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56 Strindberg
gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I
have only to hear his bell, to start like a nervous horse.
. . . And now that I see his boots standing there so stiff
and proper, I feel like bowing and scraping. ... I can t
account for it but but ah, it is that damned servant in
my back I believe if the Count came here now, and
told me to cut my throat, I would do it on the spot. . . .
Superstition and prejudice taught in childhood can t be
uprooted in a moment.
No, superstition and prejudice cannot be up
rooted in a moment; nor in years. The awe of
authority, servility before station and wealth
these are the curse of the Jean class that makes
such cringing slaves of them. Cringing before
those who are above them, tyrannical and over
bearing toward those who are below them. For
Jean has the potentiality of the master in him as
much as that of the slave. Yet degrading as
"
the damned servant
"
reacts upon Jean, it is
much more terrible in its effect upon Kristin, the
cook, the dull, dumb animal who has so little left
of the spirit of independence that she has lost
even the ambition to rise above her condition.
Thus when Kristin, the betrothed of Jean, dis
covers that her mistress Julie had given herself
to him, she is indignant that her lady should have
so much forgotten her station as to stoop to her
father s valet.
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