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PAGE 20

Countess Julie
by [?]

[Exit Kristin.]

JEAN
. Such a devil. And all this on account of your confounded canary!

JULIE
[Tired]. Oh, don’t speak of the canary–do you see any way out–any end to this?

JEAN
[Thinking].

No.

JULIE.
What would you do in my place?

JEAN.
In your place–wait. As a noble lady, as a woman–fallen–I don’t know. Yes, now I know.

JULIE
[She takes up razor from table and makes gestures saying]

This?

JEAN.
Yes. But I should not do it, mark you, for there is a difference between us.

JULIE.
Because you are a man and I am a woman? What other difference is there?

JEAN.
That very difference–of man and woman.

JULIE
[Razor in hand].

I want to do it–but I can’t. My father couldn’t either that time when he should have done it.

JEAN.
No, he was right, not to do it–he had to avenge himself first.

JULIE.
And now my mother revenges herself again through me.

JEAN.
Haven’t you loved your father, Miss Julie?

JULIE.
Yes, deeply. But I have probably hated him too, I must have–without being aware of it. And it is due to my father’s training that I have learned to scorn my own sex. Between them both they have made me half man, half woman. Whose is the fault for what has happened–my father’s? My mother’s? My own? I haven’t anything of my own. I haven’t a thought which was not nay father’s–not a passion that wasn’t my mother’s. And last of all from my betrothed the idea that all people are equal. For that I now call him a wretch. How can it be my own fault then? Throw the burden on Jesus as Kristin did? No, I am too proud, too intelligent, thanks to my father’s teaching.– –And that a rich man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven–that is a lie, and Kristin, who has money in the savings bank–she surely cannot enter there. Whose is the fault? What does it concern us whose fault it is? It is I who must bear the burden and the consequences.

JEAN
. Yes, but– —

[Two sharp rings on bell are heard. Julie starts to her feet. Jean changes his coat.]

JEAN.
The Count–has returned. Think if Kristin has–

[Goes up to speaking tube and listens.]

JULIE.
Now he has seen the desk!

JEAN
[Speaking in the tube].
It is Jean, Excellency. [Listens]. Yes, Excellency.

[Listens].

Yes, Excellency,–right away–immediately, Excellency. Yes–in half an hour.

JULIE
[In great agitation].

What did he say? In Heaven’s name, what did he say?

JEAN.
He wants his boots and coffee in a half hour.

JULIE.
In half an hour then. Oh, I’m so tired–I’m incapable of feeling, not able to be sorry, not able to go, not able to stay, not able to live–not able to die. Help me now. Command me–I will obey like a dog. Do me this last service save my honor. Save his name. You know what I have the will to do–but cannot do. You will it and command me to execute your will.

JEAN.
I don’t know why–but now I can’t either.–I don’t understand myself. It is absolutely as though this coat does it–but I can’t command you now. And since the Count spoke to me– –I can’t account for it–but oh, it is that damned servant in my back–I believe if the Count came in here now and told me to cut my throat I would do it on the spot.