Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (19 page)

LADY INGER. And this support —— ?

NILS LYKKE. Should naturally come from Sweden. But, mark well, not so long as Gustav Vasa holds the helm;
his
reckoning with Denmark is not settled yet, and mayhap never will be. But a new king of Sweden, who had the people with him, and who owed his throne to the help of Denmark ——
 
—— Well, you begin to understand me?
Then
we could safely say to you Norwegians: “Take back your old ancestral rights; choose you a ruler after your own mind; be our friends in need, as we will be in yours!” — Mark you well, Lady Inger, herein is our generosity less than it may seem; for you must see that, far from weakening, ‘twill rather strengthen us. And now I have opened my heart to you so fully, do you too cast away all mistrust. And therefore (confidently) — the knight from Sweden, who came hither an hour before me ——

LADY INGER. Then you already know of his coming?

NILS LYKKE. Most certainly. It is him I seek.

LADY INGER (to herself). Strange! It must be as Olaf Skaktavl said. (To NILS LYKKE.) I pray you wait here, Sir Councillor! I go to bring him to you.

(Goes out through the Banquet Hall.)

NILS LYKKE (looks after her a while in exultant astonishment). She is bringing him! Ay, truly — she is bringing him! The battle is half won. I little thought it would go so smoothly —— She is deep in the counsels of the rebels; she started in terror when I named Sten Sture’s son —— And now? Hm! Since Lady Inger has been simple enough to walk into the snare, Nils Sture will not make many difficulties. A hot-blooded boy, thoughtless and rash ——
 
—— With my promise of help he will set forth at once — unhappily Jens Bielke will snap him up by the way — and the whole rising will be nipped in the bud. And then? Then one step more in our own behalf. It is spread abroad that the young Count Sture has been at Ostrat, — that a Danish envoy has had audience of Lady Inger — that thereupon the young Count Nils has been snapped up by King Gustav’s men-at-arms a mile from the castle ——
 
—— Let Inger Gyldenlove’s name among the people stand never so high — it will scarce recover from such a blow. (Starts up in sudden uneasiness.) By all the devils —— ! What if she has scented mischief! It may be he is slipping through our fingers even now —— (Listens toward the hall, and says with relief.) Ah, there is no fear. Here they come.

 (LADY INGER GYLDENLOVE enters from the hall along with
      OLAF SKAKTAVL.)

LADY INGER (to NILS LYKKE). Here is the man you seek.

NILS LYKKE (aside). In the name of hell — what means this?

LADY INGER. I have told this knight your name and all that you have imparted to me ——

NILS LYKKE (irresolutely). Ay? Have you so? Well ——

LADY INGER —— And I will not hide from you that his faith in your help is none of the strongest.

NILS LYKKE. Is it not?

LADY INGER. Can you marvel at that? You know, surely, both the cause he fights for and his bitter fate ——

NILS LYKKE. This man’s —— ? Ah — yes, truly ——

OLAF SKAKTAVL (to NILS LYKKE). But seeing ‘tis Peter Kanzler
himself that has appointed us this meeting ——

NILS LYKKE. Peter Kanzler —— ? (Recovers himself quickly.)
Ay, right, — I have a mission from Peter Kanzler ——

OLAF SKAKTAVL. He must know best whom he can trust. So why
should I trouble my head with thinking how ——

NILS LYKKE. Ay, you are right, noble Sir; that were folly indeed.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Rather let us come straight to the matter.

NILS LYKKE. Straight to the point; no beating about the bush—’tis ever my fashion.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Then will you tell me your mission here?

NILS LYKKE. Methinks you can partly guess my errand ——

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Peter Kanzler said something of papers that ——

NILS LYKKE. Papers? Ay, true, the papers!

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Doubtless you have them with you?

NILS LYKKE. Of course; safely bestowed; so safely that I cannot
at once ——
    (Appears to search the inner pockets of his doublet; says to
      himself:)
  Who the devil is he? What pretext shall I make? I may be on
the brink of great discoveries ——
    (Notices that the Servants are laying the table and lighting
      the lamps in the Banquet Hall, and says to OLAF SKAKTAVL:)
  Ah, I see Lady Inger has taken order for the evening meal. We
could perhaps better talk of our affairs at table.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Good; as you will.

NILS LYKKE (aside). Time gained — all gained!
    (To LADY INGER with a show of great friendliness.)
  And meanwhile we might learn what part Lady Inger Gyldenlove
purposes to take in our design?

LADY INGER. I? — None.

NILS LYKKE AND OLAF SKAKTAVL. None!

LADY INGER. Can ye marvel, noble Sirs, that I venture not on a game, wherein all is staked on one cast? And that, too, when none of my allies dare trust me fully.

NILS LYKKE. That reproach touches not me. I trust you blindly;
I pray you be assured of that.

OLAF SKAKTAVL. Who should believe in you, if not your countrymen?

LADY INGER. Truly, — this confidence rejoices me.

(Goes to a cupboard in the back wall and fills two goblets with wine.)

NILS LYKKE (aside). Curse her, will she slip out of the noose?

LADY INGER (hands a goblet to each). And since so it is, I
offer you a cup of welcome to Ostrat. Drink, noble knights!
Pledge me to the last drop!
    (Looks from one to the other after they have drunk, and says
      gravely:)
  But now I must tell you — one goblet held a welcome for my friend;
the other — death for my enemy.

NILS LYKKE (throws down the goblet). Ah, I am poisoned!

OLAF SKAKTAVL (at the same time, clutches his sword). Death and
hell, have you murdered me?

LADY INGER (to OLAF SKAKTAVL, pointing to NILS LYKKE.) You see
the Danes’ trust in Inger Gyldenlove ——
    (To NILS LYKKE, pointing to OLAF SKAKTAVL.)
 
—— and likewise my countrymen’s faith in me!
    (To both of them.)
  And I am to place myself in your power? Gently, noble Sirs —
gently! The Lady of Ostrat is not yet in her dotage.

(ELINA GYLDENLOVE enters by the door on the left.)

ELINA. I heard voices! What is amiss?

LADY INGER (to NILS LYKKE). My daughter Elina.

NILS LYKKE (softly). Elina! I had not pictured her thus.

(ELINA catches sight of NILS LYKKE, and stands still, as in surprise, gazing at him.)

LADY INGER (touches her arm). My child — this knight is ——

ELINA (motions her mother back with her hand, still looking intently at him, and says:) There is no need! I see who he is. He is Nils Lykke.

NILS LYKKE (aside, to LADY INGER). How? Does she know me?
Can Lucia have —— ? Can she know —— ?

LADY INGER. Hush! She knows nothing.

ELINA (to herself). I knew it; — even so must Nils Lykke appear.

NILS LYKKE (approaches her). Yes, Elina Gyldenlove, — you have guessed rightly. And as it seems that, in some sense, you know me, — and moreover, as I am your mother’s guest, — you will not deny me the flower-spray you wear in your bosom. So long as it is fresh and fragrant I shall have in it an image of yourself.

ELINA (proudly, but still gazing at him). Pardon me, Sir Knight — it was plucked in my own chamber, and
there
can grow no flower for you.

NILS LYKKE (loosening a spray of flowers that he wears in the front of his doublet). At least you will not disdain this humble gift. ‘Twas a farewell token from a courtly lady when I set forth from Trondhiem this morning. — But mark me, noble maiden, — were I to offer you a gift that were fully worthy of you, it could be naught less than a princely crown.

ELINA (who has taken the flowers passively). And were it the royal crown of Denmark you held forth to me — before I shared it with
you
, I would crush it to pieces between my hands, and cast the fragments at your feet!

 (Throws down the flowers at his feet, and goes into the
      Banquet Hall.)

OLAF SKAKTAVL (mutters to himself). Bold — as Inger Ottisdaughter
by Knut Alfson’s bier!

LADY INGER (softly, after looking alternately at ELINA and NILS
LYKKE). The wolf
can
be tamed. Now to forge the fetters.

NILS LYKKE (picks up the flowers and gazes in rapture after ELINA).
God’s holy blood, but she is proud and fair

ACT THIRD
.

(The Banquet Hall. A high bow-window in the background; a smaller window in front on the left. Several doors on each side. The roof is supported by massive wooden pillars, on which, as well as on the walls, are hung all sorts of weapons. Pictures of saints, knights, and ladies hang in long rows. Pendent from the roof a large many-branched lamp, alight. In front, on the right, an ancient carven high-seat. In the middle of the hall, a table with the remnants of the evening meal.)

(ELINA GYLDENLOVE enters from the left, slowly and in deep thought. Her expression shows that she is going over again in her mind the scene with NILS LYKKE. At last she repeats the motion with which she flung away the flowers, and says in a low voice:)

ELINA. ——
 
—— And then he gathered up the fragments of the crown of Denmark — no, ‘twas the flowers — and: “God’s holy blood, but she is proud and fair!” Had he whispered the words in the remotest corner, long leagues from Ostrat, — still had I heard them! How I hate him! How I have always hated him, — this Nils Lykke! — There lives not another man like him, ‘tis said. He plays with women — and treads them under his feet. And it was to him my mother thought to offer me! — How I hate him! They say Nils Lykke is unlike all other men. It is not true! There is nothing strange in him. There are many, many like him! When Biorn used to tell me his tales, all the princes looked as Nils Lykke looks. When I sat lonely here in the hall and dreamed my histories, and my knights came and went, — they were one and all even as he. How strange and how good it is to hate! Never have I known how sweet it can be — till to-night. Ah — not to live a thousand years would I sell the moments I have lived since I saw him!—”God’s holy blood, but she is proud ——
 
— —”

(Goes slowly towards the background, opens the window and looks out. NILS LYKKE comes in by the first door on the right.)

NILS LYKKE (to himself). “Sleep well at Ostrat, Sir Knight,” said Inger Gyldenlove as she left me. Sleep well? Ay, it is easily said, but ——
 
—— Out there, sky and sea in tumult; below, in the grave-vault, a young girl on her bier; the fate of two kingdoms in my hand; and in my breast a withered flower that a woman has flung at my feet. Truly, I fear me sleep will be slow of coming. (Notices ELINA, who has left the window, and is going out on the left.) There she is. Her haughty eyes seem veiled with thought. — Ah, if I but dared — (aloud). Mistress Elina!

ELINA (stops at the door). What will you? Why do you pursue me?

NILS LYKKE. You err; I pursue you not. I am myself pursued.

ELINA. You?

NILS LYKKE. By a multitude of thoughts. Therefore ‘tis with
sleep as with you: — it flees me.

ELINA. Go to the window, and there you will find pastime; — a
storm-tossed sea ——

NILS LYKKE (smiles). A storm-tossed sea? That I may find in
you as well.

ELINA. In me?

NILS LYKKE. Ay, of that our first meeting has assured me.

ELINA. And that offends you?

NILS LYKKE. Nay, in nowise; yet I could wish to see you of milder mood.

ELINA (proudly). Think you that you will ever have your wish?

NILS LYKKE. I am sure of it. I have a welcome word to say to you.

ELINA. What is it?

NILS LYKKE. Farewell.

ELINA (comes a step nearer him). Farewell? You are leaving
Ostrat — so soon?

NILS LYKKE. This very night.

ELINA (seems to hesitate for a moment; then says coldly:) Then take my greeting, Sir Knight! (Bows and is about to go.)

NILS LYKKE. Elina Gyldenlove, — I have no right to keep you here; but ‘twill be unlike your nobleness if you refuse to hear what I have to say to you.

ELINA. I hear you, Sir Knight.

NILS LYKKE. I know you hate me.

ELINA. You are keen-sighted, I perceive.

NILS LYKKE. But I know, too, that I have fully merited your hate. Unseemly and insolent were the words I wrote of you in my letter to Lady Inger.

ELINA. It may be; I have not read them.

NILS LYKKE. But at least their purport is not unknown to you; I know your mother has not left you in ignorance of the matter; at the least she has told you how I praised the lot of the man who —— ; surely you know the hope I nursed ——

ELINA. Sir Knight — if it is of that you would speak ——

NILS LYKKE. I speak of it only to excuse what I have done; for no other reason, I swear to you. If my fame has reached you — as I have too much cause of fear — before I myself set foot in Ostrat, you must needs know enough of my life not to wonder that in such things I should go to work something boldly. I have met many women, Elina Gyldenlove; but not one have I found unyielding. Such lessons, look you, teach a man to be secure. He loses the habit of roundabout ways ——

ELINA. May be so. I know not of what metal those women can have been. For the rest, you err in thinking ‘twas your letter to my mother that aroused my soul’s hatred and bitterness against you. It is of older date.

NILS LYKKE (uneasily). Of older date? What mean you?

ELINA. ‘Tis as you guessed: — your fame has gone before you to Ostrat, even as over all the land. Nils Lykke’s name is never spoken save with the name of some woman whom he has beguiled and cast off. Some speak it in wrath, others with laughter and wanton jeering at those weak-souled creatures. But through the wrath and the laughter and the jeers rings the song they have made of you, masterful and insolent as an enemy’s song of triumph. ‘Tis all this that has begotten my hate for you. Your were ever in my thoughts, and I longed to meet you face to face, that you might learn that there are women on whom your soft speeches are lost — if you should think to use them.

NILS LYKKE. You judge me unjustly, if you judge from what rumour has told of me. Even if there be truth in all you have heard, — you know not the causes that have made me what I am. — As a boy of seventeen I began my course of pleasure. I have lived full fifteen years since then. Light women granted me all that I would — even before the wish had shaped itself into a prayer; and what I offered them they seized with eager hands. You are the first woman that has flung back a gift of mine with scorn at my feet. Think not I reproach you. Rather I honour you for it, as never before have I honoured woman. But for this I reproach my fate — and the thought is a gnawing pain to me — that I did not meet you sooner ——
 
—— Elina Gyldenlove! Your mother has told me of you. While far from Ostrat life ran its restless course, you went your lonely way in silence, living in your dreams and histories. Therefore you will understand what I have to tell you. — Know, then, that once I too lived even such a life as yours. Methought that when I stepped forth into the great world, a noble and stately woman would come to meet me, and would beckon me to her and point me the path towards a lofty goal. — I was deceived, Elina Gyldenlove! Women came to meet me; but
she
was not among them. Ere yet I had come to full manhood, I had learnt to despise them all. Was it my fault? Why were not the others even as you? — I know the fate of your fatherland lies heavy on your soul, and you know the part I have in these affairs ——
 
— —’Tis said of me that I am false as the sea-foam. Mayhap I am; but if I be, it is women who have made me so. Had I sooner found what I sought, — had I met a woman proud and noble and high-souled even as you, then had my path been different indeed. At this moment, maybe, I had been standing at your side as the champion of all that suffer wrong in Norway’s land. For
this
I believe: a woman is the mightiest power in the world, and in her hand it lies to guide a man whither God Almighty would have him go.

ELINA (to herself). Can it be as he says? Nay nay; there is falsehood in his eyes and deceit on his lips. And yet — no song is sweeter than his words.

NILS LYKKE (coming closer, speaks low and more intimately). How often, when you have been sitting here at Ostrat, alone with your changeful thoughts, have you felt your bosom stifling; how often have the roof and walls seemed to shrink together till they crushed your very soul. Then have your longings taken wing with you; then have you yearned to fly far from here, you knew not whither. — How often have you not wandered alone by the fiord; far out a ship has sailed by in fair array, with knights and ladies on her deck with song and music of stringed instruments; — a faint, far-off rumour of great events has reached your ears; — and you have felt a longing in your breast, an unconquerable craving to know all that lies beyond the sea. But you have not understood what ailed you. At times you have thought it was the fate of your fatherland that filled you with all these restless broodings. You deceived yourself; — a maiden so young as you has other food for musing ——
 
—— Elina Gyldenlove! Have you never had visions of an unknown power — a strong mysterious might, that binds together the destinies of mortals? When you dreamed of knightly jousts and joyous festivals — saw you never in your dreams a knight, who stood in the midst of the gayest rout, with a smile on his lips and with bitterness in his heart, — a knight that had once dreamed a dream as fair as yours, of a woman noble and stately, for whom he went ever seeking, and in vain?

ELINA. Who are you, that have power to clothe my most secret thought in words? How can you tell me what I have borne in my inmost soul — and knew it not myself? How know you —— ?

NILS LYKKE. All that I have told you, I have read in your eyes.

ELINA. Never has any man spoken to me as you have. I have
understood you but dimly; and yet — all, all seems changed since ——
  (To herself.) Now I understand why they said that Nils Lykke was
unlike all other.

NILS LYKKE. There is one thing in the world that might drive a man to madness, but to think of it; and that is the thought of what might have been if things had fallen out in this way or that. Had I met you on my path while the tree of my life was yet green and budding, at this hour, mayhap, you had been ——
 
—— But forgive me, noble lady! Our speech of these past few moments has made me forget how we stand one to another. ‘Twas as though a secret voice had told me from the first that to you I could speak openly, without flattery or dissimulation.

ELINA. That can you.

NILS LYKKE. ‘Tis well; — and it may be that this openness has already in part reconciled us. Ay — my hope is yet bolder. The time may yet come when you will think of the stranger knight without hate or bitterness in your soul. Nay, — mistake me not! I mean not now — but some time, in the days to come. And that this may be the less hard for you — and as I have begun once for all to speak to you plainly and openly — let me tell you ——

ELINA. Sir Knight —— !

NILS LYKKE (smiling). Ah, I see the thought of my letter still affrights you. Fear nought on that score. I would from my heart it were unwritten, for — I know ‘twill concern you little enough, so I may even say it right out — for I love you not, and shall never come to you. Fear nothing, therefore, as I said before; I shall in no wise seek to ——
 
—— But what ails you —— ?

ELINA. Me? Nothing, nothing. — Tell me but one thing. Why do you still wear those flowers? What would you with them?

NILS LYKKE. These? Are they not a gage of battle you have thrown down to the wicked Nils Lykke on behalf of all womankind? What could I do but take it up? You asked what I would with them. (Softly.) When I stand again amidst the fair ladies of Denmark — when the music of the strings is hushed and there is silence in the hall — then will I bring forth these flowers and tell a tale of a young maiden sitting alone in a gloomy black-beamed hall, far to the north in Norway —— (Breaks off and bows respectfully.) But I fear I keep the noble daughter of the house too long. We shall meet no more; for before day-break I shall be gone. So now I bid you farewell.

ELINA. Fare you well, Sir Knight!

(A short silence.)

NILS LYKKE. Again you are deep in thought, Elina Gyldenlove!
Is it the fate of your fatherland that weighs upon you still?

ELINA (shakes her head, absently gazing straight in front of
her). My fatherland? — I think not of my fatherland.

NILS LYKKE. Then ‘tis the strife and misery of the time that
cause you dread.

ELINA. The time? I have forgotten time ——
 
—— You go to
Denmark? Said you not so?

NILS LYKKE. I go to Denmark.

ELINA. Can I see towards Denmark from this hall?