by Henrik Ibsen
MANDERS: Yes, but they’re vastly different things –
MRS ALVING: Not so different, really. There was certainly a big difference in price – a paltry three hundred speciedaler and a whole fortune.
MANDERS: But how can you compare two such dissimilar things? After all, you had consulted54 with your heart and with your family.
MRS ALVING [not looking at him]: I thought you understood where what you call my heart had strayed at the time.
MANDERS [distant]: Had I understood any such thing, I would not have become a daily guest in your husband’s house.
MRS ALVING: Well, the fact remains that I certainly did not consult with myself.
MANDERS: But with your closest relatives, then; as is prescribed; with your mother and both your aunts.
MRS ALVING: Yes, that’s true. The three of them totted up the figures for me. Oh, it’s remarkable how swiftly they concluded that it would be utter madness to refuse such an offer. If Mother could look up now and see what all that magnificence had brought with it!
MANDERS: Nobody can be held responsible for the outcome. But the fact remains that your marriage was sealed in absolute compliance with the law.
MRS ALVING [at the window]: Oh yes, this business of law and order! I often think they’re the cause of all the unhappiness in the world.
MANDERS: Mrs Alving, that’s a sinful thing to say.
MRS ALVING: That’s as may be; but I can’t bear all these bonds and considerations any longer. I just can’t! I have to work my way out to freedom.
MANDERS: What do you mean by that?
MRS ALVING [drumming on the window frame]: I should never have covered up Alving’s lifestyle. But at the time I didn’t dare do anything else – for my own sake as much as anyone’s. That’s how cowardly I was.
MANDERS: Cowardly?
MRS ALVING: If people had got to know anything, they’d have said: poor man, it’s hardly surprising he kicks over the traces, with a wife who runs away from him.
MANDERS: And there might have been some justification in saying that.
MRS ALVING [looking fixedly at him]: If I was the person I should have been, I’d take Osvald aside and say: ‘Listen, my boy, your father was a depraved55 human being –’
MANDERS: Heavens above –
MRS ALVING: – and then I’d tell him everything I’ve told you – lock, stock and barrel.
MANDERS: Mrs Alving, I’m almost horrified at you.
MRS ALVING: Yes, I know. I know that! I’m horrified at the thought myself. [Moves away from the window.] That’s how cowardly I am.
MANDERS: And you call it cowardice to fulfil your obvious duty and obligation? Have you forgotten that a child should love and honour his mother and father?56
MRS ALVING: Let’s not generalize about this. Let us ask, should Osvald love and honour Chamberlain Alving?
MANDERS: Isn’t there a voice in that mother’s heart of yours that forbids you to shatter your son’s ideals?
MRS ALVING: Yes, but what about the truth, then?
MANDERS: Yes, but what about ideals then?
MRS ALVING: Oh – ideals, ideals! If only I weren’t the coward I am.
MANDERS: Don’t go throwing ideals aside, Mrs Alving – that may bring a terrible vengeance. Especially now with Osvald. Osvald doesn’t seem to have many ideals, more’s the pity. But from what I can see his father stands as just such an ideal.
MRS ALVING: You’re right there.
MANDERS: And these impressions of his were awakened and fostered in him by you yourself in your letters.
MRS ALVING: Yes; I felt bound by duty and obligation, so I lied to my boy year in and year out. Oh, how cowardly – how cowardly I’ve been!
MANDERS: You’ve established a beautiful illusion in your son’s mind, Mrs Alving – and you truly shouldn’t undervalue that.
MRS ALVING: Hm; who knows whether that really is such a good thing. – But any underhand goings on with Regine are out of the question, at least. He’s not going to go and make that poor girl unhappy.
MANDERS: Good God, no, that would be dreadful!
MRS ALVING: If I knew he was serious and that it would lead to his happiness –
MANDERS: What do you mean? Then what?
MRS ALVING: But it wouldn’t; Regine isn’t like that unfortunately.
MANDERS: And so? What do you mean?
MRS ALVING: If I wasn’t such an abject coward I’d say to him: marry her, or arrange things to suit the two of you; but let’s have no deceit.
MANDERS: Merciful heavens –! You mean a legally recognized marriage? What a monstrous –! It’s unheard of –!
MRS ALVING: Unheard of, you say? Hand on heart, Pastor Manders: don’t you think there are plenty of married couples around the country who are just as closely related?
MANDERS: I simply don’t understand you.
MRS ALVING: Oh, yes you do.
MANDERS: No doubt you’re thinking of the possibility that –. Yes, unfortunately, family life isn’t always as pure as it should be. But in the circumstances you’re alluding to, one can never know for sure – not with certainty at least. But with this on the other hand – to think that you, a mother, could possibly permit –!
MRS ALVING: But I won’t. I couldn’t permit it for any price on earth; that’s exactly what I’m saying.
MANDERS: No, because you’re a coward, as you put it. But if you weren’t such a coward –! God in heaven – what a horrifying union!
MRS ALVING: Yes, but then it’s said that we’re all descended from such a union. And who arranged things that way here on earth, Pastor Manders?
MANDERS: Madam, I will not debate such a question with you; you are far from being in the right state of mind. But that you dare to say it’s cowardly of you –!
MRS ALVING: All right, let me tell you what I mean. I am nervous and frightened, because there’s some kind of ghostlike feeling lodged inside me, which I can never be quite rid of.
MANDERS: What did you call it?
MRS ALVING: Ghostlike. When I heard Regine and Osvald in there it was as though I saw ghosts. But I almost believe we are ghosts, all of us, Pastor Manders. It’s not just the things we’ve inherited from our fathers and mothers that return in us. It’s all kinds of old dead opinions and all sorts of old dead doctrines57 and so on. They aren’t alive in us; but they are lodged in there all the same, and we can never be rid of them. I only have to pick up a newspaper and read it, and it’s as though I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts living throughout the entire land. They must lie as thick as sand, I’d say. And we are so wretchedly frightened of the light,58 all of us.
MANDERS: Ah – so here we see the dividends of your reading. Fine fruits indeed! Oh, these despicable, rebellious, free-thinking books!
MRS ALVING: You’re wrong, dear pastor. You were the very man who provoked me into thinking; and for that I thank you.
MANDERS: Me?
MRS ALVING: Yes, when you forced me to submit to what you called my duty and obligation; when you extolled as right and proper what my whole soul rebelled against as an abomination. That was when I began to examine the stitching that held your teachings together. I only wanted to unpick a single knot, but the instant I’d loosened that, the whole thing fell apart. And then I realized it was machine sewn.
MANDERS [quietly, shaken]: And is that what was won by my life’s hardest battle?
MRS ALVING: Call it rather your most miserable defeat.
MANDERS: It was the greatest victory of my life, Helene; victory over myself.
MRS ALVING: It was a crime against us both.
MANDERS: To plead with you and say: woman, go home to your lawful husband, when you came to me in despair and cried: ‘Here I am, take me!’ Was that a crime?
MRS ALVING: Yes, I think it was.
MANDERS: We two don’t understand each other.
MRS ALVING: Not any more, at least.
MANDERS: Never – never even in my most secr
et thoughts, have I seen you as anything other than another man’s wife.
MRS ALVING: Hm – I wonder?
MANDERS: Helene –!
MRS ALVING: We forget so easily who we once were.
MANDERS: Not me. I’m the same as I ever was.
MRS ALVING [changing tack]: Well, well – let’s not talk any more about old times. Now you sit up to your eyes in boards and committees; and I go around here battling with ghosts, both on the inside and on the outside.
MANDERS: The outside ones, I can probably help you overcome. After everything I’ve heard from you today with such horror, my conscience cannot defend letting a vulnerable young girl remain in your house.
MRS ALVING: Don’t you think it would be best if we could see her provided for? I mean – with a good marriage.
MANDERS: Indubitably. I think that would be desirable for her in all respects. Regine is of course at an age now – well, I don’t really understand these things, but –
MRS ALVING: Regine matured early.
MANDERS: Yes, didn’t she? I do have a vague recollection of her being noticeably well developed in the corporeal sense when I prepared her for confirmation. But in the meantime, at least, she’ll have to go home; under her father’s watchful eye. Ah, but of course Engstrand isn’t –. That he – that he could conceal the truth like that from me!
There is a knock on the door leading to the hallway.
MRS ALVING: Who can that be? Come in!
ENGSTRAND [in his Sunday best, standing in the doorway]: I do beg your pardon, but –
MANDERS: Aha! Hm –
MRS ALVING: Oh, is it you, Engstrand?
ENGSTRAND: – none of the maids was around, and so I took the bold liberty of knocking –.
MRS ALVING: Well, all right. Come in. Did you want to speak to me about something?
ENGSTRAND [comes in]: No, ma’am, thanking you all the same. It was more the pastor I wanted a little word with.
MANDERS [walking up and down]: Hm; really? You want to speak to me, do you?
ENGSTRAND: Aye, I’d be awful glad if –
MANDERS [stops in front of him]: Well; may I ask what about?
ENGSTRAND: Well, it was this, pastor, now that we’re settling up down there – thanking you kindly, ma’am. – And now that we’ve finished with everything; I was thinking it would be very nice and fitting, if us what’s worked so sincere together all this time – I was thinking, we should end on a little prayer meeting this evening.
MANDERS: A prayer meeting? Down at the orphanage?
ENGSTRAND: Well, maybe if the pastor don’t think it’s fitting, then –
MANDERS: Oh, I certainly think it is, but – hm –
ENGSTRAND: I’ve been conducting a little prayer meeting myself down there of an evening –
MRS ALVING: Have you?
ENGSTRAND: Aye, now and then; sort of a little edification as you’d call it. But I’m just a humble, lowly man and I’ve not got the proper gifts, Lord knows – and so I was thinking, that since Pastor Manders happened to be out here, then –
MANDERS: Yes, but you see, Engstrand, I have a question I must put to you first. Are you in the proper state of mind for such a meeting? Do you feel your conscience to be clear and free?
ENGSTRAND: God help us, it wouldn’t be wise to go talking about conscience, pastor.
MANDERS: But that’s precisely what we are going to speak about. So, what’s your answer?
ENGSTRAND: Well, conscience – that can be terrible sometimes.
MANDERS: Well, that much you admit at least. But could you tell me straight – what’s the situation with regard to Regine?
MRS ALVING [quickly]: Pastor Manders!
MANDERS [reassuring]: Allow me –
ENGSTRAND: With Regine! [Looking at MRS ALVING] Jesus, you’re really frightening me now! Nothing bad’s happened to Regine, has it?
MANDERS: Let’s hope not. What I mean is this – what is the situation as regards you and Regine? You call yourself her father? Yes?
ENGSTRAND [unsure]: Well – hm – the pastor knows all about me and Johanne, God rest her.
MANDERS: No more distortion of the truth. Your late wife informed Mrs Alving of the true situation, before she left her service.
ENGSTRAND: Well, I’ll be –! She did, did she, after all?
MANDERS: You’ve been found out, Engstrand.
ENGSTRAND: When she’d sworn and cursed so solemnly –
MANDERS: She cursed!
ENGSTRAND: No, she just swore, but so deeply sincere.
MANDERS: And for all these years you have concealed the truth from me. Concealed it from me, from the very person who always put such unconditional trust in you.
ENGSTRAND: Aye, I’m afraid I probably have.
MANDERS: Have I deserved this of you, Engstrand? Haven’t I always been ready to stretch a helping hand out to you in word and deed as far as was in my power? Answer! Haven’t I?
ENGSTRAND: Aye, things wouldn’t have looked too bright for me on many an occasion, if I hadn’t had Pastor Manders.
MANDERS: And this is how you repay me. Have me enter falsehoods in the Parish Register and then for years on end withhold information from me that you owed both to myself and to the truth. Your conduct has been entirely inexcusable, Engstrand; and from now on it is over between us.
ENGSTRAND [with a sigh]: Aye, I suppose it is. I understand.
MANDERS: Yes, for how could you possibly justify yourself?
ENGSTRAND: But then should she have gone and done herself more damage by talking about it? If the pastor was to imagine now that he was in the same plight as our dearly beloved Johanne –
MANDERS: Me?
ENGSTRAND: Jesus, I don’t mean exactly the same. I mean, what if the pastor had something to be ashamed of in the eyes of the world, as they says. We menfolk shouldn’t condemn a poor woman too severe, pastor.
MANDERS: And neither do I. It is to you I am directing my accusations.
ENGSTRAND: May I be permitted to put a tiny little question to the pastor?
MANDERS: Very well, ask.
ENGSTRAND: In’t it right and proper for a man to raise the fallen?
MANDERS: Yes, of course.
ENGSTRAND: And in’t a man bound to keep his word of honour?
MANDERS: Yes, he certainly is; but –
ENGSTRAND: Back then, when Johanne got herself into trouble with that Englishman – or perhaps it was an American or Russian, as they call ’em – well, then she came into town. Poor thing, she’d spurned me once or twice in the past; ’cos she only had eyes for what was handsome, she did; and I had this defect with my leg, of course. Well, the pastor will remember: I’d ventured myself to go into a dance hall, where seafaring sailors was carrying on all drunk and intoxicated, as they says. And when I tried exhorting them to wander new paths –
MRS ALVING [at the window]: Hm –
MANDERS: I know, Engstrand; those brutes threw you down the stairs. You’ve related that incident to me before. You carry your defect with honour.
ENGSTRAND: I don’t boast about it, pastor. But what I wanted to tell you was this: that she came and confided everything to me with a wailing59 and a gnashing of teeth.60 I must say, pastor, it fair broke my heart to listen to it.
MANDERS: It did, did it, Engstrand? And then what?
ENGSTRAND: Well, so I says to her: that American, he’s off roaming the seven seas, he is. And you, Johanne, I says, you’ve committed a sinfulness and you’re a fallen creature. But Jakob Engstrand, I says, stands on two good legs, he does – well, that was meant more like a parable, pastor.
MANDERS: Yes, I understand; just continue.
ENGSTRAND: Well, that’s when I rose her up and joined her in honest wedlock, so folks wouldn’t know how wayward she’d been with foreigners.
MANDERS: All this was most commendable of you. What I simply cannot approve of is that you could bring yourself to accept money –
ENGSTRAND: Money? Me? Not a farthing!
MANDERS [to MRS ALVING, questioning]: But –?
ENGSTRAND: Oh aye – hold on – now I remember. Johanne did have a shilling or two, as a matter of fact. But I didn’t want nothing to do with that. Fie, I says, mammon, that’s the wages of sin,61 that is; this loathsome gold – or banknotes or whatever it was – we’ll throw it back in the American’s face, I says. But he’d gone off and vanished over the stormy seas, pastor.
MANDERS: Was he now, my good Engstrand?
ENGSTRAND: Indeed, he was. So Johanne and I agreed that the money should go to the upbringing of the child, and that’s how it was; and I can account and vouch for every single shilling.
MANDERS: But this changes things quite significantly.
ENGSTRAND: Well, that’s how it was, reverend pastor. And I think I can dare to say I’ve been a good father to Regine – as far as my strength allowed at least – for I am a frail man, alas.
MANDERS: Now, now, my dear Engstrand –
ENGSTRAND: But I think I can say I brought up the child and lived lovingly with my Johanne, God rest her, and kept discipline in the home, as scripture demands. But it wouldn’t occur to me to go to Pastor Manders boasting and priding myself on how I, I too for once, had done a good deed here in this world. No, when something like that happens to Jakob Engstrand he keeps mum about it. But sadly it don’t happen too often, I’d say. And when I come to Pastor Manders, I’ve more than enough with talking about what’s wicked and frail. ’Cos I’ll say, as I just said – conscience can be an ugly thing, now and then.
MANDERS: Give me your hand, Jakob Engstrand.
ENGSTRAND: Oh, goodness, pastor –
MANDERS: Come on, no false modesty. [Shakes his hand.] There!
ENGSTRAND: And if I might most humbly dare to beg forgiveness of the pastor –
MANDERS: You? No, on the contrary; I’m the one who should be asking your forgiveness –
ENGSTRAND: Oh Lord, no.
MANDERS: Yes, most certainly. And I do so with all my heart. Forgive me for misjudging you like this. And if I could show you some sign or other of my sincere regret and goodwill towards you –
ENGSTRAND: Would you, pastor?
MANDERS: With the greatest of pleasure –
