Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (140 page)
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Authors: Henrik Ibsen
ASLAKSEN.
Oh, you can have twenty, Chamberlain!
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Very well, then; let me have twenty. And if you need money, come to me; I mean to support the press; but I tell you once for all — I won’t write for it.
RINGDAL
What’s this I hear? Your daughter engaged?
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Yes; what do you say to that?
RINGDAL
I am delighted! But when was it arranged?
FIELDBO
[quickly.]
I’ll tell you afterwards —
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Why, it was arranged on the Seventeenth of May.
FIELDBO.
What?
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
The day little Miss Ragna was here.
THORA.
Father, father; did you know — ?
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Yes, my dear; I have known all along.
FIELDBO.
Oh, Chamberlain — !
THORA.
Who can have — ?
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Another time, I should advise you young ladies not to talk so loud when I am taking my siesta in the bay window.
THORA.
Oh! so you were behind the curtains?
FIELDBO.
Now I understand!
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Yes, you are the one to keep your own counsel —
FIELDBO.
Would it have been of any use for me to speak earlier?
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
You are right, Fieldbo. These days have taught me a lesson.
THORA
[aside to FIELDBO.]
Yes, you can keep your own counsel. All this about Mr. Stensgard — why did you tell me nothing?
FIELDBO.
When a hawk is hovering over the dove-cote, one watches and shields his little dove — one does not alarm her.
[They are interrupted by MADAM RUNDHOLMEN,]
HEIRE
[to the CHAMBERLAIN.]
I’m sorry to tell you, Chamberlain, that the settlement of our little legal differences will have to be adjourned indefinitely.
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Indeed; Why so?
HEIRE.
You must know I’ve accepted a post as society reporter on Aslaksen’s paper.
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
I am glad to hear it.
HEIRE.
And of course you’ll understand — with so much business on hand —
MADAM RUNDHOLMEN
[to THORA.]
Yes, I can tell you he’s cost me many a tear, that bad man. But now I thank the Lord for Bastian. The other was false as the sea-foam; and then he’s a terrible smoker, Miss Bratsberg, and frightfully particular about his meals. I found him a regular gourmand.
A SERVANT
[enters from the left.]
Dinner is on the table.
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Come along, then, all of you. Mr. Lundestad, you shall sit beside me; and you too, Mr. Aslaksen.
RINGDAL
We shall have a lot of toasts to drink after dinner!
HEIRE.
Yes; and perhaps an old man may be allowed to put in a claim for the toast of “Absent Friends.”
LUNDESTAD.
One absent friend will return, Mr. Heire.
HEIRE.
Stensgard?
LUNDESTAD.
Yes; you’ll see, gentlemen! In ten or fifteen years, Stensgard will either be in Parliament or in the Ministry — perhaps in both at once.
FIELDBO.
In ten or fifteen years? Perhaps; but then he can scarcely stand at the head of the League of Youth.
HEIRE.
Why not?
FIELDBO.
Why, because by that time his youth will be — questionable.
HEIRE.
Then he can stand at the head of the Questionable League, sir. That’s what Lundestad means. He says like Napoleon—”It’s the questionable people that make politicians”; hee-hee!
FIELDBO.
Well, after all is said and done, our League shall last through young days and questionable days as well; and it shall continue to be the League of Youth. When Stensgard founded his League, and was carried shoulder-high amid all the enthusiasm of Independence Day, he said—”Providence is on the side of the League of Youth.” I think even Mr. Helle, theologian as he is, will let us apply that saying to ourselves.
THE CHAMBERLAIN.
I think so too, my friends; for truly we have been groping and stumbling in darkness; but good angels guided us.
LUNDESTAD.
Oh, for that matter, I think the angels were only middling.
ASLAKSEN.
Yes; that comes of the local situation, Mr. Lundestad.
THE END
Translated by William Archer
Although now mostly neglected, Ibsen often considered
Emperor and Galilean
to be his major work, which was written in two complementary parts, with five acts in each part, making it his longest play. The drama concerns the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, covering the years 351–363 AD. Julian was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who aspired to bring the Empire back to its ancient Roman values and greatness. Ibsen conceived the drama in 1864, during his four year sojourn in Rome, where he actively collected historical material, before starting to write the play itself in 1871. It was completed and published in 1873.
Ibsen called the play a “world drama in two parts”, addressing the world order, the state of faith and what constitutes an ideal government, intertwining these three issues together with each other, with Julian’s personality and with an artistic reconstruction of that historical era. It originates the idea of a “Third Empire”, put into the mouth of the philosopher Maximus, as a moral and political ideal formed by a kind of synthesis between the realm of the flesh in paganism and the realm of the spirit in Christianity. The author wrote that the future had to be marked by such a synthesis, seeing that future as a community of noble, harmonious development and freedom, producing a society in which no person can oppress another and that that future had to be reached by a revolution in the spirit and an internal rebirth. However, the real life he presents in the play suggests that these ideas are just idealistic dreams and that the clash of paganism and Christianity creates only suffering.
A closet drama boasting of ten acts, set amid the splendours of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century AD, it was never intended to be performed on a stage. Nevertheless, various adaptations of the play have found their way on to the stage. The first performance of the play was on December 5th 1896 at Leipzig Stadttheater in Germany. The adaptation consisted of six acts and was the work of Leopold Adler. The performance lasted for four hours, and was said to have made a very strong impression, although the critics detected many weaknesses in it.
Julian the Apostate was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer.
‘Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians’ by Edward Armitage, 1875
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