Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (92 page)

BRAND.
Instantly!
What message?

THE MAN.
A mysterious one.
Sitting in bed she forward bent,
And said: “Get the priest here: begone!
My half-goods for the sacrament.”

BRAND.
[Starts back.]
Her half -goods! No! Say no!

THE MAN.
My word
[Shakes his head.]
Would then not utter what I heard.

BRAND.
Half! H a l f! It was the whole she meant!

THE MAN.
Maybe; but she spoke loud and high;
And I don’t easily forget.

BRAND.
[Seizes his arm]
Before God’s Judgment, will you yet
Dare to attest she spoke it?

THE MAN.
Ay.

BRAND.
[Firmly.]
Go, tell her, this reply was sent:
“Nor priest shall come, nor sacrament.”

THE MAN.
[Looking at him doubtfully.]
You surely have not understood:
It is your Mother that appeals.

BRAND.
I know no law that sternlier deals
With strangers than with kindred blood.

THE MAN.
A hard word, that.

BRAND.
She knows the call, —
To offer Nothing, or else a l l .

THE MAN.
Priest!

BRAND.
[Goes.]
Dock the gold-calf as she will,
Say, it remains an idol still.

THE MAN.
The scourge you send her I will lay
As gently on her as I may.
She has this comfort left her, too:
God is not quite so hard as you!

BRAND.
Yes, with that comfort’s carrion-breath
The world still sickens unto death;
Prompt, in its need, with shriek and song
To lubricate the Judge’s tongue.
Of course! The reasonable plan!
For from of old they know their man; —
Since all his works the assurance breathe:
“Yon gray-beard may be haggled with!”
[THE MAN has met another man on the road; they come back together.]

BRAND.
A second message!

FIRST MAN.
Yes.

BRAND.
[To the SECOND MAN.]
Consent?

SECOND MAN.
Nine-tenths of it is now the word.

BRAND.
Not all?

SECOND MAN.
Not all

BRAND.
As you have heard: —
Nor priest shall come, nor sacrament.

SECOND MAN.
She bcgg’d it, bitterly distress’d —

FIRST MAN.
Priest, once she bore you on her breast!

BRAND.
[Clenching his hands.]
I may not by two measures weigh
My kinsman and my enemy.

SECOND MAN.
Sore is her state and dire her need;
Come, or else send her a God-speed!

BRAND.
[TO FIRST MAN.]
Go; tell her still: God’s wine and bread
Must on a spotless board be spread.
[The Men go.]

AGNES.
I tremble, Brand. You seem a Sword
Swung flaming by a wrathful Lord!

BRAND.
[With tears in his voice.]
Does not the world face me no less
With swordless sheath upon its thigh?
Am I not torn and baffled by
Its dull defiant stubbornness?

AGNES.
A hard condition you demand.

BRAND.
Dare you impose a lighter?

AGNES.
Lay
That stern demand on whom you may,
And see who, tested so, will stand.

BRAND.
Nay, you have reason for that fear.
So base, distorted, barren, sere,
The aspiring soul in men is grown.
‘Tis thought a marvel,-by bequest
To give away one’s wealth unknown.
And be anonymously bless’d.
The hero, hid him blot his name,
Content him with the service wrought,
Kings, Kaisers, bid them do the same —
And see how many fields are fought!
The poet, bid him unbeholden
Loose his bright fledglings from the cage,
So that none dream h e gc.ve that golden
Plumage, and h e that vocal rage;
Try the green bough, or try the bare,
S a c r i f i c e is not anywhere.
Earth has enslaved all earthly things; —
Over Life’s precipices cast,
Each to its mouldering branches clings,
And, if they crumble, clutches fast
With tooth and nail to straws and bast.

AGNES.
And, while they helpless, hopeless fall,
You cry: Give nothing or give all!

BRAND.
He who would conquer still must fight,
Rise, fallen to the highest height.
[A brief silence: his voice changes.]
And yet, when with that stern demand
Before some living soul I stand,
I seem like one that floats afar
Storm-shatter’d on a broken spar.
With solitary anguish wrung
I’ve bitten this chastising tongue,
And thirsted, as I aim’d the blow,
To clasp the bosom of my foe.
Go, Agnes, watch the sleeping boy,
And sing him into dreams of joy.
An infant’s soul is like the sleep
Of still clear tarns in summer-light.
A mother over it may sweep
And hover, like the bird, whose flight
Is mirror’d in the deepest deep.

AGNES.
What does it mean, Brand? Wheresoe’er
You aim your thought-shafts-they fly t h e r e!

BRAND.
Oh, nothing. Softly watch the child.

AGNES.
Give me a watchword.

BRAND.
Stern?

AGNES.
No, mild.

BRAND.
[Clasping her.]
The blameless shall not taste the grave.

AGNES.
[Looking brightly up at him.]
Then o n c is ours God may not crave!
[Goes into the house.]

BRAND.
[Looking fixedly before him.]
But if he m i g h t? What “Isaac’s Fear”
Once ventured, He may venture here.
[Shakes off the thought.]
No, no, my sacrifice is made,
The calling of my life gainsaid —
Like the Lord’s thunder to go forth
And rouse the sleepers of the earth.
Sacrifice! Liar! there was none!
I miss’d it when my Dream was done,
When Agnes woke me-and follow’d free
To labour in the gloom with me.
[Looks along the road.]
Why tarries still the dying call,
Her word, that she will offer all,
That she has won that which uproots
Sin’s deepest fibres, rankest shoots!
See there — ! No, it is but the Mayor,
Well-meaning, brisk, and debonnaire,
Both hands in pockets, round, remiss,
A bracketed parenthesis.
Enter MAYOR.
THE MAYOR.
[Through the garden-gate.]
Good-day! Our meetings are but rare,
Perhaps my time is chosen amiss

BRAND.
Come in.
[Pointing to house.]

THE MAYOR.
Thanks; here I’m quite content.
Should my proposal meet assent,
I’m very sure the upshot of it
Would issue in our common profit.

BRAND.
Name your desire.

THE MAYOR.
Your mother’s state,
I understand, is desperate. I’m sorry.

BRAND.
That I do not doubt.

THE MAYOR.
I’m very sorry.

BRAND.
Pray, speak out.

THE MAYOR.
She’s old, however. Welladay,
We are all bound the selfsame way —
And, as I just drove by, occurr’d
The thought that, after all, “to leap
Is just as easy as to creep”:
Moreover, many have averr’d,
That she and you have been imbrued
For years in a domestic feud —

BRAND.
Domestic feud?

THE MAYOR.
She’s out and out
Close-fisted, so they say, you know.
You think it goes too far, no doubt.
A man’s own claims he can’t forego.
She keeps exclusive occupation
Of all that was bcqueath’d to you.

BRAND.
Exclusive occupation, true.

THE MAYOR.
A ready cause of irritation
In families. Surmising thence
That you await with resignation
The moment of her going hence,
I hope I may without offence
Speak out, although I quite admit
The time I’ve chosen is unfit.

BRAND.
Or now or later, nought I care.

THE MAYOR.
Well, to the point then, fair and square.
When once your mother’s dead and blest,
In the earth’s bosom laid to rest,
You’re rich!

BRAND.
You think so?

THE MAYOR.
Think? Nay, man,
That’s sure. She’s land in every port,
Far as a telescope can scan.
You’re rich!

BRAND.
‘Spite the Succession Court?

THE MAYOR.
[Smiling.]
What of it? That cuts matters short
When many fight for pelf and debt.
Here no man’s interest suffers let.

BRAND.
And what if some day, all the same,
Came a co-heir to debt and pelf
Crying: “I’m he!” and urged his claim?

THE MAYOR.
He’d have to be the devil himself!
Just look to me! None else has here
The smallest right to interfere.
I know my business: lean on me!
Well, then; you’ll now be well-to-do,
Rich even; you’ll no longer brook
Life in this God-forsaken nook;
The whole land’s open now to you.

BRAND.
Mayor, is not what you want to say,
Pithily put, just: “Go away”?

THE MAYOR.
Pretty much that. All parties’ good
Were so best answered. If you would
But eye attentively the herd
TO whom you minister God’s word,
You’d find you’re no more of a piece
With them than foxes arc with geese.
Pray, understand me! You have gifts,
Good where the social field is wide,
But dangerous for folk whose pride
Is to be Lords of rocky rifts
And Freemen of the ravine-side.

BRAND.
To a man’s feet his native haunt
Is as unto the tree the root.
If there his labour fill no want
His deeds arc doomed, his music mute.

THE MAYOR.
Success means just: Self-adaptation
To the requirements of the nation.

B RAND.
Which from the heights you best o’erlook,
Not from the crag-encompass’d nook.

THE MAYOR.
That talk is fit for citizens,
Not for poor peasants of the glens.

BRAND.
O, still your limitation vain
Between the mountain and the plain!
World-citizens you’d be of right,
While every civic claim you slight;
And think, like dastards, to go free
By whining: “We’re a small folk, we!”

THE MAYOR.
All has its time, each time its need,
Each age its proper work to do;
We also flung our mite into
The world’s great treasure of bold deed.
True, that’s long since; but, after all,
The mite was not so very small.
Now the land’s dwindled and decay’d,
But our renown still lives in story.
The days of our reported glory
Were when the great King Bel sway’d.
Many a tale is still related
About the brothers Wulf and Thor,
And gallant fellows by the score,
Went harrying to the British shore,
And plunder’d till their heart was sated.
The Southrons shriek’d with quivering lip,
“Lord, help us from these fierce men’s grip,”
And these “fierce men,” beyond all doubt,
Had from o u r harbours sallied out.
And how these rovers wreak’d their ire,
And dealt out death with sword and fire!
Nay, legend names a lion-hearted
Hero that took the cross; in verity,
It is not mention’d that he started —

BRAND.
He left behind a large posterity,
This promise-maker?

THE MAYOR.
Yes, indeed;
But how came you to —— ?

BRAND.
O, I read
His features clearly in the breed
Of promise-heroes of to-day,
Who take the Cross in just his way.

THE MAYOR.
Yes, his descendants still remain.
But we were on King Bele’s reign!
So first abroad we battled. Then,
Visited our own countrymen
And kinsmen, with the axe and fire;
Trampled their harvests gaily down,
Scorch’d mansion-wall and village spire,
And wove ourselves the hero’s crown. —
Over the blood thus set a-flowing
There’s been perhaps excessive crowing;
But, after what I’ve said, I may,
I think, without a touch of vanity,
Point backward to the stir we made
In the great Age long since decay’d,
And hold that we indeed have paid
Our little mite of Fire and Fray
Towards the Progress of Humanity.

BRAND.
Yet do you not, in fact, eschew
The phrase, “Nobility’s a trust,” —
And drive hoc, plough, and harrow through
King Bele’s patrimonial dust?

THE MAYOR.
By no means. Only go and mark
Our parish on its gaudy-nights,
Where I with Constable and Clerk,
And Judge, preside as leading lights;
You’ll warrant, when the punch goes round,
King Bele’s memory is sound.
With toasts and clinking cups and song,
In speeches short and speeches long,
We drink his health and sound his fame.
I myself often feel inclined
The spinnings of my brain to wind
In flowery woof about his name,
And edify the local mind.
A little poetry pleases me,
And all our folks, in their degree;
But-moderation everywhere!
In life it never must have share, —
Except at night, when folks have leisure,
Between the hours of seven and ten,
When baths of elevating pleasure
May fit the mood of weary men.
Here’s where we differ, you and we,
That you desire with main and might
At the same time to plough and fight.
Your scheme, as far as I can see,
Is: Life and Faith in unity, —
God’s warfare and potato-dressing
Inseparably coalescing,
As coal, salt, sulphur, fusing fast,
Evolve just gunpowder at last.