Henrik Ibsen

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
What will you bring me home from the hunting, Maia?
MAIA.
You shall have a bird of prey to model. I shall wing one for you.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Laughs mockingly and bitterly.] Yes, to wing things—without knowing what you are doing—that has long been quite in your way.
MAIA.
[Tossing her head.] Oh, just let me take care of myself for the future, and I wish you then—! [Nods and laughs roguishly.] Good-bye—and a good, peaceful summer night on the upland!
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Jestingly.] Thanks! And all the ill-luck in the world over you and your hunting! ”

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
I imagined that which I saw with my eyes around me in the world. I had to include it—I could not help it, Irene. I expanded the plinth—made it wide and spacious. And on it I placed a segment of the curving, bursting earth. And up from the fissures of the soil there now swarm men and women with dimly-suggested animal-faces. Women and men—as I knew them in real life.
IRENE.
[In breathless suspense.] But in the middle of the rout there stands the young woman radiant with the joy of light?—Do I not stand so, Arnold? ”

“ IRENE.
[Gently.] Does not that always happen when a young warm-blooded woman dies?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Oh Irene, have done with these wild imaginings—! You are living! Living—living!
IRENE.
[Rises slowly from her chair and says, quivering.] I was dead for many years. They came and bound me—laced my arms together behind my back—. Then they lowered me into a grave-vault, with iron bars before the loop-hole. And with padded walls—so that no one on the earth above could hear the grave-shrieks—. But now I am beginning, in a way, to rise from the dead. ”

“ MAIA. —the masterpiece that has gone round the whole world, and made you so famous—
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Perhaps that is just the misfortune, Maia.
MAIA.
How so?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
When I had finished this masterpiece of mine— [Makes a passionate movement with his hand] —for "The Resurrection Day" is a masterpiece! Or was one in the beginning. No, it is one still. It must, must, must be a masterpiece!
MAIA.
[Looks at him in astonishment.] Why, Rubek—all the world knows that.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Short, repellently.] All the world knows nothing! Understands nothing! ”

“ MAIA.
Well, at any rate it can divine something—
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Something that isn't there at all, yes. Something that never was in my mind. Ah yes, that they can all go into ecstasies over! [Growling to himself.] What is the good of working oneself to death for the mob and the masses—for "all the world"!
MAIA.
Do you think it is better, then—do you think it is worthy of you, to do nothing at all but portrait-bust now and then?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[With a sly smile.] They are not exactly portrait-busts that I turn out, Maia. ”

“ MAIA.
No. What did you get?
ULFHEIM.
[Looks at her, smiles and nods.] I got the horns! The horns that you can see so plainly. Is not that a comical story, madam bear-murderess?
MAIA.
Oh yes, comical enough! But I know another story that is still more comical.
ULFHEIM.
How does that story go?
MAIA.
This is how it goes. There was once a stupid girl, who had both a father and a mother—but a rather poverty-stricken home. Then there came a high and mighty seigneur into the midst of all this poverty. ”

“ IRENE.
[Hastily hides the knife, and says as though choked with agony.] My whole soul—you and I—we, we, we and our child were in that solitary figure.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Eagerly, taking off his hat and drying the drops of sweat upon his brow.] Yes, but let me tell you, too, how I have placed myself in the group. In front, beside a fountain—as it were here—sits a man weighed down with guilt, who cannot quite free himself from the earth-crust. I call him remorse for a forfeited life. ”

“ MAIA.
I will jump over the precipice yonder, if need be—
ULFHEIM.
And mangle and mash yourself up into dogs'-meat! A juicy morsel! [Lets go his hold.] As you please. Jump over the precipice if you want to. It's a dizzy drop. There's only one narrow footpath down it, and that's almost impassable.
MAIA.
[Dusts her skirt with her hand, and looks at him with angry eyes.] Well, you are a nice one to go hunting with! ”

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Simply the dear domestic animals, Maia. All the animals which men have bedevilled in their own image—and which have bedevilled men in return. [Empties his champagne-glass and laughs.] And it is these double-faced works of art that our excellent plutocrats come and order of me. And pay for in all good faith—and in good round figures too—almost their weight in gold, as the saying goes. ”

“ At that word I left you.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
You take everything so painfully to heart, Irene.
IRENE.
[Drawing her hand over her forehead.] Perhaps you are right. Let us shake off all the hard things that go to the heart. [Plucks off the leaves of a mountain rose and strews them on the brook.] Look there, Arnold. There are our birds swimming.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
What birds are they?
IRENE.
Can you not see? Of course they are flamingoes. Are they not rose-red?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Flamingoes do not swim. They only wade.
IRENE.
Then they are not flamingoes. They are sea-gulls. ”

“ IRENE.
We see the irretrievable only when—
[Breaks off. PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Looks inquiringly at her.] When—?
IRENE.
When we dead awaken.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Shakes his head mournfully.] What do we really see then?
IRENE.
We see that we have never lived.
[She goes towards the slope and descends. [The SISTER OF MERCY makes way for her and follows her. PROFESSOR RUBEK remains sitting motionless beside the brook. MAIA.
[Is heard singing triumphantly among the hills.]
I am free! I am free! I am free! No more life in the prison for me! I am free as a bird! I am free! ”

“ MAIA.
Why he—that horrid bear-killer. Oh you cannot conceive all the marvelous things he has to tell about the mountains. And about life up there! They're ugly, horrid, repulsive, most of the yarns he spins—for I almost believe he's lying—but wonderfully alluring all the same. Oh, won't you let me go with him? Only to see if what he says is true, you understand. May I, Rubek?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Yes, I have not the slightest objection. Off you go to the mountains—as far and as long as you please. I shall perhaps be going the same way myself. ”

“ IRENE.
Why can we not do what we will? [Looks at him and whispers beseechingly with folded hands.] Come, come, Arnold! Oh, come up to me—!
[MAIA enters, glowing with pleasure, from behind the hotel, and goes quickly up to the table where they were previously sitting.] MAIA.
[Still at the corner of the hotel, without looking around.] Oh, you may say what you please, Rubek, but— [Stops, as she catches sight of IRENE] —Oh, I beg your pardon—I see you have made an acquaintance. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ MAIA.
[Regarding him fixedly.] But you like bear-hunting best?
ULFHEIM.
I like it best, yes. For then one can have the knife handy at a pinch. [With a slight smile.] We both work in a hard material, madam—both your husband and I. He struggles with his marble blocks, I daresay; and I struggle with tense and quivering bear-sinews. And we both of us win the fight in the end—subdue and master our material. We never rest till we've got the upper hand of it, though it fight never so hard.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Deep in thought.] There's a great deal of truth in what you say. ”

“ You'll wait, then, in the hut, till the men come with ropes, and fetch you away.
[ULFHEIM, with MAIA in his arms, clambers rapidly but warily down the precipice. IRENE.
[Looks for some time at PROFESSOR RUBEK with terror-stricken eyes.] Did you hear that, Arnold?—men are coming up to fetch me away! Many men will come up here—
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Do not be alarmed, Irene!
IRENE.
[In growing terror.] And she, the woman in black—she will come too. For she must have missed me long ago. And then she will seize me, Arnold! ”

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
When did you begin to seek for me, Irene?
IRENE.
[With a touch of jesting bitterness.] From the moment I realised that I had given away to you something rather indispensable, Arnold. Something one ought never to part with. ”

“ You are ugly, too, Rubek.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Have you only just discovered it?
MAIA.
No, I have seen it for long.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Shrugging his shoulders.] One doesn't grow younger. One doesn't grow younger, Frau Maia. ”

“ MAIA.
Then why did it stop—though there was nothing to be done?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Can't say. No one got out or in; but all the same the train stopped a long, endless time. And at every station I could make out that there were two railway men walking up and down the platform—one with a lantern in his hand—and they said things to each other in the night, low, and toneless, and meaningless.
MAIA.
Yes, that is quite true. There are always two men walking up and down, and talking—
PROFESSOR RUBEK. —of nothing. [Changing to a livelier tone.] But just wait till to-morrow. ”

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Touching his own breast.] In here, you see—in here I have a little bramah-locked casket. And in that casket all my sculptor's visions are stored up. But when she disappeared and left no trace, the lock of the casket snapped to. And she had the key—and she took it away with her.—You, little Maia, you had no key; so all that the casket contains must lie unused. And the years pass! And I have no means of getting at the treasure. ”

“ A slender lady, dressed in fine, cream-white cashmere, and followed by a SISTER OF MERCY in black, with a silver cross hanging by a chain on her breast, comes forward from behind the hotel and crosses the park towards the pavilion in front on the left. Her face is pale, and its lines seem to have stiffened; the eyelids are drooped and the eyes appear as though they saw nothing. Her dress comes down to her feet and clings to the body in perpendicular folds. ”

“ IRENE.
[Immovable as before.] Empty dreams! Idle—dead dreams. For the life you and I led there is no resurrection.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Curtly, breaking off.] Then let us go on playing.
IRENE.
Yes, playing, playing—only playing!
[They sit and strew leaves and petals over the brook, where they float and sail away. [Up the slope to the left at the back come ULFHEIM and MAIA in hunting costume. After them comes the SERVANT with the leash of dogs, with which he goes out to the right. PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Catching sight of them.] Ah! There is little Maia, going out with the bear-hunter. ”

“ 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.
Well, there's some one on the point of giving up the ghost, then—in on corner or another.—People that are sickly and rickety should have the goodness to see about getting themselves buried—the sooner the better.
MAIA.
Have you ever been ill yourself, Mr. Ulfheim. ”

“ PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Slack and weary.] Oh, on a tedious coasting-voyage to the North, I suppose.
IRENE.
[Looks at him, smiles almost imperceptibly, and whispers.] You should rather go high up into the mountains. As high as ever you can. Higher, higher,—always higher, Arnold. ”

“ ULFHEIM.
[Also rising.] Spoken like a woman of spirit, madam! Come with me, then! They swallow whole great thumping meat-bones—gulp them up and then gulp them down again. Oh, it's a regular treat to see them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr. G. S. Titheradge played Rubek, Miss Henrietta Watson Irene, Miss Mabel Hackney Maia, and Mr. Laurence Irving Ulfheim. I find no record of any American performance.
In the above-mentioned letter to Count Prozor, Ibsen confirmed that critic's conjecture that "the series which ends with the Epilogue really began with The Master Builder." As the last confession, so to speak, of a great artist, the Epilogue will always be read with interest. It contains, moreover, many flashes of the old genius, many strokes of the old incommunicable magic. ”

“ From Pillars of Society to John Gabriel Borkman, Ibsen's plays had followed each other at regular intervals of two years, save when his indignation over the abuse heaped upon Ghosts reduced to a single year the interval between that play and An Enemy of the People. John Gabriel Borkman having appeared in 1896, its successor was expected in 1898; but Christmas came and brought no rumour of a new play. In a man now over seventy, this breach of a long-established habit seemed ominous. ”

“ Not in that sense. What I need is the companionship of another person who can, as it were, complete me—supply what is wanting in me—be one with me in all my striving. ”