The Wild Duck

ACT I.

[Werle’s House. Richly and comfortably furnished study. Book cases and upholstered furniture, a writing-table, with papers and ledgers in the center of the stage; lamps alight with green shades, so that the room is dimly lighted. Open folding-doors, with the curtain drawn at back. Beyond a large elegant room, brilliantly lighted with lamps and branched candlesticks. At the right lower entrance of the study a small baize door leads to the office. Left lower entrance a fireplace, with glowing coals, and beyond this a folding-door leading to the dining-room.]

[Pettersen, Werle’s servant, in livery, and the hired waiter, Jensen, in black, are setting the study in order. In the large room two or three other hired waiters are moving about, trimming and lighting several more lights. From within the dining-room, is heard a confused buzz of conversation and laughter; a knife is rapped against a glass, there is silence, a toast is given, cries of “bravo,” and then again the buzz of conversation.]

Pettersen (lighting a lamp on the mantel-piece, and placing a shade upon it). Just listen, Jensen; there’s the old chap standing up by the table and proposing to Mrs. Sorby’s health in a long speech.

Jensen (bringing down an arm-chair). Is there any truth in what people say, that there’s something between them?

Pettersen. Goodness knows!

Jensen. For he’s been a great rake in his time.

Pettersen. Maybe.

Jensen. It’s in honor of his son that he’s giving this dinner, they say.

Pettersen. Yes, his son came home yesterday.

Jensen. I never knew before that Mr. Werle had a son.

Pettersen. Oh yes, he has a son. But he’s always stopped up there at the Hojdal Works. He’s not been in town all the years I’ve been in service here.

Another Waiter (at the door of the other room). I say, Pettersen, here’s an old fellow who——

Pettersen (muttering). Who the devil’s here now?

Old Ekdal enters the room from the right. He wears a threadbare cloak with a stand-up collar, woollen mittens; in his hands a stick and a fur cap, under his arm a parcel done up in cardboard. He has a reddish-brown, dirty wig, and a small mustache.

Pettersen (going towards him). Good gracious! What do you want here?

Ekdal (in the doorway). Must absolutely go to the office, Pettersen.

Pettersen. The office was closed an hour ago and——

Ekdal. Heard so at the door, my lad. But Graberg’s in there still. Be a good fellow, Pettersen, and let me slip in this way. (Pointing to the baize door.) I’ve been that way before.

Pettersen. All right, you can go. (Opens door.) But mind you leave the proper way, for we’ve company.

Ekdal. Know that—h’m! Thanks, Pettersen, my lad. Good old friend. Thanks. (Mutters in a low tone.) Idiot!

He goes into the office. Pettersen closes the door after him.

Jensen. Is he one of the clerks too?

Pettersen. No, he only does writing at home when it’s wanted. But he’s been a great swell in his time, has old Ekdal.

Jensen. Yes, he looks as if he had been a little of everything.

Pettersen. Yes, for you know he’s been a lieutenant.

Jensen. The devil he has! He been a lieutenant?

Pettersen. That he has. But then he went into the timber trade or something of the sort. They say he played Mr. Werle a very dirty trick once. For the two were partners then up at the Hojdal Works, you know. Ah, I know good old Ekdal, I do. We drink many a good bottle of beer and bitters together at Mrs. Ericksen’s.

Jensen. Surely he hasn’t got much to stand treat with?

Pettersen. Lord, Jensen, of course you understand that I pay. For I think one should be polite to better people who’ve come down in the world.

Jensen. Did he go bankrupt?

Pettersen. No, it was worse than that. He was sent to gaol.

Jensen. Gaol?

Pettersen. Or the house of correction, or something. (Listening.) Hush! they’re coming from the table.

The doors of the dining-room are thrown open by a couple of servants from within. Mrs. Sorby, talking to two gentlemen, comes out. Gradually all the guests follow, among these Mr. Werle. Hjalmar Ekdal and Gregers Werle enter last.

Mrs. Sorby (to the servants, as she passes along). Pettersen, have the coffee served in the music-room.

Pettersen. Yes, Mrs. Sorby.

She and the two gentlemen pass into the room at the back, and thence right. Pettersen and Jensen go out the same way.

Pale Fat Gentleman (to the thin-haired one). Phew! That dinner—it was a stiff bit of work!

Thin-haired Gentleman. Oh! with a little good-will one can get through an immense deal in three hours.

Fat Gentleman.—Ah, but afterwards, afterwards, my dear Chamberlain![1]

Short-sighted Gentleman. I hear the Mocha and Maraschino are to be served in the music-room.

Fat Gentleman. Brave! Then Mrs. Sorby can play us something.

Thin-haired Gentleman (in a low voice). If only Mrs. Sorby doesn’t play us any tricks.

Fat Gentleman. Oh, no; Bertha will never turn against her old friends!

They laugh and go into the room.

Werle (in a low voice and depressed). I don’t think any of them noticed it, Gregers.

Gregers (looking at him). What?

Werle. Didn’t you notice it either?

Gregers. What should I notice?

Werle. We were thirteen at table.

Gregers. Really? We were thirteen?

Werle (glancing at Hjalmar Ekdal). We generally have twelve. (To the others.) This way, gentlemen!

He and those who had remained behind with the exception of Hjalmar and Gregers go out through the door at the back and off right.

Hjalmar (who has heard everything). You shouldn’t have asked me, Gregers.

Gregers. What? Why, they say this dinner is given in my honor, and I shouldn’t have my best, my only friend?

Hjalmar. But I don’t think your father likes it. I never come to this house.

Gregers. So I hear. But I must see you and talk to you, for I shall certainly go away again soon. Yes, we two old school-fellows, we have surely been separated long enough, we’ve not seen one another now for sixteen—seventeen years.

Hjalmar. Is it so long?

Gregers. Yes, it is. Well, how are things going with you? You look well. You’ve grown almost stout and portly.

Hjalmar. H’m, one can hardly call it portly, but I daresay I look rather more manly than I did then.

Gregers. Indeed you do; your outer man hasn’t suffered.

Hjalmar (gloomily). But the inner man! Believe me, that is very different. You know what terrible trouble has come to me and mine since we two met.

Gregers (in a lower tone). How is your father getting on now?

Hjalmar. Dear friend, don’t let us speak of that. My poor, unhappy father of course lives at home with me. Why, he has no one else on earth to cling to. But it is such bitter pain for me to speak of this, you see. Tell me, rather, how you have got on up there at the Works.

Gregers. I’ve been delightfully lonely—with plenty of time to ponder over many things. Come here, let’s make ourselves comfortable.

He sits down in an arm-chair by the fire, and makes Hjalmar take another one by his side.

Hjalmar (moved). I have to thank you all the same, Gregers, for asking me to your father’s table. For now I know you’ve no feeling against me any longer.

Gregers (astonished). Whatever makes you think I had any feeling against you?

Hjalmar. Yet you had during the first years.

Gregers. What first years?

Hjalmar. After the great misfortune. And it was so natural you should have. Why, it was only by a hair’s breadth your father escaped being dragged into this—this horrible affair.

Gregers. And you thought I had a feeling against you because of this? What can have put such a thing into your head?

Hjalmar. I know you had, Gregers, for I had it from your father himself.

Gregers (starting). Father! So! H’m! Was that why you never wrote to me—not a single word?

Hjalmar. Yes.

Gregers. Not even when you decided to go in for photography?

Hjalmar. Your father said it was no use writing to you about anything.

Gregers (looking straight in front of him). No, no. Perhaps he was right. But tell me, Hjalmar, do you feel satisfied with your position?

Hjalmar (with a sigh). Oh, yes; certainly. I really can’t say I’m not. At first, as you will understand, it all seemed so strange to me to be placed amid such absolutely new surroundings. But, then, everything else was so changed too. The great, overwhelming misfortune with my father—the shame and the scandal, Gregers.

Gregers (moved). Yes, yes, I know.

Hjalmar. I couldn’t dream of going on with my studies, there wasn’t a shilling to spare; on the contrary we were rather in debt; mostly to your father, I fancy.

Gregers. H’m.

Hjalmar. So I thought it best, just with one wrench, you know, to cut myself off from the old conditions and relations. It was your father, principally, who advised me to do this, and as he helped me so much——

Gregers. Did he?

Hjalmar. Yes, of course; you know he did. Where should I have got the means to learn photography, to set up a studio, and make a start? That costs money, you know.

Gregers. And father paid for all this?

Hjalmar. Yes, dear friend, didn’t you know? I understood him to say he had written to you about it.

Gregers. Not a word of what he had done. He must have forgotten it. We’ve only exchanged business letters with one another. So it was father?

Hjalmar. Yes, sure enough. He never wished people to know about it, but it was he. And it was he, too, who made it possible for me to get married. But perhaps you don’t know about that either?

Gregers. No, I certainly did not (shakes his arm). My dear, Hjalmar, I can’t tell you how happy all this makes me—and how it pains me. Perhaps, after all, I have wronged father—in certain things. For this shews he has a heart, you see. It shews a kind of conscience.

Hjalmar. Conscience!

Gregers. Yes, yes, or whatever you like to call it. No, I have no words to tell you how glad I am to hear this of father. And so you are married, Hjalmar. That’s more than I shall ever manage. Well, I hope you are happy in your marriage?

Hjalmar. Yes, I am indeed. She is as bright and brave a woman as man could desire. And she is not quite without education, either.

Gregers (slightly astonished). No, of course not.

Hjalmar. No. Life is an education, you see. Then the daily intercourse with me—and then there are some gifted men who often come to see us, I assure you. You wouldn’t know Gina again.

Gregers. Gina?

Hjalmar. Yes, dear friend. Didn’t you remember her name was Gina?

Gregers. Her name was Gina? Why, I know nothing——

Hjalmar. But don’t you remember she was in service here for a time?

Gregers (looking at him). Is it Gina Hansen?

Hjalmar. Yes, of course it’s Gina Hansen.

Gregers. Who looked after the house during the last year that mother lay ill?

Hjalmar. Certainly that is so. But, dear friend, I’m quite certain your father wrote you I had got married.

Gregers (who has risen). Yes, he certainly did, but not that—(walks up and down). Yet—wait a moment—perhaps he did—now I come to think of it. But father always writes me such short letters. (Half seating himself on the arm of the chair.) Now tell me, Hjalmar—for this is too delightful—how did you get to know Gina—to know your wife?

Hjalmar. Very simply. Gina didn’t stop here long, for there was so much confusion here at that time—your mother’s illness—Gina could not see to everything, so she gave notice and left. That was a year before your mother’s death—or maybe the same year.

Gregers. It was the same year, and I was up at the Works at the time. And then afterwards——

Hjalmar. Well, Gina lived at home with her mother, a Mrs. Hansen—a very worthy and hard-working woman, who kept a small eating-house. And she had a room to let, too, a very pretty, comfortable room.

Gregers. And you were probably delighted to take it?

Hjalmar. Yes, indeed; it was your father who suggested it to me. And there, you see—there I really got to know Gina.

Gregers. And so you got engaged?

Hjalmar. Yes. Young folk soon get to care for one another—h’m——

Gregers (rises and walks up and down). Tell me—when you got engaged—was it then that father—I mean—was it then that you began to take up photography?

Hjalmar. Exactly, for I was anxious to settle down as soon as possible. And so both your father and I thought photography would be the likeliest thing, and Gina thought so, too. And there was a reason for that, you see, it fitted in so well, as Gina had learnt to retouch.

Gregers. That fitted in most remarkably.

Hjalmar (delighted, rising). Yes, didn’t it? Don’t you think it fitted in remarkably?

Gregers. Yes, I must confess it did. Father seems to have been almost a sort of Providence to you.

Hjalmar (moved). He did not forsake the son of his old friend in his hour of need, for he has a heart, you see.

Enter Mrs. Sorby leaning on the arm of Mr. Werle.

Mrs. Sorby. No nonsense, dear Mr. Werle; you mustn’t stop in there any longer staring up at the lights. It is not good for you.

Werle (dropping her arm and passing his hands over his eyes). I almost think you are right!

Pettersen and the Hired Waiter Jensen enter with trays.

Mrs. Sorby (to the guests in the other room). This way, please, gentlemen. Anyone who wants a glass of punch must come here for it.

Enter the Fat Gentleman.

Fat Gentleman (coming up to Mrs. Sorby). But, good Heavens! is it true that you have abolished our blessed liberty to smoke?

Mrs Sorby. Yes, in Mr. Werle’s domain, it is prohibited, Chamberlain.

Thin-haired Gentleman. Since when have you promulgated these stringent articles of cigar-law, Mrs. Sorby?

Mrs Sorby. Since our last dinner, Chamberlain, for then we had certain persons here who went too far.

Thin-haired Gentleman. And you would not permit a slight overstepping of the bounds, Mrs. Bertha? Really not?

Mrs Sorby. In no respect, Chamberlain Balle.

Most of the guests have come into Mr. Werle’s room. The waiters take round glasses of punch.

Werle (to Hjalmar, going up to the table). What are you poring over there, Ekdal?

Hjalmar. Only an album, Mr. Werle.

Thin-haired Gentleman (who is walking about). Aha! Photographs! Yes, that’s something in your line.

Fat Gentleman (in an arm-chair). Haven’t you brought along any of your own?

Hjalmar. No, I’ve not.

Fat Gentleman. You should have. It is so good for the digestion to sit and look at pictures.

Thin-haired Gentleman. And, besides, it contributes towards entertaining people, don’t you know.

Short-sighted Gentleman. And all contributions are thankfully received.

Mrs. Sorby. The Chamberlains mean, that when you’re asked to dinner, you must do something for your meal, Mr. Ekdal.

Fat Gentleman. Where one dines so well, that is simply a pleasure.

Thin-haired Gentleman. Good heavens! when it’s a question of a struggle for life——

Mrs. Sorby. There you are right.

They continue the conversation amid laughter and joking.

Gregers (in a low voice). You must join us, Hjalmar.

Hjalmar (shrinking). How should I join in?

Fat Gentleman. Don’t you think, Mr. Werle, that Tokay may be considered a comparatively wholesome drink for the stomach?

Werle (by the fireplace). I can answer for the Tokay you’ve had to-day, anyhow, for it is one of the very best vintages. You noticed it, no doubt.

Fat Gentleman. Yes, it tastes remarkably delicate.

Hjalmar (hesitatingly). Is there any difference then in the vintages?

Fat Gentleman (laughing). Oh, that is good!

Werle (smiling). It is hardly worth while giving you a fine wine.

Thin-haired Gentleman. It’s the same with Tokay as with photographs, Mr. Ekdal. There must be sunshine. Is it not so?

Hjalmar. Yes, light has a great deal to do with it.

Mrs. Sorby. Why, that’s exactly as it is with chamberlains, for they, too, greatly need sunshine, people say.

Thin-haired Gentleman. Oh, oh! that’s a very stale sarcasm.

Short-sighted Gentleman. Mrs. Sorby’s coming out.

Fat Gentleman. And at our expense. (Threatening.) Madam Bertha, Madam Bertha!

Mrs. Sorby. Yes, but it is indisputably true that vintages may be vastly different. The old ones are the finest.

Short-sighted Gentleman. Do you reckon me among the old ones?

Mrs. Sorby. Oh, far from it!

Thin-haired Gentleman. There now! But me, sweet Mrs. Sorby.

Fat Gentleman. Yes, and me! In what vintage do you reckon us?

Mrs. Sorby. I reckon you among the sweet vintages, gentlemen.

She sips a glass of punch. The chamberlains laugh and joke with her.

Werle. Mrs. Sorby can always find a loophole when she wants. Help yourselves to glasses, gentlemen! Pettersen, see to it! Gregers, I think we’ll take a glass together. (Gregers does not move.) Won’t you make one of us, Ekdal? I found no opportunity of drinking with you at table.

The book-keeper, Graberg, looks in through the baize door.

Graberg. Beg pardon, sir, but I can’t get out.

Werle. Why, have you got locked in again?

Graberg. Yes, and Flagsted has gone off with the keys.

Werle. Well, you can pass through here, then.

Graberg. But there’s someone else.

Werle. Come on, come on, both of you. Don’t mind us.

Graberg and old Ekdal come out from the office.

Werle (involuntarily). Ah! Phew!

The laughter and chatter of the guests cease. Hjalmar starts at the sight of his father; he puts down his glass and turns to the fireplace.

Ekdal (he does not look up, but makes little bows to both sides as he goes out and mutters). Beg pardon. Have come the wrong way. Door locked. Door locked. Beg pardon.

He and Graberg go out at the back, right.

Werle (between his teeth). Confound Graberg!

Gregers (with open mouth and staring eyes to Hjalmar). Surely that can not have been.

Fat Gentleman. What was that? Who was it?

Gregers. Oh, nobody, only the book-keeper and someone else.

Short-sighted Gentleman (to Hjalmar). Did you know the man?

Hjalmar. I don’t know; I don’t notice——

Fat Gentleman (getting up). What the deuce is in the wind? (He goes to the others who are talking in a low voice.)

Mrs. Sorby (whispering to the servant). Give him something outside—something really good.

Pettersen (nodding). All right.

He goes out.

Gregers. (In a low and shaken voice to Hjalmar). So it was really he?

Hjalmar. Yes.

Gregers. And yet you stood there and denied you knew him?

Hjalmar (whispering passionately). But how could I——

Gregers. Acknowledge your father?

Hjalmar (pained). Ah, if you were in my place——

The conversation of the guests, which had been carried on in a low tone, now becomes strainedly noisy.

Thin-haired Gentleman (coming up to Hjalmar and Gregers in a friendly manner). Aha! Are you standing here renewing old memories of student years? Eh? Won’t you smoke, Mr. Ekdal? Do you want a light? Ah, it’s true, we mustn’t——

Hjalmar. Thank you. I should not have——

Fat Gentleman. Haven’t you some nice little poems to recite to us, Mr. Ekdal? You used to do that so charmingly.

Hjalmar. Unfortunately, I can’t remember anything.

Fat Gentleman. Ah, that’s a pity. What shall we do, Balle?

Both gentlemen cross the room, and go into the other room.

Hjalmar (gloomily). Gregers, I’m going. You see, when a man has felt the crushing blows of fate upon his head—— Bid your father good-bye for me.

Gregers. Yes, yes. Are you going straight home?

Hjalmar. Yes, why?

Gregers. Because, perhaps, I’ll look in on you later.

Hjalmar. No, you mustn’t do that. Not at my home. My house is dreary, Gregers, especially after such a brilliant festivity as this. We can always meet somewhere outside in the town.

Mrs. Sorby (who has come up, in a low voice). Are you going, Ekdal?

Hjalmar. Yes.

Mrs. Sorby. Remember me to Gina.

Hjalmar. Thanks.

Mrs. Sorby. And tell her that I shall look her up one of these days.

Hjalmar. Oh, thanks. (To Gregers.) Stop here. I want to slip out unobserved.

He crosses the room, passes into the other room, and goes out, right.

Mrs. Sorby (aside to the servant, who has returned). Well, did you give the old man something?

Pettersen. Yes, I did. I gave him a bottle of brandy.

Mrs. Sorby. Oh, you might have found him something better than that.

Pettersen. No, I couldn’t, Mrs. Sorby. Brandy’s the best thing for him.

Fat Gentleman (by the door, with a volume of music in his hand). Shall we play something together, Mrs. Sorby?

Mrs. Sorby. Certainly—let us.

Guests. Bravo, bravo!

She and all the Guests pass out of the room, right. Gregers remains standing by the fire-place. Mr. Werle looks for something on the writing-table and seems to wish Gregers to go. As the latter does not move, Mr. Werle goes towards entrance door.

Gregers. Father, won’t you wait a moment?

Werle (stopping). What is it?

Gregers. I must have a word with you.

Werle. Can’t it wait till we’re alone?

Gregers. No, it can not, for it may be we never shall be alone.

Werle (coming nearer). What does that mean?

During the following conversation the playing of a piano is heard from the music-room.

Gregers. How could that family be allowed to come to such a wretched pass?

Werle. Probably, you mean the Ekdals? I understand.

Gregers. Yes, I mean the Ekdals. Yet Lieutenant Ekdal was very near to you once.

Werle. Unfortunately, he was; he was only too near to me. I felt it and suffered from it many a year. It is him I have to thank that a sort of stain blurred my own good name and fame—yes, mine!

Gregers (in a low voice). Was he really the only guilty one?

Werle. Who else do you suppose——

Gregers. He and you were partners in that big forest business.

Werle. But wasn’t it Ekdal who drew up the map of the forest—that falsified map? It was he who carried out the illegal felling of trees on the government lands. Why, it was he who managed the whole business up there. I had no idea of what Lieutenant Ekdal was undertaking.

Gregers. Lieutenant Ekdal himself did not know what he had undertaken.

Werle. Maybe, but the fact remains that he was sentenced and I was acquitted.

Gregers. Yes, I know. Proofs were wanting.

Werle. Acquittal is acquittal. But why rake up all this unfortunate business that turned my hair grey before its time? Have you been brooding over this all these years up at the Works? I can assure you, Gregers, here in town, the story has long been forgotten, as far as I am concerned.

Gregers. But the unfortunate Ekdals?

Werle. Now, really, what would you have had me do for these people? When Ekdal came out he was a broken man, absolutely helpless. There are men on earth who sink to the bottom if they get a few shots in them and who never come to the surface again. You may take my word, Gregers, I went as far as I could without exposing myself, and giving color to all sorts of suspicions and gossip.

Gregers. Suspicions—I see!

Werle. I’ve given Ekdal copying to do for the office, and I pay ever so much more for it than the work is worth.

Gregers (without looking at him). H’m! I do not doubt that.

Werle. You laugh. Don’t you believe what I say? It is true there’s nothing of all this in my books, for there are certain expenses I never enter.

Gregers (smiling coldly). No, there are certain expenses which it is best not to enter.

Werle (starting). What do you mean?

Gregers (with forced calm). Have you entered what it cost you to let Hjalmar Ekdal learn photography?

Werle. I? Entered what?

Gregers. I know now that it was you who paid for that. And I know, too, that it was you who so generously helped him to make a start.

Werle. Well, and yet you say I’ve done nothing for the Ekdals! I can assure you, in all conscience, these people have cost me quite enough.

Gregers. Have you entered any of these expenses?

Werle. Why do you ask?

Gregers. Oh, I have my reasons. Listen. At the time when you interested yourself so warmly in the son of your old friend, was that not the very time when he was to get married?

Werle. How the devil, after so many years, can I remember?

Gregers. At that time you wrote me a letter—a business letter, of course—and in a postscript you briefly said that Hjalmar Ekdal had married a Miss Hansen.

Werle. Well, that was right enough—that was her name.

Gregers. But you did not write that the Miss Hansen was Gina Hansen, our former housekeeper.

Werle (laughs sarcastically but somewhat constrainedly). No, it really never occurred to me that you were so deeply interested in our former housekeeper.

Gregers. Nor was I. But (in a lower voice) there was another here in the house who was deeply interested in her.

Werle. What do you mean (angrily to him)? I suppose you are alluding to me?

Gregers (in a low but firm tone). Yes, I allude to you.

Werle. And you dare? You permit yourself to? How can he, that ungrateful wretch, the photographer? How dare he presume to make such insinuations?

Gregers. Hjalmar has not referred to all this by a single word. I don’t believe he so much as suspects anything of it.

Werle. Whom have you had it from then? Who can have said such a thing?

Gregers. My poor, unhappy mother said so. And that was the last time I saw her.

Werle. Your mother? I might have known it. She and you—you always held together. It was she who from the first turned you against me.

Gregers. No—it was all she had to bear and to suffer, until her heart was broken, and the miserable end came.

Werle. Oh, she hadn’t so much to bear and suffer—not more at any rate, than so many others! But there is no getting on with morbid, overstrained people. As I know to my cost. And so you have gone about nourishing such suspicions, gone poking into all sorts of old rumors and calumnies against your own father. Look here, Gregers. I really think that at your age you might find something better to do.

Gregers. Yes, it is time I did.

Werle. Then perhaps you would take things more easily than you seem to now. What can be the good of your stopping up there at the Works year out, year in, worrying yourself as a mere clerk, and refusing to take a shilling more than the usual monthly salary? It’s simple folly of you.

Gregers. Yes, if I could be quite certain that——

Werle. I understand you well enough. You want to be independent, to owe nothing to me. But now there is an opening for you to become independent, and absolutely your own master.

Gregers. Indeed, how?

Werle. When I wrote you it was necessary you should come to town immediately—h’m——

Gregers. Yes, what did you really want me for? I’ve been waiting all day to find out.

Werle. I wished to propose your having a share in the firm.

Gregers. I? Enter the firm? As partner?

Werle. Yes. It will not necessitate our being constantly together. You might take over the business here, and then I’d move up to the Works.

Gregers. You would?

Werle. Yes, for you see I’m not so fit for work as I used to be. I must be careful of my eyes, Gregers, for they are becoming rather weak.

Gregers. They always were.

Werle. Not so weak as now. And then besides—circumstances might perhaps make it desirable I should live up there—at any rate, for a time.

Gregers. I should never have believed that.

Werle. See here, Gregers, there are many things that stand between us. But when all’s said and done—we are father and son. It seems to me we ought to be able to come to some sort of an understanding.

Gregers. You mean outwardly, of course.

Werle. Well, even that would be something. Think it over, Gregers. Don’t you believe that it could be managed? Eh?

Gregers (looking at him coldly). There is something behind all this!

Werle. How so?

Gregers. There must be something you want to use me for.

Werle. In so close a relation as ours, the one can always be of use to the other.

Gregers. So they say.

Werle. I would gladly have you at home with me now for a time. I am a lonely man, Gregers—always have felt lonely all my life through—but most now that I am beginning to grow old. I long to have some one about me——

Gregers. Well, you have Mrs. Sorby——

Werle. Yes, I have, and she has, so to say, become almost indispensable to me. She is bright and even-tempered, she cheers up the house—and I need that so sorely.

Gregers. Very well. Then you’ve already got all you want.

Werle. Yes, but I’m afraid things can’t go on so. A woman in such circumstances soon finds herself in an equivocal position in the eyes of the world. And I had almost said that it doesn’t do a man any good either.

Gregers. Oh, when a man gives such dinners as you do he can risk a good deal.

Werle. Yes, but she, Gregers? I’m afraid she will not put up with it much longer. And even if she would—even if she were willing, out of devotion to me, to expose herself to the gossip and scandal, and all that—don’t you think, Gregers, you, with your intensely strong sense of justice——

Gregers (interrupting). Just tell me one thing straight out. Are you thinking of marrying her?

Werle. And if I were thinking of such a thing, what then?

Gregers. I say so, too. What then?

Werle. Would you set yourself absolutely against it?

Gregers. No, certainly not; not in any way.

Werle. For I did not know whether, from love for your dead mother’s memory——

Gregers. I am not overstrained.

Werle. Well, whatever you may or may not be, you have lifted a heavy weight from my heart. I am so exceedingly glad that I may count upon your approval in this matter.

Gregers (looking fixedly at him). Now I know you mean to use me.

Werle. Use you? What an expression!

Gregers. Ah, don’t let us be nice in our choice of words—not when we are alone, at any rate. (Laughs shortly.) So that’s it! So that was why—curse it!—— I must come to town in person. For the benefit of Mrs. Sorby, a scene of family life is to be arranged here. Tableau of father and son! That would be something new!

Werle. How dare you speak in that tone?

Gregers. When was there any family life here? Not as long as I can remember. But now a little of that sort of thing may come in useful. For it would look uncommonly well to have people talking of the son hurrying hither—on the wings of filial piety—to his old father’s wedding feast. What then becomes of all the rumors of the poor dead mother’s sorrows and suffering? Nothing! Her son hurls them to the earth.

Werle. Gregers, I don’t believe there is a man on earth you dislike as you do me.

Gregers (in a low voice). I have seen you too closely!

Werle. You have seen me through your mother’s eyes. (Slightly lowering his voice.) But you should bear in mind that her eyes were—dimmed at times.

Gregers (shuddering). I understand what you mean. But who was to blame for mother’s unhappy weakness? It was you and all these—— The last of them was that woman who was foisted upon Hjalmar Ekdal, when you no longer—oh!——

Werle (shrugging his shoulders). Word for word as if I heard your mother!

Gregers (without noticing him). And there he is now with his great, unsuspecting child-mind, in the midst of deception—lives under the same roof with such a woman, and does not know that what he calls home is built upon a lie. (He comes up closer.) When I look back upon all you have done, I seem to be looking over a battlefield, with ruined human lives everywhere.

Werle. I almost believe the gulf between us is too great——

Gregers (bowing with forced self-command). I have observed it, and so I’ll take my hat and go.

Werle. Go! Leave the house?

Gregers. Yes. For now at last I have found a mission to live for.

Werle. What mission may that be?

Gregers. You would only laugh if I told you.

Werle. A lonely man does not laugh so easily, Gregers.

Gregers (pointing to the room in the background). See, father—the Chamberlains are playing Blind Man’s Buff with Mrs. Sorby. Good night—and good-bye.

He goes out at the back, right. The laughter and merriment of the Guests are heard in the outer room.

Werle (murmurs scornfully as Gregers goes out). Ha! Poor wretch! And yet he says he is not overstrained!