When We Dead Awaken 1

When We Dead Awaken 1

When We Dead Awaken: Henrik Ibsen INTRODUCTION. 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. The new National Theatre in Christiania was opened in September of the following year; and when I then met Ibsen (for the last time) he told me that he was actually at work on a new play, which he thought of calling a "Dramatic Epilogue." "He wrote _When We Dead Awaken_," says Dr. Elias, "with such labour and such passionate agitation, so spasmodically and so feverishly, that those around him were almost alarmed. He must get on with it, he must get on! He seemed to hear the beating of dark pinions over his head. He seemed to feel the grim Visitant, who had accompanied Alfred Allmers on the mountain paths, already standing behind him with uplifted hand. His relatives are firmly convinced that he knew quite clearly that this would be his last play, that he was to write no more. And soon the blow fell." _When We Dead Awaken_ was published very shortly before Christmas 1899. He had still a year of comparative health before him. We find him in March 1900, writing to Count Prozor: "I cannot say yet whether or not I shall write another drama; but if I continue to retain the vigour of body and mind which I at present enjoy, I do not imagine that I shall be able to keep permanently away from the old battlefields. However, if I were to make my appearance again, it would be with new weapons and in new armour." Was he hinting at the desire, which he had long ago confessed to Professor Herford, that his last work should be a drama in verse? Whatever his dream, it was not to be realised. His last letter (defending his attitude of philosophic impartiality with regard to the South African war) is dated December 9, 1900. With the dawn of the new century, the curtain descended upon the mind of the great dramatic poet of the age which had passed away. _When We Dead Awaken_ was acted during 1900 at most of the leading theatres in Scandinavia and Germany. In some German cities (notably in Frankfort on Main) it even attained a considerable number of representatives. I cannot learn, however, that it has anywhere held the stage. It was produced in London, by the State Society, at the Imperial Theatre, on January 25 and 26, 1903. 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. One may say with perfect sincerity that there is more fascination in the dregs of Ibsen's mind than in the "first sprightly running" of more common-place talents. But to his sane admirers the interest of the play must always be melancholy, because it is purely pathological. To deny this is, in my opinion, to cast a slur over all the poet's previous work, and in great measure to justify the criticisms of his most violent detractors. For _When We Dead Awaken_ is very like the sort of play that haunted the "anti-Ibsenite" imagination in the year 1893 or thereabouts. It is a piece of self-caricature, a series of echoes from all the earlier plays, an exaggeration of manner to the pitch of mannerism. Moreover, in his treatment of his symbolic motives, Ibsen did exactly what he had hitherto, with perfect justice, plumed himself upon never doing: he sacrificed the surface reality to the underlying meaning. 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. Even when he dallied with the supernatural, as in _The Master Builder_ and _Little Eyolf_, he was always careful, as I have tried to show, not to overstep decisively the boundaries of the natural. Here, on the other hand, without any suggestion of the supernatural, we are confronted with the wholly impossible, the inconceivable. How remote is this alike from his principles of art and from the consistent, unvarying practice of his better years! So great is the chasm between _John Gabriel Borkman_ and _When We Dead Awaken_ that one could almost suppose his mental breakdown to have preceded instead of followed the writing of the latter play. Certainly it is one of the premonitions of the coming end. It is Ibsen's _Count Robert of Paris_. To pretend to rank it with his masterpieces is to show a very imperfect sense of the nature of their mastery. WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN. A DRAMATIC EPILOGUE. CHARACTERS.       PROFESSOR ARNOLD RUBEK, a sculptor.       MRS. MAIA RUBEK, his wife.       THE INSPECTOR at the Baths.       ULFHEIM, a landed proprietor.       A STRANGER LADY.       A SISTER OF MERCY.       Servants, Visitors to the Baths, and Children. The First Act passes at a bathing establishment on the coast; the Second and Third Acts in the neighbourhood of a health resort, high in the mountains. ACT FIRST.    [Outside the Bath Hotel. A portion of the main building can be seen    to the right.    An open, park-like place with a fountain, groups    of fine old trees, and shrubbery.  To the left, a little pavilion    almost covered with ivy and Virginia creeper.  A table and chair    outside it.  At the back a view over the fjord, right out to sea,    with headlands and small islands in the distance.  It is a calm,    warm and sunny summer morning.    [PROFESSOR RUBEK and MRS. MAIA RUBEK are sitting in basket chairs    beside a covered table on the lawn outside the hotel, having just    breakfasted.  They have champagne and seltzer water on the table,    and each has a newspaper.  PROFESSOR RUBEK is an elderly man of    distinguished appearance, wearing a black velvet jacket, and    otherwise in light summer attire.  MAIA is quite young, with    a vivacious expression and lively, mocking eyes, yet with a    suggestion of fatigue.  She wears an elegant travelling dress. MAIA. [Sits for some time as though waiting for the PROFESSOR to say something, then lets her paper drop with a deep sigh.] Oh dear, dear, dear--! PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Looks up from his paper.] Well, Maia? What is the matter with you? MAIA. Just listen how silent it is here. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Smiles indulgently.] And you can hear that? MAIA. What? PROFESSOR RUBEK. The silence? MAIA. Yes, indeed I can. PROFESSOR RUBEK. Well, perhaps you are right, _mein Kind_. One can really hear the silence. MAIA. Heaven knows you can--when it's so absolutely overpowering as it is here-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. Here at the Baths, you mean? MAIA. Wherever you go at home here, it seems to me. Of course there was noise and bustle enough in the town. But I don't know how it is--even the noise and bustle seemed to have something dead about it. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [With a searching glance.] You don't seem particularly glad to be at home again, Maia? MAIA. [Looks at him.] Are you glad? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Evasively.] I--? MAIA. Yes, you, who have been so much, much further away than I. Are you entirely happy, now that you are at home again? PROFESSOR RUBEK. No--to be quite candid--perhaps not entirely happy-- MAIA. [With animation.] There, you see! Didn't I know it! PROFESSOR RUBEK. I have been too long abroad. I have drifted quite away from all this--this home life. MAIA. [Eagerly, drawing her chair nearer him.] There, you see, Rubek! We had much better get away again! As quickly as ever we can. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Somewhat impatiently.] Well, well, that is what we intend to do, my dear Maia. You know that. MAIA. But why not now--at once? Only think how cozy and comfortable we could be down there, in our lovely new house-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Smiles indulgently.] We ought by rights to say: our lovely new home. MAIA. [Shortly.] I prefer to say house--let us keep to that. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [His eyes dwelling on her.] You are really a strange little person. MAIA. Am I so strange? PROFESSOR RUBEK. Yes, I think so. MAIA. But why, pray? Perhaps because I'm not desperately in love with mooning about up here--? PROFESSOR RUBEK. Which of us was it that was absolutely bent on our coming north this summer? MAIA. I admit, it was I. PROFESSOR RUBEK. It was certainly not I, at any rate. MAIA. But good heavens, who could have dreamt that everything would have altered so terribly at home here? And in so short a time, too! Why, it is only just four years since I went away-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. Since you were married, yes. MAIA. Married? What has that to do with the matter? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Continuing.] --since you became the Frau Professor, and found yourself mistress of a charming home--I beg your pardon--a very handsome house, I ought to say. And a villa on the Lake of Taunitz, just at the point that has become most fashionable, too--. In fact it is all very handsome and distinguished, Maia, there's no denying that. And spacious too. We need not always be getting in each other's way-- MAIA. [Lightly.] No, no, no--there's certainly no lack of house-room, and that sort of thing-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. Remember, too, that you have been living in altogether more spacious and distinguished surroundings--in more polished society than you were accustomed to at home. MAIA. [Looking at him.] Ah, so you think it is _I_ that have changed? PROFESSOR RUBEK. Indeed I do, Maia. MAIA. I alone? Not the people here? PROFESSOR RUBEK. Oh yes, they too--a little, perhaps. And not at all in the direction of amiability. That I readily admit. MAIA. I should think you must admit it, indeed. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Changing the subject.] Do you know how it affects me when I look at the life of the people around us here? MAIA. No. Tell me. PROFESSOR RUBEK. It makes me think of that night we spent in the train, when we were coming up here-- MAIA. Why, you were sound asleep all the time. PROFESSOR RUBEK. Not quite. I noticed how silent it became at all the little roadside stations. I heard the silence--like you, Maia-- MAIA. H'm,--like me, yes. PROFESSOR RUBEK. --and that assured me that we had crossed the frontier--that we were really at home. For the train stopped at all the little stations--although there was nothing doing at all. 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. Then we shall have the great luxurious steamer lying in the harbour. We'll go on board her, and sail all round the coast--northward ho!--right to the polar sea. MAIA. Yes, but then you will see nothing of the country--and of the people. And that was what you particularly wanted. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Shortly and snappishly.] I have seen more than enough. MAIA. Do you think a sea voyage will be better for you? PROFESSOR RUBEK. It is always a change. MAIA. Well, well, if only it is the right thing for you-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. For me? The right thing? There is nothing in the world the matter with me. MAIA. [Rises and goes to him.] Yes, there is, Rubek. I am sure you must feel it yourself. PROFESSOR RUBEK. Why my dearest Maia--what should be amiss with me? MAIA. [Behind him, bending over the back of his chair.] That you must tell me. You have begun to wander about without a moment's peace. You cannot rest anywhere--neither at home nor abroad. You have become quite misanthropic of late. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [With a touch of sarcasm.] Dear me--have you noticed that? MAIA. No one that knows you can help noticing it. And then it seems to me so sad that you have lost all pleasure in your work. PROFESSOR RUBEK. That too, eh? MAIA. You that used to be so indefatigable--working from morning to night! PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Gloomily.] Used to be, yes-- MAIA. But ever since you got your great masterpiece out of hand-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Nods thoughtfully.] "The Resurrection Day"-- 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. Yes, indeed they are--for the last two or three years--ever since you finished your great group and got it out of the house-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. All the same, they are no mere portrait-busts, I assure you. MAIA. What are they, then? PROFESSOR RUBEK. There is something equivocal, something cryptic, lurking in and behind these busts--a secret something, that the people themselves cannot see-- MAIA. Indeed? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Decisively.] I alone can see it. And it amuses me unspeakably.--On the surface I give them the "striking likeness," as they call it, that they all stand and gape at in astonishment--[Lowers his voice]--but at bottom they are all respectable, pompous horse-faces, and self-opinionated donkey-muzzles, and lop-eared, low-browed dog-skulls, and fatted swine-snouts--and sometimes dull, brutal bull-fronts as well-- MAIA. [Indifferently.] All the dear domestic animals, in fact. 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. MAIA. [Fills his glass.] Come, Rubek! Drink and be happy. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Passes his hand several times across his forehead and leans back in his chair.] I am happy, Maia. Really happy--in a way. [Short silence.] For after all there is a certain happiness in feeling oneself free and independent on every hand--in having at ones command everything one can possibly wish for--all outward things, that is to say. Do you not agree with me, Maia? MAIA. Oh yes, I agree. All that is well enough in its way. [Looking at him.] But do you remember what you promised me the day we came to an understanding on--on that troublesome point-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Nods.] --on the subject of our marriage, yes. It was no easy matter for you, Maia. MAIA. [Continuing unruffled.] --and agreed that I was to go abroad with you, and live there for good and all--and enjoy myself.--Do you remember what you promised me that day? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Shaking his head.] No, I can't say that I do. Well, what did I promise? MAIA. You said you would take me up to a high mountain and show me all the glory of the world. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [With a slight start.] Did I promise you that, too? MAIA. Me too? Who else, pray? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Indifferently.] No, no, I only meant did I promise to show you--? MAIA. --all the glory of the world? Yes, you did. And all that glory should be mine, you said. PROFESSOR RUBEK. That is sort of figure of speech that I was in the habit of using once upon a time. MAIA. Only a figure of speech? PROFESSOR RUBEK. Yes, a schoolboy phrase--the sort of thing I used to say when I wanted to lure the neighbours' children out to play with me, in the woods and on the mountains. MAIA. [Looking hard at him.] Perhaps you only wanted to lure me out to play, as well? PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Passing it off as a jest.] Well, has it not been a tolerable amusing game, Maia? MAIA. [Coldly.] I did not go with you only to play. PROFESSOR RUBEK. No, no, I daresay not. MAIA. And you never took me up with you to any high mountain, or showed me-- PROFESSOR RUBEK. [With irritation.] --all the glory of the world? No, I did not. For, let me tell you something: you are not really born to be a mountain-climber, little Maia. MAIA. [Trying to control herself.] Yet at one time you seemed to think I was. PROFESSOR RUBEK. Four or five years ago, yes. [Stretching himself in his chair.] Four or five years--it's a long, long time, Maia. MAIA. [Looking at him with a bitter expression.] Has the time seemed so very long to you, Rubek? PROFESSOR RUBEK. I am beginning now to find it a trifle long. [Yawning.] Now and then, you know. MAIA. [Returning to her place.] I shall not bore you any longer.       [She resumes her seat, takes up the newspaper, and begins turning        over the leaves.  Silence on both sides. PROFESSOR RUBEK. [Leaning on his elbows across the table, and looking at her teasingly.] Is the Frau Professor offended? MAIA. [Coldly, without looking up.] No, not at all.     [Visitors to the baths, most of them ladies, begin to pass,        singly and in groups, through the park from the right, and        out to the left.     [Waiters bring refreshments from the hotel, and go off behind        the pavilion.     [The INSPECTOR, wearing gloves and carrying a stick, comes from        his rounds in the park, meets visitors, bows politely, and        exchanges a few words with some of them.