Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (63 page)

MRS. HALM
[offended, to FALK, rising]
.
             ’Tis not a very friendly act
To stir a quarrel where we’ve made a peace.
As for your friend’s good fortune, be at ease —

SOME LADIES.
Nay that’s assured —

OTHERS.
                      A very certain fact.

MRS. HALM.
The cooking-class at school, I must confess,
She did not take; but she shall learn it still.

MISS JAY.
With her own hands she’s trimming her own dress.

AN AUNT
[patting ANNA’s hand]
.
And growing exquisitely sensible.

FALK
[laughing aloud]
.
O parody of sense, that rives and rends
In mania dance upon the lips of friends!
Was it good sense he wanted? Or a she-
Professor of the lore of Cookery?
A joyous son of springtime he came here,
For the wild rosebud on the bush he burned.
You reared the rosebud for him; he returned —
And for his rose found what? The hip!

MISS JAY
[offended]
.
                                        You jeer!

FALK.
A useful household condiment, heaven knows!
But yet the hip was not his bridal rose.

MRS. HALM.
O, if it is a ball-room queen he wants,
I’m very sorry; these are not their haunts.

FALK.
O yes, I know the pretty coquetry
They carry on with “Domesticity.”
It is a suckling of the mighty Lie
That, like hop-tendrils, spreads itself on high.
I, madam, reverently bare my head
To the ball queen; a child of beauty she —
And the ideal’s golden woof is spread
In ball-rooms, hardly in the nursery.

MRS. HALM
[with suppressed bitterness]
.
Your conduct, sir is easily explained;
A plighted lover cannot be a friend;
That is the kernel of the whole affair;
I have a very large experience there.

FALK.
No doubt, — with seven nieces, each a wife —

MRS. HALM.
And each a happy wife —

FALK
[with emphasis]
.
                        Ah, do we know?

GULDSTAD.
How!

MISS JAY.
      Mr. Falk!

LIND.
                 Are you resolved to sow
Dissension?

FALK
[vehemently]
.
             Yes, war, discord, turmoil, strife!

STIVER.
What you, a lay, profane outsider here!

FALK.
No matter, still the battle-flag I’ll rear!
Yes, it is war I mean with nail and tooth
Against the Lie with the tenacious root,
The lie that you have fostered into fruit,
For all its strutting in the guise of truth!

STIVER.
Against these groundless charges I protest,
Reserving right of action —

MISS JAY.
                              Do be still!

FALK.
So then it is Love’s ever-running rill
That tells the widow what she once possess’d, —
Out of her language blotted “moan” and “sigh”!
So then it is Love’s brimming tide that rolls
Along the placid veins of wedded souls, —
That very Love that faced the iron sleet,
Trampling inane Convention under feet,
And scoffing at the impotent discreet!
So then it is Love’s beauty-kindled flame
That keeps the plighted from the taint of time
Year after year! Ah yes, the very same
That made our young bureaucrat blaze in rhyme!
So it is Love’s young bliss that will not brave
The voyage over vaulted Ocean’s wave,
But asks a sacrifice when, like the sun,
Its face should fill with glory, making one!
Ah no, you vulgar prophets of the Lie,
Give things the names we ought to know them by;
Call widows’ passion — wanting what they miss,
And wedlock’s habit — call it what it is!

STRAWMAN.
Young man, this insolence has gone too far!
In every word there’s scoffing and defiance.
                          [Goes close up to FALK.
Now I’ll gird up my aged loins to war
For hallowed custom against modern science!

FALK.
I go to battle as it were a feast!

STRAWMAN.
Good! For your bullets I will be a beacon: —
                                     [Nearer.
A wedded pair is holy, like a priest —

STIVER
[at FALK’s other side]
.
And a betrothed —

FALK.
                    Half-holy, like the deacon.

STRAWMAN.
Behold these children; — see, — this little throng!
Io triumphe
may for them be sung!
How was it possible — how practicable — :
The words of truth are strong, inexorable — ;
He has no hearing whom they cannot move.
See, — every one of them’s a child of Love — !
                           [Stops in confusion.
That is — you understand — I would have said — !

MISS JAY
[fanning herself with her handkerchief]
.
This is a very mystical oration!

FALK.
There you yourself provide the demonstration, —
A good old Norse one, sound, true-born, home-bred.
You draw distinction between wedded pledges
And those of Love: your Logic’s without flaw.
They are distinguished just as roast from raw,
As hothouse bloom from wilding of the hedges!
Love is with us a science and an art;
It long ago since ceased to animate the heart.
Love is with us a trade, a special line
Of business, with its union, code and sign;
It is a guild of married folks and plighted,
Past-masters with apprentices united;
For they cohere compact as jelly-fishes,
A singing-club their single want and wish is —

GULDSTAD.
And a gazette!

FALK.
                A good suggestion, yes!
We too must have our organ in the press,
Like ladies, athletes, boys, and devotees.
Don’t ask the price at present, if you please.
There I’ll parade each amatory fetter
That John and Thomas to our town unites,
There publish every pink and perfumed letter
That William to his tender Jane indites;
There you shall read, among “Distressing Scenes” —
Instead of murders and burnt crinolines,
The broken matches that the week’s afforded;
There under “goods for sale” you’ll find what firms
Will furnish cast-off rings on easy terms;
There double, treble births will be recorded;
No wedding, but our rallying rub-a-dub
Shall drum to the performance all the club;
No suit rejected, but we’ll set it down,
In letters large, with other news of weight
Thus: “Amor-Moloch, we regret to state,
Has claimed another victim in our town.”
You’ll see, we’ll catch subscribers: once in sight
Of the propitious season when they bite,
By way of throwing them the bait they’ll brook
I’ll stick a nice young man upon my hook.
Yes, you will see me battle for our cause,
With tiger’s, nay with editorial, claws
Rending them —

GULDSTAD.
                And the paper’s name will be — ?

FALK.
Amor’s Norse Chronicle of Archery.

STIVER
[going nearer]
.
You’re not in earnest, you will never stake
Your name and fame for such a fancy’s sake!

FALK.
I’m in grim earnest. We are often told
Men cannot live on love; I’ll show that this
Is an untenable hypothesis;
For Love will prove to be a mine of gold:
Particularly if Miss Jay, perhaps,
Will Mr. Strawman’s “Life’s Romance” unfold,
As appetising feuilleton, in scraps.

STRAWMAN
[in terror]
.
Merciful heaven! My “life’s romance!” What, what!
When was my life romantic, if you please?

MISS JAY.
I never said so.

STIVER.
                  Witness disagrees.

STRAWMAN.
That I have ever swerved a single jot
From social prescript, — is a monstrous lie.

FALK.
Good.
           [Clapping STIVER on the shoulder.
      Here’s a friend who will not put me by.
We’ll start with Stiver’s lyric ecstasies.

STIVER
[after a glance of horror at STRAWMAN]
.
Are you quite mad! Nay then I must be heard!
You dare accuse me for a poet —

MISS JAY.
                                  How — !

FALK.
Your office has averred it anyhow.

STIVER
[in towering anger]
.
Sir, by our office nothing is averred.

FALK.
Well, leave me then, you also: I have by me
One comrade yet whose loyalty will last.
“A true heart’s story” Lind will not deny me,
Whose troth’s too tender for the ocean blast,
Who for his mistress makes surrender of
His fellow-men — pure quintessence of Love!

MRS. HALM.
My patience, Mr. Falk, is now worn out.
The same abode no longer can receive us: —
I beg of you this very day to leave us —

FALK
[with a bow as MRS. HALM and the company withdraw]
.
That this would come I never had a doubt!

STRAWMAN.
Between us two there’s a battle to the death;
You’ve slandered me, my wife, my little flock,
From Molly down to Millie, in one breath.
Crow on, crow on — Emancipation’s cock, —
    [Goes in followed by his wife and children.

FALK.
And go you on observing Peter’s faith
To Love your lord — who, thanks to your advice,
Was thrice denied before the cock crew thrice!

MISS JAY
[turning faint]
.
Attend me, Stiver! help me get unlaced
My corset — this way, this way — do make haste!

STIVER
[to FALK as he withdraws with MISS JAY on his arm]
.
I here renounce your friendship.

LIND.
                                  I likewise.

FALK
[seriously]
.
You too, my Lind?

LIND.
                   Farewell.

FALK.
                     You were my nearest one —

LIND.
No help, it is the pleasure of my dearest one.

   [He goes in: SVANHILD has remained standing on the
      verandah steps.

FALK.
So, now I’ve made a clearance, have free course
In all directions!

SVANHILD.
                    Falk, one word with you!

FALK
[pointing politely to the house]
.
That way, Miss Halm; — that way, with all the force
Of aunts and inmates, Mrs. Halm withdrew.

SVANHILD
[nearer him]
.
Let them withdraw; their ways and mine divide;
I will not swell the number of their band.

FALK.
You’ll stay?

SVANHILD.
              If you make war on lies, I stand
A trusty armour-bearer by your side.

FALK.
You, Svanhild, you who —

SVANHILD.
                           I, who — yesterday — ?
Were you yourself, Falk, yesterday the same?
You bade me be a sallow, for your play.

FALK.
And a sweet sallow sang me into shame.
No, you are right: I was a child to ask;
But you have fired me to a nobler task.
Right in the midst of men the Church is founded
Where Truth’s appealing clarion must be sounded
We are not called, like demigods, to gaze on
The battle from the far-off mountain’s crest,
But in our hearts to bear our fiery blazon,
An Olaf’s cross upon a mailed breast, —
To look afar across the fields of flight,
Tho’ pent within the mazes of its might, —
Beyond the mirk descry one glimmer still
Of glory — that’s the Call we must fulfil.

SVANHILD.
And you’ll fulfil it when you break from men,
Stand free, alone, —

FALK.
                      Did I frequent them then?
And there lies duty. No, that time’s gone by, —
My solitary compact with the sky.
My four-wall-chamber poetry is done;
My verse shall live in forest and in field,
I’ll fight under the splendour of the sun; —
I or the Lie — one of us two must yield!

SVANHILD.
Then forth with God from Verse to Derring-doe!
I did you wrong: you have a feeling heart;
Forgive me, — and as good friends let us part —

FALK.
Nay, in my future there is room for two!
We part not. Svanhild, if you dare decide,
We’ll battle on together side by side.

SVANHILD.
We battle?

FALK.
            See, I have no friend, no mate,
By all abandoned, I make war on all:
At me they aim the piercing shafts of hate;
Say, do you dare with me to stand or fall?
Henceforth along the beaten walks I’ll move
Heedful of each constraining etiquette;
Spread, like the rest of men, my board, and set
The ring upon the finger of love!
    [Takes a ring from his finger and holds it up.