Mrs. Rosmer. What was it you told me once, Madam Helset? You said that from time immemorial a strange thing happened here whenever one of the family died.
Madam Helset. Yes, it’s true as I’m alive. Then the white horse comes.
Rosmer. Oh, that old family legend—
Mrs. Rosmer. In it comes when the night is far gone. Into the courtyard. Through closed gates. Neighs loudly. Launches out with its hind legs, gallops once round and then out again and away at full speed.
Madam Helset. Yes, that’s how it is. Both my mother and my grandmother have seen it.
Mrs. Rosmer. And you too?
Madam Helset. Oh, I’m not so sure whether I’ve seen anything myself. I don’t generally believe in such things. But this about the white horse—I do believe in that. And I shall believe in it till the day of my death. Well, now I’ll go and—
(Goes out to the right.)[19]
In the final draft, Ibsen put the “white horses” into his opening page. The beginning of this draft emphasizes particularly a grim, unexplained tragedy. The most mysterious touch in the new arrangement is given by the “white horses,” here treated referentially, not in definite explanation.
(Sitting-room at Rosmersholm; spacious, old-fashioned, and comfortable.)