing, 
 and nothing to eat, you make your calculations, seeing 
 that I cannot be skinned, and you say: "God be with 
 you, my brother ! " and you look out for another man to 
 whom to give Anisya's money, and whom you can flay. 
 Now this is called a bank. So it keeps going around. 
 It is a very clever thing, my friend. 
 
 A kirn. What is this? This is a nastiness, so to speak. 
 If a peasant, so to speak, were to do it, the peasants would 
 regard it as a sin, so to speak. This is not according to 
 the Law, not according to the Law, so to speak. It is 
 bad. How can the learned men, so to speak — ... As 
 I look at it, so to speak, there is trouble without money, 
 so to speak, and with money the trouble is double, so to 
 speak. God has commanded to work. But you put the 
 money in the bank, so to speak, and lie down to sleep, 
 and the money will feed you, so to speak, while you are 
 lying. This is bad, — not according to the Law, so to 
 speak. 
 
 Mitrich. Not according to the Law? The Law does 
 not trouble people nowadays, my friend. All they think 
 about is how to clean out a fellow. That's what ! 
 
 As long as AkuUna's condition is not noticeable, 
 the relation of Nikita with his dead master's 
 daughter remains hidden from the neighbors. 
 But the time comes when she is to give birth to a 
 child. It is then that Anisya becomes mistress of 
 the situation again. Her hatred for Akulina, her 
 outraged love for Nikita and the evil spirit of Ni- 
 kita's mother all combine to turn her into a fiend. 
 
The Power of Darkness 281 
 
 Akulina is driven to the barn, where her terrible 
 labor pains are stifled by the dread of her step- 
 mother. When the innocent victim is born, Ni- 
 kita's vicious mother and Anisya persuade him 
 that the child is dead and force him to bury it in 
 the cellar. 
 
 .While Nikita is digging the grave, he discovers 
 the deception. The child is alive! The terrible 
 shock unnerves the man, and in temporary madness 
 he presses a board over the little body till its bones 
 crunch. Superstition, horror and the perfidy of 
 the women drive Nikita to drink in an attempt to 
 drown the baby's cries constantly ringing in his 
 ears. 
 
 The last act deals with Akulina' s wedding to the 
 son of a neighbor. She is forced Into the mar- 
 riage because of her misfortune. The peasants 
 all gather for the occasion, but Nikita is missing : 
 he roams the place haunted by the horrible phan- 
 tom of his murdered child. He attempts to hang 
 himself but fails, and finally decides to go before 
 the entire assembly to confess his crimes. 
 
 Nikita, Father, listen to me! First of all, Marina, 
 loolc at me! I am guilty toward you: I had promised 
 to marry you, and I seduced you. I deceived you and 
 abandpned you; forgive me for Christ's sake! 
 
 Matrena. Oh, oh, he is bewitched. What is the mat- 
 ter with him? He has the evil eye upon him. Get up 
 and stop tallying nonsense! 
 
282 Tolstoy 
 
 Nikita. I killed your father, and I, dog, have ruined 
 his daughter. I had the power over her, and I killed 
 also her baby. . . . Father dear! Forgive me, sinful 
 man! You told me, when I first started on this life of 
 debauch : " When the claw is caught, the whole bird is 
 lost." But, I, dog, did not pay any attention to you, and 
 so everything turned out as you said. Forgive me, for 
 Christ's sake. 
 
 The " Power of Darkness " is a terrible picture 
 of poverty, ignorance and superstition. To write 
 such a work it is not suiEcient to be a creative art- 
 ist: it requires a deeply sympathetic human soul. 
 Tolstoy possessed both. He understood that the 
 tragedy of the' peasants' life is due not to any in- 
 herent viciousness but to the power of darkness 
 which permeates their existence from the cradle 
 to the grave. Something heavy is oppressing 
 them — in the words of Anisya — weighing them 
 down, something that saps all humanity out of 
 them and drives them into the depths. 
 
 " The Power of Darkness " is a social picture 
 at once appalling and gripping. 
 
ANTON TCHEKHOF 
 
 WHEN Anton Tchekhof first came to 
 the fore, no less an authority than 
 Tolstoy said: "Russia has given 
 birth to another Turgenev." The 
 estimate was not overdrawn. Tchekhof was in- 
 deed a modern Turgenev. Perhaps not as uni- 
 versal, because Turgenev, having lived in western 
 Europe, in close contact with conditions outside of 
 Russia, dealt with more variegated aspects of life. 
 But as a creative artist Tchekhof is fitted to take 
 his place with Turgenev. 
 
 Tchekhof is preeminently the master of short 
 stories. Within the limits of a few pages he paints 
 the drama of human life with its manifold tragic 
 and comic colors, in its most intimate reflex upon 
 the characters who pass through the panorama. 
 He has been called a pessimist. As if one could 
 miss the sun without feeling the torture of utter 
 darkness I 
 
 Tchekhof wrote during the gloomiest period of 
 Russian life, at a time when the reaction had 
 drowned the revolution in the blood of the young 
 generation, — when the Tsar had choked the very 
 
 283 
 
284 Anton Tchekhof 
 
 breath out of young Russia. The intellectuals 
 were deprived of every outlet : all the social chan- 
 nels were closed to them, and they found them- 
 selves without hope or faith, not having yet learned 
 to make common cause with the people. 
 
 Tchekhof could not escape the atmosphere 
 which darkened the horizon of almost the whole of 
 Russia. It was because he so Intensely felt its 
 oppressive weight that he longed for air, for light, 
 for new and vital ideas. To awaken the same 
 yearning and faith in others, he had to picture life 
 as it was. In all Its wretchedness and horror. 
 
 This he did in " The Seagull," while in "The 
 Cherry Orchard " he holds out the hope of a new 
 and brighter day. 
 
 THE SEAGULL 
 
 In " The Seagull " the young artist, Constan- 
 tine Treplef, seeks new forms, new modes of ex- 
 pression. He is tired of the old academic ways, 
 the beaten track; he is disgusted with the endless 
 imitative methods, no one apparently capable of an 
 original thought. 
 
 Constantine has written a play ; the principal part 
 is to be acted by Nina, a beautiful girl with whom 
 Constantine is In love. He arranges the first per- 
 formance to take place on the occasion of his 
 mother's vacation in the country. 
 
The Seagull 285 
 
 She herself — known as Mme. Arcadina — is a 
 famous actress of the old school. She knows how 
 to show off her charms to advantage, to parade her 
 beautiful gowns, to faint and die gracefully before 
 the footlights ; but she does not know how to live 
 her part on the stage. Mme. Arcadina is the type 
 of artist who lacks all conception of the relation 
 between art and life. Barren of vision and empty 
 of heart, her only criterion is public approval and 
 material success. Needless to say, she cannot un- 
 derstand her son. She considers him decadent, 
 a foolish rebel who wants to undermine the settled 
 canons of dramatic art. Constantine sums up his 
 mother's personality In the following manner : 
 
 Treplef, She is a psychological curiosity, is my mother. 
 A clever and gifted woman, who can cry over a novel, 
 will reel you off all Nekrassov's poems by heart, and is the 
 perfection of a sick nurse ; but venture to praise Eleonora 
 Duse before her! Oho! ho! You must praise nobody 
 but her, write about her, shout about her, and go into 
 ecstasies over her wonderful performance in La Dame aux 
 Camelias, or The Fumes of Life; but as she cannot have 
 these intoxicating pleasures down here in the country, 
 she's bored and gets spiteful. . . . She loves the stage; 
 she thinks that she is advancing the cause of humanity 
 and her sacred art; but I regard the stage of to-day as 
 mere routine and prejudice. When the curtain goes up 
 and the gifted beings, the high priests of the sacred art, 
 appear by electric light, in a room with three sides to it, 
 representing how people eat, drink, love, walk and wear 
 
286 Anton Tchekhof 
 
 their jackets; when they strive to squeeze out a moral 
 from the flat, vulgar pictures and the flat, vulgar phrases, 
 a little tiny moral, easy to comprehend and handy for 
 home consumption, when in a thousand variations they 
 offer me always the same thing over and over and over 
 again — then I take to my heels and run, as Maupassant 
 ran from the Eiffel Tower, which crushed his brain by its 
 overwhelming vulgarity. . . . We must have new for- 
 mulae. That's what we want. And if there are none, 
 then it's better to have nothing at all. 
 
 With Mme. Arcadina is her lover, Trigorin, a 
 successful writer. When he began his literary 
 career, he possessed originality and strength. But 
 gradually writing became a habit: the publishers 
 constantly demand new books, and he supplies 
 them. 
 
 Oh, the slavery of being an " arrived " artist, 
 forging new chains for oneself with every " best 
 seller " ! Such is the position of Trigorin : he 
 hates his work as the worst drudgery. Exhausted 
 of ideas, all life and human relations serve him 
 only as material for copy. 
 
 Nina, innocent of the ways of the world and 
 saturated with the false romanticism of Trigorin' s 
 works, does not see the man but the celebrated art- 
 ist. She is carried away by his fame and stirred 
 by his presence; an infatuation with him quickly 
 replaces her affection for Cqnstmtine. To her 
 
The Seagull 287 
 
 Trigorin embodies her dream of a brilliant and in- 
 teresting life. 
 
 Nina. How I envy you, if you but knew it! How 
 different are the lots of different people! Some can 
 hardly drag on their tedious, insignificant existence; they 
 are all alike, all miserable; others, like you, for instance 
 — you are one in a million — are blessed with a brilliant, 
 interesting life, all full of meaning. . . . You are happy. 
 . . . What a delightful life yours is! 
 
 Trigorin. What is there so fine about it? Day and 
 night I am obsessed by the same persistent thought; I 
 must write, I must write, I must write. . . . No sooner 
 have I finished one story than I am somehow compelled to 
 write another, then a third, and after the third a fourth. 
 ... I have no rest for myself; I feel that I am devour- 
 ing my own life. . . . I've never satisfied myself. . . . 
 I have the feeling for nature; it wakes a passion in me, 
 an irresistible desire to write. But I am something more 
 than a landscape painter; I'm a citizen as well; I love my 
 country, I love the people; I feel that if I am a writer 
 I am bound to speak of the people, of its suffering, of its 
 future, to speak of science, of the rights of man, etc., etc. ; 
 and I speak about it all, volubly, and am attacked angrily 
 in return by everyone ; I dart from side to side like a fox 
 run down by hounds ; I see that life and science fly farther 
 and farther ahead of me, and I fall farther and farther 
 behind, like the countryman running after the train; and 
 in the end I feel that the only thing I can write of is the 
 landscape, and in everything else I am untrue to life, 
 false to the very marrow of my bones, 
 
288 Anton Tchekhof 
 
 Constantine realizes that Nina is slipping away 
 from him. The situation is aggravated by the 
 constant friction with his mother and his despair 
 at the lack of encouragement for his art. In a fit 
 of despondency he attempts suicide, but without 
 success. His mother, although nursing him back 
 to health, is infuriated at her son's " foolishness," 
 his inability to adapt himself to conditions, his im- 
 practical ideas. She decides to leave, accompanied 
 by Trigorin. On the day of their departure Nina 
 and Trigorin meet once more. The girl tells him 
 of her ambition to become an actress, and, encour- 
 aged by him, follows him to the city. 
 
 Two years later Mme. Arcadina, still full of her 
 idle triumphs, returns to her estate. Trigorin is 
 again with her still haunted by the need of copy. 
 
 Constantine has in the interim matured consider- 
 ably. Although he has made himself heard as a 
 writer, he nevertheless feels that life to-day has no 
 place for such as he: that sincerity in art is not 
 wanted. His mother is with him, but she only 
 serves to emphasize the flatness of his surround- 
 ings. He loves her, but her ways jar him and 
 drive him into seclusion. 
 
 Nina, too, has returned to her native place, 
 broken in body and spirit. Partly because of the 
 memory of her past affection for Constantine, and 
 mainly because she learns of Trigorin' s presence, 
 she is drawn to the place where two years before 
 
The Seagull 289 
 
 she had dreamed of the beauty of an artistic career. 
 The cruel struggle for recognition, the bitter dis- 
 appointment in her relation with Trigorin, the care 
 of a child and poor health have combined to change 
 the romantic child into a sad woman. 
 
 Constantine still loves her. He pleads with her 
 to go away with him, to begin a new life. But it 
 is too late. The lure of the footlights is beckon- 
 ing to Nina; she returns to the stage. Constan- 
 tine, unable to stand the loneliness of his life and 
 the mercenary demands upon his art, kills himself. 
 
 To the Anglo-Saxon mind such an ending is pes- 
 simism, — defeat. Often, however, apparent de- 
 feat is in reality the truest success. For is not suc- 
 cess, as commonly understood, but too frequently 
 bought at the expense of character and idealism ? 
 
 " The Seagull " is not defeat. As long as there 
 is still such material in society as the Constantines 
 — men and women who would rather die than 
 compromise with the sordidness of life — there is 
 hope for humanity. If the Constantines perish, it 
 is the social fault, — our indifference to, and lack 
 of appreciation of, the real values that alone ad- 
 vance the fuller and more complete life of the race. 
 
290 Anton Tchekhof 
 
 THE CHERRY ORCHARD 
 
 " The Cherry Orchard " is Tchekhof's pro- 
 phetic song. In this play he depicts three stages 
 of social development and their reflex in literature. 
 
 Mme. Ranevsky, the owner of the cherry or- 
 chard, an estate celebrated far and wide for its 
 beauty and historic traditions, is deeply attached to 
 the family place. She loves it for its romanticism : 
 nightingales sing in the orchard, accompanying the 
 wooing of lovers. She is devoted to it because of 
 the memory of her ancestors and because of the 
 many tender ties which bind her to the orchard. 
 The same feeling and reverence is entertained by 
 her brother Leonid Gayef. They are expressed in 
 the Ode to an Old Family Cupboard: 
 
 Gayef. Beloved and venerable cupboard; honor and 
 glory to your existence, which for more than a hundred 
 years has been directed to the noble ideals of justice and 
 virtue. Your silent summons to profitable labor has never 
 weakened in all these hundred years. You have upheld 
 the courage of succeeding generations of human kind; 
 you have upheld faith in a better future and cherished in 
 us ideals of goodness and social consciousness. 
 
 But the social consciousness of Gayef and of his 
 sister is of a paternal nature : the attitude of the 
 aristocracy toward its serfs. It is a paternalism 
 that takes no account of the freedom and happiness 
 of the people, — the romanticism of a dying class. 
 
The Cherry Orchard 291 
 
 Mme. Ranevsky is impoverished. The cherry 
 orchard is heavily mortgaged and as romance and 
 sentiment cannot liquidate debts, the beautiful es- 
 tate falls into the cruel hands of commercialism. 
 
 The merchant Yermolai Lopakhin buys the 
 place. He is in ecstasy over his newly acquired 
 possession. He the owner — he who had risen 
 from the serfs of the former master of the or- 
 chard 1 
 
 Lopakhin. Just think of it! The cherry orchard is 
 mine! Mine! Tell me that I'm drunk; tell me that I'm 
 off my head; tell me that it's all a dream! ... If only 
 my father and my grandfather could rise from their 
 graves and see the whole affair, how their Yermolai, their 
 flogged and ignorant Yermolai, who used to run about 
 barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had 
 bought a property that hasn't its equal for beauty any- 
 where in the whole world! I have bought the property 
 where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they 
 weren't even allowed into the kitchen. 
 
 A new epoch begins in the cherry orchard. On 
 the ruins of romanticism and aristocratic ease there 
 rises commercialism, its iron hand yoking nature, 
 devastating her beauty, and robbing her of all 
 radiance. 
 
 With the greed of rich returns, Lopakhin cries, 
 " Lay the ax to the cherry orchard, come and see 
 the trees fall down! We'll fill the place with 
 villas." 
 
292 Anton Tchekhof 
 
 Materialism reigns supreme; it. lords the or- 
 chard with mighty hand, and in the frenzy of its 
 triumph believes itself in control of the bodies and 
 souls of men. But in the madness of conquest it 
 has discounted a stubborn obstacle — the spirit of 
 idealism. It is symbolized in Peter Trophimof, 
 " the perpetual student," and Jnya, the young 
 daughter of Mme. Ranevsky. The " wonderful 
 achievements " of the materialistic age do not en- 
 thuse them; they have emancipated themselves 
 from the Lopakhin idol as well as from their aristo- 
 cratic traditions. 
 
 Anya. Why is it that I no longer love the cherry 
 orchard as I did ? I used to love it so tenderly ; I thought 
 there was no better place on earth than our garden. 
 
 Trophimof. All Russia is our garden. The earth is 
 great and beautiful ; it is full of wonderful places. Think, 
 Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather and all 
 your ancestors were serf-owners, owners of living souls. 
 Do not human spirits look out at you from every tree in 
 the orchard, from every leaf and every stem ? Do you not 
 hear human voices? . , . Oh! it is terrible. Your or- 
 chard frightens me. When I walk through it in the 
 evening or at night, the rugged bark on the trees glows 
 with a dim light, and the cherry trees seem to see all that 
 happened a hundred and two hundred years ago in pain- 
 ful and oppressive dreams. Well, well, we have fallen 
 at least two hundred years beyond the times. We have 
 achieved nothing at all as yet; we have not made up our 
 minds how we stand with the past; we only philosophize, 
 
The Cherry Orchard 293 
 
 complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It is so plain that, 
 before we can live in the present, we must first redeem the 
 past, and have done with it. 
 
 Any a. The house we live in has long since ceased to 
 be our house; I shall go away. 
 
 Trophimof. If you have the household keys, throw 
 them in the well and go away. Be free, be free as the 
 wind. ... I am hungry as the winter ; I am sick, anxious, 
 poor as a beggar. Fate has tossed me hither and thither; 
 I have been everywhere, everywhere. But everywhere I 
 have been, every minute, day and night, my soul has been 
 full of mysterious anticipations. I feel the approach of 
 happiness, Anya; I see it coming ... it is coming to- 
 wards us, nearer and nearer; I can hear the sound of its 
 footsteps, . . . And if we do not see it, if we do not 
 know it, what does it matter? Others will see it. 
 
 The new generation, on the threshold of the 
 new epoch, hears the approaching footsteps of the 
 Future. And even if the Anyas and Trophimofs 
 of to-day will not see it, others will. 
 
 It was not given to Anton Tchekhof to see it 
 with his bodily eyes. But his prophetic vision be- 
 held the coming of the New Day, and with power- 
 ful pen he proclaimed it, that others might see it. 
 Far from being a pessimist, as charged by unintelli- 
 gent critics, his faith was strong in the possibilities 
 of liberty. 
 
 This is the inspiring message of " The Cherry 
 Orchard." 
 
MAXIM GORKI 
 A NIGHT'S LODGING 
 
 WE in America are conversant with 
 tramp literature. A number of 
 writers of considerable note have de- 
 scribed what is commonly called the 
 underworld, among them Josiah Flynt and Jack 
 London, who have ably interpreted the life and 
 psychology of the outcast. But with all due re- 
 spect for their ability, it must be said that, after 
 all, they wrote only as onlookers, as observers. 
 They were not tramps themselves, in the real sense 
 of the word. In " The Children of the Abyss " 
 Jack London relates that when he stood in the 
 breadline, he had money, a room in a good hotel, 
 and a change of linen at hand. He was therefore 
 not an integral part of the underworld, of the 
 homeless and hopeless. 
 
 Never before has anyone given such a true, 
 realistic picture of the social depths as Maxim 
 Gorki, himself a denizen of the underworld from 
 his early childhood. At the age of eight he ran 
 away from his poverty-stricken, dismal home, and 
 
 894 
 
A Night's Lodging 295 
 
 for many years thereafter he lived the life of the 
 bosyaki. He tramped through the length and 
 breadth of Russia ; he lived with the peasant, the 
 factory worker and the outcast. He knew them 
 intimately ; he understood their psychology, for he 
 was not only with them, but of them. Therefore 
 Gorki has been able to present such a vivid picture 
 of the underworld. 
 
 " A Night's Lodging " portrays a lodging 
 house, hideous and foul, where gather the social 
 derelicts, — the thief, the gambler, the ex-artist, the 
 ex-aristocrat, the prostitute. All of them had at 
 one time an ambition, a goal, but because of their 
 lack of will and the injustice and cruelty of the 
 world, they were forced into the depths and cast^ 
 back whenever they attempted to rise. They are 
 the superfluous ones, dehumanized and brutalized. 
 
 In this poisonous air, where everjrthing withers 
 and dies, we nevertheless find character. Na- 
 tasha, a young girl, still retains her wholesome in- 
 stincts. She had never known love or sympathy, 
 had gone hungry all her days, and had tasted noth- 
 ing but abuse from her brutal sister, on whom she 
 was dependent. Vaska Pepel, the young thief, a 
 lodger in-the house, strikes a responsive chord in 
 her the moment he makes her feel that he cares 
 for her and that she might be of spiritual and 
 moral help to him. Vaska, like Natasha, is a 
 product of his social environment. 
 
296 Maxim Gorki 
 
 Faska. From childhood, I have been — only a thief. 
 • . . Always I was called Vaska the pickpocket, Vaska 
 the son of a thief! See, it was of no consequence to me, 
 as long as they would have it so ... so they would have 
 it. ... I was a thief, perhaps, only out of spite ... be- 
 cause nobody came along to call me anything — thief. 
 . . . You call me something else, Natasha. ... It is 
 no easy life that I lead — friendless ; pursued like a wolf. 
 ... I sink like a man in a swamp . . . whatever I touch 
 is slimy and rotten • . . nothing is firm . . . but you are 
 like a young fir-tree; you are prickly, but you give sup- 
 port. 
 
 There is another humane figure illuminating the 
 dark picture in " A Night's Lodging ", — Luka. 
 He is the type of an old pilgrim, a man whom the 
 experiences of life have taught wisdom. He has 
 tramped through Russia and Siberia, and con- 
 sorted with all sorts of people ; but disappointment 
 and grief have not robbed him of his faith in 
 beauty, in idealism. He believes that every man, 
 however low, degraded, or demoralized can yet be 
 reached, if we but know how to touch his soul. 
 Luka inspires courage and hope in everyone he 
 meets, urging each to begin life anew. To the 
 former actor, now steeped in drink, he says : 
 
 Luka. The drunkard, I have heard, can now be cured, 
 without charge. They realize now, you see, that the 
 drunkard is also a man. You must begin to make ready. 
 Begin a new life! 
 
A Night's Lodging 297 
 
 Luka tries also to Imbue Natasha and Vaska 
 with new faith. They marvel at his goodness. 
 In simplicity of heart Luka gives his philosophy of 
 life. 
 
 Luka. I am good, you say. But you see, there must 
 be some one to be good. . . . We must have pity on 
 mankind. . . . Have pity while there is still time, be- 
 lieve me, it is very good. I was once, for example, em- 
 ployed as a watchman, at a country place which belonged 
 to an engineer, not far from the city of Tomsk, in Siberia. 
 The house stood in the middle of the forest, an out-of-the- 
 way location . . . and it was winter and I was all alone 
 in the country house. It was beautiful there . . . mag- 
 nificent! And once ... I heard them scrambling 
 up! . . . 
 
 Natasha. Thieves 1 
 
 Luka. Yes. They crept higher and I took my rifle 
 and went outside. I looked up: two men ... as they 
 were opening a window and so busy that they did not see 
 anything of me at all. I cried to them : " Heh there 
 ... get out of that "... and would you think it, 
 they fell on me with a hand ax. ... I warned them — 
 " Halt," I cried, " or else I fire " . . . then I aimed 
 first at one and then at the other. They fell on their 
 knees, saying, " Pardon us." I was pretty hot ... on 
 account of the hand ax, you remember. " You devils," I 
 cried, " I told you to clear out and you didn't . . . and 
 now," I said, " one of you go into the brush and get a 
 switch." It was done> " And now," I commanded, " one 
 of you stretch out on the ground, and the other thrash 
 
298 Maxim Gorki 
 
 him "... and so they whipped each other at my com- 
 mand. And when they had each had a sound beating, 
 they said to me : " Grandfather," said they, " for the 
 sake of Christ give us a piece of bread. We haven't a 
 bite in our bodies." They were the thieves, who had 
 fallen upon me with the hand ax. Yes . . . they were a 
 pair of splendid fellows. ... I said to them, " If you had 
 asked for bread." Then they answered : " We had got- 
 ten past that. . . . We had asked and asked and nobody 
 would give us anything . . . endurance was worn out," 
 . . . and so they remained with me the whole winter. 
 One of them, Stephen by name, liked to take the rifle and 
 go into the woods . . . and the other, JakofE, was con- 
 stantly ill, always coughing . . . the three of us watched 
 the place, and when spring came, they said, " Farewell, 
 grandfather," and went away — to Russia. . . . 
 
 Natasha. Were they convicts, escaping? 
 
 Luka. They were . . . fugitives . . . they had left 
 their colony ... a pair of splendid fellows. ... If I 
 had not had pity on them — who knows what would have 
 happened. They might have killed me. . . . Then they 
 would be taken to court again, put in prison, sent back to 
 Siberia. . . . Why all that? You learn nothing good in 
 prison, nor in Siberia . . . but a man, what can he not 
 learn. Man may teach his fellowman something good 
 . . . very simply. 
 
 / Impressed and strengthened by Luka's wonder- 
 ' ful faith and vision, the unfortunates make an at- 
 tempt to rise from the social swamp. But he has 
 come too late into their lives. They have been 
 
A Night's Lodging 299 
 
 robbed of energy and will; and conditions always 
 conspire to thrust them back into the depths. 
 When Natasha and Vaska are about to start out on 
 the road to a new life, fate overtakes them. The 
 girl, during a scene with her heartless sister, is ter- 
 ribly scalded by the latter, and Vaska, rushing to 
 the defense of his sweetheart, encounters her 
 brutal brother-in-law, whom he accidentally kills. 
 Thus these " superfluous ones " go down in the 
 struggle. Not because of their vicious or degrad- 
 ing tendencies ; on the contrary, it is their better In- 
 stincts that cause them to be swept back into the 
 abyss. But though they perish, the Inspiration of- 
 Luka Is not entirely lost. It Is epitomized In the 
 words of one of the victims. 
 
 Sahtin. The old man — he lived from within. . . . 
 He saw everything with his own eyes. ... I asked him 
 once: "Grandfather, why do men really live?" . . . 
 " Man lives ever to give birth to strength. There live, 
 for example, the carpenters, noisy, miserable people . . . 
 and suddenly in their midst is a carpenter born . . . such 
 a carpenter as the world has never seen: he is above all, 
 no other carpenter can be compared to him. He gives a 
 new face to the whole trade ... his own face, so to 
 speak . . . and with that simple impulse it has advanced 
 twenty years . . . and so the others live ... the lock- 
 smiths and the shoemakers, and all the rest of the work- 
 ing people . . . and the same is true of other classes — 
 all to give birth to strength. Everyone thinks that he for 
 himself takes up room in the world, but it turns out that 
 
300 Maxim Gorki 
 
 he IS here for another's benefit — for someone better . . . 
 a hundred years ... or perhaps longer. . . if we live 
 so long ... for the sake of genius. . . . All, my chil- 
 dren, all, live only to give birth to strength. For that 
 reason we must respect everybody. We cannot know 
 who he is, for what purpose born, or what he may yet 
 fulfill . . . perhaps he has been born for our good for- 
 tune ... or great benefit." 
 
 No stronger indictment than " A Night's Lodg- 
 ing " is to be found in contemporary literature of 
 our perverse civilization that condemns thousands 
 — often the very best men and women — to the 
 fate of the Vaskas and Anyas, doomed as super- 
 fluous and unnecessary in society. And yet they 
 are necessary, aye, they are vital, could we but see 
 beneath the veil of cold indifference and stupidity 
 to discover the deep humanity, the latent possibili- 
 ties in these lowliest of the low. If within our so- 
 cial conditions they are useless material, often 
 vicious and detrimental to the general good, it is 
 because they have been denied opportunity and 
 forced into conditions that kill their faith in them- 
 selves and all that is best in their natures. 
 
 The so-called depravity and crimes of these 
 derelicts are fundamentally the depravity and crim- 
 inal anti-social attitude of Society itself that first 
 creates the underworld and, having created it, 
 wastes much energy and effort in suppressing and 
 destroying the menacing phantom of its own mak- 
 
A Night's Lodging 301 
 
 ing, — forgetful of the elemental brotherhood of 
 man, blind to the value of the individual, and igno- 
 rant of the beautiful possibilities inherent in even 
 the most despised children of the depths. 
 
LEONID ANDREYEV 
 
 KING-HUNGER 
 
 LEONID ANDREYEV is the youngest 
 and at the present time the most power- 
 ful dramatist of Russia. Like Tchek- 
 hof and Gorki, he is very versatile: his 
 sketches and stories possess as fine a lit^fary 
 quality and stirring social appeal as his plays. 
 
 No one who has read his terrible picture of war, 
 " The Red Laugh," or his unsurpassed arraign- 
 ment of capital punishment, " The Seven Who 
 Were Hanged," can erase from memory the ef- 
 fect of Leonid Andreyev's forceful pen. 
 
 The drama " King-Hunger " deals with the 
 most powerful king on earth, — King-Hunger. In 
 the presence of Time and Death he pleads with 
 Time to ring the alarm, to call the people to rebel- 
 lion, because the earth is replete with suffering: 
 cities, shops, mines, factories and fields resound 
 with the moans and groans of the people. Their 
 agony is unbearable. 
 
 King-Hunger. Strike the bell, old man; rend to the 
 ears its copper mouth. Let no one slumber ! 
 
 302 
 
King-Hunger 303 
 
 But Time has no faith in King-Hunger. He 
 knows that Hunger had deceived the people on 
 many occasions: " You will deceive again, King- 
 Hunger. You have many a time deluded your 
 children and me." Yet Time is weary with wait- 
 ing. He consents to strike the bell. 
 
 King-Hunger calls upon the workingmen to re- 
 bel. The scene is in a machine shop; the place is 
 filled with deafening noises as of men's groans. 
 Every machine, every tool, every screw, holds its 
 human forms fettered to it and all keep pace with 
 the maddening speed of their tormentors. And 
 through the thunder and clatter of iron there rises 
 the terrible plaint of the toilers. 
 
 We are starving. 
 
 We are crushed by machines. 
 
 Their weight smothers us. 
 
 The iron crushes. 
 
 The steel oppresses. 
 
 Oh, what a furious weight! As a mountain 
 
 upon me! 
 
 The whole earth is upon me. 
 
 The iron hammer flattens me. It crushes the 
 
 blood out of my veins, it fractures my bones, it makes me 
 flat as sheet iron. 
 
 Through the rollers my body is pressed and 
 
 drawn thin as wire. Where is my body? Where is my 
 blood? Where is my soul? 
 
 The wheel is twirling me. 
 
 Day and night screaks the saw cutting steel. 
 
304 Leonid Andreyev • 
 
 Day and night in my ears the screeching of the saw cut- 
 ting steel. All the dreams that I see, all the sounds and 
 songs that I hear, is the screeching of the saw cutting 
 steel. What is the earth? It is the screeching of the 
 saw. What is the sky? It is the screeching of the saw 
 cutting steel. Day and night. 
 
 Day and night. 
 
 We are crushed by the machines- 
 
 We ourselves are parts of the machines. 
 
 Brothers! We forge our own chains! 
 
 The crushed call upon King-Hunger to help 
 them, to save them from the horror of their life. 
 Is he not the most powerful king on earth ? 
 
 King-Hunger comes and exhorts them to rebel. 
 All follow his call except three. One of these is 
 huge of body, of Herculean built, large of muscle 
 but with small, flat head upon his massive 
 shoulders. The second workingman is young, 
 but with the mark of death already upon his brow. 
 He is constantly coughing and the hectic flush on 
 his cheeks betrays the wasting disease of his class. 
 The third workingman is a worn-out old man. 
 Everything about him, even his voice, is deathlike, 
 colorless, as if in his person a thousand lives had 
 been robbed of their bloom. 
 
 First Workingman. I am as old as the earth. I have 
 performed all the twelve labors, cleansed stables, cut off 
 the hydra's heads, dug and vexed the earth, built cities, 
 and have so altered its face, that the Creator himself 
 
King-Hunger 305 
 
 would not readily recognize her. But I can't say why I 
 did all this. Whose will did I shape? To what end 
 did I aspire? My head is dull. I am dead tired. My 
 strength oppresses me. Explain it to me, O King! Or 
 I'll clutch this hammer and crack the earth as a hollow 
 nut. 
 
 King-Hunger. Patience, my son! Save your powers 
 for the last great revolt. Then you'll know all. 
 
 First JVorkingman, I shall wait. 
 
 Second Workingman. He cannot comprehend it, O 
 King. He thinks that we must crack the earth. It is 
 a gross falsehood, O King! The earth is fair as the 
 garden of God, We must guard and caress her as a lit- 
 tle girl. Many that stand there in the darkness say, 
 there Is no sky, no sun, as if eternal night is upon the 
 earth. Just think: eternal night! 
 
 King-Hunger, Why, coughing blood, do you smile 
 and gaze to heaven? 
 
 Second Workingman. Because flowers will blossom on 
 .my blood, and I see them now. On the breast of a beau- 
 tiful rich lady I saw a red rose — she didn't know it was 
 my blood. 
 
 King-Hunger. You are a poet, my son. I suppose 
 you write verses, as they do. 
 
 Second Workingman. Kling, O King, sneer not at me. 
 In darkness I learned to worship fire. Dying I under- 
 stood that life is enchanting. Oh, how enchanting! 
 King, it shall become a great garden, and there shall walk 
 in peace, unmolested, men and animals. Dare not ruffle 
 the animals! Wrong not any man! Let them play, 
 embrace, caress one another — let them! But where is 
 
3o6 Leonid Andreyev 
 
 the path? Where is the path? Explain, King-Hunger. 
 
 King-Hunger. Revolt. 
 
 Second Workingman. Through violence to freedom? 
 Through blood to love and kisses? 
 
 King-Hunger. There is no other way. 
 
 Third Workingman. You lie, King-Hunger. Then 
 you have killed my father and grandfather and great- 
 grandfather, and would'st thou kill us? Where do you 
 lead us, unarmed ? Don't you see how ignorant we are, 
 how blind and impotent. You are a traitor. Only here 
 you are a king, but there you lackey upon their tables. 
 Only here you wear a crown, but there you walk about 
 with a napkin. 
 
 King-Hunger will not listen to their protest. 
 He gives them the alternative of rebellion or starv- 
 ation for themselves and their children. They 
 decide to rebel, for King-Hunger is the most 
 powerful king on earth. 
 
 The subjects of King-Hunger, the people of the 
 underworld, gather to devise ways and means 
 of rebellion. A gruesome assembly this, held in 
 the cellar. Above is the palace ringing with music 
 and laughter, the fine ladies in gorgeous splendor, 
 bedecked with flowers and costly jewels, the tables 
 laden with rich food and delicious wines. Every- 
 thing is most exquisite there, joyous and happy. 
 And underneath^ in the cellar, the underworld is 
 gathered, all the dregs of society: the robber and 
 the murderer, the thief and the prostitute, the 
 
King-Hunger 307 
 
 gambler and the drunkard. They have come to 
 consult with each other how poverty is to rebel, 
 how to throw off the yoke, and what to do with the 
 rich. 
 
 Various suggestions are made. One advises 
 poisoning the supply of water. But this is con- 
 demned on the ground that the people also have to 
 drink from the same source. 
 
 Another suggests that all books should be burned 
 for they teach the rich how to oppress. But the 
 motion fails. What is the use of burning the 
 books? The wealthy have money; they will buy 
 writers, poets and scientists to make new books. 
 
 A third proposes that the children of the rich 
 be killed. From the darkest, most dismal corner 
 of the cellar comes the protest of an old woman : 
 " Oh, not the children. Don't touch the children. 
 I have buried many of them myself. I know the 
 pain of the mother. Besides, the children are not 
 to blame for the crimes of their parents. Don't 
 touch the children I The child is pure and sacred. 
 Don't hurt the child ! " 
 
 A little girl rises, a child of twelve with the face 
 of the aged. She announces that for the last four 
 years she has given her body for money. She had 
 been sold by her mother because they needed bread 
 for the smaller children. During the four years 
 of her terrible life, she has consorted with all kinds 
 of men, influential men, rich men, pious men. 
 
3o8 Leonid Andreyev 
 
 They infected her. Therefore she proposes that 
 the rich should be infected. 
 
 The underworld plans and plots, and the grue- 
 some meeting is closed with a frenzied dance be- 
 tween King-Hunger and Death, to the music of the 
 dance above. 
 
 King-Hunger is at the trial of the Starving. He 
 is the most powerful king on earth : he is at home 
 everywhere, but nowhere more so than at the trial 
 of the Starving. On high chairs sit the judges, in 
 all their bloated importance. The courtroom is 
 filled with curiosity seekers, idle ladies dressed as 
 if for a ball ; college professors and students look- 
 ing for object lessons in criminal depravity; rich 
 young girls are there, to satisfy a perverted craving 
 for excitement. 
 
 The first starveling is brought in muzzled. 
 
 King-Hunger. What is your offense, starveling? 
 
 Old Man. I stole a five-pound loaf, but it was 
 wrested from me. I had only time to bite a small piece 
 of it. Forgive me, I will never again — 
 
 He is condemned in the name of the Law and 
 King-Hunger, the most powerful king on earth. 
 
 Another starveling is brought before the bar of 
 justice. It is a woman, young and beautiful, but 
 pale and sad. She is charged with killing her 
 child. 
 
King-Hunger 309 
 
 Young Woman. One night my baby and I crossed 
 the long bridge over the river. And since I had long be- 
 fore decided, so then approaching the middle, where the 
 river is deep and swift, I said : " Look, baby dear, how 
 the water is a-roaring below." She said, " I can't reach, 
 mamma, the railing is so high." I said, " Come, let me 
 lift you, baby dear." And when she was gazing down 
 into the black deep, I threw her over. That's all. 
 
 The Law and King-Hunger condemn the woman 
 to " blackest hell," there to be " tormented and 
 burned in everlasting, slackless fires." 
 
 The heavy responsibility of meting out justice 
 has fatigued the judges. The excitement of the 
 trial has sharpened the appetite of the spectators. 
 King-Hunger, at home with all people, proposes 
 that the court adjourn for luncheon. 
 
 The scene in the restaurant represents Hunger 
 devouring like a wild beast the produce of toil, 
 ravenous, famished, the victim of his own glutton- 
 ous greed. 
 
 The monster fed, his hunger and thirst ap- 
 peased, he now returns to sit in self-satisfied judg- 
 ment over the Starving. The judges are more 
 bloated than before, the ladies more eager to bask 
 in the misery of their fellows. The college pro- 
 fessors and students, mentally heavy with food, are 
 still anxious to add data to the study of human 
 criminality. 
 
310 Leonid Andreyev 
 
 A lean boy is brought In, muzzled; he is fol- 
 lowed by a ragged woman. 
 
 Woman. Have mercy! He stole an apple for ir.e, 
 your Honor. I was sick, thought he. " Let me bring 
 her a little apple." Pity him ! Tell them that you won't 
 any more. Well! Speak! 
 
 Starveling. I won't any more. 
 
 Woman. I've already punished him myself. Pity his 
 youth, cut not at the root his bright little days ! 
 
 Voices. Indeed, pity one and then the next. Cut the 
 evil at its roots. 
 
 One needs courage to be ruthless. 
 
 It is better for them. 
 
 Now he is only a boy, but when he grows up — 
 
 Kins-Hunger. Starveling, you are condemned. 
 
 A Starveling, heavily muzzled, is dragged in. 
 He is big and strong. He protests to the court : he 
 has always been a faithful slave. But King- 
 Hunger announces that the man is dangerous, be- 
 cause the faithful slave, being strong and honest, is 
 " obnoxious to people of refined culture and less 
 brawny." The slave is faithful to-day, King- 
 Hunger warns the judges, but " who can trust the 
 to-morrow? Then in his strength and integrity 
 we will encounter a violent and dangerous enemy." 
 
 In the name of justice the faithful slave is con- 
 demned. Finally the last starveling appears. He 
 looks half human, half beast. 
 
King^Hunger 3 1 1 
 
 Kins-Hunger. Who are you, starveling? Answer. 
 Do you understand human speech? 
 
 Starveling. We are the peasants. 
 
 King-Hunger. What's your offense? 
 
 Starveling. We killed the devil. 
 
 King-Hunger. It was a man whom you burnt. 
 
 Starveling. No, it was the devil. The priest told us 
 so, and then we burnt him. 
 
 The peasant is condemned. The session of the 
 Court closes with a brief speech by King-Hunger: 
 
 King-Hunger. To-day you witnessed a highly in- 
 structive spectacle. Divine, eternal justice has found in 
 us, as judges and your retainers, its brilliant reflection on 
 earth. Subject only to the laws of immortal equity, un- 
 known to culpable compassion, indifferent to cursing and 
 entreating prayers, obeying the voice of our conscience 
 alone — we illumed this earth with the light of human 
 wisdom and sublime, sacred truth. Not for a single 
 moment forgetting that justice is the foundation of life, 
 we have crucified the Christ in days gone by and since, 
 to this very day, we cease not to grace Golgotha with new 
 - crosses. But, certainly, only ruffians, only ruffians are 
 hanged. We showed no mercy to God himself, in the 
 name of the laws of immortal justice — would we be 
 now disconcerted by the howling of this impotent, starv- 
 ing rabble, by their cursing and raging? Let them curse! 
 Life herself blesses us, the great sacred truth will screen 
 us with her veil, and the very decree of history will not 
 be more just than our own. What have they gained by 
 cursing? What? They are there, we're here. They 
 
312 Leonid Andreyev 
 
 are in dungeons, in galleys, on crosses, but we will go to 
 the theater. They perish, but we will devour them — 
 devour — devour. 
 
 The court has fulfilled its mission. King' 
 Hunger is the most powerful king on earth. 
 
 The starvelings break out in revolt. The bells 
 peal with deafening thunder; all is confusion and 
 chaos. The city is immersed in the blackness of 
 despair, and all is dark. Now and then gusts of 
 fire sweep the sky illuminating the scene of battle. 
 The air is filled with cries and groans ; there is the 
 thud of falling bodies, and still the fight goes on. 
 
 In a secluded part of the town stands the castle. 
 In its most magnificent ballroom the rich and their 
 lackeys — scientists, teachers and artists — are 
 gathered. They tremble with fear at the ominous 
 sounds outside. To silence the loud beat of their 
 terror they command the musicians to strike up the 
 liveliest tunes, and the guests whirl about in a mad 
 dance. 
 
 From time to time the door is forced open and 
 someone drops exhausted to the floor. An artist 
 rushes in, crying out that the art gallery is in 
 flames. 
 
 " Murillo is burning! Velasquez is burning I 
 Giorgione is burning I " 
 
 He is not in the least concerned with living 
 
King-Hunger 3 1 3 
 
 values ; he dwells in the past and he wildly bewails 
 the dead weight of the past. 
 
 One after another men rush in to report the 
 burning of libraries, the breaking of statues, and 
 the destruction of monuments. No one among the 
 wealthy mob regrets the slaughter of human life. 
 
 Panic-stricken the mighty fall from their 
 thrones. The Starving, infuriated and vengeful, 
 are marching on the masters! They must not see 
 the craven fear of the huddled figures in the man- 
 sions, — the lights are turned off. But darkness 
 is even more terrible to the frightened palace mob. 
 In the madness of terror they begin to accuse and 
 denounce each other. They feel as helpless as 
 children before the approaching avalanche of 
 vengeance. 
 
 At this critical moment a man appears. He Is 
 small, dirty, and unwashed; he smells of cheap 
 whisky and bad tobacco ; he blows his nose with a 
 red handkerchief and his manners are disgusting. 
 He is the engineer. He looks calmly about him, 
 presses a button, and the place is flooded with 
 light. He brings the comforting news that the 
 revolt is crushed. 
 
 Engineer. On Sunny Hill we planted a line of im- 
 mense machine guns of enormous power. ... A few 
 projectiles of a specially destructive power ... A public 
 square filled with people . . . Enough one or two such 
 
314 Leonid Andreyev 
 
 shells. . . . And should the revolt still continue, we'll 
 shower the city. 
 
 The revolt Is over. All is quiet — the peace of 
 death. The ground is strewn with bodies, the 
 streets are soaked with blood. Fine ladies flit 
 about. They lift their children and bid them 
 kiss the mouth of the cannon, for the cannon have 
 saved the rich from destruction. Prayers and 
 hymns are offered up to the cannon, for they have 
 saved the masters and punished the starvelings. 
 And all is quiet, with the stillness of the graveyard 
 where sleep the dead. 
 
 King-Hunger, with hollow cheeks and sunken 
 eyes, makes a desperate last appeal to his chil- 
 dren. 
 
 King-Hunger. Oh, my son, my son! You clamored 
 so loud — why are you mute? Oh, my daughter, my 
 daughter, you hated so profoundly, so intensely, you most 
 miserable on earth — arise. Arise from the dust! Rend 
 the shadowy bonds of death! Arise! I conjure you in 
 the name of Life! — You're silent? 
 
 For a brief moment all remains silent and im- 
 movable. Suddenly a sound is heard, distant at 
 first, then nearer and nearer, till a thousand- 
 throated roar breaks forth like thunder : 
 
 We shall yet come ! 
 
 We shall yet come! 
 
 Woe unto the victorious! 
 
King-Hu nger 315 
 
 The Victors pale at the ghostly cry. Seized 
 with terror, they run, wildly howling : 
 
 The dead arise! 
 
 The dead arise! 
 
 " We shall yet come 1 " cry the dead. For they 
 who died for an ideal never die in vain. They 
 must come back, they shall come back. And then 
 — woe be to the victorious I King-Hunger is in- 
 deed the most terrible king on earth, but only for 
 those who are driven by blind forces alone. 
 
 But they who can turn on the light, know the 
 power of the things they have created. They will 
 come, and take possession, — no longer the 
 wretched scum, but the masters of the world. 
 
 A message revolutionary, deeply social in its 
 scope, illumining with glorious hope the dismal 
 horizon of the disinherited of the earth. 
 
ANARCHISM 
 
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