Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (90 page)

HIS MOTHER.
[Laughing quietly.]
Ay, there ‘tis good. One’s gripped with frost
Like icicles o’er a plunging river,
Strong to dare anything whatever, —
And yet believe one is not lost.

BRAND.
Farewell. My leisure time is spent.

HIS MOTHER.
Ay, thou wast ever loth to stay.
As boy thou long’dst to be away —

BRAND.
It was at your desire I went.

HIS MOTHER.
Ay, and good reason too, I say
‘Twas needful thou shouldst be a priest.
[Examines him more closely.]
H’m, he is grown up strong and tall.
But heed t h i s word of mine, at least, —
Care for thy life, son!

BRAND.
Is that all?

HIS MOTHER.
Thy life? What’s dearer?

BRAND.
I would say:
Have you more counsels to convey?

HIS MOTHER.
For others, use them as you may,
And welcome. But thy life, O save it
For my sake; it was I that gave it.
[Angrily.]
Your mad deed’s talked of far and near;
It scares and harrows me to hear.
On such a day to dare the fjord,
And squander what you’re bound to hoard!
You of our clan survive alone,
You are my son, my flesh and bone;
The roof-tree beam that copes and clinches
The house I’ve builded up by inches.
Stick fast; hold out; endure; survive!
Guard your life! Never let it go!
An heir is bound to keep alive, —
And you’ll be mine-one day-you know ——

BRAND.
Indeed? And that was why you plann’d
With loaded purse to seek me here?

HIS MOTHER.
Son, are you raving?
[Steps bade.]
Don’t come near.
Stay where you are! You’ll feel my hand!
[More calmly.]
What were you meaning?-Just attend:
I’m getting older year by year;
Sooner or later comes the end;
Then you’ll inherit all I’ve treasured,
‘Tis duly counted, weighed and measured —
Nay, nay, I’ve nothing on me now! —
It’s all at home. It is but scant;
But he that gets it will not want.
Stand back there! Don’t come near!-I vow
I’ll fling no stiver of my store
Down fissures, nor in spot unknown
Hide any, nor below a stone.
In wall, or underneath a floor;
All shall be yours, son, you shall be
My sole and single legatee.

BRAND.
And the conditions?

HIS MOTHER.
One I make,
No more; don’t set your life at stake.
Keep up our family and name,
That’s all the gratitude I claim.
Then see that nothing go to waste, —
Naught be divided or displaced; —
Add much or little, as you will;
But O preserve, preserve it still!

BRAND.
[After a short pause.]
One thing needs clearing ‘twixt us two.
From childhood I have thwarted you; —
You’ve been no mother, I no son,
Till you are gray, my childhood gone.

HIS MOTHER.
I do not ask to be caress’d.
Be what you please; I am not nice.
Be stern, be fierce, be cold as ice,
It will not cleave my armour’d breast;
Keep, though you hoard it, what was mine,
And never let it leave our line!

BRAND.
[Going a step nearer.]
And if I took it in any head
To strew it to the winds, instead?

HIS MOTHER.
[Reeling back.]
Strew, what through all these years of care
Has bent my back and bleach’d my hair?

BRAND.
[Nodding slowly.]
To strew it.

HIS MOTHER.
Strew it! If you do,
It is my soul that you will strew!

BRAND.
And if I do it, even so?
If I one evening vigil keep
With lighted taper by your bed,
While you with clasped Psalter sleep
The first night’s slumber of the dead, —
If I then fumble round about,
Draw treasure after treasure out,
Take up the taper, hold it low

HIS MOTHER.
[Approaching excitedly.]
Whence comes this fancy?

BRAND.
Would you know?

HIS MOTHER.
Ay.

BRAND.
From a childish scene that still
Lives in my mind, and ever will,
That scams my soul with foul device
Like an infestering cicatrice.
It was an autumn evening. Dead
Was father; you lay sick in bed.
I stole where he was laid by night,
All pallid in the silver light.
I stood and watch’d him from my nook,
Saw how his two hands clasp’d the Book;
I marvell’d why he slept so long,
Mark’d his thin wrists, and smelt the strong
Odour of linen newly dried; —
And then I heard a step outside; —
A woman enter’d, strode apace
Up to the bed, nor saw my face.
Then she began to grope and pry;
First put the corpse’s vesture by,
Drew forth a bundle, then a store,
Counted, and whisper’d: There is more!
Then, grubbing deeper in the ground,
Clutch’d a seal’d packet tightly bound,
With trembling fingers strove and tore,
Bit it in two, groped deeper, found,
Counted, and whisper’d: There is more!
She cried, she cursed, she wail’d, she wept,
She scented where the treasure lay,
And then with eager anguish swept
Down like a falcon on her prey.
When she had ransacked all the room,
She turn’d, like one who hears her doom,
Wrapp’d up her booty in a shawl,
And faintly groaned: So t h a t was all!

HIS MOTHER.
I needed much, I little won;
And very dearly was it bought.

BRAND.
Even more dearly than you thought;
Son’s-heart you shattered in your son.

HIS MOTHER.
Tut, tut. To barter hearts for gold
Was customary from of old.
Still dearer once I had to pay, —
I think I gave my life away.
Something I gave that now is not; —
I seem to see it flash in air
Like something foolish and yet fair;
I gave-I know not rightly what; —
“Love” was the name it used to bear. —
I know it was a bitter choice;
I know my father gave his voice;
“Forget the peasant-boy and wed
The other, ‘spite his frosty pate;
A fellow with a knowing head,
He’ll fairly double the estate?”
I took him, and he brought me shame.
The doubled gettings never came.
But I have drudged with streaming brow,
And there is little lacking now.

BRAND.
And do you, as you near your grave,
Know that it was your s o u l you gave?

HIS MOTHER.
It’s clear that I knew t h a t, at least,
Giving my son to be a priest.
When the hour comes, a grateful heir
Of my salvation will take care;
I own the acres and the pence,
And you the deathbed eloquence.

BRAND.
With all your cunning you mistook;
You read me wrong in childhood’s book.
And many dwell by bank and brae
Who love their children in that way; —
A child’s a steward, you suppose,
Of the parental cast-off clothes;
A glimpse of the Eternal flits
At times across your wandering wits;
You snatch at it, and dream you spring
Into the essence of the thing
By grafting Riches upon Race; —
That Death with Life you can displace,
That years, if steadily amass’d,
Will yield Eternity at last.

HIS MOTHER.
Don’t rummage in your Mother’s mind,
But take what she will leave behind.

BRAND.
The debt as well?

HIS MOTHER.
The debt? What debt?
There is none.

BRAND.
Very good; but yet
Suppose there were,-I should be bound
To settle every claim I found.
The son must satisfy each call
Before the mother’s burial.
Though but four empty walls I took,
I still should own your debit-book.

HIS MOTHER.
No law commands it.

BRAND.
Not the kind
That ink on parchment ever writ;
But deep in every honest mind
Another law is burnt and bit, —
And that I execute. Thou blind!
Learn to have sight! Thou hast debased
The dwelling-place of God on earth,
The spirit He lent thee bast laid waste,
The image that thou bor’st at birth
With mould and filthiness defaced;
Thy Soul, that once had flight and song,
Thrust, clipp’d, among the common throng.
That is your debt. What will you do
When God demands His own of you?

HIS MOTHER.
[Confused.]
What will I do? Do?

BRAND.
Never fear;
I take your debt upon me whole.
God’s image, blotted in your soul,
In mine, Will-cleansed, shall stand clear.
Go with good courage to your rest.
By debt you shall not sleep oppress’d.

HIS MOTHER.
My debt and sin you’ll wipe away?

BRAND.
Your debt. Observe. The debt: no more
Your debt alone I can repay;
Your sin yourself must answer for.
The sum of native human worth
Crush’d in the brutish toil of earth
Can verily by human aid
To the last atom be repaid;
But in the losing of it lies
The sin, which who repents not-dies!

HIS MOTHER.
[Uneasily.]
‘Twere best I took my homeward way
To the deep valley, to the gloom;
Such rank and poisonous fancies bloom
In this insufferable ray;
I’m almost fainting at the fume.

BRAND.
Seek you the shadow; I abide.
And if you long for light and sky,
And fain would see me ere you die,
Call me, and I am by your side.

HIS MOTHER.
Yes, with a sermon on my doom!

BRAND.
No, tender both as priest and child
I’ll shield you from the wind of dread,
And singing low beside your bed
Lull to repose your anguish wild.

HIS MOTHER.
And that with lifted hand you swear?

BRAND.
When you repent I will be there.
[Approaching her.]
But I too make conditions. Hear.
Whatever in this world is dear
Willingly you must from you rend,
And naked to the grave descend.

HIS MOTHER.
[Wildly repulsing him.]
Bid fire be sever’d from its heat,
Snow from its cold, wave from its wet!
Ask less!

BRAND.
Toss a babe overboard,
And beg the blessing of the Lord.

HIS MOTHER.
Ask something else: ask hunger, thirst, —
But not what all men deem the worst!

BRAND.
If just that worst is asked in vain,
No other can His grace obtain.

HIS MOTHER.
A. money-alms I will present you!

BRAND.
All?

HIS MOTHER.
All! Son, will not m u c li content you?

BRAND.
Your guilt you never shall put by
Till you, like Job, in ashes die.
[Goes.]

HIS MOTHER.
[Wringing her hands.]
My life destroy’d, my soul denied,
My goods soon scatter’d far and wide!
Home then, and in these fond arms twine
All that I still can say is mine!
My treasure, child in anguish born,
For thee my bleeding breast was torn; —
Home then, and weep as mothers weep
Over their sickly babes asleep. —
Why did my soul in flesh take breath,
If love of flesh is the soul’s death?
Stay near me, priest!-I am not clear
How I shall feel when death is near.
“Naked into the grave descend,” —
I’ll wail, at least, until the end.

BRAND.
[Gazing after her.]
Yes, thy son shall still be near,
Call to him, and he shall hear.
Stretch thy hand, and, cold and perish’d,
At his heart it shall be cherish’d.
[Goes down to AGNES.]
As the Morn not so the Night.
Then my soul was set on fight,
Then I heard the war-drum rattle,
Yearn’d the sword of Wrath to swing,
Lies to trample, Trolls to fling,
Fill the world with clashing battle.

AGNES.
[Has turned round to him, and looks radiantly up.]
By the Night the Morn was pale.
Then I sought the joys that fail;
Sought to triumph by attaining
What in losing I am gaining.

BRAND.
Visions stirring, visions splendid
Like a flock of swans descended,
On their spreading wings upbore me,
And I saw my way before me;
Sin-subduer of the Age
Sternly stemming seas that rage.
Church-processions, banners streaming,
Anthems rolling, incense steaming,
Golden goblets, victor-songs,
Rapt applause of surging throngs,
Made a glory where I fought.
All in dazzling hues was wrought; —
Yet it was an empty dream,
A brief mountain-vision, caught
Half in glare and half in gleam.
No w I stand where twilight gray
Long forestalls the ebb of day,
‘Twixt the water and the wild,
From the busy world exiled,
Just a strip of heaven’s blue dome
Visible;-but this is H o m e.
Now my Sabbath dream is dark;
To the stall my winged steed;
But I see a higher Mark.
Than to wield the knightly sabre, —
Daily duty, daily labor,
Hallow’d to a Sabbath-deed.

AGNES.
And that God, who was to fall?

BRAND.
He shall, none the less, be fell’d, —
But in secret, unbeheld,
Not before the eyes of all.
Now I see, I judged astray
Where the Folk’s salvation lay.
Not by high heroic charges
Can you make the People whole;
That which faculty enlarges
Does not heal the fissured soul.
It is Will alone that matters,
Will alone that mars or makes,
Will, that no distraction scatters,
And that no resistance breaks. —
[Turns towards the hamlet, where the shades of night are beginning to fall.]
Come then, Men, who downcast roam
The pent valley of my home; —
Close conversing we will try
Our own souls to purify,
Slackness curb and falsehood kill,
Rouse the lion’s cub of Will!
Manly, as the hands that smite,
Are the bands that hold the hoe;
There’s o n c end for all,-to grow
Tablets whereon God may write.
[He is going. EINAR confronts hint.]