Dream Play-August Strindberg

0:00Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why Trade Pros trust Fiber cement, Party Backer Board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen over 40 million Kitchen's in bathrooms, Party Backer Board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit JamesHearty.com slash HeartyBacker. Prologue of the Dreamplay by August Strenberg translated by Edwin Bjorkman 1866 to 1951. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dramatis Persona. The daughter of Indra. Agnes. Red by Amanda Friday. The officer.

1:00Red by Ron Altman. The lawyer. Red by Chuck Williamson. The poet. Red by Lucy Perry. The voice of Indra. By O'Montetray. The Glazier. Voices of Men. The crew. Red by Alan Mappstone. The father. He. Dean. A philosophy. Second Cole Heaver. Red by Todd. The mother. Red by Margaret Espayat. Lena. Red by Rebecca Braunert Plunkert. The Portress. The wife. The gentleman. Red by Capriciate Page. The Bill poster. Red by Jeremy Wong. Victoria. Red by Elizabeth Clad. Ballet girl. Voices of Children. The crew. Red by Frances Brown. The male chorus singer. The boy. Red by Libby Gone.

2:00Master of Quarantine. Red by Zach Brewster Geiss. The proctor. The blind man. Red by Mary J. The dean of theology. The pensioner and the maver officer. Red by Prachi Pensey. The maids. The lady. Don Juan. Red by Wollie B. Voice of the women. The crew. Song by Amanda Friday. Lord Chancellor. Red by Josh Cash. Edith. The dean of medicine. Red by Anasimum. A policeman. The husband. Dean of Jewish Prudence. Red by Arnaldo Machado. The teacher. Red by Savannah Olde. Christine. First Colheaver. Red by Kay Hand. All right-minded. Red by Chuck Williamson. Narration by Saratary. A reminder.

3:00As he did in his previous dream play, so in this one the author has tried to imitate the disconnected but seemingly logical form of the dream. Anything may happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On an insignificant background of reality, imagination designs and embroideres novel patterns, a medley of memories, experiences, free fancies, absurdities and improvisations. The character split, double, multiply, vanish, solidify, blur, clarify, but one consciousness reigns above the mall, that of the dreamer. And before it there are no secrets, no incongruities, no scruples, no laws. There is neither judgment nor exoneration but merely narration. And as the dream is mostly painful, rarely pleasant, a note of melancholy and of pity with all living things runs right through the

4:03wobbly tail. Sleep, the liberator, plays often a dismal part. But when the pain is at its worst, the awakening comes and reconciles the sufferer with reality, which however distressing it may be, nevertheless seems happy in comparison with the torments of the dream. Prologue The background represents cloud banks that resemble corroding slate cliffs with ruins of castles and fortresses. The constellations of Leo, Virgo and Libra are visible, and from their midst the planet Jupiter is shining with a strong light. The daughter of Indra stands on the topmost cloud, the voice of Indra from above. Hear Father, hear. You have lost your way, my child. Beware, you sink. How got you dare?

5:05I followed from ethereal heights the ray of lightning, and for car a cloud I took, it sank, and now my journey downward tends. Oh noble Father, Indra, tell what realms I now draw near. The air is here so close and breathing difficult. Behind the ear lies the second world. The third is where you stand. From sucre, morning star, you have withdrawn yourself to enter soon the vapoury circle of the art. For mark, the seven-dials you take, its Libra cold. There stands the daster, interbalanced hour, when fall gives equal weight to night and day. You named the earth, is that the pondress world, and dark from that moon, must take its light. It is the heaviest and densest sphere of all that travel through the space. And is it never brightened by the sun? Of course, the sun does reach it, now and then.

6:07There is a rift, and downward goes my glance. What sees my child? I see, oh beautiful, with forest green, with waters blue, white peaks, and yellow fields. Yes, beautiful as all that Brahma made. But still more beautiful it was of your. In primal morn of ages, then awkward, some strains misshup, the orbit was disturbed. Rebellion led to crime that called for check. Now from below I hear some sounds arise. What sort of race is dwelling there? See for yourself. Of Brahma's work, no ill I say, but what you hear, it is just peach. It sounds as if it has no happy ring. I fear me not, for even their mother tongue is named complained. A race most hard to please, and tankless are the dwellers on the art.

7:10Oh, say not so, Brahma, hear cries of joy, hear noise and thunder, see the lightning's flash. Now bells are ringing, buyers are lit, and thousand upon thousand tongues sing praise, and thanks unto the heavens on high. To harshly father you are judging them. Descend, that you may see and hear, and then, return and let me know if their complaints and wailings have some reasonable ground. Well then I go, but father come with me. No, dare below I cannot breathe. Now, since the cloud, but sultryness, I choke, I am not breathing air but smoke and steam, with heavy weight it drags me down, and I can feel already how it rolls. Indeed, the best of worlds is not the third. The best I cannot call it, nor the worst. Its name is dust, unlike them all it rolls, and therefore dizzy sometimes grows deraze, and seems to be half-fullish, and half-mad.

8:18Take courage, child, a trial that is all. The daughter kneeling as the cloud sinks downward. I sink! Curtain. End of prologue. Act 1 of the Dreamplay by August Strenberg translated by Edwin Bjorkman 1866-1951. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org. The Dreamplay The background represents a forest of gigantic hollyhocks in bloom. They are white, pink, crimson, sulfurous, violet, and above their tops is seen the gilded roof of a castle,

9:20the apex of which is formed by a bud resembling a crown. At the foot of the castle walls stand a number of straw-richs, and around these stable litter is scattered. The side-scenes, which remain unchanged throughout the play, show conventionalized frescoes, suggesting at once internal decoration, architecture, and landscape. Enter the glacier and the daughter. The castle is growing higher and higher above the ground. Do you see how much it has grown since last year? The glacier, to himself. I have never seen this castle before. I have never heard of a castle that grew. But... To the daughter with firm conviction? Yes, it has grown two yards. But that is because they have manured it. And if you notice, it has put out a wing on the sunny side.

10:25I'll take it not to be blooming soon, as we are already past mid-summer. Don't you see the flowers up there? Yes, I see. Claps her hands. Safe, father. Why do flowers grow out of dirt? Because they do not feel at home in the dirt. And so they make haste to get up into the light in order to blossom and die. Do you know who lives in that castle? I have known it, but cannot remember. I believe a prisoner is kept there, and he must be waiting for me to set him free. And what is he to pay for it? One does not bargain about one's duty. Let us go into the castle. Yes, let us go in. They go toward the background, which opens and slowly disappears to either side. The stage shows now a humble, bare room containing only a table and a few chairs.

11:26On one of the chairs sits an officer dressed in a very unusual yet modern uniform. He is tilting the chair backward and beating the table with his saber. The daughter goes to the officer from whose hand she gently takes the saber. Don't, don't. Oh, Agnes dear, let me keep the saber. No, you break the table. To the glacier. Now you go down to the harness room and fix that window pane. We'll meet later. The glacier goes out. You are imprisoned in your own rooms. I have come to set you free. I have been waiting for you, but I was not sure you were willing to do it. The castle is strongly built. It has seven walls, but it can be done. Do you want it, or do you not? Frankly speaking, I cannot tell, for in either case I shall suffer pain. Every joy that life

12:27brings has to be paid for with twice its measure of sorrow. It is hard to stay where I am, but if I buy the sweets of freedom, then I shall have to suffer twice as much. Agnes, I'll rather endure it as it is if I can only see you. What do you see in me? Beauty, which is the harmony of the universe. There are lines of your body which are nowhere to be found, except in the orbits of the solar system, in strings that are singing softly, or in the vibrations of light. You are a child of heaven. So are you. Why must I then keep horses, tend stable and cart straw? So that you may long to get away from here. I am longing, but it is so hard to find one's way out.

13:27But it is a duty to seek freedom in the light. Duty? Life has never recognized any duties toward me. You feel yourself wronged by life? Yes, it has been unjust. Now voices are heard from behind a partition, which a moment later is pulled away. The officer and the daughter look in that direction and stop as if paralyzed in the midst of a gesture. At a table sits the mother looking very sick. In front of her, a tallow candle is burning, and every little while she trims it with a pair of snuffers. The table is piled with new made shirts, and these she is marking with a quill and ink. To the left stands a brown colored wardrobe. The father holds out a silk mannedia toward the mother and says gently. You don't want it? A silk manned illa for me, my dear, of what use would that be when I'm going

14:28to die shortly? Do you believe what the doctor says? Yes, I believe also what he says, but still more what the voice says in here. It is true then, and you are thinking of your children first and last? That has been my life and my reason for living, my joy and my sorrow. Christine, forgive me everything. What have I to forgive? Dearest, you forgive me. We have been tormenting each other. Why, that we may not know. We couldn't do anything else. However, here is the new linen for the children, see that they change twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, and that Louise washes them their whole bodies. Are you going out? I have to be in the department at 11 o'clock. Ask Alfred to come in before you go. The father pointing to the officer. Why, he is standing right here, dear heart.

15:33So my eyes are failing too. Yes, it is turning dark. Trims the candle. Come here, Alfred. The father goes out through the middle of the wall, nodding goodbye as he leaves. The officer goes over to the mother. Who is that girl? It is Agnes. Oh, is that Agnes? Do you know what they say? That she is a daughter of the God Indra, who has asked leave to descend to the earth in order that she may find out what the conditions of men are. But don't say anything about it. A child of the gods indeed. My Alfred, I must soon part from you and from the other children. But let me first speak a word to you that bears on all the rest of your life. Speak, mother. Only a word. Don't quarrel with God. What do you mean, mother? Don't go around feeling that life has wronged you.

16:36But when I am treated unjustly, you are thinking of the time when you were unjustly punished for having taken a penny that later turned up. Yes, and that one wrong gave a false twist to my whole life. Perhaps. But please take a look into that wardrobe now. You know then? It is... The Swiss family Robinson, for which... Don't say anymore. For which your brother was punished and which you had torn and hidden away. Just think that the old wardrobe is still standing there after 20 years. We have moved so many times, and my mother died ten years ago. Yes, and what of it? You are always asking all sorts of questions, and in that way you spoil the better part of your life. There is Lena now. Lena enters. Thank you very much, madam. But I can't go to the baptism.

17:38And why not, my girl? I have nothing to put on. I'll let you use my mantilla here. Oh, no, madam, that wouldn't do. Why not? It is not likely that I'll go to any more parties. And what will father say? It is a present from him. What small minds? The father puts his head through the wall. Are you going to lend my present to the servant girl? Don't talk that way. Can you not remember that I was a servant girl also? Why should you offend one who has done nothing? Why should you offend me, your husband? Oh, this life. If you do anything nice, there is always somebody who finds it nasty. If you act kindly to one, it hurts another. Oh, this life. She trims the candle so that it goes out. The stage turns dark and the partition is pushed back to its former position.

18:42Men are to be pitted. You think so? Yes, life is hard, but love overcomes everything. You shall see for yourself. They go toward the background. The background is raised and a new one revealed, showing an old, dilapidated party wall. In the center of it is a gate closing a passageway. This opens upon a green, sunlit space, where a scene a tremendous blue monk's hood, ackonite. To the left of the gate sits the fortress. Her head and shoulders are covered by a shaw, and she is crocheting at a bed spread with a star-like pattern. To the right of the gate is a billboard, which the bill poster is cleaning. Beside him stands a dip net with a green pole. Further to the right is a door that has an air hole shaped like a four-leaved clover. To the left of the gate stands a small linden tree with coal-black trunk and a few pale green leaves. Near it is a small air hole leading into a cellar.

19:44The daughter going to the fortress. Is the spread not done yet? No dear. 26 years on such a piece of work is not much. And your lover never came back. No, but it was not his fault. He had to go poor thing. That was 30 years ago now. The daughter to the bill poster. She belonged to the ballet, up there in the opera house. She was number one, but when he went it was as if her dancing had gone with him, and so she didn't get any more parts. Everybody complains with their eyes at least, and often with words also. I don't complain very much, not now since I have a dip net and a green cough. And that can make you happy. Oh, I'm so happy, so it was the dream of my youth and now it has come true. Of course, I have grown to be 50 years. 50 years for a dip net and a cough. A green cough mind you. Green. The daughter to the fortress. Let me have the shawl now, and I shall sit here and watch

20:48the human children, but you must stand behind me and tell me about everything. She takes the shawl and sits down at the gate. This is the last day, and the house will be closed up for the season. This is the day when they learn whether their contracts are to be renewed. And those that bail are engagement. Oh, Lord, have mercy. I pull my shore over my head not to see them. Or human creatures. Look, here comes one. She's not one of the chosen. See how she cries. The singer enters from the right, rushes through the gate with her hanker chiff to her eyes, stops for a moment in the passageway beyond the gate, and leans her head against the wall, then out quickly. Men are to be pitted. But look at this one. That's the way a happy person looks. The officer enters through the passageway, dressed in a prince-albert coat and high hat, and carrying a bunch of roses in one hand. He is radiantly happy.

21:51He is going to marry Miss Victoria. The officer far down on the stage looks up and sings. Victoria! The young lady will be coming down in a moment. Oh, good. The carriage is waiting. The table is set. The wine is on ice. Oh, permit me to embrace you, ladies. He embraces the portraits and the daughter, sings. Victoria! A woman's voice from above sings. I am here. Do you know me? No, I know one woman only, Victoria. Seven years I have come here to wait for her, at noon when the sun touched the chimneys, and at night when it was growing dark. Look at the asphalt here, and you will see the path worn by the steps of a faithful lover. Hurray, she is mine! Victoria! There is no reply. Where? She is dressing, I suppose.

22:56To the bill-poster. There is the dip-net I see. Everybody belonging to the opera is crazy about dip-nets, or rather about fishes, because the fishes are dumb and cannot sing. What is the price of a thing like that? It is rather expensive. Victoria! Shakes the linden tree. Look, it is turning green once more for the eighth time. Victoria! Now she is fixing her hair. To the daughter. Look here, Madam. Could I not go up and get my bride? Nobody is allowed on the stage. Seven years I have been coming here, seven times 365 makes 2,555. Stopps and pokes at the door with the four-leaved clover hole. And I have been looking 2,555 times at that door without discovering where it leads.

24:02And that clover leaf, which is to let in light, for whom is the light meant? Is there anybody within? Does anybody live there? I don't know. I have never seen it opened. It looks like a pantry door which I saw once when I was only 4 years old and went visiting with the maid on a Sunday afternoon. We called it several houses, un-other maids, but I did not get beyond the kitchen anywhere and I had to sit between the water barrel and the salt box. I have seen so many kitchens in my days and the pantry was always just outside with small round holes bored in the door and one big hole like a clover leaf. But there cannot be any pantry in the opera house as they have no kitchen. Victoria! Tell me, Madam, could she have gone out any other way? No, there is no other way. Well, then I shall see her here.

25:09Stage people rush out and are closely watched by the officer as they pass. Now she must soon be coming. Madam, that blue monk's hood outside. I have seen it since I was a child. Is it the same I remember it from a country rectory where I stopped when I was 7 years old? There are two doves, two blue doves under the hood. But that time a bee came flying and went into the hood. Then I thought, now I have you and I grabbed hold of the flower. But the sting of the bee went through it and I cried. But then the rector's wife came and put damp dirt on the sting, and we had strawberries and cream for dinner. I think it is getting dark already. To the bill poster. Where are you going? Home for supper. The officer draws his hand across his eyes. Evening? At this time? Oh please, may I go in and telephone to the growing castle?

26:12What do you want there? I am going to tell the glacier to put in double windows for it will soon be winter and I am feeling horribly cold. Goes into the gatekeeper's lodge. Who is Miss Victoria? His sweet heart. Right, sad. What she is to us and others matters nothing to him and what she is to him that alone is her real self. It is suddenly turning dark. The Portris lights a lantern a growing dark early today. To the gods a year is a minute. And to men a minute may be as long as a year. The officer enters again looking dusty. The roses are withered. She has not come yet. No. But she will come. She will come. Walks up and down. But come to think of it. Perhaps I had better call off the dinner after all as it is late. Yes, yes, yes, I will do that. Goes back into the lodge and telephones.

27:14The Portris to the daughter. Can I have my show back now? No dear, be free a while. I shall attend to your duties before I want to study men in life and see whether things really are as bad as they say. But it won't do to fall asleep here. Never sleep night or day. No sleep at night? Yes, if you're able to get it. But only with the bell string tied around your wrist. For there are night watchmen on the stage and they have to be relieved every third hour. But that is torture. So you think. But people like us are glad enough to get such a job. And if you only knew how envy I am. Envyed. Envy for the tortured. Yes. But I can tell you what is harder than all drudging and keeping awake nights. Harder to bear than draft and cold and dampness. It is to receive the confidences of all the unhappy people up there. They all come to me. Why? Perhaps they read in the wrinkles of my face some ruins that are graved by suffering and that invite to confession. In that shawl dear,

28:20lie hidden thirty years of my own and other people's agonies. It is heavy and it burns like nettles. As it is your wish you may wear it. When it grows too burdened some call me and I shall relieve you. Goodbye. What can be done by you are not to surpass my strength. We shall see. Be kind to my poor friends and don't grow impatient of their complaints. She disappears through the passageway. Complete darkness covers the stage and while it lasts the scene is changed so that the linden tree appears stripped of all its leaves. Soon the blue monk's hood is withered and when the light returns the verger in the open space beyond the passageway has changed into a tumble brown. The officer enters when it is light again. He has gray hair and a gray beard. His clothes are shabby. His collar is soiled and wrinkled. Nothing but the bear stems remain of the bunch of roses. He walks to and fro. To judge by all signs summer is gone and fall

29:28has come. The linden shows it and amongst head also. Walks. But the fall is my spring where then the opera begins again and then she must come. Please met him may I sit down a little and this chair. Yes sit down friend I am able to stand. The officer sits down. If I could only get some sleep then I should feel better. He falls asleep for a few moments then he jumps up and walks back and forth again. Stopps at last in front of the door with the clover leaf and pokes at it. This door here will not leave me any peace. What is behind it? There must be something. Faint dance music is heard from above. Oh now the rehearsals have begun. The light goes out and flares up again repeating this rhythmically as the rays of a lighthouse come and go. What does this mean? Speaking in time with the blinkings of the light.

30:32Light and dark. Light and dark. Night and day. Night and day. A merciful providence wants to shorten your weight. Therefore the days are flying and hot pursuit of the nights. The light shines unbrokenly once more. The bill poster enters with his dip net and his implements. There is the bill poster with his dip net. Was the fishing good? I should say so. The summer was hot and little long. The net turned out pretty good but not as I had expected. Not as I had expected. That is well said. Nothing ever was as I expected to be because the thought is more than the deed more than the thing. Walks to and fro striking at the wall with the rose stems so that the last few leaves fall off. Hence she not come down yet. Not yet but she will soon be here. Do you know what is behind that door bill poster? No I have never seen that door open

31:32yet. I am going to telephone for a locksmith to come and open it. Goes into the lodge. The bill poster posts a bill and goes toward the right. What does the matter with the dip net? Matter. Well I don't know as there is anything the matter with it but it just didn't turn out as I expected and the pleasure of it was not so much after all. How did you expect it to be? How well I couldn't tell exactly. I can tell you. You had expected it to be what it was not. It had to be green but not that kind of green. You have it madam. You understand it all and that is why everybody goes to you with his worries. If you would only listen to me a little also. Of course I will. Come into me and pour out your heart. She goes into the lodge. The bill poster remains outside speaking to her. The stage is darkened again. When the light is turned on the tree has resumed its leaves. The monk's hood is blooming once more

32:33and the sun is shining on the green space beyond the passageway. The officer enters. Now he is old and white haired, ragged and wearing worn out shoes. He carries the bare remnants of the rose stems. Walks to and fro slowly with the gate of an aged man. Reads on the posted bill. A ballet girl comes in from the right. Is Miss Victoria gone? No she's not gone yet. Then I shall wait. She will be coming soon don't you think? Oh yes I'm sure. Don't go away now. But I have sent word to the locksmith so you will soon see what is behind that door. Oh it will be awfully interesting to see that door opens. That door over there. The growing castle. Have you heard of the growing castle? Have I? I have been a prisoner in it. No is that you? But why do they keep such a lot of horses there?

33:36Because it is a stable castle don't you know. A house stupid of me not to guess that. A male chorus singer enters from the right. Has Miss Victoria gone yet? No she has not. She never goes away. That is because she loves me. See here don't go before the locksmith comes to open the door here. No. Is the door going to be opened? Well that will be fun. I just want to ask the portrait something. The prompter enters from the right. Is Miss Victoria gone yet? Not that I know of. Now didn't I tell you she was waiting for me? Don't go away where the door is going to be opened. Which door? Is there more than one door? Oh I know that one with the clover leaf. Well then I have got to stay. I'm only going to have a word with the portraits.

34:37The ballet girl, the chorus singer and the prompter gather beside the bill poster in front of the large window and talk by turns to the daughter. The glacier enters through the gate. Are you the locksmith? No. The locksmith and visitors. And it glays here will do just as well. Yes of course of course but did you bring your diamond along? Well certainly. A gl easier without his diamond. What would that be? Nothing at all. Let us get to work then. All gather in a ring around the door. Mail members of the chorus dressed as master singers and ballet girls and costumes from the opera Aida enter from the right and join the rest. Lachsmith or glacier? Do your duty. The glacier goes up to the door with the diamond in his hand.

35:37A moment like this will not occur twice in a man's life. For this reason my friends I ask you, please consider carefully. A policeman enters. Hit the name of law. I forbid the opening of that door. Oh lord what a fuss there is as soon as anybody wants to do anything new or great. But we will take the matter into court. Let us go to the lawyer then we shall see whether the laws still exist or not. Come along to the lawyer. Without lowering of the curtain the stage changes to a lawyer's office and in this manner. The gate remains but as a wicket in a railing running clear across the stage. The gatekeeper's lodge turns into the private enclosure of the lawyer and it is now entirely open to the front. The linden leafless becomes a hatchery. The billboard is covered with legal notices and court decisions. The door with the four-leaved clover hole forms part of a document chest.

36:41The lawyer in evening dress and white necktie is found sitting to the left inside the gate and in front of him stands a desk covered with papers. His appearance indicates enormous sufferings. His face is chalk white and full of wrinkles and its shadows have a purple effect. He is ugly and his features seem to reflect all the crimes and vices with which he has been forced by his profession to come into contact. Of his two clerks one has lost an arm, the other and I. The people gathered to witness the opening of the door remain as before but they appear now to be waiting for an audience with the lawyer. Judging by their attitudes one would think they had been standing there forever. The daughter still wearing the shaw and the officer are near the footlights. The lawyer goes over to the daughter. Tell me, sister, can I have that shawl? I shall keep it here until I have a fire in my grate and then I shall burn it with all its

37:44miseries and sorrows. Not yet, brother, I want it to hold all it possibly can and I want it above all to take up your agonies, all the confidence as you have received about crime, vice, robbery, slander, abuse. My dear girl, for such a purpose your shawl would prove totally insufficient. Look at these walls. Does it not look as if the wallpaper 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.

38:47Look, 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 sulfur, but it does not help. I sleep nearby 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 if something cried way down in the earth, then up there in the sky, as if it cried trees and against the primal force, against the source of all good, against love. And you know when reams of paper have been filled with mutual

39:49accusations, and at last a sympathetic person takes one of the two apart and asks with a pinch of the ear or 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 that 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 man.

40:55Men are to be pitted. They are. And what people are living on puzzles me. They marry on an income of two thousand when they need four thousand. They borrow, of course, everybody borrows. And some sort of happy-go-lucky fashion by the skin of their teeth, they manage to pull through. And thus it continues to the end when the estate is found to be bankrupt. Who pays for it last? No one can tell. Perhaps he who feeds the birds? Perhaps. But if he who feeds the birds would pay a visit to this earth of his and see for himself how the poor human creatures fare, then his heart would surely fill with compassion. Men are to be pitted. Yes, that is the truth. To the officer. What do you want? I just wanted to ask if Miss Victoria has

41:56gone yet. No, she is not. You can be sure of it. Where are you poking at my chest over there? I thought the door of it looked exactly at all, not at all. All the church bells begin to ring. Is there going to be a funeral? No, it is graduation day. A number of degrees will be conferred, and I am going to be made a doctor of laws. Perhaps you would also like to be graduated and receive a laurel wreath? Yes, why not. That would be a diversion at least. Perhaps then we may begin upon this solemn function at once. But you had better go home and change your clothes. The officer goes out. The stage is darkened and the following changes are made. The railing stays, but it encloses now the chancel of a church. The billboard displays him numbers. The linden

42:59hatchery becomes a candelabrum. The lawyer's desk is turned into the desk of the presiding functionary and the door with the clover leaf leads to the vestry. The chorus of master singers become heralds with staffs and the ballet girls carry laurel wreaths. The rest of the people act as spectators. The background is raised and the new one thus discovered represents a large church organ with the keyboard below and the organist's mirror above. Music is heard. At the side stand figures symbolizing the four academic faculties, philosophy, theology, medicine, and jurisprudence. At first the stage is empty for a few moments. Heralds enter from the right. Ballet girls follow with laurel wreaths carried high before them. Three graduates appear one after another from the left, receive their wreaths from the ballet girls and go out to the right. The lawyer steps forward

44:00to get his wreath. The ballet girls turn away from him and refuse to place the wreath on his head. Then they withdraw from the stage. The lawyer shocked leans against a column, all the others withdraw gradually until only the lawyer remains on the stage. The daughter enters her head and shoulders covered by a white veil. Do you see I have washed the shawl? But why are you standing there? Did you get your wreath? No, I was not held worthy. Why? Because you have defended the poor, put in a good word for the wrongdoing, made the burden easier for the guilty, obtained a respite for the condemned? Wow upon men, they are not angels, but they are to be pitted. Say nothing evil of men. For after all, it is my task to give their side. The daughter leaning against the organ. Why do they strike their friends in the face?

45:00They know no better. Let us enlighten them. Will you try, together with me? They do not accept enlightenment. Oh, that our plant might reach the gods of heaven. It shall reach the throne. Turns toward the organ. Do you know what I see in this mirror? The world turned the right way. Yes indeed, for naturally we see it upside down. How did it come to be turned the wrong way? When the copy was taken. You have said it. The copy. I have always had the feeling that it was a spoiled copy. And when I began to recall the original images, I grew to satisfied with everything. But men called it sourheadedness, looking at the world through the devil's eyes and other such things. It is certainly a crazy world. Look at the four faculties here. The government, to which has fallen the task of preserving society, supports all four of them. Theology, the science of God,

46:05is constantly attacked and ridiculed by philosophy, which declares itself to be the sum of wisdom. And medicine is always challenging philosophy, while refusing entirely to count theology of science, and even insisting and calling it a mere superstition. And they belong to a common academic council, which has been set to teach the young respect for the university. It is a bedlam, and while unto him who first recovers his reason, those who find it out first, are the theologians. As a preparatory study, they take philosophy, which teaches them that theology is nonsense. Later they learn from theology that philosophy is nonsense. Bad men, I should say. And then there is jurisprudence, which serves all but the servants. Justice, which, when it wants to do right, becomes the undoing of men. Equity, which so often turns into

47:07inequity. But a mess you have made of it, you man children, children indeed. Come here and I will give you a wreath, one that is more becoming to you. Put the crown of thorns on his head. And now I will play for you. She sits down at the keyboards, but instead of organ notes, human voices are heard. Oh Lord, everlasting, have mercy upon us. Save us for thy mercy's sake. Spare thy children, O Lord, and deliver us from thy wrath. Have mercy upon us. Hear us. Have pity upon the mortals. O Lord eternal, why art thou alphore?

48:14Out of the depths we come to thee. Make not the burden of thy children too heavy. Hear us. Hear us. The stage turns dark. The daughter rises and draws close to the lawyer. By a change of light the organ becomes Fingles cave. The ground swell of the ocean, which can be seen rising and falling between the columns of basalt produces a deep harmony that blends the music of winds and waves. Where are we, sister? What do you hear? I hear drops falling. Those are the tears that men are weeping. What more do you hear? There is signe and whining and whaling. Hither the plain of the mortals has reached and no farther. But why this never-ending whaling?

49:20Is there then nothing in life to rejoice at? Yes, what is most sweet and what is also most bitter. Love, wife and home, the highest and the lowest. May I try it? With me? With you. You know the rocks, the stumbling stones. Let us avoid them. I am so poor. What does that matter if we only love each other and a little beauty costs nothing? I have dislikes which may prove your likes. They can be adjusted. And if we tire of it. Then come the children and bring with them a diversion that remains forever new. You. You will take me. Poor and ugly, scorned and rejected. Yes, let us unite our destinies.

50:22So be it then. Curtin. End of Act 1. Act 2 of the Dreamplay by August Strenberg translated by Edwin Bjorkman, 1866-1951. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Act 2. An extremely plain room inside the lawyer's office. To the right, a big double bed covered by a canopy and curtained in. Next to it, a window. To the left, an iron heater with cooking utensils on top of it. Christine is pasting paper strips along the cracks of the double windows.

51:26In the background, an open door to the office. Through the doors are visible a number of poor clients waiting for admission. I paced, I paced. The daughter pale and emaciated sits by the stove. You shut out all the air. I choke. Now there is only one little crack left. Air. Air. I cannot breathe. High paced, I paced. That's right, Christine. He does expensive. Oh, it feels as if my lips were being glued together. The lawyer standing in the doorway with a paper in his hand. It's the child asleep. Yes, at last. All this crying scares away my clients. What can be done about it? Nothing. We shall have to get a larger place. We have no money for it. May I open the window? This bad air is suffocating. Then the heat escapes and we shall be cold.

52:26It is horrible. May we clean up out there? You have not the strength to do any cleaning. Nor have I. And Christine must paced. She must put strips through the whole house on every crack in the ceiling and the floor and the walls. Poverty I was prepared for, but not for dirt. Poverty is always dirty. Relatively speaking. This is worse than I dreamed. We are not the worst off by far. There is still food in the pot. But what sort of food? Cabbage is cheap, nourishing and good to eat. For those who like cabbage, to me it is repulsive. Why didn't you say so? Because I loved you. I wanted to sacrifice my own taste. Then I must sacrifice my taste for cabbage to you. For sacrifices must be mutual. What are we to eat then?

53:26Fish, but you hate fish. And it is expensive. This is worse than I thought it. Yes, you see how hard it is. And the child that was to become a link and a blessing, it becomes our ruin. Dearest, I die in this air. In this room with its backyard view, with its baby cries and endless hours of sleeplessness, with those people out there, and their whinings and bickering and incriminations, I shall die here. My poor little flower that has no light and no air. And you say that people exist who are still worse off? I belong with the inved ones in this locality. Everything else might be born if I could only have some beauty in my home. I know you are thinking of flowers and especially of heliatropes, but a plant costs half a dollar, which will buy us six quarts of milk or a peck of potatoes.

54:30I could gladly get along without boo, if I could only have some flowers. There is a kind of beauty that costs nothing. But the absence of it in the home is worse than any other torture to a man with a sense for the beautiful. What is it? If I tell you, you will get angry. We have agreed not to get angry. We have agreed. Everything can be overcome, Agnes, except the short, sharp accents. Do you know them? Not yet. They will never be heard between us. Not as far as it lies on me. Tell me now. Well, when I come into a room, I look first at all the curtains. Goes over to the window and straightens out the curtains. If they hang like ropes or rags, then I leave soon.

55:30And next I take a glance at the chairs. If they stand straight along the wall, then I stay. Put the chair back against the wall. Finally, I look at the candles in their sticks. If they point this way in that, then the whole house is a skew. Straightens up a candle on the chest of drawers. This is the kind of beauty, dear heart, that costs nothing. The daughter with bent head. Beware of the short, accents, Axel. They were not short. Yes, they were. Well, I'll be. What kind of language is that? Pardon me, Agnes, but I have suffered as much from your lack of orderliness as you have suffered from dirt. And I have not dared to set things straight myself from what I do so. You get as angry as if I were reproaching you. And we better quit now.

56:32It is very difficult to be married. It is more difficult than anything else. One has to be an angel, I think. I think so too. I fear I shall begin to hate you after this. Woe to us, then. But let us forest all hatred. I promise never again to speak of any untightiness. Although it is torture to me. And I shall eat cabbage, though it means agony to me. A life of common suffering, then, one's pleasure the other one's pain. Men are to be pitied. You see that? Yes, but for heaven's sake let us avoid the rocks. Now, when we know them so well. Let us try. Are we not decent and intelligent persons, able to forebear and forgive? Why not smile at mere trifles? We only we can do so. Do you know? I read this morning.

57:32By the by. Where is the newspaper? Which newspaper? Do I keep more than one? Smile now and don't speak sharply. I used your paper to make the fire with... I'll be down. Why don't you smile? I've burned it because it ridiculed what is holy to me. Which is unholy to me! Strikes one clenched fist against the open palm of the other hand. I smile, I smile so that my wisdom teeth show. Of course I am to be nice and I am to swallow my own opinions and say yes to everything and cringe and dissymbol. Tideys the curtains around the bed. That's it! Now we're going to fix things until you get angry again. Fufu! Agnes! This is simply impossible! Of course it is!

58:33And yet we must endear her. Not for the sake of our promises but for the sake of the child. You are right. For the sake of the child. Oh, oh, we have to endure. And now I must go to my clients. Listen to them. How they growl within patience to tear each other to get each other fined and jailed. Lost souls. Poor poor people. And this pasting. She drops her head forward in dumb despair. I past, I past. The lawyer stands at the door twisting the door knob nervously. How that knob squeaks. It is as if you were twisting my heartstrings. I twist, I twist. Don't! I twist. No! I. The officer in the office on the other side of the door takes hold of the knob. Will you permit me?

59:35The lawyer lets go his hold. By all means. Seeing that you have your degree. Now all life belongs to me. Every road lies open. I have mounted pernicious. The laurel is one. Immortality. Fame. All is mine. And what are you going to live on? Live on? You must have a home, close food. Oh, that will come. If you can only find somebody to love you. You don't say so. You don't. Paste, Christine. Paste until they cannot breathe. Goes out backward nodding. I paste, I paste. Until they cannot breathe. Will you come with me now? At once. But where? To Fair Haven. There it is summer. There the sun is shining.

1:00:36There we find youth, children and flowers, singing and dancing, feasting and frallicking. Then I will go there. Come. The lawyer enters again. Now I go back to my first tell. This was the second and greater. The sweeter the hell, the greater. And look here. Now she has been dropping her hair pins on the floor again. He picks up some hair pins. My, but he has discovered the pins also. Also, look at this one. You see two prongs, but it is only one pin. It is two. It only one. If I bend it open, it is a single piece. If I bend it back, there are two. But they remain one for all that. It means these two are one.

1:01:41But if I break like this, then they become two. Breaks the pin and throws the pieces away. All that he has seen, but before breaking the prongs must diverge. If they point together, then it holds. And if they are parallel, then they will never meet, and it ever breaks, nor holds. The hair pin is the most perfect of all created things. A straight line, which equals two parallel ones. A lock that shuts when it is open. And thus shuts in a braid of hair that opens up when the lock shuts. It's like the store. When I close it, then I open. The way out. For you, Agnes. With draws and closes the door behind him. Well then.

1:02:42The stage changes. The bed with its curtains becomes a tent. The stove stays as it was. The background is raised. To the right in the foreground are seen hills stripped of their trees by fire, and red Heather growing between the black end tree stumps. Red painted pigsties and outhouses. Beyond these in the open, apparatus for mechanical gymnastics, where sick persons are being treated on machines resembling instruments of torture. To the left in the foreground, the quarantine station, consisting of open sheds, with ovens, furnaces, and pipe coils. In the middle distance, a narrow straight. The background shows a beautiful wooded shore. Flags are flying on its peers, where ride white sailboats, some with sail set and some without. Little Italian villas, pavilions, arbors, marble statues are glimpsed through the foliage along the shore. The master of quarantine, made up like a black amore, is walking along the shore.

1:03:47The officer meets him in the shake hands. Why, old strum, have you landed here? Yes, here I am. Is this fair haven? No, that is on the other side. This is foul strand. Then we have lost our way. We won't you introduce me. No, that wouldn't do. It is Indra's own daughter. Indra's? And I was thinking of Varuna himself. Well, are you not surprised to find me black in the face? I am past 50, my boy, and at that age one has ceased to be surprised. I concluded at once that you were bound for some fancy ball this afternoon. Right, you were, and I hope both of you will come along. Why, yes, for I must say, the place does not look very tempting.

1:04:50What kind of people live here anyhow? Here you find the sick. Over there, the healthy. Nothing but poor folk on this side, I suppose. No, my boy, it is here you find the rich. Look at that one on the rack. He has stuffed himself with pate de foie gras and truffles and burgundy until his feet have grown knotted. Knotted? Yes, he has a case of knotted feet. And that one who lies under the guillotine, he has swirled a brandy so that his backbone has to be put through the mangle. There is always something amiss. Moreover, everybody living on this side has some kind of canker to hide. Look at the fellow coming here, for instance. An old dandy is pushed on the stage in a wheelchair. He is accompanied by a gaunt and grizzly coquette in the 60s, to whom the friend, a man of about forty, is paying court.

1:05:54It is the major, our schoolmate. Don Juan, can you see that he is still enamored of that old specter beside him? He does not notice that she has grown old, or that she is ugly, faithless, cruel. Why, that is love, and I couldn't have dreamt that a fickle fellow like him would prove capable of loving so deeply and so earnestly. That is a mighty decent way of looking at it. I have been in love with Victoria myself. In fact, I am still waiting for her in the passageway. Oh, you are the fellow who is waiting in the passageway. I am the man. Well, have you got that door opened yet? No, the case is still in court. The bill-poster is out with his dip net, of course, so that the taking of evidence is always being put off. And in the meantime, the glazier has mended all the window-pains in the castle,

1:07:00which has grown half a story higher. This has been an uncommonly good year. Warm and wet. But just the same you have had no heat comparing with what I have here. How much do you have in your ovens? When we fumigate cholera suspects, we run it up to 140 degrees. Is the cholera going again? Don't you know that? Of course I know it, but I forget so often what I know. I wish often that I could forget, especially myself. That is why I go in for masquerades and carnivals and amateur theatricals. What have you been up to then? If I told they would say that I was boasting, and if I don't tell, then they call me a hypocrite. That is why you blackened your face? Exactly, making myself a shade of blacker than I am.

1:08:01Who is coming there? Oh, a poet who is going to have his mud bath. The poet enters with his eyes raised toward the sky and carrying a pale of mud in one hand. Why, he ought to be having light baths and air baths. No, he is roaming about the higher region so much that he gets homesick for the mud, and wallowing in the mire makes the skin callous, like that of a pig. Then he cannot feel the stings of the wasps. This is a queer world full of contradictions. Man was created by the god Fattar out of clay on a potters wheel, or a lathe, or any damned old thing. Out of clay does the sculptor create his more or less immortal masterpieces, which mostly a pure rot. Out of clay they make those utensils which are so indispensable in the pantry. And which generically are named pots and plates.

1:09:03But in thunder does it matter to me what they are called anyhow. Such is the clay, when clay becomes fluid it is called mud. Sist mon affair. Lena! Lena enters with a pale in her hand. Lena, show yourself to Miss Agnes. She knew you ten years ago when you were a young happy, and let us say pretty girl. Behold how she looks now. Five children, drudgery, baby cries, hunger, ill treatment. See how beauty has perished and joy vanished in the fulfilment of duties, which should have brought that inner satisfaction, which makes each line in the face harmonious and fills the eye with a quiet glow. Master of quarantine covering the poet's mouth with his hand. Shut up, shut up! That is what they all say. And if you keep silent then they cry, speak. O restless humanity.

1:10:03The daughter goes to Lena. Tell me your troubles. No, I dare not for them. They will be made worse. Who could be so cruel? I dare not tell for if I do I shall be spanked. That is just what will happen. But I will speak, even though the blacker more knockout all my teeth. I will tell that justice is not always done. Agnes, daughter of the gods, do you hear music and dancing on the hill over there? Well, it is Lena's sister, who has come home from the city where she went to stray. You understand? Now they are killing the fatted calf, but Lena, who stayed at home, has to carry slop pales and feed the pigs. There is rejoicing at home because the stray has left the paths of evil, and not merely because she has come back. Bear that in mind. But then they should give a ball and banquet every night, for the spotless worker that never strayed into paths of error. Yet they do nothing of the kind. But when Lena has a free moment,

1:11:07she is sent to prayer meetings, where she has to hear approaches for not being perfect. Is this justice? Your question is so difficult to answer because there are so many unforeseen cases. That much the caliph, Haroon the just, came to understand. He was sitting on his throne, and from its height he could never make out what happened below. At last, complaints penetrated to his exalted ears. And then, one fine day, he disguised himself and descended unobserved among the crowds to find out what kind of justice they were getting. I hope you don't take me for Haroon the just. Let us talk of something else. Here come visitors. A white boat shaped like a Viking ship, with a dragon for figurehead, with a pale blue silken sail on a gilded yard, and with a rose red standard flying from the top of a gilded mast, glides through the straight from the left. He and she are seated in the stern with their arms around each other.

1:12:11Behold perfect happiness, bliss without limits, young loves rejoicing. The stage grows brighter. He stands up in the boat and sings. Hail beautiful Haven, for the springs of my youth were spent, where my first sweet dreams were dreamt, to the arretern, but lonely no longer. He hills and groves, they'll sky or head, they'll mirroring sea, give greetings to her, my love, my bride, my light, and my life. The flags at the landings of Fair Haven are dipped in salute. White hanker chiffs are waved from verandas and boats, and the air is filled with tender cords from harps and violins. See the light that surrounds them. Hear how the air is ringing with music, iros. It is Victoria.

1:13:12Well, what of it? It is his Victoria. My own is still mine, and nobody can see her. Now you hoist the quarantine flag, and I shall pull in the net. The master of quarantine waves a yellow flag. The officer pulling a rope that turns the boat toward foul strand. Hold on there. He and she become aware of the hideous view and give vent their horror. Yes, it comes hard, but here everyone must stop who hails from plague stricken places. The idea of speaking in such a manner, of acting in such a way, within the presence of two human beings united in love. Touch them not. Lay not hands on love. It is treason. Woe to us. Everything beautiful must now be dragged down, dragged into the mud. He and she step ashore, looking sad and shame-faced.

1:14:15Woe to us. What have we done? It is not necessary to have done anything in order to encounter life's little pricks. So short lived our joy and happiness. How long must we stay here? Forty days and nights. Then rather into the water. To live here among blackened hills and pigsties? Love overcomes all, even self-ofumes and carbolic acid. Master of quarantine starts a fire in the stove. Blue sulfurous flames break forth. Now I set the sulfur going. Will you please step in? Oh, my blue dress will fade. And become white, so your roses will also turn white in time. Even your cheeks in forty days. She to the officer. That will please you.

1:15:15No, it will not. Of course your happiness was the cause of my suffering, but it doesn't matter. For I am graduated and have obtained a position over there. I hold in the last. And in the fall I shall be teaching school. Teaching boys the same lessons I myself learned during my childhood and youth. The same lessons throughout my manhood and finally in my old age. The self-same lessons. What does twice too make? How many times can four be evenly divided by two? Until I get a pension and can do nothing at all. Just wait around for meals and the newspapers. Until at last I am carted to the crematorium and burned to ashes. Have you nobody here who is entitled to a pension?

1:16:19Barring twice too makes four. It is probably the worst thing of all. To begin school all over again when one already is graduated. To ask the same questions until death comes. An elderly man goes by with his hands folded behind his back. There is a pensioner now waiting for himself to die. I think he must be a captain who missed the rank of major. Or an assistant judge who was not made a chief justice. Many are called but few are chosen. He is waiting for his breakfast now. No, for the newspaper. The morning paper. And he is only 54 years old. He may spend 25 more years waiting for meals and newspapers. Is it not dreadful?

1:17:21What is not dreadful? Tell me, tell me. Tell that who can. Now I shall have to teach boys that twice too makes four. And how many times four can be evenly divided by two? He clutches his head in despair. And Victoria, whom I loved and therefore wished all the happiness life can give. Now she has her happiness, the greatest one known to her. And for this reason I suffer. Suffer, suffer. Do you think I can be happy when I see you suffering? How can you think it? Perhaps it will soothe your pains that I am to be imprisoned here for 40 days and nights. Tell me, does it soothe your pains? Yes and no. How can I enjoy seeing you suffer? And do you think my happiness can be founded on your torment?

1:18:25We are to be pitted all of us. All raise their arms toward the sky and utter a cry of anguish that sounds like a dissonant chord. Ever lasting one hear them, life is evil. Men are to be pitted. For a moment the stage is completely darkened, enduring that moment everybody withdraws or takes up a new position. When the light is turned on again, foul strand is seen in the background lying in deep shadow. The straight is in the middle distance and fair haven in the foreground, both steeped in light. To the right, a corner of the casino where dancing couples are visible through the open windows. Three servant maids are standing outside on top of an empty box with arms around each other, staring at the dancers within. On the veranda of the casino stands a bench where plain edith is sitting.

1:19:28She is bare-headed with an abundance of tassled hair and looks sad. In front of her is an open piano. To the left, a frame house painted yellow. Two children in light dresses are playing ball outside. In the center of the middle distance, appear with white sailboats tied to it and flag poles with hoisted flags. In the straight is anchored a naval vessel, brig rigged with gun ports. But the entire landscape is in winter dress with snow on the ground and on the bare trees. The daughter and the officer enter. Here is peace and happiness and leisure. No more toil, every day a holiday. Everybody dressed up in their best, dancing in music in the early morning. To the maids. Why don't you go in and have a dance, girls? Wait! They are servants, don't you see? Of course, but why is edith sitting there instead of dancing? Edith buries her face in her hands.

1:20:31Don't question her. She has been sitting there three hours without being asked for a dance. Goes into the yellow house on the left. What a cruel form of amusement. The mother in a low-necked dress enters from the casino and goes up to edith. Why don't you go in as I told you? Because I cannot throw myself at them. That I am ugly, I know. And I know that nobody wants to dance with me. But I might be spared from being reminded of it. Begins to play on the piano. The Takada Confuga, Opus 10 by Sebastian Bach. The Waltz music from within is heard faintly at first. Then it grows in strength as if to compete with the Bach Takada. Edith prevails over it and brings it to silence. Dancers appear in the doorway to hear her play. Everybody on the stage stands still and listens reverently.

1:21:32A naval officer takes Alice one of the dancers around the waist and drags her to the pier. Edith breaks off abruptly, rises and stares at the couple with an expression of utter despair. Stands as if turned to stone. Now the front wall of the yellow house disappears, revealing three benches full of schoolboys. Among these the officer is seen looking worried and depressed. In front of the boys stands the teacher, be spectacle, denholding a piece of chalk in one hand, a retan cane in the other. The teacher to the officer. Well, my boy, can you tell me what twice too makes? The officer remains seated while he racks his mind without finding an answer. You must rise when I ask you a question? The officer harassed rises. Two, twice. Let me see. That makes two, two. I see. You have not studied your lesson.

1:22:36Yes, I have, but I know the answer, but I cannot tell it. You want to wriggle out of it, of course? You know it, but you cannot tell. Perhaps I may help you. Pulls his hair. Oh, it is dreadful, it is dreadful. Yes, it is dreadful, that such a big boy lacks all ambition. Big boy. Yes, I am big. Bigger than all these others. I am full grown. I am done with school. As if waking up. I have graduated. Why am I then sitting here? Have I not received my doctor's degree? A certainly. But you ought to sit here and mature, you know. You have to mature. Isn't that so? The officer feels his forehead. Yes, that is right. One must mature. Twice, two makes two, and this I can demonstrate by analogy,

1:23:38which is the highest form of all reasoning. Listen, once one makes one, consequently twice two must make two. For what applies to one case, must also apply in another. Your confusion is based on good logic, but your answer is wrong. What is logical cannot be wrong? Let us test it. One divided by one gives one, so that two divided by two must give two. Correct, according to analogy. But how much does one's three make? Three, of course. A consequence may twice three must also make three. No, that cannot be right. It cannot. Or else. Sit down dejectedly. No, I am not mature yet. No, it did. You are far from mature. But how long am I to sit here then? Here, how long? Do you believe the time and space exist?

1:24:40Suppose the time does exist, then you should be able to say what time is. What is time? Time. I cannot tell, but I know what it is. Consequently, I may also know what twice two is without being able to tell it. And teacher, can you tell what time is? Of course I can. Tell us then. Time. Let me see. Stands immovable with one finger on his nose. What we are talking time flies. Consequently time is something that flies what we talk. A boy rising. Now you are talking teacher. And while you are talking, I fly. Consequently, I am time. Runs out. But it could complete me with the laws of logic. Then the laws of logic are silly. For meals who ran away cannot be time.

1:25:42That is also logic although it is silly. Then logic itself is silly. So it seems. But if logic is silly, then all the world is silly and then they double himself when stay here to teach you more silliness. If anybody treats me to a drink, we'll go and take a bath. That is a posteris Prius. Or the world turned upside down. For it is customary to bathe first and have the drink afterward. Old, foggy. Beware of a swold head doctor. Call me captain if you please. I am an officer. And I cannot understand why I should be sitting here to get scolded like a schoolboy. The teacher with raised index finger. We were to mature. Master of quarantine enters. The quarantine begins. Oh there you are. Just think of it. This fellow makes me sit among the boys

1:26:43although I am graduated. Well why don't you go away? Heaven knows. Go away? Why? That is no easy thing to do. I guess not. Just try. The officer to master of quarantine. Save me. Save me from his eye. Come on. Come and help us dance. We have to dance before the plague breaks out. We must. Is the brig leaving? Yes, first of all the brig must leave. Then there will be a lot of tears shed of course. Always tears. When she comes and when she goes. Let us get out of here. They go out. The teacher continues his lesson in silence. The maids that were staring through the window of the dance hall walk sadly down to the pier. Edith who has been standing like a statue at the piano follows them. The daughter to the officer.

1:27:44Is there not one happy person to be found in this paradise? Yes, there is a newly married couple. Just watch them. The newly married couple enter. Husband to his wife. My joy has no limits and I could now wish to die. Why die? Because at the heart of happiness grows the seed of disaster. Happiness devours itself like a flame. You cannot burn forever but must go out sometime. In this presentment of the coming end, destroys joy in the very hour of its culmination. Let us then die together. This moment. Die? Oh right. For a fear happiness. That cheat. They go toward the water. Life is evil. Manor to be pitted. Look at this fellow. He is the most envied mortal in the neighborhood. The blind man is led in.

1:28:44He is the owner of these hundred or more Italian villas. He owns all these bays, streets, shores, forests, together with the fishes in the water. The birds in the air, the game in the woods. These thousand or more people are his tenants. The sun rises upon his sea and sets upon his land. Well, is he complaining also? Yes, and with right, for he cannot see. He is blind. The most envied of all. Now he has come to see the brig de part with his son on board. I cannot see but I can hear. I hear the anchor bill claw the clay bottom as when the hook is torn out of a fish and brings up the heart with it through the neck. My son, my only child, is going to journey across the wide sea to foreign lands, and I can follow him only in my thought.

1:29:46Now I hear the clanking of the chain. And there is something that snaps and cracks like clothes drawing on a line. What handgird shifts perhaps? And I hear it blubber and snivel as when people are weeping. Maybe the splashing of the wavelets among the sains. Or maybe girls along the shore, deserted and disconsolate. Once I asked a child why the ocean is salt, and the child which had a father on a long trip across the high seas said immediately, the ocean is salt because the sailors shed so many tears into it. And why do the sailors cry so much then? Because they are always going away, replied the child. And that is why they are always drawing their handgird shifts in the rigging. And why does man weep when he is sad? I asked it last. Because the glass in the eyes must be washed now and then, so that we can see clearly said the child. The brig has set sail and is gliding off. The girls along the shore are alternately waving their handgird shifts and wiping off their

1:30:46tears with them. Then a signal is set on the foremasth, a red ball in a white field meaning yes. In response to it, Alice waves her handgird shift triumphantly. The daughter to the officer. What is the meaning of that flag? It means yes. It is the lieutenant's troath, red as the red blood of the arteries set against the blue cloth of the sky. And how does no look? It is blue as the spoiled blood in the veins. But look how jubilant Alice is. And how Edith cries. Alice is. Meet and part. Part and meet. That is life. I met his mother and then she went away from me. He was left to me and now he goes. But he will come back. Who is speaking to me? I have heard that voice before and my dreams and my youth when vacation began

1:31:47in the early years of my marriage when my child was born. Every time life smiled at me I heard that voice, like a whisper of the south wind, like a cord of harps from above. Like what I feel the angels greeting must be in the holy night. The lawyer enters and goes up to whisper something into the blind man's ear. Is that so? That's the truth. Goes to the daughter. No, you have seen most of it. But you have not tried the worst of it. What can that be? Repetition, recurrence, to retrace one's own tracks to be sent back to the task once finished. Come. Where? To your duties. What does that mean? Everything you dread, everything you do not want but must. It means to forego, to give up, to do without, to lack. It means everything that is unpleasant, repulsive, painful.

1:32:49Are there no pleasant duties? They become pleasant when they are done. When they have ceased to exist, duties then something unpleasant. What is pleasant then? What is pleasant is sin. Sin? Yes, something that has to be punished. If I have had a pleasant day or night, then I suffer infernal pangs and a bad conscience the next day. How strange. I wake up in the morning with a headache and then the repetitions begin, but so that everything becomes perverted. With the night before, was pretty, agreeable, witty, is presented to my memory in the morning as, ugly, distasteful, stupid. Pleasure seems to decay and all joy goes to pieces. What men call success serves always as a basis for their next failure.

1:33:53My own successes have brought ruin upon me, for men view the fortune of others with an instinctive dread. They regarded unjust that fate should favor any one man, and so they tried to restore balance by piling rocks on the road. To have talent is to be in danger of one's life. For then one may easily starve to death. However, you will have to return to your duties or shall bring suit against you, and we shall pass through every court up to the highest. One, two, three. Return to the iron stove and the cabbage pot and the baby clothes. Exactly! We have a big wash today, for we must wash all the hanker chiffs. Oh, must I do it all over again? Oh, life is nothing but doing things over again.

1:34:56Look at the teacher there. He received his doctor's degree yesterday, was lorled and saluted, climbed par nasses, and was embraced by the monarch. And today he starts school all over again, asks how much twice two makes, and will continue to do so until his death. However, you must come back to your house. I shall rather die. Die? That is not allowed. First of all, it is at a disgrace. So much so that even the dead body is subjected to insults, and secondly, one goes to hell. It is a mortal sin. It is not easy to be human. Here! I shall not go back with you to humiliation and dirt. I am longing for the heights once I came. But first the door must be opened so that I may learn the secret.

1:35:59It is my will that the door be opened. Then you must retrace your steps. Cover the road you have already traveled. Suffer all the annoyances, repetitions, totologies, recopions. That a suit will bring with it. May it come then. But first I must go into the solitude and the wilderness to recover my own self. We shall meet again. To the poet. Follow me. Crys of anguish are heard from a distance. What is that? The lost souls of foul strand. Why do they wail more loudly than usual today? Because the sun is shining here. Because we have music dancing. Youth. And it makes them feel their suffering more keenly.

1:37:00We must set them free. Try it. Once a liberator appeared. And he was nailed to a cross. By whom? By all the right-minded. Who are they? Are you not acquainted with all the right-minded? Then you must learn to know them. Were they the ones that prevented your graduation? Yes. Then I know them. Curtin. End of Act 2. Act 3 of the Dreamplay by August Strinberg. Translated by Edwin Bjorkman, 1866-1951. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,

1:38:01please visit Libravox.org. Act 3. On the shores of the Mediterranean, to the left in the foreground, a white wall, and above it branches of an orange tree with ripe fruit on them. In the background, villas and a casino placed on a terrace. To the right, a huge pile of coal and two wheelbarrows. In the background, to the right, a corner of blue sea. Two coal-heavers, naked to the waist, their faces, hands, and bodies blackened by coal dust, are seated on the wheelbarrows. Their expressions show intense despair. The daughter and the lawyer in the background. This is Paradise. This is Hell. 120 degrees in the shadow. Let's have a bath. The police won't let us. No bathing here. Couldn't we pick some fruit off that tree?

1:39:04Then the police would get after us. But I cannot do a thing in this heat. I'll just chuck the job. Then the police will get you for sure. And you wouldn't have anything to eat anyhow. Nothing to eat. We who work hardest get least food. And the rich who do nothing get most. Might one not, without disregard of truth, assert that this is injustice. What has the daughter of the gods to say about it? I can say nothing at all. But tell me, what have you done that makes you so black and you're a lot so hard? What have we done? We've been born of poor and perhaps not very good parents. Maybe we've been punished a couple of times. Punished? Yes. The unpunished hang out in the casino up there and dine on eight courses with wine. The daughter to the lawyer. Can that be true? On the whole. Yes. You mean to say that every man at some time has deserved to go to prison?

1:40:05Yes. You too. Yes. Is it true that the poor cannot bathe in the sea? Yes. Not even with their clothes on. None but those who intend to take their own lives escape being fined. And those are said to get a good rubbing at the police station. What can they not go outside of the city, out into the country and bathe there? There is no place for them. All the land is fenced in. But I mean in the free open country. There is no such thing. It all belongs to somebody. Even the sea? The great vast sea? Even that. You cannot sail the sea in a boat and land anywhere without having it to put down in riding and charged for. It is lovely. This is not paradise. I should say not. Why don't men do something to improve their lot? Oh, they try, of course.

1:41:07But all the approvers end in prison or in the madhouse. Who puts them in prison? All the right-minded, all the respectable. Who sends them to the madhouse? Their own despair. When they grasp the hopelessness of their efforts. Has the thought not occurred to anybody? That for secret reasons it must be as it is? Yes. Those who are well-off always think so. That it is all right as it is. And yet we are the foundations of society. If the coal is not unloaded, then there will be no fire in the kitchen stove in the parlor great or in the factory furnace. Then the light will go out in streets and shops and homes. Then darkness and coal will descend upon you. And therefore we have to sweat as in hell so that the black coals may be had. And what do you do for us in return? The lawyer to the daughter. Help them. That conditions cannot be quite the same for everybody I understand.

1:42:10But why should they differ so widely? A gentleman and a lady pass across the stage. Will you come and play a game with us? No, I must take a walk so I can eat something for dinner. So that he can eat something? So that he can? Children enter and cry with horror when they catch sight of the grimy workers. They cry when they see us. They cry. Damn it all. I guess we'll have to pull out the scaffold soon enough and begin to operate on this rotten body. Damn it, I say too. The lawyer to the daughter. Yes, it is all wrong. And men are not so very bad. But. But? But the government. The daughter goes out hiding her face in her hands.

1:43:10This is not paradise. No, hell. That's what it is. Curtin. End of Act 3. Act 4 of the Dreamplay by August Strinberg. Translated by Edwin Bjorkman 1866-1951. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Act 4. Fingles cave. Long green waves are rolling slowly into the cave. In the foreground a siren buoy is swaying to and fro in time with the waves, but without sounding except at the indicated moment. Music of the winds, music of the waves.

1:44:12The daughter and the poet. Where are you leading me? Bar away from the noise and lament of the man-children, to the utmost end of the ocean, to the cave that we name Indra's ear, because it is the place where the King of the Heavens is said to listen to the complaints of the mortals. What in this place? Do you see how this cave is built like a shell? Yes, you can see it. Do you know that your ear too is built in the form of a shell? You know it, but have not thought of it. She picks up a shell from the beach. Have you not as a child held such a shell to your ear and listened, and heard the ripple of your heart-blood, the humming of your thoughts in the brain, the snapping of a thousand little worn-out threads in the tissues of your body? All that you hear in this small shell. Imagine them what may be heard in this larger one. The poet listening. I hear nothing but the whispering of the wind. Then I shall interpret it for you. Listen, the whale of the winds. Resights to subdued music.

1:45:13Born beneath the clouds of heaven, driven we were by the lightnings of Indra down to the sand covered earth. Strop from the harvested fields, soiled our feet, dust from the high roads, smoke from the cities, foul-smelling breaths, fumes from sellers and kitchens, all we endured. Then to the open sea we fled, filling our lungs with air, shaking our wings, and laving our feet. Indra, Lord of the heavens, hear us, hear our sighing. Unclean as the earth, evil is life, neither good nor bad can men be deemed. As they can, they live one day at a time. Sons of dust, through dust they journey, born out of dust, to dust they return. Given they were for trudging, feet not wings for flying. Dusty they grow, lies the fault then with them, or with thee. Thus I heard it once. Hush, the winds are still singing. Resights to subdued music.

1:46:15We winds that wander, we the air's offspring. Bear with us men's lament. Hurt us you have during gloom filled fall nights, in chimneys and pipes, in keyholes and door cracks, when the rain wept on the roof. Hurt us you have in the snow-clad pine woods, mids wintry gloom. Hurt us you have, cruning and moaning, in ropes and rigging, on the high heaving sea. It was we, the winds, offspring of the air, who learned how to grieve within human breasts, through which we passed, in sick rooms and battlefields, but mostly where the newborn whimpered and wailed, at the pain of living. We, we the winds, we are whining and whistling. Whoa, whoa, whoa! It seems to me that I have already hushed. Now the waves are singing. Resights to subdued music. We, we waves that are rocking the winds to rest. Green cradles we waves.

1:47:16Wet are we and salty, leap like flames of fire. Wet flames are we, burning, extinguishing, cleansing, replenishing, bearing, engendering. We, we waves that are rocking the winds to rest. False waves and faithless, everything on earth that is not burned is drowned by the waves. Look at this. Pointing to pile of debris. See what this sea has taken and spoiled. Nothing but the figureheads remain of the sunken ships, and the names, justice, friendship, golden peace, hope that is all that has left of hope, of fickle hope, railings, tholes, bales, and low, the life-booy, which saved itself and let distressed men perish. The poet's searching in the pile. Here is the nameboard of the ship, justice. That was the one which left Fair Haven with the Blindman's sun on board.

1:48:16It is lost then, and with it agon the lover of Alice, the hopeless love of Edith. The Blindman, Fair Haven, I must have been dreaming of them, and the lover of Alice, plain Edith, Bowelstrand in the quarantine, Sulfur in Carbolic Acid, the graduation in the church, the lawyer's office, passageway in Victoria, the growing castle in the officer, all this I have been dreaming. It was in one of my poems. You know then what poetry is. I know then what dreaming is, but what is poetry? Not reality, but more than reality. Not dreaming, but daylight dreams. And the man children think that we poets are only playing, that we invent and make believe. And fortunate it is my friend, for otherwise the world would lie fallow for lack of administration. Everybody would be stretched on his back, staring into the sky. Nobody would be touching clout or spade, hammer or plain.

1:49:17And you say this, Ender's daughter, you who belong in part up there. You do right in reproaching me. Too long have I stayed down here taking mud baths like you. My thoughts have lost their power of flight. There was clay on their wings, myer on their feet, and I'm myself. Raising her arms. I sink. I sink. Help me father, Lord of the heavens. Silence. I can no longer hear his answer. The ether no longer carries the sound from his lips to my ear's shell. The silvery thread is snapped. Oh, as me, I am earthbound. Do you mean to ascend soon? As soon as I have consigned this mortal shape to the flames, for even the waters of the ocean cannot cleanse me. Why do you question me thus? Because I have a prayer. What kind of prayer? A written supplication from humanity to the ruler of the universe, formulated by a dreamer. To be presented by whom?

1:50:18By Indra's daughter. Can you repeat what you have written? I can. Speak it then. Better that you do it. Where can I read it? In my mind. Or here. Hands are a role of paper. The daughter receives the role but reads without looking at it. Well, by me it shall be spoken then. Why must you be born in anguish? Why, O man-child, must you always ring your mother's heart with torture when you bring her joy maternal? Highest happiness yet known. Why to life must you awaken? Why to light give natal greeting? With a cry of anger and of pain? Why not meet it smiling, man-child? When the gift of life is counted in itself a boon unmatched? Why like beech should we be coming? We have raced divine and human. Better garment craves the spirit than one made of filth and blood. Need a god his teeth be changing? Silence rash one. Is it seemingly for the work to blame its maker?

1:51:20No one yet has solved life's riddle. Thus begins the human journey, or a road of thorns and thistles. If a beaten path be offered it is named at once forbidden. If a flower you covet straight away you are told that is another's. If a field should bar your progress and you dare to break across it you destroy your neighbor's harvest others than your own will trample that the measure may be evened. Every moment of enjoyment brings to someone else a sorrow, but your sorrow gladdens no one, for from sorrow not but sorrow springs. Thus your journey till you die and your death brings others bread. Is it thus that you approach son of dust the one most high? Could the son of dust discover words so pure and bright and simple that to heaven they might ascend? Child of gods will bow interpret mankind's grievance in some language that immortals understand. I will. The poet pointing to the buoy.

1:52:22What is that floating there? A boy. Yes. It looks like a lung with a windpipe. It is the watchman of the seas. When danger is abroad it sings. It seems to me as if the sea were rising and the waves growing larger. Nada, likely. Whoa, what do I see? A ship bearing down upon the reef. What ship can that be? The ghost ship of the seas I think. What ship is that? The flying Dutchman. Oh, that one. Why is he punished so hard and why does he not see Carver? Because he had seven faithless wives. And for this you should be punished. Yes. All the right minded condemned him. Strange world this. How can he then be freed from his curse? Freed. Oh, they take good care that none is set free. Why? Because no, it is not the Dutchman. It is an ordinary ship in distress.

1:53:22Why does not the boy cry out now? Look how the seas rising. How high the waves are. Soon we shall be unable to get out of the cave. Now the ship's bell is ringing. Soon we shall have another figurehead. Cry out, boy. Do your duty watchman. The buoy sounds a four voice chord of fifths and sixth. Reminding one of far-corns. The crew is signaling to us, but we adoomed ourselves. Do you not wish to be set free? Yes, of course. Of course I wish it, but not just now and not by water. The crew sings in quartet. Christ, carry. Now they are crying aloud and so is the sea, but no one gives ear. Christ, carry.

1:54:24Who is coming there? Walking on the waters. There is only one who does that, and it is not Peter, the rock, for he sank like a stone. A white light is seen shining over the water at some distance. Christ, carry. Can this be he? It is he, the crucified. Why? Tell me why was he crucified? Because he wanted to set free. What was it? I have forgotten. That crucified him. All the right-minded. What a strange world. The sea is rising. Darkness is closing in upon us. The storm is growing. The crew set up a wild outcry. The crew scream with horror at the sight of their savior. And now they are leaping overboard for fear of the Redeemer. The crew utter another cry.

1:55:24Now they are crying because they must die, crying when they are born and crying when they pass away. The rising waves threaten to engulf the two in the cave. If I could only be sure that it is a ship. Really, I don't think it is a ship. It is a two-story house with trees in front of it, and a telephone tower, a tower that reaches up into the skies. It is the modern tower of Babel, sending wires to the upper regions, to communicate with those above. Child, the human thought needs no wires to make a way for itself. The prayers of the pie is penetrate the universe. It cannot be a tower of Babel, for if you want to assail the heavens you must do so with prayer. No, it is no house, no telephone tower. Don't you see? What are you seeing? I see an open space covered with snow, a drill ground. The winter sun is shining from behind a church on a hill,

1:56:26and the tower is casting its long shadow on the snow. Now a trough of soldiers come marching across the grounds. They march up along the tower, up the spire. Now they have reached the cross, but I have a feeling that the first one who steps on the gilded weathercock at the top must die. Now they are near it. A corp will is leading them. There comes a cloud sweeping across the open space, and right in front of the sun, of course. Now everything is gone. The water in the cloud put out the sun's fire. The light of the sun created the shadow picture of the tower, but the shadow picture of the clouds swallowed the shadow picture of the tower. While the poet is still speaking, the stage is changed and shows once more the passageway outside the opera house. The daughter to the fortress. Has the Lord Chancellor arrived yet? No, and the deans of the faculties.

1:57:27No, call them at once then for the doors to be opened. Is it very pressing? Yes, it is. For there is the suspicion that the solution of the world riddle may be hidden behind it. Call the Lord Chancellor and the deans the four faculties also. The fortress blows in a whistle. And do not forget the glazier and his diamond, for without them nothing can be done. Stage people enter from the left as in the earlier scene. The officer enters from the background in Prince Albert and High Hat with a bunch of roses in his hand looking radiantly happy. Victoria! The young lady will be coming in a moment. Ah, good. The carriage is waiting. The table is set. The wine is on ice. Permit me to embrace you, madam. Embrace is the fortress. Victoria! A woman's voice from above sings.

1:58:29I am here. The officer begins walking too and fro. Good! I am waiting. It seems to me that all this has happened before. So it seems to me also. Perhaps I have dreamt it. Or put it in a poem perhaps. Or put it in a poem. And you know what poetry is. Then I know what dreaming is. It seems to me that we have said all this to each other before in some other place. Then you may soon figure out what reality is. Or dreaming. Or poetry. Enter the Lord Chancellor and the deans of the theological, philosophical, medical, and legal faculties. It is about the opening of that door. Of course. What does the dean of the theological faculty think of it? I do not think I believe. I thought.

1:59:29I know. I doubt. And too I have evidence in witnesses. Now they are fighting again. Well, what does theology believe? I believe that this door must not be opened because it hides dangerous truths. Truth is never dangerous. What is truth? What can be proved by two witnesses? Anything can be proved by two false witnesses thanks to petty father. Truth is wisdom. And wisdom knowledge is philosophy itself. Philosophy is the science of sciences, the knowledge of knowing, and all other sciences are its servants. Natural science is the only true science. And philosophy is no science at all. It is nothing but anti-speculation. Good. Philosophy to theology. Good you say. And what are you then? You are the art enemy of all knowledge.

2:00:30You are the very antithesis of knowledge. You are ignorance and obscuration. Good. Theology to medicine. You cry good, you, who cannot see beyond the length of your own nose in the magnifying glass, who believes in nothing but your own unreliable senses. In your vision for instance, which may be far-sighted, near-sighted, blind, purblind, cross-eyed, one-eyed, colorblind, red-blind, green-blind, idiot. Ass! They fight. Peace. One crow does not pick out the other's eye. If I had to choose between those two, theology and medicine, I should choose neither. And if I had to sit in judgment on the three of you, I should find all guilty. You cannot agree on a single point and you would never would. Let us get back to the case in court. What is the opinion of the Lord Chancellor as should this door in its opening?

2:01:35Opinion? I have no opinion whatever. I am merely appointed by the government to see that you don't break each other's arms and legs in the council, while you are educating the young. Opinion? Why I take mighty good care to avoid everything of the kind, once I had one or two, but they were refuted at once. Opinions are always refuted by their opponents, of course. But perhaps we might open the door now, even with the risk of finding some dangerous truths behind it. What is truth? What is truth? I am the truth. I am the science of sciences. I am the only exact science. I doubt. They fight. Instructors of the young take shame. Lord Chancellor, as a representative of the government, as head of the corpse of instructors, you must prosecute this woman's offense. She has told all of you to take shame, which is an insult.

2:02:40And she has, in this nearing neuronal sense, called during instructors of the young, which is a slenderer's peach. Poor youth. She pleases the young, which is your accuser. Lord Chancellor, you must prosecute your offense. Yes, I accuse you, you in a body, of sowing doubt and discord in the minds of the young. Listen to her. She herself is making a young question our authority, and then she charges us with sowing doubt. Is it not a criminal act? I asked all the right-minded. Yes, it is criminal. All the right-minded have condemned you, leaving peace with your Luke or else... My Luke or else? What else? Else you'll be stoned. Oh, crucified. I leave. Follow me and you shall learn the riddle. Which riddle? What did he mean with my Luke? Probably nothing at all.

2:03:40That kind of thing we call talk. He was just talking. But it was what hurt me more than anything else. That is why he said it, I suppose. Men are that way. Hooray, hooray. The door is open. The door is open. The door is open. What was behind the door? I can see nothing. He cannot see anything. Of course he cannot. Deans of the faculties. What was behind that door? Nothing. That is the solution of the world riddle. In the beginning God created heaven and the earth. Out of nothing. Out of nothing comes nothing. Yes, Bosch. Which is nothing. I doubt. And this is a case of deception. I appeal to all the right-minded. The daughter to the poet. Who are the right-minded? Who can tell? Frequently all the right-minded consist of a single person.

2:04:43Today it is me and mine. Tomorrow it is you and yours. To that position you are appointed. Or rather, you appoint yourself to it. We have been deceived. Who has deceived you? The daughter. The daughter. Will the daughter please tell us what she meant by having this door opened? No friends. If I did you would not believe me. Why then? There is nothing there. You have said it, but you have not understood. It is Bosch what she says. Bosch. The daughter to the poet. They are to be pitted. Are you an earnest? Always an earnest. Do you think the right-minded are to be pitted also? They most of all perhaps. And the full faculties too. They also, and not the least, four heads, four minds and one body. Who made that monster?

2:05:43She has answered. Stone her then. I have answered. Here she answers. Stone her. She answers. Whether she answers or do not answer, stone her. Come, prophet, and I shall tell you the riddle. But far away from here, out in the desert, where no one can hear us, no one sees us, four. The lawyer enters and takes the daughter by the arm. Have you forgotten your duties? Oh, heavens no, but I have hired duties. And your child? My child, what of it? Your child is crying for you. My child? Whoa, I am earthbound. In this pain in my breast, this anguish. What is it? Don't you know? No. It is remorse. Is that remorse? Yes. And it follows every neglected duty. Every pleasure, even the most innocent,

2:06:43if innocent pleasures exist, which seems doubtful. And every suffering inflicted upon one's fellow beings. And there is no remedy? Yes, but only one. It consists in doing your duty at once. You look like a demon when you speak that word duty. And when, as in my case, there are two duties to be met. Leach one first and then the other. The highest first. Therefore you look after my child and I shall do my duty. Your child suffers because it misses you. Can you bear to know that a human being is suffering for your sake? Now strife has entered my soul. It is rent and two, and the halves are being pulled in opposite directions. Such you know our life's little discord. Oh, how it is pulling. If you could only know how I have spread sorrow and ruin around me by the exercise of my calling. And note that I say calling, which carries with it the highest duty of all.

2:07:46Then you would not even touch my hand. What do you mean? I had a father who put his whole hope on me as his only son, destined to continue his enterprise. I ran away from the business college. My father grieved himself to death. My mother wanted me to be religious, and I could not do what she wanted. And she disowned me. I had a friend who assisted me through trying days of need. And that friend acted as a tyrant against those on whose behalf I was speaking and writing. And I had to strike down my friend and benefactor in order to save my soul. Since then I have had no peace. Men call me devoid of honor, infamous. And it does not help that my conscience says, you have done right. For in the next moment it is saying, you have done wrong. Such is life. Come with me into the desert. You were child. The daughter indicating all those present.

2:08:50Here are my children. By themselves they are good, but if they only come together then they quarrel and turn into demons. They are well. Outside the castle, the same scenery as in the first scene of the first act, but now the ground in front of the castle wall is covered with flowers, blue monkhood or aconite. On the roof of the castle at the very top of its lantern, there is a crescentham on bud ready to open. The castle windows are illuminated with candles, the daughter and the poet. The hour is not distant when, with the help of the flames, I shall once more ascend to the ether. It is what you call to die and what you approach in fear. Fear of the unknown. Which is known to you. Who knows it? All. Why do you not believe your profits? Profits have always been disbelieved. Why is that so? And if God has spoken, why will men not believe then? His convincing power ought to be irresistible.

2:09:51Have you always doubted? No. I have had certainty many times. But after a while it passed away, like a dream when you wake up. It is not easy to be human. You see and admit it? I do. Listen, was it not Indra that once sent his son down here to receive the complaints of mankind? Thus it happened, and how was he received? How did he fill his mission? To answer with another question. And if I may reply was still another, was not man's position battered by his visit to the earth? Answer truly. Bettered. Yes, a little, a very little. But instead of asking questions, will you not tell the riddle? Yes, but to what use you will not believe me? In you I shall believe, for I know who you are. Then I shall tell. In the morning of the ages before the sun was shining, Brahma, the divine primal force, let himself be persuaded by Maya, the world mother,

2:10:54to propagate himself. This meeting of the divine primal matter with the earth matter was the fall of heaven into sin. Thus the world, existence, mankind are nothing but a phantom, an appearance, a dream image, my dream. A dream of truth. But in order to free themselves from the earth matter, the offspring of Brahma seek probation and suffering. There you have suffering as a liberator. But this craving for suffering comes into conflict with the craving for enjoyment or love. Do you now understand what love is? With its utmost joys merged into its utmost sufferings, with its mixture of what is most sweet and most bitter. Can you now grasp what woman is? Woman threw him sin and death found their way into life. I understand. And the end? You know it, conflict between the pain of enjoyment and the pleasure of suffering, between the pains of the penitent and the joys of the prodigal. A conflict it is then. Conflict between opposites produces energy, as fire and water give the power of steam.

2:11:57But peace? Rest? Hush, you must ask no more, and I can no longer answer. The altar is already adorned for the sacrifice. The flowers are standing guard. The candles aren't lit. There are white sheets in the windows. Spruce bows have been spread in the gateway. And you say this is calmly as if for you suffering did not exist. You think so? I have suffered all your sufferings, but in a hundredfold degree, for my sensations were so much more acute. Relate your sorrow. Powet, could you tell your so that not one word went too far? Could your word at any time approach your thought? No, you were right. To myself I appeared like one struck dumb. And when the mass listened admiringly to my song, I found it mere noise. For this reason you see, I have always felt ashamed when they praised me. And then you ask me, look me straight in the eye. I cannot bear your glance. How could you bear my word then?

2:12:57Where I to speak in your tongue. But tell me at least before you go. From what did you suffer most of all down here? From being. To feel my vision weakened by an eye, my hearing blunted by an ear, my thought, my bright and buoyant thought, bound and labyrinthian coils of fat. You have seen a brain, what round about and sneaking paths? Well, that is because all the right mind it think crookedly. Malicious, always malicious, all of you. How could one possibly be otherwise? First of all, I now shake the dust for my feet, the dirt and the clay. Takes off her shoes and puts them into the fire. The portrait puts her Shah into the fire. Perhaps I may burn my shore at the same time? Goes out. The officer enters. And I am my roses, of which only the thorns are left. Goes out.

2:13:58The bill poster enters. My bills go, but never the dip net. Goes out. The glacier enters. Good diamond, the omen, the door. Good bye. Goes out. The lawyer enters. The minutes of the great process concerning the Pope's beard, where the water loss and the sources of the Ganges. Goes out. Master of quarantine enters. A small contribution in shape of the black mask that made me a black amore against my will. Goes out. Victoria enters. My beauty. My sorrow. Goes out. Edith enters. My planness, my sorrow. Goes out. The blind man enters, puts his hand into the fire.

2:15:01I give my hand for my eye. Goes out. Don Juan in his wheelchair, she and the friend. Hurry up, hurry up, life is short. Leaves with the other two. I have read that when the end of life draws near, everything can everybody rushes by and continues review. Is this the end? Yes, it is my end. Farewell. Give us a parting word. No, I cannot. Do you believe that your words can express our thoughts? Dean of theology enters in a rage. I am cast off by God and persecuted by man. I am deserted by the government and squirred by my colleague. How am I to believe when nobody else believes? How am I to defend a God? That does not defend his own. Bosh, that's what it is. Throws a book on the fire and goes out.

2:16:05The poet snatches the book out of the fire. Do you know what it is? A martyrology. A calendar with a martyr for each day of the year. Marder? Yes. One that has been tortured and killed on account of his faith. Tell me why. Do you think that all who had tortured suffer and that all who had killed feel pain? Suffering is said to be salvation and death a liberation. Christine with slips of paper. I paste. I paste until there is nothing more to paste. And if heaven should split in twain, you would try to paste it together. Away. Are there no double windows in this castle? Not one I tell you. Well, then I'll go. Goes out. The parting hour has come. The end draws near. And now farewell, the dreaming child of man, the singer who alone knows how to live.

2:17:05When from the winged flight above the earth, at times they'll sweep us downward to the dust. It is to touch it only, not to stay. And as I go, how when the parting hour is one must leave for air a friend, a place. The heart with longing swells for what one loves, and with regret for all wherein one failed. Oh, now the pangs of life and all their force I feel. I know at last the lot of man. Regretfully one views what once was scorned, for since one never sinned remorse is felt, to stay one craves but equally to leave. As if to horse is tied that pull apart. One's heart is split in twain, one's feelings rent, by indecision, contrast and discord. Farewell, to all thy fellow men make known that where I go I shall forget them not, and in thy name their grievance shall be placed before the throne. Farewell. She goes into the castle, music is heard. The background is lit up by the burning castle,

2:18:06and reveals a wall of human faces, questioning, grieving, despairing. As the castle breaks into flames, the bud on the roof opens into a gigantic chrysanthemum flower. Curtain. End of The Dreamplay by August Strenberg, translated by Edwin Bjorkman, 1866 to 1951.