Mrs. Alving

“ Regina. No, indeed I can't. A poor girl must make some use of her youth, otherwise she may easily land herself out in the cold before she knows where she is. And I have got the joy of life in me too, Mrs. Alving!
Mrs. Alving. Yes, unfortunately; but don't throw yourself away, Regina.
Regina. Oh, what's going to happen will happen. If Oswald takes after his father, it is just as likely I take after my mother, I expect.—May I ask, Mrs. Alving, whether Mr. Manders knows this about me?
Mrs. Alving. Mr. Manders knows everything. ”

“ MRS. ALVING. He doesn't see much of her.
MANDERS. Oh, yes; he has a talk with her every day. He told me so himself.
MRS. ALVING. Well, it may be so.
MANDERS. He feels so acutely that he needs some one to keep a firm hold on him when temptation comes. That is what I cannot help liking about Jacob Engstrand: he comes to you so helplessly, accusing himself and confessing his own weakness. The last time he was talking to me—Believe me, Mrs. Alving, supposing it were a real necessity for him to have Regina home again—
MRS. ALVING. [Rising hastily.] Regina! ”

“ REGINA. Very well, ma'am. [Goes out.]
OSWALD. [Puts his arm round MRS. ALVING's neck.] That's just what I wanted. I knew mother wouldn't let her boy go thirsty.
MRS. ALVING. My own, poor, darling Oswald; how could I deny you anything now?
OSWALD. [Eagerly.] Is that true, mother? Do you mean it?
MRS. ALVING. How? What?
OSWALD. That you couldn't deny me anything.
MRS. ALVING. My dear Oswald—
OSWALD. Hush!
REGINA. [Brings a tray with a half-bottle of champagne and two glasses, which she sets on the table.] Shall I open it?
OSWALD. No, thanks. I will do it myself. ”

“ Alving. You know very well what sort of life Alving was leading—what excesses he was guilty of.
Manders. I know very well what rumours there were about him; and I am the last to approve the life he led in his young days, if report did not wrong him. But a wife is not appointed to be her husband’s judge. It was your duty to bear with humility the cross which a Higher Power had, in its wisdom, laid upon you. ”

“ I commanded you, saying, “Woman, go home to your lawful husband.” Was that a crime?
Mrs. Alving. Yes, I think so.
Manders. We two do not understand each other.
Mrs. Alving. Not now, at any rate.
Manders. Never—never in my most secret thoughts have I regarded you otherwise than as another’s wife.
Mrs. Alving. Oh—indeed?
Manders. Helen——!
Mrs. Alving. People so easily forget their past selves.
Manders. I do not. I am what I always was.
Mrs. Alving. [Changing the subject.] Well well well; don’t let us talk of old times any longer. ”

“ ENGSTRAND. Yes, I trust I am. And so I'll say good-bye, ma'am, and thank you kindly; and take good care of Regina for me— [Wipes a tear from his eye] —poor Johanna's child. Well, it's a queer thing, now; but it's just like as if she'd growd into the very apple of my eye. It is, indeed. [He bows and goes out through the hall.]
MANDERS. Well, what do you say of that man now, Mrs. Alving? That was a very different account of matters, was it not?
MRS. ALVING. Yes, it certainly was.
MANDERS. It only shows how excessively careful one ought to be in judging one's fellow creatures. ”

“ MANDERS. [Looking sympathetically at him.] You went out into the world early, my dear Oswald.
OSWALD. I did. I sometimes wonder whether it wasn't too early.
MRS. ALVING. Oh, not at all. A healthy lad is all the better for it; especially when he's an only child. He oughtn't to hang on at home with his mother and father, and get spoilt.
MANDERS. That is a very disputable point, Mrs. Alving. A child's proper place is, and must be, the home of his fathers.
OSWALD. There I quite agree with you, Pastor Manders. ”

“ Manders. A coward?
Mrs. Alving. If others had known anything of what happened, they would have said: "Poor man, it is natural enough that he should go astray, when he has a wife that has run away from him."
Manders. They would have had a certain amount of justification for saying so.
Mrs. Alving (looking fixedly at him) . If I had been the woman I ought, I would have taken Oswald into my confidence and said to him: "Listen, my son, your father was a dissolute man"—
Manders. Miserable woman. ”

“ Alving. Very well, Pastor Manders. Speak.
Manders. Do you remember that after less than a year of married life you stood on the verge of an abyss? That you forsook your house and home? That you fled from your husband? Yes, Mrs. Alving—fled, fled, and refused to return to him, however much he begged and prayed you?
Mrs. Alving. Have you forgotten how infinitely miserable I was in that first year?
Manders. It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life. What right have 202we human beings to happiness? We have simply to do our duty, Mrs. Alving! ”

“ Alving.
263Mrs. Alving. They will do neither one thing nor the other; for now I can speak out plainly.
Manders. You surely will not do that! No, no, no!
Mrs. Alving. Yes, I can speak and I will. And no ideals shall suffer after all.
Oswald. Mother—what is it you are hiding from me?
Regina. [Listening.] Oh, ma’am, listen! Don’t you hear shouts outside.
[She goes into the conservatory and looks out.
Oswald. [At the window on the left.] What’s going on? Where does that light come from?
Regina. [Cries out.] The Orphanage is on fire!
Mrs. Alving. [Rushing to the window.] On fire!
Manders. On fire! ”

“ You mustn't get too heated, Oswald; you gain nothing by that.
Oswald. No, you are quite right, mother. Besides, it isn't good for me. It's because I am so infernally tired, you know. I will go out and take a turn before dinner. I beg your pardon, Mr. Manders. It is impossible for you to realise the feeling; but it takes me that way (Goes out by the farther door on the right.)
Mrs. Alving. My poor boy!
Manders. You may well say so. This is what it has brought him to! (MRS. ALVING looks at him, but does not speak.) He called himself the prodigal son. It's only too true, alas—only too true! ”

“ Mrs. Alving. Well, then, Pastor Manders—I will tell you the truth. I have sworn to myself that one day you should know it—you alone!
Manders. What is the truth, then?
Mrs. Alving. The truth is that my husband died just as dissolute as he had lived all his days.
Manders. [Feeling after a chair.] What do you say?
Mrs. Alving. After nineteen years of marriage, as dissolute—in his desires at any rate—as he was before you married us.
Manders. And those—those wild oats—those irregularities—those 207excesses, if you like—you call “a dissolute life”?
Mrs. Alving. Our doctor used the expression. ”

“ Manders. Ha! ha! You will have your joke! And it's natural you should be in high spirits today—first of all there is the great event tomorrow, and also you have got Oswald home.
Mrs. Alving. Yes, am I not a lucky woman! It is more than two years since he was home last, and he has promised to stay the whole winter with me. ”

“ Things are not so desperate as you think.
Oswald. Ah, you don't know— (Springs up.) And to think, mother, that I should bring all this sorrow upon you! Many a time I have almost wished and hoped that you really did not care so very much for me.
Mrs. Alving. I, Oswald? My only son! All that I have in the world! The only thing I care about!
Oswald (taking hold of her hands and kissing them) . Yes, yes, I know that is so. When I am at home I know that is true. And that is one of the hardest parts of it to me. But now you know all about it; and now we won't talk anymore about it today. ”

“ Alving shows in her intelligent and sensitive countenance that she has a conception of that character. She does not always have the chance to act the woman written in her face, the tart, thinking, handsome creature that Ibsen prefers. ”

“ Oswald Alving enters through the second door to the right; he has taken off his hat and overcoat in the hall.
Mrs. Alving. [Going towards him.] Are you back again already? My dear, dear boy!
212Oswald. Yes. What can a fellow do out of doors in this eternal rain? But I hear dinner is ready. That’s capital!
Regina. [With a parcel, from the dining-room.] A parcel has come for you, Mrs. Alving. [Hands it to her.
Mrs. Alving. [With a glance at Mr. Manders.] No doubt copies of the ode for to-morrow’s ceremony.
Manders. H’m——
Regina. ”

“ After Oswald's birth, I thought Alving seemed to be a little better. But it did not last long. And then I had to struggle twice as hard, fighting as though for life or death, so that nobody should know what sort of man my child's father was. And you know what power Alving had of winning people's hearts. Nobody seemed able to believe anything but good of him. He was one of those people whose life does not bite upon their reputation. But at last, Mr. Manders—for you must know the whole story—the most repulsive thing of all happened. ”

“ Manders. Do you mean it!
Mrs. Alving. Oh, as a matter of fact it was nothing of any consequence. Some shavings in the carpenter's shop caught fire.
Manders. Where Engstrand works?
Mrs. Alving. Yes. They say he is often so careless with matches.
Manders. He has so many things on his mind, poor fellow—so many anxieties. Heaven be thanked, I am told he is really making an effort to live a blameless life.
Mrs. Alving. Really? Who told you so?
Manders. He assured me himself that it is so. He's good workman, too. ”

“ Manders (at the door) . Ahem—ahem! Come along, my dear Engstrand. Goodbye—goodbye!
(He and ENGSTRAND go out by the hall door.)
Oswald (going to the table) . What house was he speaking about?
Mrs. Alving. I believe it is some sort of a Home that he and Mr. Manders want to start.
Oswald. It will be burned up just like this one.
Mrs. Alving. What makes you think that?
Oswald. Everything will be burned up; nothing will be left that is in memory of my father. Here am I being burned up, too.
(REGINA looks at him in alarm.)
Mrs. Alving. Oswald! ”

“ It is difficult to believe that the facile optimism of this conclusion could at any time have satisfied the mind which, only twelve years later, conceived the picture of Oswald Alving shrinking together in his chair and babbling, “Mother—give me the sun.” ”

“ I have never taken any pains to satisfy myself upon the point, which seems to me quite immaterial. There is not the slightest doubt that the life-history of a Captain Alving may, and often does, entail upon posterity consequences quite as tragic as those which ensue in Oswald's case, and far more wide-spreading. That being so, the artistic justification of the poet's presentment of the case is certainly not dependent on its absolute scientific accuracy. The flaws above alluded to are of another nature. ”

“ Love, for the idealist Ibsen, xxxixis a passion which loses its virtue when it reaches its goal, which inspires only while it aspires, and flags bewildered when it attains. Marriage, for the critic Ibsen, is an institution beset with pitfalls into which those are surest to step who enter in blinded with love. In the latter dramas the tragedy of married life is commonly generated by other forms of blindness—the childish innocence of Nora, the maidenly ignorance of Helena Alving, neither of whom married precisely “for love” ”

“ He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand outspread in the air, as if to say: “There you are! You’ve got to thank the fools who’ve failed to do it.”
“Why do you all love Madame so much?” Alvina asked.
“How, love?” he said, making a little grimace. “We like her—we love her—as if she were a mother. You say love—” He raised his shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering smile. ”

“ Madame made a little grimace.
“Oh yes!” she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. “Oh yes!—because you like him! But you know nothing of him—nothing. How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad character. How would you like him then?”
“He isn’t, is he?” said Alvina.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. He may be. Even I, I don’t know him—no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist’s model. He sticks to nothing—”
“How old is he?” asked Alvina. ”

“ And if he will still have you, then you must think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, a dirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it. But I have seen—” Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while Madame darted looks, as from bright, deep black glass.
“Yes,” said Alvina. “I should hate being a labourer’s wife in a nasty little house in a street—”
“In a house?” cried Madame. “It would not be in a house. They live many together in one house. ”

“ Then she nodded sagely at Alvina.
“Take off your hat and coat, my dear. Soon we will have tea—when Cic’ returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will make all the difference that there is so much cash—yes, so much—”
“But would it really make a difference to him?” cried Alvina.
“Oh my dear!” exclaimed Madame. “Why should it not? We are on earth, where we must eat. We are not in Paradise. If it were a thousand pounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. ”