SCENE III--IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE

FIRST SCENE

_The front of a modern house with a basement of granite. The upper parts are of brick covered with yellow plastering. The window-frames and other ornaments are of sandstone. A low archway leads through the basement to the court and serves also as entrance to the confectioner's shop. The corner of the house appears at the right of the stage, where the avenue opens into a small square planted with roses and various other flowers. At the corner is a mail-box. The main floor, above the basement, has large windows, all of which are open. Four of these windows belong to an elegantly furnished dining-room. The four middle windows in the second story have red shades which are drawn; the shades are illumined by light from within_.

_Along the front of the house runs a sidewalk with trees planted at regular intervals. There is a lamp-post in the extreme foreground and beside it stands a green bench_.

STARCK, _the confectioner, comes out with a chair and sits down on the sidewalk_.

_The_ MASTER _is visible in the dining-room of the main floor, seated at the table. Behind him appears an oven built of green majolica tiles. On its mantelshelf stands a large photograph between two candelabra and some vases containing flowers. A young girl in a light dress is just serving the final course_.

_The_ MASTER'S _brother, the_ CONSUL, _appears in front of the house, coming from the left, and knocks with his walking-stick on the sill of one of the dining-room windows_.

CONSUL. Will you soon be through?

MASTER. I'll come in a moment.

CONSUL. [_Saluting the confectioner_] Good evening, Mr. Starck. It's still hot----

STARCK. Good evening, Consul. Yes, it's the dog-day heat, and we have been making jam all day.

CONSUL. Is that so? It's a good year for fruit, then?

STARCK. It might be worse. Well, the spring was cold, but the summer turned out unbearably hot. It was hard on us who had to stay in the city.

CONSUL. I got back from the country yesterday--one begins to wish oneself back when the evenings grow dark.

STARCK. Neither I nor my wife have been out of the city. Of course, business is at a standstill, but you have to be on hand to make ready for the winter. First come strawberries, then cherries, then raspberries, and last gooseberries, cantaloupes and all the fall fruits----

CONSUL. Tell me something, Mr. Starck. Is the house here to be sold?

STARCK. Not that I have heard.

CONSUL. There are a lot of people living here?

STARCK. Something like ten families, I think, counting those in the rear also. But nobody knows anybody else. There is unusually little gossiping in the house. It seems rather as if everybody were hiding. I have lived here ten years, and during the first two years we had for neighbours a strange family that kept very quiet in the daytime. But at night they began to stir about, and then carriages would come and fetch things away. Not until the end of the second year did I learn that they had been running a private sanatorium, and that what was being taken away at night were dead bodies.

CONSUL. Horrible!

STARCK. And they call it the Silent House.

CONSUL. Yes, there isn't much talking done here.

STARCK. More than one drama has been played here, nevertheless.

CONSUL. Tell me, Mr. Starck, who lives up there on the second floor, right above my brother?

STARCK. Up there, where the light comes through the red shades--a tenant died there during the summer. Then the place stood empty for a month, and a week ago a new family moved in. I haven't seen them. I don't know their name. I don't think they ever go out. Why did you ask, Consul?

CONSUL. Whew--I don't know! Those four red shades look like stage curtains behind which some sanguinary tragedies are being rehearsed--or I imagine so, at least. There is a palm at one of the windows looking like a rod made of wire--you can see the shadow of it on the shade. If only some people were to be seen----

STARCK. I have seen plenty of them, but not until later--at night.

CONSUL. Was it men or women you saw?

STARCK. Both, I guess--but now I must get back to my pots. [_He disappears into the gateway_.

MASTER. [_Still inside, has risen from the table and lighted a cigar; he is now standing at the open window, talking to his brother outside_] I'll be ready in a moment. Louise is only going to sew a button on one of my gloves.

CONSUL. Then you mean to go down-town?

MASTER. Perhaps we'll take a turn in that direction--Whom were you talking with?

CONSUL. Just the confectioner----

MASTER. Oh, yes--a very decent fellow--and, for that matter, my only companion here during the summer.

CONSUL. Have you really stayed at home every night--never gone out?

MASTER. Never! Those light evenings make me timid. They are pleasant in the country, of course, but here in the city they produce the effect of something unnatural--almost ghastly. But no sooner has the first street lamp been lighted than I feel calm once more and can resume my evening walks. In that way I can get tired and sleep better at night. [LOUISE _hands him the glove_] Thank you, my child. You can just as well leave the windows open, as there are no mosquitoes. [_To the_ CONSUL] Now I'm coming.

_A few moments later he can be seen coming out of the house on the side facing the square; he stops at the corner to drop a letter in the mail-box; then he comes around the corner to the front of the house and sits down on the bench beside his brother_.

CONSUL. But tell me: why do you stay in the city when you _could_ be in the country?

MASTER. I don't know. I have lost my power of motion. My memory has tied me for ever to these rooms. Only within them can I find peace and protection. In there--yes! It is interesting to look at your own home from the outside. Then I imagine that some other man is pacing back and forth in there--Just think: for ten years I have been pacing back and forth in there!

CONSUL. Is it ten years now?

MASTER. Yes, time goes quickly--once it is gone. But when it is still going it seems slow enough.--That time the house was new. I watched them putting down the hard-wood floor in the dining-room and painting the doors; and _she_ was permitted to pick out the wall-paper, which is still there--Yes, that was then! The confectioner and I are the oldest tenants in the place, and he, too, has had a few experiences of his own--he is one of those people who never succeed but are always in some kind of trouble. In a way, I have been living his life also, and bearing his burdens besides my own.

CONSUL. Does he drink, then?

MASTER. No-o--nothing of that kind, but there is no _go_ to him. Well, he and I know the history of this house: how they have arrived in bridal coaches and left in hearses, while the mail-box at the corner became the recipient of all their confidences.

CONSUL. There was a death here in the middle of the summer, wasn't there?

MASTER. Yes, a case of typhoid--the man was manager of a bank--and then the flat stood vacant for a month. The coffin came out first, then the widow and the children, and last of all the furniture.

CONSUL. That was on the second floor?

MASTER. Yes, up there, where you see the light--where those new people are, about whom I know nothing at all.

CONSUL. Haven't you seen anything of them either?

MASTER. I never ask any questions about the other tenants. What comes to me unasked, I accept--but I never make any wrong use of it, and I never interfere, for I am anxious for the peace of my old age.

CONSUL. Old age--yes! I think it's nice to grow old, for then there isn't so much left to be recorded.

MASTER. Indeed, it is nice. I am settling my accounts, both with life and with people, and I have already begun to pack for the journey. Of course, the solitude has its draw-backs, but when there is nobody who can make any demands on you, then you have won your freedom--the freedom to come and go, to think and act, to eat and sleep, in accordance with your own choice.

_At this moment the shade in one of the windows on the second floor is raised a little way, so that part of a woman's dress becomes visible. Then it is quickly drawn again_.

CONSUL. They are astir up there--did you see?

MASTER. Yes, there is such a lot of mystery about it--and at night it is worse than ever. Sometimes there is music, but it's always bad; and sometimes I think they are playing cards; and long after midnight carriages drive up and take away people.--I never make a complaint against other tenants, for then they want to get even, and nobody wants to change his ways. The best thing is to remain oblivious of everything.

_A gentleman, dressed in a dinner coat but bareheaded, comes out of the house and drops a big pile of letters into the mail-box; then he disappears into the house again_.

CONSUL. That fellow must have a lot of correspondence.

MASTER. It looked to me like circulars.

CONSUL. But who is he?

MASTER. Why, that's the new tenant up there on the second floor.

CONSUL. Oh, is that so! What do you think he looked like?

MASTER. I don't know. Musician, conductor, a touch of musical comedy, with a leaning to vaudeville--gambler--Adonis--a little of everything----

CONSUL. Black hair should have gone with that pale complexion of his, but his hair was brown--which means that it had been dyed, or that he wears a wig. A tuxedo at home indicates an empty wardrobe, and the movements of his hands as he dropped the letters into the box suggested shuffling and cutting and dealing--[_At this moment waltz music becomes faintly audible from the second floor_] Always waltzes--perhaps they have a dancing-school--but it's always the same waltz--what's the name of it now?

MASTER. Why, I think--that's "Pluie d'or"--I know it by heart.

CONSUL. Have you heard it in your own house?

MASTER. Yes, that one and the "Alcazar Waltz."

LOUISE _becomes visible in the dining-room, where she is putting things in order and wiping the glassware on the buffet_.

CONSUL. Are you still pleased with Louise?

MASTER. Very.

CONSUL. Isn't she going to marry?

MASTER. Not that I know of.

CONSUL. Is there no fiancé in sight?

MASTER. Why do you ask?

CONSUL. Have you had any thoughts of that kind?

MASTER. I? No, thank you! When I married the last time I was not too old, as we had a child in due time, but I have grown too old since then, and now I want to spend my evening in peace--Do you think I want another master in my own house, who would rob me of life and honour and goods?

CONSUL. Oh, nobody took your life or your goods----

MASTER. Do you mean to say that my honour suffered any harm?

CONSUL. Don't you know?

MASTER. What _do_ you mean?

CONSUL. In leaving you, she killed your honour.

MASTER. Then I have been a dead man for five years without knowing it.

CONSUL. You haven't known it?

MASTER. No, but now I'll tell you in a few words what really happened. When, at fifty, I married a girl much younger than myself--one whose heart I had won and who gave me her hand fearlessly and willingly--then I promised her that if ever my age should become a burden to her youth I would go my own way and give her back her freedom. Since the child had come in due time, and neither one of us wanted another, and since our little girl had begun to grow apart from me, so that I had come to feel superfluous, I did go my way--that is, I took a boat, as we were living on an island--and that was the end of the whole story. I had redeemed my promise and saved my honour--what more besides?

CONSUL. All right--but she thought it an attack on her own honour, because she had meant to go away herself. And so she killed you by tacit accusations which never reached your ears.

MASTER. Did she accuse herself also?

CONSUL. No, she had no reason to do so.

MASTER. Then no harm has been done.

CONSUL. Do you know what has become of her and the child since then?

MASTER. I don't want to know! Having at last outlived the horrors of longing, I came to regard the whole business as buried; and as none but beautiful memories were left behind in our rooms, I remained where I was. However, I thank you for that piece of valuable information!

CONSUL. Which one?

MASTER. That she had no reason for self-accusation, for if she had it would constitute an accusation against me----

CONSUL. I think you are living under a serious misconception----

MASTER. If I am, leave me alone! A clear conscience--comparatively clear, at least--has always been the diving-suit that has enabled me to descend into the vast deeps without being suffocated. [_Rising_] To think of it--that I got out of it with my life! And now it's all over!--Suppose we take a turn down the avenue?

CONSUL. All right, then we can see them light the first street lamp of the season.

MASTER. But won't the moon be up to-night--the harvest-moon?

CONSUL. Why, I think the moon is full just now----

MASTER. [_Going to one of the windows and talking into the dining-room_] Please hand me my stick, Louise. The light one--I just want to hold it in my hand.

LOUISE. [_Handing out a cane of bamboo_] Here it is, sir.

MASTER. Thank you, my girl. Now turn out the light in the dining-room if you have nothing to do there. We'll be gone a little while--I cannot tell just how long.

_The_ MASTER _and the_ CONSUL _go out to the left_. LOUISE _remains standing by the open window_. STARCK _comes out of the gateway_.

STARCK. Good evening, Miss Louise. It's awfully hot!--So your gentlemen have disappeared?

LOUISE. They have gone for a stroll down the avenue--the first time my master has gone out this summer.

STARCK. We old people love the twilight, which covers up so many defects both in ourselves and others. Do you know, Miss Louise, my old woman is getting blind, but she won't have an operation performed. She says there is nothing to look at, and that sometimes she wishes she were deaf, too.

LOUISE. Well, one does feel that way--at times.

STARCK. Of course, you are leading a very quiet life in there, with plenty of everything, and nothing to worry about. I have never heard a loud voice or the slamming of a door--perhaps, even, it is a little too quiet for a young lady like yourself?

LOUISE. Not at all! I love the quiet, and whatever is dignified, graceful, measured--with nobody blurting out things, and all thinking it a duty to overlook the less pleasant features of daily life.

STARCK. And you have never any company?

LOUISE. No, only the consul comes here--and the like of the love between those two brothers I have never seen.

STARCK. Who is the elder of the two?

LOUISE. That's more than I can tell. Whether there is a year or two between them, or they are twins, I don't know, for they treat each other with mutual respect, as if each one of them was the elder brother.

AGNES _appears, trying to get past_ STARCK _without being seen by him_.

STARCK. Where are you going, girl?

AGNES. Oh, I am just going out for a little walk.

STARCK. That's right, but get back soon.

AGNES _goes out_.

STARCK. Do you think your master is still mourning the loss of his dear ones?

LOUISE. He doesn't mourn--he doesn't even feel any regrets, for he doesn't want them back--but he is always with them in his memory, where he keeps only their beautiful traits.

STARCK. But doesn't the fate of his daughter trouble him at times?

LOUISE. Yes, he cannot help fearing that the mother may have married again, and then, of course, everything depends on how the child's stepfather turns out.

STARCK. I have been told that the wife refused alimony at first, but that now, when five years have passed, she has sent him a lawyer with a demand for many thousands----

LOUISE. [_With reserve_] I know nothing about it.

STARCK. I believe, however, that she was never more beautiful than in his memory----

THE LIQUORDEALER'S MAN. [_Enters, carrying a crateful of bottles_] Excuse me, but does Mr. Fischer live here?

LOUISE. Mr. Fischer? Not so far as I know.

STARCK. Perhaps Fischer is the name of that fellow on the second floor? Around the corner--one flight up.

THE LIQUORDEALER'S MAN. [_Going toward the square_] One flight up--thanks. [_He disappears around the corner_.

LOUISE. Carrying up bottles again--that means another sleepless night.

STARCK. What kind of people are they? Why don't they ever show themselves?

LOUISE. I suppose they use the back-stairs, for I have never seen them. But I do hear them.

STARCK. Yes, I have also heard doors bang and corks pop--and the popping of other things, too, I guess.

LOUISE. And they never open their windows, in spite of the heat--they must be Southerners.--Why, that's lightning--a lot of it!--I guess it's nothing but heat-lightning, for there has been no thunder.

A VOICE. [_Is heard from the basement_] Starck, dear, won't you come down and help me put in the sugar!

STARCK. All right, old lady, I'm coming! [_To_ LOUISE] We are making jam, you know. [_As he goes_] I'm coming, I'm coming! [_He disappears into the gateway again_.

LOUISE _remains standing at the window_.

CONSUL. [_Enters slowly from the right_] Isn't my brother back yet?

LOUISE. No, sir.

CONSUL. He wanted to telephone, and I was to go ahead. Well, I suppose he'll be here soon.--What's this? [_He stoops to pick up a post-card_] What does it say?--"Boston club at midnight: Fischer."--Do you know who Fischer is, Louise?

LOUISE. There was a man with a lot of wine looking for Fischer a while ago--up on the second floor.

CONSUL. On the second floor--Fischer! Red shades that make the place look like a drug-store window at night! I fear you have got bad company in the house.

LOUISE. What is a Boston club?

CONSUL. Oh, there need be no harm in it at all--in this case I don't know, however.--But how did the post-card--? Oh, it was _he_ who dropped it a while ago. Then I'll put it back in the box.--Fischer? I have heard that name before. In connection with something I cannot recall just now--May I ask a question, Miss Louise: does my brother never speak of--the past?

LOUISE. Not to me.

CONSUL. Miss Louise--one more question----

LOUISE. Excuse me, but here comes the milk, and I have to receive it.

[_She leaves the dining-room_.

_The_ MILKMAID _appears from the right and enters the house from the square_.

STARCK. [_Comes out again, takes off his white linen cap, and puffs with heat_] In and out, like a badger at its hole--it's perfectly horrid down there by the ovens--and the evening doesn't make it any cooler.

CONSUL. All this lightning shows that we are going to have rain--Well, the city isn't pleasant, exactly, but up here you have quiet at least: never any rattling carriages, and still less any street-cars--it's just like the country.

STARCK. Of course, it's quiet, but it's too quiet for business. I know my trade, but I am a poor salesman--have always been, and can't learn--or it may be something else. Perhaps I haven't got the proper manner. For when customers act as if I were a swindler I get embarrassed at first, and then as mad as it is possible for me to become. But nowadays I haven't the strength to get really mad. It has been worn out of me--everything gets worn out.

CONSUL. Why don't you go to work for somebody else?

STARCK. Who would want me?

CONSUL. Have you ever tried?

STARCK. What would be the use of it?

CONSUL. Oh--well!

_At this moment a long-drawn "O-oh" is heard from the apartment on the second floor_.

STARCK. What, in the name of Heaven, are they up to in that place? Are they killing each other?

CONSUL. I don't like this new and unknown element that has come into the house. It is pressing on us like a red thunder-cloud. What kind of people are they? Where do they come from? What do they want here?

STARCK. It's so very dangerous to delve in other people's affairs--you get mixed up in them yourself----

CONSUL. Do you know anything about them?

STARCK. No, I don't know anything at all.

CONSUL. Now they're screaming again, this time in the stairway----

STARCK. [_Withdrawing into the gateway and speaking in a low voice_] I don't want to have anything to do with this.

GERDA, _the divorced wife of the_ MASTER, _comes running from the house into the square. She is bareheaded, with her hair down, and very excited. The_ CONSUL _approaches her, and they recognise each other. She draws back from him_.

CONSUL. So it's you--my former sister-in-law?

GERDA. Yes, it is I.

CONSUL. How did you get into this house, and why can't you let my brother enjoy his peace?

GERDA. [_Bewildered_] They didn't give us the right name of the tenant below--I thought he had moved--I couldn't help it----

CONSUL. Don't be afraid--you don't have to be afraid of me, Gerda! Can I be of any help to you? What's happening up there?

GERDA. He was beating me!

CONSUL. Is your little girl with you?

GERDA. Yes.

CONSUL. So she has got a stepfather?

GERDA. Yes.

CONSUL. Put up your hair and calm yourself. Then I'll try to straighten this matter out. But spare my brother----

GERDA. I suppose he hates me?

CONSUL. No, don't you see that he has been taking care of your flowers in the bed over there? He brought the soil himself, in a basket, don't you remember? Don't you recognise your blue gentians and the mignonette, your _Malmaison_ and _Merveille de Lyons_ roses, which he budded himself? Don't you understand that he has cherished the memory of yourself and of the child?

GERDA. Where is he now?

CONSUL. Taking a walk along the avenue, but he will be here in a few minutes with the evening papers. When he comes from that side he uses the back door, and he goes straight into the dining-room to read the papers. Stand still and he won't notice you.--But you must go back to your own rooms----

GERDA. I can't! I can't go back to that man.

CONSUL. Who is he, and what?

GERDA. He--has been a singer.

CONSUL. Has been--and what is he now? An adventurer?

GERDA. Yes!

CONSUL. Keeps a gambling-house?

GERDA. Yes!

Consul. And the child? Bait?

GERDA. Oh, don't say that!

CONSUL. It's horrible!

GERDA. You are too harsh about the whole thing.

CONSUL. Of course, filth must be handled gently--so very gently! But a just cause should be dragged in the dirt. Why did you defile his honour, and why did you lure me into becoming your accomplice? I was childish enough to trust your word, and I defended your unjust cause against his.

GERDA. You forget that he was too old.

CONSUL. No, he wasn't _then_, as you had a child at once. When he proposed, he asked if you wanted to have a child with him, and he vowed in the bargain to give you back your freedom when his promise had been kept and old age began to weigh him down.

GERDA. He deserted me, and that was an insult.

CONSUL. Not to you! Your youth prevented it from being a reflection on you.

GERDA. He should have let me leave him.

CONSUL. Why? Why did you want to heap dishonour on him?

GERDA. One of us had to bear it.

CONSUL. What strange paths your thoughts pursue! However, you have killed him, and fooled me into helping you. How can we rehabilitate him?

GERDA. If he is to be rehabilitated, it can only be at my expense.

CONSUL. I cannot follow your thoughts, which always turn to hatred. But suppose we leave the rehabilitation alone and think only of how his daughter is to be saved: what can we do then?

GERDA. She is my child. She's mine by law, and my husband is her father----

CONSUL. Now _you_ are too harsh about it! And you have grown cruel and vulgar--Hush! Here he comes now.

_The_ MASTER _enters from the left with a newspaper in his hand; he goes into the house pensively by the back door, while the_ CONSUL _and_ GERDA _remain motionless, hidden behind the corner of the house_.

_Then the_ CONSUL _and_ GERDA _come down the stage. A moment later the_ MASTER _becomes visible in the dining-room, where he sits down to read the paper_.

GERDA. It was he!

CONSUL. Come over here and look at your home. See how he has kept everything as it was--arranged to suit your taste.--Don't be afraid. It's so dark out here that he can't see us. The light in the room blinds him, you know.

GERDA. How he has been lying to me!

CONSUL. In what respect?

GERDA. He hasn't grown old! He had grown tired of me--that was the whole thing! Look at his collar--and his tie--the very latest fashion! I am sure he has a mistress!

CONSUL. Yes, you can see her photograph on the mantelshelf, between the candelabra.

GERDA. It is myself and the child! Does he still love me?

CONSUL. Your memory only!

GERDA. That's strange!

_The_ MASTER _ceases to read and stares out through the window_.

GERDA. He is looking at us!

CONSUL. Don't move!

GERDA. He is looking straight into my eyes.

CONSUL. Be still! He doesn't see you.

GERDA. He looks as if he were dead----

CONSUL. Well, he has been killed.

GERDA. Why do you talk like that?

_An unusually strong flash of heat-lightning illumines the figures of the_ CONSUL _and_ GERDA.

_The_ MASTER _rises with an expression of horror on his face_. GERDA _takes refuge behind the corner of the house_.

MASTER. Carl Frederick! [_Coming to the window_] Are you alone? I thought--Are you really alone?

CONSUL. As you see.

MASTER. The air is so sultry, and the flowers give me a headache--I am just going to finish the newspaper.

[_He resumes his former position._

CONSUL. Now let us get at your affairs. Do you want me to go with you?

GERDA. Perhaps! But it will be a hard struggle.

CONSUL. But the child must be saved. And I am a lawyer.

GERDA. Well, for the child's sake, then! Come with me!

[_They go out together._

MASTER. [_Calling from within_] Carl Frederick, come in and have a game of chess!--Carl Frederick!

_Curtain_.

SECOND SCENE

_Inside the dining-room. The brick stove appears at the centre of the rear wall. To the left of it there is a door leading into the pantry. Another door to the right of it leads to the hallway. At the left stands a buffet with a telephone on it. A piano and a tall clock stand at the right. There are doors in both side walls_.

_The_ MASTER _is in the room, and_ LOUISE _enters as the curtain rises_.

MASTER. Where did my brother go?

LOUISE. [_Alarmed_] He was outside a moment ago. He can't be very far away.

MASTER. What a dreadful noise they are making up above! It is as if they were stepping on my head! Now they are pulling out bureau drawers as if they were were preparing for a journey--running away, perhaps.--If you only knew how to play chess, Louise!

LOUISE. I know a little----

MASTER. Oh, if you just know how to move the pieces, that will be enough--Sit down, child. [_He sets up the chess pieces_] They are carrying on up there so that they make the chandelier rattle--and the confectioner is heating up down below. I think I'll have to move soon.

LOUISE. I have long thought that you ought to do so anyhow.

MASTER. Anyhow?

LOUISE. It isn't good to stay too long among old memories.

MASTER. Why not? As time passes, all memories grow beautiful.

LOUISE. But you may live twenty years more, and that is too long a time to live among memories which, after all, must fade and which may change colour entirely some fine day.

MASTER. How much you know, my child!--Begin now by moving a pawn--but not the one in front of the queen, or you will be mate in two moves.

LOUISE. Then I start with the knight----

MASTER. Hardly less dangerous, girl!

LOUISE. But I think I'll start with the knight just the same.

MASTER. All right. Then I'll move my bishop's pawn.

STARCK _appears in the hallway, carrying a tray_.

LOUISE. There's Mr. Starck with the tea-cakes. He doesn't make any more noise than a mouse.

[_She rises and goes out into the hallway to receive the tray, which she then carries into the pantry_.

MASTER. Well, Mr. Starck, how is the old lady?

STARCK. Oh, thank you, her eyes are about as usual.

MASTER. Have you seen anything of my brother?

STARCK. He is walking back and forth outside, I think.

MASTER. Has he got any company?

STARCK. No-o--I don't think so.

MASTER. It wasn't yesterday you had a look at these rooms, Mr. Starck.

STARCK. I should say not--it's just ten years ago now----

MASTER. When you brought the wedding-cake.--Does the place look changed?

STARCK. It is just as it was--the palms have grown, of course--but the rest is just as it was.

MASTER. And will remain so until you bring the funeral cake. When you have passed a certain age, nothing changes, nothing progresses--all the movement is downward like that of a sleigh going down-hill.

STARCK. Yes, that's the way it is.

MASTER. And it is peaceful, the way I have it here. No love, no friends, only a little company to break up the solitude. Then human beings are just human beings, without any claims on your feelings and sympathies. Then you come loose like an old tooth, and drop out without pain or regrets. Take Louise, for instance--a pretty young girl, the sight of whom pleases me like a work of art that I don't wish to possess--there is nothing to disturb our relationship. My brother and I meet like two old gentlemen who never get too close to each other and never exact any confidences. By taking up a neutral position toward one's fellow-men, one attains a certain distance--and as a rule we look better at a distance. In a word, I am pleased with my old age and its quiet peace--[_Calling out_] Louise!

LOUISE. [_Appearing in the doorway at the left and speaking pleasantly as always_] The laundry has come home, and I have to check it off. [_She disappears again_.

MASTER. Well, Mr. Starck, won't you sit down and chat a little--or perhaps you play chess?

STARCK. I can't stay away from my pots, and the oven has to be heated up at eleven. It's very kind of you, however----

MASTER. If you catch sight of my brother, ask him to come in and keep me company.

STARCK. So I will--so I will! [_He goes_.

MASTER. [_Alone; moves a couple of pieces on the chess-board; then gets up and begins to walk about_] The peace of old age--yes! [_He sits down at the piano and strikes a few chords; then he gets up and walks about as before_] Louise! Can't you let the laundry wait a little?

LOUISE. [_Appears again for a moment in the doorway at the left_] No, I can't, because the wash-woman is in a hurry--she has husband and children waiting for her.

MASTER. Oh! [_He sits down at the table and begins to drum with his fingers on it; tries to read the newspaper, but tires of it; lights matches only to blow them out again at once; looks repeatedly at the big clock, until at last a noise is heard from the hallway_] Is that you, Carl Frederick?

THE MAIL-CARRIER. [_Appears in the doorway_] It's the mail. Excuse me for walking right in, but the door was standing open.

MASTER. Is there a letter for me?

THE MAIL-CARRIER. Only a post-card.

[_He hands it over and goes out_.

MASTER. [_Reading the post-card_] Mr. Fischer again! Boston club! That's the man up above--with the white hands and the tuxedo coat. And to me! The impertinence of it! I have got to move!--Fischer!--[_He tears up the card; again a noise is heard, in the hallway_] Is that you, Carl Frederick?

THE ICEMAN. [_Without coming into the room_] It's the ice!

MASTER. Well, it's nice to get ice in this heat. But be careful about those bottles in the box. And put one of the pieces on edge so that I can hear the water drip from it as it melts--That's my water-clock that measures out the hours--the long hours--Tell me, where do you get the ice from nowadays?--Oh, he's gone!--Everybody goes away--goes home--to hear their own voices and get some company-[_Pause_] Is that you, Carl Frederick?

_Somebody in the apartment above plays Chopin's_ Fantaisie Impromptu, Opus 66, _on the piano_--_but only the first part of it_.

MASTER. [_Begins to listen, is aroused, looks up at the ceiling_] My _Impromptu_?

[_He covers his eyes with one hand and listens_.

_The_ CONSUL _enters through the hallway_.

MASTER. Is that you, Carl Frederick?

_The music stops_.

CONSUL. It is I.

MASTER. Where have you been so long?

CONSUL. I had some business to clear up. Have you been alone?

MASTER. Of course! Come and play chess now.

CONSUL. I prefer to talk. And you need also to hear your own voice a little.

MASTER. True enough--only it is so easy to get to talking about the past.

CONSUL. That makes us forget the present.

MASTER. There is no present. What's just passing is empty nothingness. One has to look ahead or behind--and ahead is better, for there lies hope!

CONSUL. [_Seating himself at the table_] Hope--of what?

MASTER. Of change.

CONSUL. Well! Do you mean to say you have had enough of the peace of old age?

MASTER. Perhaps.

CONSUL. It's certain then. And if now you had the choice between solitude and the past?

MASTER. No ghosts, however!

CONSUL. How about your memories?

MASTER. They don't walk. They are only poems wrought by me out of certain realities. But if dead people walk, then you have ghosts.

CONSUL. Well, then--in your memory--who brings you the prettiest mirage: the woman or the child?

MASTER. Both! I cannot separate them, and that's why I never tried to keep the child.

CONSUL. But do you think you did right? Did the possibility of a stepfather never occur to you?

MASTER. I didn't think that far ahead at the time, but afterward, of course, I have had--my thoughts--about--that very thing.

CONSUL. A stepfather who abused--perhaps debased--your daughter?

MASTER. Hush!

CONSUL. What is it you hear?

MASTER. I thought I heard the "little steps"--those little steps that came tripping down the corridor when she was looking for me.--It was the child that was the best of all! To watch that fearless little creature, whom nothing could frighten, who never suspected that life might be deceptive, who had no secrets! I recall her first experience of the malice that is in human beings. She caught sight of a pretty child down in the park, and, though it was strange to her, she went up to it with open arms to kiss it--and the pretty child rewarded her friendliness by biting her in the cheek first and then making a face at her. Then you should have seen my little Anne-Charlotte. She stood as if turned to stone. And it wasn't pain that did it, but horror at the sight of that yawning abyss which is called the human heart. I have been confronted with the same sight myself once, when out of two beautiful eyes suddenly shot strange glances as if some evil beast had appeared behind those eyes. It scared me literally so that I had to see if some other person were standing behind that face, which looked like a mask.--But why do we sit here talking about such things? Is it the heat, or the storm, or what?

CONSUL. Solitude brings heavy thoughts, and you ought to have company. This summer in the city seems to have been rather hard on you.

MASTER. Only these last few weeks. The sickness and that death up above--it was as if I had gone through it myself. The sorrows and cares of the confectioner have also become my own, so that I keep worrying about his finances, about his wife's eye trouble, about his future--and of late I have been dreaming every night about my little Anne-Charlotte. I see her surrounded by dangers--unknown, undiscovered, nameless. And before I fall asleep my hearing grows so unbelievably acute that I can hear her little steps--and once I heard her voice----

CONSUL. But where is she then?

MASTER. Don't ask me!

CONSUL. And if you were to meet her on the street?

MASTER. I imagine that I should lose my reason or fall in a faint. Once, you know, I stayed abroad very long, during the very time when our youngest sister was growing up. When I returned, after several years, I was met at the steam-boat landing by a young girl who put her arms around my neck. I was horrified at those eyes that searched mine, but with unfamiliar glances--glances that expressed absolute terror at not being recognised. "It is I," she repeated again and again before at last I was able to recognise my own sister. And that's how I imagine it would be for me to meet my daughter again. Five years are enough to render you unrecognisable at that age. Think of it: not to know your own child! That child, who is the same as before, and yet a stranger! I couldn't survive such a thing. No, then I prefer to keep the little girl of four years whom you see over there on the altar of my home. I want no other one. [_Pause_] That must be Louise putting things to rights in the linen closet. It has such a clean smell, and it reminds me--oh, the housewife at her linen closet; the good fairy that preserves and renews; the housewife with her iron, who smooths out all that has been ruffled up and who takes out all wrinkles--the wrinkles, yes--[_Pause_] Now--I'll--go in there to write a letter. If you'll stay, I'll be out again soon.

[_He goes out to the left_.

_The_ CONSUL _coughs_.

GERDA. [_Appears in the door to the hallway_] Are you--[_The clock strikes_] Oh, mercy! That sound--which has remained in my ears for ten years! That clock which never kept time and yet measured the long hours and days and nights of five years. [_She looks around_] My piano--my palms--the dinner-table--he has kept it in honour, shining as a shield! My buffet--with the "Knight in Armour" and "Eve"--Eve with her basketful of apples--In the right-hand upper drawer, way back, there was a thermometer lying--[_Pause_] I wonder if it is still there? [_She goes to the buffet and pulls out the right-hand drawer_] Yes, there it is!

CONSUL. What does that mean?

GERDA. Oh, in the end it became a symbol--of instability. When we went to housekeeping the thermometer was not put in its place at once--of course, it ought to be outside the window. I promised to put it up--and forgot it. He promised, and forgot. Then we nagged each other about it, and at last, to get away from it, I hid it in this drawer. I came to hate it, and so did he. Do you know what was back of all that? Neither one of us believed that our relationship would last, because we unmasked at once and gave free vent to our antipathies. To begin with, we lived on tiptoe, so to speak--always ready to fly off at a moment's notice. That was what the thermometer stood for--and here it is still lying! Always on the move, always changeable, like the weather. [_She puts away the thermometer and goes over to the chess-board_] My chess pieces! Which he bought to kill the time that hung heavy on our hands while we were waiting for the little one to come. With whom does he play now?

CONSUL. With me.

GERDA. Where is he?

CONSUL. He is in his room writing a letter.

GERDA. Where?

CONSUL. [_Pointing toward the left_] There.

GERDA. [_Shocked_] And here he has been going for five years?

CONSUL. Ten years--five of them alone!

GERDA. Of course, he loves solitude.

CONSUL. But I think he has had enough of it.

GERDA. Will he turn me out?

CONSUL. Find out for yourself! You take no risk, as he is always polite.

GERDA. I didn't make that centrepiece----

CONSUL. That is to say, you risk his asking you for the child.

GERDA. But it was he who should help me find it again----

CONSUL. Where do you think Fischer has gone, and what can be the purpose of his flight?

GERDA. To get away from the unpleasant neighbourhood, first of all; then to make me run after him. And he wanted the girl as a hostage, of course.

CONSUL. As to the ballet--that's something the father _must not_ know, for he hates music-halls.

GERDA. [_Sitting down in front of the chess-board and beginning, absent-mindedly, to arrange the pieces_] Music-halls--oh, I have been there myself.

CONSUL. You?

GERDA. I have accompanied on the piano.

CONSUL. Poor Gerda!

GERDA. Why? I love that kind of life. And when I was a prisoner here, it wasn't the keeper, but the prison itself, that made me fret.

CONSUL. But now you have had enough?

GERDA. Now I am in love with peace and solitude--and with my child above all.

CONSUL. Hush, he's coming!

GERDA. [_Rises as if to run away, but sinks down on the chair again_] Oh!

CONSUL. Now I leave you. Don't think of what you are to say. It will come of itself, like the "next move" in a game of chess.

GERDA. I fear his first glance most of all, for it will tell me whether I have changed for better or for worse--whether I have grown old and ugly.

CONSUL. [_Going out to the right_] If he finds you looking older, then he will dare to approach you. If he finds you as young as ever, he will have no hope, for he is more diffident than you think.--Now!

_The_ MASTER _is seen outside, passing by the door leading to the pantry; he carries a letter in his hand; then he disappears, only to become visible again a moment later in the hallway, where he opens the outside door and steps out_.

CONSUL. [_In the doorway at the right_] He went out to the mail-box.

GERDA. No, this is too much for me! How can I possibly ask _him_ to help me with this divorce? I want to get out! It's too brazen!

CONSUL. Stay! You know that his kindness has no limits. And he'll help you for the child's sake.

GERDA. No, no!

CONSUL. And he is the only one who can help you.

MASTER. [_Enters quickly from the hallway and nods at_ GERDA, _whom, because of his near-sightedness, he mistakes for_ LOUISE; _then he goes to the buffet and picks up the telephone, but in passing he remarks to_ GERDA] So you're done already? Well, get the pieces ready then, and we'll begin all over again--from the beginning.

GERDA _stands paralysed, not understanding the situation_.

MASTER. [_Speaks in the telephone receiver, with his back to_ Gerda] Hello!--Good evening! Is that you, mother?--Pretty well, thank you! Louise is waiting to play a game of chess with me, but she is a little tired after a lot of bother--It's all over now--everything all right--nothing serious at all.--If it's hot? Well, there has been a lot of thundering, right over our heads, but nobody has been struck. False alarm!--What did you say? Fischer?--Yes, but I think they are going to leave.--Why so? I know nothing in particular.--Oh, is that so?--Yes, it leaves at six-fifteen, by the outside route, and it gets there--let me see--at eight-twenty-five.--Did you have a good time?--[_With a little laugh_] Oh, he's impossible when he gets started! And what did Marie have to say about it?--How I have had it during the summer? Oh, well, Louise and I have kept each other company, and she has got such an even, pleasant temper.--Yes, she is very nice, indeed!--Oh, no, nothing of that kind!

GERDA, _who has begun to understand, rises with an expression of consternation on her face_.

MASTER. My eyes? Oh, I am getting a little near-sighted. But I feel like the confectioner's old wife: there is nothing to look at. Wish I were deaf, too! Deaf and blind! The neighbours above make such a lot of noise at night--it's a gambling club--There now! Somebody got on the wire to listen. [_He rings again_.

LOUISE _appears in the door to the hallway without being seen by the_ MASTER; GERDA _stares at her with mingled admiration and hatred_; LOUISE _withdraws toward the right_.

MASTER. [_At the telephone_] Is that you? The cheek of it--to break off our talk in order to listen!--To-morrow, then, at six-fifteen.--Thank you, and the same to you!--Yes, I will, indeed!--Good night, mother! [_He rings off_.

LOUISE _has disappeared_. GERDA _is standing in the middle of the floor_.

MASTER. [_Turns around and catches sight of_ GERDA, _whom he gradually recognises; then he puts his hand to his heart_] O Lord, was that you? Wasn't Louise here a moment ago?

GERDA _remains silent_.

MASTER. [_Feebly_] How--how did you get here?

GERDA. I hope you pardon--I just got to the city--I was passing by and felt a longing to have a look at my old home--the windows were open----

[_Pause_.

MASTER. Do you find things as they used to be?

GERDA. Exactly, and yet different--there is a difference

MASTER. [_Feeling unhappy_] Are you satisfied--with your life?

GERDA. Yes. I have what I was looking for.

MASTER. And the child?

GERDA. Oh, she's growing, and thriving, and lacks nothing.

MASTER. Then I won't ask anything more. [_Pause_] Did you want anything--of me--can I be of any service?

GERDA. It's very kind of you, but--I need nothing at all now when I have seen that you lack nothing either. [_Pause]_ Do you wish to see Anne-Charlotte?

MASTER. I don't think so, now when I have heard that she is doing well. It's so hard to begin over again. It's like having to repeat a lesson at school--which you know already, although the teacher doesn't think so--I have got so far away from all that--I live in a wholly different region--and I cannot connect with the past. It goes against me to be impolite, but I am not asking you to be seated--you are another man's wife--and you are not the same person as the one from whom I parted.

GERDA. Am I then so--altered?

MASTER. Quite strange to me! Your voice, glance, manner----

GERDA. Have I grown old?

MASTER. That I cannot tell!--They say that not a single atom in a person's body remains wholly the same after three years--and in five years everything is renewed. And for that reason you, who stand over there, are not the same person as the sufferer who once sat here--you seem such a complete stranger to me that I can only address you in the most formal way. And I suppose it would be just the same in the case of my daughter, too.

GERDA. Don't speak like that. I would much rather have you angry.

MASTER. Why should I be angry?

GERDA. Because of all the evil I have done you.

MASTER. Have you? That's more than I know.

GERDA. Didn't you read the papers in the suit?

MASTER. No-o! I left that to my lawyer. [_He sits down_.

GERDA. And the decision of the court?

MASTER. No, why should I? As I don't mean to marry again, I have no use for that kind of documents.

_Pause_. GERDA _seats herself_.

MASTER. What did those papers say? That I was too old?

GERDA'S _silence indicates assent_.

MASTER. Well, that was nothing but the truth, so that need not trouble you. In my answer I said the very same thing and asked the Court to set you free again.

GERDA. You said, that----

MASTER. I said, not that I _was_, but that I was about to _become_ too old _for you_!

GERDA. [_Offended_] For me?

MASTER. Yes.--I couldn't say that I was too old when we married, for then the arrival of the child would have been unpleasantly explained, and it was _our_ child, was it not?

GERDA. You know that, of course! But----

MASTER. Do you think I should be ashamed of my age?--Of course, if I took to dancing and playing cards at night, then I might soon land in an invalid's chair, or on the operating-table, and that would be a shame.

GERDA. You don't look it----

MASTER. Did you expect the divorce to kill me?

_The silence of_ GERDA _is ambiguous_.

MASTER. There are those who assert that you _have_ killed me. Do you think I look like a dead man?

GERDA _appears embarrassed_.

MASTER. Some of your friends are said to have caricatured me in the papers, but I have never seen anything of it, and those papers went into the dump five years ago. So there is no need for your conscience to be troubled on my behalf.

GERDA. Why did you marry me?

MASTER. Don't you know why a man marries? And you know, too, that I didn't have to go begging for love. And you ought to remember how we laughed together at all the wiseacres who felt compelled to warn you.--But why you led me on is something I have never been able to explain--When you didn't look at me after the marriage ceremony, but acted as if you had been attending somebody else's wedding, then I thought you had made a bet that you could kill me. As the head of the department, I was, of course, hated by all my subordinates, but they became your friends at once. No sooner did I make an enemy than he became _your_ friend. Which caused me to remark that, while it was right for you not to hate your enemies, it was also right that you shouldn't _love_ mine!--However, seeing where you stood, I began to prepare for a retreat at once, but before leaving I wanted a living proof that you had not been telling the truth, and so I stayed until the little one arrived.

GERDA. To think that you could be so disingenuous!

MASTER. I learned to keep silent, but I never lied!--By degrees you turned all my friends into detectives, and you lured my own brother into betraying me. But worst of all was that your thoughtless chatter threw suspicions on the legitimacy of the child.

GERDA. All that I took back!

MASTER. The word that's on the wing cannot be pulled back again. And worse still: those false rumours reached the child, and now she thinks her mother a----

GERDA. For Heaven's sake!

MASTER. Well, that's the truth of it. You raised a tall tower on a foundation of lies, and now the tower of lies is tumbling down on your head.

GERDA. It isn't true!

MASTER. Yes, it is! I met Anne-Charlotte a few minutes ago----

GERDA. You have met----

MASTER. We met on the stairs, and she said I was her uncle. Do you know what an uncle is? That's an elderly friend of the house and the mother. And I know that at school I am also passing as her uncle.--But all that is dreadful for the child!

GERDA. You have met----

MASTER. Yes. But why should I tell anybody about it? Haven't I a right to keep silent? And, besides, that meeting was so shocking to me that I wiped it out of my memory as if it had never existed.

GERDA. What can I do to rehabilitate you?

MASTER. You? What could you do? That's something I can only do myself. [_For a long time they gaze intently at each other_] And for that matter, I have already got my rehabilitation. [_Pause_.

GERDA. Can't I make good in some way? Can't I ask you to forgive, to forget----

MASTER. What do you mean?

GERDA. To restore, to repair----

MASTER. Do you mean to resume, to start over again, to reinstate a master above me? No, thanks! I don't want you.

GERDA. And this I had to hear!

MASTER. Well, how does it taste? [_Pause_.

GERDA. That's a pretty centrepiece.

MASTER. Yes, it's pretty.

GERDA. Where did you get it? [_Pause_.

LOUISE _appears in the door to the pantry with a bill in her hand_.

MASTER. [_Turning toward her_] Is it a bill?

GERDA _rises and begins to pull on her gloves with such violence that buttons are scattered right and left_.

MASTER. [_Taking out the money_] Eighteen-seventy-two. That's just right.

LOUISE. I should like to see you a moment, sir.

MASTER. [_Rises and goes to the door, where_ LOUISE _whispers something into his ear_] Oh, mercy----

LOUISE _goes out_.

MASTER. I am sorry for you, Gerda!

GERDA. What do you mean? That I am jealous of your servant-girl?

MASTER. No, I didn't mean that.

GERDA. Yes, you meant that you were too old for me, but not for her. I catch the insulting point--She's pretty--I don't deny it--for a servant-girl----

MASTER. I am sorry for you, Gerda!

GERDA. Why do you say that?

MASTER. Because you are to be pitied. Jealous of my servant--that ought to be rehabilitation enough.

GERDA. Jealous, I----

MASTER. Why do you fly in a rage at my nice, gentle kinswoman?

GERDA. "A little more than kin."

MASTER. No, my dear, I have long ago resigned myself--and I am satisfied with my solitude--[_The telephone rings, and he goes to answer it_] Mr. Fischer? No, that isn't here.--Oh, yes, that's me.--Has he skipped?--With whom, do you say?--with Starck's daughter! Oh, good Lord! How old is she?--Eighteen! A mere child! [_Rings off_.

GERDA. I knew he had run away.--But with a woman!--Now you're pleased.

MASTER. No, I am not pleased. Although there is a sort of solace to my mind in finding justice exists in this world. Life is very quick in its movements, and now you find yourself where I was.

GERDA. Her eighteen years against my twenty-nine--I am old--too old for him!

MASTER. Everything is relative, even age.--But now let us get at something else. Where is your child?

GERDA. My child? I had forgotten it! My child! My God! Help me! He has taken the child with him. He loves Anne-Charlotte as his own daughter--Come with me to the police--come!

MASTER. I? Now you ask too much.

GERDA. Help me!

MASTER. [_Goes to the door at the right_] Come, Carl Frederick--get a cab--take Gerda down to the police station--won't you?

CONSUL. [_Enters_] Of course I will! We are human, are we not?

MASTER. Quick! But say nothing to Starck. Matters may be straightened out yet--Poor fellow--and I am sorry for Gerda, too!--Hurry up now!

GERDA. [_Looking out through the window_] It's beginning to rain--lend me an umbrella. Eighteen years--only eighteen--quick, now!

_She goes out with the_ CONSUL.

MASTER. [_Alone_] The peace of old age!--And my child in the hands of an adventurer!--Louise!

LOUISE _enters_.

MASTER. Come and play chess with me.

LOUISE. Has the consul----

MASTER. He has gone out on some business. Is it still raining?

LOUISE. No, it has stopped now.

MASTER. Then I'll go out and cool off a little. [_Pause_] You are a nice girl, and sensible--did you know the confectioner's daughter?

LOUISE. Very slightly.

MASTER. Is she pretty?

LOUISE. Ye-es.

MASTER. Have you known the people above us?

LOUISE. I have never seen them.

MASTER. That's an evasion.

LOUISE. I have learned to keep silent in this house.

MASTER. I am forced to admit that pretended deafness can be carried to the point where it becomes dangerous.--Well, get the tea ready while I go outside and cool off a little. And, one thing, please--you see what is happening, of course--but don't ask me any questions.

LOUISE. I? No, sir, I am not at all curious.

MASTER. I am thankful for that!

_Curtain_.

THIRD SCENE

_The front of the house as in the First Scene. There is light in the confectioner's place in the basement. The gas is also lit on the second floor, where now the shades are raised and the windows open_.

STARCK _is sitting near the gateway_.

MASTER. [_Seated on the green bench_] That was a nice little shower we had.

STARCK. Quite a blessing! Now the raspberries will be coming in again----

MASTER. Then I'll ask you to put aside a few jars for us. We have grown tired of making the jam ourselves. It only gets spoiled.

STARCK. Yes, I know. Jars of jam are like mischievous children: you have to watch them all the time. There are people who put in salicylic acid, but those are newfangled tricks in which I take no stock.

MASTER. Salicylic acid--yes, they say it's antiseptic--and perhaps it's a good thing.

STARCK. Yes, but you can taste it--and it's a trick.

MASTER. Tell me, Mr. Starck, have you got a telephone?

STARCK. No, I have no telephone.

MASTER. Oh!

STARCK. Why do you ask?

MASTER. Oh, I happened to think--a telephone is handy at times--for orders--and important communications----

STARCK. That may be. But sometimes it is just as well to escape--communications.

MASTER. Quite right! Quite right!--Yes, my heart always beats a little faster when I hear it ring--one never knows what one is going to hear--and I want peace--peace, above all else.

STARCK. So do I.

MASTER. [_Looking at his watch_] The lamplighter ought to be here soon.

STARCK. He must have forgotten us, for I see that the lamps are already lit further down the avenue.

MASTER. Then he'll be here soon. It will be a lot of fun to see our lamp lighted again.

_The telephone in the dining-room rings_. LOUISE _comes in to answer the call. The_ MASTER _rises and puts one hand up to his heart. He tries to listen, but the public cannot hear anything of what is said within. Pause. After a while_ LOUISE _comes out by way of the square_.

MASTER. [_Anxiously_] What news?

LOUISE. No change.

MASTER. Was that my brother?

LOUISE. No, it was the lady.

MASTER. What did she want?

LOUISE. To speak to you, sir.

MASTER. I don't want to!--Have I to console my executioner? I used to do it, but now I am tired of it.--Look up there! They have forgotten to turn out the light--and light makes empty rooms more dreadful than darkness--the ghosts become visible. [_In a lowered voice_] And how about Starck's Agnes? Do you think he knows anything?

LOUISE. It's hard to tell, for he never speaks about his sorrows--nor does anybody else in the Silent House!

MASTER. Do you think he should be told?

LOUISE. For Heaven's sake, no!

MASTER. But I fear it isn't the first time she gave him trouble.

LOUISE. He never speaks of her.

MASTER. It's horrible! I wonder if we'll get to the end of it soon? [_The telephone rings again_] Now it's ringing again. Don't answer. I don't want to hear anything.--My child--in such company! An adventurer and a strumpet!--It's beyond limit!--Poor Gerda!

LOUISE. It's better to have certainty. I'll go in--You must do something!

MASTER. I cannot move--I can receive blows, but to strike back--no!

LOUISE. But if you don't repel a danger, it will press closer; and if you don't resist, you'll be destroyed.

MASTER. But if you refuse to be drawn in, you become unassailable.

LOUISE. Unassailable?

MASTER. Things straighten out much better if you don't mess them up still further by interference. How can you want me to direct matters where so many passions are at play? Do you think I can suppress anybody's emotions, or give them a new turn?

LOUISE. But how about the child?

MASTER. I have surrendered my rights--and besides--frankly speaking--I don't care for them--not at all now, when _she_ has been here and spoiled the images harboured in my memory. She has wiped out all the beauty that I had cherished, and now there is nothing left.

LOUISE. But that's to be set free!

MASTER. Look, how empty the place seems in there--as if everybody had moved out; and up there--as if there had been a fire.

LOUISE. Who is coming there?

AGNES _enters, excited and frightened, but trying hard to control herself; she makes for the gateway, where the confectioner is seated on his chair_.

LOUISE [_To the_ MASTER] There is Agnes? What can this mean?

MASTER. Agnes? Then things are getting straightened out.

STARCK. [_With perfect calm_] Good evening, girl! Where have you been?

AGNES. I have been for a walk.

STARCK. Your mother has asked for you several times.

AGNES. Is that so? Well, here I am.

STARCK. Please go down and help her start a fire under the little oven.

AGNES. Is she angry with me, then?

STARCK. You know that she cannot be angry with you.

AGNES. Oh, yes, but she doesn't say anything.

STARCK. Well, girl, isn't it better to escape being scolded?

AGNES _disappears into the gateway_.

MASTER. [_To_ LOUISE] Does he know, or doesn't he?

LOUISE. Let's hope that he will remain in ignorance.

MASTER. But what can have happened? A breach? [_To_ STARCK] Say, Mr. Starck----

STARCK. What is it?

MASTER. I thought--Did you notice if anybody left the house a while ago?

STARCK. I saw the iceman, and also a mail-carrier, I think.

MASTER. Oh! [_To_ LOUISE] Perhaps it was a mistake--that we didn't hear right--I can't explain it--Or maybe he is not telling the truth? What did she say when she telephoned?

LOUISE. That she wanted to speak to you.

MASTER. How did it sound? Was she excited?

LOUISE. Yes.

MASTER. I think it's rather shameless of her to appeal to me in a matter like this.

LOUISE. But the child!

MASTER. Just think, I met my daughter on the stairway, and when I asked her if she recognised me she called me uncle and told me that her father was up-stairs. Of course, he is her stepfather, and has all the rights--They have just spent their time exterminating me, blackguarding me----

LOUISE. A cab is stopping at the corner.

STARCK _withdraws into the gateway_.

MASTER. I only hope they don't come back to burden me again! Just think: to have to hear my child singing the praise of her father--the other one! And then to begin the old story all over again: "Why did you marry me?"--"Oh, you know; but what made you want me?"--"You know very well!"--And so on, until the end of the world.

LOUISE. It was the consul that came.

MASTER. How does he look?

LOUISE. He is taking his time.

MASTER. Practising what he is to say, I suppose. Does he look satisfied?

LOUISE. Thoughtful, rather----

MASTER. Hm!--That's the way it always was. Whenever he saw that woman he became disloyal to me. She had the power of charming everybody but me. To me she seemed coarse, vulgar, ugly, stupid; to all the rest she seemed refined, pleasant, handsome, intelligent. All the hatred aroused by my independence centred in her under the form of a boundless sympathy for whoever wronged me in any way. Through her they strove to control and influence me, to wound me, and, at last, to kill me.

LOUISE. Now, I'll go in and watch the telephone--I suppose this storm will pass like all others.

MASTER. Men cannot bear independence. They want you to obey them. Every one of my subordinates in the department, down to the very messengers, wanted me to obey him. And when I wouldn't they called me a despot. The servants in our house wanted me to obey them and eat food that had been warmed up. When I wouldn't, they set my wife against me. And finally my wife wanted me to obey the child, but then I left, and then all of them combined against the tyrant--which was I!--Get in there quick now, Louise, so we can set off our mines out here.

_The_ CONSUL _enters from the left_.

MASTER. Results--not details--please!

CONSUL. Let's sit down. I am a little tired.

MASTER. I think it has rained on the bench.

CONSUL. It can't be too wet for me if you have been sitting on it.

MASTER. A you like!--Where is my child?

CONSUL. Can I begin at the beginning?

MASTER. Begin!

CONSUL [_Speaking slowly_] I got to the depot with Gerda--and at the ticket-office I discovered him and Agnes----

MASTER. So Agnes was with him?

CONSUL. And so was the child!--Gerda stayed outside, and I went up to them. At that moment _he_ was handing Agnes the tickets, but when she discovered that they were for third class she threw them in his face and walked out to the cab-stand.

MASTER. Ugh!

CONSUL. As soon as I had established a connection with the man, Gerda hurried up and got hold of the child, disappearing with it in the crowd----

MASTER. What did the man have to say?

CONSUL. Oh, you know--when you come to hear the other side--and so on.

MASTER. I want to hear it. Of course, he isn't as bad as we thought--he has his good sides----

CONSUL. Exactly!

MASTER. I thought so! But you don't want me to sit here listening to eulogies of my enemy?

CONSUL. Oh, not eulogies, but ameliorating circumstances----

MASTER. Did you ever want to listen to me when I tried to explain the true state of affairs to you? Yes, you did listen--but your reply was a disapproving silence, as if I had been lying to you. You have always sided with what was wrong, and you have believed nothing but lies, and the reason was--that you were in love with Gerda! But there was also another reason----

CONSUL. Brother, don't say anything more! You see nothing but your own side of things.

MASTER. How can you expect me to view my conditions from the standpoint of my enemy? I cannot take sides against myself, can I?

CONSUL. I am not your enemy.

MASTER. Yes, when you make friends with one who has wronged me!--Where is my child?

CONSUL. I don't know.

MASTER. What was the outcome at the depot?

CONSUL. He took a south-bound train alone.

MASTER. And the others?

CONSUL. Disappeared.

MASTER. Then I may have them after me again. [_Pause]_ Did you see if they went with him?

CONSUL. He went alone.

MASTER. Well, then we are done with that one, at least. Number two--there remain now--the mother and the child.

CONSUL. Why is the light burning up there in their rooms?

MASTER. Because they forgot to turn it out.

CONSUL. I'll go up----

MASTER. No, don't go!--I only hope that they don't come back here!--To repeat, always repeat, begin the same lesson all over again!

CONSUL. But it has begun to straighten out.

MASTER. Yet the worst remains--Do you think they will come back?

CONSUL. Not she--not since she had to make you amends in the presence of Louise.

MASTER. I had forgotten that! She really did me the honour of becoming jealous! I do think there is justice in this world!

CONSUL. And then she learned that Agnes was younger than herself.

MASTER. Poor Gerda! But in a case like this you mustn't tell people that justice exists--an avenging justice--for it is sheer falsehood that they love justice! And you must deal gently with their filth. And Nemesis--exists only for the other person.--There it's ringing again? That telephone makes a noise like a rattlesnake!

LOUISE _becomes visible at the telephone inside. Pause_.

MASTER. [_To_ LOUISE] Did the snake bite?

LOUISE. [_At the window_] May I speak to you, sir?

MASTER. [_Going up to the window_] Speak out!

LOUISE. The lady has gone to her mother, in the country, to live there with her little girl.

Master. [_To his brother_] Mother and child in the country--in a good home! Now it's straightened out!--Oh!

LOUISE. And she asked us to turn out the light up-stairs.

MASTER. Do that at once, Louise, and pull down the shades so we don't have to look at it any longer.

LOUISE _leaves the dining-room_.

STARCK. [_Coming out on the sidewalk again and looking up]_ I think the storm has passed over.

MASTER. It seems really to have cleared up, and that means we'll have moonlight.

CONSUL. That was a blessed rain!

STARCK. Perfectly splendid!

MASTER. Look, there's the lamplighter coming at last!

_The_ LAMPLIGHTER _enters, lights the street lamp beside the bench, and passes on_.

MASTER. The first lamp! Now the fall is here! That's our season, old chaps! It's getting dark, but then comes reason to light us with its bull's-eyes, so that we don't go astray.

LOUISE _becomes visible at one of the windows on the second floor; immediately afterward everything is dark up there_.

Master. [_To_ Louise] Close the windows and pull down the shades so that all memories can lie down and sleep in peace! The peace of old age! And this fall I move away from the Silent House.

_Curtain_.

AFTER THE FIRE

(BRÄNDA TOMTEN)

A CHAMBER PLAY

1907

CHARACTERS

RUDOLPH WALSTRÖM, _a dyer_ THE STRANGER, _who is_) } ARVID WALSTRÖM } _brother of_ RUDOLPH ANDERSON, _a mason (brother-in-law of the gardener)_ MRS. ANDERSON, _wife of the mason_ GUSTAFSON, _a gardener (brother-in-law of the mason)_ ALFRED, _son of the gardener_ ALBERT ERICSON, _a stone-cutter_ (_second cousin of the hearse-driver_) MATHILDA, _daughter of the stone-cutter_ THE HEARSE-DRIVER (_second cousin of the stone-cutter_) A DETECTIVE SJÖBLOM, _a painter_ MRS. WESTERLUND, _hostess at "The Last Nail," formerly a nurse at the dyer's_ MRS. WALSTRÖM, _wife of the dyer_ THE STUDENT THE WITNESS

AFTER THE FIRE

FIRST SCENE

_The left half of the background is occupied by the empty shell of a gutted one-story brick house. In places the paper remains on the walls, and a couple of brick stoves are still standing_.

_Beyond the walls can be seen an orchard in bloom._

_At the right is the front of a small inn, the sign of which is a wreath hanging from a pole. Tables and benches are placed outside._

_At the left, in the foreground, there is a pile of furniture and household utensils that have been saved from the fire_.

SJÖBLOM, _the painter, is painting the window-frames of the inn. He listens closely to everything that is said_.

ANDERSON, _the mason, is digging in the ruins_.

_The_ DETECTIVE _enters_.

DETECTIVE. Is the fire entirely out?

ANDERSON. There isn't any smoke, at least.

DETECTIVE. Then I want to ask a few more questions. [_Pause_] You were born in this quarter, were you not?

ANDERSON. Oh, yes. It's seventy-five years now I've lived on this street. I wasn't born when they built this house here, but my father helped to put in the brick.

DETECTIVE. Then you know everybody around here?

ANDERSON. We all know each other. There is something particular about this street here. Those that get in here once, never get away from it. That is, they move away, but they always come back again sooner or later, until at last they are carried out to the cemetery, which is way out there at the end of the street.

DETECTIVE. You have got a special name for this quarter, haven't you?

ANDERSON. We call it the Bog. And all of us hate each other, and suspect each other, and blackguard each other, and torment each other [_Pause_.

DETECTIVE. The fire started at half past ten in the evening, I hear--was the front door locked at that time?

ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know, for I live in the house next to this.

DETECTIVE. Where did the fire start?

ANDERSON. Up in the attic, where the student was living.

DETECTIVE. Was he at home?

ANDERSON. No, he was at the theatre.

DETECTIVE. Had he gone away and left the lamp burning, then?

ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know. [_Pause_.

DETECTIVE. Is the student any relation to the owner of the house?

ANDERSON. No, I don't think so.--Say, you haven't got anything to do with the police, have you?

DETECTIVE. How did it happen that the inn didn't catch fire?

ANDERSON. They slung a tarpaulin over it and turned on the hose.

DETECTIVE. Queer that the apple-trees were not destroyed by the heat.

ANDERSON. They had just budded, and it had been raining during the day, but the heat made the buds go into bloom in the middle of the night--a little too early, I guess, for there is frost coming, and then the gardener will catch it.

DETECTIVE. What kind of fellow is the gardener?

ANDERSON. His name is Gustafson----

DETECTIVE. Yes, but what sort of a man is he?

ANDERSON. See here: I am seventy-five--and for that reason I don't know anything bad about Gustafson; and if I knew I wouldn't be telling it! [_Pause_.

DETECTIVE. And the owner of the house is named Walström, a dyer, about sixty years old, married----

ANDERSON. Why don't you go on yourself? You can't pump me any longer.

DETECTIVE. Is it thought that the fire was started on purpose?

ANDERSON. That's what people think of all fires.

DETECTIVE. And whom do they suspect?

ANDERSON. The insurance company always suspects anybody who has an interest in the fire--and for that reason I have never had anything insured.

DETECTIVE. Did you find anything while you were digging?

ANDERSON. Mostly one finds all the door-keys, because people haven't got time to take them along when the house is on fire--except now and then, of course, when they have been taken away----

DETECTIVE. There was no electric light in the house?

ANDERSON. Not in an old house like this, and that's a good thing, for then they can't put the blame on crossed wires.

DETECTIVE. Put the blame?--A good thing?--Listen----

ANDERSON. Oh, you're going to get me in a trap? Don't you do it, for then I take it all back.

DETECTIVE. Take back? You can't!

ANDERSON. Can't I?

DETECTIVE. No!

ANDERSON. Yes! For there was no witness present.

DETECTIVE. No?

ANDERSON. Naw!

_The_ DETECTIVE _coughs. The_ WITNESS _comes in from the left_.

DETECTIVE. Here's _one_ witness.

ANDERSON. You're a sly one!

DETECTIVE. Oh, there are people who know how to use their brains without being seventy-five. [_To the_ WITNESS] Now we'll continue with the gardener.

[_They go out to the left_.

ANDERSON. There I put my foot in it, I guess. But that's what happens when you get to talking.

MRS. ANDERSON _enters with her husband's lunch in a bundle_.

ANDERSON. It's good you came.

MRS. ANDERSON. Now we'll have lunch and be good--you might well be hungry after all this fuss--I wonder if Gustafson can pull through--he'd just got done with his hotbeds and was about to start digging in the open--why don't you eat?--and there's Sjöblom already at work with his putty--just think of it, that Mrs. Westerlund got off as well as she did--morning, Sjöblom, now you've got work, haven't you?

MRS. WESTERLUND _comes in_.

MRS. ANDERSON. Morning, morning, Mrs. Westerlund--you got out of this fine, I must say, and then----

MRS. WESTERLUND. I wonder who's going to pay me for all I am losing to-day, when there's a big funeral on at the cemetery, which always makes it a good day for me, and just when I've had to put away all my bottles and glassware----

MRS. ANDERSON. Who's that they're burying to-day? I see such a lot of people going out that way--and then, of course, they've come to see where the fire was, too.

MRS. WESTERLUND. I don't think they're burying anybody, but I've heard they're going to put up a monument over the bishop--worst of it is that the stone-cutter's daughter was going to get married to the gardener's son--him, you know, who's in a store down-town--and now the gardener has lost all he had--isn't that his furniture standing over there?

MRS. ANDERSON. I guess that's some of the dyer's, too, seeing as it came out helter-skelter in a jiffy--and where's the dyer now?

MRS. WESTERLUND. He's down at the police station testifying.

MRS. ANDERSON. Hm-hm!--Yes, yes!--And there's my cousin now--him what drives the hearse--he's always thirsty on his way back.

HEARSE-DRIVER. [_Enters_] How do, Malvina! So you've gone and started a little job of arson out here during the night, have you? Looks pretty, doesn't it. Would have been better to get a new shanty instead, I guess.

MRS. WESTERLUND. Oh, mercy me! But whom have you been taking out now?

HEARSE-DRIVER. Can't remember what his name was--only _one_ carriage along, and no flowers on the coffin at all.

MRS. WESTERLUND. Sure and it wasn't any happy funeral, then! If you want anything to drink you'll have to go 'round to the kitchen, for I haven't got things going on this side yet, and, for that matter, Gustafson is coming here with a lot of wreaths--they've got something on out at the cemetery to-day.

HEARSE-DRIVER. Yes, they're going to put up a moniment to the bishop--'cause he wrote books, I guess, and collected all kinds of vermin--was a reg'lar vermin-hunter, they tell me.

MRS. WESTERLUND. What's that?

HEARSE-DRIVER. Oh, he had slabs of cork with pins on 'em, and a lot of flies--something beyond us here--but I guess that's the proper way--can I go out to the kitchen now?

MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, if you use the back door, I think you can get something wet----

HEARSE-DRIVER. But I want to have a word with the dyer before I drive off--I've got my horses over at the stone-cutter's, who's my second cousin, you know. Haven't got any use for him, as you know, too, but we're doing business together, he and I--that is, I put in a word for him with the heirs, and so he lets me put my horses into his yard--just let me know when the dyer shows up--luck, wasn't it, that he didn't have his works here, too----

[_He goes out, passing around the inn_.

MRS. WESTERLUND _goes into the inn by the front door_.

ANDERSON, _who has finished eating, begins to dig again_.

MRS. ANDERSON. Do you find anything?

ANDERSON. Nails and door-hinges--all the keys are hanging in a bunch over there by the front door.

MRS. ANDERSON. Did they hang there before, or did you put them there?

ANDERSON. No, they were hanging there when I got here.

MRS. ANDERSON. That's queer--for then somebody must have locked all the doors and taken out the keys before it began burning! That's queer!

ANDERSON. Yes, of course, it's a little queer, for in that way it was harder to get at the fire and save things. Yes--yes! [_Pause_.

MRS. ANDERSON. I worked for the dyer's father forty years ago, I did, and I know the people, both the dyer himself and his brother what went off to America, though they say he's back now. The father, he was a real man, he was, but the boys were always a little so-so. Mrs. Westerlund over here, she used to take care of Rudolph, and the two brothers never could get along, but kept scrapping and fighting all the time.--I've seen a thing or two, I have--yes, there's a whole lot what has happened in that house, so I guess it was about time to get it smoked out.--Ugh, but that was a house! One went this way and another that, but back they had to come, and here they died and here they were born, and here they married and were divorced.--And Arvid, the brother what went off to America--him they thought dead for years, and at least he didn't take what was coming to him after his father, but now they say he's come back, though nobody has seen him--and there's such a lot of talking--Look, there's the dyer back from the police station!

ANDERSON. He doesn't look happy exactly, but I suppose that's more than can be expected--Well, who's that student that lived in the attic? How does he hang together with the rest?

MRS. ANDERSON. Well, that's more than I know. He had his board there, and read with the children.

ANDERSON. And also with the lady of the house?

MRS. ANDERSON. No-o, they played something what they called tennis, and quarrelled the rest of the time--yes, quarrelling and backbiting, that's what everybody is up to in this quarter.

ANDERSON. Well, when they broke the student's door open they found hairpins on the floor--it had to come out, after all, even if the fire had to sweep over it first----

MRS. ANDERSON. I don't think it was the dyer that came, but our brother-in-law, Gustafson----

ANDERSON. He's always mad, and to-day I suppose he's worse than ever, and so he'll have to come and dun me for what I owe him, seeing what he has lost in the fire----

MRS. ANDERSON. Now you shut up!

GUSTAFSON. [_Enters with a basketful of funeral wreaths and other products of his trade_] I wonder if I am going to sell anything to-day so there'll be enough for food after all this rumpus?

ANDERSON. Didn't you carry any insurance?

GUSTAFSON. Yes, I used to have insurance on the glass panes over my hotbeds, but this year I felt stingy, and so I put in oiled paper instead--gosh, that I could be such a darned fool!--[_Scratching his head_] I don't get paid for that, of course. And now I've got to cut and paste and oil six hundred paper panes. It's as I have always said: that I was the worst idiot among us seven children. Gee, what an ass I was--what a booby! And then I went and got drunk yesterday. Why in hell did I have to get drunk that day of all days--when I need all the brains I've got to-day? It was the stone-cutter who treated, because our children are going to get married to-night, but I should have said no. I didn't want to, but I'm a ninny who can't say no to anybody. And that's the way when they come and borrow money of me--I can't say no--darned fool that I am! And then I got in the way of that policeman, who snared me with all sorts of questions. I should have kept my mouth shut, like the painter over there, but I can't, and so I let out this, that, and the other thing, and he put it all down, and now I am called as a witness!

ANDERSON. What was it you said?

GUSTAFSON. I said I thought--that it looked funny to me--and that somebody must have started it.

ANDERSON. Oh, that's what you said!

GUSTAFSON. Yes, pitch into me--I've deserved it, goose that I am!

ANDERSON. And who could have started it, do you think?--Don't mind the painter, and my old woman here never carries any tales.

GUSTAFSON. Who started it? Why, the student, of course, as it started in his room.

ANDERSON. No--_under_ his room!

GUSTAFSON. Under, you say? Then I _have_ gone and done it!--Oh, I'll come to a bad end, I'm sure!--_Under_ his room, you say--what could have been there--the kitchen?

ANDERSON. No, a closet--see, over there! It was used by the cook.

GUSTAFSON. Then it must have been her.

ANDERSON. Yes, but don't you say so, as you don't know.

GUSTAFSON. The stone-cutter had it in for the cook last night--I guess he must have known a whole lot----

ANDERSON. You shouldn't repeat what the stone-cutter says, for one who has served isn't to be trusted----

GUSTAFSON. Ash, that's so long ago, and the cook's a regular dragon, for that matter--she'd always haggle over the vegetables----

ANDERSON. There comes the dyer from the station now--you'd better quit!

_The_ STRANGER _enters, dressed in a frock coat and a high hat with mourning on it; he carries a stick_.

MRS. ANDERSON. It wasn't the dyer, but he looks a lot like him.

STRANGER. How much is one of those wreaths?

GARDENER. Fifty cents.

STRANGER. Oh, that's not much.

GARDENER. No, I am such a fool that I can't charge as I should.

STRANGER. [_Looking around_] Has there--been a fire--here?

GARDENER. Yes, last night.

STRANGER. Good God! [_Pause_] Who was the owner of the house?

GARDENER. Mr. Walström.

STRANGER. The dyer?

GARDENER. Yes, he used to be a dyer, all right. [_Pause_.

STRANGER. Where is he now?

GARDENER. He'll be here any moment.

STRANGER. Then I'll look around a bit--the wreath can lie here till I come back--I meant to go out to the cemetery later.

GARDENER. On account of the bishop's monument, I suppose?

STRANGER. What bishop?

GARDENER. Bishop Stecksen, don't you know--who belonged to the Academy.

STRANGER. Is he dead?

GARDENER. Oh, long ago!

STRANGER. I see!--Well, I'll leave the wreath for a while.

_He goes out to the left, studying the ruins carefully as he passes by_.

MRS. ANDERSON. Perhaps he came on account of the insurance.

ANDERSON. Not that one! Then he would have asked in a different way.

MRS. ANDERSON. But he looked like the dyer just the same.

ANDERSON. Only he was taller.

GUSTAFSON. Now, I remember something--I should have a bridal bouquet ready for to-night, and I should go to my son's wedding, but I have no flowers, and my black coat has been burned. Wouldn't that make you--Mrs. Westerlund was to furnish the myrtle for the bride's crown, being her godmother--that's the myrtle she stole a shoot of from the dyer's cook, who got hers from the dyer's first wife--she who ran away--and I was to make a crown of it, and I've clean forgotten it--well, if I ain't the worst fool that ever walked the earth! [_He opens the inn door_] Mrs. Westerlund, can I have the myrtle now, and I'll do the job!--I say, can I have that myrtle! Wreath, too, you say--have you got enough for it?--No?--Well, then I'll let the whole wedding go hang, that's all there is to it!--Let them walk up to the minister's and have him splice them together, but it'll make the stone-cutter mad as a hornet.--What do you think I should do?--No, I can't--haven't slept a wink the whole night.--It's too much for a poor human creature.--Yes, I am a ninny, I know--go for me, will you!--Oh, there's the pot--thanks! And then I need scissors, which I haven't got--and wire--and string--where am I to get them from?--No, of course, nobody wants to break off his work for a thing like that.--I'm tired of the whole mess--work fifty years, and then have it go up in smoke! I haven't got strength to begin over again--and the way it comes all at once, blow on blow--did you ever! I'm going to run away from it! [_He goes out_.

RUDOLPH WALSTRÖM. [_Enters, evidently upset, badly dressed_, _his hands discoloured by the dyes_] Is it all out now, Anderson?

ANDERSON. Yes, now it's out.

RUDOLPH. Has anything been discovered?

ANDERSON. That's a question! What's buried when it snows comes to light when it thaws!

RUDOLPH. What do you mean, Anderson?

ANDERSON. If you dig deep enough you find things.

RUDOLPH. Have you found anything that can explain how the fire started?

ANDERSON. Naw, nothing of that kind.

RUDOLPH. That means we are still under suspicion, all of us.

ANDERSON. Not me, I guess.

RUDOLPH. Oh, yes, for you have been seen up in the attic at unusual hours.

ANDERSON. Well, I can't always go at usual hours to look for my tools when I've left them behind. And I did leave my hammer behind when I fixed the stove in the student's room.

RUDOLPH. And the stone-cutter, the gardener, Mrs. Westerlund, even the painter over there--we are all of us under suspicion--the student, the cook, and myself more than the rest. Lucky it was that I had paid the insurance the day before, or I should have been stuck for good.--Think of it: the stone-cutter suspected of arson--he who's so afraid of doing anything wrong! He's so conscientious _nowadays_ that if you ask him what time it is he won't swear to it, as his watch _may_ be wrong. Of course, we all know he got two years, but he's reformed, and I'll swear now he's the straightest man in the quarter.

ANDERSON. But the police suspect him because he went wrong once--and he ain't got his citizenship back yet.

RUDOLPH. Oh, there are so many ways of looking at a thing--so many ways, I tell you.--Well, Anderson, I guess you'd better quit for the day, seeing as you're going to the wedding to-night.

ANDERSON. Yes, that wedding--There was somebody looking for you a while ago, and he said he would be back.

RUDOLPH. Who was it?

ANDERSON. He didn't say.

RUDOLPH. Police, was it?

ANDERSON. Naw, I don't think so.--There he is coming now, for that matter. [_He goes out, together with his wife_.

_The_ STRANGER _enters_.

RUDOLPH. [_Regards him with curiosity at first, then with horror; wants to run away, but cannot move_] Arvid!

STRANGER. Rudolph!

RUDOLPH. So it's you!

STRANGER. Yes. [_Pause_.

RUDOLPH. You're not dead, then?

STRANGER. In a way, yes!--I have come back from America after thirty years--there was something that pulled at me--

I wanted to see my childhood's home once more--and I found those ruins! [_Pause_] It burned down last night?

RUDOLPH. Yes, you came just in time. [_Pause_.

STRANGER. [_Dragging his words_] That's the place--such a tiny place for such a lot of destinies! There's the dining-room with the frescoed walls: palms, and cypresses, and a temple beneath a rose-coloured sky--that's the way I dreamt the world would look the moment I got away from home. And the stove with its pale blossoms growing out of conches. And the chimney cupboard with its metal doors--I remember as a child, when we had just moved in, somebody had scratched his name on the metal, and then grandmother told us it was the name of a man who had killed himself in that very room. I quickly forgot all about it, but when I later married a niece of the same man, it seemed to me as if my destiny had been foretold on that plate of metal.--You don't believe in that kind of thing, do you?--However, you know how my marriage ended!

RUDOLPH. Yes, I've heard----

STRANGER. And there's the nursery--yes!

RUDOLPH. Don't let us start digging in the ruins!

STRANGER. Why not? After the fire is out you can read things in the ashes. We used to do it as children, in the stove----

RUDOLPH. Come and sit down at the table here!

STRANGER. What place is that? Oh, the tavern--"The Last Nail"--where the hearse-drivers used to stop, and where, once upon a time, condemned culprits were given a final glass before they were taken to the gallows--Who is keeping it?

RUDOLPH. Mrs. Westerlund, who used to be my nurse.

STRANGER. Mrs. Westerlund--I remember her. It is as if the bench sank from under me, and I was sent tumbling through the past, sixty whole years, down into my childhood. I breathe the nursery air and feel it pressing on my chest. You older ones weighed me down, and you made so much noise that I was always kept in a state of fright. My fears made me hide in the garden--then I was dragged forward and given a spanking--always spankings--but I never knew why, and I don't know it yet. And yet she was my mother----

RUDOLPH. Please!

STRANGER. Yes, you were the favourite, and as such you always had her support--Then we got a stepmother. Her father was an undertaker's assistant, and for years we had been seeing him drive by with funerals. At last he came to know us so well by sight that he used to nod and grin at us, as if he meant to say: "Oh, I'll come for you sooner or later!" And then he came right into our house one day, and had to be called grandfather--when our father took his daughter for his second wife.

RUDOLPH. There was nothing strange in that.

STRANGER. No, but somehow, as our own destinies, and those of other people, were being woven into one web----

RUDOLPH. Oh, that's what happens everywhere----

STRANGER. Exactly! It's the same everywhere. In your youth you see the web set up. Parents, relatives, comrades, acquaintances, servants form the warp. Later on in life the weft becomes visible. And then the shuttle of fate runs back and forth with the thread--sometimes it breaks, but is tied up again, and it goes on as before. The reed clicks, the thread is packed together into curlicues, and one day the web lies ready. In old age, when the eye has learned how to see, you discover that those curlicues form a pattern, a monogram, an ornament, a hieroglyph, which only then can be interpreted: that's life! The world-weaver has woven it! [_Pause; he rises_] Over there, in that scrap-heap, I notice the family album. [_He walks a few steps to the right and picks up a photograph album_] That's the book of our family fate. Grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, brothers and sisters, relatives, acquaintances--or so-called "friends"--schoolmates, servants, godparents. And, strange to say, wherever I have gone, in America or Australia, to Hongkong or the Congo, everywhere I found at least one countryman, and as we began to dig it always came out that this man knew my family, or at least some godfather or maid servant--that, in a word, we had some common acquaintances. I even found a relative in the island of Formosa----

RUDOLPH. What has put those ideas into your head?

STRANGER. The fact that life, however it shaped itself--I have been rich and poor, exalted and humbled; I have suffered a shipwreck and passed through an earthquake--but, however life shaped itself, I always became aware of connections and repetitions. I saw in one situation the result of another, earlier one. On meeting _this_ person I was reminded of _that_ one whom I had met in the past. There have been incidents in my life that have come back time and again, so that I have been forced to say to myself: this I have been through before. And I have met with occurrences that seemed to me absolutely inevitable, or predestined.

RUDOLPH. What have you done during all these years?

STRANGER. Everything! I have beheld life from every quarter, from every standpoint, from above and from below, and always it has seemed to me like a scene staged for my particular benefit. And in that way I have at last become reconciled to a part of the past, and I have come to excuse not only my own but also other people's so-called "faults." You and I, for instance, have had a few bones to pick with each other----

RUDOLPH _recoils with a darkening face_.

STRANGER. Don't get scared now----

RUDOLPH. I never get scared!

STRANGER. You are just the same as ever.

RUDOLPH. And so are you!

STRANGER. Am I? That's interesting!--Yes, you are still living in that delusion about your own bravery, and I remember exactly how this false idea became fixed in your mind. We were learning to swim, and one day you told how you had dived into the water, and then mother said: "Yes, Rudolph, he has courage!" That was meant for me--for me whom you had stripped of all courage and self-assurance. But then came the day when you had stolen some apples, and you were too cowardly to own up to it, and so you put it on me.

RUDOLPH. Haven't you forgotten that yet?

STRANGER. I haven't forgotten, but I have forgiven.--From here, where I am sitting, I can see that very tree, and that's what brought it into my mind. It's over there, you see, and it bears golden pippins.--If you look, you'll see that one of its biggest branches has been sawed off. For it so happened that I didn't get angry with you on account of my unjust punishment, but my anger turned against the tree. And two years later that big branch was all dried up and had to be sawed off. It made me think of the fig-tree that was cursed by the Saviour, but I was not led into any presumptuous conclusions.--However, I still know all those trees by heart, and once, when I had the yellow fever in Jamaica, I counted them over, every one. Most of them are still there, I see. There's the snow-apple which has red-striped fruit--a chaffinch used to nest in it. There's the melon-apple, standing right in front of the garret where I used to study for technological examinations; there's the spitzenburg, and the late astrachan; and the pear-tree that used to look like a poplar in miniature; and the one with pears that could only be used for preserves--they never ripened, and we despised them, but mother treasured them above all the rest; and in that tree there used to be a wryneck that was always twisting its head around and making a nasty cry--That was fifty years ago!

RUDOLPH. [_Irately_] What are you driving at?

STRANGER. Just as touchy and ill-tempered as ever! It's interesting.--There was no special purpose back of my chatter--my memories insist on pushing forward--I remember that the garden was rented to somebody else once, but we had the right to play in it. To me it seemed as if we had been driven out of paradise--and the tempter was standing behind every tree. In the fall, when the ground was strewn with ripe apples, I fell under a temptation that had become irresistible----

RUDOLPH. You stole, too?

STRANGER. Of course I did, but I didn't put it off on you!--When I was forty I leased a lemon grove in one of the Southern States, and--well, there were thieves after the trees every night. I couldn't sleep, I lost flesh, I got sick. And then I thought of--poor Gustafson here!

RUDOLPH. He's still living.

STRANGER. Perhaps he, too, stole apples in his childhood?

RUDOLPH. Probably.

STRANGER. Why are your hands so black?

RUDOLPH. Because I handle dyed stuffs all the time.--Did you have anything else in mind?

STRANGER. What could that have been?

RUDOLPH. That my hands were not clean.

STRANGER. Fudge!

RUDOLPH. Perhaps you are thinking of your inheritance?

STRANGER. Just as mean as ever! Exactly as you were when eight years old!

RUDOLPH. And you are just as heedless, and philosophical, and silly!

STRANGER. It's a curious thing--but I wonder how many times before we have said just what we are saying now? [_Pause_] I am looking at your album here--our sisters and brothers--five dead!

RUDOLPH. Yes.

STRANGER. And our schoolmates?

RUDOLPH. Some taken and some left behind.

STRANGER. I met one of them in South Carolina--Axel Ericson--do you remember him?

RUDOLPH. I do.

STRANGER. One whole night, while we were on a train together, he kept telling me how our highly respectable and respected family consisted of nothing but rascals; that it had made its money by smuggling--you know, the toll-gate was right here; and that this house had been built with double walls for the hiding of contraband. Don't you see that the walls are double?

RUDOLPH. [_Crushed_] So that's the reason why we had closets everywhere?

STRANGER. The father of that fellow, Ericson, had been in the custom-house service and knew our father, and the son told me a lot of inside stories that turned my whole world of imagined conditions topsyturvy.

RUDOLPH. You gave him a licking, I suppose?

STRANGER. Why should I lick him?--However, my hair turned grey that night, and I had to edit my entire life over again. You know how we used to live in an atmosphere of mutual admiration; how we regarded our family as better than all others, and how, in particular, our parents were looked up to with almost religious veneration. And then I had to paint new faces on them, strip them, drag them down, eliminate them. It was dreadful! Then the ghosts began to walk. The pieces of those smashed figures would come together again, but not properly, and the result would be a regular wax cabinet of monsters. All those grey-haired gentlemen whom we called uncles, and who came to our house to play cards and eat cold suppers, they were smugglers, and some of them had been in the pillory--Did you know that?

RUDOLPH. [_Completely overwhelmed_] No.

STRANGER. The dye works were merely a hiding-place for smuggled yarn, which was dyed in order to prevent identification. I can still remember how I used to hate the smell of the dyeing vat--there was something sickeningly sweet about it.

RUDOLPH. Why did you have to tell me all this?

STRANGER. Why should I keep silent about it and let you make yourself ridiculous by your boasting about that revered family of yours? Have you never noticed people grinning at you?

RUDOLPH. No-o! [_Pause_.

STRANGER. I am now looking at father's bookcase in the pile over there. It was always locked, you remember. But one day, when father was out, I got hold of the key. The books in front I had seen through the glass doors, of course. There were volumes of sermons, the collected works of great poets, handbooks for gardening, compilations of the statutes referring to customs duties and the confiscation of smuggled goods; the constitution; a volume about foreign coins; and a technical work that later determined my choice of a career. But back of those books there was room for other things, and I began to explore. First of all I found the rattan--and, do you know, I have since learned that that bitter plant bears a fruit from which we get the red dye known as "dragon's blood": now, isn't that queer! And beside the rattan stood a bottle labelled "cyanide of potassium."

RUDOLPH. I suppose it was meant for use over at the works.

STRANGER. Or elsewhere, perhaps. But this is what I had in mind: there were some bundles of pamphlets with illustrated covers that aroused my interest. And, to put it plain, they contained the notorious memoirs of a certain chevalier--I took them out and locked the case again. And beneath the big oak over there I studied them. We used to call that oak the Tree of Knowledge--and it was, all right! And in that way I left my childhood's paradise to become initiated, all too early, into those mysteries which--yes!

RUDOLPH. You, too?

STRANGER. Yes, I, too! [_Pause_] However--let us talk of something else, as all that is now in ashes.--Did you have any insurance?

RUDOLPH. [_Angrily_] Didn't you ask that a while ago?

STRANGER. Not that I can recall. It happens so often that I confuse what I have said with what I have intended to say, and mostly because I think so intensely--ever since that day when I tried to hang myself in the closet.

RUDOLPH. What is that you are saying?

STRANGER. I tried to hang myself in the closet.

RUDOLPH. [_Speaking very slowly_] Was that what happened that Holy Thursday Eve, when you were taken to the hospital--what the rest of us children were never permitted to know?

STRANGER. [_Speaking in the same manner_] Yes.--There you can see how little we know about those that are nearest to us, about our own homes and our own lives.

RUDOLPH. But why did you do it?

STRANGER. I was twelve years old, and tired of life! It was like groping about in a great darkness--I couldn't understand what I had to do here--and I thought the world a madhouse. I reached that conclusion one day when our school was turned out with torches and banners to celebrate "the destroyer of our country." For I had just read a book which proved that our country had been brought to destruction by the worst of all its kings--and that was the one whose memory we had to celebrate with hymns and festivities.[1]

[_Pause_.

RUDOLPH. What happened at the hospital?

STRANGER. My dear fellow, I was actually put into the morgue as dead. Whether I was or not, I don't know--but when I woke up, most of my previous life had been forgotten, and I began a new one, but in such a manner that the rest of you thought me peculiar.--Are you married again?

RUDOLPH. I have wife and children--somewhere.

STRANGER. When I recovered consciousness I seemed to myself another person. I regarded life with cynical calm: it probably had to be the way it was. And the worse it turned out the more interesting it became. After that I looked upon myself as if I were somebody else, and I observed and studied that other person, and his fate, thereby rendering myself callous to my own sufferings. But while dead I had acquired new faculties--I could see right through people, read their thoughts, hear their intentions. In company, I beheld them stripped naked--Where did you say the fire started?

RUDOLPH. Why, nobody knows.

STRANGER. But the newspapers said that it began in a closet right under the student's garret--what kind of a student is he?

RUDOLPH. [_Appalled_] Is it in the newspapers? I haven't had time to look at them to-day. What more have they got?

STRANGER. They have got everything.

RUDOLPH. Everything?

STRANGER. The double walls, the respected family of smugglers, the pillory, the hairpins----

RUDOLPH. What hairpins?

STRANGER. I don't know, but they are there. Do you know?

RUDOLPH. Naw!

STRANGER. Everything was brought to light, and you may look for a stream of people coming here to stare at all that exposed rottenness.

RUDOLPH. Lord have mercy! And you take pleasure at seeing your family dragged into scandal?

STRANGER. My family? I have never felt myself related to the rest of you. I have never had any strong feeling either for my fellow men or myself. I think it's interesting to watch them--that's all--What sort of a person is your wife?

RUDOLPH. Was there anything about her, too?

STRANGER. About her and the student.

RUDOLPH. Good! Then I was right. Just wait and you'll see!--There comes the stone-cutter.

STRANGER. You know him?

RUDOLPH. And so do you. A schoolmate--Albert Ericson.

STRANGER. Whose father was in the customs service and whose brother I met on the train--he who was so very well informed about our family.

RUDOLPH. That's the infernal cuss who has blabbed to the papers, then!

ERICSON _enters with a pick and begins to look over the ruins_.

STRANGER. What a ghastly figure!

RUDOLPH. He's been in jail--two years. Do you know what he did? He made some erasures in a contract between him and myself----

STRANGER. You sent him to jail! And now he has had his revenge!

RUDOLPH. But the queerest part of it is that nowadays he is regarded as the most honest man in the whole district. He has become a martyr, and almost a saint, so that nobody dares say a word against him.

STRANGER. That's interesting, indeed!

DETECTIVE. [_Entering, turns to_ Ericson] Can you pull down that wall over there?

ERICSON. The one by the closet?

DETECTIVE. That's the one.

ERICSON. That's where the fire started, and I'm sure you'll find a candle or a lamp around there--for I know the people!

DETECTIVE. Go ahead then!

ERICSON. The closet door was burned off, to be sure, but the ceiling came down, and that's why we couldn't find out, but now we'll use the beak on it! [_He falls to with his pick_] Ho-hey, ho-ho!--Ho-hey, leggo!--Ho-hey, for that one!--Do you see anything?

DETECTIVE. Not yet.

ERICSON. [_Working away as before_] Now I can see something!--The lamp has exploded, but the stand is left!--Who knows this forfeit for his own?--Didn't I see the dyer somewhere around here?

DETECTIVE. There he is sitting now. [_He picks the lamp from the debris and holds it up_] Do you recognise your lamp, Mr. Walström?

RUDOLPH. That isn't mine--it belonged to our tutor.

DETECTIVE. The student? Where is he now?

RUDOLPH. He's down-town, but I suppose he'll soon be here, as his books are lying over there.

DETECTIVE. How did his lamp get into the cook's closet? Did he have anything to do with her?

RUDOLPH. Probably!

DETECTIVE. The only thing needed now is that he identify the lamp as his own, and he will be arrested. What do you think of it, Mr. Walström?

RUDOLPH. I? Well, what is there to think?

DETECTIVE. What reason could he have for setting fire to another person's house?

RUDOLPH. I don't know. Malice, or mere mischief--you never can tell what people may do--Or perhaps there was something he wanted to cover up.

DETECTIVE. That would have been a poor way, as old rottenness always will out. Did he have any grudge against you?

RUDOLPH. It's likely, for I helped him once when he was hard up, and he has hated me ever since, of course.

DETECTIVE. Of course? [_Pause_] Who is he, then?

RUDOLPH. He was raised in an orphanage--born of unknown parents.

DETECTIVE. Haven't you a grown-up daughter, Mr. Walström?

RUDOLPH. [_Angered_] Of course I have!

DETECTIVE. Oh, you have! [_Pause; then to_ ERICSON] Now you bring those twelve men of yours and pull down the walls quick. Then we'll see what new things come to light.

[_He goes out_.

ERICSON. That'll be done in a jiffy. [_Goes out_.

[_Pause_.

STRANGER. Have you really paid up your insurance?

RUDOLPH. Of course!

STRANGER. Personally?

RUDOLPH. No, I sent it in as usual.

STRANGER. You sent it--by somebody else! That's just like you!--Suppose we take a turn through the garden and have a look at the apple-trees.

RUDOLPH. All right, and then we'll see what happens afterward.

STRANGER. Now begins the most interesting part of all.

RUDOLPH. Perhaps not quite so interesting if you find yourself mixed up in it.

STRANGER. I?

RUDOLPH. Who can tell?

STRANGER. What a web it is!

RUDOLPH. There was a child of yours that went to the orphanage, I think?

STRANGER. God bless us!--Let's go over into the garden!

_Curtain_.

[Footnote 1: This refers to King Charles XII of Sweden, whose memory Strindberg hated mainly because of the use made of it by the jingo elements of the Swedish upper classes.]

SECOND SCENE

_The same setting as before with the exception that the walls have been torn down so that the garden is made visible, with its vast variety of spring flowers--daphnes, deutzias, daffodils, narcissuses, tulips, auriculas--and with all the fruit-trees in bloom_.

ERICSON, ANDERSON _and his old wife_, GUSTAFSON, _the_ HEARSE-DRIVER, MRS. WESTERLUND, _and the painter_, SJÖBLOM, _are standing in a row staring at the spot where the house used to be_.

STRANGER. [_Entering_] There they stand, enjoying the misfortune that's in the air and waiting for the victim to appear--he being the principal item. That the fire was incendiary they take for granted, merely because they want it that way.--And all these rascals are the friends and comrades of my youth. I am even related to the hearse-driver through my stepmother, whose father used to help carry out the coffins--[_He speaks to the crowd of spectators_] Look here, you people, I shouldn't stand there if I were you. There may have been some dynamite stored in the cellar, and if such were the case an explosion might take place any moment.

_The curious crowd scatters and disappears_.

STRANGER. [Stoops _over the scrap-heap and begins to poke in the books piled there_] Those are the student's books--Same kind of rot as in my youth--Livy's Roman history, which is said to be lies, every word--But here's a volume out of my brother's library--"Columbus, or the Discovery of America"! My own book, which I got as a Christmas gift in 1857. My name has been erased. This means it was stolen from me--and I accused one of our maids, who was discharged on that account! Fine business! Perhaps it led to her ruin--fifty years ago! Here is the frame of one of our family portraits; my renowned grandfather, the smuggler, who was put in the pillory--fine!--But what is this? The foot-piece of a mahogany bed--the one in which I was born! Oh, damn!--Next item: a leg of a dinner-table--the one that was an heirloom. Why, it was supposed to be of ebony, and was admired on that account! And now, after fifty years, I discover it to be made of painted maple. Everything had its colours changed in our house to render it unrecognisable, even the clothes of us children, so that our bodies always were stained with various dyes. Ebony--humbug! And here's the dining-room clock--smuggled goods, that, too--which has measured out the time for two generations. It was wound up every Saturday, when we had salt codfish and a posset made with beer for dinner. Like all intelligent clocks, it used to stop when anybody died, but when I died it went on just as before. Let me have a look at you, old friend--I want to see your insides. [_As he touches the clock it falls to pieces_] Can't stand being handled! Nothing could stand being handled in our home--nothing! Vanity, vanity!--But there's the globe that was on top of the clock, although it ought to have been at the bottom. You tiny earth: you, the densest and the heaviest of all the planets--that's what makes everything on you so heavy--so heavy to breathe, so heavy to carry. The cross is your symbol, but it might just as well have been a fool's cap or a strait-jacket--you world of delusions and deluded!--Eternal One--perchance Thy earth has gone astray in the limitless void? And what set it whirling so that Thy children were made dizzy, and lost their reason, and became incapable of seeing what really is instead of what only seems?--Amen!--And here is the student!

_The_ STUDENT _enters and looks around in evident search of somebody_.

STRANGER. He is looking for the mistress of the house. And he tells everything he knows--with his eyes. Happy youth!--Whom are you looking for?

STUDENT. [_Embarrassed_] I was looking----

STRANGER. Speak up, young man--or keep silent. I understand you just the same.

STUDENT. With whom have I the honour----

STRANGER. It's no special honour, as you know, for once I ran away to America on account of debts----

STUDENT. That wasn't right.

STRANGER. Right or wrong, it remains a fact.--So you were looking for Mrs. Walström? Well, she isn't here, but I am sure that she will come soon, like all the rest, for they are drawn by the fire like moths----

STUDENT. By a candle!

STRANGER. That's what _you_ say, but I should rather have said "lamp," in order to choose a more significant word. However, you had better hide your feelings, my dear fellow, if you can--I can hide mine!--We were talking of that lamp, were we not? How about it?

STUDENT. Which lamp?

STRANGER. Well, well! Every one of them lies and denies!--The lamp that was placed in the cook's closet and set fire to the house?

STUDENT. I know nothing about it.

STRANGER. Some blush when they lie and others turn pale. This one has invented an entirely new manner.

STUDENT. Are you talking to yourself, sir?

STRANGER. I have that bad habit.--Are your parents still living?

STUDENT. They are not.

STRANGER. Now you lied again, but unconsciously.

STUDENT. I never tell a lie!

STRANGER. Not more than three in these few moments! I know your father.

STUDENT. I don't believe it.

STRANGER. So much the better for me!--Do you see this scarf-pin? It's pretty, isn't it? But I never see anything of it myself--I have no pleasure in its being there, while everybody else is enjoying it. There is nothing selfish about that, is there? But there are moments when I should like to see it in another man's tie so that I might have a chance to admire it. Would you care to have it?

STUDENT. I don't quite understand--Perhaps, as you said, it's better not to wear it.

STRANGER. Perhaps!--Don't get impatient now. She will be here soon.--Do you find it enviable to be young?

STUDENT. I can't say that I do.

STRANGER. No, youth is not its own master; it has never any money, and has to take its food out of other hands; it is not permitted to speak when company is present, but is treated as an idiot; and as it cannot marry, it has to ogle other people's wives, which leads to all sorts of dangerous consequences. Youth--humbug!

STUDENT. That's right! As a child, you want to grow up--that is, reach fifteen, be confirmed, and put on a tall hat. When you are that far, you want to be old--that is, twenty-one. Which means that nobody wants to be young.

STRANGER. And when you grow old in earnest, then you want to be dead. For then there isn't much left to wish for.--Do you know that you are to be arrested?

STUDENT. Am I?

STRANGER. The detective said so a moment ago.

STUDENT. Me?

STRANGER. Are you surprised at that? Don't you know that in this life you must be prepared for anything?

STUDENT. But what have I done?

STRANGER. You don't have to do anything in order to be arrested. To be suspected is enough.

STUDENT. Then everybody might be arrested!

STRANGER. Exactly! The rope might be laid around the neck of the whole race if justice were wanted, but it isn't. It's a disgusting race: ugly, sweating, ill-smelling; its linen dirty, its stockings full of holes; with chilblains and corns--ugh! No, an apple-tree in bloom is far more beautiful. Or look at the lilies in the field--they seem hardly to belong here--and what fragrance is theirs!

STUDENT. Are you a philosopher, sir?

STRANGER. Yes, I am a great philosopher.

STUDENT. Now you are poking fun at me!

STRANGER. You say that to get away. Well, begone then! Hurry up!

STUDENT. I was expecting somebody.

STRANGER. So I thought. But I think it would be better to go and meet----

STUDENT. She asked you to tell me?

STRANGER. Oh, that wasn't necessary.

STUDENT. Well, if that's so--I don't want to miss----

[_He goes out_.

STRANGER. Can that be my son? Well, if it comes to the worst--I was a child myself once, and it was neither remarkable nor pleasant--And I am his--what of it? And for that matter--who knows?--Now I'll have a look at Mrs. Westerlund. She used to work for my parents--was faithful and good-tempered; and when she had been pilfering for ten years she was raised to the rank of a "trusted" servant. [_He seats himself at the table in front of the inn_] There are Gustafson's wreaths--just as carelessly made as they were forty years ago. He was always careless and stupid in all he did, and so he never succeeded with anything. But much might be pardoned him on account of his self-knowledge. "Poor fool that I am," he used to say, and then he would pull off his cap and scratch his head.--Why, there's a myrtle plant! [_He knocks at the pot_] Not watered, of course! He always forgot to water his plants, the damned fool--and yet he expected them to grow.

SJÖBLOM, _the painter, appears_.

STRANGER. I wonder who that painter can be. Probably he belongs also to the Bog, and perhaps he is one of the threads in my own web.

SJÖBLOM _is staring at the_ STRANGER _all this time_.

STRANGER. [_Returning the stare_] Well, do you recognise me?

SJÖBLOM. Are you--Mr. Arvid?

STRANGER. Have been and am--if perception argues being.

[_Pause_.

SJÖBLOM. I ought really to be mad at you.

STRANGER. Well, go on and be so! However, you might tell me the reason. That has a tendency to straighten matters out.

SJÖBLOM. Do you remember----

STRANGER. Unfortunately, I have an excellent memory.

SJÖBLOM. Do you remember a boy named Robert?

STRANGER. Yes, a regular rascal who knew how to draw.

SJÖBLOM. And I was to go to the Academy in order to become a real painter, an artist. But just about that time-colour-blindness was all the go. You were studying at the Technological Institute then, and so you had to test my eyes before your father would consent to send me to the art classes. For that reason you brought two skeins of yarn from the dye works, one red and the other green, and then you asked me about them. I answered--called the red green and the green red--and that was the end of my career----

STRANGER. But that was as it should be.

SJÖBLOM. No--for the truth of it was, I could distinguish the colours, but not--the _names_. And that wasn't found out until I was thirty-seven----

STRANGER. That was an unfortunate story, but I didn't know better, and so you'll have to forgive me.

SJÖBLOM. How can I?

STRANGER. Ignorance is pardonable! And now listen to me. I wanted to enter the navy, made a trial cruise as mid-shipman, seemed to become seasick, and was rejected! But I could stand the sea, and my sickness came from having drunk too much. So my career was spoiled, and I had to choose another.

SJÖBLOM. What have I got to do with the navy? I had been dreaming of Rome and Paris----

STRANGER. Oh, well, one has so many dreams in youth, and in old age too, for that matter. Besides, what's the use of bothering about what happened so long ago?

SJÖBLOM. How you talk! Perhaps you can give me back my wasted life----

STRANGER. No, I can't, but I am under no obligation to do so, either. That trick with the yarn I had learned at school, and you ought to have learned the proper names of the colours. And now you can go to--one dauber less is a blessing to humanity!--There's Mrs. Westerlund!

SJÖBLOM. How you _do_ talk. But I guess you'll get what's coming to you!

MRS. WESTERLUND _enters_.

STRANGER. How d'you do, Mrs. Westerlund? I am Mr. Arvid--don't get scared now! I have been in America, and how are you? I am feeling fine! There has been a fire here, and I hear your husband is dead--policeman, I remember, and a very nice fellow. I liked him for his good humour and friendly ways. He was a harmless jester, whose quips never hurt. I recall once----

MRS. WESTERLUND. O, merciful! Is this my own Arvid whom I used to tend----

STRANGER. No, that wasn't me, but my brother--but never mind, it's just as well meant. I was talking of your old man who died thirty-five years ago--a very nice man and a particular friend of mine----

MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, he died. [_Pause_] But I don't know if--perhaps you are getting him mixed up----

STRANGER. No, I don't. I remember old man Westerlund perfectly, and I liked him very much.

MRS. WESTERLUND. [_Reluctantly_] Of course it's a shame to say it, but I don't think his temper was very good.

STRANGER. What?

MRS. WESTERLUND. Well--he had a way of getting around people, but he didn't mean what he said--or if he did he meant it the other way around----

STRANGER. What is that? Didn't he mean what he was saying? Was he a hypocrite?

MRS. WESTERLUND. Well, I don't like to say it, but I believe----

STRANGER. Do you mean to say that he wasn't on the level?

MRS. WESTERLUND. N--yes--he was--a little--well, he didn't mean exactly what he said--And how have you been doing, Mr. Arvid?

STRANGER. Now a light is dawning on me!--The miserable wretch! And here I have been praising him these thirty-five years. I have missed him, and I felt something like sorrow at his departure--I even used some of my tobacco allowance to buy a wreath for his coffin.

MRS. WESTERLUND. What was it he did? What was it?

STRANGER. The villain! [_Pause_] Well--he fooled me--it was Shrove Tuesday, I remember. He told me that if one took away every third egg from a hen she would lay so many more. I did it, got a licking, and came near getting into court. But _I_ never suspected him of having told on me.--He was always hanging around our kitchen looking for tid-bits, and so our maids could do just what they pleased about the garbage--oh, now I see him in his proper aspect!--And here I am now getting into a fury at one who has been thirty-five years in his grave?--So he was a satirist, he was--and I didn't catch on--although I understand him now.

MRS. WESTERLUND. Yes, he was a little satirical all right--_I_ ought to know that!

STRANGER. Other things are coming back to me now--and I have been saying nice things about that blackguard for thirty-five years! It was at his funeral I drank my first toddy--And I remember how he used to flatter me, and call me "professor" and "the crown prince"--ugh--And there is the stone-cutter! You had better go inside, madam, or we'll have a row when that fellow begins to turn in his bills. Good-bye, madam--we'll meet again!

MRS. WESTERLUND. No we won't. People ought never to meet again--it is never as it used to be, and they only get to clawing at each other--What business did you have to tell me all those things--seeing everything was all right as it was [_She goes out_.

ERICSON, _the stone-cutter, comes in_.

STRANGER. Come on!

ERICSON. What's that?

STRANGER. Come on, I said!

ERICSON _stares at him_.

STRANGER. Are you looking at my scarf-pin? I bought it in London.

ERICSON. I am no thief!

STRANGER. No, but you practise the noble art of erasure. You wipe out!

ERICSON. That's true, but that contract was sheer robbery, and it was strangling me.

STRANGER. Why did you sign it?

ERICSON. Because I was hard up.

STRANGER. Yes, that _is_ a motive.

ERICSON. But now I am having my revenge.

STRANGER. Yes, isn't it nice!

ERICSON. And now _they_ will be locked up.

STRANGER. Did _we_ ever fight each other as boys?

ERICSON. No, I was too young.

STRANGER. Have we never told lies about each other, or robbed each other, or got in each other's way, or seduced each other's sisters?

ERICSON. Naw, but my father was in the customs service and yours was a smuggler.

STRANGER. There you are! That's something, at least!

ERICSON. And when my father failed to catch yours he was discharged.

STRANGER. And you want to get even with me because your father was a good-for-nothing?

ERICSON. Why did you say a while ago that there was dynamite in the cellar?

STRANGER. Now, my dear sir, you are telling lies again. I said there _might_ be dynamite in the cellar, and everything is possible, of course.

ERICSON. And in the meantime the student has been arrested. Do you know him?

STRANGER. Very little--his mother more, for she was a maid in our house. She was both pretty and good, and I was making up to her--until she had a child.

ERICSON. And were you not its father?

STRANGER. I was not. But as a denial of fatherhood is not allowed, I suppose I must be regarded as a sort of stepfather.

ERICSON. Then they have lied about you.

STRANGER. Of course. But that's a very common thing.

ERICSON. And I was among those who testified against you--under oath!

STRANGER. I have no doubt about it, but what does it matter? Nothing matters at all! But now we had better quit pulling--or we'll get the whole web unravelled.

ERICSON. But think of me, who have perjured myself----

STRANGER. Yes, it isn't pleasant, but such things will happen.

ERICSON. It's horrible--don't you find life horrible?

STRANGER. [_Covering his eyes with his hand_] Yes, horrible beyond all description!

ERICSON. I don't want to live any longer!

STRANGER. Must! [_Pause_] Must! [_Pause_] Tell me--the student is arrested, you say--can he get out of it?

ERICSON. Hardly!--And now, as we are talking nicely, I'll tell you something: he is innocent, but he cannot clear himself. For the only witness that can prove him innocent would, by doing so, prove him guilty--in another way.

STRANGER. She with the hairpins, isn't it?

ERICSON. Yes.

STRANGER. The old one or the young one?

ERICSON. You have to figure that out yourself. But it isn't the cook.

STRANGER. What a web this is!--But who put the lamp there?

ERICSON. His worst enemy.

STRANGER. And did his worst enemy also start the fire?

ERICSON. That's beyond me! Only Anderson, the mason, knows that.

STRANGER. Who is he?

ERICSON. The oldest one in the place--some kind of relative of Mrs. Westerlund--knows all the secrets of the house--but he and the dyer have got some secrets together, so he won't tell anything.

STRANGER. And the lady--my sister-in-law--who is she?

ERICSON. Well--she was in the house as governess when the first wife cleared out.

STRANGER. What sort of character has she got?

ERICSON. Hm! Character? I don't quite know what that is. Do you mean trade? The old assessment blanks used to call for your name and "character"--but that meant occupation instead of character.

STRANGER. I mean her temper.

ERICSON. Well, it changes, you know. In me it depends on the person with whom I am talking. With decent people I am decent, and with the cruel ones I become like a beast of prey.

STRANGER. But I was talking of her temper under ordinary circumstances.

ERICSON. Well, nothing in particular. Gets angry if you tease her, but comes around after a while. One cannot always have the same temper, of course.

STRANGER. I mean, is she merry or melancholy?

ERICSON. When things go right, she is happy, and when they go wrong, she gets sorry or angry--just like the rest of us.

STRANGER. Yes, but how does she behave?

ERICSON. Oh, what does it matter?--Of course, being an educated person, she behaves politely, but nevertheless, you know, she can get nasty, too, when her blood gets to boiling.

STRANGER. But that doesn't make me much wiser.

ERICSON. [_Patting him on the shoulder_] No, sir, we never get much wiser when it's a question of human beings.

STRANGER. Oh, you're a marvel!--And how do you like my brother, the dyer? [_Pause_.

ERICSON. Oh, his manners are pretty decent. And more than that I don't know, for what he keeps hidden I can't find out, of course.

STRANGER. Excellent! But--his hands are always blue, and yet you know that they are white beneath the dye.

ERICSON. But to make them so they should be scraped, and that's something he won't permit.

STRANGER. Good!--Who are the young couple coming over there?

ERICSON. That's the gardener's son and my daughter, who were to have been married to-night, but who have had to postpone it on account of the fire--Now I shall leave, for I don't want to embarrass them. You understand--I ain't much as a father-in-law. Good-bye! [_He goes out_.

_The_ Stranger _withdraws behind the inn, but so that he remains visible to the spectators_.

Alfred _and_ Mathilda _enter hand in hand_.

ALFRED. I had to have a look at this place--I had to----

MATHILDA. Why did you have to look at it?

ALFRED. Because I have suffered so much in this house that more than once I wished it on fire.

MATHILDA. Yes, I know, it kept the sun out of the garden, and now everything will grow much better--provided they don't put up a still higher house----

ALFRED. Now it's open and pleasant, with plenty of air and sunlight, and I hear they are going to lay out a street----

MATHILDA. Won't you have to move then?

ALFRED. Yes, all of us will have to move, and that's what I like--I like new things--I should like to emigrate----

MATHILDA. Mercy, no! Do you know, our pigeons were nesting on the roof. And when the fire broke out last night they kept circling around the place at first, but when the roof fell in they plunged right into the flames--They couldn't part from their old home!

ALFRED. But we must get out of here--must! My father says that the soil has been sucked dry.

MATHILDA. I heard that the cinders left by the fire were to be spread over the ground in order to improve the soil.

ALFRED. You mean the ashes?

MATHILDA. Yes; they say it's good to sow in the ashes.

ALFRED. Better still on virgin soil.

MATHILDA. But your father is ruined?

ALFRED. Not at all. He has money in the bank. Of course he's complaining, but so does everybody.

MATHILDA. Has he--The fire hasn't ruined him?

ALFRED. Not a bit! He's a shrewd old guy, although he always calls himself a fool.

MATHILDA. What am I to believe?

ALFRED. He has loaned money to the mason here--and to others.

MATHILDA. I am entirely at sea! Am I dreaming?--The whole morning we have been weeping over your father's misfortune and over the postponement of the wedding----

ALFRED. Poor little thing! But the wedding is to take place to-night----

MATHILDA. Is it not postponed?

ALFRED. Only delayed for a couple of hours so that my father will have time to get his new coat.

MATHILDA. And we who have been weeping----

ALFRED. Useless tears--such a lot of tears!

MATHILDA. I am mad because they were useless--although--to think that my father-in-law could be such a sly one!

ALFRED. Yes, he is something of a joker, to put it mildly. He is always talking about how tired he is, but that's nothing but laziness--oh, he's lazy, I tell you----

MATHILDA. Don't say any more nasty things about him--but let us get away from here. I have to dress, you know, and put up my hair.--Just think, that my father-in-law isn't what I thought him--that he could be fooling us like that and not telling the truth! Perhaps you are like that, too? Oh, that I can't know what you really are!

ALFRED. You'll find out afterward.

MATHILDA. But then it's too late.

ALFRED. It's never too late----

MATHILDA. All you who lived in this house are bad--And now I am afraid of you----

ALFRED. Not of me, though?

MATHILDA. I don't know what to think. Why didn't you tell me before that your father was well off?

ALFRED. I wanted to try you and see if you would like me as a poor man.

MATHILDA. Yes, afterward they always say that they wanted to try you. But how can I ever believe a human being again?

ALFRED. Go and get dressed now. I'll order the carriages.

MATHILDA. Are we to have carriages?

ALFRED. Of course--regular coaches.

MATHILDA. Coaches? And to-night? What fun! Come--hurry up! We'll have carriages!

ALFRED. [_Gets hold of her hand and they dance out together_] Hey and ho! Here we go!

STRANGER. [_Coming forward_] Bravo!

_The_ DETECTIVE _enters and talks in a low tone to the_ Stranger, _who answers in the same way. This lasts for about half a minute, whereupon the_ DETECTIVE _leaves again_.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Enters, dressed in black, and gazes long at the_ Stranger] Are you my brother-in-law?

STRANGER. I am. [_Pause_] Don't I look as I have been described--or painted?

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Frankly, no!

STRANGER. No, that is generally the case. And I must admit that the information I received about you a while ago does not tally with the original.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Oh, people do each other so much wrong, and they paint each other in accordance with some image within themselves.

STRANGER. And they go about like theatrical managers, distributing parts to each other. Some accept their parts; others hand them back and prefer to improvise.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. And what has been the part assigned to you?

STRANGER. That of a seducer. Not that I have ever been one! I have never seduced anybody, be she wife or maid, but once in my youth I was seduced, and that's why the part was given to me. Strange to say, it was forced on me so long that at last I accepted it. And for twenty years I carried the bad conscience of a seducer around with me.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. You were innocent then?

STRANGER. I was.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. How curious! And to this day my husband is still talking of the Nemesis that has pursued you because you seduced another man's wife.

STRANGER. I fully believe it. But your husband represents a still more interesting case. He has created a new character for himself out of lies. Tell me: isn't he a coward in facing the struggles of life?

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Of course he is a coward!

STRANGER. And yet he boasts of his courage, which is nothing but brutality.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. You know him pretty well.

STRANGER. Yes, and no!--And you have been living in the belief that you had married into a respected family which had never disgraced itself?

MRS. WALSTRÖM. So I believed until this morning.

STRANGER. When your faith crumbled! What a web of lies and mistakes and misunderstandings! And that kind of thing we are supposed to take seriously!

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Do you?

STRANGER. Sometimes. Very seldom nowadays. I walk like a somnambulist along the edge of a roof--knowing that I am asleep, and yet being awake--and the only thing I am waiting for is to be waked up.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. You are said to have been across to the other side?

STRANGER. I have been across the river, but the only thing I can recall is--that there everything _was_ what it pretended to be. That's what makes the difference.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. When nothing stands the test of being touched, what are you then to hold on to?

STRANGER. Don't you know?

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Tell me! Tell me!

STRANGER. Sorrow brings patience; patience brings experience; experience brings hope; and hope will not bring us to shame.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Hope, yes!

STRANGER. Yes, hope!

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Do you ever think it pleasant to live?

STRANGER. Of course. But that is also a delusion. I tell you, my dear sister-in-law, that when you happen to be born without a film over your eyes, then you see life and your fellow creatures as they are--and you have to be a pig to feel at home in such a mess.--But when you have been looking long enough at blue mists, then you turn your eyes the other way and begin to look into your own soul? There you find something really worth looking at.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. And what is it you see?

STRANGER. Your own self. But when you have looked at that you must die.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Covers her eyes with her hands; after a pause she says_] Do you want to help me?

STRANGER. If I can.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Try.

STRANGER. Wait a moment!--No, I cannot. He is innocently accused. Only you can set him free again. But that you cannot do. It's a net that has not been tied by men----

MRS. WALSTRÖM. But he is not guilty.

STRANGER. Who is guilty? [_Pause_.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. No one! It was an accident!

STRANGER. I know it.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. What am I to do?

STRANGER. Suffer. It will pass. For that, too, is vanity.

MRS. WALSTRÖM. Suffer?

STRANGER. Yes, suffer! But with hope!

MRS. WALSTRÖM. [_Holding out her hand to him_] Thank you!

STRANGER. And let it be your consolation

MRS. WALSTRÖM. What?

STRANGER. That you don't suffer innocently.

MRS. WALSTRÖM _walks out with her head bent low_.

_The_ STRANGER _climbs the pile of debris marking the site of the burned house_.

RUDOLPH. [_Comes in, looking happy_] Are you playing the ghost among the ruins?

STRANGER. Ghosts feel at home among ruins--And now you are happy?

RUDOLPH. Now I am happy.

STRANGER. And brave?

RUDOLPH. Whom have I got to fear, or what?

STRANGER. I conclude from your happiness that you are ignorant of one important fact--Have you the courage to bear a piece of misfortune?

RUDOLPH. What is it?

STRANGER. You turn pale?

RUDOLPH. I?

STRANGER. A serious misfortune!

RUDOLPH. Speak out!

STRANGER. The detective was here a moment ago, and he told me--in confidence----

RUDOLPH. What?

STRANGER. That the premium on your insurance was paid up two hours too late.

RUDOLPH. Great S----! what are you talking of? I sent my wife to pay the premium.

STRANGER. And she sent the bookkeeper--and he got there too late.

RUDOLPH. Then I am ruined? [_Pause_.

STRANGER. Are you crying?

RUDOLPH. I am ruined!

STRANGER. Well, is that something that cannot be borne?

RUDOLPH. How am I to live? What am I to do?

STRANGER. Work!

RUDOLPH. I am too old--I have no friends Stranger. Perhaps you'll get some now. A man in misfortune always seems sympathetic. I had some of my best hours while fortune went against me.

RUDOLPH. [_Wildly_] I am ruined!

STRANGER. But in my days of success and fortune I was left alone. Envy was more than friendship could stand.

RUDOLPH. Then I'll sue the bookkeeper.

STRANGER. Don't!

RUDOLPH. He'll have to pay----

STRANGER. How little you have changed! What's the use of living, when you learn so little from it?

RUDOLPH. I'll sue him, the villain!--He hates me because I gave him a cuff on the ear once.

STRANGER. Forgive him--as I forgave you when I didn't demand my inheritance.

RUDOLPH. What inheritance?

STRANGER. Always the same! Merciless! Cowardly! Disingenuous!--Depart in peace, brother!

RUDOLPH. What inheritance is that you are talking of?

STRANGER. Now listen, Rudolph--my brother after all: my own mother's son! You put the stone-cutter in jail because he did some erasing--all right! But how about your own erasures from my book, "Christopher Columbus, or the Discovery of America"?

RUDOLPH. [_Taken aback_] What's that? Columbus?

STRANGER. Yes, _my_ book that became yours!

RUDOLPH _remains silent_.

STRANGER. Yes, and I understand now that it was you who put the student's lamp in the closet--I understand everything. But do _you_ know that the dinner-table was not of ebony?

RUDOLPH. It wasn't?

STRANGER. It was nothing but maple.

RUDOLPH. Maple!

STRANGER. The pride and glory of the house--valued at two thousand crowns!

RUDOLPH. That, too? So that was also humbug!

STRANGER. Yes!

RUDOLPH. Ugh!

STRANGER. Thus the debt is settled. The case is dropped--the issue is beyond the court--the parties can withdraw----

RUDOLPH. [_Rushing out_] I am ruined!

STRANGER. [_Takes his wreath from the table_] I meant to take this wreath to the cemetery--to my parents' grave--but I will place it here instead--on the ruins of what was once their home--my childhood's home! [_He bends his head in silent prayer_] And now, wanderer, resume thy pilgrimage!

_Curtain_.

PLAYS BY AUGUST STRINDBERG

PLAYS. FIRST SERIES: The Dream Play, The Link, The Dance of Death--Part I and Part II.

PLAYS. SECOND SERIES: There are Crimes and Crimes, Miss Julia, The Stronger, Creditors, Pariah.

PLAYS. THIRD SERIES: Swanwhite, Simoom, Debit and Credit, Advent, The Thunder Storm, After the Fire.

PLAYS. FOURTH SERIES: The Bridal Crown, The Spook Sonata, The First Warning, Gustavus Vasa.

CREDITORS. PARIAH.

MISS JULIA. THE STRONGER.

THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES.