Henrik Ibsen

“ ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, yes it is.
BORKMAN.
Your own heart is the only thing that exists for you.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
The only thing! The only thing! You are right there.
BORKMAN. But you must remember that I am a man. As a woman, you were the dearest thing in the world to me. But if the worst comes to the worst, one woman can always take the place of another.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looks at him with a smile.] Was that your experience when you had made Gunhild your wife?
BORKMAN. No. But the great aims I had in life helped me to bear even that. ”

“ ELLA RENTHEIM. You cannot give up two or three little months to brighten the close of a poor waning life?
ERHART.
I cannot, Aunt, however much I may wish to.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Not for the sake of one who loves you so dearly?
MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking sharply at him.] And your mother has no power over you either, any more?
ERHART. I will always love you, mother; but I cannot go on living for you alone. This is no life for me.
BORKMAN. Then come and join with me, after all! For life, life means work, Erhart. Come, we two will go forth into life and work together! ”

“ BORKMAN.
Out into the storm of life, I tell you. Let me go, Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Holding him back.] No, no, I won't let you out! You are ill.
I can see it in your face!
BORKMAN.
Let me go, I tell you!
[He tears himself away from her, and goes out by the hall.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[In the doorway.] Help me to hold him, Gunhild!
MRS. BORKMAN. [Coldly and sharply, standing in the middle of the room.] I will not try to hold any one in all the world. Let them go away from me—both the one and the other! As far—as far as ever they please. [Suddenly, with a piercing shriek.] Erhart, don't leave me! ”

“ You can't think how lonely I feel since Frida left home.
BORKMAN.
Oh, come—you have plenty left.
FOLDAL. Yes, God knows I have—five of them. But Frida was the only one who at all understood me. [Shaking his head sadly.] The others don't understand me a bit.
BORKMAN. [Gloomily, gazing straight before him, and drumming on the table with his fingers.] No, that's just it. That is the curse we exceptional, chosen people have to bear. The common herd— the average man and woman—they do not understand us, Vilhelm. ”

“ The great, unpardonable sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul.
BORKMAN.
And you say I have done that?
ELLA RENTHEIM. You have done that. I have never rightly understood until this evening what had really happened to me. That you deserted me and turned to Gunhild instead—I took that to be mere common fickleness on your part, and the result of heartless scheming on hers. I almost think I despised you a little, in spite of everything. But now I see it! You deserted the woman you loved! Me, me, me! What you held dearest in the world you were ready to barter away for gain. ”

“ BORKMAN.
It wants to come up into the light of day and serve mankind.
[He paces up and down the gallery, always with his hands
behind his back.
FRIDA.
[Sits waiting a little, then looks at her watch and rises.]
I beg your pardon, Mr. Borkman; but I am afraid I must go.
BORKMAN.
[Stopping before her.] Are you going already?
FRIDA. [Putting her music in its case.] I really must. [Visibly embarrassed.] I have an engagement this evening.
BORKMAN.
For a party?
FRIDA.
Yes.
BORKMAN.
And you are to play before the company?
FRIDA.
[Biting her lip.] No; at least I am only to play for dancing. ”

“ BORKMAN. I will work out my own redemption, that is what I will do. I will begin at the bottom again. It is only through his present and his future that a man can atone for his past. Through work, indefatigable work, for all that, in my youth, seemed to give life its meaning—and that now seems a thousand times greater than it did then. Erhart, will you join with me and help me in this new life? ”

“ ELLA RENTHEIM. It is you who have sinned. You have done to death all the gladness of my life in me.
BORKMAN.
[Anxiously.] Do not say that, Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM. All a woman's gladness at any rate. From the day when your image began to dwindle in my mind, I have lived my life as though under an eclipse. During all these years it has grown harder and harder for me—and at last utterly impossible—to love any living creature. Human beings, animals, plants: I shrank from all—from all but one——
BORKMAN.
What one?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Erhart, of course. ”

“ MRS. BORKMAN.
You are going to the Hinkels', Erhart!
ERHART. [Impatiently.] Well, really, mother, I don't think I can well get out of it. What do you say, Aunt?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
I should like you to feel quite free, Erhart.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Goes up to her menacingly.] You want to take him away from me!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Rising.] Yes, if only I could, Gunhild!
[Music is heard from above.
ERHART. [Writhing as if in pain.] Oh, I can't endure this! [Looking round.] What have I done with my hat? [To ELLA RENTHEIM.] Do you know the air that she is playing up there? ”

“ ERHART. [With laboured defiance.] I am in my own power, mother! And working my own will!
BORKMAN. [Advancing towards ERHART.] Then perhaps my hour has come at last.
ERHART. [Distantly and with measured politeness.] How so! How do you mean, sir?
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Scornfully.] Yes, you may well ask that.
BORKMAN. [Continuing undisturbed.] Listen, Erhart—will you not cast in your lot with your father? It is not through any other man's life that a man who has fallen can be raised up again. These are only empty fables that have been told to you down here in the airless room. ”

“ MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking at him with deep solemnity.] Have you forgotten what you have consecrated your life to, Erhart?
ERHART. [With an outburst.] Oh, say rather what you have consecrated my life to. You, you have been my will. You have never given me leave to have any of my own. But now I cannot bear this yoke any longer. I am young; remember that, mother. [With a polite, considerate glance towards BORKMAN.] I cannot consecrate my life to making atonement for another—whoever that other may be.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Seized with growing anxiety.] Who is it that has transformed you, Erhart? ”

“ The actual drama is over long before the curtain falls on either play, and in the one case we have Rita and Allmers, in the other Ella and Borkman, looking back over their shattered lives and playing chorus to their own tragedy. For my part, I set the highest value on these choral odes, these mournful antiphones, in which the poet definitely triumphs over the mere playwright. They seem to me noble and beautiful in themselves, and as truly artistic, if not as theatrical, as any abrupter catastrophe could be. ”

“ Aunt,
aunt! Is it possible? Are you here?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Throws her arms round his neck.] Erhart! My dear, dear boy!
Why, how big you have grown! Oh, how good it is to see you again!
MRS. BORKMAN. [Sharply.] What does this mean, Erhart? Were you hiding out in the hallway?
MRS. WILTON.
[Quickly.] Erhart—Mr. Borkman came in with me.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking hard at him.] Indeed, Erhart! You don't come to your mother first?
ERHART. I had just to look in at Mrs. Wilton's for a moment—to call for little Frida.
MRS. BORKMAN.
Is that Miss Foldal with you too? ”

“ ELLA RENTHEIM. [Slowly.] I wanted to smooth the way for Erhart to happiness in life.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Contemptuously.] Pooh—people situated as we are have something else than happiness to think of.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
What, then?
MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking steadily and earnestly at her.] Erhart has in the first place to make so brilliant a position for himself, that no trace shall be left of the shadow his father has cast upon my name—and my son's.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Searchingly.] Tell me, Gunhild, is this what Erhart himself demands of his life? ”

“ My illness will never be cured, Borkman.
BORKMAN.
Oh, you must not believe that, Ella.
ELLA RENTHEIM. It is a disease that there is no help or cure for. The doctors can do nothing with it. They must just let it take its course. They cannot possibly check it; at most, they can allay the suffering. And that is always something. ”

“ The conception of the three leading figures is one of the great things of literature; the second act, with the exquisite humour of the Foldal scene, and the dramatic intensity of the encounter between Borkman and Ella, is perhaps the finest single act Ibsen ever wrote, in prose at all events; and the last scene is a thing of rare and exalted beauty. One could wish that the poet's last words to us had been those haunting lines with which Gunhild and Ella join hands over Borkman's body:
We twin sisters—over him we both have loved.
We two shadows—over the dead man. ”

“ Well and good, Ella. I am man enough to bear my own name alone.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Seizing and pressing his hand.] Thank you, thank you! Now there has been a full settlement between us! Yes, yes, let it be so! You have made all the atonement in your power. For when I have gone from the world, I shall leave Erhart Rentheim behind me!
[The tapestry door is thrown open. MRS. BORKMAN, with the large shawl over her head, stands in the doorway.
MRS. BORKMAN. [In violent agitation.] Never to his dying day shall Erhart be called by that name!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Shrinking back.] Gunhild! ”

“ You must not think, Mrs. Borkman, that I haven't said the same to him. I have laid my whole life before him. Again and again I have reminded him that I am seven years older than he——
ERHART.
[Interrupting.] ”

“ BORKMAN stands for a moment gazing at the closed door; makes a movement as though to call FOLDAL back, but changes his mind, and begins to pace the floor with his hands behind his back. Then he stops at the table beside the sofa and puts out the lamp. The room becomes half dark. After a short pause, there comes a knock at the tapestry door. ”

“ Borkman!
MRS. BORKMAN. [Rather drily.] Good evening, Mrs. Wilton. [To THE MAID, pointing toward the garden-room.] Take the lamp that is in there and light it.
[THE MAID takes the lamp and goes out with it.
MRS. WILTON. [Observing ELLA RENTHEIM.] Oh, I beg your pardon—you have a visitor.
MRS. BORKMAN.
Only my sister, who has just arrived from——
[ERHART BORKMAN flings the half-open door wide open and rushes
in. He is a young man with bright cheerful eyes. He is
well dressed; his moustache is beginning to grow.
ERHART.
[Radiant with joy; on the threshold.] What is this! Is Aunt
Ella here? ”

“ BORKMAN. [With cold self-control.] How well I recognise your passionate, ungovernable spirit, Ella. No doubt it is natural enough that you should look at the thing in this light. Of course, you are a woman, and therefore it would seem that your own heart is the one thing you know or care about in this world. ”

“ BORKMAN.
[With a look towards ELLA.] In atonement for my blackest sin.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Repelling the idea.] A sin towards a stranger only. Remember the sin towards me! [Looking triumphantly at them both.] But he will not obey you! When I cry out to him in my need, he will come to me! It is with me that he will remain! With me, and never with any one else. [Suddenly listens, and cries.] I hear him! He is here, he is here! Erhart!
[ERHART BORKMAN hastily tears open the hall door, and enters the room. He is wearing an overcoat and has his hat on.
ERHART. [Pale and anxious.] Mother! ”

“ I love you, as you lie there spellbound in the deeps and the darkness! I love you, unborn treasures, yearning for the light! I love you, with all your shining train of power and glory! I love you, love you, love you! ”

“ MRS. BORKMAN.
Just as you please. But at least loosen your cloak.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Unbuttoning her cloak.] Yes, it is very warm here.
MRS. BORKMAN.
I am always cold.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Stands looking at her for a time with her arms resting on the back of the armchair.] Well, Gunhild, it is nearly eight years now since we saw each other last.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Coldly.] Since last we spoke to each other at any rate.
ELLA RENTHEIM. True, since we spoke to each other. I daresay you have seen me now and again—when I came on my yearly visit to the bailiff. ”

“ I have never known pity, since you deserted me. I was incapable of feeling it. If a poor starved child came into my kitchen, shivering, and crying, and begging for a morsel of food, I let the servants look to it. I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm it at my own hearth, to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and be satisfied. And yet I was not like that when I was young; that I remember clearly! It is you that have created an empty, barren desert within me—and without me too! ”

“ ELLA RENTHEIM.
[With surprise.] Erhart! How can Erhart have done that?
MRS. BORKMAN. He has taken an interest in Foldal's youngest daughter. He has taught her things, and put her in the way of getting employment, and some day providing for herself. I am sure that is a great deal more than her father could ever have done for her.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, I daresay her father can't afford to do much.
MRS. BORKMAN.
And then Erhart has arranged for her to have lessons in music.
She has made such progress already that she can come up to—to
him in the gallery, and play to him. ”

“ I have skulked up there and wasted eight precious years of my life! The very day I was set free, I should have gone forth into the world—out into the steel-hard, dreamless world of reality! I should have begun at the bottom and swung myself up to the heights anew—higher than ever before—in spite of all that lay between. ”

“ MRS. BORKMAN, with the shawl still over her head, enters, in violent agitation, by the hall door, goes up to the window, draws the curtain a little aside, and looks out; then she seats herself beside the stove, but immediately springs up again, goes to the bell-pull and rings. Stands beside the sofa, and waits a moment. No one comes. ”