Act III
Scene.—A large, broad verandah attached to Solness's dwelling-house. A flight of steps leads down to the garden below. Far to the right, among the trees, is a glimpse of the new villa, with scaffolding round the tower. Evening sky, with sun-lit clouds.
Mrs. Solness: Have you been round the garden, Miss Wangel?
Hilda: Yes, and I've found heaps of flowers.
Mrs. Solness: Are there, really? You see, I seldom go there. I don't feel that it is mine any longer. They've parcelled it out and built houses for strangers, who can look in upon me from their windows.
Hilda: Mrs. Solness—may I stay here with you a little?
Mrs. Solness: Yes, by all means, if you care to; but I thought you wanted to go in to my husband—to help him?
Hilda: No, thanks. Besides, he's not in. He's with the men over there. He looked so fierce, I didn't dare to talk to him.
Mrs. Solness: He's so kind and gentle in reality.
Hilda: He———
Mrs. Solness: You don't really know him yet, Miss Wangel.
Hilda: Are you pleased about the new house?
Mrs. Solness: It's what Halvard wants. It's simply my duty to submit myself to him.
Hilda: That must be difficult, indeed, when one has gone through so much as you have—the loss of your two little boys———
Mrs. Solness: One must bow to Providence and be thankful, too.
[Dr. Herdal enters and goes in again with Mrs. Solness. She wishes to talk to him about her husband's mad scheme. As they go Solness enters.
Solness: Poor Aline! I suppose she was talking about the two little boys? (Hilda shudders) Poor Aline, she will never get over it.
Hilda: I am going away.
Solness: I won't allow you to. I wish you simply to be here, Hilda.
Hilda: Oh, thank you. You know it wouldn't end there. That's why I'm going. You have duties to her. Live for those duties.
Solness: Too late! Those powers—devils, if you will!—and the troll within me as well, have drawn the life-blood out of her. I'm chained alive to a dead woman!—(in wild anguish) I—I, who cannot live without joy in life.
Hilda: What will you build next?
Solness (shaking his head): Not much more.
Hilda (with an outburst): Oh, it seems all so foolish—not to be able to grasp your own happiness, merely because someone you know happens to stand in the way——
Solness: If only one had the Viking spirit in life——
Hilda: And the other thing? What was that?
Solness: A robust conscience.
Hilda (radiant): I know what you're going to build next.
Solness: What?
Hilda: The castle—my castle. Build it for me this moment. The ten years are up. Out with my castle, Mr. Solness! It shall stand on a very great height, so that I can see far—far around. We shall build—we two together—the very loveliest thing in all the world!
Solness: Hilda, tell me what it is.
Hilda: Builders are such very, very stupid people——
Solness: No doubt—but tell me what we two are to build together?
Hilda: Castles in the air! So easy to build (scornfully), especially for builders who have a—a dizzy conscience.
Solness: We shall build one—with a firm foundation. (Ragnar enters with the wreath) Have you brought the wreath, Ragnar? Then I suppose your father's better? Wasn't he cheered by what I wrote him?
Ragnar: It came too late—he was unconscious. He had had a stroke.
Solness: Go home to him. Give me the wreath.
Ragnar: You don't mean that you yourself—no—I'll stop.
Hilda: Mr. Solness, I will stand here and look at you.
[Solness takes the wreath and goes down through the garden. Mrs. Solness, in an agony of apprehension, re-enters and sends Ragnar to fetch her husband back from the new building. She returns indoors.
Solness (re-entering): Oh, it's you, Hilda! I was afraid it was Aline or the doctor that wanted me.
Hilda: You're easily frightened. They say you're afraid to climb about scaffoldings. Is it true you're afraid?
Solness: Not of death—but—of retribution.
Hilda: I don't understand that.
Solness: Sit down, and I'll tell you something. You know I began by building churches. I'd been piously brought up. I thought it was the noblest task, pleasing to Him for Whom churches are built. Then up at Lysanger I understood that He meant me to have no love and happiness of my own, but just to be a master builder for Him all my life long. That was why He took my little children! Then, that day, I did the impossible. I was able to climb up to a great height. As I stood hanging the wreath on the vane, I cried, "O Mighty One, I will be a free builder—I, too, in my sphere as Thou in Thine. I will build no more churches for Thee—only homes for human beings." But that is not worth six-pence, Hilda.
Hilda: Then you will never build anything more?
Solness: On the contrary, I'm just going to begin—the only possible dwelling-place for human happiness———
Hilda: Our castles in the air.
Solness: Our castles in the air—yes.
Hilda: Then let me see you stand free and high up (passionately). I will have you do it—just once more, Mr. Solness. Do the impossible, once again.
Solness: If I do, I will talk to Him once again up there—"Mighty Lord, henceforth I will build nothing but the loveliest thing in the world."
Hilda (carried away): Yes—yes—yes! My lovely, lovely castle! My castle in the air!
[The others go out upon the verandah. The band of the Masons' Union is heard. Ragnar tells Solness that the foreman is ready to go up with the wreath. Solness goes out. The others watch eagerly.
Dr. Herdal: There goes the foreman up the ladder.
Ragnar: Why, but it's———
Hilda (jubilant): It's the master builder himself.
Mrs. Solness: Oh, my God! Halvard, Halvard! I must go to him!
Dr. Herdal (holding her): Don't move, any of you. Not a sound.
Ragnar: I feel as if I were looking at something utterly impossible.
Hilda (ecstatically): It is the impossible that he is doing now. Can you see anyone else up there with him? There is One he is striving with. I hear a song—a mighty song. He is waving to us. Oh, wave back. Hurrah for Master Builder Solness!
[The shout is taken up. Then a shriek of horror. A human body, with planks and pieces of wood, is vaguely seen crashing down behind the trees.
Hilda: My Master Builder!
A Voice: Mr. Solness is dead. He fell right into the quarry.
Ragnar: So, after all, he could not do it.
Hilda: But he mounted right up to the top. And I heard harps in the air. (Waves her shawl, and shrieks with wild intensity) My—my Master Builder!
FOOTNOTES:
[N] Henrik Ibsen, poet and the creator of a new type of drama, was born at Skien, in South Norway, on March 20, 1828. Apprenticed first to a chemist at Grimstad, he next entered Christiania University, but speedily wearied of regular academic studies. He then undertook journalistic work for two years, and afterwards became a theatrical manager at Bergen. In 1857 he was appointed director of the National Theatre at Christiania, and about this time wrote, at intervals, plays in the style of the ancient Norse sagas. "The Master Builder" ("Bygmester Solness") belongs to his later efforts, and was completed in 1892. In it many critics discern the highest attainments of Ibsen's genius, and its realism is strangely combined with romance. It is a plea for the freedom of the human spirit; and the terrible drama is wrought out in language of extraordinary symbolism. Hilda Wangel is the "superwoman," who will suffer nothing to stand between her and the realisation of herself. Had Solness been as strong a spirit, the end might have been different. But he has a "sickly conscience," unable to bear the heights of freedom. Here again Ibsen is unique in his estimate of mankind. Nevertheless, his characters are all actual personalities, and live vividly. Ibsen died on May 23, 1906.
[The Pillars of Society][O]
Persons in the Drama
Consul Bernick
Mrs. Bernick
Olaf, their son
Martha Bernick, sister of the consul
Lona Hessel, elder stepsister of Mrs. Bernick
Johan Tönnesen, her younger brother
Hilmar Tönnesen, Mrs. Bernick's brother
Rector Rörlund
Dina Dorf, a young lady living at the consul's
Krap, the consul's clerk
Shipbuilder Aune
Mrs. Rummel and other ladies, friends of the consul's family