Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (332 page)

MAIA.
Out on the plain. Striding — like a marble stature. She is coming this way.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Stands gazing with his hand over his eyes.]
Does not she look like the Resurrection incarnate?
[To himself.]
And her I could displace — and move into the shade! Remodel her — . Fool that I was!

MAIA.
What do you mean by that?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Putting the question aside.]
Nothing. Nothing that you would understand. [IRENE advances from the right over the upland. The children at their play have already caught sight of her and run to meet her. She is now surrounded by them; some appear confident and at ease, others uneasy and timid. She talks low to them and indicates that they are to go down to the hotel; she herself will rest a little beside the brook. The children run down over the slope to the left, half way to the back. IRENE goes up to the wall of rock, and lets the rillets of the cascade flow over her hands, cooling them.

MAIA.
[In a low voice.]
Go down and speak to her alone, Rubek.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
And where will you go in the meantime?

MAIA.
[Looking significantly at him.]
Henceforth I shall go my own ways. [She descends form the hillock and leaps over the brook, by aid of her alpenstock. She stops beside IRENE.
MAIA.
Professor Rubek is up there, waiting for you, madam.

IRENE.
What does he want?

MAIA.
He wants you to help him to open a casket that has snapped to.

IRENE.
Can I help him in that?

MAIA.
He says you are the only person that can.

IRENE.
Then I must try.

MAIA.
Yes, you really must, madam. [She goes down by the path to the hotel.

[In a little while PROFESSOR RUBEK comes down to IRENE, but stops with the brook between them.

IRENE.
[After a short pause.]
She — the other one — said that you had been waiting for me.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
I have waited for you year after year — without myself knowing it.

IRENE.
I could not come to you, Arnold. I was lying down there, sleeping the long, deep, dreamful sleep.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
But now you have awakened, Irene!

IRENE.
[Shakes her head.]
I have the heavy, deep sleep still in my eyes.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
You shall see that day will dawn and lighten for us both.

IRENE.
Do not believe that.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Urgently.]
I do believe it! And I know it! Now that I have found you again —

IRENE.
Risen from the grave.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Transfigured!

IRENE.
Only risen, Arnold. Not transfigured. [He crosses over to her by means of stepping-stones below the cascade.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Where have you been all day, Irene?

IRENE.
[Pointing.]
Far, far over there, on the great dead waste —

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Turning the conversation.]
You have not your — your friend with you to-day, I see.

IRENE.
[Smiling.]
My friend is keeping a close watch on me, none the less.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Can she?

IRENE.
[Glancing furtively around.]
You may be sure she can — wherever I may go. She never loses sight of me —
[Whispering.]
Until, one fine sunny morning, I shall kill her.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Would you do that?

IRENE.
With the utmost delight — if only I could manage it.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Why do you want to?

IRENE.
Because she deals in witchcraft.
[Mysteriously.]
Only think, Arnold — she has changed herself into my shadow.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Trying to calm her.]
Well, well, well — a shadow we must all have.

IRENE.
I am my own shadow.
[With an outburst.]
Do you not understand that!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Sadly.]
Yes, yes, Irene, I understand. [He seats himself on a stone beside the brook. She stands behind him, leaning against the wall of rock.

IRENE.
[After a pause.]
Why do you sit there turning your eyes away from me?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Softly, shaking his head.]
I dare not — I dare not look at you.

IRENE.
Why dare you not look at me any more?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
You have a shadow that tortures me. And I have the crushing weight of my conscience.

IRENE.
[With a glad cry of deliverance.]
At last!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Springs up.]
Irene — what is it!

IRENE.
[Motioning him off.]
Keep still, still, still!
[Draws a deep breath and says, as though relieved of a burden.]
There! Now they let me go. For this time. — Now we can sit down and talk as we used to — when I was alive.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Oh, if only we could talk as we used to.

IRENE.
Sit there, where you were sitting. I will sit here beside you. [He sits down again. She seats herself on another stone, close to him.

IRENE.
[After a short interval of silence.]
Now I have come back to you from the uttermost regions, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Aye, truly, from an endless journey.

IRENE.
Come home to my lord and master —

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
To our home; — to our own home, Irene.

IRENE.
Have you looked for my coming every single day?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
How dared I look for you?

IRENE.
[With a sidelong glance.]
No, I suppose you dared not. For you understood nothing.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Was it really not for the sake of some one else that you all of a sudden disappeared from me in that way?

IRENE.
Might it not quite well be for your sake, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Looks doubtfully at her.]
I don’t understand you — ?

IRENE.
When I had served you with my soul and with my body — when the statue stood there finished — our child as you called it — then I laid at your feet the most precious sacrifice of all — by effacing myself for all time.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Bows his head.]
And laying my life waste.

IRENE.
[Suddenly firing up.]
It was just that I wanted! Never, never should you create anything again — after you had created that only child of ours.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Was it jealously that moved you, then?

IRENE.
[Coldly.]
I think it was rather hatred.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Hatred? Hatred for me?

IRENE.
[Again vehemently.]
Yes, for you — for the artist who had so lightly and carelessly taken a warm-blooded body, a young human life, and worn the soul out of it — because you needed it for a work of art.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
And you can say that — you who threw yourself into my work with such saint-like passion and such ardent joy? — that work for which we two met together every morning, as for an act of worship.

IRENE.
[Coldly, as before.]
I will tell you one thing, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Well?

IRENE.
I never loved your art, before I met you. — Nor after either.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
But the artist, Irene?

IRENE.
The artist I hate.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
The artist in me too?

IRENE.
In you most of all. When I unclothed myself and stood for you, then I hated you, Arnold —

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Warmly.]
That you did not, Irene! That is not true!

IRENE.
I hated you, because you could stand there so unmoved —

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Laughs.]
Unmoved? Do you think so?

IRENE. — at any rate so intolerably self-controlled. And because you were an artist and an artist only — not a man!
[Changing to a tone full of warmth and feeling.]
But that statue in the wet, living clay, that I loved — as it rose up, a vital human creature, out of those raw, shapeless masses — for that was our creation, our child. Mine and yours.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Sadly.]
It was so in spirit and in truth.

IRENE.
Let me tell you, Arnold — it is for the sake of this child of ours that I have undertaken this long pilgrimage.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Suddenly alert.]
For the statue’s — ?

IRENE.
Call it what you will. I call it our child.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
And now you want to see it? Finished? In marble, which you always thought so cold?
[Eagerly.]
You do not know, perhaps, that it is installed in a great museum somewhere — far out in the world?

IRENE.
I have heard a sort of legend about it.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
And museums were always a horror to you. You called them grave-vaults —

IRENE.
I will make a pilgrimage to the place where my soul and my child’s soul lie buried.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Uneasy and alarmed.]
You must never see that statue again! Do you hear, Irene! I implore you — ! Never, never see it again!

IRENE.
Perhaps you think it would mean death to me a second time?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Clenching his hands together.]
Oh, I don’t know what I think. — But how could I ever imagine that you would fix your mind so immovably on that statue? You, who went away from me — before it was completed.

IRENE.
It was completed. That was why I could go away from you — and leave you alone.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Sits with his elbows upon his knees, rocking his head from side to side, with his hands before his eyes.]
It was not what it afterwards became.

IRENE.
[Quietly but quick as lightning, half-unsheathes a narrow-bladed sharp knife which she carried in her breast, and asks in a hoarse whisper.]
Arnold — have you done any evil to our child?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Evasively.]
Any evil? — How can I be sure what you would call it?

IRENE.
[Breathless.]
Tell me at once: what have you done to the child?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.
I will tell you, if you will sit and listen quietly to what I say.

IRENE.
[Hides the knife.]
I will listen as quietly as a mother can when she —