August Strindberg
Lucky Pehr
PEHR. Oh, he is a good friend of mine.
FIRST FRIEND. [To Pehr.] Beware false friends, Pehr!
SECOND FRIEND. [To Pehr.] Beware false friends, Pehr!
PEHR. Yes, yes!
FIRST FRIEND. [To Pehr.] You'll see, he is going to borrow money from you.
SECOND FRIEND. [To Pehr.] If he asks for a loan from you, you must say no—for he never pays.
PEHR. You don't say so! Well, good friends, don't you think this an excellent repast?
SECOND FRIEND. I never flatter!
FIRST FRIEND. No, my friend, you only stuff yourself! I never flatter, either, but I cannot therefore mask the truth and must acknowledge that anything of this sort I have never before had a share in, and it has to be Christopher that offers such a treat! Your health, brother Christopher!
PEHR. [Aghast.] Christopher?
SECOND FRIEND. I'm a plain, everyday sort of man, and cannot make pretty speeches—which I scorn, and the expression of which from such a source I can ascribe only to a secret desire to get money. That is my plain, everyday opinion.
FIRST FRIEND. What insolence!
PEHR. I must beg that no serious discussions interrupt this delightful gathering, which would be even more agreeable if it were sweetened by some charming representative of the opposite sex.
[A Woman appears.]
PEHR. Behold!
WOMAN. So you couldn't wait for me! That was most impolite, but I forgive you since you are my friend. There's my hand!
PEHR. [Kisses her hand.] I beg a thousand pardons, my beauty, but I must have been mistaken as to the day? Meanwhile, be seated. Will my friends make room at my side? [Friends crowd nearer to him.] No? Well, he who is the younger must do so. That perhaps you do not know? Then he who is my best friend will voluntarily give up his place, for he is always just as near to my heart anyhow. [Both friends give up their places.] I see that you are both my best friends.
WOMAN. And I your best friend among women. Am I not, Alonzo?
PEHR. Quite right. And now as I raise the bumper, I want to drain it to Friendship! Friendship is like gold, for it is pure.
WOMAN. [To friends.] How prettily he speaks!
PEHR. Friendship is like the moon—
THREE FRIENDS. Bravo! Bravo!
PEHR. For it borrows its gold—[Three Friends exchange glances]—from the sun. And it darkens when the sun departs; true, is it not?
ALL THREE FRIENDS. [Sullenly.] Very well said!
PEHR. But friendship is a fire; it must be fed if it is to be kept burning. You have given me your friendship, what have I to give you? [Three friends glance around.] You look on my gold. Alack, it is but dust as compared with your friendship!
WOMAN. [Adroitly.] One must not despise the temporal because the eternal exists.
FRIENDS. Admirably expressed!
PEHR. Very well, I wish to reward your faith. See—all this gold I give you!
ALL THREE FRIENDS. Ah! [They upset the table.]
PEHR. But remember, I have told you that gold is nothing but dross. [Puts hand to mouth and paces back and forth.] O my God! I believe I'm dying!
WOMAN. What's wrong with you, Alonzo?
PEHR. I've got the toothache—oh, my teeth! You see that the rich man, also, is exposed to the annoyances of life. [Friends, with gold pieces, move toward doors.]
PEHR. No, don't leave me alone in my misery—now, when I most need your company!
FIRST FRIEND. Oh, a little toothache is not dangerous; it will soon pass!
SECOND FRIEND. Take some cold water in your mouth, then you'll be all right.
WOMAN. Oh, the men! They are so sensitive to a little pain. You should see a woman suffer!
PEHR. Ah, don't forsake me! I suffer so terribly!
FIRST FRIEND. I shall never forsake you! [Hand on door.] I'll run for the dentist.
PEHR. No, stay!
SECOND FRIEND. [Near door.] No; as George's oldest friend it devolves upon me to—
PEHR. You want to run away from me! Oh, I curse this gold! I curse you, false friends! [Gold pieces in their hands turn black.]
ALL THREE FRIENDS. He has deceived us—look, look! [All three are stricken with toothache and begin to moan.] Oh! Oh!
PEHR. [Recovered.] Oh, it's only a little toothache; it will soon pass.—Take cold water in your mouth, old friend, and then it will disappear. [Woman faints.] Surely a woman will not faint for such a little pain! [Friends rush out.] Now run to the dentist and let him draw all your teeth, foxes! After that you'll not bite any more sheep.
WOMAN. [Coming to.] Alfred! all have forsaken you; but I shall remain with you.
PEHR. Yes, but why should you? I'm as poor as the poorest; soon the tax collector will be coming around for the taxes, and he'll seize everything.
WOMAN. [Snuggles up to him.] Then I want to be at your side to support you—[seizes his hand and steals ring during following speeches] and extend to you the hand—
PEHR. [Duped.] You! Can this be true?
WOMAN. True? Look at me!
PEHR. Ah, I have been told that woman is more faithless than man—
WOMAN. She is wiser than man [puts ring on], therefore she is called faithless. Oh, let me sit, I'm so unstrung! [Pehr leads her to a chair by the wall.]
PEHR. Compose yourself, my friend; I have only frightened you.
WOMAN. Give me a glass of wine; I feel so faint after all this commotion.
[Pehr goes over to table; wall back of the chair opens and woman and chair disappear. Only the hand with ring is seen as she is heard speaking.]
Ha, ha—schoolboy! Learn from this not to trust a woman whom you have tricked!
[Alone, Pehr runs to window and looks out, as he draws back his head, he has the ears of an ass.]
PEHR. Curses on gold, friendship and women! Now I stand alone—poor, deserted—with a pair of long ears and without my magic ring! Had I known that life was so utterly ignoble, I should have stayed at home with the witch. Where shall I turn to now—without friends, without money, without house and home? Trouble awaits me at the door. Must I now, in all seriousness, go out in the world and work for the attainment of my every wish? If only I were not so alone! Yet, why not as well be alone, since there is no such thing as friendship, and everything is so false and empty? Damnation!
[Enter Lisa.]
LISA. Don't curse, Pehr!
PEHR. Lisa! You do not forsake me, although I forgot you in my prosperous days.
LISA. It is in our need that we find our friends.
PEHR. Friends? A curse on friendship!
LISA. Don't, Pehr! There are real friendships in life as well as false friends.
PEHR. I have now tried the good things of life, and I found only emptiness and vanity!
LISA. You have tried in your way—meantime you have made the first plunge of youth, and now you shall be a man! You have looked for happiness in the wrong direction. Don't you want to go out and do good, enlighten your fellow-men, and be useful? For your clear vision can penetrate the perversion and crookedness which one finds in life.
PEHR. And be a great man!
LISA. Great or obscure, it is all one. You shall be useful—you shall be a reformer who leads humanity onward and upward.
PEHR. Yes, a reformer who will be honored and idolized by the people, and whose name will be on everyone's lips.
LISA. Oh, how far you are from the truth, Pehr! You seek greatness only for personal honor; you shall have it and you shall have a new experience.
PEHR. But how? My ring is gone!
LISA. The qualities inherent in that ring are such that it can never be away from its owner.
PEHR. [Looks at his hand.] Ah! See, there it is! Well, then, I want to be a great man—a reformer; but you, Lisa, must follow me.
LISA. Not yet. But I will follow thee at a distance, and when thou dost meet with sorrow and need and the sun of happiness is for thee o'erclouded, then I will be near thee with my weak support. Go thou out into life, see what wrongs are done there; but when 'midst filth and mire thou hast seen how even the flower of beauty thrives, then think on this: Life is made up of both good and bad.
CURTAIN
ACT THREE
SCENE: A public square. To right, Courthouse arcade, above which there is a speakers' cage with places for Burgomaster and Councilmen; to left shoemaker's house, with shop window and sign; outside a bench and table, close to them a hen-coop and water-tub. In the centre of the square stands a pillory, with two neck-irons on chains, above it a bronze figure with a switch in its hand; to right centre, statue o f Burgomaster Hans Schulze, which leans toward a marble female statue crowned with a laurel wreath. Background: view of city.
[Pillory and Statue.]
PILLORY. [Bows low to statue.] Good morning, Statue. Did you sleep well last night?
STATUE. [Nods.] Good morning, Pillory. Did you sleep well yourself?
PILLORY. To be sure I did—and dreamed also! Can you guess what I dreamed?
STATUE. [Crustily.] How should that be possible?
PILLORY. Well, I dreamt—can you imagine it?—that a reformer came to the city.
STATUE. What—a reformer? [Stamps.] Hell! how cold your feet get standing here; but what does one not do for glory's sake! A reformer? Then he, too, is to have a statue?
PILLORY. A statue—well, hardly! No, he had to play statue himself, at my feet, while I clasped him around the neck with both arms. [Neck-irons clash.] You see, he was a real reformer, and not a charlatan, such as you were in life!
STATUE. Oh, bosh! You should be put to shame!
PILLORY. I should—but I always have justice on my side. [Swings switch.]
STATUE. What, then, was his specialty?
PILLORY. He was a reformer in street paving.
STATUE. In street paving? Pestilence and cowardice! He dabbles, then, in my profession. [Bumps into female statue.]
PILLORY. No; he does intelligently what you dabbled in, and you wouldn't be standing where you are had you not been the burgomaster's father-in-law!
STATUE. Was not I the one who carried out the new idea of stone-paved streets?
PILLORY. Yes, that you did; but the idea was not new. And what did you do? In place of the soft sand in which one formerly placed one's feet, one must now balance oneself on jagged and rolly stones, which destroy both feet and shoes—save on the street which leads from your house to the tavern, where you let lay a footbridge of flat stones.
STATUE. And now this reformer—or charlatan—wants to undo what I did?
PILLORY. He wants to tear up what you laid down and pave all the streets with "burgomaster" stones, so that all may be equally comfortable.
STATUE. So he's a rabid radical!
PILLORY. Yes, that's it, and he has no party politics back of him. You had the wagonmaker, the shoemaker, the chiropodist and the burgomaster with you, therefore you succeeded.
STATUE. He'd better be careful! Every stone which he removes from my work the people will hurl at him, and woe be unto him if he touches my memory!
PILLORY. Let us hope that he unmasks you, you old fraud! Do you recall how you happened to become one of the great ones after your death? First, at the funeral, the parson embroidered your virtues—for twenty marks; the contractor, who had grown rich on your streets, delivered a eulogy; the chiropodist, who acquired practice through your beautiful street stones, had a medallion struck of you; then the wagonmaker, who made money patching up wagons, named a vehicle after you; and last, the shoemaker held a memorial fest in your honor. Then it was done! Your son-in-law, the burgomaster, sent out a subscription blank for a statue no one dared refuse, and now you stand there.
STATUE. Yes, I do, and it grieves you. To-day the Schulze Society will come with wreaths and will sing the memorial song ordered by my son-in-law. I daresay having to stand and listen to it will make you writhe.
PILLORY. I can't dispute that, but in the end we shall see if I'm not a true dreamer!
STATUE. Hold your tongue! for here comes the Society.
PILLORY. I shall have to hold my sides for laughter—three persons constitute the whole Society! Last year they were six. You're a back number, Schulze. Soon you'll see that they will move you into the ox-grove!
STATUE. A people who reverence their great men and cherish past events can never sink so low as to consign their statues to the ox-grove.
[Shoemaker comes out from his house and opens shop window.]
SHOEMAKER. I believe there has been rain in the night, brother Schulze looks so shiny. If it will only be fair weather when the singing society makes its appearance! [Shouts back into the house.] Hans!
HANS. [At window.] Yes, master.
SHOEMAKER. Sit here by the window with your work, I'm going out to fulfil a civic duty.
HANS. Yes, master.
SHOEMAKER. If you don't watch out, I'll let the strap do a dance on your back! Do you hear that, knave?
HANS. Yes, master.
[Enter Wagonmaker, with a banner.]
WAGONMAKER. 'Morning, Shoemaker.
SHOEMAKER. Good morning.
[Enter Chiropodist, with a laurel wreath.]
CHIROPODIST. Good morning, good morning. Shall we wait for the burgomaster? I think we'd better hurry along, it's preparing for more rain.
SHOEMAKER. That's just what I said to myself this morning, therefore I was wise and brought my raincoat.
WAGONMAKER. The people should now assemble here and form a procession, but I don't see a cat! Shoemaker, didn't you tell the printer that we were to celebrate the Memorial Festival to-day?
SHOEMAKER. Why certainly, certainly!
WAGONMAKER. Will the gentlemen please form a semi-circle around the object's pedestal—so!
CHIROPODIST. We might begin with the cantata—then perhaps the people will come.
WAGONMAKER. I can't understand why the burgomaster isn't here? He always treated us to brandy other years.
SHOEMAKER. If you start the song he'll wake up, if he has overslept himself. Tune up, gentlemen—do, mi, sol, do!
WAGONMAKER. Then, I'll begin—but watch out for the trio so as to make it a regular ear-splitting ensemble!
[Solo Recitative.]
Hail to thee, Burgomaster!
Hail to thee, benefactor!
Life burns our deeds within its envious fire,
But mem'ry, like a phoenix from the pyre,
Rises on stalwart wing to waft them higher.
SHOEMAKER. Well whistled, Wagonmaker! Any signs of the grog yet?
WAGONMAKER. Go on, Shoemaker! Now comes the aria; it must be rendered with feeling. Then you shall see that the burgomaster will wake up!
SHOEMAKER. [Sings aria.]
ARIA
The breath of the rose and carnation-bud's fragrance, 'mongst
wonder-flowers' fated!
As false at heart
As glitter-wave,
She held toward him her billowy hair,
Where all the ocean's freshness breathes.
And lily so red and lily so white
Confidingly muse on death and life.
CHIROPODIST. That was a rare strophe! But it doesn't seem to have any special bearing upon the subject and our present conditions. Where did you get it?
SHOEMAKER. Well, you see, I have an apprentice at home who is one of your idealists; he does things of this sort when he's free, on Sundays.
WAGONMAKER. If I may venture an opinion, I think it inconceivably difficult to get at the pith of the strophe.
SHOEMAKER. That's just the fine point, you see! But hush—methinks we have the rain here. [Puts on coat.]
WAGONMAKER. Do the gentlemen think it worth while to stand here in the rain and get soaked on that old duffer's account?
SHOEMAKER. But we are paid to support the song and we must at least do the trio before we go; for when we all pitch in together the object itself won't be able to sleep! The oration, on the other hand, can be given at any time; besides, there is too small a public for so big a speech. We'll take the trio—do, mi, sol, do. It is not as ideal as the aria, but it evinces greater familiarity with the specific conditions. [Rain patters, wind increases.]
CHIROPODIST. Damned if I stand here any longer and catch cold for that old charlatan! Remuneration? Six marks each! One can do without that.
WAGONMAKER. I think so, too.
SHOEMAKER. Were you not in on the subscription for the statue, perhaps? Were you not there and helped, with a medallion, to turn him into a great man?
WAGONMAKER. Well, we had to, didn't we? otherwise they would have downed us.
SHOEMAKER. True—but it is ungrateful not to respect his memory. I shall sing the trio alone.
CHIROPODIST. Oh, you can do it—you, with your sou'wester! I'm going home to breakfast. [Flings wreath on pedestal, dashes hood of cloak over head and runs off.]
WAGONMAKER. This is the last time I'm going to lend myself to such tomfoolery! Good-bye!
SHOEMAKER. [Alone.] And now I'm going to the burgomaster's for a brandy. But first, I must deliver my speech to the old man on the pedestal; then my conscience will be easier. [Talks to statue.] You think, you old Schulze, it is for your sake that we sing, for your sake that we speechify; can't you comprehend that we do so for our own sakes? We need a big man to push forward when we turn out to be too little ourselves. We need your word to quote, since no one credits ours. Our little town needed your statue in order to become a great city; your insignificant relatives needed your statue to help them get on and find occupation in this troublesome world—and therefore, mark you, you stand so high above us all—a figure for naught but ciphers! Now you have heard a true remark, you poor wretch! the first and the last you'll hear, perhaps—[Alarmed.] Surely no one has been listening to what I said? Ah! here comes the great man's relative.
[Enter Relative.]
RELATIVE. Good morning, Shoemaker. Have you heard—have you heard of the scurrilous attack?
SHOEMAKER. What now? What's up, Herr Relative?
RELATIVE. A reformer has come to the city; haven't you read his broad-sheet?
SHOEMAKER. No, no!
RELATIVE. Oh, it is unprecedented—read for yourself!
SHOEMAKER. I'm too agitated to read; you read it.
RELATIVE. Then listen to what the scoundrel writes: "A quarter of a century has hardly elapsed since Burgomaster Schulze gladdened this community with weighty improvements as regards its street paving, by giving us in place of the old sand-ground rough cobble stones." Do you hear! Do you hear!
SHOEMAKER. Yes, I hear. But that was not very alarming.
RELATIVE. Not alarming! Doesn't he call him Burgomaster Schulze? One does not say burgomaster of a dead man—one says Our Illustrious—Does not the wretch write about rough cobble stones? Does he not attempt with that to undermine his worth?
SHOEMAKER. But one cannot call it an attack, if he says that cobble stones are rough when they are rough.
RELATIVE. Of course they are rough, but one must not say that they are when a great man is responsible for them. Have a care, Master Shoemaker! I see that you are a sceptic. Have a care—you know the consequences!
SHOEMAKER. For God's sake, I'm no sceptic! Haven't I been standing here chanting odes to brother Schulze?
RELATIVE. Brother! If you were a brother to him in life, please remember that all titles are annulled by death. Will you admit that this is an attack?
