Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (249 page)

Rosmer. It is true that I used to think that sooner or later our beautiful pure friendship would come to be attacked by calumny and suspicion — not on Kroll’s part, for I never would have believed such a thing of him — but on the part of the coarse-minded and ignoble-eyed crowd. Yes, indeed; I had good reason enough for so jealously drawing a veil of concealment over our compact. It was a dangerous secret.

Rebecca. Why should we pay any heed to what all these other people think? You and I know that we have nothing to reproach ourselves with.

Rosmer. I? Nothing to reproach myself with? It is true enough that I thought so until to-day. But now, now, Rebecca —

Rebecca. Yes? Now?

Rosmer. How am I to account to myself for Beata’s horrible accusation?

Rebecca
(impetuously)
. Oh, don’t talk about Beata! Don’t think about Beata any more! She is dead, and you seemed at last to have been able to get away from the thought of her.

Rosmer. Since I have learnt of this, it seems just as if she had come to life again in some uncanny fashion.

Rebecca. Oh no — you must not say that, John! You must not!

Rosmer. I tell you it is so. We must try and get to the bottom of it. How can she have strayed into such a woeful misunderstanding of me?

Rebecca. Surely you too are not beginning to doubt that she was very nearly insane?

Rosmer. Well, I cannot deny it is just of that fact that I feel I cannot be so altogether certain any longer. And besides if it were so —

Rebecca. If it were so? What then?

Rosmer. What I mean is — where are we to look for the actual cause of her sick woman’s fancies turning into insanity?

Rebecca. What good can it possibly do for you to indulge in such speculations!

Rosmer. I cannot do otherwise, Rebecca. I cannot let this doubt go on gnawing at my heart, however unwilling I may be to face it.

Rebecca. But it may become a real danger to you to be perpetually dwelling on this one lugubrious topic.

Rosmer
(walking about restlessly and absorbed in the idea)
. I must have betrayed myself in some way or other. She must have noticed how happy I began to feel from the day you came to us.

Rebecca. Yes; but dear, even if that were so —

Rosmer. You may be sure she did not fail to notice that we read the same books; that we sought one another’s company, and discussed every new topic together. But I cannot understand it — because I was always so careful to spare her. When I look back, it seems to me that I did everything I could to keep her apart from our lives. Or did I not, Rebecca?

Rebecca. Yes, yes — undoubtedly you did.

Rosmer. And so did you, too. And notwithstanding that — ! Oh, it is horrible to think of! To think that here she was — with her affection all distorted by illness — never saying a word — watching us — noticing everything and — and — misconstruing everything.

Rebecca
(wringing her hands)
. Oh, I never ought to have come to Rosmersholm.

Rosmer. Just think what she must have suffered in silence! Think of all the horrible things her poor diseased brain must have led her to believe about us and store up in her mind about us! Did she never speak to you of anything that could give you any kind of clue?

Rebecca
(as if startled)
. To me! Do you suppose I should have remained here a day longer, if she had?

Rosmer. No, no — that is obvious. What a fight she must have fought — and fought alone, Rebecca! In despair, and all alone. And then, in the end, the poignant misery of her victory — which was also her accusation of us — in the mill-race!
(Throws himself into a chair, rests his elbows on the table, and hides his face in his hands.)

Rebecca
(coming quietly up behind him)
. Listen to me, John. If it were in your power to call Beata back — to you — to Rosmersholm — would you do it?

Rosmer. How can I tell what I would do or what I would not do! I have no thoughts for anything but the one thing which is irrevocable.

Rebecca. You ought to be beginning to live now, John. You were beginning. You had freed yourself completely on all sides. You were feeling so happy and so light-hearted

Rosmer. I know — that is true enough. And then comes this overwhelming blow.

Rebecca
(standing behind him, with her arms on the back of his chair)
. How beautiful it was when we used to sit there downstairs in the dusk — and helped each other to plan our lives out afresh. You wanted to catch hold of actual life — the actual life of the day, as you used to say. You wanted to pass from house to house like a guest who brought emancipation with him — to win over men’s thoughts and wills to your own — to fashion noble men all around you, in a wider and wider circle — noble men!

Rosmer. Noble men and happy men.

Rebecca. Yes, happy men.

Rosmer. Because it is happiness that gives the soul nobility, Rebecca.

Rebecca. Do you not think suffering too? The deepest suffering?

Rosmer. Yes, if one can win through it — conquer it — conquer it completely.

Rebecca. That is what you must do.

Rosmer
(shaking his head sadly)
. I shall never conquer this completely. There will always be a doubt confronting me — a question. I shall never again be able to lose myself in the enjoyment of what makes life so wonderfully beautiful.

Rebecca
(speaking over the back of his chair, softly)
. What do you mean, John?

Rosmer
(looking up at her)
. Calm and happy innocence.

Rebecca
(taking a step backwards)
. Of course. Innocence.
(A short silence.)

Rosmer
(resting his head on his hands with his elbows on the table, and looking straight in front of him)
. How ingeniously — how systematically — she must have put one thing together with another! First of all she begins to have a suspicion as to my orthodoxy. How on earth did she get that idea in her mind? Any way, she did; and the idea grew into a certainty. And then — then, of course, it was easy for her to think everything else possible.
(Sits up in his chair and, runs his hands through his hair.)
The wild fancies I am haunted with! I shall never get quit of them. I am certain of that — certain. They will always be starting up before me to remind me of the dead.

Rebecca. Like the White Horse of Rosmersholm.

Rosmer. Yes, like that. Rushing at me out of the dark — out of the silence.

Rebecca. And, because of this morbid fancy of yours, you are going to give up the hold you had just gained upon real life?

Rosmer. You are right, it seems hard — hard, Rebecca. But I have no power of choice in the matter. How do you think I could ever get the mastery over it?

Rebecca
(standing behind his chair)
. By making new ties for yourself.

Rosmer
(starts, and looks up)
. New ties?

Rebecca. Yes, new ties with the outside world. Live, work, do something! Do not sit here musing and brooding over insoluble conundrums.

Rosmer
(getting up)
. New ties!
(Walks across the room, turns at the door and comes back again.)
A question occurs to my mind. Has it not occurred to you too, Rebecca?

Rebecca
(catching her breath)
. Let me hear what it is.

Rosmer. What do you suppose will become of the tie between us, after to-day?

Rebecca. I think surely our friendship can endure, come what may.

Rosmer. Yes, but that is not exactly what I meant. I was thinking of what brought us together from the first, what links us so closely to one another — our common belief in the possibility of a man and a woman living together in chastity.

Rebecca. Yes, yes — what of it?

Rosmer. What I mean is — does not such a tie as that — such a tie as ours — seem to belong properly to a life lived in quiet, happy peacefulness?

Rebecca. Well?

Rosmer. But now I see stretching before me a life of strife and unrest and violent emotions. For I mean to live my life, Rebecca! I am not going to let myself be beaten to the ground by the dread of what may happen. I am not going to have my course of life prescribed for me, either by any living soul or by another.

Rebecca. No, no — do not! Be a free man in everything, John!

Rosmer. Do you understand what is in my Mind, then? Do you not know? Do you not see how I could best win my freedom from all these harrowing memories from the whole sad past?

Rebecca. Tell me!

Rosmer. By setting up, in opposition to them, a new and living reality.

Rebecca
(feeling for the back of the chair)
. A living — ? What do you mean?

Rosmer
(coming closer to her)
. Rebecca — suppose I asked you now — will you be my second wife?

Rebecca
(is speechless for a moment, then gives a cry of joy)
. Your wife! Yours — ! I!

Rosmer. Yes — let us try what that will do. We two shall be one. There must no longer be any empty place left by the dead in this house.

Rebecca. I — in Beata’s place — ?

Rosmer. And then that chapter of my life will be closed — completely closed, never to be reopened.

Rebecca
(in a low, trembling voice)
. Do you think so, John?

Rosmer. It must be so! It must! I cannot — I will not — go through life with a dead body on my back. Help me to throw it off, Rebecca; and then let us stifle all memories in our sense of freedom, in joy, in passion. You shall be to me the only wife I have ever had.

Rebecca
(controlling herself)
. Never speak of this, again. I will never be your wife.

Rosmer. What! Never? Do you think, then, that you could not learn to love me? Is not our friendship already tinged with love?

Rebecca
(stopping her ears, as if in fear)
. Don’t speak like that, John! Don’t say such things!

Rosmer
(catching her by the arm)
. It is true! There is a growing possibility in the tie that is between us. I can see that you feel that, as well as I — do you not, Rebecca?

Rebecca
(controlling herself completely)
. Listen. Let me tell you this — if you persist in this, I shall leave Rosmersholm.

Rosmer. Leave Rosmersholm! You! You cannot do that. It is impossible.

Rebecca. It is still more impossible for me to become your wife. Never, as long as I live, can I be that.

Rosmer
(looks at her in surprise)
. You say “can” — and you say it so strangely. Why can you not?

Rebecca
(taking both his hands in hers)
. Dear friend — for your own sake, as well as for mine, do not ask me why.
(Lets go of his hands.)
So, John.
(Goes towards the door on the left.)

Rosmer. For the future the world will hold only one question for me — why?

Rebecca
(turns and looks at him)
. In that case everything is at an end.

Rosmer. Between you and me?

Rebecca. Yes.

Rosmer. Things can never be at an end between us two. You shall never leave Rosmersholm.

Rebecca
(with her hand on the door-handle)
. No, I dare say I shall not. But, all the same, if you question me again, it will mean the end of everything.

Rosmer. The end of everything, all the same? How — ?

Rebecca. Because then I shall go the way Beata went. Now you know, John.

Rosmer. Rebecca — !

Rebecca
(stops at the door and nods: slowly)
. Now you know.
(Goes out.)