In The Lady from the Sea (p. 25) Lyngstrand says: ‘I am to a certain extent a little infirm.’[345] This ‘to a certain extent’ is admirable! Lyngstrand, a sculptor, is speaking of his artistic projects (p. 51):
As soon as I can set about it, I am going to try if I can produce a great work—a group, as they call it.
Arnholm. Is there anything else?
Lyngstrand. Yes, there is to be another figure—a sort of apparition, as they say.
As Ibsen makes Lyngstrand a fool, it might be believed that he intentionally put these idiotic turns of expression into the sculptor’s mouth. But in Hedda Gabler, Brack, a sharp and clever bon vivant, says (p. 87): ‘But as far as regards myself, you know very well that I have always entertained a—a certain respect for the marriage tie, generally speaking, Mrs. Hedda.’ In Rosmersholm Brendel says (p. 24): ‘So you see when golden dreams descended and enwrapped me ... I fashioned them into poems, into visions, into pictures—in the rough, as it were, you understand. Oh, what pleasures, what intoxications I have enjoyed in my time! The mysterious bliss of creation—in the rough, as I said.’ Rector Kroll says (p. 18): ‘A family that now soon for some centuries has held its place as the first in the land.’[346] ‘Now soon for some centuries’! That means that it is not yet ‘some centuries,’ but ‘soon’ will be ‘some centuries.’ Hence ‘soon’ must include in itself ‘some centuries.’ By what miracle? In The Wild Duck we have the intentionally, but, in their exaggeration impossibly, idiotic conversations of the ‘fat,’ ‘bald,’ and ‘short-sighted’ gentlemen in the first act, but also this remark by Gina, who is in no way depicted as an idiot (p. 270):
Are you glad when you have some good news to tell father when he comes home in the evening?
Hedwig. Yes, for then we have a pleasanter time.
Gina. Yes, there is something [true][347] in that!!
In the conversation about the wild duck between Ekdal, Gregers and Hjalmar we read (p. 289):