Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (206 page)

OSWALD. I could do no less for my father.

MRS. ALVING. And I am to keep him so long! That is the best of all.

MANDERS. You are going to pass the winter at home, I hear.

OSWALD. My stay is indefinite, sir.-But, ah! it is good to be at home!

MRS. ALVING.
[Beaming.]
Yes, isn’t it, dear?

MANDERS.
[Looking sympathetically at him.]
You went out into the world early, my dear Oswald.

OSWALD. I did. I sometimes wonder whether it wasn’t too early.

MRS. ALVING. Oh, not at all. A healthy lad is all the better for it; especially when he’s an only child. He oughtn’t to hang on at home with his mother and father, and get spoilt.

MANDERS. That is a very disputable point, Mrs. Alving. A child’s proper place is, and must be, the home of his fathers.

OSWALD. There I quite agree with you, Pastor Manders.

MANDERS. Only look at your own son — there is no reason why we should not say it in his presence — what has the consequence been for him? He is six or seven and twenty, and has never had the opportunity of learning what a well-ordered home really is.

OSWALD. I beg your pardon, Pastor; there you’re quite mistaken.

MANDERS. Indeed? I thought you had lived almost exclusively in artistic circles.

OSWALD. So I have.

MANDERS. And chiefly among the younger artists?

OSWALD. Yes, certainly.

MANDERS. But I thought few of those young fellows could afford to set up house and support a family.

OSWALD. There are many who cannot afford to marry, sir.

MANDERS. Yes, that is just what I say.

OSWALD. But they may have a home for all that. And several of them have, as a matter of fact; and very pleasant, well-ordered homes they are, too.

[MRS. ALVING follows with breathless interest; nods, but says nothing.]

MANDERS. But I’m not talking of bachelors’ quarters. By a “home” I understand the home of a family, where a man lives with his wife and children.

OSWALD. Yes; or with his children and his children’s mother.

MANDERS.
[Starts; clasps his hands.]
But, good heavens —

OSWALD. Well?

MANDERS. Lives with — his children’s mother!

OSWALD. Yes. Would you have him turn his children’s mother out of doors?

MANDERS. Then it is illicit relations you are talking of! Irregular marriages, as people call them!

OSWALD. I have never noticed anything particularly irregular about the life these people lead.

MANDERS. But how is it possible that a — a young man or young woman with any decency of feeling can endure to live in that way? — in the eyes of all the world!

OSWALD. What are they to do? A poor young artist — a poor girl — marriage costs a great deal. What are they to do?

MANDERS. What are they to do? Let me tell you, Mr. Alving, what they ought to do. They ought to exercise self-restraint from the first; that is what they ought to do.

OSWALD. That doctrine will scarcely go down with warm-blooded young people who love each other.

MRS. ALVING. No, scarcely!

MANDERS.
[Continuing.]
How can the authorities tolerate such things! Allow them to go on in the light of day!
[Confronting MRS. ALVING.]
Had I not cause to be deeply concerned about your son? In circles where open immorality prevails, and has even a sort of recognised position — !

OSWALD. Let me tell you, sir, that I have been in the habit of spending nearly all my Sundays in one or two such irregular homes —

MANDERS. Sunday of all days!

OSWALD. Isn’t that the day to enjoy one’s self? Well, never have I heard an offensive word, and still less have I witnessed anything that could be called immoral. No; do you know when and where I have come across immorality in artistic circles?

MANDERS. No, thank heaven, I don’t!

OSWALD. Well, then, allow me to inform you. I have met with it when one or other of our pattern husbands and fathers has come to Paris to have a look round on his own account, and has done the artists the honour of visiting their humble haunts. They knew what was what. These gentlemen could tell us all about places and things we had never dreamt of.

MANDERS. What! Do you mean to say that respectable men from home here would — ?

OSWALD. Have you never heard these respectable men, when they got home again, talking about the way in which immorality runs rampant abroad?

MANDERS. Yes, no doubt —

MRS. ALVING. I have too.

OSWALD. Well, you may take their word for it. They know what they are talking about!
[Presses has hands to his head.]
Oh! that that great, free, glorious life out there should be defiled in such a way!

MRS. ALVING. You mustn’t get excited, Oswald. It’s not good for you.

OSWALD. Yes; you’re quite right, mother. It’s bad for me, I know. You see, I’m wretchedly worn out. I shall go for a little turn before dinner. Excuse me, Pastor: I know you can’t take my point of view; but I couldn’t help speaking out.
[He goes out by the second door to the right.]

MRS. ALVING. My poor boy!

MANDERS. You may well say so. Then this is what he has come to!

[MRS. ALVING looks at him silently.]

MANDERS.
[Walking up and down.]
He called himself the Prodigal Son. Alas! alas!

[MRS. ALVING continues looking at him.]

MANDERS. And what do you say to all this?

MRS. ALVING. I say that Oswald was right in every word.

MANDERS.
[Stands still.]
Right? Right! In such principles?

MRS. ALVING. Here, in my loneliness, I have come to the same way of thinking, Pastor Manders. But I have never dared to say anything. Well! now my boy shall speak for me.

MANDERS. You are greatly to be pitied, Mrs. Alving. But now I must speak seriously to you. And now it is no longer your business manager and adviser, your own and your husband’s early friend, who stands before you. It is the priest — the priest who stood before you in the moment of your life when you had gone farthest astray.

MRS. ALVING. And what has the priest to say to me?

MANDERS. I will first stir up your memory a little. The moment is well chosen. To-morrow will be the tenth anniversary of your husband’s death. To-morrow the memorial in his honour will be unveiled. To-morrow I shall have to speak to the whole assembled multitude. But to-day I will speak to you alone.

MRS. ALVING. Very well, Pastor Manders. Speak.

MANDERS. Do you remember that after less than a year of married life you stood on the verge of an abyss? That you forsook your house and home? That you fled from your husband? Yes, Mrs. Alving — fled, fled, and refused to return to him, however much he begged and prayed you?

MRS. ALVING. Have you forgotten how infinitely miserable I was in that first year?

MANDERS. It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life. What right have we human beings to happiness? We have simply to do our duty, Mrs. Alving! And your duty was to hold firmly to the man you had once chosen, and to whom you were bound by the holiest ties.

MRS. ALVING. You know very well what sort of life Alving was leading — what excesses he was guilty of.

MANDERS. I know very well what rumours there were about him; and I am the last to approve the life he led in his young days, if report did not wrong him. But a wife is not appointed to be her husband’s judge. It was your duty to bear with humility the cross which a Higher Power had, in its wisdom, laid upon you. But instead of that you rebelliously throw away the cross, desert the backslider whom you should have supported, go and risk your good name and reputation, and — nearly succeed in ruining other people’s reputation into the bargain.

MRS. ALVING. Other people’s? One other person’s, you mean.

MANDERS. It was incredibly reckless of you to seek refuge with me.

MRS. ALVING. With our clergyman? With our intimate friend?

MANDERS. Just on that account. Yes, you may thank God that I possessed the necessary firmness; that I succeeded in dissuading you from your wild designs; and that it was vouchsafed me to lead you back to the path of duty, and home to your lawful husband.

MRS. ALVING. Yes, Pastor Manders, that was certainly your work.

MANDERS. I was but a poor instrument in a Higher Hand. And what a blessing has it not proved to you, all the days of your life, that I induced you to resume the yoke of duty and obedience! Did not everything happen as I foretold? Did not Alving turn his back on his errors, as a man should? Did he not live with you from that time, lovingly and blamelessly, all his days? Did he not become a benefactor to the whole district? And did he not help you to rise to his own level, so that you, little by little, became his assistant in all his undertakings? And a capital assistant, too — oh, I know, Mrs. Alving, that praise is due to you. — But now I come to the next great error in your life.

MRS. ALVING. What do you mean?

MANDERS. Just as you once disowned a wife’s duty, so you have since disowned a mother’s.

MRS. ALVING. Ah — !

MANDERS. You have been all your life under the dominion of a pestilent spirit of self-will. The whole bias of your mind has been towards insubordination and lawlessness. You have never known how to endure any bond. Everything that has weighed upon you in life you have cast away without care or conscience, like a burden you were free to throw off at will. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and you left your husband. You found it troublesome to be a mother, and you sent your child forth among strangers.

MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true. I did so.

MANDERS. And thus you have become a stranger to him.

MRS. ALVING. No! no! I am not.

MANDERS. Yes, you are; you must be. And in what state of mind has he returned to you? Bethink yourself well, Mrs. Alving. You sinned greatly against your husband; — that you recognise by raising yonder memorial to him. Recognise now, also, how you have sinned against your son — there may yet be time to lead him back from the paths of error. Turn back yourself, and save what may yet be saved in him. For
[With uplifted forefinger]
verily, Mrs. Alving, you are a guilt-laden mother! This I have thought it my duty to say to you.

[Silence.]

MRS. ALVING.
[Slowly and with self-control.]
You have now spoken out, Pastor Manders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory of my husband. I shall not speak to-morrow. But now I will speak frankly to you, as you have spoken to me.

MANDERS. To be sure; you will plead excuses for your conduct —

MRS. ALVING. No. I will only tell you a story.

MANDERS. Well — ?

MRS. ALVING. All that you have just said about my husband and me, and our life after you had brought me back to the path of duty — as you called it — about all that you know nothing from personal observation. From that moment you, who had been our intimate friend, never set foot in our house gain.

MANDERS. You and your husband left the town immediately after.

MRS. ALVING. Yes; and in my husband’s lifetime you never came to see us. It was business that forced you to visit me when you undertook the affairs of the Orphanage.

MANDERS.
[Softly and hesitatingly.]
Helen — if that is meant as a reproach, I would beg you to bear in mind —

MRS. ALVING. — the regard you owed to your position, yes; and that I was a runaway wife. One can never be too cautious with such unprincipled creatures.

MANDERS. My dear — Mrs. Alving, you know that is an absurd exaggeration —