HEDDA GABLER 10

HEDDA GABLER 10

BRACK. [Laughing equivocally.] Well well, Mrs. Hedda--perhaps you are right there. If I had, who knows what I might be capable of? HEDDA. Come come now, Judge Brack! That sounds almost like a threat. BRACK. [Rising.] Oh, not at all! The triangle, you know, ought, if possible, to be spontaneously constructed. HEDDA. There I agree with you. BRACK. Well, now I have said all I had to say; and I had better be getting back to town. Good-bye, Mrs. Hedda. [He goes towards the glass door. HEDDA. [Rising.] Are you going through the garden? BRACK. Yes, it's a short cut for me. HEDDA. And then it is a back way, too. BRACK. Quite so. I have no objection to back ways. They may be piquant enough at times. HEDDA. When there is ball practice going on, you mean? BRACK. [In the doorway, laughing to her.] Oh, people don't shoot their tame poultry, I fancy. HEDDA. [Also laughing.] Oh no, when there is only one cock in the basket--      [They exchange laughing nods of farewell.  He goes.  She closes        the door behind him.      [HEDDA, who has become quite serious, stands for a moment        looking out.  Presently she goes and peeps through the        curtain over the middle doorway.  Then she goes to the        writing-table, takes LOVBORG'S packet out of the bookcase,        and is on the point of looking through its contents.  BERTA        is heard speaking loudly in the hall.  HEDDA turns and        listens.  Then she hastily locks up the packet in the drawer,        and lays the key on the inkstand.   EILERT LOVBORG, with his greatcoat on and his hat in his   hand, tears open the hall door.  He looks somewhat confused   and irritated. LOVBORG. [Looking towards the hall.] and I tell you I must and will come in! There!      [He closes the door, turns, sees HEDDA, at once regains his self-        control, and bows. HEDDA. [At the writing-table.] Well, Mr Lovborg, this is rather a late hour to call for Thea. LOVBORG. You mean rather an early hour to call on you. Pray pardon me. HEDDA. How do you know that she is still here? LOVBORG. They told me at her lodgings that she had been out all night. HEDDA. [Going to the oval table.] Did you notice anything about the people of the house when they said that? LOVBORG. [Looks inquiringly at her.] Notice anything about them? HEDDA. I mean, did they seem to think it odd? LOVBORG. [Suddenly understanding.] Oh yes, of course! I am dragging her down with me! However, I didn't notice anything.--I suppose Tesman is not up yet. HEDDA. No--I think not-- LOVBORG. When did he come home? HEDDA. Very late. LOVBORG. Did he tell you anything? HEDDA. Yes, I gathered that you had had an exceedingly jolly evening at Judge Brack's. LOVBORG. Nothing more? HEDDA. I don't think so. However, I was so dreadfully sleepy--     MRS. ELVSTED enters through the curtains of the middle doorway. MRS. ELVSTED. [Going towards him.] Ah, Lovborg! At last--! LOVBORG. Yes, at last. And too late! MRS. ELVSTED. [Looks anxiously at him.] What is too late? LOVBORG. Everything is too late now. It is all over with me. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh no, no--don't say that! LOVBORG. You will say the same when you hear-- MRS. ELVSTED. I won't hear anything! HEDDA. Perhaps you would prefer to talk to her alone? If so, I will leave you. LOVBORG. No, stay--you too. I beg you to stay. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, but I won't hear anything, I tell you. LOVBORG. It is not last night's adventures that I want to talk about. MRS. ELVSTED. What is it then--? LOVBORG. I want to say that now our ways must part. MRS. ELVSTED. Part! HEDDA. [Involuntarily.] I knew it! LOVBORG. You can be of no more service to me, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED. How can you stand there and say that! No more service to you! Am I not to help you now, as before? Are we not to go on working together? LOVBORG. Henceforward I shall do no work. MRS. ELVSTED. [Despairingly.] Then what am I to do with my life? LOVBORG. You must try to live your life as if you had never know me. MRS. ELVSTED. But you know I cannot do that! LOVBORG. Try if you cannot, Thea. You must go home again-- MRS. ELVSTED. [In vehement protest.] Never in this world! Where you are, there will I be also! I will not let myself be driven away like this! I will remain here! I will be with you when the book appears. HEDDA. [Half aloud, in suspense.] Ah yes--the book! LOVBORG. [Looks at her.] My book and Thea's; for that is what it is. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, I feel that it is. And that is why I have a right to be with you when it appears! I will see with my own eyes how respect and honour pour in upon you afresh. And the happiness--the happiness--oh, I must share it with you! LOVBORG. Thea--our book will never appear. HEDDA. Ah! MRS. ELVSTED. Never appear! LOVBORG. Can never appear. MRS. ELVSTED. [In agonised foreboding.] Lovborg--what have you done with the manuscript? HEDDA. [Looks anxiously at him.] Yes, the manuscript--? MRS. ELVSTED. Where is it? LOVBORG. The manuscript--. Well then--I have torn the manuscript into a thousand pieces. MRS. ELVSTED. [Shrieks.] Oh no, no--! HEDDA. [Involuntarily.] But that's not-- LOVBORG. [Looks at her.] Not true, you think? HEDDA. [Collecting herself.] Oh well, of course--since you say so. But it sounded so improbable-- LOVBORG. It is true, all the same. MRS. ELVSTED. [Wringing her hands.] Oh God--oh God, Hedda--torn his own work to pieces! LOVBORG. I have torn my own life to pieces. So why should I not tear my life-work too--? MRS. ELVSTED. And you did this last night? LOVBORG. Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces--and scattered them on the fiord--far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate--let them drift upon it--drift with the current and the wind. And then presently they will sink--deeper and deeper--as I shall, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED. Do you know, Lovborg, that what you have done with the book--I shall think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child. LOVBORG. Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder. MRS. ELVSTED. How could you, then--! Did not the child belong to me too? HEDDA. [Almost inaudibly.] Ah, the child-- MRS. ELVSTED. [Breathing heavily.] It is all over then. Well well, now I will go, Hedda. HEDDA. But you are not going away from town? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I don't know what I shall do. I see nothing but darkness before me. [She goes out by the hall door. HEDDA. [Stands waiting for a moment.] So you are not going to see her home, Mr. Lovborg? LOVBORG. I? Through the streets? Would you have people see her walking with me? HEDDA. Of course I don't know what else may have happened last night. But is it so utterly irretrievable? LOVBORG. It will not end with last night--I know that perfectly well. And the thing is that now I have no taste for that sort of life either. I won't begin it anew. She has broken my courage and my power of braving life out. HEDDA. [Looking straight before her.] So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man's destiny. [Looks at him.] But all the same, how could you treat her so heartlessly. LOVBORG. Oh, don't say that I was heartless! HEDDA. To go and destroy what has filled her whole soul for months and years! You do not call that heartless! LOVBORG. To you I can tell the truth, Hedda. HEDDA. The truth? LOVBORG. First promise me--give me your word--that what I now confide in you Thea shall never know. HEDDA. I give you my word. LOVBORG. Good. Then let me tell you that what I said just now was untrue. HEDDA. About the manuscript? LOVBORG. Yes. I have not torn it to pieces--nor thrown it into the fiord. HEDDA. No, no--. But--where is it then? LOVBORG. I have destroyed it none the less--utterly destroyed it, Hedda! HEDDA. I don't understand. LOVBORG. Thea said that what I had done seemed to her like a child-murder. HEDDA. Yes, so she said. LOVBORG. But to kill his child--that is not the worst thing a father can do to it. HEDDA. Not the worst? LOVBORG. Suppose now, Hedda, that a man--in the small hours of the morning--came home to his child's mother after a night of riot and debauchery, and said: "Listen--I have been here and there--in this place and in that. And I have taken our child with--to this place and to that. And I have lost the child--utterly lost it. The devil knows into what hands it may have fallen--who may have had their clutches on it." HEDDA. Well--but when all is said and done, you know--this was only a book-- LOVBORG. Thea's pure soul was in that book. HEDDA. Yes, so I understand. LOVBORG. And you can understand, too, that for her and me together no future is possible. HEDDA. What path do you mean to take then? LOVBORG. None. I will only try to make an end of it all--the sooner the better. HEDDA. [A step nearer him.] Eilert Lovborg--listen to me.--Will you not try to--to do it beautifully? LOVBORG. Beautifully? [Smiling.] With vine-leaves in my hair, as you used to dream in the old days--? HEDDA. No, no. I have lost my faith in the vine-leaves. But beautifully nevertheless! For once in a way!--Good-bye! You must go now--and do not come here any more. LOVBORG. Good-bye, Mrs. Tesman. And give George Tesman my love.    [He is on the point of going. HEDDA. No, wait! I must give you a memento to take with you.      [She goes to the writing-table and opens the drawer and the        pistol-case; then returns to LOVBORG with one of the pistols. LOVBORG. [Looks at her.] This? Is this the memento? HEDDA. [Nodding slowly.] Do you recognise it? It was aimed at you once. LOVBORG. You should have used it then. HEDDA. Take it--and do you use it now. LOVBORG. [Puts the pistol in his breast pocket.] Thanks! HEDDA. And beautifully, Eilert Lovborg. Promise me that! LOVBORG. Good-bye, Hedda Gabler. [He goes out by the hall door.      [HEDDA listens for a moment at the door.  Then she goes up to        the writing-table, takes out the packet of manuscript, peeps        under the cover, draws a few of the sheets half out, and        looks at them.  Next she goes over and seats herself in the        arm-chair beside the stove, with the packet in her lap.        Presently she opens the stove door, and then the packet. HEDDA. [Throws one of the quires into the fire and whispers to herself.] Now I am burning your child, Thea!--Burning it, curly-locks! [Throwing one or two more quires into the stove.] Your child and Eilert Lovborg's. [Throws the rest in.] I am burning--I am burning your child. ACT FOURTH.   The same rooms at the TESMANS'.  It is evening.  The drawing-   room is in darkness.  The back room is light by the hanging   lamp over the table.  The curtains over the glass door are   drawn close.   HEDDA, dressed in black, walks to and fro in the dark room.   Then she goes into the back room and disappears for a moment   to the left.  She is heard to strike a few chords on the   piano.  Presently she comes in sight again, and returns to   the drawing-room.   BERTA enters from the right, through the inner room, with a   lighted lamp, which she places on the table in front of the   corner settee in the drawing-room.  Her eyes are red with   weeping, and she has black ribbons in her cap.  She goes   quietly and circumspectly out to the right.  HEDDA goes up   to the glass door, lifts the curtain a little aside, and   looks out into the darkness.   Shortly afterwards, MISS TESMAN, in mourning, with a bonnet   and veil on, comes in from the hall.  HEDDA goes towards her   and holds out her hand. MISS TESMAN. Yes, Hedda, here I am, in mourning and forlorn; for now my poor sister has at last found peace. HEDDA. I have heard the news already, as you see. Tesman sent me a card. MISS TESMAN. Yes, he promised me he would. But nevertheless I thought that to Hedda--here in the house of life--I ought myself to bring the tidings of death. HEDDA. That was very kind of you. MISS TESMAN. Ah, Rina ought not to have left us just now. This is not the time for Hedda's house to be a house of mourning. HEDDA. [Changing the subject.] She died quite peacefully, did she not, Miss Tesman? MISS TESMAN. Oh, her end was so calm, so beautiful. And then she had the unspeakable happiness of seeing George once more--and bidding him good-bye.--Has he not come home yet? HEDDA. No. He wrote that he might be detained. But won't you sit down? MISS TESMAN. No thank you, my dear, dear Hedda. I should like to, but I have so much to do. I must prepare my dear one for her rest as well as I can. She shall go to her grave looking her best. HEDDA. Can I not help you in any way? MISS TESMAN. Oh, you must not think of it! Hedda Tesman must have no hand in such mournful work. Nor let her thought dwell on it either--not at this time. HEDDA. One is not always mistress of one's thoughts-- MISS TESMAN. [Continuing.] Ah yes, it is the way of the world. At home we shall be sewing a shroud; and here there will soon be sewing too, I suppose--but of another sort, thank God!   GEORGE TESMAN enters by the hall door. HEDDA. Ah, you have come at last! TESMAN. You here, Aunt Julia? With Hedda? Fancy that! MISS TESMAN. I was just going, my dear boy. Well, have you done all you promised? TESMAN. No; I'm really afraid I have forgotten half of it. I must come to you again to-morrow. To-day my brain is all in a whirl. I can't keep my thoughts together. MISS TESMAN. Why, my dear George, you mustn't take it in this way. TESMAN. Mustn't--? How do you mean?