WERLE [Smiles.]

  It really doesn’t pay to set fine wine before you.

  THE THIN-HAIRED GENTLEMAN

  Tokay is like photographs, Mr. Ekdal: they both need sunshine. Am I not right?

  HIALMAR

  Yes, light is important no doubt.

  MRS. SÖRBY

  And it’s exactly the same with Chamberlains—they, too, depend very much on sunshine,136 as the saying is.

  THE THIN-HAIRED GENTLEMAN

  Oh fie! That’s a very threadbare sarcasm!

  THE SHORT-SIGHTED GENTLEMAN

  Mrs. Sörby is coming out——

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  ——and at our expense, too. [Holds up his finger reprovingly.] Oh, Madame Bertha, Madame Bertha!

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Yes, and there’s not the least doubt that the seasons differ greatly. The old vintages are the finest.

  THE SHORT-SIGHTED GENTLEMAN

  Do you reckon me among the old vintages?

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Oh, far from it.

  THE THIN-HAIRED GENTLEMAN

  There now! But me, dear Mrs. Sörby—?

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  Yes, and me? What vintage should you say that we belong to?

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Why, to the sweet vintages, gentlemen. [She sips a glass of punch.The gentlemen laugh and flirt with her.]

  WERLE

  Mrs. Sörby can always find a loop-hole—when she wants to. Fill

  your glasses, gentlemen! Pettersen, will you see to it——!

  Gregers, suppose we have a glass together.

  [GREGERS does not move.]

  Won’t you join us, Ekdal? I found no opportunity of drinking

  with you at table.

  [GRÅBERG, the Bookkeeper, looks in at the baize door.]

  GRÅBERG

  Excuse me, sir, but I can’t get out.

  WERLE

  Have you been locked in again?

  GRÅBERG

  Yes, and Flakstad has carried off the keys.

  WERLE

  Well, you can pass out this way.

  GRÅBERG

  But there’s some one else——

  WERLE

  All right; come through, both of you. Don’t be afraid. [GRÅBERG and OLD EKDAL come out of the office.]

  WERLE [Involuntarily.]

  Ugh!

  [The laughter and talk among the Guests cease. HIALMAR starts at the

  sight of his father, puts down his glass, and turns towards the fireplace.]

  EKDAL [Does not look up, but makes little bows to both sides as he passes, murmuring.]

  Beg pardon, come the wrong way. Door locked—door locked.

  Beg pardon.

  [He and GRÅBERG go out by the back, to the right.]

  WERLE [Between his teeth.]

  That idiot Gråberg!

  GREGERS [Open-mouthed and staring, to HIALMAR.]

  Why surely that wasn’t——!

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  What’s the matter? Who was it?

  GREGERS

  Oh, nobody, only the bookkeeper and some one with him.

  THE SHORT-SIGHTED GENTLEMAN [To HIALMAR]

  Did you know that man?

  HIALMAR

  I don’t know—I didn’t notice——

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  What the deuce has come over every one?

  [He joins another group who are talking softly.]

  MRS. SÖRBY [Whispers to the Servant.]

  Give him something to take with him;—something good, mind.

  PETTERSEN [Nods.]

  I’ll see to it.

  [Goes out.]

  GREGERS [Softly and with emotion, to HIALMAR.]

  So that was really he!

  HIALMAR

  Yes.

  GREGERS

  And you could stand there and deny that you knew him!

  HIALMAR [Whispers vehemently.]

  But how could I——!

  GREGERS

  ——acknowledge your own father?

  HIALMAR [With pain.]

  Oh, if you were in my place——[The conversation amongst the Guests, which has been carried on in a low tone, now swells into constrained joviality.]

  THE THIN-HAIRED GENTLEMAN [Approaching HIALMAR and GREGERS in a friendly manner.]

  Aha! Reviving old college memories, eh? Don’t you smoke, Mr. Ekdal? May I give you a light? Oh, by-the-bye, we mustn’t——

  HIALMAR

  No, thank you, I won’t——

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  Haven’t you a nice little poem you could recite to us, Mr. Ekdal? You used to recite so charmingly.

  HIALMAR

  I am sorry I can’t remember anything.

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN

  Oh, that’s a pity. Well, what shall we do, Balle? [Both Gentlemen move away and pass into the other room.]

  HIALMAR [Gloomily.]

  Gregers—I am going! When a man has felt the crushing hand of Fate, you see——Say good-bye to your father for me.

  GREGERS

  Yes, yes. Are you going straight home?

  HIALMAR

  Yes. Why?

  GREGERS

  Oh, because I may perhaps look in on you later.

  HIALMAR

  No, you mustn’t do that. You must not come to my home. Mine is a melancholy abode, Gregers; especially after a splendid banquet like this. We can always arrange to meet somewhere in the town.

  MRS. SÖRBY [Who has quietly approached.]

  Are you going, Ekdal?

  HIALMAR

  Yes.

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Remember me to Gina.

  HIALMAR

  Thanks.

  MRS. SÖRBY

  And say I am coming up to see her one of these days.

  HIALMAR

  Yes, thank you.

  [To GREGERS.]

  Stay here; I will slip out unobserved.

  [He saunters away, then into the other room, and so out to the right.]

  MRS. SÖRBY [Softly to the Servant, who has come back.]

  Well, did you give the old man something?

  PETTERSEN

  Yes; I sent him off with a bottle of cognac.

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Oh, you might have thought of something better than that.

  PETTERSEN

  Oh no, Mrs. Sörby; cognac is what he likes best in the world.

  THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN [In the doorway with a sheet of music in his hand.]

  Shall we play a duet, Mrs. Sörby?

  MRS. SÖRBY

  Yes, suppose we do.

  THE GUESTS

  Bravo, bravo!

  [She goes with all the Guests through the back room, out to the right. GREGERS remains standing by the fire. WERLE is looking for something on the writing-table, and appears to wish that GREGERS would go; as GREGERS does not move, WERLE goes towards the door.]

  GREGERS

  Father, won’t you stay a moment?

  WERLE [Stops.]

  What is it?

  GREGERS

  I must have a word with you.

  WERLE

  Can it not wait till we are alone?

  GREGERS

  No, it cannot; for perhaps we shall never be alone together.

  WERLE [Drawing nearer.]

  What do you mean by that? [During what follows, the pianoforte is faintly heard from the distant music-room.]

  GREGERS

  How has that family been allowed to go so miserably to the wall?

  WERLE

  You mean the Ekdals, I suppose.

  GREGERS

  Yes, I mean the Ekdals. Lieutenant Ekdal was once so closely associated with you.

  WERLE

  Much too closely; I have felt that to my cost for many a year. It is thanks to him that I—yes I—have had a kind of slur cast upon my reputation.

  GREGERS [Softly.]

  Are you sure that he alone was to blame?

  WERLE

  Who else do you suppose——?

  GREGERS

  You and he acted together in that affair of the forests——

  WERLE

  But was it not Ekdal that drew the map of the tracts we had bought—that fraudulent map! It was he who felled all that timber illegally on Government ground. In fact, the whole management was in his hands. I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing.

  GREGERS

  Lieutenant Ekdal himself seems to have been very much in the dark as to what he was doing.

  WERLE

  That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty and I acquitted.

  GREGERS

  Yes, I know that nothing was proved against you.

  WERLE

  Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up these old miseries that turned my hair grey before its time? Is that the sort of thing you have been brooding over up there, all these years? I can assure you, Gregers, here in the town the whole story has been forgotten long ago—so far as I am concerned.

  GREGERS

  But that unhappy Ekdal family.

  WERLE

  What would you have had me do for the people? When Ekdal

  came out of prison he was a broken-down being, past all help.

  There are people in the world who dive to the bottom the

  moment they get a couple of slugs in their body, and never come

  to the surface again. You may take my word for it, Gregers, I

  have done all I could without positively laying myself open to all

  sorts of suspicion and gossip——

  GREGERS

  Suspicion——? Oh, I see.

  WERLE

  I have given Ekdal copying to do for the office, and I pay him far, far more for it than his work is worth——

  GREGERS [Without looking at him.]

  H’m; that I don’t doubt.

  WERLE

  You laugh? Do you think I am not telling you the truth. Well, I certainly can’t refer you to my books, for I never enter payments of that sort.

  GREGERS [Smiles coldly.]

  No, there are certain payments it is best to keep no account of.

  WERLE [Taken aback.]

  What do you mean by that?

  GREGERS [Mustering up courage.]

  Have you entered what it cost you to have Hialmar Ekdal taught photography?

  WERLE

  I? How “entered” it?

  GREGERS

  I have learnt that it was you who paid for his training. And I have learnt, too, that it was you who enabled him to set up house so comfortably.

  WERLE

  Well, and yet you talk as though I had done nothing for the Ekdals! I can assure you these people have cost me enough in all conscience.

  GREGERS

  Have you entered any of these expenses in your books?

  WERLE

  Why do you ask?

  GREGERS

  Oh, I have my reasons. Now tell me: when you interested yourself so warmly in your old friend’s son—it was just before his marriage, was it not?

  WERLE

  Why, deuce take it—after all these years, how can I——?

  GREGERS

  You wrote me a letter about that time—a business letter, of course; and in a postscript you mentioned—quite briefly—that Hialmar Ekdal had married a Miss Hansen.

  WERLE

  Yes, that was quite right. That was her name.

  GREGERS

  But you did not mention that this Miss Hansen was Gina Hansen—our former housekeeper.

  WERLE [With a forced laugh of derision.]

  No; to tell the truth, it didn’t occur to me that you were so particularly interested in our former housekeeper.

  GREGERS

  No more I was. But

  [lowers his voice]

  there were others in this house who were particularly interested

  in her.

  WERLE

  What do you mean by that?

  [Flaring up.]

  You are not alluding to me, I hope?

  GREGERS [Softly but firmly.]

  Yes, I am alluding to you.

  WERLE

  And you dare——You presume to——How can that ungrateful hound—that photographer fellow—how dare he go making such insinuations!

  GREGERS

  Hialmar has never breathed a word about this. I don’t believe he has the faintest suspicion of such a thing.

  WERLE

  Then where have you got it from? Who can have put such notions in your head?

  GREGERS

  My poor unhappy mother told me; and that the very last time I saw her.

  WERLE

  Your mother! I might have known as much! You and she—you always held together. It was she who turned you against me, from the first.

  GREGERS

  No, it was all that she had to suffer and submit to, until she broke down and came to such a pitiful end.

  WERLE

  Oh, she had nothing to suffer or submit to; not more than most people, at all events. But there’s no getting on with morbid, overstrained creatures—that I have learnt to my cost.—And you could go on nursing such a suspicion—burrowing into all sorts of old rumours and slanders against your own father! I must say, Gregers, I really think that at your age you might find something more useful to do.

  GREGERS

  Yes, it is high time.

  WERLE

  Then perhaps your mind would be easier than it seems to be now. What can be your object in remaining up at the works, year out and year in, drudging away like a common clerk, and not drawing a farthing more than the ordinary monthly wage? It is downright folly.

  GREGERS

  Ah, if I were only sure of that.

  WERLE

  I understand you well enough. You want to be independent; you won’t be beholden to me for anything. Well, now there happens to be an opportunity for you to become independent, your own master in everything.

  GREGERS

  Indeed? In what way——?

  WERLE

  When I wrote you insisting on your coming to town at once—h’m——

  GREGERS

  Yes, what is it you really want of me? I have been waiting all day to know.

  WERLE

  I want to propose that you should enter the firm, as partner.

  GREGERS

  I Join your firm? As partner?

  WERLE

  Yes. It would not involve our being constantly together. You could take over the business here in town, and I should move up to the works.

  GREGERS

  You would?

  WERLE

  The fact is, I am not so fit for work as I once was. I am obliged to spare my eyes, Gregers; they have begun to trouble me.

  GREGERS

  They have always been weak.

  WERLE

  Not as they are now. And besides, circumstances might possibly make it desirable for me to live up there—for a time, at any rate.

  GREGERS

  That is certainly quite a new idea to me.

  WERLE

  Listen, Gregers: there are many things that stand between us; but we are father and son after all. We ought surely to be able to come to some sort of understanding with each other.

  GREGERS

  Outwardly, you mean, of course?

  WERLE

  Well, even that would be something. Think it over, Gregers. Don’t you think it ought to be possible? Eh?

  GREGERS [Looking at him coldly.]

  There is something behind all this.

  WERLE

  How so?

  GREGERS

  You want to make use of me in some way.

  WERLE

  In such a close relationship as ours, the one can always be useful to the other.

  GREGERS

  Yes, so people say.

  WERLE

  I want very much to have you at home with me for a time. I am a lonely man Gregers; I have always felt lonely, all my life through; but most of all now that I am getting up in years. I feel the need of some one about me——

  GREGERS

  You have Mrs. Sörby.

  WERLE

  Yes, I have her; and she has become, I may say, almost indispensable to me. She is lively and even-tempered; she brightens up the house; and that is a very great thing for me.

  GREGERS

  Well then, you have everything just as you wish it.

  WERLE

  Yes, but I am afraid it can’t last. A woman so situated may easily find herself in a false position, in the eyes of the world. For that matter it does a man no good, either.

  GREGERS

  Oh, when a man gives such dinners as you give, he can risk a great deal.

  WERLE

  Yes, but how about the woman, Gregers? I fear she won’t accept the situation much longer; and even if she did—even if, out of attachment to me, she were to take her chance of gossip and scandal and all that——? Do you think, Gregers—you with your strong sense of justice——