greatest obstacle to social growth, the deadlock in the conflict between the classes. On the other hand, the Jeans, with all their longing for higher possibilities, often become brutalized in the hard school of life; though in the conflict with _Julie_, _Jean_ shows brutality only at the critical moment, when it becomes a question of life and death, a moment that means discovery and consequent ruin, or safety for both.
_Jean_, though the male is aroused in him, pleads with _Julie_ not to play with fire, begs her to return to her room, and not to give the servants a chance for gossip. And when later _Jean_ suggests his room for a hiding place that _Julie_ may escape the approaching merry-makers, it is to save her from their songs full of insinuation and ribaldry.
Finally when the inevitable happens, when as a result of their closeness in _Jean's_ room, of their overwrought nerves, their intense passion, the avalanche of sex sweeps them off their feet, forgetful of station, birth and conventions, and they return to the kitchen, it is again _Jean_ who is willing to bear his share of the responsibility. "I don't care to shirk my share of the blame," he tells _Julie_, "but do you think any one of my position would have dared to raise his eyes to you if you had not invited it?"
There is more truth in this statement than the Julies can grasp, namely, that even servants have their passions and feelings that cannot long be trifled with, with impunity. The Jeans know "that it is the glitter of brass, not gold, that dazzles us from below, and that the eagle's back is gray like the rest of him." For _Jean_ says, "I'm sorry to have to realize that all that I have looked up to is not worth while, and it pains me to see you fallen lower than your cook, as it pains me to see autumn blossoms whipped to pieces by the cold rain and transformed into--dirt!"
* * * * * It is this force that helps to transform the blossom into dirt that August Strindberg emphasizes in "The Father." For the child born against the will of its parents must also be without will, and too weak to bear the stress and storm of life. In "Countess Julie" this idea recurs with even more tragic effect. _Julie_, too, had been brought into the world against her mother's wishes. Indeed, so much did her mother dread the thought of a child that she "was always ill, she often had cramps and acted queerly, often hiding in the orchard or the attic." Added to this horror was the conflict, the relentless war of traditions between _Julie's_ aristocratic father and her mother descended from the people.
This was the heritage of the innocent victim, _Julie_--an autumn blossom blown into fragments by lack of stability, lack of love and lack of harmony. In other words, while _Julie_ is broken and weakened by her inheritance and environment, _Jean_ is hardened by his.
When _Jean_ kills the bird which _Julie_ wants to rescue from the ruins of her life, it is not so much out of real cruelty, as it is because the character of _Jean_ was molded in the relentless school of necessity, in which only those survive who have the determination to act in time of danger. For as _Jean_ says, "Miss Julie, I see that you are unhappy, I know that you are suffering, but I cannot understand you. Among my kind there is no nonsense of this sort. We love as we play--when work gives us time. We haven't the whole day and night for it as you."
Here we have the key to the psychology of the utter helplessness and weakness of the Julie type, and of the brutality of the Jeans. The one, the result of an empty life, of parasitic leisure, of a useless, purposeless existence. The other, the effect of too little time for development, for maturity and depth; of too much toil to permit the growth of the finer traits in the human soul.
August Strindberg, himself the result of the class conflict between his parents, never felt at home with either of them. All his life he was galled by the irreconcilability of the classes; and though he was no sermonizer in the sense of offering a definite panacea for individual or social ills, yet with master touch he painted the degrading effects of class distinction and its tragic antagonisms. In "Countess Julie" he popularized one of the most vital problems of our age, and gave to the world a work powerful in its grasp of elemental emotions, laying bare the human soul behind the mask of social tradition and class culture.
COMRADES Although "Comrades" was written in 1888, it is in a measure the most up-to-date play of Strindberg,--so thoroughly modern that one at all conversant with the _milieu_ that inspired "Comrades" could easily point out the type of character portrayed in the play.
It is a four-act comedy of marriage--the kind of marriage that lacks social and legal security in the form of a ceremony, but retains all the petty conventions of the marriage institution. The results of such an anomaly are indeed ludicrous when viewed from a distance, but very tragic for those who play a part in it.
_Axel Alberg_ and his wife _Bertha_ are Swedish artists residing in Paris. They are both painters. Of course they share the same living quarters, and although each has a separate room, the arrangement does not hinder them from trying to regulate each other's movements. Thus when _Bertha_ does not arrive on time to keep her engagement with her model, _Axel_ is provoked; and when he takes the liberty to chide her for her tardiness, his wife is indignant at the "invasiveness" of her husband, because women of the type of _Bertha_ are as sensitive to fair criticism as their ultra-conservative sisters. Nor is _Bertha_ different in her concept of love, which is expressed in the following dialogue: _Bertha._ Will you be very good, very, very good?
_Axel._ I always want to be good to you, my friend.
_Bertha_, who has sent her painting to the exhibition, wants to make use of _Axel's_ "goodness" to secure the grace of one of the art jurors.
_Bertha._ You would not make a sacrifice for your wife, would you?
_Axel._ Go begging? No, I don't want to do that.
_Bertha_ immediately concludes that he does not love her and that, moreover, he is jealous of her art. There is a scene.
_Bertha_ soon recovers. But bent on gaining her purpose, she changes her manner.
_Bertha._ Axel, let's be friends! And hear me a moment. Do you think that my position in your house--for it is yours--is agreeable to me?
You support me, you pay for my studying at Julian's, while you yourself cannot afford instruction. Don't you think I see how you sit and wear out yourself and your talent on these pot-boiling drawings, and are able to paint only in leisure moments? You haven't been able to afford models for yourself, while you pay mine five hard-earned francs an hour. You don't know how good--how noble--how sacrificing you are, and also you don't know how I suffer to see you toil so for me. Oh, Axel, you can't know how I feel my position.
What am I to you? Of what use am I in your house? Oh, I blush when I think about it!
_Axel._ What talk! Isn't a man to support his wife?
_Bertha._ I don't want it. And you, Axel, you must help me. I'm not your equal when it's like that, but I could be if you would humble yourself once, just once! Don't think that you are alone in going to one of the jury to say a good word for another. If it were for yourself, it would be another matter, but for me--Forgive me! Now I beg of you as nicely as I know how. Lift me from my humiliating position to your side, and I'll be so grateful I shall never trouble you again with reminding you of my position. Never, Axel!
Yet though _Bertha_ gracefully accepts everything _Axel_ does for her, with as little compunction as the ordinary wife, she does not give as much in return as the latter. On the contrary, she exploits _Axel_ in a thousand ways, squanders his hard-earned money, and lives the life of the typical wifely parasite.
August Strindberg could not help attacking with much bitterness such a farce and outrage parading in the disguise of radicalism. For _Bertha_ is not an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when Strindberg satirized the all-too-feminine, the majority of so-called emancipated women are willing to accept, like _Bertha_, everything from the man, and yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return the simple comforts of married life. The ordinary wife, at least, does not pretend to play an important rôle in the life of her husband. But the Berthas deceive themselves and others with the notion that the "emancipated" wife is a great moral force, an inspiration to the man. Whereas in reality she is often a cold-blooded exploiter of the work and ideas of the man, a heavy handicap to his life-purpose, retarding his growth as effectively as did her grandmothers in the long ago. _Bertha_ takes advantage of _Axel's_ affection to further her own artistic ambitions, just as the Church and State married woman uses her husband's love to advance her social ambitions. It never occurs to _Bertha_ that she is no less despicable than her legally married sister. She cannot understand _Axel's_ opposition to an art that clamors only for approval, distinction and decorations.
However, _Axel_ can not resist _Bertha's_ pleadings. He visits the patron saint of the salon, who, by the way, is not M. Roubey, but Mme.
Roubey; for she is the "President of the Woman-Painter Protective Society." What chance would _Bertha_ have with one of her own sex in authority? Hence her husband must be victimized. During _Axel's_ absence _Bertha_ learns that his picture has been refused by the salon, while hers is accepted. She is not in the least disturbed, nor at all concerned over the effect of the news on _Axel_. On the contrary, she is rather pleased because "so many women are refused that a man might put up with it, and be made to feel it once."
In her triumph _Bertha's_ attitude to _Axel_ becomes overbearing; she humiliates him, belittles his art, and even plans to humble him before the guests invited to celebrate _Bertha's_ artistic success.
But _Axel_ is tearing himself free from the meshes of his decaying love.
He begins to see _Bertha_ as she is: her unscrupulousness in money matters, her ceaseless effort to emasculate him. In a terrible word tussle he tells her: "I had once been free, but you clipped the hair of my strength while my tired head lay in your lap. During sleep you stole my best blood."
In the last act _Bertha_ discovers that _Axel_ had generously changed the numbers on the paintings in order to give her a better chance. It was _his_ picture that was chosen as _her_ work. She feels ashamed and humiliated; but it is too late. _Axel_ leaves her with the exclamation, "I want to meet my comrades in the café, but at home I want a wife."
A characteristic sidelight in the play is given by the conversation of _Mrs. Hall_, the divorced wife of _Doctor Ostermark_. She comes to Bertha with a bitter tirade against the Doctor because he gives her insufficient alimony.
_Mrs. Hall._ And now that the girls are grown up and about to start in life, now he writes us that he is bankrupt and that he can't send us more than half the allowance. Isn't that nice, just now when the girls are grown up and are going out into life?
_Bertha._ We must look into this. He'll be here in a few days. Do you know that you have the law on your side and that the courts can force him to pay? And he shall be forced to do so. Do you understand? So, he can bring children into the world and then leave them empty-handed with the poor deserted mother.
_Bertha_, who believes in woman's equality with man, and in her economic independence, yet delivers herself of the old sentimental gush in behalf of "the poor deserted mother," who has been supported by her husband for years, though their relations had ceased long before.
* * * * * A distorted picture, some feminists will say. Not at all. It is as typical to-day as it was twenty-six years ago. Even to-day some "emancipated" women claim the right to be self-supporting, yet demand their husband's support. In fact, many leaders in the American suffrage movement assure us that when women will make laws, they will force men to support their wives. From the leaders down to the simplest devotee, the same attitude prevails, namely, that man is a _blagueur_, and that but for him the Berthas would have long ago become Michelangelos, Beethovens, or Shakespeares; they claim that the Berthas represent the most virtuous half of the race, and that they have made up their minds to make man as virtuous as they are.
That such ridiculous extravagance should be resented by the Axels is not at all surprising. It is resented even by the more intelligent of _Bertha's_ own sex. Not because they are opposed to the emancipation of woman, but because they do not believe that her emancipation can ever be achieved by such absurd and hysterical notions. They repudiate the idea that people who retain the substance of their slavery and merely escape the shadow, can possibly be free, live free, or act free.
The radicals, no less than the feminists, must realize that a mere external change in their economic and political status, cannot alter the inherent or acquired prejudices and superstitions which underlie their slavery and dependence, and which are the main causes of the antagonism between the sexes.
The transition period is indeed a most difficult and perilous stage for the woman as well as for the man. It requires a powerful light to guide us past the dangerous reefs and rocks in the ocean of life. August Strindberg is such a light. Sometimes glaring, ofttimes scorching, but always beneficially illuminating the path for those who walk in darkness, for the blind ones who would rather deceive and be deceived than look into the recesses of their being. Therefore August Strindberg is not only "the spiritual conscience of Sweden," as he has been called, but the spiritual conscience of the whole human family, and, as such, a most vital revolutionary factor.
THE GERMAN DRAMA HERMANN SUDERMANN It has been said that military conquest generally goes hand in hand with the decline of creative genius, with the retrogression of culture. I believe this is not a mere assertion. The history of the human race repeatedly demonstrates that whenever a nation achieved great military success, it invariably involved the decline of art, of literature, of the drama; in short, of culture in the deepest and finest sense. This has been particularly borne out by Germany after its military triumph in the Franco-Prussian War.
For almost twenty years after that war, the country of poets and thinkers remained, intellectually, a veritable desert, barren of ideas.
Young Germany had to go for its intellectual food to France,--Daudet, Maupassant, and Zola; or to Russia--Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoyevski; finally also to Ibsen and Strindberg. Nothing thrived in Germany during that period, except a sickening patriotism and sentimental romanticism, perniciously misleading the people and giving them no adequate outlook upon life and the social struggle. Perhaps that accounts for the popular vogue of Hermann Sudermann: it may explain why he was received by the young generation with open arms and acclaimed a great artist.
It is not my intention to discuss Hermann Sudermann as an artist or to consider him from the point of view of the technic of the drama. I intend to deal with him as the first German dramatist to treat social topics and discuss the pressing questions of the day. From this point of view Hermann Sudermann may be regarded as the pioneer of a new era in the German drama. Primarily is this true of the three plays "Honor," "Magda," and "The Fires of St. John." In these dramas Hermann Sudermann, while not delving deeply into the causes of the social conflicts, nevertheless touches upon many vital subjects.
In "Honor" the author demolishes the superficial, sentimental conception of "honor" that is a purely external manifestation, having no roots in the life, the habits, or the customs of the people. He exposes the stupidity of the notion that because a man looks askance at you, or fails to pay respect to your uniform, you must challenge him to a duel and shoot him dead. In this play Sudermann shows that the conception of honor is nothing fixed or permanent, but that it varies with economic and social status, different races, peoples and times holding different ideas of it. With "Honor" Sudermann succeeded in undermining to a considerable extent the stupid and ridiculous notion of the Germans ruled by the rod and the Kaiser's coat.
But I particularly wish to consider "Magda," because, of all the plays written by Hermann Sudermann, it is the most revolutionary and the least national. It deals with a universal subject,--the awakening of woman. It is revolutionary, not because Sudermann was the first to treat this subject, for Ibsen had preceded him, but because in "Magda" he was the first to raise the question of woman's right to motherhood with or without the sanction of State and Church.
MAGDA Lieutenant Colonel Schwartze, _Magda's_ father, represents all the conventional and conservative notions of society.
_Schwartze._ Modern ideas! Oh, pshaw! I know them. But come into the quiet homes where are bred brave soldiers and virtuous wives. There you'll hear no talk about heredity, no arguments about individuality, no scandalous gossip. There modern ideas have no foothold, for it is there that the life and strength of the Fatherland abide. Look at this home! There is no luxury,--hardly even what you call good taste,--faded rugs, birchen chairs, old pictures; and yet when you see the beams of the western sun pour through the white curtains and lie with such a loving touch on the old room, does not something say to you, "Here dwells true happiness"?
The _Colonel_ is a rigid military man. He is utterly blind to the modern conception of woman's place in life. He rules his family as the Kaiser rules the nation, with severe discipline, with terrorism and despotism.
He chooses the man whom _Magda_ is to marry, and when she refuses to accept his choice, he drives her out of the house.
At the age of eighteen _Magda_ goes out into the world yearning for development; she longs for artistic expression and economic independence. Seventeen years later she returns to her native town, a celebrated singer. As _Madelene dell'Orto_ she is invited to sing at the town's charity bazaar, and is acclaimed, after the performance, one of the greatest stars of the country.
_Magda_ has not forgotten her home; especially does she long to see her father whom she loves passionately, and her sister, whom she had left a little child of eight. After the concert _Magda_, the renowned artist, steals away from her admirers, with their flowers and presents, and goes out into the darkness of the night to catch a glimpse, through the window at least, of her father and her little sister.
_Magda's_ father is scandalized at her mode of life: what will people say if the daughter of the distinguished officer stops at a hotel, associates with men without a chaperon, and is wined and dined away from her home? _Magda_ is finally prevailed upon to remain with her parents.
She consents on condition that they should not pry into her life, that they should not soil and besmirch her innermost being. But that is expecting the impossible from a provincial environment. It is not that her people really question; but they insinuate, they speak with looks and nods; burning curiosity to unearth _Magda's_ life is in the very air.
implore you--let me be happy in my dying hour. Tell me that you have remained pure in body and soul, and then go with my blessing on your way.
_Magda._ I have remained--true to myself, dear father.
_Schwartze._ How? In good or in ill?
_Schwartze._ I love you with my whole heart, because I have sorrowed for you--so long. But I must know who you are.
Among the townspeople who come to pay homage to _Magda_ is _Councillor von Keller_. In his student days he belonged to the bohemian set and was full of advanced ideas. At that period he met _Magda_, young, beautiful, and inexperienced. A love affair developed. But when _Von Keller_ finished his studies, he went home to the fold of his family, and forgot his sweetheart _Magda_. In due course he became an important pillar of society, a very influential citizen, admired, respected, and feared in the community.
When _Magda_ returns home, _Von Keller_ comes to pay her his respects.
But she is no longer the insignificant little girl he had known; she is now a celebrity. What pillar of society is averse to basking in the glow of celebrities? _Von Keller_ offers flowers and admiration. But _Magda_ discovers in him the man who had robbed her of her faith and trust,--the father of her child.
_Magda_ has become purified by her bitter struggle. It made her finer and bigger. She does not even reproach the man, because-- _Magda._ I've painted this meeting to myself a thousand times, and have been prepared for it for years. Something warned me, too, when I undertook this journey home--though I must say I hardly expected just here to--Yes, how is it that, after what has passed between us, you came into this house? It seems to me a little--...I can see it all. The effort to keep worthy of respect under such difficulties, with a bad conscience, is awkward. You look down from the height of your pure atmosphere on your sinful youth,--for you are called a pillar, my dear friend.
_Von Keller._ Well, I felt myself called to higher things. I thought--Why should I undervalue my position? I have become Councillor, and that comparatively young. An ordinary ambition might take satisfaction in that. But one sits and waits at home, while others are called to the ministry. And this environment, conventionality, and narrowness, all is so gray,--gray! And the ladies here--for one who cares at all about elegance--I assure you something rejoiced within me when I read this morning that you were the famous singer,--you to whom I was tied by so many dear memories and-- _Magda._ And then you thought whether it might not be possible with the help of these dear memories to bring a little color into the gray background?
_Magda._ Well, between old friends-- _Von Keller._ Really, are we that, really?
_Magda._ Certainly, _sans rancune_. Oh, if I took it from the other standpoint, I should have to range the whole gamut,--liar, coward, traitor! But as I look at it, I owe you nothing but thanks, my friend.
_Magda._ Which is very convenient for you. But why should I not make it convenient for you? In the manner in which we met, you had no obligations towards me. I had left my home; I was young and innocent, hot-blooded and careless, and I lived as I saw others live. I gave myself to you because I loved you. I might perhaps have loved anyone who came in my way. That--that seemed to be all over.
And we were so happy,--weren't we?...Yes, we were a merry set; and when the fun had lasted half a year, one day my lover vanished.
_Von Keller._ An unlucky chance, I swear to you. My father was ill.
I had to travel. I wrote everything to you.
_Magda._ H'm! I didn't reproach you. And now I will tell you why I owe you thanks. I was a stupid, unsuspecting thing, enjoying freedom like a runaway monkey. Through you I became a woman. For whatever I have done in my art, for whatever I have become in myself, I have you to thank. My soul was like--yes, down below there, there used to be an Æolian harp which was left moldering because my father could not bear it. Such a silent harp was my soul; and through you it was given to the storm. And it sounded almost to breaking,--the whole scale of passions which bring us women to maturity,--love and hate and revenge and ambition, and need, need, need,--three times need--and the highest, the strongest, the holiest of all, the mother's love!--All I owe to you!
_Von Keller._ My child!
_Magda._ Your child? Who calls it so? Yours? Ha, ha! Dare to claim portion in him and I'll kill you with these hands. Who are you?
You're a strange man who gratified his lust and passed on with a laugh. But I have a child,--my son, my God, my all! For him I lived and starved and froze and walked the streets; for him I sang and danced in concert-halls,--for my child who was crying for his bread!
_Von Keller._ For Heaven's sake, hush! someone's coming.
_Magda._ Let them come! Let them all come! I don't care, I don't care! To their faces I'll say what I think of you,--of you and your respectable society. Why should I be worse than you, that I must prolong my existence among you by a lie! Why should this gold upon my body, and the lustre which surrounds my name, only increase my infamy? Have I not worked early and late for ten long years? Have I not woven this dress with sleepless nights? Have I not built up my career step by step, like thousands of my kind? Why should I blush before anyone? I am myself, and through myself I have become what I am.
_Magda's_ father learns about the affair and immediately demands that the _Councillor_ marry his daughter, or fight a duel. _Magda_ resents the preposterous idea. _Von Keller_ is indeed glad to offer _Magda_ his hand in marriage: she is so beautiful and fascinating; she will prove a great asset to his ambitions. But he stipulates that she give up her profession of singer, and that the existence of the child be kept secret. He tells _Magda_ that later on, when they are happily married and firmly established in the world, they will bring their child to their home and adopt it; but for the present respectability must not know that it is theirs, born out of wedlock, without the sanction of the Church and the State.
That is more than _Magda_ can endure. She is outraged that she, the mother, who had given up everything for the sake of her child, who had slaved, struggled and drudged in order to win a career and economic independence--all for the sake of the child--that she should forswear her right to motherhood, her right to be true to herself!
_Magda._ What--what do you say?
_Von Keller._ Why, it would ruin us. No, no, it is absurd to think of it. But we can make a little journey every year to wherever it is being educated. One can register under a false name; that is not unusual in foreign parts, and is hardly criminal. And when we are fifty years old, and other regular conditions have been fulfilled, that can be arranged, can't it? Then we can, under some pretext, adopt it, can't we?
_Magda._ I have humbled myself, I have surrendered my judgment, I have let myself be carried like a lamb to the slaughter. But my child I will not leave. Give up my child to save his career!
_Magda_ orders _Von Keller_ out of the house. But the old _Colonel_ is unbending. He insists that his daughter become an honorable woman by marrying the man who had seduced her. Her refusal fires his wrath to wild rage.
_Schwartze._ Either you swear to me now...that you will become the honorable wife of your child's father, or--neither of us two shall go out of this room alive...You think...because you are free and a great artist, that you can set at naught-- _Magda._ Leave art out of the question. Consider me nothing more than the seamstress or the servant-maid who seeks, among strangers, the little food and the little love she needs. See how much the family with its morality demand from us! It throws us on our own resources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet, in our loneliness, we must live according to the laws which it has planned for itself alone. We must still crouch in the corner, and there wait patiently until a respectful wooer happens to come. Yes, wait. And meanwhile the war for existence of body and soul is consuming us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair, and yet shall we not once dare to give what we have of youth and strength to the man for whom our whole being cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us up in harems or in cloisters--and that perhaps would be best. But if you give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage of it.
But morality and the family never understand the Magdas. Least of all does the old Colonel understand his daughter. Rigid in his false notions and superstitions, wrought up with distress, he is about to carry out his threat, when a stroke of apoplexy overtakes him.
In "Magda," Hermann Sudermann has given to the world a new picture of modern womanhood, a type of free motherhood. As such the play is of great revolutionary significance, not alone to Germany, but to the universal spirit of a newer day.
THE FIRES OF ST. JOHN In "The Fires of St. John," Sudermann does not go as far as in "Magda."
Nevertheless the play deals with important truths. Life does not always draw the same conclusions; life is not always logical, not always consistent. The function of the artist is to portray Life--only thus can he be true both to art and to life.
In this drama we witness the bondage of gratitude,--one of the most enslaving and paralyzing factors. _Mr. Brauer_, a landed proprietor, has a child, _Gertrude_, a beautiful girl, who has always lived the sheltered life of a hot-house plant. The Brauers also have an adopted daughter, _Marie_, whom they had picked up on the road, while traveling on a stormy night. They called her "the calamity child," because a great misfortune had befallen them shortly before. _Mr. Brauer's_ younger brother, confronted with heavy losses, had shot himself, leaving behind his son _George_ and a heavily mortgaged estate. The finding of the baby, under these circumstances, was considered by the Brauers an omen.
They adopted it and brought it up as their own.
This involved the forcible separation of _Marie_ from her gypsy mother, who was a pariah, an outcast beggar. She drank and stole in order to subsist. But with it all, her mother instinct was strong and it always drove her back to the place where her child lived. _Marie_ had her first shock when, on her way home from confirmation, the ragged and brutalized woman threw herself before the young girl, crying, "Mamie, my child, my Mamie!" It was then that _Marie_ realized her origin. Out of gratitude she consecrated her life to the Brauers.
_Marie_ never forgot for a moment that she owed everything--her education, her support and happiness--to her adopted parents. She wrapped herself around them with all the intensity and passion of her nature. She became the very spirit of the house. She looked after the estate, and devoted herself to little _Gertrude_, as to her own sister.
_Gertrude_ is engaged to marry her cousin _George_, and everything is beautiful and joyous in the household. No one suspects that _Marie_ has been in love with the young man ever since her childhood. However, because of her gratitude to her benefactors, she stifles her nature, hardens her heart, and locks her feelings behind closed doors, as it were. And when _Gertrude_ is about to marry _George_, _Marie_ throws herself into the work of fixing up a home for the young people, to surround them with sunshine and joy in their new love life.
Accidentally _Marie_ discovers a manuscript written by _George_, wherein he discloses his deep love for her. She learns that he, even as she, has no other thought, no other purpose in life than his love for her. But he also is bound by gratitude for his uncle _Brauer_ who had saved the honor of his father and had rescued him from poverty. He feels it dishonorable to refuse to marry _Gertrude_.
_George._ All these years I have struggled and deprived myself with only one thing in view--to be free--free--and yet I must bow--I must bow. If it were not for the sake of this beautiful child, who is innocent of it all, I would be tempted to--But the die is cast, the yoke is ready--and so am I!...I, too, am a child of misery, a calamity child; but I am a subject of charity. I accept all they have to give...Was I not picked up from the street, as my uncle so kindly informed me for the second time--like yourself? Do I not belong to this house, and am I not smothered with the damnable charity of my benefactors, like yourself?
It is St. John's night. The entire family is gathered on the estate of the Brauers, while the peasants are making merry with song and dance at the lighted bonfires.
It is a glorious, dreamy night, suggestive of symbolic meaning.
According to the servant _Katie_, it is written that "whoever shall give or receive their first kiss on St. John's eve, their love is sealed and they will be faithful unto death."
In the opinion of the _Pastor_, St. John's night represents a religious phase, too holy for flippant pagan joy.
_Pastor._ On such a dreamy night, different emotions are aroused within us. We seem to be able to look into the future, and imagine ourselves able to fathom, all mystery and heal all wounds. The common becomes elevated, our wishes become fate; and now we ask ourselves: What is it that causes all this within us--all these desires and wishes? It is _love_, brotherly love, that has been planted in our souls, that fills our lives: and, it is life itself.
Am I not right? And now, with one bound, I will come to the point.
In the revelation you will find: "God is love." Yes, God is love; and that is the most beautiful trait of our religion--that the best, the most beautiful within us, has been granted us by Him above. Then how could I, this very evening, so overcome with feeling for my fellow-man--how could I pass Him by? Therefore, Mr. Brauer, no matter, whether pastor or layman, I must confess my inability to grant your wish, and decline to give you a genuine pagan toast-- But Christian symbolism having mostly descended from primitive pagan custom, _George's_ view is perhaps the most significant.
_George._ Since the Pastor has so eloquently withdrawn, I will give you a toast. For, you see, my dear Pastor, something of the old pagan, a spark of heathenism, is still glowing somewhere within us all. It has outlived century after century, from the time of the old Teutons. Once every year that spark is fanned into flame--it flames up high, and then it is called "The Fires of St. John." Once every year we have "free night." Then the witches ride upon their brooms--the same brooms with which their witchcraft was once driven out of them--with scornful laughter the wild hordes sweep across the tree-tops, up, up, high upon the Blocksberg! Then it is, when in our hearts awake those wild desires which our fates could not fulfill--and, understand me well, dared not fulfill--then, no matter what may be the name of the law that governs the world on that day,