Now we will have a little talk, mother——

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, let us.

  [She pushes an arm-chair towards the sofa, and sits down close to him.]

  OSWALD

  And meantime the sun will be rising. And then you will know all. And then I shall not feel this dread any longer.

  MRS. ALVING

  What is it that I am to know?

  OSWALD [Not listening to her.]

  Mother, did you not say a little while ago, that there was nothing in the world you would not do for me, if I asked you?

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, indeed I said so!

  OSWALD

  And you’ll stick to it, mother?

  MRS. ALVING

  You may rely on that, my dear and only boy! I have nothing in the world to live for but you alone.

  OSWALD

  Very well, then; now you shall hear——Mother, you have a strong, steadfast mind, I know. Now you’re to sit quite still when you hear it.

  MRS. ALVING

  What dreadful thing can it be——?

  OSWALD

  You’re not to scream out. Do you hear? Do you promise me that? We will sit and talk about it quietly. Do you promise me, mother?

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, yes; I promise. Only speak!

  OSWALD

  Well, you must know that all this fatigue—and my inability to think of work—all that is not the illness itself——

  MRS. ALVING

  Then what is the illness itself?

  OSWALD

  The disease I have as my birthright—

  [He points to his forehead and adds very softly:]

  —is seated here.

  MRS. ALVING [Almost voiceless.]

  Oswald! No—no!

  OSWALD

  Don’t scream. I can’t bear it. Yes, mother, it is seated here—waiting. And it may break out any day—at any moment.

  MRS. ALVING

  Oh, what horror——!

  OSWALD

  Now, quiet, quiet. That is how it stands with me——

  MRS. ALVING [Springs up.]

  It’s not true, Oswald! It’s impossible! It cannot be so!

  OSWALD

  I have had one attack down there already. It was soon over. But when I came to know the state I had been in, then the dread descended upon me, raging and ravening; and so I set off home to you as fast as I could.

  MRS. ALVING

  Then this is the dread——!

  OSWALD

  Yes—it’s so indescribably loathsome, you know. Oh, if it had only been an ordinary mortal disease——! For I’m not so afraid of death—though I should like to live as long as I can.

  MRS. ALVING

  Yes, yes, Oswald, you must!

  OSWALD

  But this is so unutterably loathsome. To become a little baby again! To have to be fed! To have to——Oh, it’s not to be spoken of!

  MRS. ALVING

  The child has his mother to nurse him.

  OSWALD [Springs up.]

  No, never that! That is just what I will not have. I can’t endure to think that perhaps I should lie in that state for many years—and get old and grey. And in the meantime you might die and leave me.

  [Sits in MRS. ALVING’s chair.]

  For the doctor said it wouldn’t necessarily prove fatal at once. He called it a sort of softening of the brain—or something like that.

  [Smiles sadly.]

  I think that expression sounds so nice. It always sets me thinking of cherry-coloured velvet—something soft and delicate to stroke.

  MRS. ALVING [Shrieks.]

  Oswald!

  OSWALD [Springs up and paces the room.]

  And now you have taken Regina from me. If I could only have had her! She would have come to the rescue, I know.

  MRS. ALVING [Goes to him.]

  What do you mean by that, my darling boy? Is there any help in the world that I would not give you?

  OSWALD

  When I got over my attack in Paris, the doctor told me that when it comes again—and it will come—there will be no more hope.

  MRS. ALVING

  He was heartless enough to——

  OSWALD

  I demanded it of him. I told him I had preparations to make——

  [He smiles cunningly.]

  And so I had.

  [He takes a little box from his inner breast pocket and opens it.]

  Mother, do you see this?

  MRS. ALVING

  What is it?

  OSWALD

  Morphia.

  MRS. ALVING [Looks at him horror-struck.]

  Oswald—my boy.

  OSWALD

  I’ve scraped together twelve pilules134——

  MRS. ALVING [Snatches at it.]

  Give me the box, Oswald.

  OSWALD

  Not yet, mother.

  [He hides the box again in his pocket.]

  MRS. ALVING

  I shall never survive this!

  OSWALD

  It must be survived. Now if I’d had Regina here, I should have told her how things stood with me—and begged her to come to the rescue at the last. She would have done it. I know she would.

  MRS. ALVING

  Never!

  OSWALD

  When the horror had come upon me, and she saw me lying there helpless, like a little new-born baby, impotent, lost, hopeless—past all saving——

  MRS. ALVING

  Never in all the world would Regina have done this!

  OSWALD

  Regina would have done it. Regina was so splendidly light hearted. And she would soon have wearied of nursing an invalid like me.

  MRS. ALVING

  Then heaven be praised that Regina is not here.

  OSWALD

  Well then, it is you that must come to the rescue, mother.

  MRS. ALVING [Shrieks aloud.]

  I!

  OSWALD

  Who should do it if not you?

  MRS. ALVING

  I! your mother!

  OSWALD

  For that very reason.

  MRS. ALVING

  I, who gave you life!

  OSWALD

  I never asked you for life. And what sort of a life have you given me? I will not have it! You shall take it back again!

  MRS. ALVING

  Help! Help! [She runs out into the hall.]

  OSWALD [Going after her.]

  Do not leave me! Where are you going?

  MRS. ALVING [In the hall.]

  To fetch the doctor, Oswald! Let me pass!

  OSWALD [Also outside.]

  You shall not go out. And no one shall come in. [The locking of a door is heard.]

  MRS. ALVING [Comes in again.]

  Oswald! Oswald—my child!

  OSWALD [Follows her.]

  Have you a mother’s heart for me—and yet can see me suffer from this unutterable dread?

  MRS. ALVING [After a moment’s silence, commands herself, and says:]

  Here is my hand upon it.

  OSWALD

  Will you——?

  MRS. ALVING

  If it should ever be necessary. But it will never be necessary. No, no; it is impossible.

  OSWALD

  Well, let us hope so. And let us live together as long as we can. Thank you, mother. [He seats himself in the arm-chair which MRS. ALVING has moved to the sofa. Day is breaking.The lamp is still burning on the table.]

  MRS. ALVING [Drawing near cautiously.]

  Do you feel calm now?

  OSWALD

  Yes.

  MRS. ALVING [Bending over him.]

  It has been a dreadful fancy of yours, Oswald—nothing but a fancy. All this excitement has been too much for you. But now you shall have a long rest; at home with your mother, my own blessed boy. Everything you point to you shall have, just as when you were a little child.—There now. The crisis is over. You see how easily it passed! Oh, I was sure it would.—And do you see, Oswald, what a lovely day we are going to have? Brilliant sunshine! Now you can really see your home. [She goes to the table and puts out the lamp. Sunrise.The glacier and the snow-peaks in the background glow in the morning light.]

  OSWALD [Sits in the arm-chair with his back towards the landscape, without moving. Suddenly he says:] Mother, give me the sun.

  MRS. ALVING [By the table, starts and looks at him.]

  What do you say?

  OSWALD [Repeats, in a dull, toneless voice.]

  The sun. The sun.

  MRS. ALVING [Goes to him.]

  Oswald, what is the matter with you?

  OSWALD [Seems to shrink together in the chair; all his muscles relax; his face is expressionless, his eyes have a glassy stare.]

  MRS. ALVING [Quivering with terror.]

  What is this?

  [Shrieks.]

  Oswald! what is the matter with you?

  [Falls on her knees beside him and shakes him.]

  Oswald! Oswald! look at me! Don’t you know me?

  OSWALD [Tonelessly as before.]

  The sun.—The sun.

  MRS. ALVING [Springs up in despair, entwines her hands in her hair and shrieks.]

  I cannot bear it!

  [Whispers, as though petrified];

  I cannot bear it! Never!

  [Suddenly.]

  Where has he got them?

  [Fumbles hastily in his breast.]

  Here!

  [Shrinks back a few steps and screams:]

  No; no; no!—Yes!—No; no!

  [She stands a few steps away from him with her hands twisted in her hair,

  and stares at him in speechless horror.]

  OSWALD [Sits motionless as before and says:]

  The sun.—The sun.

  THE WILD DUCK (1884)

  INTRODUCTION

  WRITTEN AFTER A SERIES of quick successes—namely, Enemy of the People, A Doll’s House, and Ghosts—The Wild Duck (1884; Vildanden) must be read as a moment of pause and reflection within Ibsen’s career. It is a play that recycles most of Ibsen’s earlier themes and topics: a harsh truth that is being covered up with lies; the dirty secret in the past of the now successful businessman; an isolated character who is willing to force out the truth. Gregers Werle returns to his father and his poor high school friend Hialmar Ekdal and slowly learns that this friend has been coaxed into marrying Gregers’s father’s mistress and to bring up their illegitimate child as his own. Financially relying on Gregers’s father and his own competent wife, Hialmar has created for himself a fantasy world in which he is working on a great invention when in truth he does nothing of the sort. Hialmar is not the only self-deceiver. Hialmar’s father and daughter have created, in an attic, a piece of wilderness in which they go a-hunting, trying to imagine the wilderness in which the grandfather used to live and which to the granddaughter is a fascinating escape from her impoverished life. Once more, an inherited disease provides for a tragic trajectory: The daughter is slowly growing blind, an inheritance from Gregers’s father to his illegitimate child. Once more, an illegitimate affair is paid for by the next generation.

  All of these elements can be reassembled into a play such as Ibsen’s earlier ones—but this is not what happens. Rather than celebrating the difficult search for truth and the destruction of lies, here it is the very attempt to undo these lies that wreaks havoc among these characters. The term Ibsen employs is that of the “life lie” (livslögnen), implying that a certain amount of self-deception is necessary to bear life on this earth. A misguided idealist such as Gregers, who will have the truth no matter what the cost, only creates more misery for everyone. Indeed, Gregers seems like an Ibsenite character run amok, a preacher of truth who takes no prisoners and risks the happiness of everyone in the process.

  Contemporary audiences were stunned. Had not Ibsen been propagating the virtues of ruthless criticism and violent revelations of unpleasant truths? Through The Wild Duck Ibsen responded to what he perceived to be a reductive image of himself as enemy of the home, what Shaw would later call “Ibsenism”—the simplistic understanding of his work as always out to shock the audience, always advocating destructive critique. Instead, The Wild Duck reminds us that from his early Peer Gynt to the late The Master Builder, Ibsen is more interested in analyzing the workings of self-deception than in undoing it. The whole Ekdal family is an exercise in living on imagination and fantasy. When the Ekdals go into the winter garden to play nature around the domesticated wild duck they keep there, their confined revels are the bourgeois counterpart to Gynt’s excessive dances with the trolls. After many years of realist discipline, Ibsen here returns to his earlier interest in theatricality, masks, and deception. In this sense, The Wild Duck is not only a correction of a widespread misconception of Ibsen as the ruthless detector of bourgeois lies, but also of his strictly realist style. He did not allow himself to break with realism altogether, but he created a limited space in which wild fantasies may dwell.

  The unusual setup whereby the stage has the poor drawing room open out onto the enclosed space of fantasy wilderness has inspired directors and set designers. For example, the first great naturalist director, André Antoine, staged The Wild Duck in 1891 with great attention to objects and set, turning it into a case study in naturalism. Set designers realized that everything in this play hinges on the contrast between inner and outer space, which Ibsen also detailed in his extensive stage directions. The entire play lives by these objects and how they are employed: the old uniform of Hialmar’s grandfather; his rifles; the decoration of the winter garden; the old books and maps; the work tools in the front room that doubles as a photography studio. While the characters in The Wild Duck are somewhat less complex than those in other of Ibsen’s plays, this perfect play for stage designers has inspired many realist productions throughout the twentieth century, including Halv dan Christensen’s detailed production at the Nationaltheatret in Oslo in 1949. Even productions that are not realist address the centrality of space and stage props in this play, in response to the challenge posed by The Wild Duck, a play that calls for a theater of objects.

  —Martin Puchner

  CHARACTERS

  WERLE, a merchant, manufacturer, etc.

  GREGERS WERLE, his son.

  OLD EKDAL.

  HIALMAR EKDAL, his son, a photographer.

  GINA EKDAL, Hialmar’s wife.

  HEDVIG, their daughter, a girl of fourteen.

  MRS. SÖRBY, Werle’s housekeeper.

  RELLING, a doctor.

  MOLVIK, a student of theology.

  GRÅBERG, Werle’s bookkeeper.

  PETTERSEN, Werle’s servant.

  JENSEN, a hired waiter.

  A FLABBY GENTLEMAN.

  A THIN-HAIRED GENTLEMAN.

  A SHORT-SIGHTED GENTLEMAN.

  Six other gentlemen, guests at Werle’s dinner-party.

  Several hired waiters.

  The first act passes in Werle’s house, the remaining acts at Hialmar Ekdal’s.

  ACT FIRST

  At WERLE’S house. A richly and comfortably furnished study; bookcases and upholstered furniture; a writing-table, with papers and documents, in the centre of the room; lighted lamps with green shades, giving a subdued light. At the back, open folding-doors with curtains drawn back.Within is seen a large and handsome room, brilliantly lighted with lamps and branching candlesticks. In front, on the right (in the study), a small baize door leads into WERLE’S office. On the left, in front, a fireplace with a glowing coal fire, and farther back a double door leading into the dining-room.

  WERLE’S servant, PETTERSEN, in livery, and JENSEN, the hired waiter, in black, are putting the study in order. In the large room, two or three other hired waiters are moving about, arranging things and lighting more candles. From the dining-room, the hum of conversation and laughter of many voices are heard; a glass is tapped with a knife; silence follows, and a toast is proposed; shouts of “Bravo!” and then again a buzz of conversation.

  PETTERSEN [Lights a lamp on the chimney-place and places a shade over it.]

  Hark to them, Jensen! now the old man’s on his legs holding a long palaver about Mrs. Sörby.

  JENSEN [Pushing forward an arm-chair.]

  Is it true, what folks say, that they’re—very good friends, eh?

  PETTERSON

  Lord knows.

  JENSEN

  I’ve heard tell as he’s been a lively customer in his day.

  PETTERSON

  May be.

  JENSEN

  And he’s giving this spread in honour of his son, they say.

  PETTERSEN

  Yes. His son came home yesterday.

  JENSEN

  This is the first time I ever heard as Mr. Werle had a son.

  PETTERSEN

  Oh yes, he has a son, right enough. But he’s a fixture, as you might say, up at the Höidal works. He’s never once come to town all the years I’ve been in service here.

  A WAITER [In the doorway of the other room.]

  Pettersen, here’s an old fellow wanting——

  PETTERSEN [Mutters.]

  The devil—who’s this now?

  OLD EKDAL appears from the right, in the inner room. He is dressed in a threadbare overcoat with a high collar; he wears woollen mittens, and carries in his hand a stick and a fur cap. Under his arm, a brown paper parcel. Dirty red-brown wig and small grey moustache.