MRS. ALVING. Oh, you will get through it somehow.
MANDERS. [Softly, so as not to be heard in the dining-room.] Yes; it
would not do to provoke scandal.
MRS. ALVING. [Under her breath, but firmly.] No. But then this long,
hateful comedy will be ended. From the day after to-morrow, I shall act
in every way as though he who is dead had never lived in this house.
There shall be no one here but my boy and his mother.
[From the dining-room comes the noise of a chair overturned, and at the
same moment is heard:]
REGINA. [Sharply, but in a whisper.] Oswald! take care! are you mad? Let
me go!
MRS. ALVING. [Starts in terror.] Ah--!
[She stares wildly towards the half-open door. OSWALD is heard laughing
and humming. A bottle is uncorked.]
MANDERS. [Agitated.] What can be the matter? What is it, Mrs. Alving?
MRS. ALVING. [Hoarsely.] Ghosts! The couple from the conservatory--risen
again!
MANDERS. Is it possible! Regina--? Is she--?
MRS. ALVING. Yes. Come. Not a word--!
[She seizes PASTOR MANDERS by the arm, and walks unsteadily towards the
dining-room.]
ACT SECOND.
[The same room. The mist still lies heavy over the landscape.]
[MANDERS and MRS. ALVING enter from the dining-room.]
MRS. ALVING. [Still in the doorway.] _Velbekomme_ [Note: A phrase
equivalent to the German _Prosit die Mahlzeit_--May good digestion wait
on appetite.], Mr. Manders. [Turns back towards the dining-room.] Aren't
you coming too, Oswald?
OSWALD. [From within.] No, thank you. I think I shall go out a little.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, do. The weather seems a little brighter now. [She
shuts the dining-room door, goes to the hall door, and calls:] Regina!
REGINA. [Outside.] Yes, Mrs. Alving?
MRS. ALVING. Go down to the laundry, and help with the garlands.
REGINA. Yes, Mrs. Alving.
[MRS. ALVING assures herself that REGINA goes; then shuts the door.]
MANDERS. I suppose he cannot overhear us in there?
MRS. ALVING. Not when the door is shut. Besides, he's just going out.
MANDERS. I am still quite upset. I don't know how I could swallow a
morsel of dinner.
MRS. ALVING. [Controlling her nervousness, walks up and down.] Nor I.
But what is to be done now?
MANDERS. Yes; what is to be done? I am really quite at a loss. I am so
utterly without experience in matters of this sort.
MRS. ALVING. I feel sure that, so far, no mischief has been done.
MANDERS. No; heaven forbid! But it is an unseemly state of things,
nevertheless.
MRS. ALVING. It is only an idle fancy on Oswald's part; you may be sure
of that.
MANDERS. Well, as I say, I am not accustomed to affairs of the kind. But
I should certainly think--
MRS. ALVING. Out of the house she must go, and that immediately. That is
as clear as daylight--
MANDERS. Yes, of course she must.
MRS. ALVING. But where to? It would not be right to--
MANDERS. Where to? Home to her father, of course.
MRS. ALVING. To whom did you say?
MANDERS. To her--But then, Engstrand is not--? Good God, Mrs. Alving,
it's impossible! You must be mistaken after all.
MRS. ALVING. Unfortunately there is no possibility of mistake. Johanna
confessed everything to me; and Alving could not deny it. So there was
nothing to be done but to get the matter hushed up.
MANDERS. No, you could do nothing else.
MRS. ALVING. The girl left our service at once, and got a good sum of
money to hold her tongue for the time. The rest she managed for herself
when she got to town. She renewed her old acquaintance with Engstrand,
no doubt let him see that she had money in her purse, and told him some
tale about a foreigner who put in here with a yacht that summer. So she
and Engstrand got married in hot haste. Why, you married them yourself.
MANDERS. But then how to account for--? I recollect distinctly Engstrand
coming to give notice of the marriage. He was quite overwhelmed with
contrition, and bitterly reproached himself for the misbehaviour he and
his sweetheart had been guilty of.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; of course he had to take the blame upon himself.
MANDERS. But such a piece of duplicity on his part! And towards me too!
I never could have believed it of Jacob Engstrand. I shall not fail
to take him seriously to task; he may be sure of that.--And then the
immorality of such a connection! For money--! How much did the girl
receive?
MRS. ALVING. Three hundred dollars.
MANDERS. Just think of it--for a miserable three hundred dollars, to go
and marry a fallen woman!
MRS. ALVING. Then what have you to say of me? I went and married a
fallen man.
MANDERS. Why--good heavens!--what are you talking about! A fallen man!
MRS. ALVING. Do you think Alving was any purer when I went with him to
the altar than Johanna was when Engstrand married her?
MANDERS. Well, but there is a world of difference between the two
cases--
MRS. ALVING. Not so much difference after all--except in the price:--a
miserable three hundred dollars and a whole fortune.
MANDERS. How can you compare such absolutely dissimilar cases? You had
taken counsel with your own heart and with your natural advisers.
MRS. ALVING. [Without looking at him.] I thought you understood where
what you call my heart had strayed to at the time.
MANDERS. [Distantly.] Had I understood anything of the kind, I should
not have been a daily guest in your husband's house.
MRS. ALVING. At any rate, the fact remains that with myself I took no
counsel whatever.
MANDERS. Well then, with your nearest relatives--as your duty bade
you--with your mother and your two aunts.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true. Those three cast up the account for me.
Oh, it's marvellous how clearly they made out that it would be downright
madness to refuse such an offer. If mother could only see me now, and
know what all that grandeur has come to!
MANDERS. Nobody can be held responsible for the result. This, at least,
remains clear: your marriage was in full accordance with law and order.
MRS. ALVING. [At the window.] Oh, that perpetual law and order! I often
think that is what does all the mischief in this world of ours.
MANDERS. Mrs. Alving, that is a sinful way of talking.
MRS. ALVING. Well, I can't help it; I must have done with all this
constraint and insincerity. I can endure it no longer. I must work my
way out to freedom.
MANDERS. What do you mean by that?
MRS. ALVING. [Drumming on the window frame.] I ought never to have
concealed the facts of Alving's life. But at that time I dared not
do anything else-I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such a
coward.
MANDERS. A coward?
MRS. ALVING. If people had come to know anything, they would have
said--"Poor man! with a runaway wife, no wonder he kicks over the
traces."
MANDERS. Such remarks might have been made with a certain show of right.
MRS. ALVING. [Looking steadily at him.] If I were what I ought to be, I
should go to Oswald and say, "Listen, my boy: your father led a vicious
life--"
MANDERS. Merciful heavens--!
MRS. ALVING.--and then I should tell him all I have told you--every word
of it.
MANDERS. You shock me unspeakably, Mrs. Alving.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; I know that. I know that very well. I myself am
shocked at the idea. [Goes away from the window.] I am such a coward.
MANDERS. You call it "cowardice" to do your plain duty? Have you
forgotten that a son ought to love and honour his father and mother?
MRS. ALVING. Do not let us talk in such general terms. Let us ask: Ought
Oswald to love and honour Chamberlain Alving?
MANDERS. Is there no voice in your mother's heart that forbids you to
destroy your son's ideals?
MRS. ALVING. But what about the truth?
MANDERS. But what about the ideals?
MRS. ALVING. Oh--ideals, ideals! If only I were not such a coward!
MANDERS. Do not despise ideals, Mrs. Alving; they will avenge themselves
cruelly. Take Oswald's case: he, unfortunately, seems to have few enough
ideals as it is; but I can see that his father stands before him as an
ideal.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true.
MANDERS. And this habit of mind you have yourself implanted and fostered
by your letters.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; in my superstitious awe for duty and the proprieties,
I lied to my boy, year after year. Oh, what a coward--what a coward I
have been!
MANDERS. You have established a happy illusion in your son's heart, Mrs.
Alving; and assuredly you ought not to undervalue it.
MRS. ALVING. H'm; who knows whether it is so happy after all--? But, at
any rate, I will not have any tampering wide Regina. He shall not go and
wreck the poor girl's life.
MANDERS. No; good God--that would be terrible!
MRS. ALVING. If I knew he was in earnest, and that it would be for his
happiness--
MANDERS. What? What then?
MRS. ALVING. But it couldn't be; for unfortunately Regina is not the
right sort of woman.
MANDERS. Well, what then? What do you mean?
MRS. ALVING. If I weren't such a pitiful coward, I should say to him,
"Marry her, or make what arrangement you please, only let us have
nothing underhand about it."
MANDERS. Merciful heavens, would you let them marry! Anything so
dreadful--! so unheard of--
MRS. ALVING. Do you really mean "unheard of"? Frankly, Pastor Manders,
do you suppose that throughout the country there are not plenty of
married couples as closely akin as they?
MANDERS. I don't in the least understand you.
MRS. ALVING. Oh yes, indeed you do.
MANDERS. Ah, you are thinking of the possibility that--Alas! yes, family
life is certainly not always so pure as it ought to be. But in such a
case as you point to, one can never know--at least with any certainty.
Here, on the other hand--that you, a mother, can think of letting your
son--
MRS. ALVING. But I cannot--I wouldn't for anything in the world; that is
precisely what I am saying.
MANDERS. No, because you are a "coward," as you put it. But if you were
not a "coward," then--? Good God! a connection so shocking!
MRS. ALVING. So far as that goes, they say we are all sprung from
connections of that sort. And who is it that arranged the world so,
Pastor Manders?
MANDERS. Questions of that kind I must decline to discuss with you, Mrs.
Alving; you are far from being in the right frame of mind for them. But
that you dare to call your scruples "cowardly"--!
MRS. ALVING. Let me tell you what I mean. I am timid and faint-hearted
because of the ghosts that hang about me, and that I can never quite
shake off.
MANDERS. What do you say hangs about you?
MRS. ALVING. Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was
as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us
ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our
father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas,
and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they
cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take
up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There
must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea.
And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.
MANDERS. Aha--here we have the fruits of your reading. And pretty fruits
they are, upon my word! Oh, those horrible, revolutionary, free-thinking
books!
MRS. ALVING. You are mistaken, my dear Pastor. It was you yourself who
set me thinking; and I thank you for it with all my heart.
MANDERS. I!
MRS. ALVING. Yes--when you forced me under the yoke of what you called
duty and obligation; when you lauded as right and proper what my whole
soul rebelled against as something loathsome. It was then that I began
to look into the seams of your doctrines. I wanted only to pick at a
single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled
out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.
MANDERS. [Softly, with emotion.] And was that the upshot of my life's
hardest battle?
MRS. ALVING. Call it rather your most pitiful defeat.
MANDERS. It was my greatest victory, Helen--the victory over myself.
MRS. ALVING. It was a crime against us both.
MANDERS. When you went astray, and came to me crying, "Here I am; take
me!" 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. You are now over head and ears in Boards and
Committees, and I am fighting my battle with ghosts, both within me and
without.
MANDERS. Those without I shall help you to lay. After all the terrible
things I have heard from you today, I cannot in conscience permit an
unprotected girl to remain in your house.
MRS. ALVING. Don't you think the best plan would be to get her provided
for?--I mean, by a good marriage.
MANDERS. No doubt. I think it would be desirable for her in every
respect. Regina is now at the age when--Of course I don't know much
about these things, but--
MRS. ALVING. Regina matured very early.
MANDERS. Yes, I thought so. I have an impression that she was remarkably
well developed, physically, when I prepared her for confirmation. But in
the meantime, she ought to be at home, under her father's eye--Ah! but
Engstrand is not--That he--that he--could so hide the truth from me! [A
knock at the door into the hall.]
MRS. ALVING. Who can this be? Come in!
ENGSTRAND. [In his Sunday clothes, in the doorway.] I humbly beg your
pardon, but--
MANDERS. Aha! H'm--
MRS. ALVING. Is that you, Engstrand?
ENGSTRAND.--there was none of the servants about, so I took the great
liberty of just knocking.
MRS. ALVING. Oh, very well. Come in. Do you want to speak to me?
ENGSTRAND. [Comes in.] No, I'm obliged to you, ma'am; it was with his
Reverence I wanted to have a word or two.
MANDERS. [Walking up and down the room.] Ah--indeed! You want to speak
to me, do you?
ENGSTRAND. Yes, I'd like so terrible much to--
MANDERS. [Stops in front of him.] Well; may I ask what you want?
ENGSTRAND. Well, it was just this, your Reverence: we've been paid off
down yonder--my grateful thanks to you, ma'am,--and now everything's
finished, I've been thinking it would be but right and proper if we,
that have been working so honestly together all this time--well, I was
thinking we ought to end up with a little prayer-meeting to-night.
MANDERS. A prayer-meeting? Down at the Orphanage?
ENGSTRAND. Oh, if your Reverence doesn't think it proper--
MANDERS. Oh yes, I do; but--h'm--
ENGSTRAND. I've been in the habit of offering up a little prayer in the
evenings, myself--
MRS. ALVING. Have you?
ENGSTRAND. Yes, every now and then just a little edification, in a
manner of speaking. But I'm a poor, common man, and have little enough
gift, God help me!--and so I thought, as the Reverend Mr. Manders
happened to be here, I'd--
MANDERS. Well, you see, Engstrand, I have a question to put to you
first. Are you in the right frame of mind for such a meeting! Do you
feel your conscience clear and at ease?
ENGSTRAND. Oh, God help us, your Reverence! we'd better not talk about
conscience.
MANDERS. Yes, that is just what we must talk about. What have you to
answer?
ENGSTRAND. Why--a man's conscience--it can be bad enough now and then.
MANDERS. Ah, you admit that. Then perhaps you will make a clean breast
of it, and tell me--the real truth about Regina?
MRS. ALVING. [Quickly.] Mr. Manders!
MANDERS. [Reassuringly.] Please allow me--
ENGSTRAND. About Regina! Lord, what a turn you gave me! [Looks at MRS.
ALVING.] There's nothing wrong about Regina, is there?
MANDERS. We will hope not. But I mean, what is the truth about you and
Regina? You pass for her father, eh!
ENGSTRAND. [Uncertain.] Well--h'm--your Reverence knows all about me and
poor Johanna.
MANDERS. Come now, no more prevarication! Your wife told Mrs. Alving the
whole story before quitting her service.
ENGSTRAND. Well, then, may--! Now, did she really?
MANDERS. You see we know you now, Engstrand.
ENGSTRAND. And she swore and took her Bible oath--
MANDERS. Did she take her Bible oath?
ENGSTRAND. No; she only swore; but she did it that solemn-like.
MANDERS. And you have hidden the truth from me all these years? Hidden
it from me, who have trusted you without reserve, in everything.
ENGSTRAND. Well, I can't deny it.
MANDERS. Have I deserved this of you, Engstrand? Have I not always been
ready to help you in word and deed, so far as it lay in my power? Answer
me. Have I not?
ENGSTRAND. It would have been a poor look-out for me many a time but for
the Reverend Mr. Manders.
MANDERS. And this is how you reward me! You cause me to enter falsehoods
in the Church Register, and you withhold from me, year after year, the
explanations you owed alike to me and to the truth. Your conduct has
been wholly inexcusable, Engstrand; and from this time forward I have
done with you!
ENGSTRAND. [With a sigh.] Yes! I suppose there's no help for it.
MANDERS. How can you possibly justify yourself?
ENGSTRAND. Who could ever have thought she'd have gone and made bad
worse by talking about it? Will your Reverence just fancy yourself in
the same trouble as poor Johanna--
MANDERS. I!
ENGSTRAND. Lord bless you, I don't mean just exactly the same. But I
mean, if your Reverence had anything to be ashamed of in the eyes of the
world, as the saying goes. We menfolk oughtn't to judge a poor woman too
hardly, your Reverence.
MANDERS. I am not doing so. It is you I am reproaching.
ENGSTRAND. Might I make so bold as to ask your Reverence a bit of a
question?
MANDERS. Yes, if you want to.
ENGSTRAND. Isn't it right and proper for a man to raise up the fallen?
MANDERS. Most certainly it is.
ENGSTRAND. And isn't a man bound to keep his sacred word?
MANDERS. Why, of course he is; but--
ENGSTRAND. When Johanna had got into trouble through that Englishman--or
it might have been an American or a Russian, as they call them--well,
you see, she came down into the town. Poor thing, she'd sent me about
my business once or twice before: for she couldn't bear the sight of
anything as wasn't handsome; and I'd got this damaged leg of mine. Your
Reverence recollects how I ventured up into a dancing saloon, where
seafaring men was carrying on with drink and devilry, as the saying
goes. And then, when I was for giving them a bit of an admonition to
lead a new life--
MRS. ALVING. [At the window.] H'm--
MANDERS. I know all about that, Engstrand; the ruffians threw you
downstairs. You have told me of the affair already. Your infirmity is an
honour to you.
ENGSTRAND. I'm not puffed up about it, your Reverence. But what I wanted
to say was, that when she cane and confessed all to me, with weeping and
gnashing of teeth, I can tell your Reverence I was sore at heart to hear
it.
MANDERS. Were you indeed, Engstrand? Well, go on.
ENGSTRAND. So I says to her, "The American, he's sailing about on the
boundless sea. And as for you, Johanna," says I, "you've committed a
grievous sin, and you're a fallen creature. But Jacob Engstrand,"
says I, "he's got two good legs to stand upon, he has--" You see, your
Reverence, I was speaking figurative-like.
MANDERS. I understand quite well. Go on.
ENGSTRAND. Well, that was how I raised her up and made an honest woman
of her, so as folks shouldn't get to know how as she'd gone astray with
foreigners.
MANDERS. In all that you acted very well. Only I cannot approve of your
stooping to take money--
ENGSTRAND. Money? I? Not a farthing!
MANDERS. [Inquiringly to MRS. ALVING.] But--
ENGSTRAND. Oh, wait a minute!--now I recollect. Johanna did have a
trifle of money. But I would have nothing to do with that. "No," says I,
"that's mammon; that's the wages of sin. This dirty gold--or notes, or
whatever it was--we'll just flint, that back in the American's face,"
says I. But he was off and away, over the stormy sea, your Reverence.
MANDERS. Was he really, my good fellow?
ENGSTRAND. He was indeed, sir. So Johanna and I, we agreed that the
money should go to the child's education; and so it did, and I can
account for every blessed farthing of it.
MANDERS. Why, this alters the case considerably.
ENGSTRAND. That's just how it stands, your Reverence. And I make so bold
as to say as I've been an honest father to Regina, so far as my poor
strength went; for I'm but a weak vessel, worse luck!
MANDERS. Well, well, my good fellow--
ENGSTRAND. All the same, I bear myself witness as I've brought up the
child, and lived kindly with poor Johanna, and ruled over my own house,
as the Scripture has it. But it couldn't never enter my head to go to
your Reverence and puff myself up and boast because even the likes of
me had done some good in the world. No, sir; when anything of that
sort happens to Jacob Engstrand, he holds his tongue about it. It don't
happen so terrible often, I daresay. And when I do come to see your
Reverence, I find a mortal deal that's wicked and weak to talk about.
For I said it before, and I says it again--a man's conscience isn't
always as clean as it might be.
MANDERS. Give me your hand, Jacob Engstrand.
ENGSTRAND. Oh, Lord! your Reverence--
MANDERS. Come, no nonsense [wrings his hand]. There we are!
ENGSTRAND. And if I might humbly beg your Reverence's pardon--
MANDERS. You? On the contrary, it is I who ought to beg your pardon--
ENGSTRAND. Lord, no, Sir!
MANDERS. Yes, assuredly. And I do it with all my heart. Forgive me for
misunderstanding you. I only wish I could give you some proof of my
hearty regret, and of my good-will towards you--
ENGSTRAND. Would your Reverence do it?
MANDERS. With the greatest pleasure.
ENGSTRAND. Well then, here's the very chance. With the bit of money I've
saved here, I was thinking I might set up a Sailors' Home down in the
town.
MRS. ALVING. You?
ENGSTRAND. Yes; it might be a sort of Orphanage, too, in a manner of
speaking. There's such a many temptations for seafaring folk ashore. But
in this Home of mine, a man might feel like as he was under a father's
eye, I was thinking.
MANDERS. What do you say to this, Mrs. Alving?
ENGSTRAND. It isn't much as I've got to start with, Lord help me! But if
I could only find a helping hand, why--
MANDERS. Yes, yes; we will look into the matter more closely. I entirely
approve of your plan. But now, go before me and make everything
ready, and get the candles lighted, so as to give the place an air of
festivity. And then we will pass an edifying hour together, my good
fellow; for now I quite believe you are in the right frame of mind.
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. But what a heartfelt joy it is to
ascertain that one has been mistaken! Don't you think so?
MRS. ALVING. I think you are, and will always be, a great baby, Manders.
MANDERS. I?
MRS. ALVING. [Laying her two hands upon his shoulders.] And I say that I
have half a mind to put my arms round your neck, and kiss you.
MANDERS. [Stepping hastily back.] No, no! God bless me! What an idea!
MRS. ALVING. [With a smile.] Oh, you needn't be afraid of me.
MANDERS. [By the table.] You have sometimes such an exaggerated way of
expressing yourself. Now, let me just collect all the documents, and put
them in my bag. [He does so.] There, that's all right. And now, good-bye
for the present. Keep your eyes open when Oswald comes back. I shall
look in again later. [He takes his hat and goes out through the hall
door.]
MRS. ALVING. [Sighs, looks for a moment out of the window, sets the room
in order a little, and is about to go into the dining-room, but stops at
the door with a half-suppressed cry.] Oswald, are you still at table?
OSWALD. [In the dining room.] I'm only finishing my cigar.
MRS. ALVING. I thought you had gone for a little walk.
OSWALD. In such weather as this?
[A glass clinks. MRS. ALVING leaves the door open, and sits down with
her knitting on the sofa by the window.]
OSWALD. Wasn't that Pastor Manders that went out just now?
MRS. ALVING. Yes; he went down to the Orphanage.
OSWALD. H'm. [The glass and decanter clink again.]
MRS. ALVING. [With a troubled glance.] Dear Oswald, you should take care
of that liqueur. It is strong.
OSWALD. It keeps out the damp.
MRS. ALVING. Wouldn't you rather come in here, to me?
OSWALD. I mayn't smoke in there.
MRS. ALVING. You know quite well you may smoke cigars.
OSWALD. Oh, all right then; I'll come in. Just a tiny drop more first.
There! [He comes into the room with his cigar, and shuts the door after
him. A short silence.] Where has the pastor gone to?
MRS. ALVING. I have just told you; he went down to the Orphanage.
OSWALD. Oh, yes; so you did.
MRS. ALVING. You shouldn't sit so long at table, Oswald.
OSWALD. [Holding his cigar behind him.] But I find it so pleasant,
mother. [Strokes and caresses her.] Just think what it is for me to come
home and sit at mother's own table, in mother's room, and eat mother's
delicious dishes.
MRS. ALVING. My dear, dear boy!
OSWALD. [Somewhat impatiently, walks about and smokes.] And what else
can I do with myself here? I can't set to work at anything.
MRS. ALVING. Why can't you?
OSWALD. In such weather as this? Without a single ray of sunshine the
whole day? [Walks up the room.] Oh, not to be able to work--!
MRS. ALVING. Perhaps it was not quite wise of you to come home?
OSWALD. Oh, yes, mother; I had to.
MRS. ALVING. You know I would ten times rather forgo the joy of having
you here, than let you--
OSWALD. [Stops beside the table.] Now just tell me, mother: does it
really make you so very happy to have me home again?
MRS. ALVING. Does it make me happy!
OSWALD. [Crumpling up a newspaper.] I should have thought it must be
pretty much the same to you whether I was in existence or not.
MRS. ALVING. Have you the heart to say that to your mother, Oswald?
OSWALD. But you've got on very well without me all this time.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; I have got on without you. That is true.
[A silence. Twilight slowly begins to fall. OSWALD paces to and fro
across the room. He has laid his cigar down.]
OSWALD. [Stops beside MRS. ALVING.] Mother, may I sit on the sofa beside
you?
MRS. ALVING. [Makes room for him.] Yes, do, my dear boy.
OSWALD. [Sits down.] There is something I must tell you, mother.
MRS. ALVING. [Anxiously.] Well?
OSWALD. [Looks fixedly before him.] For I can't go on hiding it any
longer.
MRS. ALVING. Hiding what? What is it?
OSWALD. [As before.] I could never bring myself to write to you about
it; and since I've come home--
MRS. ALVING. [Seizes him by the arm.] Oswald, what is the matter?
OSWALD. Both yesterday and to-day I have tried to put the thoughts away
from me--to cast them off; but it's no use.
MRS. ALVING. [Rising.] Now you must tell me everything, Oswald!
OSWALD. [Draws her down to the sofa again.] Sit still; and then I will
try to tell you.--I complained of fatigue after my journey--
MRS. ALVING. Well? What then?
OSWALD. But it isn't that that is the matter with me; not any ordinary
fatigue--
MRS. ALVING. [Tries to jump up.] You are not ill, Oswald?
OSWALD. [Draws her down again.] Sit still, mother. Do take it quietly.
I'm not downright ill, either; not what is commonly called "ill."
[Clasps his hands above his head.] Mother, my mind is broken
down--ruined--I shall never be able to work again! [With his hands
before his face, he buries his head in her lap, and breaks into bitter
sobbing.]
MRS. ALVING. [White and trembling.] Oswald! Look at me! No, no; it's not
true.
OSWALD. [Looks up with despair in his eyes.] Never to be able to work
again! Never!--never! A living death! Mother, can you imagine anything
so horrible?
MRS. ALVING. My poor boy! How has this horrible thing come upon you?
OSWALD. [Sitting upright again.] That's just what I cannot possibly
grasp or understand. I have never led a dissipated life never, in any
respect. You mustn't believe that of me, mother! I've never done that.
MRS. ALVING. I am sure you haven't, Oswald.
OSWALD. And yet this has come upon me just the same--this awful
misfortune!
MRS. ALVING. Oh, but it will pass over, my dear, blessed boy. It's
nothing but over-work. Trust me, I am right.
OSWALD. [Sadly.] I thought so too, at first; but it isn't so.
MRS. ALVING. Tell me everything, from beginning to end.
OSWALD. Yes, I will.
MRS. ALVING. When did you first notice it?
OSWALD. It was directly after I had been home last time, and had got
back to Paris again. I began to feel the most violent pains in my
head--chiefly in the back of my head, they seemed to come. It was as
though a tight iron ring was being screwed round my neck and upwards.
MRS. ALVING. Well, and then?
OSWALD. At first I thought it was nothing but the ordinary headache I
had been so plagued with while I was growing up--
MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes--
OSWALD. But it wasn't that. I soon found that out. I couldn't work any
more. I wanted to begin upon a big new picture, but my powers seemed to
fail me; all my strength was crippled; I could form no definite images;
everything swam before me--whirling round and round. Oh, it was an awful
state! At last I sent for a doctor--and from him I learned the truth.
MRS. ALVING. How do you mean?
OSWALD. He was one of the first doctors in Paris. I told him my
symptoms; and then he set to work asking me a string of questions which
I thought had nothing to do with the matter. I couldn't imagine what the man was after-- |
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