Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes have been collected at the end of each act, and are linked for ease of reference. Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s [note] at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any other textual issues encountered during its preparation. The front cover, which had only an embossed decoration, has been augmented with information from the title page. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

VOLUME VI

THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH

PILLARS OF SOCIETY

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition. Complete in 11 Volumes.

Crown 8vo, price 4s. each.

ENTIRELY REVISED AND EDITED BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition

VOLUME VI

THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH

PILLARS OF SOCIETY

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1910

Copyright Edition

First printed January 1907

Second Impression December 1910

CONTENTS

THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH.
INTRODUCTION.

After the momentous four years of his first visit to Italy, to which we owe Brand and Peer Gynt, Ibsen left Rome in May 1868, visited Florence, and then spent the summer at Berchtesgaden in Southern Bavaria. There he was busy “mentally wrestling” with the new play which was to take shape as De Unges Forbund (The League of Youth); but he did not begin to put it on paper until, after a short stay at Munich, he settled down in Dresden, in the early autumn. Thence he wrote to his publisher, Hegel, on October 31: “My new work is making rapid progress.... The whole outline is finished and written down. The first act is completed, the second will be in the course of a week, and by the end of the year I hope to have the play ready. It will be in prose, and in every way adapted for the stage. The title is The League of Youth; or, The Almighty & Co., a comedy, in five acts.” At Hegel’s suggestion he omitted the second title, “though,” he wrote, “it could have given offence to no one who had read the play.”

Apparently the polishing of the dialogue took longer than Ibsen anticipated. It was his first play in modern prose, and the medium did not come easy to him. Six or seven years earlier, he wrote the opening scenes of Love’s Comedy in prose, but was dissatisfied with the effect, and recast the dialogue in rhymed verse. Having now outgrown his youthful romanticism, and laid down, in Brand and Peer Gynt, the fundamental positions of his criticism of life, he felt that to carry that criticism into detail he must come to close quarters with reality; and to that end he required a suppler instrument than verse. He must cultivate, as he afterwards[^[1]] put it, “the very much more difficult art of writing the genuine, plain language spoken in real life.” Probably the mastery of this new art cost him more effort than he anticipated, for, instead of having the play finished by the end of 1868, he did not despatch the manuscript to Copenhagen until March 1869. It was published on September 30 of that year.

While the comedy was still in process of conception, Ibsen had written to his publisher: “This new, peaceable work is giving me great pleasure.” It thus appears that he considered it less polemical in its character than the poems which had immediately preceded it. If his intentions were pacific, they were entirely frustrated. The play was regarded as a violent and wanton attack on the Norwegian Liberal party, while Stensgård was taken for a personal lampoon on Björnson. Its first performance at the Christiania Theatre (October 18, 1869) passed quietly enough; but at the second and third performances an organised opposition took the field, and disturbances amounting almost to a riot occurred. Public feeling soon calmed down, and the play (the first prose comedy of any importance in Norwegian literature) became one of the most popular pieces in the repertory of the theatre. But it led to an estrangement from Björnson and the Liberal party, which was not healed for many a day—not, indeed, until Ghosts had shown the Norwegian public the folly of attempting to make party capital out of the works of a poet who stood far above party.

The estrangement from Björnson had begun some time before the play appeared. A certain misunderstanding had followed the appearance of Peer Gynt,[^[2]] and had been deepened by political differences. Björnson had become an ardent National Liberal, with leanings towards Republicanism; Ibsen was not at all a Republican (he deeply offended Björnson by accepting orders and decorations), and his political sympathies, while not of a partisan nature, were mainly “Scandinavian”—that is to say, directed towards a closer union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Distance, and the evil offices of gossiping friends, played their part in begetting dissension. Ibsen’s last friendly letter to Björnson (of these years) was written in the last days of 1867; in the first days of 1869, while he was actually busied with The League of Youth, we find him declining to contribute to a Danish magazine for the reason (among others) that Björnson was to be one of its joint editors.

The news of the stormy reception of his comedy reached Ibsen in Egypt, where, as the guest of the Khedive, he was attending the opening of the Suez Canal. He has recorded the incident in a poem, At Port Said. On his return to Dresden he wrote to Hegel (December 14, 1869): “The reception of The League of Youth pleases me very much; for the disapprobation I was prepared, and it would have been a disappointment to me if there had been none. But what I was not prepared for was that Björnson should feel himself attacked by the play, as rumour says he does. Is this really the case? He must surely see that it is not himself I have had in mind, but his pernicious and ‘lie-steeped’ clique who have served me as models. However, I will write to him to-day or to-morrow, and I hope that the affair, in spite of all differences, will end in a reconciliation.” The intended letter does not appear to have been written; nor would it, probably, have produced the desired effect, for Björnson’s resentment was very deep. He had already (in November) written a poem to Johan Sverdrup, the leader of the Liberal party, in which he deplored the fact that “the sacred grove of poetry no longer afforded sanctuary against assassination,” or as the Norwegian word vigorously expresses it, “sneak-murder.” Long afterwards, in 1881, he explained what he meant by this term: “It was not the portrayal of contemporary life and known personages that I called assassination. It was the fact that The League of Youth sought to represent our young Liberal party as a gang of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism was as empty as their phraseology; and particularly that prominent men were first made clearly recognisable, and then had false hearts and shady characters foisted upon them.” It is difficult to see, indeed, how Ibsen can have expected Björnson to distinguish very clearly between an attack on his “lie-steeped clique” and a lampoon on himself. Even Stensgård’s religious phraseology, the confidence with which he claims God as a member of his party, was at that time characteristic of Björnson. The case, in fact, seems to have been very like that of the portraiture of Leigh Hunt in Harold Skimpole. Both Dickens and Ibsen had unconsciously taken more from their respective models than they intended. They imagined, perhaps, that the features which did not belong to the original would conceal the likeness; whereas their actual effect was only to render the portraits libellous.

Eleven years passed before Björnson and Ibsen were reconciled. In 1880 (after the appearance of A Doll’s House and before that of Ghosts), Björnson wrote in an American magazine: “I think I have a pretty thorough acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more dramatic power than any other playwriter of our day. The fact that I am not always partial to the style of his work makes me all the more certain that I am right in my judgment of him.”

The League of Youth soon became very popular in Norway, and it had considerable success in Sweden and Denmark. It was acted with notable excellence at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. Outside of Scandinavia it has never taken any hold of the stage. At the date of its appearance, Ibsen was still quite unknown, even in Germany; and when he became known, its technique was already antiquated. It has been acted once or twice both in Germany and England, and has proved very amusing on the stage; but it is essentially an experimental, transitional work. The poet is trying his tools.

The technical influence of Scribe and his school is apparent in every scene. Ibsen’s determination not to rest content with the conventions of that school may already be discerned, indeed, in his disuse of the soliloquy and the aside; but, apart from these flagrant absurdities, he permits himself to employ almost all the devices of the Scribe method. Note, for example, how much of the action arises from sheer misunderstanding. The whole second act turns upon the Chamberlain’s misunderstanding of the bent of Stensgård’s diatribe in the first act. As the Chamberlain is deliberately misled by his daughter and Fieldbo, the misunderstanding is not, perhaps, technically inadmissible. Yet it has to be maintained by very artificial means. Why, one may ask, does not Fieldbo, in his long conversation with Stensgård, in the second act,[act,] warn him of the thin ice on which he is skating? There is no sufficient reason, except that the great situation at the end of the act would thus be rendered impossible. It is in the fourth act, however, that the methods of the vaudevillist are most apparent. It is one string of blunders of the particular type which the French significantly call “quiproquos.” Some arise through the quite diabolical genius for malicious wire-pulling developed by old Lundestad; but most of them are based upon that deliberate and elaborate vagueness of expression on the part of the characters which is the favourite artifice of the professor of theatrical sleight-of-hand. We are not even spared the classic quiproquo of the proposal by proxy mistaken for a proposal direct—Stensgård’s overtures to Madam Rundholmen on behalf of Bastian being accepted by her as an offer on his own behalf. We are irresistibly reminded of Mrs. Bardell’s fatal misunderstanding of Mr. Pickwick’s intentions. All this, to be sure, is excellent farce, but there is no originality in the expedients by which it is carried on. Equally conventional, and equally redolent of Scribe, is the conduct of the fifth act. The last drop of effect is wrung out of the quiproquos with an almost mathematical accuracy. We are reminded of a game at puss-in-the-four-corners, in which Stensgård tries every corner in turn, only to find himself at last left out in the cold. Then, as the time approaches to ring down the curtain, every one is seized with a fever of amiability, the Chamberlain abandons all his principles and prejudices, even to the point of subscribing for twenty copies of Aslaksen’s newspaper, and the whole thing becomes scarcely less unreal than one of the old-comedy endings, in which the characters stand in a semicircle while each delivers a couplet of the epilogue. It is difficult to believe that the facile optimism of this conclusion could at any time have satisfied the mind which, only twelve years later, conceived the picture of Oswald Alving shrinking together in his chair and babbling, “Mother—give me the sun.”

But, while we realise with what extraordinary rapidity and completeness Ibsen outgrew this phase of his art, we must not overlook the genuine merits of this brilliant comedy. With all its faults, it was an advance on the technique of its day, and was hailed as such by a critic so penetrating as George Brandes. Placing ourselves at the point of view of the time, we may perhaps say that its chief defect is its marked inequality of style. The first act is purely preparatory; the fifth act, as we have noted, is a rather perfunctory winding-up. The real play lies in the intervening acts; and each of these belongs to a different order of art. The second act is a piece of high comedy, quite admirable in its kind; the third act, both in tone and substance, verges upon melodrama; while the fourth act is nothing but rattling farce. Even from the Scribe point of view, this jumping from key to key is a fault. Another objection which Scribe would probably have urged is that several of Fieldbo’s speeches, and the attitude of the Chamberlain towards him, are, on the face of them, incomprehensible, and are only retrospectively explained. The poetics of that school forbid all reliance on retrospect; perhaps because they do not contemplate the production of any play about which any human being would care to think twice.

The third act, though superficially a rather tame interlude between the vigorous second act and the bustling fourth, is in reality the most characteristic of the five. The second act might be signed Augier, and the fourth Labiche; but in the third the coming Ibsen is manifest. The scene between the Chamberlain and Monsen is, in its disentangling of the past, a preliminary study for much of his later work—a premonition, in fact, of his characteristic method. Here, too, in the character of Selma and her outburst of revolt, we have by far the most original feature of the play. In Selma there is no trace of French influence, spiritual or technical. With admirable perspicacity, Dr. Brandes realised from the outset the significance of this figure. “Selma,” he wrote, “is a new creation, and her relation to the family might form the subject of a whole drama. But in the play as it stands she has scarcely room to move.” The drama which Brandes here foresaw, Ibsen wrote ten year’s later in A Doll’s House.

With reference to the phrase “De lokale forhold,” here lamely represented by “the local situation,” Ibsen has a curious remark in a letter to Markus Grönvold, dated Stockholm, September 3, 1877. His German translator, he says, has rendered the phrase literally “lokale Verhältnisse”—“which is wrong, because no suggestion of comicality or narrow-mindedness is conveyed by this German expression. The rendering ought to be ‘unsere berechtigten Eigenthümlichkeiten,’ an expression which conveys the same meaning to Germans as the Norwegian one does to us Scandinavians.” This suggestion is, unfortunately, of no help to the English translator, especially when it is remembered in what context Aslaksen uses the phrase “de lokale forhold” in the fifth act of An Enemy of the People.

PILLARS OF SOCIETY.
INTRODUCTION.

In the eight years that intervened between The League of Youth and Pillars of Society—his second prose play of modern life—Ibsen published a small collection[collection] of his poems (1871), and his “World-Historic Drama,” Emperor and Galilean (1873). After he had thus dismissed from his mind the figure of Julian the Apostate, which had haunted it ever since his earliest days in Rome, he deliberately abandoned, once for all, what may be called masquerade romanticism—that external stimulus to the imagination which lies in remoteness of time and unfamiliarity of scene and costume. It may be that, for the moment, he also intended to abandon, not merely romanticism, but romance—to deal solely with the literal and commonplace facts of life, studied in the dry light of everyday experience. If that was his purpose, it was very soon to break down; but in Pillars of Society he more nearly achieved it than in any other work.

Many causes contributed to the unusually[unusually] long pause between Emperor and Galilean and Pillars of Society. The summer of 1874 was occupied with a visit to Norway—the first he had paid since the Hegira of ten years earlier. A good deal of time was devoted to the revision of some of his earlier works, which were republished in Copenhagen; while the increasing vogue of his plays on the stage involved a considerable amount of business correspondence. The Vikings and The Pretenders were acted in these years, not only throughout Scandinavia, but at many of the leading theatres of Germany; and in 1876, after much discussion and negotiation, Peer Gynt was for the first time placed on the stage, in Christiania.

The first mention of Pillars of Society occurs in a letter from Ibsen to his publisher, Hegel, of October 23, 1875, in which he mentions that the first act, “always to me the most difficult part of a play,” is ready, and states that it will be “a drama in five acts.” Unless this be a mere slip of the pen, it is curious as showing that, even when the first act was finished, Ibsen did not foresee in detail the remainder of the action. In the course of further development an act dropped out of his scheme. On November 25, 1875, he reports to Hegel: “The first act of my new drama is ready—the fair copy written; I am now working at Act Second”; but it was not until the summer of 1877 that the completed manuscript was sent to Copenhagen. The book was published in the early autumn.

The theatrical success of Pillars of Society was immediate and striking. First performed in Copenhagen, November 18, 1877, it soon found its way to all the leading stages of Scandinavia. In Berlin, in the early spring of 1878, it was produced at five different theatres within a single fortnight; and it has ever since maintained its hold on the German stage. Before the end of the century, it had been acted more than 1200 times in Germany and Austria. An adaptation of the play, by the present writer, was produced at the old Gaiety Theatre, London, for a single performance, on the afternoon of December 15, 1880—this being the first time that Ibsen’s name had appeared on an English playbill. Again, in 1889, a single performance of it was given at the Opera Comique Theatre; and yet again in May 1901 the Stage Society gave two performances of it at the Strand Theatre. In the United States it has been acted frequently in German, but very rarely in English. The first performance took place in New York in 1891. The play did not reach the French stage until 1896, when it was performed by M. Lugné-Poë's organisation, L'Œuvre. In other countries one hears of a single performance of it, here and there; but, except in Scandinavia and Germany, it has nowhere taken a permanent hold upon the theatre.

Nor is the reason far to seek. By the time the English, American, and French public had fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown the phase of his development marked by Pillars of Society, that the play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the German public of the 'eighties; it was exactly on a level with their theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of the Anglo-American public, and—I had almost said—below that of the French public. This is, of course, an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special interest in Pillars of Society. It was not obviously in advance of these masters in technical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of that period. Thus it is not in the least surprising that, outside of Germany and Scandinavia, Pillars of Society had everywhere to follow in the wake of A Doll’s House and Ghosts, and was everywhere found something of an anti-climax. Possibly its time may be yet to come in England and America. A thoroughly well-mounted and well-acted revival might now appeal to that large class of play-goers which stands on very much the same intellectual level on which the German public stood in the eighteen-eighties.

But it is of all Ibsen’s works the least characteristic, because, acting on a transitory phase of theory; he has been almost successful in divesting it of poetic charm. There is not even a Selma in it. Of his later plays, only An Enemy of the People is equally prosaic in substance; and it is raised far above the level of the commonplace by the genial humour, the magnificent creative energy, displayed in the character of Stockmann. In Pillars of Society there is nothing that rises above the commonplace. Compared with Stockmann, Bernick seems almost a lay-figure, and even Lona Hessel is an intellectual construction—formed of a blend of new theory with old sentiment—rather than an absolute creation, a living and breathing woman, like Nora, or Mrs. Alving, or Rebecca, or Hedda. This is, in brief, the only play of Ibsen’s in which plot can be said to preponderate over character. The plot is extraordinarily ingenious and deftly pieced together. Several of the scenes are extremely effective from the theatrical point of view, and in a good many individual touches we may recognise the incomparable master-hand. One of these touches is the scene between Bernick and Rörlund in the third act, in which Bernick’s craving for casuistical consolation meets with so painful a rebuff. Only a great dramatist could have devised this scene; but to compare it with a somewhat similar passage in The Pretenders—the scene in the fourth act between King Skule and Jatgeir Skald—is to realise what is meant by the difference between dramatic poetry and dramatic prose.

I have called Lona Hessel a composite character, because she embodies in a concentrated form the two different strains of feeling that run through the whole play. Beyond the general attack on social pharisaism announced in the very title, we have a clear assertion of the claim of women to moral and economical individuality and independence. Dina, with her insistence on “becoming something for herself” before she will marry Johan, unmistakably foreshadows Nora and Petra. But at the same time the poet is far from having cleared his mind of the old ideal of the infinitely self-sacrificing, dumbly devoted woman, whose life has no meaning save in relation to some more or less unworthy male—the Ingeborg-Agnes-Solveig ideal we may call it. In the original edition of The Pretenders, Ingeborg said to Skule: “To love, to sacrifice all, and be forgotten, that is woman’s saga;” and out of that conception arose the very tenderly touched figure of Martha in this play. If Martha, then, stands for the old ideal—the ideal of the older generation—and Dina for the ideal of the younger generation, Lona Hessel hovers between the two. At first sight she seems like an embodiment of the “strong-minded female,” the champion of Woman’s Rights, and despiser of all feminine graces and foibles. But in the end it appears that her devotion to Bernick has been no less deep and enduring than Martha’s devotion to Johan. Her “old friendship does not rust” is a delightful speech; but it points back to the Ibsen of the past, not forward to the Ibsen of the future. Yet this is not wholly true: for the strain of sentiment which inspired it never became extinct in the poet. He believed to the end in the possibility and the beauty of great self-forgetful human emotions; and there his philosophy went very much deeper than that of some of his disciples.

In consistency of style, and in architectural symmetry of construction, the play marks a great advance upon The League of Youth. From the end of the first act to the middle of the last, it is a model of skilful plot-development. The exposition, which occupies so much of the first act, is carried out by means of a somewhat cumbrous mechanism. No doubt the “Kaffee-Klatsch” is in great measure justified as a picture of the tattling society of the little town. It does not altogether ignore the principle of economy. But it is curious to note the rapid shrinkage in the poet’s expositions. Here we have the necessary information conveyed by a whole party of subsidiary characters. In the next play, A Doll’s House,—we have still a set exposition, but two characters suffice for it, and one the heroine. In the next play again—that is to say, in Ghosts—the poet has arrived at his own peculiar formula, and the exposition is indistinguishably merged in the action. Still greater is the contrast between the conclusion of Pillars of Society and that of A Doll’s House. It would be too much to call Bernick’s conversion and promise to turn over a new leaf as conventional as the Chamberlain’s right-about-face in The League of Youth. Bernick has passed through a terrible period of mental agony which may well have brought home to him a conviction of sin. Still, the way in which everything suddenly comes right, Olaf is recovered, the Indian Girl is stopped, Aune is reconciled to the use of the new machines, and even the weather improves, so as to promise Johan and Dina a prosperous voyage to America—all this is a manifest concession to popular optimism. We are not to conceive, of course, that the poet deliberately compromised with an artistic ideal for the sake of popularity, but rather that he had not yet arrived at the ideal of logical and moral consistency which he was soon afterwards to attain. To use his own metaphor, the ghost of the excellent Eugène Scribe still walked in him. He still instinctively thought of a play as a storm in a tea-cup, which must naturally blow over in the allotted two hours and a half. Even in his next play—so gradual is the process of evolution—he still makes the external storm, so to speak, blow over at the appointed time. But, instead of the general reconciliation and serenity upon which the curtain falls in The League of Youth and Pillars of Society—instead of the “happy ending” which Helmer so confidently expects—he gives us that famous scene of Nora’s revolt and departure, in which he himself may be said to have made his exit from the school of Scribe, banging the door behind him.

The Norwegian title, Samfundets Stötter, means literally Society’s Pillars. In the text, the word “Samfund” has sometimes been translated “society,” sometimes “community.” The noun “stötte,” a pillar, has for its correlative the verb, “at stötte,” to support; so that where the English phrase, “to support society,” occurs, there is, in the original, a direct allusion to the title of the play. The leading merchants in Norwegian seaports often serve as consuls for one or other foreign Power—whence the title by which Bernick is addressed. Rörlund, in the original is called “Adjunkt”—that is to say, he is an assistant master in a school, subordinate to the headmaster or rector.

W. A.

THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH
(1869)

CHARACTERS.

• Chamberlain Bratsberg,[^[3]] owner of iron-works.
• Erik Bratsberg, his son, a merchant.
• Thora, his daughter.
• Selma, Erik’s wife.
• Doctor Fieldbo, physician at the Chamberlain’s works.
• Stensgård,[^[4]] a lawyer.
• Mons Monsen, of Stonelee.[^[5]]
• Bastian Monsen, his son.
• Ragna, his daughter.
• Helle,[^[6]] student of theology, tutor at Stonelee.
• Ringdal, manager of the iron-works.
• Anders Lundestad, landowner.
• Daniel Heire.[^[7]]
• Madam[^[8]] Rundholmen, widow of a storekeeper and publican.
• Aslaksen, a printer.
• A Maid-servant at the Chamberlain’s.
• A Waiter.
• A Waitress at Madam Rundholmen’s.
• Townspeople, Guests at the Chamberlain’s, etc. etc.

The action takes place in the neighbourhood of the iron-works, not far from a market town in Southern Norway.

THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH.

ACT FIRST.

The Seventeenth of May.[^[9]] A popular fête in the Chamberlain’s grounds. Music and dancing in the background. Coloured lights among the trees. In the middle, somewhat towards the back, a rostrum. To the right, the entrance to a large refreshment-tent; before it, a table with benches. In the foreground, on the left, another table, decorated with flowers and surrounded with lounging-chairs.

A Crowd of People. Lundestad, with a committee-badge at his button-hole, stands on the rostrum. Ringdal, also with a committee-badge, at the table on the left.

Lundestad.

... Therefore, friends and fellow citizens, I drink to our freedom! As we have inherited it from our fathers, so will we preserve it for ourselves and for our children! Three cheers for the day! Three cheers for the Seventeenth of May!

The Crowd.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

Ringdal.

[As Lundestad descends from the rostrum.] And one cheer more for old Lundestad!

Some of the Crowd.

[Hissing.] Ss! Ss!

Many Voices.

[Drowning the others.] Hurrah for Lundestad! Long live old Lundestad! Hurrah!

[The Crowd gradually disperses. Monsen, his son Bastian, Stensgård, and Aslaksen make their way forward through the throng.

Monsen.

'Pon my soul, it’s time he was laid on the shelf!

Aslaksen.

It was the local situation[^[10]] he was talking about! Ho-ho!

Monsen.

He has made the same speech year after year as long as I can remember. Come over here.

Stensgård.

No, no, not that way, Mr. Monsen. We are quite deserting your daughter.

Monsen.

Oh, Ragna will find us again.

Bastian.

She’s all right; young Helle is with her.

Stensgård.

Helle?

Monsen.

Yes, Helle. But [Nudging Stensgård familiarly] you have me here, you see, and the rest of us. Come on! Here we shall be out of the crowd, and can discuss more fully what——

[Has meanwhile taken a seat beside the table on the left.

Ringdal.

[Approaching.] Excuse me, Mr. Monsen—that table is reserved——

Stensgård.

Reserved? For whom?

Ringdal.

For the Chamberlain’s party.

Stensgård.

Oh, confound the Chamberlain’s party! There’s none of them here.

Ringdal.

No, but we expect them every minute.

Stensgård.

Then let them sit somewhere else.

[Takes a chair.

Lundestad.

[Laying his hand on the chair.] No, the table is reserved, and there’s an end of it.

Monsen.

[Rising.] Come, Mr. Stensgård; there are just as good seats over there. [Crosses to the right.] Waiter! Ha, no waiters either. The Committee should have seen to that in time. Oh, Aslaksen, just go in and get us four bottles of champagne. Order the dearest; tell them to put it down to Monsen!

[Aslaksen goes into the tent; the three others seat themselves.

Lundestad.

[Goes quietly over to them and addresses Stensgård.] I hope you won’t take it ill——

Monsen.

Take it ill! Good gracious, no! Not in the least.

Lundestad.

[Still to Stensgård.] It’s not my doing; it’s the Committee that decided——

Monsen.

Of course. The Committee orders, and we must obey.

Lundestad.

[As before.] You see, we are on the Chamberlain’s own ground here. He has been so kind as to throw open his park and garden for this evening; so we thought——

Stensgård.

We’re extremely comfortable here, Mr. Lundestad—if only people would leave us in peace—the crowd, I mean.

Lundestad.

[Unruffled.] Very well; then it’s all right.

[Goes towards the back.

Aslaksen.

[Entering from the tent.] The waiter is just coming with the wine.

[Sits.

Monsen.

A table apart, under special care of the Committee! And on our Independence Day of all others! There you have a specimen of the way things go.

Stensgård.

But why on earth do you put up with all this, you good people?

Monsen.

The habit of generations, you see.

Aslaksen.

You’re new to the district, Mr. Stensgård. If only you knew a little of the local situation——

A Waiter.

[Brings champagne.] Was it you that ordered—?

Aslaksen.

Yes, certainly; open the bottle.

The Waiter.

[Pouring out the wine.] It goes to your account, Mr. Monsen?

Monsen.

The whole thing; don’t be afraid.

[The Waiter goes.

Monsen.

[Clinks glasses with Stensgård.] Here’s welcome among us, Mr. Stensgård! It gives me great pleasure to have made your acquaintance; I cannot but call it an honour to the district that such a man should settle here. The newspapers have made us familiar with your name, on all sorts of public occasions. You have great gifts of oratory, Mr. Stensgård, and a warm heart for the public weal. I trust you will enter with life and vigour into the—h’m, into the——

Aslaksen.

The local situation.

Monsen.

Oh yes, the local situation. I drink to that.

[They drink.

Stensgård.

Whatever I do, I shall certainly put life and vigour into it.

Monsen.

Bravo! Hear, hear! Another glass in honour of that promise.

Stensgård.

No, stop; I’ve already——

Monsen.

Oh, nonsense! Another glass, I say—to seal the bond!

[They clink glasses and drink. During what follows Bastian keeps on filling the glasses as soon as they are empty.

Monsen.

However—since we have got upon the subject—I must tell you that it’s not the Chamberlain himself that keeps everything under his thumb. No, sir—old Lundestad is the man that stands behind and drives the sledge.

Stensgård.

So I am told, in many quarters. I can’t understand how a Liberal like him——

Monsen.

Lundestad? Do you call Anders Lundestad a Liberal? To be sure, he professed Liberalism in his young days, when he was still at the foot of the ladder. And then he inherited his seat in Parliament from his father. Good Lord! everything runs in families here.

Stensgård.

But there must be some means of putting a stop to all these abuses.

Aslaksen.

Yes, damn it all, Mr. Stensgård—see if you can’t put a stop to them!

Stensgård.

I don’t say that I——

Aslaksen.

Yes, you! You are just the man. You have the gift of the gab, as the saying goes; and what’s more: you have the pen of a ready writer. My paper’s at your disposal, you know.

Monsen.

If anything is to be done, it must be done quickly. The preliminary election[^[11]] comes on in three days now.

Stensgård.

And if you were elected, your private affairs would not prevent your accepting the charge?

Monsen.

My private affairs would suffer, of course; but if it appeared that the good of the community demanded the sacrifice, I should have to put aside all personal considerations.

Stensgård.

Good; that’s good. And you have a party already: that I can see clearly.

Monsen.

I flatter myself the majority of the younger, go-ahead generation——

Aslaksen.

H’m, h’m! 'ware spies!

Daniel Heire enters from the tent; he peers about shortsightedly, and approaches.

Heire.

May I beg for the loan of a spare seat; I want to sit over there.

Monsen.

The benches are fastened here, you see; but won’t you take a place at this table?

Heire.

Here? At this table? Oh yes, with pleasure.[pleasure.] [Sits.] Dear, dear! Champagne, I believe.

Monsen.

Yes; won’t you join us in a glass?

Heire.

No, thank you! Madam Rundholmen’s champagne——Well, well, just half a glass to keep you company. If only one had a glass, now.

Monsen.

Bastian, go and get one.

Bastian.

Oh, Aslaksen, just go and fetch a glass.

[Aslaksen goes into the tent. A pause

Heire.

Don’t let me interrupt you, gentlemen. I wouldn’t for the world——! Thanks, Aslaksen. [Bows to Stensgård.] A strange face—a recent arrival! Have I the pleasure of addressing our new legal luminary, Mr. Stensgård?

Monsen.

Quite right. [Introducing them.] Mr. Stensgård, Mr. Daniel Heire——

Bastian.

Capitalist.

Heire.

Ex-capitalist, you should rather say. It’s all gone now; slipped through my fingers, so to speak. Not that I’m bankrupt—for goodness' sake don’t think that.

Monsen.

Drink, drink, while the froth is on it.

Heire.

But rascality, you understand—sharp practice and so forth——I say no more. Well, well, I am confident it is only temporary. When I get my outstanding law-suits and some other little matters off my hands, I shall soon be on the track of our aristocratic old Reynard the Fox. Let us drink to that! You won’t, eh?

Stensgård.

I should like to know first who your aristocratic old Reynard the Fox may be.

Heire.

Hee-hee; you needn’t look so uncomfortable, man. You don’t suppose I’m alluding to Mr. Monsen. No one can accuse Mr. Monsen of being aristocratic. No; it’s Chamberlain Bratsberg, my dear young friend.

Stensgård.

What![What!] In money matters the Chamberlain is surely above reproach.

Heire.

You think so, young man? H’m; I say no more. [Draws nearer.] Twenty years ago I was worth no end of money. My father left me a great fortune. You’ve heard of my father, I daresay? No? Old Hans Heire? They called him Gold Hans. He was a shipowner: made heaps of money in the blockade time; had his window-frames and door-posts gilded; he could afford it——I say no more; so they called him Gold Hans.

Aslaksen.

Didn’t he gild his chimney-pots too?

Heire.

No; that was only a penny-a-liner’s lie; invented long before your time, however. But he made the money fly; and so did I in my time. My visit to London, for instance—haven’t you heard of my visit to London? I took a prince’s retinue with me. Have you really not heard of it, eh? And the sums I have lavished on art and science! And on bringing rising talent to the front!

Aslaksen.

[Rises.] Well, good-bye, gentlemen.

Monsen.

What? Are you leaving us?

Aslaksen.

Yes; I want to stretch my legs a bit. [Goes.

Heire.

[Speaking low.] He was one of them—just as grateful as the rest, hee-hee! Do you know, I kept him a whole year at college?

Stensgård.

Indeed? Has Aslaksen been to college?

Heire.

Like young Monsen. He made nothing of it; also like——I say no more. Had to give him up, you see; he had already developed his unhappy taste for spirits——

Monsen.

But you’ve forgotten what you were going to tell Mr. Stensgård about the Chamberlain.

Heire.

Oh, it’s a complicated business. When my father was in his glory, things were going downhill with the old Chamberlain—this one’s father, you understand; he was a Chamberlain too.

Bastian.

Of course; everything runs in families here.

Heire.

Including the social graces——I say no more. The conversion of the currency, rash speculations, extravagances he launched out into, in the year 1816 or thereabouts, forced him to sell some of his land.

Stensgård.

And your father bought it?

Heire.

Bought and paid for it. Well, what then? I come into my property; I make improvements by the thousand——

Bastian.

Of course.

Heire.

Your health, my young friend!—Improvements by the thousand, I say—thinning the woods, and so forth. Years pass; and then comes Master Reynard—the present one, I mean—and repudiates the bargain!

Stensgård.

But, my dear Mr. Heire, you could surely have snapped your fingers at him.

Heire.

Not so easily! Some small formalities had been overlooked, he declared. Besides, I happened then to be in temporary difficulties, which afterwards became permanent. And what can a man do nowadays without capital?

Monsen.

You’re right there, by God! And in many ways you can’t do very much with capital either. That I know to my cost. Why, even my innocent children——

Bastian.

[Thumps the table.] Ugh, father! if I only had certain people here!

Stensgård.

Your children, you say?

Monsen.

Yes; take Bastian, for example. Perhaps I haven’t given him a good education?

Heire.

A threefold education! First for the University; then for painting; and then for—what is it?—it’s a civil engineer he is now, isn’t it?

Bastian.

Yes, that I am, by the Lord!

Monsen.

Yes, that he is; I can produce his bills and his certificates to prove it! But who gets the town business? Who has got the local road-making—especially these last two years? Foreigners, or at any rate strangers—in short, people no one knows anything about!

Heire.

Yes; it’s shameful the way things go on. Only last New Year, when the managership of the Savings Bank fell vacant, what must they do but give Monsen the go-by, and choose an individual that knew—[Coughs]—that knew how to keep his purse-strings drawn—which our princely host obviously does not. Whenever there’s a post of confidence going, it’s always the same! Never Monsen—always some one that enjoys the confidence—of the people in power. Well, well; commune suffragium, as the Roman Law puts it; that means shipwreck in the Common Council, sir.[^[12]] It’s a shame! Your health!

Monsen.

Thanks! But, to change the subject—how are all your law-suits getting on?

Heire.

They are still pending; I can say no more for the present. What endless annoyance they do give me! Next week I shall have to summon the whole Town Council before the Arbitration Commission.[^[13]]

Bastian.

Is it true that you once summoned yourself before the Arbitration Commission?

Heire.

Myself? Yes; but I didn’t put in an appearance.

Monsen.

Ha, ha! You didn’t, eh?

Heire.

I had a sufficient excuse: had to cross the river, and it was unfortunately the very year of Bastian’s bridge—plump! down it went, you know——

Bastian.

Why, confound it all——!

Heire.

Take it coolly, young man! You are not the first that has bent the bow till it breaks. Everything runs in families, you know——I say no more.

Monsen.

Ho ho ho! You say no more, eh? Well, drink, then, and say no more! [To Stensgård.] You see, Mr. Heire’s tongue is licensed to wag as it pleases.

Heire.

Yes, freedom of speech is the only civic right I really value.

Stensgård.

What a pity the law should restrict it.

Heire.

Hee-hee! Our legal friend’s mouth is watering for a nice action for slander, eh? Make your mind easy, my dear sir! I’m an old hand, let me tell you!

Stensgård.

Especially at slander?

Heire.

Your pardon, young man! That outburst of indignation does honour to your heart. I beg you to forget an old man’s untimely frankness about your absent friends.

Stensgård.

Absent friends?

Heire.

I have nothing to say against the son, of course—nor against the daughter. And if I happened to cast a passing slur upon the Chamberlain’s character——

Stensgård.

The Chamberlain’s? Is it the Chamberlain’s family you call my friends?

Heire.

Well, you don’t pay visits to your enemies, I presume?

Bastian.

Visits?

Monsen.

What?

Heire.

Ow, ow, ow! Here am I letting cats out of bags——!

Monsen.

Have you been paying visits at the Chamberlain’s?

Stensgård.

Nonsense! A misunderstanding——

Heire.

A most unhappy slip on my part. But how was I to know it was a secret? [To Monsen.] Besides, you musn’t take my expressions too literally. When I say a visit, I mean only a sort of formal call; a frock-coat and yellow gloves affair——

Stensgård.

I tell you I haven’t exchanged a single word with any of that family!

Heire.

Is it possible? Were you not received the second time either? I know they were “not at home” the first time.

Stensgård.

[To Monsen.] I had a letter to deliver from a friend in Christiania—that was all.

Heire.

[Rising.] I’ll be hanged if it isn’t positively revolting! Here is a young man at the outset of his career; full of simple-minded confidence, he seeks out the experienced man-of-the-world and knocks at his door; turns to him, who has brought his ship to port, to beg for——I say no more! The man-of-the-world shuts the door in his face; is not at home; never is at home when it’s his duty to be——I say no more! [With indignation.] Was there ever such shameful insolence!

Stensgård.

Oh, never mind that stupid business.

Heire.

Not at home! He, who goes about professing that he is always at home to reputable people!

Stensgård.

Does he say that?

Heire.

A mere empty phrase. He’s not at home to Mr. Monsen either. But I can’t think what has made him hate you so much. Yes, hate you, I say; for what do you think I heard yesterday?

Stensgård.

I don’t want to know what you heard yesterday.

Heire.

Then I say no more. Besides, the expressions didn’t surprise me—coming from the Chamberlain, I mean. Only I can’t understand why he should have added “demagogue.”

Stensgård.

Demagogue!

Heire.

Well, since you insist upon it, I must confess that the Chamberlain called you an adventurer and demagogue.

Stensgård.

[Jumps up.] What!

Heire.

Adventurer and demagogue[demagogue]—or demagogue and adventurer; I won’t answer for the order.

Stensgård.

And you heard that?

Heire.

I? If I had been present, Mr. Stensgård, you may be sure I should have stood up for you as you deserve.

Monsen.

There, you see what comes of——

Stensgård.

How dare the old scoundrel——?

Heire.

Come, come, come! Keep your temper. Very likely it was a mere figure of speech—a harmless little joke, I have no doubt. You can demand an explanation to-morrow; for I suppose you are going to the great dinner-party, eh?

Stensgård.

I am not going to any dinner-party.

Heire.

Two calls and no invitation——!

Stensgård.

Demagogue and adventurer! What can he be thinking of?

Monsen.

Look there! Talk of the devil——! Come, Bastian.

[Goes off with Bastian.

Stensgård.

What did he mean by it, Mr. Heire?

Heire.

Haven’t the ghost of an idea.—It pains you? Your hand, young man! Pardon me if my frankness has wounded you. Believe me, you have yet many bitter lessons to learn in this life. You are young; you are confiding; you are trustful. It is beautiful; it is even touching; but—but—trustfulness is silver, experience is gold: that’s a proverb of my own invention, sir! God bless you!

[Goes.

Chamberlain Bratsberg, his daughter Thora, and Doctor Fieldbo enter from the left.

Lundestad.

[Strikes the bell on the rostrum.] Silence for Mr. Ringdal’s speech!

Stensgård.

[Shouts.] Mr. Lundestad, I demand to be heard!

Lundestad.

Afterwards.

Stensgård.

No, now! at once!

Lundestad.

You can’t speak just now. Silence for Mr. Ringdal!

Ringdal.

[On the rostrum.] Ladies and gentlemen! We have at this moment the honour of seeing in our midst the man with the warm heart and the open hand—the man we have all looked up to for many a year, as to a father—the man who is always ready to help us, both in word and deed—the man whose door is never closed to any reputable citizen—the man who—who—ladies and gentlemen, our honoured guest is no lover of long speeches; so, without more words, I call for three cheers for Chamberlain Bratsberg and his family! Long life to them! Hurrah!

The Crowd.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

[Great enthusiasm; people press around the Chamberlain, who thanks them and shakes hands with those nearest him.

Stensgård.

Now may I speak?

Lundestad.

By all means. The platform is at your service.

Stensgård.

[Jumps upon the table.] I shall choose my own platform!

The Young Men.

[Crowding around him.] Hurrah!

The Chamberlain.

[To the Doctor.] Who is this obstreperous personage?

Fieldbo.

Mr. Stensgård.

The Chamberlain.

Oh, it’s he, is it?

Stensgård.

Listen to me, my glad-hearted brothers and sisters! Hear me, all you who have in your souls—though it may not reach your lips—the exultant song of the day, the day of our freedom! I am a stranger among you——

Aslaksen.

No!

Stensgård.

Thanks for that “No!” I take it as the utterance of a longing, an aspiration. A stranger I am, however; but this I swear, that I come among you with a great and open-hearted sympathy for your sorrows and your joys, your victories and defeats. If it lay in my power——

Aslaksen.

It does, it does!

Lundestad.

No interruptions! You have no right to speak.

Stensgård.

You still less! I abolish the Committee! Freedom on the day of freedom, boys!

The Young Men.

Hurrah for freedom!

Stensgård.

They deny you the right of speech! You hear it—they want to gag you! Away with this tyranny! I won’t stand here declaiming to a flock of dumb animals. I will talk; but you shall talk too. We will talk to each other, from the heart!

The Crowd.

[With growing enthusiasm.] Hurrah!

Stensgård.

We will have no more of these barren, white-chokered festivities! A golden harvest of deeds shall hereafter shoot up from each Seventeenth of May. May! Is it not the season of bud and blossom, the blushing maiden-month of the year? On the first of June I shall have been just two months among you; and in that time what greatness and littleness, what beauty and deformity, have I not seen?

The Chamberlain.

What on earth is he talking about, Doctor?

Fieldbo.

Aslaksen says it’s the local situation.

Stensgård.

I have seen great and brilliant possibilities among the masses; but I have seen, too, a spirit of corruption brooding over the germs of promise and bringing them to nought. I have seen ardent and trustful youth rush yearning forth—and I have seen the door shut in its face.

Thora.

Oh, Heaven!

The Chamberlain.

What does he mean by that?

Stensgård.

Yes, my brothers and sisters in rejoicing! There hovers in the air an Influence, a Spectre from the dead and rotten past, which spreads darkness and oppression where there should be nothing but buoyancy and light. We must lay that Spectre; down with it!

The Crowd.

Hurrah! Hurrah for the Seventeenth of May!

Thora.

Come away, father——!

The Chamberlain.

What the deuce does he mean by a spectre? Who is he talking about, Doctor?

Fieldbo.

[Quickly.] Oh, it’s about——

[Whispers a word or two.

The Chamberlain.

Aha! So that’s it!

Thora.

[Softly to Fieldbo.] Thanks!

Stensgård.

If no one else will crush the dragon, I will! But we must hold together, boys!

Many Voices.

Yes! yes!

Stensgård.

We are young! The time belongs to us; but we also belong to the time. Our right is our duty! Elbow-room for faculty, for will, for power! Listen to me! We must form a League. The money-bag has ceased to rule among us!

The Chamberlain.

Bravo! [To the Doctor.] He said the money-bag; so no doubt you’re right——

Stensgård.

Yes, boys; we, we are the wealth of the country, if only there’s metal in us. Our will is the ringing gold that shall pass from man to man. War to the knife against whoever shall deny its currency!

The Crowd.

Hurrah!

Stensgård.

A scornful “bravo” has been flung in my teeth——

The Chamberlain.

No, no!

Stensgård.

What care I! Thanks and threats alike are powerless over the perfect will. And now, God be with us! For we are going about His work, with youth and faith to help us. Come, then, into the refreshment-tent—our League shall be baptized this very hour.

The Crowd.

Hurrah! Carry him! Shoulder high with him!

[He is lifted shoulder high.

Voices.

Speak on! More! More!

Stensgård.

Let us hold together, I say! Providence is on the side of the League of Youth. It lies with us to rule the world—here in the district!

[He is carried into the tent amid wild enthusiasm.

Madam Rundholmen.

[Wiping her eyes.] Oh, Lord, how beautifully he does speak! Don’t you feel as if you could kiss him, Mr. Heire?

Heire.

Thank you, I’d rather not.

Madam Rundholmen.

Oh, you! I daresay not.

Heire.

Perhaps you would like to kiss him, Madam Rundholmen.

Madam Rundholmen.

Ugh, how horrid you are!

[She goes into the tent; Heire follows her.

The Chamberlain.

Spectre—and dragon—and money-bag! It was horribly rude—but well deserved!

Lundestad.

[Approaching.] I’m heartily sorry, Chamberlain——

The Chamberlain.

Yes, where was your knowledge of character, Lundestad? Well, well; we are none of us infallible. Good-night, and thanks for a pleasant evening. [Turns to Thora and the Doctor.] But bless me, I’ve been positively rude to that fine young fellow!

Fieldbo.

How so?

Thora.

His call, you mean——?

The Chamberlain.

He called twice. It’s really Lundestad’s fault. He told me he was an adventurer and—and I forget what else. Fortunately I can make up for it.

Thora.

How?

The Chamberlain.

Come, Thora; let us see to it at once——

Fieldbo.

Oh, do you think it’s worth while, Chamberlain——?

Thora.

[Softly.] Hush!

The Chamberlain.

When one has done an injustice one should lose no time in undoing it; that’s a plain matter of duty. Good-night, Doctor. After all, I’ve spent an amusing hour; and that’s more than I have to thank you for to-day.

Fieldbo.

Me,[Me,] Chamberlain?

The Chamberlain.

Yes, yes, yes—you and others.

Fieldbo.

May I ask what I——?

The Chamberlain.

Don’t be curious, Doctor. I am never curious. Come, come—-no offence—good-night!

[The Chamberlain and Thora go out to the left; Fieldbo gazes thoughtfully after them.

Aslaksen.

[From the tent.] Hei, waiter! Pen and ink! Things are getting lively, Doctor!

Fieldbo.

What things?

Aslaksen.

He’s founding the League. It’s nearly founded.

Lundestad.

[Who has quietly drawn near.] Are many putting down their names?

Aslaksen.

We’ve enrolled about seven-and-thirty, not counting widows and so forth. Pen and ink, I say! No waiters to be found!—that’s the fault of the local situation.

[Goes off behind the tent.

Lundestad.

Puh! It has been hot to-day.

Fieldbo.

I’m afraid we have hotter days to come.

Lundestad.

Do you think the Chamberlain was very angry?

Fieldbo.

Oh, not in the least; you could see that, couldn’t you? But what do you say to the new League?

Lundestad.

H’m; I say nothing. What is there to be said?

Fieldbo.

It’s the beginning of a struggle for power here in the district.

Lundestad.

Well, well; no harm in a fight. He has great gifts, that Stensgård.

Fieldbo.

He is determined to make his way.

Lundestad.

Youth is always determined to make its way. I was, when I was young; no one can object to that. But mightn’t we look in and see——

Heire.

[From the tent.] Well, Mr. Lundestad, are you going to move the previous question, eh? To head the opposition? Hee-hee! You must make haste!

Lundestad.

Oh, I daresay I shall be in time.

Heire.

Too late, sir! Unless you want to stand godfather. [Cheering from the tent.] There, they’re chanting Amen; the baptism is over.

Lundestad.

I suppose one may be permitted to listen; I shall keep quiet.

[Enters the tent.

Heire.

There goes one of the falling trees! There will be a rare uprooting, I can tell you! The place will soon look like a wood after a tornado. Won’t I chuckle over it!

Fieldbo.

Tell me, Mr. Heire, what interest have you in the matter?

Heire.

Interest? I am entirely disinterested, Doctor! If I chuckle, it is on behalf of my fellow citizens. There will be life, spirit, go, in things. For my own part—good Lord, it’s all the same to me; I say, as the Grand Turk said of the Emperor of Austria and the King of France—I don’t care whether the pig eats the dog or the dog the pig.

[Goes out towards the back on the right.

The Crowd.

[In the tent.] Long live Stensgård! Hurrah! Hurrah for the League of Youth! Wine! Punch! Hei, hei! Beer! Hurrah!

Bastian.

[Comes from the tent.] God bless you and every one! [With tears in his voice.] Oh, Doctor, I feel so strong this evening; I must do something.

Fieldbo.

Don’t mind me. What would you like to do?

Bastian.

I think I’ll go down to the dancing-room and fight one or two fellows.

[Goes out behind the tent.

Stensgård.

[Comes from the tent without his hat, and greatly excited.] My dear Fieldbo, is that you?

Fieldbo.

At your service, Tribune of the People! For I suppose you’ve been elected——?

Stensgård.

Of course; but——

Fieldbo.

And what is to come of it all? What nice little post are you to have? The management of the Bank? Or perhaps——

Stensgård.

Oh, don’t talk to me like that! I know you don’t mean it. You are not so empty and wooden as you like to appear.

Fieldbo.

Empty and wooden, eh?

Stensgård.

Fieldbo! Be my friend as you used to be! We have not understood each other of late. You have wounded and repelled me with your ridicule and irony. Believe me, it was wrong of you. [Embraces him.] Oh, my great God! how happy I am!

Fieldbo.

You too? So am I, so am I!

Stensgård.

Yes, I should be the meanest hound on earth if all heaven’s bounty didn’t make me good and true. How have I deserved it, Fieldbo? What have I, sinner that I am, done to be so richly blessed?

Fieldbo.

There is my hand! This evening I am your friend indeed!

Stensgård.

Thanks! Be faithful and true, as I shall be!—Oh, isn’t it an unspeakable joy to carry all that multitude away and along with you? How can you help becoming good from mere thankfulness? And how it makes you love all your fellow creatures! I feel as if I could clasp them all in one embrace, and weep, and beg their forgiveness because God has been so partial as to give me more than them.

Fieldbo.

[Quietly.] Yes, treasures without price may fall to one man’s lot. This evening I would not crush an insect, not a green leaf upon my path.

Stensgård.

You?

Fieldbo.

Never mind. That’s apart from the question. I only mean that I understand you.

Stensgård.

What a lovely night! Listen to the music and merriment floating out over the meadows. And how still it is in the valley! I tell you the man whose life is not reconsecrated in such an hour, does not deserve to live on God’s earth!

Fieldbo.

Yes; but tell me now: what do you mean to build up out of it—to-morrow, and through the working-days to come?

Stensgård.

To build up? We have to tear down first.— Fieldbo, I had once a dream—or did I see it? No; it was a dream, but such a vivid one! I thought the Day of Judgment was come upon the world. I could see the whole curve of the hemisphere. There was no sun, only a livid storm-light. A tempest arose; it came rushing from the west and swept everything before it: first withered leaves, then men; but they kept on their feet all the time, and their garments clung fast to them, so that they seemed to be hurried along sitting. At first they looked like townspeople running after their hats in a wind; but when they came nearer they were emperors and kings; and it was their crowns and orbs they were chasing and catching at, and seemed always on the point of grasping, but never grasped. Oh, there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and none of them understood in the least what was happening; but many bewailed themselves, and asked: “Whence can it come, this terrible storm?”[storm?”] Then there came the answer: “One Voice spoke, and the storm is the echo of that one Voice.”

Fieldbo.

When did you dream that?

Stensgård.

Oh, I don’t remember when; several years ago.[ago.]

Fieldbo.

There were probably disturbances somewhere in Europe, and you had been reading the newspapers after a heavy supper.

Stensgård.

The same shiver, the same thrill, that then ran down my back, I felt again to-night. Yes, I will give my whole soul utterance. I will be the Voice——

Fieldbo.

Come, my dear Stensgård, pause and reflect. You will be the Voice, you say. Good! But where will you be the Voice? Here in the parish? Or at most here in the county! And who will echo you and raise the storm? Why, people like Monsen and Aslaksen, and that fat-headed genius, Mr. Bastian. And instead of the flying emperors and kings, we shall see old Lundestad rushing about after his lost seat in Parliament. Then what will it all amount to? Just what you at first saw in your dreamf—townsfolk in a wind.

Stensgård.

In the beginning, yes. But who knows how far the storm may sweep?

Fieldbo.

Fiddlesticks with you and your storm: And the first thing you go and do, hoodwinked and blinded and gulled as you are, is to turn your weapons precisely against all that is worthy and capable among us——

Stensgård.

That is not true.

Fieldbo.

It is true! Monsen and the Stonelee gang got hold of you the moment you came here; and if you don’t shake him off it will be your ruin. Chamberlain Bratsberg is a man of honour; that you may rely on. Do you know why the great Monsen hates him? Why, because——

Stensgård.

Not a word more! I won’t hear a word against my friends!

Fieldbo.

Look into yourself, Stensgård! Is Mr. Mons Monsen really your friend?

Stensgård.

Mr. Monsen has most kindly opened his doors to me——

Fieldbo.

To people of the better sort he opens his doors in vain.

Stensgård.

Oh, whom do you call the better sort? A few stuck-up officials! I know all about it. As for me, I have been received at Stonelee with so much cordiality and appreciation——

Fieldbo.

Appreciation? Yes, unfortunately—there we are at the root of the matter.

Stensgård.

Not at all! I can see with unprejudiced eyes. Mr. Monsen has abilities, he has reading, he has a keen sense for public affairs.

Fieldbo.

Abilities? Oh, yes, in a way. Reading too: he takes in the papers, and has read your speeches and articles. And his sense for public affairs he has of course proved by applauding the said articles and speeches.

Stensgård.

Now, Fieldbo, up come the dregs of your nature again. Can you never shake off that polluting habit of thought? Why must you always assume mean or ridiculous motives for everything? Oh, you are not serious! Now you look good and true again. I’ll tell you the real root of the matter. Do you know Ragna?

Fieldbo.

Ragna Monsen? Oh, after a fashion—at second hand.

Stensgård.

Yes, I know she is sometimes at the Chamberlain’s.

Fieldbo.

In a quiet way, yes. She and Miss Bratsberg are old schoolfellows.

Stensgård.

And what do you think of her?

Fieldbo.

Why, from all I have heard she seems to be a very good girl.

Stensgård.

Oh, you should see her in her home! She thinks of nothing but her two little sisters. And how devotedly she must have nursed her mother! You know the mother was out of her mind for some years before she died.

Fieldbo.

Yes; I was their doctor at one time. But surely, my dear fellow, you don’t mean that——

Stensgård.

Yes, Fieldbo, I love her truly; to you I can confess it. Oh, I know what you are surprised at. You think it strange that so soon after—of course you know that I was engaged in Christiania?

Fieldbo.

Yes, so I was told.

Stensgård.

The whole thing was a disappointment. I had to break it off; it was best for all parties. Oh, how I suffered in that affair! The torture, the sense of oppression I endured——! Now, thank heaven, I am out of it all. That was my reason for leaving town.

Fieldbo.

And with regard to Ragna Monsen, are you quite sure of yourself?

Stensgård.

Yes, I am indeed. There’s no mistake possible in this case.

Fieldbo.

Well, then, in heaven’s name, go in and win! It means your life’s happiness! Oh, there’s so much I could say to you——

Stensgård.

Really? Has she said anything? Has she confided in Miss Bratsberg?

Fieldbo.

No; that’s not what I mean. But how can you, in the midst of your happiness, go and fuddle yourself in these political orgies? How can town tattle take any hold upon a mind that is——

Stensgård.

Why not? Man is a complex machine—I am, at any rate. Besides, my way to her lies through these very party turmoils.

Fieldbo.

A terribly prosaic way.

Stensgård.

Fieldbo, I am ambitious; you know I am. I must make my way in the world. When I remember that I’m thirty, and am still on the first round of the ladder, I feel my conscience gnawing at me.

Fieldbo.

Not with its wisdom teeth.

Stensgård.

It’s of no use talking to you. You have never felt the spur of ambition. You have dawdled and drifted all your days—first at college, then abroad, now here.

Fieldbo.

Perhaps; but at least it has been delightful.[delightful.] And no reaction follows, like what you feel when you get down from the table after——

Stensgård.

Stop that! I can bear anything but that. You are doing a bad action—you are damping my ardour.

Fieldbo.

Oh, come! If your ardour is so easily damped——

Stensgård.

Stop, I say! What right have you to break in upon my happiness? Do you think I am not sincere?

Fieldbo.

Yes, I am sure you are.

Stensgård.

Well, then, why go and make me feel empty, and disgusted, and suspicious of myself? [Shouts and cheers from the tent.] There—listen! They are drinking my health. An idea that can take such hold upon people—by God, it must have truth in it!

Thora Bratsberg, Ragna Monsen, and Mr. Helle enter from the left and cross, half-way back.

Helle.

Look, Miss Bratsberg; there is Mr. Stensgård.

Thora.

Then I won’t go any further. Good-night, Ragna dear.

Helle and Miss Monsen.

Good-night, good-night.

[They go out to the right.

Thora.

[Advancing.] I am Miss Bratsberg. I have a letter for you, from my father.

Stensgård.

For me?

Thora.

Yes; here it is. [Going.

Fieldbo.

May I not see you home?

Thora.

No, thank you. I can go alone. Good-night.

[Goes out to the left.

Stensgård.

[Reading the letter by a Chinese lantern.] What is this!

Fieldbo.

Well—what has the Chamberlain to say to you?

Stensgård.

[Bursts into loud laughter.] I must say I didn’t expect this!

Fieldbo.

Tell me——?

Stensgård.

Chamberlain Bratsberg is a pitiful creature.

Fieldbo.

You dare to——

Stensgård.

Pitiful! Pitiful. Tell any one you please that I said so. Or rather, say nothing about it——[Puts the letter in his pocket.] Don’t mention this to any one!

[The Company come out from the tent.

Monsen.

Mr. President! Where is Mr. Stensgård?

The Crowd.

There he is! Hurrah!

Lundestad.

Mr. President has forgotten his hat.

[Hands it to him.

Aslaksen.

Here; have some punch! Here’s a whole bowlful!

Stensgård.

Thanks, no more.

Monsen.

And the members of the League will recollect that we meet to-morrow at Stonelee——

Stensgård.

To-morrow? It wasn’t to-morrow, was it——?

Monsen.

Yes, certainly; to draw up the manifesto——

Stensgård.

No, I really can’t to-morrow—I shall see about it the day after to-morrow, or the day after that. Well, good-night, gentlemen; hearty thanks all round, and hurrah for the future!

The Crowd.

Hurrah! Let’s take him home in triumph!

Stensgård.

Thanks, thanks! But you really mustn’t——

Aslaksen.

We’ll all go with you.

Stensgård.

Very well, come along. Good-night, Fieldbo; you’re not coming with us?

Fieldbo.

No; but let me tell you, what you said about Chamberlain Bratsberg——

Stensgård.

Hush, hush! It was an exaggeration—I withdraw it! Well, my friends, if you’re coming, come; I’ll take the lead.

Monsen.

Your arm, Stensgård!

Bastian.

A song! Strike up! Something thoroughly patriotic!

The Crowd.

A song! A song! Music!

[A popular air is played and sung. The procession marches out by the back to the right.

Fieldbo.

[To Lundestad, who remains behind.] A gallant procession.

Lundestad.

Yes—and with a gallant leader.

Fieldbo.

And where are you going, Mr. Lundestad?

Lundestad.

I? I’m going home to bed.

[He nods and goes off. Doctor Fieldbo remains behind alone.

[1]. Letter to Lucie Wolf, May 1883. Correspondence, Letter 171.

[2]. See Correspondence, Letters 44 and 45.

[3]. “Chamberlain” (Kammerherre) is a title conferred by the King of Norway upon men of wealth and position. Hereditary nobility was abolished in 1821.

[4]. Pronounce Staynsgore.

[5]. In the original “Storli.”

[6]. Pronounce Hellë.

[7]. Heire (pronounce Heirë) = Heron.

[8]. Married women and widows of the lower middle-class are addressed as Madam in Norway.

[9]. The Norwegian “Independence Day.”

[10]. “Local situation” is a very ineffectual rendering of Aslaksen’s phrase, “lokale forholde”—German, Verhältnisse—but there seems to be no other which will fit into all the different contexts in which it occurs. It reappears in An Enemy of the People, Act V

[11]. The system of indirect election obtains in Norway. The constituencies choose a College of Electors, who, in turn, choose the Members of the Storthing or Parliament. It is the preliminary “Election of Electors” to which Monsen refers.

[12]. In this untranslatable passage Daniel Heire seems to be making a sort of pun on suffragium and naufragium.

[13]. In Norway, before an action comes into Court, the parties are bound to appear in person before a Commission of Arbitration or Conciliation. If the Commission can suggest an arrangement acceptable to both sides, this arrangement has the validity of a judgment, and the case goes no further. Counsel are not allowed to appear before the Commission.

ACT SECOND.

A garden-room at the Chamberlains, elegantly furnished, with a piano, flowers, and rare plants. Entrance door at the back. On the left, a door leading to the dining-room; on the right, several glass doors lead out to the garden.

Aslaksen stands at the entrance door. A Maidservant is carrying some dishes of fruit into the dining-room.

The Maid.

Yes, but I tell you they’re still at table; you must call again.

Aslaksen.

I’d rather wait, if I may.

The Maid.

Oh yes, if you like. You can sit there for the present.

[She goes into the dining-room. Aslaksen takes a seat near the door. Pause. Dr. Fieldbo enters from the back.

Fieldbo.

Ah, good evening, Aslaksen: are you here?

The Maid.

[Returning.] You’re late this evening, sir.

Fieldbo.

I was called to see a patient.

The Maid.

The Chamberlain and Miss Bratsberg have both been inquiring about you.

Fieldbo.

Indeed?

The Maid.

Yes. Won’t you go in at once, sir; or shall I say that——?

Fieldbo.

No, no; never mind. I can have a snack afterwards; I shall wait here in the meantime.

The Maid.

Dinner will soon be over.

[She goes out by the back.

Aslaksen.

[After a pause.] How can you resist such a dinner, Doctor—with dessert, and fine wines, and all sorts of good things?

Fieldbo.

Why, man, it seems to me we get too many good things hereabouts, rather than too few.

Aslaksen.

There I can’t agree with you.

Fieldbo.

H’m. I suppose you are waiting for someone.

Aslaksen.

Yes, I am.[am.]

Fieldbo.

And are things going tolerably at home? Your wife——?

Aslaksen.

In bed, as usual; coughing and wasting away.

Fieldbo.

And your second child?

Aslaksen.

Oh, he’s a cripple for the rest of his days; you know that. That’s our luck, you see; what the devil’s the use of talking about it?

Fieldbo.

Let me look at you, Aslaksen!

Aslaksen.

Well; what do you want to see?

Fieldbo.

You’ve been drinking to-day.

Aslaksen.

Yes, and yesterday too.

Fieldbo.

Well, yesterday there was some excuse for it; but to-day——

Aslaksen.

What about your friends in there, then? Aren’t they drinking too?

Fieldbo.

Yes, my dear Aslaksen; that’s a fair retort; but circumstances differ so in this world.

Aslaksen.

I didn’t choose my circumstances.

Fieldbo.

No; God chose them for you.

Aslaksen.

No, he didn’t—men chose them. Daniel Heire chose, when he took me from the printing-house and sent me to college. And Chamberlain Bratsberg chose, when he ruined Daniel Heire and sent me back to the printing-house.

Fieldbo.

Now you know that’s not true. The Chamberlain did not ruin Daniel Heire; Daniel Heire ruined himself.

Aslaksen.

Perhaps! But how dared Daniel Heire ruin himself, in the face of his responsibilities towards me? God’s partly to blame too, of course. Why should he give me talent and ability? Well, of course I could have turned them to account as a respectable handicraftsman; but then comes that tattling old fool——

Fieldbo.

It’s base of you to say that. Daniel Heire acted with the best intentions.

Aslaksen.

What good do his “best intentions” do me? You hear them in there, clinking glasses and drinking healths? Well, I too have sat at that table in my day, dressed in purple and fine linen, like the best of them——! That was just the thing for me, that was—for me, that had read so much and had thirsted so long to have my share in all the good things of life. Well, well; how long was Jeppe in Paradise?[^[14]] Smash, crash! down you go—and my fine fortunes fell to pie, as we printers say.

Fieldbo.

But, after all, you were not so badly off; you had your trade to fall back upon.

Aslaksen.

That’s easily said. After getting out of your class you can’t get into it again. They took the ground from under my feet, and shoved me out on the slippery ice—and then they abuse me because I stumble.

Fieldbo.

Well, far be it from me to judge you harshly——

Aslaksen.

No; you have no right to.—What a queer jumble it is! Daniel Heire, and Providence, and the Chamberlain, and Destiny, and Circumstance—and I myself in the middle of it! I’ve often thought of unravelling it all and writing a book about it; but it’s so cursedly entangled that——[Glances towards the door on the left.] Ah! They’re rising from table.

[The party, ladies and gentlemen, pass from the dining-room into the garden, in lively conversation. Among the guests is Stensgård, with Thora on his left arm and Selma on his right. Fieldbo and Aslaksen stand beside the door at the back.

Stensgård.

I don’t know my way here yet; you must tell me where I am to take you, ladies.

Selma.

Out into the air; you must see the garden.

Stensgård.

Oh, that will be delightful.

[They go out by the foremost glass door on the right.

Fieldbo.

Why, by all that’s wonderful, there’s Stensgård!

Aslaksen.

It’s him I want to speak to. I’ve had a fine chase after him; fortunately I met Daniel Heire——

Daniel Heire and Erik Bratsberg enter from the dining-room.

Heire.

Hee-hee! Excellent sherry, upon my word. I’ve tasted nothing like it since I was in London.

Erik.

Yes, it’s good, isn’t it? It puts life into you.

Heire.

Well, well—it’s a real pleasure to see one’s money so well spent.

Erik.

How so? [Laughing.] Oh, yes; I see, I see.

[They go into the garden.

Fieldbo.

You want to speak to Stensgård, you say?

Aslaksen.

Yes.

Fieldbo.

On business?

Aslaksen.

Of course; the report of the fête——

Fieldbo.

Well, then, you must wait out there in the meantime.

Aslaksen.

In the passage?

Fieldbo.

In the anteroom. This is scarcely the time or place—but the moment I see Stensgård alone, I’ll tell him——

Aslaksen.

Very well; I’ll bide my time.

[Goes out by the back.

Chamberlain Bratsberg, Lundestad, Ringdal,

and one or two other gentlemen come

out of the dining-room.

The Chamberlain.

[Conversing with Lundestad.] Violent, you say? Well, perhaps the form wasn’t all that could be desired; but there were real gems in the speech, I can assure you.

Lundestad.

Well, if you are satisfied, Chamberlain, I have no right to complain.

The Chamberlain.

Why should you? Ah, here’s the Doctor! Starving, I’ll be bound.

Fieldbo.

It doesn’t matter, Chamberlain. The servants will attend to me. I feel myself almost at home here, you know.

The Chamberlain.

Oh, you do, do you? I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry.

Fieldbo.

What? Am I taking too great a liberty? You yourself permitted me to——

The Chamberlain.

What I permitted, I permitted. Well, well, make yourself at home, and forage for something to eat. [Slaps him lightly on the shoulder and turns to Lundestad.] Now, here’s one you may call an adventurer and—and the other thing I can’t remember.

Fieldbo.

Why, Chamberlain——!

Lundestad.

No, I assure you——

The Chamberlain.

No arguments after dinner; it’s bad for the digestion. They’ll serve the coffee outside presently.

[Goes with the guests into the garden.

Lundestad.

[To Fieldbo.] Did you ever see the Chamberlain so strange as he is to-day?

Fieldbo.

I noticed it yesterday evening.

Lundestad.

He will have it that I called Mr. Stensgård an adventurer and something else of that sort.

Fieldbo.

Oh, well, Mr. Lundestad, what if you did? Excuse me; I must go and talk to the ladies.

[Goes out to the right.

Lundestad.

[To Ringdal, who is arranging a card table.] How do you account for Mr. Stensgård’s appearance here to-day?

Ringdal.

Yes, how? He wasn’t on the original list.

Lundestad.

An afterthought, then? After his attack on the Chamberlain yesterday——?

Ringdal.

Yes, can you understand it?

Lundestad.

Understand it? Oh yes, I suppose I can.

Ringdal.

[More softly.] You think the Chamberlain is afraid of him?

Lundestad.

I think he is prudent—that’s what I think.

[They go up to the back conversing, and so out into the garden. At the same time Selma and Stensgård enter by the foremost door on the right.

Selma.

Yes, just look—over the tops of the trees you can see the church tower and all the upper part of the town.

Stensgård.

So you can; I shouldn’t have thought so.

Selma.

Don’t you think it’s a beautiful view?

Stensgård.

Everything is beautiful here: the garden, and the view, and the sunshine, and the people! Great heaven, how beautiful it all is! And you live here all the summer?

Selma.

No, not my husband and I; we come and go. We have a big, showy house in town, much finer than this; you’ll see it soon.

Stensgård.

Perhaps your family live in town?

Selma.

My family? Who are my family?

Stensgård.

Oh, I didn’t know——

Selma.

We fairy princesses have no family.

Stensgård.

Fairy princesses?

Selma.

At most we have a wicked stepmother——

Stensgård.

A witch, yes! So you are a princess!

Selma.

Princess of all the sunken palaces, whence you hear the soft music on midsummer nights. Doctor Fieldbo thinks it must be pleasant to be a princess; but I must tell you——

Erik Bratsberg.

[Coming from the garden.] Ah, at last I find the little lady!

Selma.

The little lady is telling Mr. Stensgård the story of her life.

Erik.

Oh, indeed. And what part does the husband play in the little lady’s story?

Selma.

The Prince, of course. [To Stensgård.] You know the prince always comes and breaks the spell, and then all ends happily, and every one calls and congratulates, and the fairy-tale is over.

Stensgård.

Oh, it’s too short.