Monologue

Henriette Monologue from There Are Crimes and Crimes

From There Are Crimes and Crimes by August Strindberg

female · anguished · 1:49 min

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(Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece) Look at it! Five-spot of diamonds--the scaffold! Can it be possible that our fates are determined in advance? That our thoughts are guided as if through pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to stop them? But I don't want it, I don't want it!--Do you realise that I must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered? (MAURICE: Tell me about your crime. Now is the time for it.) No, I should regret it afterward, and you would despise me--no, no, no!--Have you ever heard that a person could be hated to death? Well, my father incurred the hatred of my mother and my sisters, and he melted away like wax before a fire. Ugh! Let us talk of something else. And, above all, let us get away. The air is poisoned here. To-morrow your laurels will be withered, the triumph will be forgotten, and in a week another triumphant hero will hold the public attention. Away from here, to work for new victories! But first of all, Maurice, you must embrace your child and provide for its immediate future. You don't have to see the mother at all.

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20s · fear · fate · family · identity

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