Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (320 page)

BORKMAN.
I seem to remember something of the sort.

ELLA RENTHEIM. And yet years had passed since you had deserted me — and married — married another!

BORKMAN.
Deserted you, you say? You must know very well that it was
higher motives — well then, other motives that compelled me.
Without his support I could not have done anything.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Controlling herself.]
So you deserted me from — higher motives.

BORKMAN. I could not get on without his help. And he made you the price of helping me.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
And you paid the price. Paid it in full — without haggling.

BORKMAN.
I had no choice. I had to conquer or fall.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[In a trembling voice, looking at him.]
Can what you tell me be true — that I was then the dearest thing in the world to you?

BORKMAN.
Both then and afterwards — long, long, after.

ELLA RENTHEIM. But you bartered me away none the less; drove a bargain with another man for your love. Sold my love for a — for a directorship.

BORKMAN.
[Gloomily and bowed down.]
I was driven by inexorable necessity, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Rises from the sofa, quivering with passion.]
Criminal!

BORKMAN.
[Starts, but controls himself.]
I have heard that word before.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, don’t imagine I’m thinking of anything you may have done against the law of the land! The use you made of all those vouchers and securities, or whatever you call them — do you think I care a straw about that! If I could have stood at your side when the crash came ——

BORKMAN.
[Eagerly.]
What then, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Trust me, I should have borne it all so gladly along with you.
The shame, the ruin — I would have helped you to bear it all — all!

BORKMAN.
Would you have had the will — the strength?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Both the will and the strength. For then I did not know of your great, your terrible crime.

BORKMAN.
What crime? What are you speaking of?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I am speaking of that crime for which there is no forgiveness.

BORKMAN.
[Staring at her.]
You must be out of your mind.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Approaching him.]
You are a murderer! You have committed the one mortal sin!

BORKMAN.
[Falling back towards the piano.]
You are raving, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. You have killed the love-life in me.
[Still nearer him.]
Do you understand what that means? The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness. I have never understood what it could be; but now I understand. The great, unpardonable sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul.

BORKMAN.
And you say I have done that?

ELLA RENTHEIM. You have done that. I have never rightly understood until this evening what had really happened to me. That you deserted me and turned to Gunhild instead — I took that to be mere common fickleness on your part, and the result of heartless scheming on hers. I almost think I despised you a little, in spite of everything. But now I see it! You deserted the woman you loved! Me, me, me! What you held dearest in the world you were ready to barter away for gain. That is the double murder you have committed! The murder of your own soul and of mine!

BORKMAN.
[With cold self-control.]
How well I recognise your passionate, ungovernable spirit, Ella. No doubt it is natural enough that you should look at the thing in this light. Of course, you are a woman, and therefore it would seem that your own heart is the one thing you know or care about in this world.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, yes it is.

BORKMAN.
Your own heart is the only thing that exists for you.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
The only thing! The only thing! You are right there.

BORKMAN. But you must remember that I am a man. As a woman, you were the dearest thing in the world to me. But if the worst comes to the worst, one woman can always take the place of another.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Looks at him with a smile.]
Was that your experience when you had made Gunhild your wife?

BORKMAN. No. But the great aims I had in life helped me to bear even that. I wanted to have at my command all the sources of power in this country. All the wealth that lay hidden in the soil, and the rocks, and the forests, and the sea — I wanted to gather it all into my hands to make myself master of it all, and so to promote the well-being of many, many thousands.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Lost in recollection.]
I know it. Think of all the evenings we spent in talking over your projects.

BORKMAN.
Yes, I could talk to you, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I jested with your plans, and asked whether you wanted to awaken all the sleeping spirits of the mine.

BORKMAN.
[Nodding.]
I remember that phrase.
[Slowly.]
All the sleeping spirits of the mine.

ELLA RENTHEIM. But you did not take it as a jest. You said: “Yes, yes, Ella, that is just what I want to do.”

BORKMAN.
And so it was. If only I could get my foot in the stirrup ——
And that depended on that one man. He could and would secure me
the control of the bank — if I on my side ——

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, just so! If you on your side would renounce the woman you loved — and who loved you beyond words in return.

BORKMAN. I knew his consuming passion for you. I knew that on no other condition would he ——

ELLA RENTHEIM.
And so you struck the bargain.

BORKMAN.
[Vehemently.]
Yes, I did, Ella! For the love of power is uncontrollable in me, you see! So I struck the bargain; I had to. And he helped me half-way up towards the beckoning heights that I was bent on reaching. And I mounted and mounted; year by year I mounted ——

ELLA RENTHEIM.
And I was as though wiped out of your life.

BORKMAN. And after all he hurled me into the abyss again. On account of you, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[After a short thoughtful silence.]
Borkman, does it not seem to you as if there had been a sort of curse on our whole relation?

BORKMAN.
[Looking at her.]
A curse?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes. Don’t you think so?

BORKMAN.
[Uneasily.]
Yes. But why is it?
[With an outburst.]
Oh Ella,
I begin to wonder which is in the right — you or I!

ELLA RENTHEIM. It is you who have sinned. You have done to death all the gladness of my life in me.

BORKMAN.
[Anxiously.]
Do not say that, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. All a woman’s gladness at any rate. From the day when your image began to dwindle in my mind, I have lived my life as though under an eclipse. During all these years it has grown harder and harder for me — and at last utterly impossible — to love any living creature. Human beings, animals, plants: I shrank from all — from all but one ——

BORKMAN.
What one?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Erhart, of course.

BORKMAN.
Erhart?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Erhart — your son, Borkman.

BORKMAN.
Has he really been so close to your heart?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Why else should I have taken him to me, and kept him as long as ever I could? Why?

BORKMAN.
I thought it was out of pity, like all the rest that you did.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[In strong inward emotion.]
Pity! Ha, ha! I have never known pity, since you deserted me. I was incapable of feeling it. If a poor starved child came into my kitchen, shivering, and crying, and begging for a morsel of food, I let the servants look to it. I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm it at my own hearth, to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and be satisfied. And yet I was not like that when I was young; that I remember clearly! It is you that have created an empty, barren desert within me — and without me too!

BORKMAN.
Except only for Erhart.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, except for your son. But I am hardened to every other living thing. You have cheated me of a mother’s joy and happiness in life — and of a mother’s sorrows and tears as well. And perhaps that is the heaviest part of the loss to me.

BORKMAN.
Do you say that, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Who knows? It may be that a mother’s sorrows and tears were what I needed most.
[With still deeper emotion.]
But at that time I could not resign myself to my loss; and that was why I took Erhart to me. I won him entirely. Won his whole, warm, trustful childish heart — until —— Oh!

BORKMAN.
Until what?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Until his mother — his mother in the flesh, I mean — took him from me again.

BORKMAN.
He had to leave you in any case; he had to come to town.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Wringing her hands.]
Yes, but I cannot bear the solitude — the emptiness! I cannot bear the loss of your son’s heart!

BORKMAN.
[With an evil expression in his eyes.]
H’m — I doubt whether you have lost it, Ella. Hearts are not so easily lost to a certain person — in the room below.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I have lost Erhart here, and she has won him back again. Or if not she, some one else. That is plain enough in the letters he writes me from time to time.

BORKMAN.
Then it is to take him back with you that you have come here?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, if only it were possible —— !

BORKMAN. It is possible enough, if you have set your heart upon it. For you have the first and strongest claims upon him.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, claims, claims! What is the use of claims? If he is not
mine of his own free will, he is not mine at all. And have him
I must! I must have my boy’s heart, whole and undivided — now!

BORKMAN. You must remember that Erhart is well into his twenties. You could scarcely reckon on keeping his heart very long undivided, as you express it.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[With a melancholy smile.]
It would not need to be for so very long.

BORKMAN. Indeed? I should have thought that when you want a thing, you want it to the end of your days.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
So I do. But that need not mean for very long.

BORKMAN.
[Taken aback.]
What do you mean by that?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I suppose you know I have been in bad health for many years past?

BORKMAN.
Have you?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Do you not know that?

BORKMAN.
No, I cannot say I did ——

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Looking at him in surprise.]
Has Erhart not told you so?

BORKMAN.
I really don’t remember at the moment.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Perhaps he has not spoken of me at all?

BORKMAN. Oh, yes, I believe he has spoken of you. But the fact is, I so seldom see anything of him — scarcely ever. There is a certain person below that keeps him away from me. Keeps him away, you understand?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Are you quite sure of that, Borkman?

BORKMAN. Yes, absolutely sure.
[Changing his tone.]
And so you have been in bad health, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, I have. And this autumn I grew so much worse that I had to come to town and take better medical advice.

BORKMAN.
And you have seen the doctors already?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, this morning.

BORKMAN.
And what did they say to you?