THE DREAM PLAY
A monologue from the
play by August
Strindberg
|
NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Plays by August Strindberg, v. 1. Trans. Edwin Björkman.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912. |
|
|
THE LAWYER: Look at these walls. Does it not look as
if the wall-paper itself had been soiled by every conceivable
sin? Look at these documents into which I write tales of wrong.
Look at myself -- No smiling man ever comes here; nothing is
to be seen here but angry glances, snarling lips, clenched fists
-- And everybody pours his anger, his envy, his suspicions, upon
me. Look -- my hands are black, and no washing will clean them.
See how they are chapped and bleeding -- I can never wear my
clothes more than a few days because they smell of other people's
crimes -- At times I have the place fumigated with sulphur, but
it does not help. I sleep near by, and I dream of nothing but
crimes -- Just now I have a murder case in court -- oh, I can
stand that, but do you know what is worse than anything else?
-- That is to separate married people! Then it is as if something
cried way down in the earth and up there in the sky -- as if
it cried treason against the primal force, against the source
of all good, against love-- And do you know, when reams of paper
have been filled with mutual accusations, and at last a sympathetic
person takes one of the two apart and asks, with a pinch of the
ear or a smile, the simple question: what have you really got
against your husband?--or your wife?--then he, or she, stands
perplexed and cannot give the cause. Once--well, I think a lettuce
salad was the principal issue; another time it was just a word--mostly
it is nothing at all. But the tortures, the sufferings--these
I have to bear-- See how I look! Do you think I could ever win
a woman's love with this countenance so like a criminal's? Do
you think anybody dares to be friendly with me, who has to collect
all the debts, all the money obligations, of the whole city?--
It is a misery to be a man!
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY AUGUST STRINDBERG |
