by Henrik Ibsen
like flocks of wild swans overhead
that swooped and bore me up, their wings
the murmur of the multitudes.
What vistas of imaginings
I saw outspread; and what clear roads
and distances to lead me on,
God’s warrior of world renown!
What hymns and incense and what gold
banners brilliantly unfurled,
my triumph splendid and austere!
In spirit I was taken up
to a high place, was tempted there
with visions of exalted hope
that faded even as they shone
and turned to darkness and to stone.
Now, shadowed by these walls
of rock, where the light fades
hours before night falls,
and the fjord waters hem
me in, once more I stand
in the place I must call home.
There will be no more rides
on cloud-pawing Pegasus.
Unsaddled is that wing’d horse.
And no trumpets sound.
But let us not … let us not
falter, nor stoop to regret
triumphs that might have been.
I have received the sign.
I see, now, the true goal
to strive for: humble toil
ennobled by belief,
the sacrificial life.
AGNES: But what of that false god
who was to be destroyed,
you said? Will he not fall,
then? Ever?
BRAND: Fall he shall!
But not in the wild gaze
of crowds, not to their vast applause.
I was wrong, I was wrong.
In vain we stir the soil
round the roots of the soul
unless that soul is strong.
It is not raucous fame
that redeems the time.
It is the will alone
that can purge and refine,
that alone has the power
to make or mar
what we do, whether the work
be famed or not.
[He turns towards the village, where the evening shadows are beginning to gather.]
You who walk
with slow and sullen step
in the narrow and steep
places of this land,
I shall teach you to praise,
with heart and mind and hand
in true communion
one with another; to rouse
from mortal sleep the young lion
of the immortal will.
Let us do all things well,
let the pickaxe, the spade,
shine like the battle blade.
Then shall the hand of God
inscribe His holy word
upon the human heart
as though on Sinai slate.
Let nobleness appear,
let those who faint and fear
find strength. Righteousness shall destroy
falsehood utterly.
He begins to leave. EINAR meets him.
EINAR: You there! Yes, you, sir! Give me back
that which you took!
BRAND: That which …? Ah! Speak to her.
Speak, but will she hear?
EINAR: Agnes, I beg you, stay;
stay on the sunlit heights,
not where dark sorrow waits.
AGNES: I have no choice to make.
I have one road to take.
This is the only way.
EINAR: How can you? How can you leave
your mother, your sisters?
AGNES: Give
them my love, I shall send
a letter when I have found
words to express
what my soul clearly sees.
EINAR: Out there, where the great waters gleam,
The white-sailed vessels scud and skim,
Dipping their prows in pearly foam,
Bright emanations of a dream,
Seeking the fabled shore, the calm
Landfall and their longed-for home.
AGNES: Sail with them, then, go east or
west; but think of me as dead.
EINAR: Come, come with me; my sister
if not my bride!
AGNES: Einar, Einar, I have told
you. There is an ocean
of silence. It lies between
us, wider than the world.
EINAR: Go home, then. Go, be safe!
AGNES [softly]:
I am drawn by this man towards a new life.
BRAND: Young woman, beware.
And when you choose, be sure.
For, choosing, you are chosen.
In the shadow of these frozen
peaks, I shall remain
a forgotten man.
And life with me will seem
an endless winter gloom.
AGNES: Starshine pierces the cloud.
I am not afraid.
BRAND: All or nothing. That
is my demand. The task
is very great. And the risk,
also, is very great.
There’ll be no mercy shown.
There’s no provision made
for weakness or dread.
Falter, and you go down
into the depths of the sea.
Mere lifelong sacrifice
itself may not suffice.
Would you die willingly?
EINAR: This is no seaside game.
It is a dark and cruel
commandment that can kill.
BRAND [to AGNES]:
You stand where the roads cross.
Once and for all, then! Choose!
Exit.
EINAR: Choose between storm and calm.
Choose between ‘go’ and ‘stay’.
Choose between joy and grief.
Choose between night and day.
Choose between death and life.
AGNES: Beyond darkness and death
light dawns upon the earth.
She follows BRAND. EINAR looks for some time, as if lost, in the direction in which she has gone; then he bows his head and goes out towards the fjord again.
Act Three
Three years later. A small garden at the pastor’s house. A high mountain face above it, a stone wall around it. The fjord, narrow and shut in, in the background. The door of the house leads into the garden. Afternoon. BRAND stands on the steps outside the house. AGNES sits on the step below him.
AGNES: My dear, why do you gaze
endlessly over the fjord,
and with such anxious eyes,
unwilling to rest?
BRAND: These three years past
I’ve waited for some word
from my mother. Now I hear
she lies at death’s door;
yet I’ve received no sign
that she’s dead to her sin.
Therefore I wait.
AGNES [softly and lovingly]:
Why do you hesitate
to go now? Go to her,
go to her!
BRAND [shaking his head]:
Let her repent,
then; let her sacrifice
everything that she has.
No solace, no sacrament,
until that’s done.
AGNES: But your
own mother, Brand …
BRAND: Own? Own?
Would you have me bow down
to every household god
of clay and blood?
AGNES: So harsh …
BRAND: To you?
AGNES: Ah, no.
BRAND: I saw
what must be; foresaw and foretold
struggle and bitter cold.
AGNES [smiling]:
O my deare
st, Brand’s law
sometimes is fallible,
it seems. Look, I can smile.
BRAND: Life withers; and your cheeks
grow pale now; mind and soul
burn in the icy chill.
The glacier looms; the black rocks
threaten our house.
AGNES: Look how they shelter us.
Even under the glacier’s rim
we’re safe; and when, in spring, the stream
leaps from the cliff, we live
quiet, unharmed,
behind the waterfall
in our ferny cave.
BRAND: In a deep cave, unwarmed
by any shred of sun.
AGNES: Isn’t the sun-
light lovely to look at when
it shines on the high fell!
BRAND: Shines, Agnes? When? For a few weeks
perhaps, a brief glimmer
at midsummer.
AGNES [looking firmly at him and getting up]:
There’s something here that makes
even you afraid.
BRAND: Surely it is your heart
that’s thrilled by some secret
dread, some abyss of dread.
It’s as though you stand
staring into that abyss.
AGNES: Sometimes, I confess,
sometimes, yes, I’ve trembled …
BRAND: Trembled?
AGNES: For our child,
for Alf.
BRAND: For Alf!
AGNES: Ah, you see, Brand,
you tremble too!
BRAND: Agnes, at times
I fear for our little son.
But he’ll get well;
God is just; not cruel …
not cruel … Where is Alf now?
AGNES: Asleep.
BRAND [looking in through the door]:
So he is! No dreams
of sickness or pain
haunt his pillow
with their gaunt phantom shapes.
AGNES: But he’s so pale.
BRAND: It will pass,
it will pass.
AGNES: How sweetly he sleeps.
BRAND [closing the door]:
Sleep and grow strong. God bless
you, my own child! God bless you both
for the gifts that you bring with
such an instinct of grace. Labour
and grief, now, are easy to bear.
Day after day I am filled
with new strength as the child
plays, as I watch him at play.
God summoned me to stay.
I made the sacrifice.
It seemed a martyrdom
that I embraced. How altered
now: here, in the wilderness,
manna for one who starved.
AGNES: For one who toiled, and served,
and never faltered.
I know what tears you’ve shed
in secret, tears of blood.
You have earned your fame.
BRAND: Love touched me; now each thing
I do is blest. Spring awakening
in heart and in mind,
that is what I have found
with you, and with none other.
Neither father nor mother
had kindled the least spark
of love. I do believe all
the tenderness of my soul
that was clamped into the dark
is here released to shine
on what is truly mine.
AGNES: And upon all who come
to your hearth and home:
the poor and the downtrodden,
the fatherless child, bidden
to enter, each one a guest
at your heart’s truth’s feast.
BRAND: What I am, what I do, I owe
to Alf and to you: two
souls who crossed the gulf
into my inmost self.
I was too long alone.
Spirit had become stone.
AGNES: Where you caress, you strike.
Those whom you bless, you break.
BRAND: Not you, Agnes?
AGNES: No, Brand.
But that which you demand,
‘all or nothing’, has driven
souls out of Heaven.
BRAND: That which the world calls ‘love’
I do not wish to have.
God’s love is hard to bear,
I know that. Those who fear
have cause enough to dread
the summons. When Christ prayed,
‘Lord, take away this cup,’
shivering in his sweat,
what answer did he get?
None, Christ had to drain
the terror and the pain
and taste the dregs.
AGNES: What hope
is there for us poor souls
weighed on such judgement scales?
BRAND: Who’s doomed by God’s just law?
Oh do not seek to know!
Enough that you understand
‘Be faithful and endure’
written by His own hand
in letters of fire.
To those who, striving, fall,
God will be merciful.
Those who refuse to strive
He will not forgive.
Agnes, in my book
the first commandment says,
‘You shall not compromise’.
Half-done, ill-done work
thwarting the soul’s power,
dooms the ill-doer.
Yes, Agnes, it is so.
AGNES [throwing her arms around his neck]:
Where you go, I shall go.
BRAND: Where love goes, no road
is too steep or hard.
The DOCTOR has come down the road and stops outside the garden wall.
DOCTOR: And what are you doing?
Ah, billing and cooing
among these sylvan groves,
pretty turtle-doves!
AGNES [running to open the garden gate]:
Doctor, come in! Do, please!
DOCTOR: Now you know very well
that I won’t. I’m so cross.
Really, why must you stay
in this place? Call it ‘home’?
It’s a troll-cave of gloom,
all glacier, no sky.
Brr … it shrivels your soul!
BRAND: Not my soul.
DOCTOR: Tch, man!
You know what I mean.
With you, ‘a promise made
is a promise kept’ indeed.
AGNES: Where love is, there’s no need of sun
to bring the whole of summer in.
DOCTOR: H’m. I’ve a call to make.
BRAND: My mother?
DOCTOR: Very sick.
A few more hours, and then …
But you know that of course.
You’ll have been to her house.
Just back, are you?
BRAND: I’ve not been.
DOCTOR: Well, now I’ve heard it all!
I’ve trudged mile after mile
across whinstone and bog,
tight-fisted old hag
though she is, just for her!
BRAND: God bless you for that –
all your skill and care.
DOCTOR: God bless my soft heart.
Perhaps you’d rather
that we went there together …
BRAND: Doctor, unless I hear
that she’s ready to pay
the full penalty,
not one inch will I stir.
DOCTOR [to AGNES]:
His heart’s as hard as rock.
You poor defenceless lamb,
I’m sorry for your sake.
AGNES: Don’t be. What’s more, he’d give
&n
bsp; all his heart’s blood to save
that woman’s soul.
BRAND: I am her son.
Am I not pledged to atone,
to honour every claim?
I tell you, every debt
shall be wiped out!
DOCTOR: By one who’s a pauper
himself? Most improper.
BRAND: I have made my choice
freely. Let that suffice.
DOCTOR [looking hard at him]:
Pastor, your ledger’s full
of ‘God’s law’ and ‘man’s will’.
But the column marked ‘love’,
that’s still blank, I believe.
Exit.
BRAND [gazing after him for a while]:
Nothing is so much soiled
by the commerce of the world
as the word ‘love’: this veil
hiding the deformed soul.
Man’s pathway’s dark and steep:
here’s ‘love’ to guide his step.
He wallows in his sin:
‘love’ hauls him out again.
He cringes from the fight:
with ‘love’ there’s no defeat.
AGNES: I know such things are false.
Love is something else.
BRAND: Agnes, if souls are athirst
for truth and righteousness,
let us assuage that longing first;
then speak of love.
Merely to perish on the cross,
or to writhe in the flame,
daily to be buried alive,
this is not martyrdom.
But to make a burned offering
out of the suffering,
to ordain the anguish
of our spirit and our flesh,
that is salvation, there we seize
hold of martyrdom’s prize!
AGNES [clinging tightly to him]:
Brand, when I weaken,
when I flinch from the task,
speak then as you have spoken
now. That much I do ask.
BRAND: Man’s will must blaze the way
for God’s victory,
so that love can alight,
the white dove with the olive-leaf
of mercy and new life.
But – until then – hate!
[In terror]
Hatred, the one redeeming word!
Hatred, the angel of the Lord!
He hurries into the house.
AGNES [looking in through the open door]:
Now he’s with Alf, kneeling by his bed.
I think he’s crying; he rocks
to and fro, to and fro. He seeks
comfort; that great-hearted man
seeks comfort from a child
innocent of the world.
But he’s … is the child ill? What is it?
[Cries out in fear.]
Brand, what is it? What have you seen
that makes you so afraid?
BRAND comes out on to the steps.
BRAND: Was that …? I heard the gate,
I thought. No messenger?
AGNES: None.
BRAND [looking back into the house]:
His pulse is much too fast
and his skin’s like fire.
Agnes, be strong.
