Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (59 page)

GULDSTAD.
          Not quite; the accent of society
She cannot hit exactly; there she loses.

FALK.
A grievous fault.

GULDSTAD.
                  But if her mother chooses
To spend a winter on her, she’ll come out of it
Queen of them all, I’ll wager.

FALK.
                               Not a doubt of it.

GULDSTAD
[laughing]
.
Young women are odd creatures, to be sure!

FALK
[gaily]
.
Like winter rye-seed, canopied secure
By frost and snow, invisibly they sprout.

GULDSTAD.
Then in the festive ball-room bedded out —

FALK.
With equivique and scandal for manure —

GULDSTAD.
And when April sun shines —

FALK.
                            There the blade is;
The seed shot up in mannikin green ladies!

[LIND comes up and seizes FALK’s hand.

LIND.
How well I chose, — past understanding well; —
I feel a bliss that nothing can dispel.

GULDSTAD.
There stands your mistress; tell us, if you can,
The right demeanor for a plighted man.

LIND
[perturbed]
.
That’s a third person’s business to declare.

GULDSTAD
[joking]
.
Ill-tempered! This to Anna’s ears I’ll bear.
                            [Goes to the ladies.

LIND
[looking after him]
.
Can such a man be tolerated?

FALK.
                             You
Mistook his aim, however, —

LIND.
                             And how so?

FALK.
It was not Anna that he had in view.

LIND.
How, was it Svanhild?

FALK.
                      Well, I hardly know.
                              [Whimsically.
Forgive me, martyr to another’s cause!

LIND.
What do you mean?

FALK.
                  You’ve read the news to-night?

LIND.
No.

FALK.
    Do so. There ‘tis told in black and white
Of one who, ill-luck’s bitter counsel taking,
Had his sound teeth extracted from his jaws
Because his cousin-german’s teeth were aching.

MISS JAY
[looking out to the left]
.
Here comes the priest!

MRS. HALM.
                       Now see a man of might!

STIVER.
Five children, six, seven, eight —

FALK.
                        And, heavens, all recent!

MISS JAY.
Ugh! it is almost to be called indecent.

   [A carriage has meantime been heard stopping outside
      to the left. STRAWMAN, his wife, and eight little
      girls, all in traveling dress, enter one by one.

MRS. HALM.
[advancing to meet them]
.
Welcome, a hearty welcome!

STRAWMAN.
                           Thank you.

MRS. STRAWMAN.
                                      It is
A party?

MRS. HALM.
         No, dear madam, not at all.

MRS. STRAWMAN.
If we disturb you —

MRS. HALM.
                     
Au contraire
, your visit
Could in no wise more opportunely fall.
My Anna’s just engaged.

STRAWMAN
[shaking ANNA’s hand with unction]
.
                        Ah then, I must
Bear witness; — Lo! in wedded Love’s presented
A treasure such as neither moth nor rust
Corrupt — if it be duly supplemented.

MRS. HALM.
But how delightful that your little maids
Should follow you to town.

STRAWMAN.
                           Four tender blades
We have besides.

MRS. HALM.
                 Ah, really?

STRAWMAN.
                             Three of whom
Are still too infantine to take to heart
A loving father’s absence, when I come
To town for sessions.

MISS JAY
[to MRS. HALM, bidding farewell]
.
                      Now I must depart.

MRS. HALM.
O, it is still so early!

MISS JAY.
                         I must fly
To town and spread the news. The Storms, I know,
Go late to rest, they will be up; and oh!
How glad the aunts will be! Now, dear, put by
Your shyness; for to-morrow a spring-tide
Of callers will flow in from every side!

MRS. HALM.
Well, then, good-night
                               [To the others.
          Now friends, what would you say
To drinking tea?
                             [To MRS. STRAWMAN.
Pray, madam, lead the way.

   [MRS. HALM, STRAWMAN, his wife and children, with
      GULDSTAD, LIND, and ANNA go into the house.

MISS JAY
[taking STIVER’s arm]
.
Now let’s be tender! Look how softly floats
Queen Luna on her throne o’er lawn and lea! —
Well, but you are not looking!

STIVER
[crossly]
.
                               Yes, I see;
I’m thinking of the promissory notes.

[They go out to the left. FALK, who has been continuously watching STRAWMAN and his wife, remains behind alone in the garden. It is now dark; the house is lighted up.

FALK.
All is as if burnt out; — all desolate, dead — !
So thro’ the world they wander, two and two;
Charred wreckage, like the blackened stems that strew
The forest when the withering fire is fled.
Far as the eye can travel, all is drought.
And nowhere peeps one spray of verdure out!

   [SVANHILD comes out on to the verandah with a
      flowering rose-tree which she sets down.

Yes one — yes one — !

SVANHILD.
                    Falk, in the dark?

FALK.
                                       And fearless!
Darkness to me is fair, and light is cheerless.
But are not you afraid in yonder walls
Where the lamp’s light on sallow corpses falls —

SVANHILD.
Shame!

FALK
[looking after STRAWMAN who appears at the window]
.
       He was once so brilliant and strong;
Warred with the world to win his mistress; passed
For Custom’s doughtiest iconoclast;
And pored forth love in paeans of glad song — !
Look at him now! In solemn robes and wraps,
A two-legged drama on his own collapse!
And she, the limp-skirt slattern, with the shoes
Heel-trodden, that squeak and clatter in her traces,
This is the winged maid who was his Muse
And escort to the kingdom of the graces!
Of all that fire this puff of smoke’s the end!
Sic transit gloria amoris
, friend.

SVANHILD.
Yes, it is wretched, wretched past compare.
I know of no one’s lot that I would share.

FALK
[eagerly]
.
Then let us two rise up and bid defiance
To this same order Art, not Nature, bred!

SVANHILD
[shaking her head]
.
Then were the cause for which we made alliance
Ruined, as sure as this is earth we tread.

FALK.
No, triumph waits upon two souls in unity.
To Custom’s parish-church no more we’ll wend,
Seatholders in the Philistine community.
See, Personality’s one aim and end
Is to be independent, free and true.
In that I am not wanting, nor are you.
A fiery spirit pulses in your veins,
For thoughts that master, you have works that burn;
The corslet of convention, that constrains
The beating hearts of other maids, you spurn.
The voice that you were born with will not chime to
The chorus Custom’s baton gives the time to.

SVANHILD.
And do you think pain has not often pressed
Tears from my eyes, and quiet from my breast?
I longed to shape my way to my own bent —

FALK.
“In pensive ease?”

SVANHILD.
                   O, no, ‘twas sternly meant.
But then the aunts came in with well-intended
Advice, the matter must be sifted, weighed —
                               [Coming nearer.
“In pensive ease,” you say; oh no, I made
A bold experiment — in art.

FALK.
                           Which ended — ?

SVANHILD.
In failure. I lacked talent for the brush.
The thirst for freedom, tho’, I could not crush;
Checked at the easel, it essayed the stage —

FALK.
That plan was shattered also, I engage?

SVANHILD.
Upon the eldest aunt’s suggestion, yes;
She much preferred a place as governess —

FALK.
But of all this I never heard a word!

SVANHILD
[smiling]
.
No wonder; they took care that none was heard.
They trembled at the risk “my future” ran
If this were whispered to unmarried Man.

FALK
[after gazing a moment at her in meditative sympathy]
.
That such must be your lot I long had guessed.
When first I met you, I can well recall,
You seemed to me quite other than the rest,
Beyond the comprehension of them all.
They sat at table, — fragrant tea a-brewing,
And small-talk humming with the tea in tune,
The young girls blushing and the young men cooing,
Like pigeons on a sultry afternoon.
Old maids and matrons volubly averred
Morality and faith’s supreme felicity,
Young wives were loud in praise of domesticity,
While you stood lonely like a mateless bird.
And when at last the gabbling clamour rose
To a tea-orgy, a debauch of prose,
You seemed a piece of silver, newly minted,
Among foul notes and coppers dulled and dinted.
You were a coin imported, alien, strange,
Here valued at another rate of change,
Not passing current in that babel mart
Of poetry and butter, cheese and art.
Then — while Miss Jay in triumph took the field —

SVANHILD
[gravely]
.
Her knight behind her, like a champion bold,
His hat upon his elbow, like a shield —

FALK.
Your mother nodded to your untouched cup:
“Drink, Svanhild dear, before your tea grows cold.”
And then you drank the vapid liquor up,
The mawkish brew beloved of young and old.
But that name gripped me with a sudden spell;
The grim old Volsungs as they fought and fell,
With all their faded aeons, seemed to rise
In never-ending line before my eyes.
In you I saw a Svanhild, like the old,(3)
But fashioned to the modern age’s mould.
Sick of its hollow warfare is the world;
Its lying banner it would fain have furled;
But when the world does evil, its offence
Is blotted in the blood of innocence.

SVANHILD
[with gentle irony]
.
I think, at any rate, the fumes of tea
Must answer for that direful fantasy;
But ‘tis your least achievement, past dispute,
To hear the spirit speaking, when ‘tis mute.

FALK
[with emotion]
.
Nay, Svanhild, do not jest: behind your scoff
Tears glitter, — O, I see them plain enough.
And I see more: when you to dust are fray’d,
And kneaded to a formless lump of clay,
Each bungling dilettante’s scalpel-blade
On you his dull devices shall display.
The world usurps the creature of God’s hand
And sets its image in the place of His,
Transforms, enlarges that part, lightens this;
And when upon the pedestal you stand
Complete, cries out in triumph: “Now she is
At last what woman ought to be: Behold,
How plastically calm, how marble-cold!
Bathed in the lamplight’s soft irradiation,
How well in keeping with the decoration!”
                            [Seizing her hand.
But if you are to die, live first! Come forth
With me into the glory of God’s earth!
Soon, soon the gilded cage will claim its prize.
The Lady thrives there, but the Woman dies,
And I love nothing but the Woman in you.
There, if they will, let others woo and win you,
But here, my spring of life began to shoot,
Here my Song-tree put forth its firstling fruit;
Here I found wings and flight: — Svanhild, I know it,
Only be mine, — here I shall grow a poet!

SVANHILD
[in gentle reproof, withdrawing her hand]
.
O, why have you betrayed yourself? How sweet
It was when we as friends could freely meet!
You should have kept your counsel. Can we stake
Our bliss upon a word that we may break?
Now you have spoken, all is over.