Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/60

 The woman in Julie pursues the male, follows him into the kitchen, plays with him as with a pet dog, and then feigns indignation when Jean, aroused makes advances. How dare he, the servant, the lackey, even insinuate that she would have him I " I, the lady of the house! I honor the people with my presence. I, in love with my coachman? I, who step down."

How well Strindberg knows the psychology of the upper classes I How well he understands that their graciousness, their charity, their interest in the " common people " is, after all, nothing but arrogance, blind conceit of their own importance and ignorance of the character of the people.

Even though Jean is a servant, he has his pride, he has his dreams. " I was not hired to be your plaything," he says to Julie; " I think too much of myself for that.

Strange, is it not, that those who serve and drudge for others, should think so much of themselves as to refuse to be played with? Stranger still that they should indulge in dreams. Jean says:

Do you know how people in high life look from the under-world? . . . They look like hawks and eagles whose backs one seldom sees, for they soar up above. I lived in a hovel provided by the State, with seven brothers and sisters and a pig; out on a barren stretch where nothing grew, not even a tree, but from the window I could see the Count's park walls with apple trees rising above