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Ebook has 1124 lines and 24106 words, and 23 pages
Translator: William Archer
GHOSTS
Translated, with an Introduction, by William Archer
INTRODUCTION.
Three days later Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish novelist: "I was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have an unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge.... They endeavour to make me responsible for the opinions which certain of the personages of my drama express. And yet there is not in the whole book a single opinion, a single utterance, which can be laid to the account of the author. I took good care to avoid this. The very method, the order of technique which imposes its form upon the play, forbids the author to appear in the speeches of his characters. My object was to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real experience; and nothing could more effectually prevent such an impression than the intrusion of the author's private opinions into the dialogue. Do they imagine at home that I am so inexpert in the theory of drama as not to know this? Of course I know it, and act accordingly. In no other play that I have written is the author so external to the action, so entirely absent from it, as in this last one."
"They say," he continued, "that the book preaches Nihilism. Not at all. It is not concerned to preach anything whatsoever. It merely points to the ferment of Nihilism going on under the surface, at home as elsewhere. A Pastor Manders will always goad one or other Mrs. Alving to revolt. And just because she is a woman, she will, when once she has begun, go to the utmost extremes."
One more quotation completes the history of these stirring January days, as written by Ibsen himself. It occurs in a letter to a Danish journalist, Otto Borchsenius. "It may well be," the poet writes, "that the play is in several respects rather daring. But it seemed to me that the time had come for moving some boundary-posts. And this was an undertaking for which a man of the older generation, like myself, was better fitted than the many younger authors who might desire to do something of the kind. I was prepared for a storm; but such storms one must not shrink from encountering. That would be cowardice."
It happened that, just in these days, the present writer had frequent opportunities of conversing with Ibsen, and of hearing from his own lips almost all the views expressed in the above extracts. He was especially emphatic, I remember, in protesting against the notion that the opinions expressed by Mrs. Alving or Oswald were to be attributed to himself. He insisted, on the contrary, that Mrs. Alving's views were merely typical of the moral chaos inevitably produced by re-action from the narrow conventionalism represented by Manders.
GHOSTS
A FAMILY-DRAMA IN THREE ACTS.
CHARACTERS.
MRS. HELEN ALVING, widow of Captain Alving, late Chamberlain to the King. OSWALD ALVING, her son, a painter. PASTOR MANDERS. JACOB ENGSTRAND, a carpenter. REGINA ENGSTRAND, Mrs. Alving's maid.
The action takes place at Mrs. Alving's country house, beside one of the large fjords in Western Norway.
ACT FIRST.
REGINA. What do you want? Stop where you are. You're positively dripping.
ENGSTRAND. It's the Lord's own rain, my girl.
ENGSTRAND. Lord, how you talk, Regina. It's just this as I wanted to say--
REGINA. Don't clatter so with that foot of yours, I tell you! The young master's asleep upstairs.
ENGSTRAND. Asleep? In the middle of the day?
REGINA. It's no business of yours.
ENGSTRAND. I was out on the loose last night--
REGINA. I can quite believe that.
ENGSTRAND. Yes, we're weak vessels, we poor mortals, my girl--
REGINA. So it seems.
ENGSTRAND.--and temptations are manifold in this world, you see. But all the same, I was hard at work, God knows, at half-past five this morning.
ENGSTRAND. What do you say you won't have?
REGINA. I won't have any one find you here; so just you go about your business.
ENGSTRAND. Blest if I go before I've had a talk with you. This afternoon I shall have finished my work at the school house, and then I shall take to-night's boat and be off home to the town.
REGINA. Pleasant journey to you!
ENGSTRAND. Thank you, my child. To-morrow the Orphanage is to be opened, and then there'll be fine doings, no doubt, and plenty of intoxicating drink going, you know. And nobody shall say of Jacob Engstrand that he can't keep out of temptation's way.
REGINA. Oh!
ENGSTRAND. You see, there's to be heaps of grand folks here to-morrow. Pastor Manders is expected from town, too.
REGINA. He's coming to-day.
ENGSTRAND. There, you see! And I should be cursedly sorry if he found out anything against me, don't you understand?
REGINA. Oho! is that your game?
ENGSTRAND. Is what my game?
REGINA. What are you going to fool Pastor Manders into doing, this time?
ENGSTRAND. Yes, but I want you with me, Regina.
REGINA. You want me--? What are you talking about?
ENGSTRAND. I want you to come home with me, I say.
REGINA. Never in this world shall you get me home with you.
ENGSTRAND. Oh, we'll see about that.
REGINA. Yes, you may be sure we'll see about it! Me, that have been brought up by a lady like Mrs. Alving! Me, that am treated almost as a daughter here! Is it me you want to go home with you?--to a house like yours? For shame!
ENGSTRAND. What the devil do you mean? Do you set yourself up against your father, you hussy?
REGINA. You've said often enough I was no concern of yours.
ENGSTRAND. Pooh! Why should you bother about that--
ENGSTRAND. Curse me, now, if ever I used such an ugly word.
REGINA. Oh, I remember very well what word you used.
ENGSTRAND. Well, but that was only when I was a bit on, don't you know? Temptations are manifold in this world, Regina.
REGINA. Ugh!
ENGSTRAND. And besides, it was when your mother was that aggravating--I had to find something to twit her with, my child. She was always setting up for a fine lady. "Let me go, Engstrand; let me be. Remember I was three years in Chamberlain Alving's family at Rosenvold." Mercy on us! She could never forget that the Captain was made a Chamberlain while she was in service here.
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