by Henrik Ibsen
MRS ALVING goes on looking at him.
MANDERS: And what do you say to all this?
MRS ALVING: I say that Osvald was right in every word he said.
MANDERS [stops pacing]: Right? Right? On such fundamental issues?
MRS ALVING: Out here in my solitude I’ve come to think similarly, Pastor Manders. But I’ve never dared touch on it. But, no matter; my boy will speak for me now.
MANDERS: You’re a woman deserving of great pity, Mrs Alving. But now I want to speak most sternly to you. It is no longer your business executor or advisor, nor you and your late husband’s old friend, who stands before you. It is your pastor, as he stood before you at that moment in your life when you had gone so terribly astray.
MRS ALVING: And what is it the pastor has to say to me?
MANDERS: First I want to stir your memory, Mrs Alving. The moment is well chosen. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of your husband’s death; tomorrow the memorial will be unveiled in honour of the departed; tomorrow I shall address the entire assembled crowd – but today I wish to speak to you alone.
MRS ALVING: Very well, pastor; speak!
MANDERS: Do you remember how, after less than a year of marriage, you stood on the very brink of the abyss? How you abandoned your house and home – how you fled from your husband; yes, Mrs Alving, fled – you fled and refused to go back to him, no matter how much he begged and implored you.
MRS ALVING: Have you forgotten how extremely unhappy I was in that first year?
MANDERS: It is the mark of a rebellious spirit to demand happiness here in life. What right do we mortals have to happiness? No, we must do our duty, madam! And your duty was to hold firmly to the man you’d once chosen, and to whom you were tied by holy bonds.
MRS ALVING: You know very well what sort of life my husband48 was leading in those days; and the excesses he was guilty of.
MANDERS: I am only too aware of the rumours that circulated about him; and I am the last person to approve of his conduct in his bachelor days, assuming those rumours contained any truth. But a wife is not entitled to stand as judge over her husband.49 It was your duty to bear with humility the cross that a higher power had deemed fit for you. But instead you rebelliously cast this cross aside, you abandon the stumbling man whom you should have supported, you gamble your good name and reputation, and – very nearly forfeit the reputation of others into the bargain.
MRS ALVING: Others? One other, I think you mean.
MANDERS: It was extremely inconsiderate of you to seek refuge with me.
MRS ALVING: With our pastor? With our good friend?
MANDERS: For that reason more than any. Yes, you may thank your Lord and God that I possessed the necessary fortitude – that I averted you from your feverish intentions and that it was granted me to lead you back to the path of duty and home to your lawful husband.
MRS ALVING: Yes, Pastor Manders, that certainly was your doing.
MANDERS: I was merely a humble instrument in the hand of one higher. And that I forced you to bow under your duty and obedience, didn’t that blossom magnificently into a blessing for all your days thereafter? Didn’t things turn out as I foretold? Didn’t Alving turn his back on his dissolute ways, as befits a man? Didn’t he lead a loving and blameless life with you for the rest of his days? Didn’t he become a benefactor for this district, and didn’t he lift you to be at his side, so that little by little you became a helpmate in all his enterprises? And a very capable helpmate too – oh, I know it, Mrs Alving, and for that, I give you praise. – But now I come to the next great error of your life.
MRS ALVING: What do you mean by that?
MANDERS: Just as you once renounced the duties of a wife, you have since renounced those of a mother.
MRS ALVING: Ah –!
MANDERS: You have been governed by a disastrously wilful spirit all your life. You’ve always been drawn to what is unconstrained and lawless. You’ve never been ready to tolerate any kind of bonds laid upon you. Anything that has ever inconvenienced you in life, you have recklessly and unscrupulously thrown off, like a burden you could dispose of as you pleased. It no longer suited you to be a wife, so you left your husband. You found it an inconvenience to be a mother and you sent your child away to strangers.
MRS ALVING: Yes, that’s true. I did.
MANDERS: Which is why you’ve become a stranger to him too.
MRS ALVING: No, no; I’m not!
MANDERS: But you are; you must be. And in what state have you got him back? Think carefully, Mrs Alving. You’ve sinned gravely against your husband – that much you acknowledge in erecting the memorial down there. Now acknowledge how you’ve sinned against your son; there may still be time to lead him back from these wayward paths. Turn back now, and redeem whatever may still be redeemed in him. [With raised forefinger] For in truth, Mrs Alving, as a mother you carry a heavy burden of guilt! – This have I judged it my duty to tell you.
Silence.
MRS ALVING [slowly and with restraint]: You’ve spoken now, pastor; and tomorrow you’ll speak publicly in memory of my husband. I shan’t speak tomorrow. But now I will speak to you a little, as you’ve spoken to me.
MANDERS: Naturally; you want to present excuses for your behaviour –
MRS ALVING: No. I just want to tell you something.
MANDERS: Well –?
MRS ALVING: Everything you’ve said here about my husband and me, and about our marriage, after you led me, as you put it, back to the path of duty – all this is something of which you have absolutely no knowledge from any personal observation. From that moment you – our close friend and daily guest – never set foot in our house again.
MANDERS: Well, you and your husband moved out of town soon after.
MRS ALVING: Quite; and you never came out here to see us while my husband was alive. It was business that forced you to visit me, when you got involved in organizing the orphanage.
MANDERS [quietly and hesitantly]: Helene50 – if this is intended as a reproach, then I’d ask you to bear in mind –
MRS ALVING: – the regard you owed your position; yes. And, that I was a runaway wife. One can never be too cautious with regard to such reckless womenfolk.
MANDERS: My dear – Mrs Alving, this is a vast exaggeration –
MRS ALVING: Yes, yes, yes, be that as it may. All I wanted to say was that, when you pass judgement on my marital relationship, you’re relying, without any thought, on common, everyday opinion.
MANDERS: Maybe; and so?
MRS ALVING: But now, Manders, now I’ll tell you the truth. I vowed to myself that you’d come to know it one day. You alone!
MANDERS: And what then is the truth?
MRS ALVING: The truth is that my husband died as debauched as he had been all his life.
MANDERS [fumbling for a chair]: What did you say?
MRS ALVING: After nineteen years of marriage he was just as debauched – in his desires at least – as he was before you married us.
MANDERS: And these youthful transgressions – these irregularities – excesses if you like, you call a debauched life?
MRS ALVING: That was the expression our doctor used.
MANDERS: I don’t understand.
MRS ALVING: Nor do you need to.
MANDERS: I’m feeling quite dizzy. Your entire marriage – all those years of married life with your husband were nothing more than a concealed abyss?
MRS ALVING: Not a jot more. Now you know.
MANDERS: This – it’s hard for me to take this in. I can’t comprehend it! Can’t grasp it! But how was it possible to –? How could something like this be kept hidden?
MRS ALVING: That was indeed my ceaseless struggle day after day. When we had Osvald, I felt things improved somehow a little with Alving. But it didn’t last long. And now, of course, I had a double battle, a battle of life and death to keep people from knowing what sort of man my child had for a father. And you know, of course, how charming Alving was. Nobody could think a
nything but good of him. He was one of those people whose reputation seems undented by their conduct. But then, Manders – and this you also have to know – then the most abominable thing of all happened.
MANDERS: More abominable than this?
MRS ALVING: I would have put up with him, even though I knew very well what was going on secretly outside the house. But when this scandalous behaviour came inside our own four walls –
MANDERS: What are you saying? Here?
MRS ALVING: Yes, here in our own home. I was in there [pointing towards the first door to the right] in the dining room, when I first realized. I had something to do in there, and the door was ajar. I heard our housemaid come up from the garden with water for the flowers in there.
MANDERS: And then –?
MRS ALVING: A little later I heard Alving go in too. I heard him saying something quietly to her. And then I heard – [With a short laugh] Oh, it still rings in my ears, so dreadful and yet so ridiculous – I heard my own housemaid whisper: ‘Let me go, Chamberlain Alving! Leave me alone.’
MANDERS: What an unseemly indiscretion on his part. But more than a foolish indiscretion it could not have been, Mrs Alving. You must believe me.
MRS ALVING: I soon knew what to believe. The Chamberlain had his way with that girl – and this relationship had consequences, Pastor Manders.
MANDERS [frozen]: And all in this house! In this house!
MRS ALVING: I had tolerated a great deal in this house. To keep him at home in the evenings – and at nights I had to act as his companion during his secret drinking bouts up in his room. I had to sit there with him, just the two of us, I had to clink glasses and drink with him, listen to all his lewd, nonsensical chatter, had to wrestle with him so as to drag him to bed.
MANDERS [shaken]: That you could bear all this.
MRS ALVING: I had my little boy to bear it for. But when that final humiliation came; when my own maid – well, then I vowed to myself: this will come to an end! And so I took control of the household – total control – over him and everything else. I had a weapon against him now, you see; he didn’t dare object. That was when Osvald was sent away. He was coming up for seven and beginning to notice things and ask questions, as children do. I couldn’t stand all that, Manders. I felt sure my child would be poisoned just by breathing in the air of this infected home. That was why I sent him away. And now you see why he was never allowed to set foot in this house as long as his father lived. Nobody knows what that has cost me.
MANDERS: Life has certainly put you to the test.
MRS ALVING: I’d never have survived if it hadn’t been for my work. Yes, because I have worked, that much I dare to say. All the additions to the estate, all the improvements, all the practical innovations that Alving received such praise for – do you think he had the drive for that? A man who lay on the couch all day reading an old government almanac!51 No; and I’ll tell you this too: I was the one to get him going when he occasionally had better moments; it was I who had to pull all the weight when he lapsed into his excesses or sank into whining self-pity.
MANDERS: And it’s to this man you’re raising a memorial?
MRS ALVING: There you see the power of a bad conscience.
MANDERS: Bad –? What do you mean?
MRS ALVING: It always seemed inevitable to me that the truth would come out one day and be believed. So the orphanage was somehow meant to put paid to all the rumours and sweep any doubts away.
MANDERS: Then you certainly haven’t failed in your intention, Mrs Alving.
MRS ALVING: And I had an additional reason. I didn’t want Osvald, my own boy, to inherit anything from his father.
MANDERS: So it’s Alving’s money that –?
MRS ALVING: Yes. The amounts I have donated year on year to this orphanage, make up – I’ve calculated it carefully – the sum that in its day made Lieutenant Alving such ‘a good catch’.
MANDERS: I understand –
MRS ALVING: It was my purchase price –. I don’t want that money to pass into Osvald’s hands. Everything my son gets will come from me.
OSVALD ALVING comes through the second door to the right; he has taken his hat and overcoat off outside.
MRS ALVING [going towards him]: Back already? My dear, dear boy!
OSVALD: Yes; what can one do outside in this incessant rain? But I hear dinner’s about to be served. That’s marvellous!
REGINE [coming from the dining room with a parcel]: A parcel’s just arrived for you, ma’am. [Hands it to her.]
MRS ALVING [glancing at PASTOR MANDERS]: The song-sheets for tomorrow, I imagine.
MANDERS: Hm –
REGINE: And dinner is served.
MRS ALVING: Good, we’ll come in a moment; I just want to – [Begins to open the parcel]
REGINE [to OSVALD]: Would Mr Alving like red or white port?
OSVALD: Both please, Miss Engstrand.
REGINE: Bien –. Very well, Mr Alving.
She goes into the dining room.
OSVALD: I’d better help uncork the bottles – [Goes out into the dining room too, leaving the door to swing ajar after him.]
MRS ALVING [who has opened the packet]: Yes, I was right; here are the song-sheets, Pastor Manders.
MANDERS [with clasped hands]: How I’m to deliver my speech tomorrow with any gusto, I just –!
MRS ALVING: Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a way.
MANDERS [his voice low so as not to be heard in the dining room]: Yes, we can’t go making a scandal, can we?
MRS ALVING [quietly, but firmly]: No. But then this long, hideous farce will finally be over. For me, from the day after tomorrow, it’ll be as though the dead man never lived in this house. There will be nobody here but my boy and his mother.
The sound of a chair being knocked over can be heard in the dining room; and at the same time we hear:
REGINE [sharply, but whispering]: Osvald! Are you mad? Let me go!
MRS ALVING [starts with terror]: Ah –!
As though deranged, she stares towards the half-open door. OSVALD can be heard coughing and then humming. A bottle is uncorked.
MANDERS [agitated]: What is going on? What is it, Mrs Alving?
MRS ALVING [hoarsely]: Ghosts. The couple in the conservatory – they walk again.
MANDERS: What are you saying? Regine –? Is she –?
MRS ALVING: Yes. Come on. Not a word –!
She grips MANDERS by the arm and walks unsteadily towards the dining room.
Act Two
The same room. A rainy mist still lies heavily over the landscape. PASTOR MANDERS and MRS ALVING come in from the dining room.
MRS ALVING [still in the doorway]: My pleasure entirely, pastor. [Speaking in the direction of the dining room] Won’t you join us, Osvald?
OSVALD [from the dining room]: No thank you. I think I’ll go out for a bit.
MRS ALVING: Yes do; the rain seems to have lifted a little. [Closes the dining-room door and goes to the hall door and calls] Regine!
REGINE [outside]: Yes, ma’am?
MRS ALVING: Go down to the laundry room and help with the garlands.
REGINE: Yes, ma’am.
MRS ALVING makes sure that REGINE has gone, then closes the door.
MANDERS: You’re sure he can’t hear anything in there?
MRS ALVING: Not with the door closed. Besides, he’s going out.
MANDERS: I’m still in a daze. I’ve no idea how I managed to down a single morsel of that delicious food.
MRS ALVING [in restrained agitation, walking back and forth]: Nor me. But what’s to be done?
MANDERS: Yes, what’s to be done? For the life of me, I don’t know. I’m completely inexperienced in these matters.
MRS ALVING: I’m convinced nothing untoward has happened yet.
MANDERS: No, heaven forbid! But it’s an unseemly situation just the same.
MRS ALVING: The whole thing’s a passing fancy on Osvald’s part; you can be sure of that.
MANDER
S: Well, as I say, I’m not very knowledgeable in these matters; but I think without a doubt –
MRS ALVING: She must leave the house. And immediately. That’s as clear as day –
MANDERS: Yes, self-evidently.
MRS ALVING: But where to? It would be inexcusable if we –
MANDERS: Where to? Back home to her father, of course.
MRS ALVING: To whom, did you say?
MANDERS: To her –. Yes, but of course, Engstrand isn’t –. Good Lord, Mrs Alving, how can this be possible? You really must be mistaken.
MRS ALVING: I’m sorry; I’m not the least mistaken. Johanne had to confess everything to me – and Alving couldn’t deny it. So there was no alternative but to get the matter hushed up.
MANDERS: No, I suppose that was all that could be done.
MRS ALVING: The girl left our service immediately, and was given a generous sum to keep quiet for a while. The rest she arranged for herself when she got to town. She renewed an old acquaintance with Engstrand, dropped a hint, I’d imagine, about how much money she had and spun him a tale about some foreigner or other who was supposed to have anchored here with his yacht that summer. Then she and Engstrand got married post-haste. Well, you married them yourself.
MANDERS: But how am I to make sense of this – I distinctly remember when Engstrand came to arrange the wedding. He was so utterly heartbroken and berated himself so bitterly for the wanton behaviour he and his fiancée were guilty of.
MRS ALVING: Well, of course he had to take the blame on himself.
MANDERS: But how deceitful of him! And towards me! I’d honestly never have believed that of Jakob Engstrand. Well, I’m going to have to deal with him most seriously; that he can rely on. – And the immorality of such a match! All for the sake of money –! How large was the amount the girl had at her disposal?
MRS ALVING: It was three hundred speciedaler.52
MANDERS: Yes, just imagine – for a paltry three hundred speciedaler, to get himself married to a fallen woman!
MRS ALVING: So what would you say about me, getting married to a fallen man?53
MANDERS: But mercy upon us – what are you saying? A fallen man?
MRS ALVING: You believe perhaps that Alving was purer when I walked with him to the altar than Johanne was when Engstrand married her?
