August Strindberg—Portrait in Oil by Richard Bergh, 1906.
The last scenes of the play show us a shame-faced Bertha recovering from the fainting-fit which followed upon the sight of the picture. She knows that Axel has nobly changed the numbers in order to give her a better chance. She knows that circumstances have combined to unmask her completely. He is the stronger, and she offers him her love. Relentless in his masculine strength, Axel shakes her off, turns her out into the street. "You once asked me to forget that you are a woman," he cries, "well, I have forgotten it." She reminds him of a man's duty to his wife. Axel hands her some bank-notes. Bertha departs consoled and Axel goes to meet his mistress. "I want comrades at the café, but at home I want my wife," he cries, before the final exit of Bertha.
Comrades has been confounded with the typical comédie rosse. But here, as in Lady Julie, the collision of character is presented with the intensity which is possible only when a dramatist treats of a question which to him is vital. One inadequately described as a "tragedy," the other as a "comedy," there is in both plays the pessimistic despair of the absolutely sincere anti-feminist. It raises them high above the facile farce of passion, satiety and change. Bertha is to Strindberg the New Woman—a creature to be shunned and exterminated. Nietzsche thought that the "beautiful and dangerous cat," which is woman, should never be visited without a whip. Strindberg would not only bring the whip, but poison to the defeminised monster who wishes to be the rival of man.
In Comrades the dramatist presents his characters with that ironical smile which is the condiment of life's bitter draughts. There is a general consciousness of blague pervading the studio. The doctor who finds the wife, on whom he once lavished a romantic love, a drunken slattern, her daughters in a second union in the service of vice, helps the reeling woman out of the house and expresses his feelings thus: "Oh, Dolce Napoli! Joy of life, where art thou? Went away as she did. Such was the bride of my youth!... Oh, Dolce Napoli! I wonder if the cholera-sick fishing harbour is so sweet, after all! Blague probably. Blague, blague! Brides, love, Naples, joie de vivre, ancient, modern, liberal, conservative, ideal, real, natural—blague. Blague all the way."
Creditors is a one-act play in which we meet the erotic woman, the alluring, treacherous, unmoral creature of instinct and passion, who battens on men's souls—in short, the vampire. After the blague of Comrades the anguish of Creditors. There are two men and one woman in the piece. Tekla has been married to Adolf, a painter, for seven years. Adolf adores her—their love has been a ceaseless giving on his part. He has merged his personality in hers, he has laid his art as a sacrifice on the altar of his devotion. He has thought of her, painted her, modelled her, given her the treasures of his mind, filled her soul until his own is empty, and now he is weak whilst she is strong. They are staying at the seaside place, to which they come every summer. Tekla has been away for a week when the curtain rises on Adolf engaged in modelling the figure of his wife. He is a nervous wreck, semi-epileptic, with crutches by his side. He is talking confidentially to Gustaf, whose acquaintance he has made during Tekla's absence. He does not know that Gustaf is the husband from whom Tekla was separated before he married her, does not know that Gustaf is the creditor to whom they are both in debt. Gustaf induces Adolf to tell the story of his married life, of his sacrifices, his self-effacement, his reckless giving. He subtly leads Adolf to realise Tekla's voracious egotism, her falseness, her voluptuousness, plays upon his jealousy, rouses his suspicions, wrecks his peace of mind. Adolf is fascinated against his will by the force and coolly analysing mind of Gustaf. He cannot understand why there is something in Gustaf's manner of speaking, and in his eye which reminds him of Tekla. Gustaf replies that Tekla and he may be distant relatives, as are all human beings.
They discuss Tekla's first husband. Adolf has never seen him, but knows that he is an idiot, for Tekla has written a book in which the ridiculous man is described. Gustaf shows Adolf that he is treated as the second idiot by Tekla. He asks why Tekla sent away her child. Adolf hesitates to tell his friend, then confesses that at the age of three the child showed a likeness to the first husband which Tekla found unendurable. Gustaf asks Adolf if he has never felt jealous of the first husband. "Would it not nauseate you to meet him when out for a walk, when his eyes on your Tekla would say to you: We instead of I—We?" Adolf admits that the thought has haunted him. Gustaf draws a picture of the torment caused by the indelible memory of the third. "But they know that one sees them in the darkness—and then they are frightened and in their fright the figure of the absent one begins to haunt them, to assume dimensions, to change until he becomes a nightmare disturbing their sleep of love, a creditor who knocks at the door, and they see his black hand between theirs, they hear his grating voice in the silence of the night which should only be disturbed by their beating pulses. He does not prevent their union, but he disturbs their happiness. And when they feel his invisible power of disturbing their happiness, when at last they flee—but flee in vain from the memory which persecutes them—from the debt they have left behind, and the judgment which frightens them, they lack the strength to bear their transgression and find a scapegoat which must be slaughtered...."