August Strindberg: Miss Julie and Other Plays

Julie.[As before.] Can you find any other way out than that we should travel, marry and then get divorced again?

John.And if I refuse to take on the mesalliance?

Julie.Mesalliance?

John.Yes, for me. I’ve got better ancestors than you have: I haven’t got any incendiaries in my pedigree.

Julie.How do you know?

John.At any rate, you can’t prove the contrary, for we have no other pedigree than what you can see in the registry. But I read in a book on the drawing-room table about your pedigree. Do you know what the founder of your line was? A miller with whose wife the king spent a night during the Danish war. I don’t run to ancestors like that. I’ve got no ancestors at all, as a matter of fact, but I can be an ancestor myself.

Julie.This is what I get for opening my heart to a cad, for giving away my family honor.

John.Family shame, you mean. But, look here, I told you so; people shouldn’t drink, because then people talk nonsense, and people shouldn’t talk nonsense.

Julie.Oh, how I wish it undone, how I wish it undone! And if you only loved me!

John.For the last time—what do you want? Do you want me to cry, do you want me to jump over your riding whip, do you want me to kiss you, or tempt you away for three weeks by the Lake of Como, and then, what am I to do?—what do you want? The thing’s beginning to be a nuisance, but that’s what one gets for meddling in the private affairs of the fair sex. Miss Julie, I see you’re unhappy, I know that you suffer, but I can’t understand you. People like us don’t go in for such fairy tales; we don’t hate each other either. We take love as a game, when our work gives us time off, but we haven’t got the whole day and the whole night to devote to it. Let me look at you. You are ill; you are certainly ill!

Julie.You must be kind to me, and now talk like a man. Help me! Help me! Tell me what I must do—what course I shall take.

John.My Christ! If I only knew myself!

Julie.I am raving, I have been mad! But isn’t there any way by which I can be saved?

John.Stay here and keep quiet. Nobody knows anything.

Julie.Impossible! The servants know it; and Christine knows it.

John.They don’t know and they would never believe anything of the kind.

Julie.[Slowly.] It might happen again.

John.That’s true.

Julie.And the results?

John.The results? Where was I wool-gathering not to have thought about it? Yes, there’s only one thing to do—to clear out at once. I won’t go with you, because then it’s all up, but you must travel alone—away—anywhere you like.

Julie.Alone? Where? I can’t do it.

John.You must. And before the Count comes back too. If you stay then you know what will be the result. If one has taken the first step, then one goes on with it, because one’s already in for the disgrace, and then one gets bolder and bolder—at last you get copped—so you must travel. Write later on to the Count and confess everything except that it was me, and he’ll never guess that. I don’t think either that he’d be very pleased if he did find out.

Julie.I’ll travel, if you’ll come with me.

John.Are you mad, Miss? Do you want to elope with your servant? It’ll all be in the papers the next morning, and the Count would never get over it.

Julie.I can’t travel, I can’t stay. Help me! I am so tired, so infinitely tired—give me orders, put life into me again or I can’t think any more, and I can’t do any more.

John.See here, now, what a wretched creature you are! Why do you strut about and turn up your nose as though you were the lord of creation? Well, then, I will give you orders, you go and change your clothes, get some money- to travel with and come down here again.

Julie.[Sotto voce.] Come up with me.

John.To your room? Now you’re mad again. [He hesitates for a moment.] No, you go at once. [He takes her by the hand and leads her to the glass door.]

Julie.[As she goes.] Please speak kindly to me, John.

John.An order always has an unkind sound. Just feel it now for yourself, just feel it. [Exeunt both.

[JOHN comes back, gives a sigh of relief, sits down at the table by the right, and takes out his note-book, now and again he counts aloud; pantomime. CHRISTINE comes in with a white shirt-front and a white necktie in her hand.]

Christine.Good Lord! What does the man look like! What’s happened here?

John.Oh, Miss Julie called in the servants. Were you so sound asleep that you didn’t hear it?

Christine.I slept like a log.

John.And dressed all ready for church?

Christine.Yes. You know you promised, dear, to come to Communion with me to-day.

John.Yes, that’s true, and you’ve already got some of my togs for me. Well, come here. [He sits down on the right. CHRISTINE gives him the white front and necktie and helps him to put them on. Pause.] [Sleepily.] What gospel is it to-day?

Christine.I’ve got an idea it’s about the beheading of John the Baptist.

John.That’s certain to last an awful time! Ugh! You’re hurting me. Oh, I’m so sleepy, so sleepy!

Christine.Yes, what have you been doing all night? You look absolutely washed out.

John.I’ve been sitting here chatting with Miss Julie.

Christine.She doesn’t know what’s decent. My God! she doesn’t. [Pause.]

John.I say, Christine dear.

Christine.Well?

John.It’s awfully strange when one comes to think it over.

Christine.What’s so strange about her?

John.Everything. [Pause.]

Christine.[Looks at the glass which stands half empty on the table.] Did you drink together as well?

John.Yes.

Christine.Ugh! Look me in the face.

John.Yes.

Christine.Is it possible? Is it possible?

John.[After reflecting for a short time.] Yes, it is.

Christine.Crikey! I’d never have thought it, that I wouldn’t. No. Ugh! Ugh!

John.I take it you’re not jealous of her?

Christine.No, not of her; if it had been Clara or Sophie, yes, I should have been. Poor girl! Now, I tell you what. I won’t stay any longer in this house, where one can’t keep any respect for the gentry.

John.Why should one respect them?

Christine.Yes, and you, who are as sly as they’re made, ask me that. But will you serve people who carry on so improper? Why, one lowers oneself by doing it, it seems to me.

John.Yes, but it’s certainly a consolation for us that the others are no better than we are.

Christine.No, I don’t find that; because if they’re not better it’s not worth while trying to be like our betters, and think of the Count, think of him; he’s had so much trouble all his life long. No, I won’t stay any longer in this house. And with the likes of you! If it had been even Kronvogt, if it had been a better man.

John.What do you mean?