Part 2
The technical feat which Ibsen here achieves of carrying through without a single break the whole action of a four-act play has been much commented on and admired. The imaginary time of the drama is actually shorter than the real time of representation, since the poet does not even leave intervals for the changing of the scenes. This feat, however, is more curious than important. Nothing particular is gained by such a literal observance of the unity of time. For the rest, we feel definitely in _John Gabriel Borkman_ what we already felt vaguely in _Little Eyolf_—that the poet’s technical staying-power is beginning to fail him. We feel that the initial design was larger and more detailed than the finished work. If the last acts of _The Wild Duck_ and _Hedda Gabler_ be compared with the last acts of _Little Eyolf_ and _Borkman_, it will be seen that in the earlier plays his constructive faculty is working at its highest tension up to the very end, while in the later plays it relaxes towards the close, to make room for pure imagination and lyric beauty. The actual drama is over long before the curtain falls on either play, and in the one case we have Rita and Allmers, in the other Ella and Borkman, looking back over their shattered lives and playing chorus to their own tragedy. For my part, I set the highest value on these choral odes, these mournful antiphonies, in which the poet definitely triumphs over the mere playwright. They seem to me noble and beautiful in themselves, and as truly artistic, if not as theatrical, as any abrupter catastrophe could be. But I am not quite sure that they are exactly the conclusions the poet originally projected, and still less am I satisfied that they are reached by precisely the paths which he at first designed to pursue.
The traces of a change of scheme in _John Gabriel Borkman_ seem to me almost unmistakable. The first two acts laid the foundation for a larger and more complex superstructure than is ultimately erected. Ibsen seems to have designed that Hinkel, the man who “betrayed” Borkman in the past, should play some efficient part in the alienation of Erhart from his family and home. Otherwise, why this insistence on a “party” at the Hinkels’, which is apparently to serve as a sort of “send-off” for Erhart and Mrs. Wilton? It appears in the third act that the “party” was imaginary. “Erhart and I were the whole party,” says Mrs. Wilton, “and little Frida, of course.” We might, then, suppose it to have been a mere blind to enable Erhart to escape from home; but, in the first place, as Erhart does not live at home, there is no need for any such pretext; in the second place, it appears that the trio do actually go to the Hinkels’ house (since Mrs. Borkman’s servant finds them there), and do actually make it their starting-point. Erhart comes and goes with the utmost freedom in Mrs. Wilton’s own house; what possible reason can they have for not setting out from there? No reason is shown or hinted. We cannot even imagine that the Hinkels have been instrumental in bringing Erhart and Mrs. Wilton together; it is expressly stated that Erhart made her acquaintance and saw a great deal of her in town, before she moved out into the country. The whole conception of the party at the Hinkels’ is, as it stands, mysterious and a little cumbersome. We are forced to conclude, I think, that something more was at one time intended to come of it, and that, when the poet abandoned the idea, he did not think it worth while to remove the scaffolding. To this change of plan, too, we may possibly trace what I take to be the one serious flaw in the play—the comparative weakness of the second half of the third act. The scene of Erhart’s rebellion against the claims of mother, aunt, and father strikes one as the symmetrical working out of a problem rather than a passage of living drama.
All this means, of course, that there is a certain looseness of fibre in _John Gabriel Borkman_ which we do not find in the best of Ibsen’s earlier works. But in point of intellectual power and poetic beauty it yields to none of its predecessors. The conception of the three leading figures is one of the great things of literature; the second act, with the exquisite humour of the Foldal scene, and the dramatic intensity of the encounter between Borkman and Ella, is perhaps the finest single act Ibsen ever wrote, in prose at all events; and the last scene is a thing of rare and exalted beauty. One could wish that the poet’s last words to us had been those haunting lines with which Gunhild and Ella join hands over Borkman’s body:
We twin sisters—over him we have both loved. We two shadows—over the dead man.
Among many verbal difficulties which this play presents, the greatest, perhaps, has been to find an equivalent for the word “opreisning,” which occurs again and again in the first and second acts. No one English word that I could discover would fit in all the different contexts; so I have had to employ three: “redemption,” “restoration,” and in one place “rehabilitation.” The reader may bear in mind that these three terms represent one idea in the original.
Borkman in Act II. uses a very odd expression—“overskurkens moral,” which I have rendered “the morals of the higher rascality.” I cannot but suspect (though for this I have no authority) that in the word “overskurk,” which might be represented in German by “Ueberschurke,” Borkman is parodying the expression “Uebermensch,” of which so much has been heard of late. When I once suggested this to Ibsen, he neither affirmed nor denied it. I understood him to say, however, that in speaking of “overskurken” he had a particular man in view. Somewhat pusillanimously, perhaps, I pursued my inquiries no further.
WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN.
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 representations. I cannot learn, however, that it has anywhere held the stage. It was produced in London, by the Stage 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 commonplace 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.
LITTLE EYOLF
(1894)
CHARACTERS
ALFRED ALLMERS, _landed proprietor and man of letters, formerly a tutor_. MRS. RITA ALLMERS, _his wife_. EYOLF, _their child, nine years old_. MISS ASTA ALLMERS, _Alfred’s younger half-sister_. ENGINEER BORGHEIM. THE RAT-WIFE.
_The action takes place on ALLMERS’S property, bordering on the fiord, twelve or fourteen miles from Christiania._
LITTLE EYOLF
PLAY IN THREE ACTS
ACT FIRST
_A pretty and richly-decorated garden-room, full of furniture, flowers, and plants. At the back, open glass doors, leading out to a verandah. An extensive view over the fiord. In the distance, wooded hillsides. A door in each of the side walls, the one on the right a folding door, placed far back. In front on the right, a sofa, with cushions and rugs. Beside the sofa, a small table, and chairs. In front, on the left, a larger table, with arm-chairs around it. On the table stands an open hand-bag. It is an early summer morning, with warm sunshine._
_MRS. RITA ALLMERS stands beside the table, facing towards the left, engaged in unpacking the bag. She is a handsome, rather tall, well-developed blonde, about thirty years of age, dressed in a light-coloured morning-gown._
_Shortly after, MISS ASTA ALLMERS enters by the door on the right, wearing a light brown summer dress, with hat, jacket, and parasol. Under her arm she carries a locked portfolio of considerable size. She is slim, of middle height, with dark hair, and deep, earnest eyes. Twenty-five years old._
ASTA.
[_As she enters._] Good-morning, my dear Rita.
RITA.
[_Turns her head, and nods to her._] What! is that you, Asta? Come all the way from town so early?
ASTA.
[_Takes off her things, and lays them on a chair beside the door._] Yes, such a restless feeling came over me. I felt I _must_ come out to-day, and see how little Eyolf was getting on—and you too. [_Lays the portfolio on the table beside the sofa._] So I took the steamer, and here I am.
RITA.
[_Smiling to her._] And I daresay you met one or other of your friends on board? Quite by chance, of course.
ASTA.
[_Quietly._] No, I did not meet a soul I knew. [_Sees the bag._] Why, Rita, what have you got there?
RITA.
[_Still unpacking._] Alfred’s travelling-bag. Don’t you recognise it?
ASTA.
[_Joyfully, approaching her._] What! Has Alfred come home?
RITA.
Yes, only think—he came quite unexpectedly by the late train last night.
ASTA.
Oh, then _that_ was what my feeling meant! It was that that drew me out here! And he hadn’t written a line to let you know? Not even a post-card?
RITA.
Not a single word.
ASTA.
Did he not even telegraph?
RITA.
Yes, an hour before he arrived—quite curtly and coldly. [_Laughs._] Don’t you think that was like him, Asta?
ASTA.
Yes; he goes so quietly about everything.
RITA.
But that made it all the more delightful to have him again.
ASTA.
Yes, I am sure it would.
RITA.
A whole fortnight before I expected him!
ASTA.
And is he quite well? Not in low spirits?
RITA.
[_Closes the bag with a snap, and smiles at her._] He looked quite transfigured as he stood in the doorway.
ASTA.
And was he not the least bit tired either?
RITA.
Oh, yes, he seemed to be tired enough—very tired, in fact. But, poor fellow, he had come on foot the greater part of the way.
ASTA.
And then perhaps the high mountain air may have been rather too keen for him.
RITA.
Oh, no; I don’t think so at all. I haven’t heard him cough once.
ASTA.
Ah, there you see now! It was a good thing, after all, that the doctor talked him into taking this tour.
RITA.
Yes, now that it is safely over.—But I can tell you it has been a terrible time for me, Asta. I have never cared to talk about it—and you so seldom came out to see me, too——
ASTA.
Yes, I daresay that wasn’t very nice of me—but——
RITA.
Well, well, well, of course you had your school to attend to in town. [_Smiling._] And then our road-maker friend—of course he was away too.
ASTA.
Oh, don’t talk like that, Rita.
RITA.
Very well, then; we will leave the road-maker out of the question.—You can’t think how I have been longing for Alfred! How empty the place seemed! How desolate! Ugh, it felt as if there had been a funeral in the house!
ASTA.
Why, dear me, only six or seven weeks——
RITA.
Yes; but you must remember that Alfred has never been away from me before—never so much as twenty-four hours. Not once in all these ten years.
ASTA.
No; but that is just why I really think it was high time he should have a little outing this year. He ought to have gone for a tramp in the mountains every summer—he really ought.
RITA.
[_Half smiling._] Oh yes, it’s all very well for you to talk. If I were as—as reasonable as you, I suppose I should have let him go before—perhaps. But I positively could not, Asta! It seemed to me I should never get him back again. Surely you can understand _that_?
ASTA.
No. But I daresay that is because I have no one to lose.
RITA.
[_With a teasing smile._] Really? No one at all?
ASTA.
Not that _I_ know of. [_Changing the subject._] But tell me, Rita, where is Alfred? Is he still asleep?
RITA.
Oh, not at all. He got up as early as ever to-day.
ASTA.
Then he can’t have been so very tired after all.
RITA.
Yes, he was last night—when he arrived. But now he has had little Eyolf with him in his room for a whole hour and more.
ASTA.
Poor little white-faced boy! Has he to be for ever at his lessons again?
RITA.
[_With a slight shrug._] Alfred will have it so, you know.
ASTA.
Yes; but I think you ought to put down your foot about it, Rita.
RITA.
[_Somewhat impatiently._] Oh no; come now, I really cannot meddle with that. Alfred knows so much better about these things than I do. And what would you have Eyolf do? He can’t run about and play, you see—like other children.
ASTA.
[_With decision._] I will talk to Alfred about this.
RITA.
Yes, do; I wish you would.—Oh! here he is.
[_ALFRED ALLMERS, dressed in light summer clothes, enters by the door on the left, leading EYOLF by the hand. He is a slim, lightly-built man of about thirty-six or thirty-seven, with gentle eyes, and thin brown hair and beard. His expression is serious and thoughtful. EYOLF wears a suit cut like a uniform, with gold braid and gilt military buttons. He is lame, and walks with a crutch under his left arm. His leg is shrunken. He is undersized, and looks delicate, but has beautiful intelligent eyes._
ALLMERS.
[_Drops EYOLF’S hand, goes up to ASTA with an expression of marked pleasure, and holds out both his hands to her._] Asta! My dearest Asta! To think of your coming! To think of my seeing you so soon!
ASTA.
I felt I must——. Welcome home again!
ALLMERS.
[_Shaking her hands._] Thank you for coming.
RITA.
Doesn’t he look well?
ASTA.
[_Gazes fixedly at him._] Splendid! Quite splendid! His eyes are so much brighter! And I suppose you have done a great deal of writing on your travels? [_With an outburst of joy._] I shouldn’t wonder if you had finished the whole book, Alfred?
ALLMERS.
[_Shrugging his shoulders._] The book? Oh, the book——
ASTA.
Yes, I was sure you would find it go so easily when once you got away.
ALLMERS.
So I thought too. But, do you know, I didn’t find it so at all. The truth is, I have not written a line of the book.
ASTA.
Not a line?
RITA.
Oho! I wondered when I found all the paper lying untouched in your bag.
ASTA.
But, my dear Alfred, what have you been doing all this time?
ALLMERS.
[_Smiling._] Only thinking and thinking and thinking.
RITA.
[_Putting her arm round his neck._] And thinking a little, too, of those you had left at home?
ALLMERS.
Yes, you may be sure of that. I have thought a great deal of you—every single day.
RITA.
[_Taking her arm away._] Ah, that is all I care about.
ASTA.
But you haven’t even touched the book! And yet you can look so happy and contented! That is not what you generally do—I mean when your work is going badly.
ALLMERS.
You are right there. You see, I have been such a fool hitherto. All the best that is in you goes into thinking. What you put on paper is worth very little.
ASTA.
[_Exclaiming_.] Worth very little!
RITA.
[_Laughing._] What an absurd thing to say, Alfred.
EYOLF.
[_Looks confidingly up at him._] Oh yes, Papa, what _you_ write is worth a great deal!
ALLMERS.
[_Smiling and stroking his hair._] Well, well, since _you_ say so——But I can tell you, some one is coming after me who will do it better.
EYOLF.
Who can that be? Oh, tell me!
ALLMERS.
Only wait—you may be sure he will come, and let us hear of him.
EYOLF.
And what will you do then?
ALLMERS.
[_Seriously._] Then I will go to the mountains again——
RITA.
Fie, Alfred! For shame!
ALLMERS.
—up to the peaks and the great waste places.
EYOLF.
Papa, don’t you think I shall soon be well enough for you to take me with you?
ALLMERS.
[_With painful emotion._] Oh, yes, perhaps, my little boy.
EYOLF.
It would be so splendid, you know, if I could climb the mountains, like you.
ASTA.
[_Changing the subject._] Why, how beautifully you are dressed to-day, Eyolf!
EYOLF.
Yes, don’t you think so, Auntie?
ASTA.
Yes, indeed. Is it in honour of Papa that you have got your new clothes on?
EYOLF.
Yes, I asked Mama to let me. I wanted so to let Papa see me in them.
ALLMERS.
[_In a low voice, to RITA._] You shouldn’t have given him clothes like that.
RITA.
[_In a low voice._] Oh, he has teased me so long about them—he had set his heart on them. He gave me no peace.
EYOLF.
And I forgot to tell you, Papa—Borgheim has bought me a new bow. And he has taught me how to shoot with it too.
ALLMERS.
Ah, there now—that’s just the sort of thing for you, Eyolf.
EYOLF.
And next time he comes, I shall ask him to teach me to swim, too.
ALLMERS.
To swim! Oh, what makes you want to learn swimming?
EYOLF.
Well, you know, all the boys down at the beach can swim. I am the only one that can’t.
ALLMERS.
[_With emotion, taking him in his arms._] You shall learn whatever you like—everything you really want to.
EYOLF.
Then do you know what I want most of all, Papa?
ALLMERS.
No; tell me.
EYOLF.
I want most of all to be a soldier.
ALLMERS.
Oh, little Eyolf, there are many, many other things that are better than that.
EYOLF.
Ah, but when I grow big, then I shall _have_ to be a soldier. You know that, don’t you?
ALLMERS.
[_Clenching his hands together._] Well, well, well: we shall see——
ASTA.
[_Seating herself at the table on the left._] Eyolf! Come here to me, and I will tell you something.
EYOLF.
[_Goes up to her._] What is it, Auntie?
ASTA.
What do you think, Eyolf—I have seen the Rat-Wife.
EYOLF.
What! Seen the Rat-Wife! Oh, you’re only making a fool of me!
ASTA.
No; it’s quite true. I saw her yesterday.
EYOLF.
Where did you see her?
ASTA.
I saw her on the road, outside the town.
ALLMERS.
I saw her, too, somewhere up in the country.
RITA.
[_Who is sitting on the sofa._] Perhaps it will be our turn to see her next, Eyolf.
EYOLF.
Auntie, isn’t it strange that she should be called the Rat-Wife?
ASTA.
Oh, people just give her that name because she wanders round the country driving away all the rats.
ALLMERS.