Mrs. Solness: You do far too much for me.
Solness: I can't bear to hear you say that. Stick to what I said. Things 'll be easier in the new place.
Mrs. Solness (lamenting): Oh heavens, easier! Halvard, you can never build up a real home again for me. This is no home; It will be just as desolate, as empty there as here.
[Hilda Wangel comes in.
[Pg 178]
Hilda: Good-morning, Mr. Solness!
Solness (nods): Slept well?
Hilda: Deliciously! As if in a cradle. Oh, I lay and stretched myself like�like a princess. But I dreamed I was falling over a precipice. It's tremendously thrilling when you fall and fall��
Mrs. Solness (ready to go out): I must go into town now, Halvard. (To Hilda) And I'll try to get one or two things that may be of use to you.
Hilda: Oh, you dear, sweet Mrs. Solness. You're frightfully kind��
Mrs. Solness: It's only my duty.
[Mrs. Solness goes out.
Hilda: What made her say that about her duty? Doesn't it sting you?
Solness: H'm! Haven't thought much about it.
Hilda: Yes it does. Why should she talk in that way? She might have said something really warm and cordial, you understand.
Solness: Is that how you'd like to have it?
Hilda: Yes, precisely. (She wanders over to the table and looks over Ragnar's portfolio of drawings.) Are all these drawings yours?
Solness: No; they're drawn by a young man I employ.
Hilda (sits down): Then I suppose he's frightfully clever.
Solness: Oh, he's not bad, for my purpose.
Hilda: I can't understand why you should be so stupid as to go about teaching people. No one but yourself should be allowed to build.
Solness: I keep brooding on that very thought. (Calling her to the window) Look over there; that's my new house.
Hilda: It seems to have a tremendously high tower. Are there nurseries in that house, too?
[Pg 179]
Solness: Three�as there are here. But there will never be any child in them. We have had children, Aline and I, but we didn't keep them long, our two little boys. The fright Aline got when our old house was burnt down affected her health, and she failed to rear them. Yet that fire made me. I built no more churches; but cosy, comfortable homes for human beings. But my position as an artist has been paid for in Aline's happiness. I could have prevented that fire by seeing to a flue. But I didn't. And yet the flue didn't actually cause the fire. Yet it was my fault in a certain sense.
Hilda: I'm afraid you must be�ill.
Solness: I don't think I'll ever be quite of sound mind on that point.
[Ragnar enters, and begs a few kind words about his drawings to cheer his father, who is dying. Solness dismisses him almost brutally, and bids him never think of building on his own account.
Hilda (when Ragnar has gone): That was horribly ugly�and hard and bad and cruel as well.
Solness: Oh, you don't understand my position, which I've paid so dear for. (Confidentially) Hilda, don't you agree with me that there exists special chosen people, who have the power of desiring, craving a thing, until at last it has to happen? And aren't there helpers and servers who must do their part too? But they never come of themselves. One has to call them very persistently, inwardly. So the fire happened conveniently for me; but the two little boys and Aline were sacrificed. She will never be the woman she longed to be.
Hilda: I believe you have a sickly conscience. I should like your conscience to be thoroughly robust.
Solness: Is yours robust?
Hilda: I think it is.
Solness: I think the Vikings had robust consciences. And the women they used to carry off had robust consciences, too. They often wouldn't leave their captors
[Pg 180]
on any account.
Hilda: These women I can understand exceedingly well.
Solness: Could you come to love a man like that?
Hilda: One can't choose whom one's going to love.
Solness: Hilda, there's something of the bird of prey in you!
Hilda: And why not? Why shouldn't I go a-hunting as well as the rest? Tell me, Mr. Solness, have you never called me to you�inwardly, you know?
Solness (softly): I almost think I must have.
Hilda: What did you want with me?
Solness: You are the younger generation, Hilda.
Hilda: Which you fear so much��
Solness: Towards which, in my heart, I yearn so deeply.
[In the next scene Hilda compels Solness to write a few kind words on Ragnar's drawings, and send them to Brovik. He entrusts the portfolio to Kaia, and thereupon dismisses her and Ragnar from his service. Mrs. Solness re-enters.
Mrs. Solness: Are you really dismissing them, Halvard?
Solness: Yes.
Mrs. Solness: Her as well?
Solness: Wasn't that what you wished?
Mrs. Solness: But how can you get on without her��? Oh, no doubt you've someone else in reserve, Halvard.
Hilda (playfully): Well, I for one am not the person to stand at that desk.
Solness: Never mind, never mind. It'll be all right, Aline. Now for moving into our new home�as quickly as we can. This evening we'll hang up the wreath�right on the pinnacle of the tower. What do you say to that, Hilda?
Hilda (with sparkling eyes): It'll be splendid to see
[Pg 181]
you up so high once more. Mrs. Solness: For heaven's sake, don't, Miss Wangel. My husband!�when he always gets so dizzy.
Hilda: He�dizzy? I've seen him with my own eyes at the top of a high church tower.
Mrs. Solness: Impossible!
Solness: True, all the same.
Mrs. Solness: You, who can't even go out on the second-floor balcony?
Solness: You will see something different this evening.
Mrs. Solness: You're ill, you're ill! I'll write at once to the doctor. Oh, God, Oh, God!
[She goes out.
Hilda: Don't tell me my master builder daren't, cannot climb as high as he builds. You promised me a kingdom, and then you went and�well! Don't tell me you can ever be dizzy!
Solness: This evening, then, we'll hang up the wreath, Princess Hilda.
Hilda (bitterly): Over your new home�yes.
Solness: Over the new house, which will never be a home for me.
Hilda (looks straight in front of her with a far-away expression, and whispers to herself. The only words audible are): Frightfully thrilling��
Act III
Scene.�A large, broad verandah attached to Solness's dwelling-house. A flight of steps leads down to the garden below. Far to the right, among the trees, is a glimpse of the new villa, with scaffolding round the tower. Evening sky, with sun-lit clouds.
Mrs. Solness: Have you been round the garden, Miss Wangel?
[Pg 182]
Hilda: Yes, and I've found heaps of flowers.
Mrs. Solness: Are there, really? You see, I seldom go there. I don't feel that it is mine any longer. They've parcelled it out and built houses for strangers, who can look in upon me from their windows.
Hilda: Mrs. Solness�may I stay here with you a little?
Mrs. Solness: Yes, by all means, if you care to; but I thought you wanted to go in to my husband�to help him?
Hilda: No, thanks. Besides, he's not in. He's with the men over there. He looked so fierce, I didn't dare to talk to him.
Mrs. Solness: He's so kind and gentle in reality.
Hilda: He���
Mrs. Solness: You don't really know him yet, Miss Wangel.
Hilda: Are you pleased about the new house?
Mrs. Solness: It's what Halvard wants. It's simply my duty to submit myself to him.
Hilda: That must be difficult, indeed, when one has gone through so much as you have�the loss of your two little boys���
Mrs. Solness: One must bow to Providence and be thankful, too.
[Dr. Herdal enters and goes in again with Mrs. Solness. She wishes to talk to him about her husband's mad scheme. As they go Solness enters.
Solness: Poor Aline! I suppose she was talking about the two little boys? (Hilda shudders) Poor Aline, she will never get over it.
Hilda: I am going away.
Solness: I won't allow you to. I wish you simply to be here, Hilda.
Hilda: Oh, thank you. You know it wouldn't end there. That's why I'm going. You have duties to her. Live for those duties.
[Pg 183]
Solness: Too late! Those powers�devils, if you will!�and the troll within me as well, have drawn the life-blood out of her. I'm chained alive to a dead woman!�(in wild anguish) I�I, who cannot live without joy in life.
Hilda: What will you build next?
Solness (shaking his head): Not much more.
Hilda (with an outburst): Oh, it seems all so foolish�not to be able to grasp your own happiness, merely because someone you know happens to stand in the way��
Solness: If only one had the Viking spirit in life��
Hilda: And the other thing? What was that?
Solness: A robust conscience.
Hilda (radiant): I know what you're going to build next.
Solness: What?
Hilda: The castle�my castle. Build it for me this moment. The ten years are up. Out with my castle, Mr. Solness! It shall stand on a very great height, so that I can see far�far around. We shall build�we two together�the very loveliest thing in all the world!
Solness: Hilda, tell me what it is.
Hilda: Builders are such very, very stupid people��
Solness: No doubt�but tell me what we two are to build together?
Hilda: Castles in the air! So easy to build (scornfully), especially for builders who have a�a dizzy conscience.
Solness: We shall build one�with a firm foundation. (Ragnar enters with the wreath) Have you brought the wreath, Ragnar? Then I suppose your father's better? Wasn't he cheered by what I wrote him?
Ragnar: It came too late�he was unconscious. He had had a stroke.
Solness: Go home to him. Give me the wreath.
Ragnar: You don't mean that you yourself�no�I'll stop.
Hilda: Mr. Solness, I will stand here and look at you.
[Pg 184]
[Solness takes the wreath and goes down through the garden. Mrs. Solness, in an agony of apprehension, re-enters and sends Ragnar to fetch her husband back from the new building. She returns indoors.
Solness (re-entering): Oh, it's you, Hilda! I was afraid it was Aline or the doctor that wanted me.
Hilda: You're easily frightened. They say you're afraid to climb about scaffoldings. Is it true you're afraid?
Solness: Not of death�but�of retribution.
Hilda: I don't understand that.
Solness: Sit down, and I'll tell you something. You know I began by building churches. I'd been piously brought up. I thought it was the noblest task, pleasing to Him for Whom churches are built. Then up at Lysanger I understood that He meant me to have no love and happiness of my own, but just to be a master builder for Him all my life long. That was why He took my little children! Then, that day, I did the impossible. I was able to climb up to a great height. As I stood hanging the wreath on the vane, I cried, "O Mighty One, I will be a free builder�I, too, in my sphere as Thou in Thine. I will build no more churches for Thee�only homes for human beings." But that is not worth six-pence, Hilda.
Hilda: Then you will never build anything more?
Solness: On the contrary, I'm just going to begin�the only possible dwelling-place for human happiness���
Hilda: Our castles in the air.
Solness: Our castles in the air�yes.
Hilda: Then let me see you stand free and high up (passionately). I will have you do it�just once more, Mr. Solness. Do the impossible, once again.
Solness: If I do, I will talk to Him once again up there�"Mighty Lord, henceforth I will build nothing but the loveliest thing in the world."
[Pg 185]
Hilda (carried away): Yes�yes�yes! My lovely, lovely castle! My castle in the air!
[The others go out upon the verandah. The band of the Masons' Union is heard. Ragnar tells Solness that the foreman is ready to go up with the wreath. Solness goes out. The others watch eagerly.
Dr. Herdal: There goes the foreman up the ladder.
Ragnar: Why, but it's���
Hilda (jubilant): It's the master builder himself.
Mrs. Solness: Oh, my God! Halvard, Halvard! I must go to him!
Dr. Herdal (holding her): Don't move, any of you. Not a sound.
Ragnar: I feel as if I were looking at something utterly impossible.
Hilda (ecstatically): It is the impossible that he is doing now. Can you see anyone else up there with him? There is One he is striving with. I hear a song�a mighty song. He is waving to us. Oh, wave back. Hurrah for Master Builder Solness!
[The shout is taken up. Then a shriek of horror. A human body, with planks and pieces of wood, is vaguely seen crashing down behind the trees.
Hilda: My Master Builder!
A Voice: Mr. Solness is dead. He fell right into the quarry.
Ragnar: So, after all, he could not do it.
Hilda: But he mounted right up to the top. And I heard harps in the air. (Waves her shawl, and shrieks with wild intensity) My�my Master Builder!
FOOTNOTES:
Henrik Ibsen, poet and the creator of a new type of drama, was born at Skien, in South Norway, on March 20, 1828. Apprenticed first to a chemist at Grimstad, he next entered Christiania University, but speedily wearied of regular academic studies. He then undertook journalistic work for two years, and afterwards became a theatrical manager at Bergen. In 1857 he was appointed director of the National Theatre at Christiania, and about this time wrote, at intervals, plays in the style of the ancient Norse sagas. "The Master Builder" ("Bygmester Solness") belongs to his later efforts, and was completed in 1892. In it many critics discern the highest attainments of Ibsen's genius, and its realism is strangely combined with romance. It is a plea for the freedom of the human spirit; and the terrible drama is wrought out in language of extraordinary symbolism. Hilda Wangel is the "superwoman," who will suffer nothing to stand between her and the realisation of herself. Had Solness been as strong a spirit, the end might have been different. But he has a "sickly conscience," unable to bear the heights of freedom. Here again Ibsen is unique in his estimate of mankind. Nevertheless, his characters are all actual personalities, and live vividly. Ibsen died on May 23, 1906.
[Pg 186]
The Pillars of Society[O]
Persons in the Drama
Consul Bernick Mrs. Bernick Olaf, their son Martha Bernick, sister of the consul Lona Hessel, elder stepsister of Mrs. Bernick Johan T�nnesen, her younger brother Hilmar T�nnesen, Mrs. Bernick's brother Rector R�rlund Dina Dorf, a young lady living at the consul's Krap, the consul's clerk Shipbuilder Aune Mrs. Rummel and other ladies, friends of the consul's family
Act I
Scene.�A large garden-room in Consul Bernick's house. A number of ladies are seated in the room. Aune, who has been sent for by the Consul, is addressed by Krap at the door of the Consul's room.
Krap: I am ordered by the consul to tell you that you must stop those Saturday talks to the workmen about the injury that our new machines will do to them. Your first duty is to this establishment. Now you know the will of the consul.
[Pg 187]
Aune: The consul would have said it differently. But I know I have to thank for this the American that has put in for repairs.
Krap: That is enough. You know the consul's wishes. Pardon, ladies!
[Krap bows to ladies, and he and Aune go into the street. Rector R�rlund has been reading aloud, and now shuts the book and begins to converse with the ladies.
R�rlund: This book forms a welcome contrast to the hollowness and rottenness we see every day in the papers and magazines, which reflect the condition of the whited sepulchres, the great communities to-day. Doubt, restlessness, and insecurity are undermining society.
Dina: But are not many great things being accomplished?
R�rlund: I do not understand what you mean by great things.
Mrs. Rummel: Last year we narrowly escaped the introduction of a railroad.
Mrs. Bernick: My husband managed to block the scheme, but the papers, in consequence, said shameful things about him. But we are forgetting, dear rector, that we have to thank you for devoting so much time to us.
R�rlund: Do you not all make sacrifices in a good cause to save the lapsed and lost?
Hilmar T�nnesen (coming in with a cigar in his mouth): I have only looked in in passing. Good-morning, ladies! Well, you know Bernick has called a cabinet council about this railway nonsense again. When it is a question of money, then everything here ends in paltry material calculations.
Mrs. Bernick: But at any rate things are better than formerly, when everything ended in dissipation.
[Pg 188]
Mrs. Rummel: Only think of fifteen years ago. What a life, with the dancing club and music club! I well remember the noisy gaiety among families.
Mrs. Lynge: There was a company of strolling players, who, I was told, played many pranks. What was the truth of the matter?
Mrs. Rummel, when Dina is out of the room, explains to the ladies that the girl is the daughter of a strolling player who years before had come to perform for a season in the town. Dorf, the actor, had deserted both wife and child, and the wife had to take to work to which she was unaccustomed, was seized with a pulmonary malady, and died. Then Dina had been adopted by the Bernicks.
Mrs. Rummel goes on to explain that at that season also Johan, Mrs. Bernick's brother, had run away to America. After his departure it was discovered that he had been playing tricks with the cash-box of the firm, of which his widowed mother had become the head. Karsten, now Consul, Bernick had just come home from Paris. He became engaged to Betty T�nnesen, now his wife, but when he entered her aunt's room, with the girl on his arm, to announce his betrothal, Lona Hessel rose from her chair and violently boxed his ear. Then she packed her box, and went off to America. Little had been heard of Lona, except that she had in America sung in taverns, and had given lectures, and had written a most sensational book.
Act II
Scene.�The same garden-room. Mrs. Bernick. Aune enters and greets Consul Bernick.
Bernick: I am not at all pleased, Aune, with the way things are going on in the yard. The repairs are slow. The Palm Tree should long since have been at sea. That American ship, the Indian Girl, has been lying here five weeks. You do not know how to use the new machines, or else you will not use them.
Aune: Consul, the Palm Tree can go to sea in two days, but the Indian Girl is as rotten as matchwood in the bottom planking. Now, I am getting on for sixty, and I cannot take to new ways. I am afraid for the many folk whom the machinery will deprive of a livelihood.
[Pg 189]
Bernick: I did not send for you to argue. Listen now. The Indian Girl must be got ready to sail in two days, at the same time as our own ship. There are reasons for this decision. The carping newspaper critics are pretending that we are giving all our attention to the Palm Tree. If you will not do what I order, I must look for somebody who will.
Aune: You are asking impossibilities, consul. But surely you cannot think of dismissing me, whose father and grandfather worked here all their lives before me. Do you know what is meant by the dismissal of an old workman?
Bernick: You are a stubborn fellow, Aune. You oppose me from perversity. I am sorry indeed if we must part, Aune.
Aune: We will not part, consul. The Indian Girl shall be cleared in two days.
[Aune