Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (230 page)

WERLE.
Gregers — I believe there is no one in the world you detest as you do me.

GREGERS
[softly.]
I have seen you at too close quarters.

WERLE.
You have seen me with your mother’s eyes.
[Lowers his voice a little.]
But you should remember that her eyes were — clouded now and then.

GREGERS
[quivering.]
I see what you are hinting at. But who was to blame for mother’s unfortunate weakness? Why you, and all those — ! The last of them was this woman that you palmed off upon Hialmar Ekdal, when you were — Ugh!

WERLE
[shrugs his shoulders.]
Word for word as if it were your mother speaking!

GREGERS
[without heeding.]
And there he is now, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, compassed about with all this treachery — living under the same roof with such a creature, and never dreaming that what he calls his home is built upon a lie!
[Comes a step nearer.]
When I look back upon your past, I seem to see a battle-field with shattered lives on every hand.

WERLE.
I begin to think the chasm that divides us is too wide.

GREGERS
[bowing, with self-command.]
So I have observed; and therefore I take my hat and go.

WERLE.
You are going! Out of the house?

GREGERS.
Yes. For at last I see my mission in life.

WERLE.
What mission?

GREGERS.
You would only laugh if I told you.

WERLE.
A lonely man doesn’t laugh so easily, Gregers.

GREGERS
[pointing towards the background.]
Look, father, — the Chamberlains are playing blind-man’s-buff with Mrs. Sorby. — Good-night and good-bye.
[He goes out by the back to the right. Sounds of laughter and merriment from the Company, who are now visible in the outer room.]

WERLE
[muttering contemptuously after GREGERS.]
Ha — ! Poor wretch — and he says he is not overstrained!

ACT SECOND
.

[HIALMAR EKDAL’S studion, a good-sized room, evidently in the top storey of the building. On the right, a sloping roof of large panes of glass, half-covered by a blue curtain. In the right-hand corner, at the back, the entrance door; farther forward, on the same side, a door leading to the sitting-room. Two doors on the opposite side, and between them an iron stove. At the back, a wide double sliding-door. The studio is plainly but comfortably fitted up and furnished. Between the doors on the right, standing out a little from the wall, a sofa with a table and some chairs; on the table a lighted lamp with a shade; beside the stove an old arm-chair. Photographic instruments and apparatus of different kinds lying about the room. Against the back wall, to the left of the double door, stands a bookcase containing a few books, boxes, and bottles of chemicals, instruments, tools, and other objects. Photographs and small articles, such as camel’s-hair pencils, paper, and so forth, lie on the table.]

[GINA EKDAL sits on a chair by the table, sewing. HEDVIG is sitting on the sofa, with her hands shading her eyes and her thumbs in her ears, reading a book.]

GINA
[glances once or twice at HEDVIG, as if with secret anxiety; then says:]
Hedvig!

[Hedvig does not hear.]

GINA
[repeats more loudly.]
Hedvig!

HEDVIG
[takes away her hands and looks up.]
Yes, mother?

GINA.
Hedvig dear, you mustn’t sit reading any longer now.

HEDVIG.
Oh mother, mayn’t I read a little more? Just a little bit?

GINA.
No, no, you must put away your book now. Father doesn’t like it; he never reads hisself in the evening.

HEDVIG
[shuts the book.]
No, father doesn’t care much about reading.

GINA
[puts aside her sewing and takes up a lead pencil and a little account-book from the table.]
Can you remember how much we paid for the butter to-day?

HEDVIG.
It was one crown sixty-five.

GINA.
That’s right.
[Puts it down.]
It’s terrible what a lot of butter we get through in this house. Then there was the smoked sausage, and the cheese — let me see —
[Writes]
— and the ham —
[Adds up.]
Yes, that makes just —

HEDVIG.
And then the beer.

GINA.
Yes, to be sure.
[Writes.]
How it do mount up! But we can’t manage with no less.

HEDVIG.
And then you and I didn’t need anything hot for dinner, as father was out.

GINA.
No; that was so much to the good. And then I took eight crowns fifty for the photographs.

HEDVIG.
Really! So much as that?

GINA.
Exactly eight crowns fifty.
[Silence. GINA takes up her sewing again, HEDVIG takes paper and pencil and begins to draw, shading her eyes with her left hand.]

HEDVIG.
Isn’t it jolly to think that father is at Mr. Werle’s big dinner-party?

GINA.
You know he’s not really Mr. Werle’s guest. It was the son invited him.
[After a pause.]
We have nothing to do with that Mr. Werle.

HEDVIG.
I’m longing for father to come home. He promised to ask Mrs. Sorby for something nice for me.

GINA.
Yes, there’s plenty of good things going in that house, I can tell you.

HEDVIG
[goes on drawing.]
And I believe I’m a little hungry too.
[OLD EKDAL, with the paper parcel under his arm and another parcel in his coat pocket, comes in by the entrance door.]

GINA.
How late you are to-day, grandfather!

EKDAL.
They had locked the office door. Had to wait in Graberg’s room. And then they let me through — h’m.

HEDVIG.
Did you get some more copying to do, grandfather?

EKDAL.
This whole packet. Just look.

GINA.
That’s capital.

HEDVIG.
And you have another parcel in your pocket.

EKDAL.
Eh? Oh never mind, that’s nothing.
[Puts his stick away in a corner.]
This work will keep me going a long time, Gina.
[Opens one of the sliding-doors in the back wall a little.]
Hush!
[Peeps into the room for a moment, then pushes the door carefully to again.]
Hee-hee! They’re fast asleep, all the lot of them. And she’s gone into the basket herself. Hee-hee!

HEDVIG.
Are you sure she isn’t cold in that basket, grandfather?

EKDAL.
Not a bit of it! Cold? With all that straw?
[Goes towards the farther door on the left.]
There are matches in here, I suppose.

GINA.
The matches is on the drawers.
[EKDAL goes into his room.]

HEDVIG.
It’s nice that grandfather has got all that copying.

GINA.
Yes, poor old father; it means a bit of pocket-money for him.

HEDVIG.
And he won’t be able to sit the whole forenoon down at that horrid Madam Eriksen’s.

GINA.
No more he won’t.
[Short silence.]

HEDVIG.
Do you suppose they are still at the dinner-table?

GINA.
Goodness knows; as like as not.

HEDVIG.
Think of all the delicious things father is having to eat! I’m certain he’ll be in splendid spirits when he comes. Don’t you think so, mother?

GINA.
Yes; and if only we could tell him that we’d got the room let —

HEDVIG.
But we don’t need that this evening.

GINA.
Oh, we’d be none the worst of it, I can tell you. It’s no use to us as it is.

HEDVIG.
I mean we don’t need it this evening, for father will be in a good humour at any rate. It is best to keep the letting of the room for another time.

GINA
[looks across at her.]
You like having some good news to tell father when he comes home in the evening?

HEDVIG.
Yes; for then things are pleasanter somehow.

GINA
[thinking to herself.]
Yes, yes, there’s something in that.
[OLD EKDAL comes in again and is going out by the foremost door to the left.]

GINA
[half turning in her chair.]
Do you want something out of the kitchen, grandfather?

EKDAL.
Yes, yes, I do. Don’t you trouble.
[Goes out.]

GINA.
He’s not poking away at the fire, is he?
[Waits a moment.]
Hedvig, go and see what he’s about.
[EKDAL comes in again with a small jug of steaming hot water.]

HEDVIG.
Have you been getting some hot water, grandfather?

EKDAL.
Yes, hot water. Want it for something. Want to write, and the ink has got as thick as porridge — h’m.

GINA.
But you’d best have your supper, first, grandfather. It’s laid in there.

EKDAL.
Can’t be bothered with supper, Gina. Very busy, I tell you. No one’s to come to my room. No one — h’m.
[He goes into his room; GINA and HEDVIG look at each other.]

GINA
[softly.]
Can you imagine where he’s got money from?

HEDVIG.
From Graberg, perhaps.

GINA.
Not a bit of it. Graberg always sends the money to me.

HEDVIG.
Then he must have got a bottle on credit somewhere.

GINA.
Poor grandfather, who’d give him credit?
[HIALMAR EKDAL, in an overcoat and grey felt hat, comes in from the right.]

GINA
[throws down her sewing and rises.]
Why, Ekdal, Is that you already?

HEDVIG
[at the same time jumping up.]
Fancy your coming so soon, father!

HIALMAR
[taking off his hat.]
Yes, most of the people were coming away.

HEDVIG.
So early?

HIALMAR.
Yes, it was a dinner-party, you know.
[Is taking off his overcoat.]

GINA.
Let me help you.

HEDVIG.
Me too.
[They draw off his coat; GINA hangs it up on the back wall.]

HEDVIG.
Were there many people there, father?

HIALMAR.
Oh no, not many. We were about twelve or fourteen at table.

GINA.
And you had some talk with them all?

HIALMAR.
Oh yes, a little; but Gregers took me up most of the time.

GINA.
Is Gregers as ugly as ever?

HIALMAR.
Well, he’s not very much to look at. Hasn’t the old man come home?

HEDVIG.
Yes, grandfather is in his room, writing.

HIALMAR.
Did he say anything?

GINA.
No, what should he say?

HIALMAR.
Didn’t he say anything about — ? I heard something about his having been with Graberg. I’ll go in and see him for a moment.

GINA.
No, no, better not.

HIALMAR.
Why not? Did he say he didn’t want me to go in?

GINA.
I don’t think he wants to see nobody this evening —

HEDVIG
[making signs.]
H’m — h’m!

GINA
[not noticing.]
 
— he has been in to fetch hot water —

HIALMAR.
Aha! Then he’s —

GINA.
Yes, I suppose so.

HIALMAR.
Oh God! my poor old white-haired father! — Well, well; there let him sit and get all the enjoyment he can.
[OLD EKDAL, in an indoor coat and with a lighted pipe, comes from his room.]

EKDAL.
Got home? Thought it was you I heard talking.

HIALMAR.
Yes, I have just come.

EKDAL.
You didn’t see me, did you?

HIALMAR.
No, but they told me you had passed through — so I thought I would follow you.

EKDAL.
H’m, good of you, Hialmar. — Who were they, all those fellows?

HIALMAR.
 
— Oh, all sorts of people. There was Chamberlain Flor, and Chamberlain Balle, and Chamberlain Kaspersen, and Chamberlain — this, that, and the other — I don’t know who all —

EKDAL
[nodding.]
Hear that, Gina! Chamberlains every one of them!

GINA.
Yes, I hear as they’re terrible genteel in that house nowadays.

HEDVIG.
Did the Chamberlains sing, father? Or did they read aloud?

HIALMAR.
No, they only talked nonsense. They wanted me to recite something for them; but I knew better than that.

EKDAL.
You weren’t to be persuaded, eh?

GINA.
Oh, you might have done it.

HIALMAR.
No; one mustn’t be at everybody’s beck and call.
[Walks about the room.]
That’s not my way, at any rate.

EKDAL.
No, no; Hialmar’s not to be had for the asking, he isn’t.

HIALMAR.
I don’t see why I should bother myself to entertain people on the rare occasions when I go into society. Let the others exert themselves. These fellows go from one great dinner-table to the next and gorge and guzzle day out and day in. It’s for them to bestir themselves and do something in return for all the good feeding they get.

GINA.
But you didn’t say that?

HIALMAR
[humming.]
Ho-ho-ho — ; faith, I gave them a bit of my mind.

EKDAL.
Not the Chamberlains?

HIALMAR.
Oh, why not?
[Lightly.]
After that, we had a little discussion about Tokay.