MRS. ALVING

  Do just as you please. The whole matter is now completely indifferent to me.

  ENGSTRAND

  Give a thought to my Sailors’ Home, your Reverence.

  MANDERS

  Upon my word, that is not a bad suggestion. That must be considered.

  ENGSTRAND

  Oh, devil take considering—Lord forgive me!

  MANDERS [With a sigh.]

  And unfortunately I cannot tell how long I shall be able to retain control of these things—whether public opinion may not compel me to retire. It entirely depends upon the result of the official inquiry into the fire——

  MRS. ALVING

  What are you talking about?

  MANDERS

  And the result can by no means be foretold.

  ENGSTRAND [Comes close to him.]

  Ay, but it can though. For here stands old Jacob Engstrand.

  MANDERS

  Well well, but——?

  ENGSTRAND [More softly.]

  And Jacob Engstrand isn’t the man to desert a noble benefactor in the hour of need, as the saying goes.

  MANDERS

  Yes, but my good fellow—how——?

  ENGSTRAND

  Jacob Engstrand may be likened to a sort of a guardian angel, he may, your Reverence.

  MANDERS

  No, no; I really cannot accept that.

  ENGSTRAND

  Oh, that’ll be the way of it, all the same. I know a man as has taken others’ sins upon himself before now, I do.

  MANDERS

  Jacob!

  [Wrings his hand.]

  Yours is a rare nature. Well, you shall be helped with your

  Sailors’ Home. That you may rely upon.

  [ENGSTRAND tries to thank him, but cannot for emotion.]

  MANDERS [Hangs his travelling-bag over his shoulder.]

  And now let us set out. We two will go together.

  ENGSTRAND [At the dining-room door, softly to REGINA.]

  You come along too, my lass. You shall live as snug as the yolk in an egg.

  REGINA [Tosses her head.]

  Merci! [She goes out into the hall and fetches MANDER’S overcoat.]

  MANDERS

  Good-bye, Mrs. Alving! and may the spirit of Law and Order descend upon this house, and that quickly.

  MRS. ALVING

  Good-bye, Pastor Manders.

  [She goes up towards the conservatory, as she sees OSWALD coming in

  through the garden door.]

  ENGSTRAND [While he and REGINA help MANDERS to get his coat on.]

  Good-bye, my child. And if any trouble should come to you, you

  know where Jacob Engstrand is to be found.

  [Softly.]

  Little Harbour Street, h’m——!

  [To MRS. ALVING and OSWALD]

  And the refuge for wandering mariners shall be called

  “Chamberlain Alving’s Home,” that it shall! And if so be as I’m

  spared to carry on that house in my own way, I make so bold as

  to promise that it shall be worthy of the Chamberlain’s memory.

  MANDERS [In the doorway.]

  H’m—h’m!—Come along, my dear Engstrand. Good-bye!

  Good-bye!

  [He and ENGSTRAND go out through the hall.]

  OSWALD [Goes towards the table.]

  What house was he talking about?

  MRS. ALVING

  Oh, a kind of Home that he and Pastor Manders want to set up.

  OSWALD

  It will burn down like the other.

  MRS. ALVING

  What makes you think so?

  OSWALD

  Everything will burn. All that recalls father’s memory is doomed.

  Here am I, too, burning down.

  [REGINA starts and looks at him.]

  MRS. ALVING

  Oswald! You oughtn’t to have remained so long down there, my poor boy.

  OSWALD [Sits down by the table.]

  I almost think you are right.

  MRS. ALVING

  Let me dry your face, Oswald; you are quite wet.

  [She dries his face with her pocket-handkerchief.]

  OSWALD [Stares indifferently in front of him.]

  Thanks, mother.

  MRS. ALVING

  Are you not tired, Oswald? Should you like to sleep?

  OSWALD [Nervously.]

  No, no—not to sleep. I never sleep. I only pretend to.

  [Sadly.]

  That will come soon enough.

  MRS. ALVING [Looking sorrowfully at him.]

  Yes, you really are ill, my blessed boy.

  REGINA [Eagerly.]

  Is Mr. Alving ill?

  OSWALD [Impatiently.]

  Oh, do shut all the doors! This killing dread——

  MRS. ALVING

  Close the doors, Regina.

  [REGINA shuts them and remains standing by the hall door. MRS.

  ALVING takes her shawl off. REGINA does the same. MRS. ALVING

  draws a chair across to OSWALD’S, and sits by him.]

  MRS. ALVING

  There now! I am going to sit beside you——

  OSWALD

  Yes, do. And Regina shall stay here too. Regina shall be with me always. You will come to the rescue, Regina, won’t you?

  REGINA

  I don’t understand——

  MRS. ALVING

  To the rescue?

  OSWALD

  Yes—when the need comes.

  MRS. ALVING

  Oswald, have you not your mother to come to the rescue?

  OSWALD

  You?

  [Smiles.]

  No, mother; that rescue you will never bring me.

  [Laughs sadly.]

  You! ha ha!

  [Looks earnestly at her.]

  Though, after all, who ought to do it if not you?

  [Impetuously.]

  Why can’t you say “thou”133 to me, Regina? Why don’t you call

  me “Oswald”?

  REGINA [Softly.]

  I don’t think Mrs. Alving would like it.

  MRS. ALVING

  You shall have leave to, presently. And meanwhile sit over here

  beside us.

  [REGINA seats herself demurely and hesitatingly at the other side of the

  table.]

  MRS. ALVING

  And now, my poor suffering boy, I am going to take the burden off your mind——

  OSWALD

  You, mother?

  MRS. ALVING

  ——all the gnawing remorse and self-reproach you speak of.

  OSWALD

  And you think you can do that?

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, now I can, Oswald. A 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! Good-bye. [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 in other ways?

  MRS. ALVING

  Can it be only a superstition——?

  OSWALD

  Yes; surely you can see that, mother. It’s one of those notions that are current in the world, and so——

  MRS. ALVING [Deeply moved.]

  Ghosts!

  OSWALD [Crossing the room.]

  Yes; you may call them ghosts.

  MRS. ALVING [Wildly.]

  Oswald—then you don’t love me, either!

  OSWALD

  You I know, at any rate——

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, you know me; but is that all!

  OSWALD

  And, of course, I know how fond you are of me, and I can’t but be grateful to you. And then you can be so useful to me, now that I am ill.

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, cannot I, Oswald? Oh, I could almost bless the illness that has driven you home to me. For I see very plainly that you are not mine: I have to win you.

  OSWALD [Impatiently.]

  Yes yes yes; all these are just so many phrases. You must remember that I am a sick man, mother. I can’t be much taken up with other people; I have enough to do thinking about myself.

  MRS. ALVING [In a low voice.]

  I shall be patient and easily satisfied.

  OSWALD

  And cheerful too, mother!

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, my dear boy, you are quite right.

  [Goes towards him.]

  Have I relieved you of all remorse and self-reproach now?

  OSWALD

  Yes, you have. But now who will relieve me of the dread?

  MRS. ALVING

  The dread?

  OSWALD [Walks across the room.]

  Regina could have been got to do it.

  MRS. ALVING

  I don’t understand you. What is this about dread—and Regina?

  OSWALD

  Is it very late, mother?

  MRS. ALVING

  It is early morning.

  [She looks out through the conservatory.]

  The day is dawning over the mountains. And the weather is

  clearing, Oswald. In a little while you shall see the sun.

  OSWALD

  I’m glad of that. Oh, I may still have much to rejoice in and live for——

  MRS. ALVING

  I should think so, indeed!

  OSWALD

  Even if I can’t work——

  MRS. ALVING

  Oh, you’ll soon be able to work again, my dear boy—now that you haven’t got all those gnawing and depressing thoughts to brood over any longer.

  OSWALD

  Yes, I’m glad you were able to rid me of all those fancies. And

  when I’ve got over this one thing more——

  [Sits on the sofa.]