Henrik Ibsen

“ Asta. [Shrieking and stopping her ears.] Alfred!
Allmers. [Clenching his hand firmly upon the table.] Can you conceive the meaning of a thing like this?
Asta. [Looks at him.] Of what?
Allmers. Of this that has been done to Rita and me.
Asta. The meaning of it?
Allmers. [Impatiently.] Yes, the meaning, I say. For, after all, there must be a meaning in it. Life, existence—destiny, cannot be so utterly meaningless.
Asta. Oh, who can say anything with certainty about these things, my dear Alfred?
Allmers. [Laughs bitterly.] No, no; I believe you are right there. ”

“ Ella Rentheim. It is you who have sinned. You have done to death all the gladness of 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.
Borkman. Erhart?
Ella Rentheim. Erhart—your son, Borkman. ”

“ Ella Rentheim. [Quickly.] Gunhild, if you want to cry out to him, now is the time! Perhaps after all——! [The tinkle of the bells sounds close at hand, in the wood.] Make haste, Gunhild! Now they are right under us!
Mrs. Borkman. [Stands for a moment undecided, then she stiffens and says sternly and coldly.] No. I will not cry out to him. Let Erhart Borkman pass away from me—far, far away—to what he calls life and happiness.
[The sound dies away in the distance.
Ella Rentheim. [After a moment.] Now the bells are out of hearing. ”

“ Ella Rentheim. Yes, that’s what I mean. I have said it once before to-night: you have murdered the love-life in the woman who loved you. And whom you loved in return, so far as you could love any one. [With uplifted arm.] And therefore I prophesy to you, John Gabriel Borkman—you will never touch the price you demanded for the murder. You will never enter in triumph into your cold, dark kingdom!
Borkman. [Staggers to the bench and seats himself heavily.] I almost fear your prophecy will come true, Ella. ”

“ Ella Rentheim. Yes, it must be.
Mrs. Borkman. Always to hear his footsteps up there—from early morning till far into the night. And everything sounds so clear in this house!
Ella Rentheim. Yes, it is strange how clear the sound is.
Mrs. Borkman. I often feel as if I had a sick wolf pacing his cage up there in the gallery, right over my head. [Listens and whispers.] Hark! Do you hear! Backwards and forwards, up and down, goes the wolf.
Ella Rentheim. [Tentatively.] Is no change possible, Gunhild?
Mrs. Borkman. [With a gesture of repulsion.] He has never made any movement towards a change. ”

“ 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 a growing anxiety.] Who is it that has transformed you, Erhart?
Erhart. [Struck.] Who? Can you not conceive that it is I myself?
Mrs. Borkman. No, no, no! You have come under some strange power. You are not in your mother’s power any longer; nor in your—your foster-mother’s either.
Erhart. [With laboured defiance.] I am in my own power, mother! ”

“ The fir-branches droop under heavy loads of snow. The night is dark, with drifting clouds. Now and then the moon gleams out faintly. Only a dim light is reflected from the snow.
Borkman, Mrs. Borkman and Ella Rentheim are standing upon the steps, Borkman leaning wearily against the wall of the house. He has an old-fashioned cape thrown over his shoulders, holds a soft grey felt hat in one hand and a thick knotted stick in the other. Ella Rentheim carries her cloak over her arm. Mrs. Borkman’s great shawl has slipped down over her shoulders, so that her hair is uncovered. ”

“ Ella Rentheim. [Taking her outdoor things upon her arm.] For the first time in our lives, we twin sisters are of one mind. Good-night, Gunhild.
[She goes out by the hall. The music sounds louder from above.
Mrs. Borkman. [Stands still for a moment, starts, shrinks together, and whispers involuntarily.] The wolf is whining again—the sick wolf. [She stands still for a moment, then flings herself down on the floor, writhing in agony and whispering:] Erhart! Erhart—be true to me! Oh, come home and help your mother! For I can bear this life no longer! ”

“ Snow-clad peaks rise to the right, and lose themselves in drifting mists. To the left, on a stone-scree, stands an old, half-ruined hut. It is early morning. Dawn is breaking. The sun has not yet risen.
[Maia comes, flushed and irritated, down over the stone-scree on the left. Ulfheim follows, half angry, half laughing, holding her fast by the sleeve.
Maia. [Trying to tear herself loose.] Let me go! Let me go, I say!
Ulfheim. Come, come! are you going to bite now? You’re as snappish as a wolf. ”

“ You shall not stand there listening to a sound that does not exist. I tell you, Asta and Borgheim are on board. They have started already. Asta is gone.
Rita. [Looks timidly at him.] Then I suppose you will soon be gone, too, Alfred?
Allmers. [Quickly.] What do you mean by that?
Rita. That you will follow your sister.
Allmers. Has Asta told you anything?
Rita. No. But you said yourself it was for Asta’s sake that—that we came together.
Allmers. Yes, but you, you yourself, have bound me to you—by our life together.
Rita. Oh, in your eyes I am not—I am not—entrancingly beautiful any more. ”

“ I am speaking of that crime for which there is no forgiveness.
Borkman. [Staring at her.] You must be out of your mind.
245Ella Rentheim. [Approaching him.] You are a murderer! You have committed the one mortal sin!
Borkman. [Falling back towards the piano.] You are raving, Ella!
Ella Rentheim. You have killed the love-life in me. [Still nearer him.] Do you understand what that means? The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness. I have never understood what it could be; but now I understand. The great, unpardonable sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul. ”

“ Rita. Aha, then perhaps you have something still more exquisite in reserve!
Borgheim. [Glancing towards Asta.] Who knows! When once happiness comes to us, it is apt to come like a spring flood. [Turns to Asta.] Miss Allmers, would you not like to take a little walk with me? As we used to?
Asta. [Quickly.] No—no, thank you. Not now. Not to-day.
Borgheim. Oh, do come! Only a little bit of a walk! I have so much I want to talk to you about before I go.
Rita. Something else, perhaps, that you must not talk openly about as yet?
Borgheim. H’m, that depends——
Rita. ”

“ Meanwhile it appears that the agony which Allmers and Rita have endured in probing their wounds has been, as Halvard Solness would say, “salutary self-torture.” The consuming fire of passion is now quenched, but “it has left an empty place within them,” and they feel a common need “to fill it up with something that is a little like love.” ”

“ To say nothing of analogies of detail between Little Eyolf and Jude the Obscure, there is this radical analogy, that they are both utterances of a profound pessimism, both indictments of Nature.
But while Mr. Hardy’s pessimism is plaintive and passive, Ibsen’s is stoical and almost bracing. It is true that in this play he is no longer the mere “indignation-pessimist” whom Dr. Brandes quite justly recognised in his earlier works. His analysis has gone deeper into the heart of things, and he has put off the satirist and the iconoclast. ”

“ Rita. Yes, in our little Eyolf’s place. They shall live in Eyolf’s rooms. They shall read his books. They shall play with his toys. They shall take it in turns to sit in his chair at table.
Allmers. But this is sheer madness in you! I do not know a creature in the world that is less fitted than you for anything of that sort.
Rita. Then I shall have to educate myself for it; to train myself; to discipline myself.
Allmers. If you are really in earnest about this—about all you say—then there must indeed be a change in you.
Rita. Yes, there is, Alfred—and for that I have you to thank. ”

“ No, you feel it so, too, don’t you, Alfred! You could not either, could you?
Allmers. No. For it is here, in the life of earth, that we living beings are at home.
Rita. Yes, here lies the kind of happiness that we can understand.
Allmers. [Darkly.] Oh, happiness—happiness——
Rita. You mean that happiness—that we can never find it again? [Looks inquiringly at him.] But if——? [Vehemently.] No, no; I dare not say it! Nor even think it!
Allmers. Yes, say it—say it, Rita.
Rita. [Hesitatingly.] Could we not try to——? Would it not be possible to forget him?
Allmers. Forget Eyolf? ”

“ Maia. There, you hear, Rubek!
Ulfheim. No, much better come up with me to the mountains—away, clean away, from the trail and taint of men. You can’t think what that means for me. But such a little lady——
[He stops.
[The Sister of Mercy comes out of the pavilion and goes into the hotel.
Ulfheim. [Following her with his eyes.] Just look at her, do! That night-crow there!—Who is it that’s to be buried?
Professor Rubek. I have not heard of any one——
Ulfheim. ”

“ In this play, after the death of Eyolf (surely one of the most inspired “situations” in all drama) there is practically no external action whatsoever. Nothing happens save in the souls of the characters; there is no further invention, but rather what one may perhaps call inquisition. This does not prevent the second act from being quite the most poignant or the third act from being one of the most moving that Ibsen ever wrote. Far from wishing to depreciate the play, I rate it more highly, perhaps, than most critics—among the very greatest of Ibsen’s achievements. ”

“ Borgheim. Ah, Eyolf, by the bye! Where is Eyolf to-day? I’ve got something for him.
Allmers. He is out playing somewhere.
Borgheim. Is he really! Then he has begun to play now? He used always to be sitting indoors over his books.
Allmers. There is to be an end of that now. I am going to make a regular open-air boy of him.
44Borgheim. Ah, now, that’s right! Out into the open air with him, poor little fellow! Good Lord, what can we possibly do better than play in this blessed world? For my part, I think all life is one long playtime!—Come, Miss Asta! ”

“ Ella Rentheim. We have often sat on this bench before, and looked out into a much, much further distance.
Borkman. It was a dreamland we then looked out over.
Ella Rentheim. [Nodding sadly.] It was the dreamland of our life, yes. And now that land is buried in snow. And the old tree is dead.
Borkman. [Not listening to her.] Can you see the smoke of the great steamships out on the fiord?
Ella Rentheim. No.
Borkman. I can. They come and they go. They weave a network of fellowship all round the world. They shed light and warmth over the souls of men in many thousands of homes. ”

“ In this view, Allmers becomes a type of what we may roughly call the “free moral agent”; Eyolf, a type of humanity conceived as passive and suffering, thrust will-less into existence, with boundless aspirations and cruelly limited powers; Rita, a type of the egoistic instinct which is “a consuming fire”; and Asta, a type of the beneficent love which is possible only so long as it is exempt from “the law of change.” Allmers, then, is self-conscious xiegoism, egoism which can now and then break its chains, look in its own visage, realise and shrink from itself ”

“ Like accomplices in xiiicrime, they turn upon and accuse each other—“sorrow makes them wicked and hateful.” Allmers, as the one whose eyes were already half opened, is the first to carry war into the enemy’s country; but Rita is not slow to retort, and presently they both have to admit that their recriminations are only a vain attempt to drown the voice of self-reproach. In a sort of fierce frenzy they tear away veil after veil from their souls, until they realise that Eyolf never existed at all, so to speak, for his own sake, but only for the sake of their passions and vanities. ”

“ Asta and Rita follow him with their eyes.
Rita. You should take these things more quietly, Alfred!
Allmers. [Stops beside the table on the left, and looks at them.] Eyolf shall carry on my life-work—if he wants to. Or he shall choose one that is altogether his own. Perhaps that would be best. At all events, I shall let mine rest as it is.
Rita. [Rising.] But, Alfred dear, can you not work both for yourself and for Eyolf?
Allmers. No, I cannot. It is impossible! I cannot divide myself in this matter—and therefore I efface myself. Eyolf shall be the complete man of our race. ”

“ 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?
Erhart. I solemnly assure you, Aunt Ella, I cannot.
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.
283Borkman. Then come and join with me, after all! For life, life means work, Erhart. ”

“ Allmers. No—they were not.
Rita. Not?
Allmers. No. It was so strange. Both you and Eyolf seemed to have drifted far, far away from me—and Asta, too.
Rita. Then what did you think of?
Allmers. I did not think. I dragged myself along among the precipices—and rejoiced in the peace and luxury of death.
141Rita. [Springing up.] Oh, don’t use such words of that horror!
Allmers. I did not feel it so. I had no fear. Here went death and I, it seemed to me, like two good fellow-travellers. It all seemed so natural—so simple, I thought. In my family, we don’t live to be old——
Rita. ”

“ An extensive view over the fiord, which lies deep below. A flagstaff with lines, but no flag, stands by the railing. In front, on the right, a summer-house, covered with creepers and wild vines. Outside it, a bench. It is a late summer evening, with clear sky. Deepening twilight.
Asta is sitting on the bench, with her hands in her lap. She is wearing her outdoor dress and a hat, has her parasol at her side, and a little travelling-bag on a strap over her shoulder.
Borgheim comes up from the back on the left. He, too, has a travelling-bag over his shoulder. He is carrying a rolled-up flag. ”

“ Foldal. I believe you are doing them an injustice.
Borkman. [Firing up.] I never do any one injustice! Both of them have gone and poisoned his mind against me, I tell you!
Foldal. [Soothingly.] Well, well, well, I suppose they have.
228Borkman. [Indignantly.] Oh these women! They wreck and ruin life for us! Play the devil with our whole destiny—our triumphal progress.
Foldal. Not all of them!
Borkman. Indeed? Can you tell me of a single one that is good for anything?
Foldal. No, that is the trouble. The few that I know are good for nothing. ”

“ He has dreamed and theorised about “responsibility,” and has kept Eyolf poring over his books, in the hope that, despite his misfortune, he may one day minister to parental vanity. Finally he breaks away from Rita, for the first time “in all these ten years,” goes up “into the infinite solitudes,” looks Death in the face, and returns shrinking from passion, yearning towards selfless love, and filled with a profound and remorseful pity for the lot of poor maimed humanity. ”

“ Take, for instance, the history of Rubek’s statue and its development into a group. In actual sculpture this development is a grotesque impossibility. In conceiving it we are deserting the domain of reality, and plunging into some fourth dimension where the properties of matter are other than those we know. This is an abandonment of the fundamental principle which Ibsen over and over again emphatically expressed—namely, that any symbolism his work might be found to contain was entirely incidental, and subordinate to the truth and consistency of his picture of life. ”