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The Road to Damascus: A Trilogy, a play by August Strindberg |
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Part 3 - Act 1 - Scene 1. On The River Bank |
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_ PART III ACT I SCENE I. ON THE RIVER BANK [The foreground represents the bank of a large river. On the right a projecting tongue of land covered with old willow trees. Farther up stage the river can be seen flowing quietly past. The background represents the farther bank, a steep mountain slope covered with woodland. Above the tops of the forest trees the Monastery can be seen; it is an enormous four-cornered building completely white, with two rows of small windows. The facade is broken by the Church belonging to the Monastery, which is flanked by two towers in the style favoured by the Jesuits. The Church door is open, and at a certain moment the monstrance on the altar is visible in the light of the sun. On the near bank in the foreground, which is low and sandy, purple and yellow loose-strife are growing. A shallow boat is moored nearby. On the left the ferryman's hut. It is an evening in early summer and the sun is low; foreground, river and the lower part of the background lie in shadow; and the trees on the far bank sway gently in the breeze. Only the Monastery is lit by the sun.] [The STRANGER and the CONFESSOR enter from the right. The STRANGER is wearing alpine clothing: a brown cloak with a cape and hood; he has a staff and wallet. He is limping slightly. The CONFESSOR is to the black and white habit of the Dominicans. They stop at a place where a willow tree prevents any view of the Monastery.] STRANGER. Why do you lead me along this winding, hilly path, that never comes to an end? CONFESSOR. Such is the way, my friend. But now we'll soon be there. (He leads the STRANGER farther up stage. The STRANGER sees the Monastery, and is enchanted by it; he takes off his hat, and puts down his wallet and staff.) Well? STRANGER. I've never seen anything so white on this polluted earth. At most, only in my dreams! Yes, that's my youthful dream of a house in which peace and purity should dwell. A blessing on you, white house! Now I've come home! CONFESSOR. Good! But first we must await the pilgrims on this bank. It's called the bank of farewell, because it's the custom to say farewell here, before the ferryman ferries one across. STRANGER. Haven't I said enough farewells already? Wasn't my whole life one thorny path of farewells? At post offices, steamer-quays, railway stations--with the waving of handkerchiefs damp with tears? CONFESSOR. Yet your voice trembles with the pain what you've lost. STRANGER. I don't feel I've lost anything. I don't want anything back. CONFESSOR. Not even your youth? STRANGER. That least of all. What should I do with it, and its capacity for suffering? CONFESSOR. And for enjoyment? STRANGER. I never enjoyed anything, for I was born with a thorn in my flesh; every time I stretched out my hand to grasp a pleasure, I pricked my finger and Satan struck me in the face. CONFESSOR. Because your pleasures have been base ones. STRANGER. Not so base. I had my own home, a wife, children, duties, obligations to others! No, I was born in disfavour, a step-child of life; and I was pursued, hunted, in a word, cursed! CONFESSOR. Because you didn't obey God's commandment. STRANGER. But no one can, as St. Paul says himself! Why should I be able to do what no one else can do? I of all men? Because I'm supposed to be a scoundrel. Because more's demanded of me than of others.... (Crying out.) Because I was treated with injustice. CONFESSOR. Have you got back to that, rebellious one? STRANGER. Yes. I've always been there. Now let's cross the river. CONFESSOR. Do you think one can climb up to that white house without preparation? STRANGER. I'm ready: you can examine me. CONFESSOR. Good! The first monastic vow is: humility. STRANGER. And the second: obedience! Neither of them was ever a special virtue of mine; it's for that very reason that I want to make the great attempt. CONFESSOR. And show your pride through your humility. STRANGER. Whatever it is, it's all the same to me. CONFESSOR. What, everything? The world and its best gifts; the joy of innocent children, the pleasant warmth of home, the approbation of your fellow-men, the satisfaction brought by the fulfilment of duty--are you indifferent to them all? STRANGER. Yes! Because I was born without the power of enjoyment. There have been moments when I've been an object of envy; but I've never understood what it was I was envied for: my sufferings in misfortune, my lack of peace in success, or the fact I hadn't long to live. CONFESSOR. It's true that life has given you everything you wished; even a little gold at the last. Why, I even seem to remember that a sculptor was commissioned to make a portrait bust of you. STRANGER. Oh yes! A bust was made of me. CONFESSOR. Are you, of all men, impressed by such things? STRANGER. Of course not! But they do at least mark well founded appreciation, that neither envy nor lack of understanding can shake. CONFESSOR. You think so? It seems to me that human greatness resides in the good opinion of others; and that, if this opinion changes, the greatest can quickly dwindle into nothing. STRANGER. The opinions of others have never meant much to me. CONFESSOR. Haven't they? Really? STRANGER. No one's been so strict with himself as I! And no one's been so humble! All have demanded my respect; whilst they spurned me and spat on me. And when at last I found I'd duties towards the immortal soul given into my keeping, I began to demand respect for this immortal soul. Then I was branded as the proudest of the proud! And by whom? By the proudest of all amongst the humble and lowly. CONFESSOR. I think you're entangling yourself in contradictions. STRANGER. I think so, too! For the whole of life consists of nothing but contradictions. The rich are the poor in spirit; the many little men hold the power, and the great only serve the little men. I've never met such proud people as the humble; I've never met an uneducated man who didn't believe himself in a position to criticise learning and to do without it. I've found the unpleasantest of deadly sins amongst the Saints: I mean self-complacency. In my youth I was a saint myself; but I've never been so worthless as I was then. The better I thought myself, the worse I became. CONFESSOR. Then what do you seek here? STRANGER. What I've told you already; but I'll add this: I'm seeking death without the need to die! CONFESSOR. The mortification of your flesh, of your old self! Good! Now keep still: the pilgrims are coming on their wooden rafts to celebrate the festival of Corpus Christi. STRANGER (looking to the right in surprise). Who are they? CONFESSOR. People who believe in something. STRANGER. Then help my unbelief! (Sunlight now falls on the monstrance in the church above, so that it shines like a window pane at sunset.) Has the sun entered the church, or.... CONFESSOR. Yes. The sun has entered.... (The first raft comes in from the right. Children clothed in white, with garlands on their heads and with lighted lanterns in their hands, are seen standing round an altar decked with flowers, on which a white flag with a golden lily has been planted. They sing, whilst the raft glides slowly by.)
STRANGER. What were they singing? CONFESSOR. A pilgrim's song. STRANGER. Who wrote it? CONFESSOR. A royal person. STRANGER. Here? What was his name? Has he written anything else? CONFESSOR. About fifty songs; he was called David, the son of Isaiah! But he didn't always write psalms. When he was young, he did other things. Yes. Such things will happen! STRANGER. Can we go on now? CONFESSOR. In a moment. I've something to say to you first. STRANGER. Speak. CONFESSOR. Good. But don't be either sad or angry. STRANGER. Certainly not. CONFESSOR. Here, you see, on this bank, you're a well-known--let's say famous--person; but over there, on the other, you'll be quite unknown to the brothers. Nothing more, in fact, than an ordinary simple man. STRANGER. Oh! Don't they read in the monastery? CONFESSOR. Nothing light; only serious books. STRANGER. They take in papers, I suppose? CONFESSOR. Not the kind that write about you! STRANGER. Then on the other side of this river my life-work doesn't exist? CONFESSOR. What work? STRANGER. I see. Very well. Can't we cross now? CONFESSOR. In a minute. Is there no one you'd like to take leave of? STRANGER (after a pause.) Yes. But it's beyond the bounds of possibility. CONFESSOR. Have you ever seen anything impossible? STRANGER. Not really, since I've seen my own destiny. CONFESSOR. Well, who is it you'd like to meet? STRANGER. I had a daughter once; I called her Sylvia, because she sang all day long like a wren. It's some years since I saw her; she must be a girl of sixteen now. But I'm afraid if I were to meet her, life would regain its value for me. CONFESSOR. You fear nothing else? STRANGER. What do you mean? CONFESSOR. That she may have changed! STRANGER. She could only have changed for the better. CONFESSOR. Are you sure? STRANGER. Yes. CONFESSOR. She'll come to you. (He goes down to the bank and beckons to the right.) STRANGER. Wait! I'm wondering whether it's wise! CONFESSOR. It can do no harm. (He beckons once more. A boat appears on the river, rowed by a young girl. She is wearing summer clothing, her head is bare and her fair hair is hanging loose. She gets out of the boat behind the willow tree. The CONFESSOR draws back until he is near the ferryman's hut, but remains in sight of the audience. The STRANGER has waved to the girl and she has answered him. She now comes on to the stage, runs into the STRANGER'S arms, and kisses him.) DAUGHTER. Father. My dear father! STRANGER. Sylvia! My child! DAUGHTER. How in the world do you come to be up here in the mountains? STRANGER. And how have _you_ got here? I thought I'd managed to hide so well. DAUGHTER. Why did you want to hide? STRANGER. Ask me as little as possible! You've grown into a big girl. And I've gone grey. DAUGHTER. No. You're not grey. You're just as young as you were when we parted. STRANGER. When we... parted! DAUGHTER. When you left us.... (The STRANGER does not reply.) Aren't you glad we're meeting again? STRANGER (faintly). Yes! DAUGHTER. Then show it. STRANGER. How can I be glad, when we're parting to-day for life? DAUGHTER. Why, where do you want to go? STRANGER (pointing to the monastery). Up there! DAUGHTER (with a sophisticated air). Into the monastery? Yes, now I come to think of it, perhaps it's best. STRANGER. You think so? DAUGHTER (with pity, but good-will.) I mean, if you've a ruined life behind you.... (Coaxingly.) Now you look sad. Tell me one thing. STRANGER. Tell _me_ one thing, my child, that's been worrying me more than anything else. You've a stepfather? DAUGHTER. Yes. STRANGER. Well? DAUGHTER. He's very good and kind. STRANGER. With every virtue that I lack.... DAUGHTER. Aren't you glad we've got into better hands? STRANGER. Good, better, best! Why do you come here bare-headed? DAUGHTER. Because George is carrying my hat. STRANGER. Who's George? And where is he? DAUGHTER. George is a friend of mine; and he's waiting for me on the bank down below. STRANGER. Are you engaged to him? DAUGHTER. No. Certainly not! STRANGER. Do you want to marry? DAUGHTER. Never! STRANGER. I can see it by your mottled cheeks, like those of a child that has got up too early; I can hear it by your voice, that's no longer that of a warbler, but a jay; I can feel it in your kisses, that burn cold like the sun in May; and by your steady icy look that tells me you're nursing a secret of which you're ashamed, but of which you'd like to boast. And your brothers and sisters? DAUGHTER. They're quite well, thank you. STRANGER. Have we anything else to say to one another? DAUGHTER (coldly). Perhaps not. STRANGER. Now you look so like your mother. DAUGHTER. How do you know, when you've never been able to see her as she was! STRANGER. So you understood that, though you were so young? DAUGHTER. I learnt to understand it from you. If only you'd understand yourself. STRANGER. Have you anything else to teach me? DAUGHTER. Perhaps! But in your day that wasn't considered seemly. STRANGER. My day's over and exists no longer; just as Sylvia exists no longer, but is merely a name, a memory. (He takes a guide-book out of his pocket.) Look at this guide-book! Can you see small marks made here by tiny fingers, and others by little damp lips? You made them when you were five years old; you were sitting on my knee in the train, and we saw the Alps for the first time. You thought what you saw was Heaven; and when I explained that the mountain was the Jungfrau, you asked if you could kiss the name in the book. DAUGHTER. I don't remember that! STRANGER. Delightful memories pass, but hateful ones remain! Don't you remember anything about me? DAUGHTER. Oh yes. STRANGER. Quiet! I know what you mean. One night... one dreadful, horrible night... Sylvia, my child, when I shut my eyes I see a pale little angel, who slept in my arms when she was ill; and who thanked me when I gave her a present. Where is she whom I long for so and who exists no more, although she isn't dead? You, as you are, seem a stranger, whom I've never known and certainly don't long to see again. If Sylvia at least were dead and lay in her grave, there'd be a churchyard where I could take my flowers.... How strange it is! She's neither among the living, nor the dead. Perhaps she never existed, and was only a dream like everything else. DAUGHTER (wheedling).Father, dear! STRANGER. It's she! No, only her voice. (Pause.) So you think my life's been ruined? DAUGHTER. Yes. But why speak of it now? STRANGER. Because remember I once saved _your_ life. You had brain fever for a whole month and suffered a great deal. Your mother wanted the doctor to deliver you from your unhappy existence by some powerful drug. But I prevented it, and so saved you from death and your mother from prison. DAUGHTER. I don't believe it! STRANGER. But a fact may be true, even if you don't believe it. DAUGHTER. You dreamed it. STRANGER. Who knows if I haven't dreamed everything, and am not even dreaming now. How I wish it were so! DAUGHTER. I must be going, father. STRANGER. Then good-bye! DAUGHTER. May I write to you? STRANGER. What? One of the dead write to another? Letters won't reach me in future. And I mayn't receive visitors. But I'm glad we've met, for now there's nothing else on earth I cling to. (Going to the left.) Good-bye, girl or woman, whatever I should call you. There's no need to weep! DAUGHTER. I wasn't thinking of weeping, though I dare say good breeding would demand I should. Well, good-bye! (She goes out right.) STRANGER (to the CONFESSOR). I think I came out of that well! It's a mercy to part with content on both sides. Mankind, after all, makes rapid progress, and self-control increases as the flow of the tear-ducts lessens. I've seen so many tears shed in my lifetime, that I'm almost taken aback at this dryness. She was a strong child, just the kind I once wished to be. The most beautiful thing that life can offer! She lay, like an angel, wrapped in the white veils of her cradle, with a blue coverlet when she slept. Blue and arched like the sky. That was the best: what will the worst look like? CONFESSOR. Don't excite yourself, but be of good cheer. First throw away that foolish guide-book, for this is your last journey. STRANGER. You mean this? Very well. (He opens the book, kisses one of the pages and then throws it into the river.) Anything else? CONFESSOR. If you've any gold or silver, you must give it to the poor. STRANGER. I've a silver watch. I never got as far as a gold one. CONFESSOR. Give that to the ferryman; and then you'll get a glass of wine. STRANGER. The last! It's like an execution! Perhaps I'll have to have my hair cut, too? CONFESSOR. Yes. Later. (He takes the watch and goes to the door of the ferryman's hut, speaking a few whispered words to someone within. He receives a bottle of wine and a glass in exchange, which he puts on the table.) STRANGER (filling his glass, but not drinking it.) Shall I never get wine up there? CONFESSOR. No wine; and you'll see no women. You may hear singing; but not the kind of songs that go with women and wine. STRANGER. I've had enough of women; they can't tempt me any more. CONFESSOR. Are you sure? STRANGER. Quite sure.... But tell me this: what do you think of women, who mayn't even set their feet within your consecrated walls? CONFESSOR. So you're still asking questions? STRANGER. And why may an abbess never hear confession, never read mass, and never preach? CONFESSOR. I can't answer that. STRANGER. Because the answer would accord with my thoughts on that theme. CONFESSOR. It wouldn't be a disaster if we were to agree for once. STRANGER. Not at all! CONFESSOR. Now drink up your wine. STRANGER. No. I only want to look at it for the last time. It's beautiful.... CONFESSOR. Don't lose yourself in meditation; memories lie at the bottom of the cup. STRANGER. And oblivion, and songs, and power--imaginary power, but for that reason all the greater. CONFESSOR. Wait here a moment; I'll go and order the ferry. STRANGER. 'Sh! I can hear singing, and I can see.... I can see.... For a moment I saw a flag unfurling in a puff of wind, only to fall back on the flagstaff and hang there limply as if it were nothing but a dishcloth. I've witnessed my whole life flashing past in a second, with its joys and sorrows, its beauty and its misery! But now I can see nothing. CONFESSOR (going to the left). Wait here a moment, I'll go and order the ferry. (The STRANGER goes so far up stage that the rays of the setting sun, which are streaming from the right through the trees, throw his shadow across the bank and the river. The LADY enters from the right, in deep mourning. Her shadow slowly approaches that of the STRANGER.) STRANGER (who, to begin with, looks only at his own shadow). Ah! The sun! It makes me a bloodless shape, a giant, who can walk on the water of the river, climb the mountain, stride over the roof of the monastery church, and rise, as he does now, up into the firmament--up to the stars. Ah, now I'm up here with the stars.... (He notices the shadow thrown by the LADY.) But who's following me? Who's interrupting my ascension? Trying to climb on my shoulders? (Turning.) You! LADY. Yes. I! STRANGER. So black! So black and so evil. LADY. No longer evil. I'm in mourning.... STRANGER. For whom? LADY. For our Mizzi. STRANGER. My daughter! (The LADY opens her arms, in order to throw herself on to his breast, but he avoids her.) I congratulate the dead child. I'm sorry for you. I myself feel outside everything. LADY. Comfort me, too. STRANGER. A fine idea! I'm to comfort my fury, weep with my hangman, amuse my tormentor. LADY. Have you no feelings? STRANGER. None! I wasted the feelings I used to have on you and others. LADY. You're right. You can reproach me. STRANGER. I've neither the time nor the wish to do that. Where are you going? LADY. I want to cross with the ferry. STRANGER. Then I've no luck, for I wanted to do the same. (The LADY weeps into her handkerchief. The STRANGER takes it from her and dries her eyes.) Dry your eyes, child, and be yourself! As hard, and lacking in feeling, as you really are! (The LADY tries to put her arm round his neck. The STRANGER taps her gently on the fingers.) You mustn't touch me. When your words and glances weren't enough, you always wanted to touch me. You'll excuse a rather trivial question: are you hungry? LADY. No. Thank you. STRANGER. But you're tired. Sit down. (The LADY sits down at the table. The STRANGER throws the bottle and glass into the river.) Well, what are you going to live for now? LADY (sadly). I don't know. STRANGER. Where will you go? LADY (sobbing). I don't know. STRANGER. So you're in despair? You see no reason for living and no end to your misery! How like me you are! What a pity there's no monastery for both sexes, so that we could pair off together. Is the werewolf still alive? LADY. You mean...? STRANGER. Your first husband. LADY. He never seems to die. STRANGER. Like a certain worm! (Pause.) And now that we're so far from the world and its pettiness, tell me this: why did you leave him in those days, and come to me? LADY. Because I loved you. STRANGER. And how long did that last? LADY. Until I read your book, and the child was born. STRANGER. And then? LADY. I hated you! That is, I wanted to be rid of all the evil you'd given me, but I couldn't. STRANGER. So that's how it was! But we'll never really know the truth. LADY. Have you noticed how impossible it is to find things out? You can live with a person and their relations for twenty years, and yet not know anything about them. STRANGER. So you've discovered that? As you see so much, tell me this: how was it you came to love me? LADY. I don't know; but I'll try to remember. (Pause.) Well, you had the masculine courage to be rude to a lady. In me you sought the companionship of a human being and not merely of a woman. That honoured me; and, I thought, you too. STRANGER. Tell me also whether you held me to be a misogynist? LADY. A woman-hater? Every healthy man is one, in the secret places of his heart; and all perverted men are admirers of women. STRANGER. You're not trying to flatter me, are you? LADY. A woman who'd try to flatter a man's not normal. STRANGER. I see you've thought a great deal! LADY. Thinking's the least I've done; for when I've thought least I've understood most. Besides, what I said just how is perhaps only improvised, as you call it, and not true in the least. STRANGER. But if it agrees with many of my observations it becomes most probable. (The LADY weeps into her handkerchief.) You're weeping again? LADY. I was thinking of Mizzi. The loveliest thing we ever had is gone. STRANGER. No. You were the loveliest thing, when you sat all night watching over your child, who was lying in your bed, because her cradle was too cold! (Three loud knocks are heard on the ferryman's door.) 'Sh! LADY. What's that? STRANGER. My companion, who's waiting for me. LADY (continuing the conversation). I never thought life would give me anything so sweet as a child. STRANGER. And at the same time anything so bitter. LADY. Why bitter? STRANGER. You've been a child yourself, and you must remember how we, when we'd just married, came to your mother in rags, dirty and without money. I seem to remember she didn't find us very sweet. LADY. That's true. STRANGER. And I... well, just now I met Sylvia. And I expected that all that was beautiful and good in the child would have blossomed in the girl.... LADY. Well? STRANGER. I found a faded rose, that seemed to have blown too soon. Her breasts were sunken, her hair untidy like that of a neglected child, and her teeth decayed. LADY. Oh! STRANGER. You mustn't grieve. Not for the child! You might perhaps have had to grieve for her later, as I did. LADY. So that's what life is? STRANGER. Yes. That's what life is. And that's why I'm going to bury myself alive. LADY. Where? STRANGER (pointing to the monastery). Up there! LADY. In the monastery? No, don't leave me. Bear me company. I'm so alone in the world and so poor, so poor! When the child died, my mother turned me out, and ever since I've been living in an attic with a dressmaker. At first she was kind and pleasant, but then the lonely evenings got too long for her, and she went out in search of company--so we parted. Now I'm on the road, and I've nothing but the clothes I'm wearing; nothing but my grief. I eat it and drink it; it nourishes me and sends me to sleep. I'd rather lose anything in the world than that! (The STRANGER weeps.) You're weeping. You! Let me kiss your eyelids. STRANGER. You've suffered all that for my sake! LADY. Not for your sake! You never did me an ill turn; but I plagued you till you left your fireside and your child! STRANGER. I'd forgotten that; but if you say so.... So you still love me? LADY. Probably. I don't know. STRANGER. And you'd like to begin all over again? LADY. All over again? The quarrels? No, we won't do that. STRANGER. You're right. The quarrels would only begin all over again. And yet it's difficult to part. LADY. To part. The word alone's terrible enough. STRANGER. Then what are we to do? LADY. I don't know. STRANGER. No, one knows nothing, hardly even that one knows nothing; and that's why, you see, I've got as far as to _believe_. LADY. How do you know you can believe, if belief's a gift? STRANGER. You can receive a gift, if you ask for it. LADY. Oh yes, if you ask; but I've never been able to beg. STRANGER. I've had to learn to. Why can't you? LADY. Because one has to demean oneself first. STRANGER. Life does that for one very well. LADY. Mizzi, Mizzi, Mizzi!... (She has taken a shawl she was carrying over her arm, rolled it up and put it on her knee like a baby in long clothes.) Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Think of it! I can see her here! She's smiling at me; but she's dressed in black; she seems to be in mourning too! How stupid I am! Her mother's in mourning! She's got two teeth down below, and they're white--milk teeth; she should never have cut any others. Oh, can't you see her, when I can? It's no vision. It _is_ her! CONFESSOR (in the door of the ferryman's hut; sternly to the STRANGER). Come. Everything's ready! STRANGER. No. Not yet. I must first set my house in order; and look after this woman, who was once my wife. CONFESSOR. Oh, so you want to stay! STRANGER. No. I don't want to stay; but I can't leave duties behind me unfulfilled. This woman's on the road, deserted, without a home, without money! CONFESSOR. What has that to do with us? Let the dead bury their dead! STRANGER. Is that your teaching? CONFESSOR. No, yours.... Mine, on the other hand, commands me to send a Sister of Mercy here, to look after this unhappy one, who... who... The Sister will soon be here! STRANGER. I shall count on it. CONFESSOR (taking the STRANGER by the hand and drawing him away.) Then come! STRANGER (in despair). Oh, God in heaven! Help us every one! CONFESSOR. Amen! (The LADY, who has not been looking at the CONFESSOR and the STRANGER, now raises her eyes and glances at the STRANGER as if she wanted to spring up and hold him back; but she is prevented by the imaginary child she has put to her breast.) [Curtain.] _ |
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