Ghosts - Henrik Ibsen (e reader books txt) 📗
- Author: Henrik Ibsen
Book online «Ghosts - Henrik Ibsen (e reader books txt) 📗». Author Henrik Ibsen
little while ago you spoke of the joy of life; and at that word a new light burst for me over my life and everything connected with it.
Oswald
Shakes his head. I don’t understand you.
Mrs. Alving
You ought to have known your father when he was a young lieutenant. He was brimming over with the joy of life!
Oswald
Yes, I know he was.
Mrs. Alving
It was like a breezy day only to look at him. And what exuberant strength and vitality there was in him!
Oswald
Well—?
Mrs. Alving
Well then, child of joy as he was—for he was like a child in those days—he had to live at home here in a half-grown town, which had no joys to offer him—only dissipations. He had no object in life—only an official position. He had no work into which he could throw himself heart and soul; he had only business. He had not a single comrade that could realise what the joy of life meant—only loungers and boon-companions—
Oswald
Mother—!
Mrs. Alving
So the inevitable happened.
Oswald
The inevitable?
Mrs. Alving
You told me yourself, this evening, what would become of you if you stayed at home.
Oswald
Do you mean to say that father—?
Mrs. Alving
Your poor father found no outlet for the overpowering joy of life that was in him. And I brought no brightness into his home.
Oswald
Not even you?
Mrs. Alving
They had taught me a great deal about duties and so forth, which I went on obstinately believing in. Everything was marked out into duties—into my duties, and his duties, and—I am afraid I made his home intolerable for your poor father, Oswald.
Oswald
Why have you never spoken of this in writing to me?
Mrs. Alving
I have never before seen it in such a light that I could speak of it to you, his son.
Oswald
In what light did you see it, then?
Mrs. Alving
Slowly. I saw only this one thing: that your father was a broken-down man before you were born.
Oswald
Softly. Ah—! He rises and walks away to the window.
Mrs. Alving
And then; day after day, I dwelt on the one thought that by rights Regina should be at home in this house—just like my own boy.
Oswald
Turning round quickly. Regina—!
Regina
Springs up and asks, with bated breath. I—?
Mrs. Alving
Yes, now you know it, both of you.
Oswald
Regina!
Regina
To herself. So mother was that kind of woman.
Mrs. Alving
Your mother had many good qualities, Regina.
Regina
Yes, but she was one of that sort, all the same. Oh, I’ve often suspected it; but—And now, if you please, ma’am, may I be allowed to go away at once?
Mrs. Alving
Do you really wish it, Regina?
Regina
Yes, indeed I do.
Mrs. Alving
Of course you can do as you like; but—
Oswald
Goes towards Regina. Go away now? Your place is here.
Regina
Merci, Mr. Alving!—or now, I suppose, I may say Oswald. But I can tell you this wasn’t at all what I expected.
Mrs. Alving
Regina, I have not been frank with you—
Regina
No, that you haven’t indeed. If I’d known that Oswald was an invalid, why—And now, too, that it can never come to anything serious between us—I really can’t stop out here in the country and wear myself out nursing sick people.
Oswald
Not even one who is so near to you?
Regina
No, that I can’t. A poor girl must make the best of her young days, or she’ll be left out in the cold before she knows where she is. And I, too, have the joy of life in me, Mrs. Alving!
Mrs. Alving
Unfortunately, you have. But don’t throw yourself away, Regina.
Regina
Oh, what must be, must be. If Oswald takes after his father, I take after my mother, I daresay.—May I ask, ma’am, if Pastor Manders knows all this about me?
Mrs. Alving
Pastor Manders knows all about it.
Regina
Busied in putting on her shawl. Well then, I’d better make haste and get away by this steamer. The Pastor is such a nice man to deal with; and I certainly think I’ve as much right to a little of that money as he has—that brute of a carpenter.
Mrs. Alving
You are heartily welcome to it, Regina.
Regina
Looks hard at her. I think you might have brought me up as a gentleman’s daughter, ma’am; it would have suited me better. Tosses her head. But pooh—what does it matter! With a bitter side glance at the corked bottle. I may come to drink champagne with gentlefolks yet.
Mrs. Alving
And if you ever need a home, Regina, come to me.
Regina
No, thank you, ma’am. Pastor Manders will look after me, I know. And if the worst comes to the worst, I know of one house where I’ve every right to a place.
Mrs. Alving
Where is that?
Regina
“Chamberlain Alving’s Home.”
Mrs. Alving
Regina—now I see it—you are going to your ruin.
Regina
Oh, stuff! Goodbye. She nods and goes out through the hall.
Oswald
Stands at the window and looks out. Is she gone?
Mrs. Alving
Yes.
Oswald
Murmuring aside to himself. I think it was a mistake, this.
Mrs. Alving
Goes up behind him and lays her hands on his shoulders. Oswald, my dear boy—has it shaken you very much?
Oswald
Turns his face towards her. All that about father, do you mean?
Mrs. Alving
Yes, about your unhappy father. I am so afraid it may have been too much for you.
Oswald
Why should you fancy that? Of course it came upon me as a great surprise; but it can make no real difference to me.
Mrs. Alving
Draws her hands away. No difference! That your father was so infinitely unhappy!
Oswald
Of course I can pity him, as I would anybody else; but—
Mrs. Alving
Nothing more! Your own father!
Oswald
Impatiently. Oh, “father,”—“father”! I never knew anything of father. I remember nothing about him, except that he once made me sick.
Mrs. Alving
This is terrible to think of! Ought not a son to love his father, whatever happens?
Oswald
When a son has nothing to thank his father for? has never known him? Do you really cling to that old superstition?—you who are so enlightened
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