I think all this is very strange.

  ACT FOURTH

  HIALMAR EKDAL’s studio. A photograph has just been taken; a camera with the cloth over it, a pedestal, two chairs, a folding table, etc., are standing out in the room. Afternoon light; the sun is going down; a little later it begins to grow dusk.

  GINA stands in the passage doorway, with a little box and a wet glass plate in her hand, and is speaking to somebody outside.

  GINA

  Yes, certainly. When I make a promise I keep it. The first dozen

  shall be ready on Monday. Good afternoon.

  [Some one is heard going downstairs. GINA shuts the door, slips the plate

  into the box, and puts it into the covered camera.]

  HEDVIG [Comes in from the kitchen.]

  Are they gone?

  GINA [Tidying up.]

  Yes, thank goodness, I’ve got rid of them at last.

  HEDVIG

  But can you imagine why father hasn’t come home yet?

  GINA

  Are you sure he’s not down in Relling’s room?

  HEDVIG

  No, he’s not; I ran down the kitchen stair just now and asked.

  GINA

  And his dinner standing and getting cold, too.

  HEDVIG

  Yes, I can’t understand it. Father’s always so careful to be home to dinner!

  GINA

  Oh, he’ll be here directly, you’ll see.

  HEDVIG

  I wish he would come; everything seems so queer to-day.

  GINA [Calls out.]

  There he is!

  HIALMAR EKDAL comes in at the passage door.

  HEDVIG [Going to him.]

  Father! Oh what a time we’ve been waiting for you!

  GINA [Glancing sidelong at him.]

  You’ve been out a long time, Ekdal.

  HIALMAR [Without looking at her.]

  Rather long, yes.

  [He takes off his overcoat; GINA and HEDVIG go to help him; he mo

  tions them away.]

  GINA

  Perhaps you’ve had dinner with Werle?

  HIALMAR [Hanging up his coat.]

  No.

  GINA [Going towards the kitchen door.]

  Then I’ll bring some in for you.

  HIALMAR

  No; let the dinner alone. I want nothing to eat.

  HEDVIG [Going nearer to him.]

  Are you not well, father?

  HIALMAR

  Well? Oh yes, well enough. We have had a tiring walk, Gregers and I.

  GINA

  You didn’t ought to have gone so far, Ekdal; you’re not used to it.

  HIALMAR

  H’m; there’s many a thing a man must get used to in this world.

  [Wanders about the room.]

  Has any one been here whilst I was out?

  GINA

  Nobody but the two sweethearts.

  HIALMAR

  No new orders?

  GINA

  No, not to-day.

  HEDVIG

  There will be some to-morrow, father, you’ll see.

  HIALMAR

  I hope there will; for to-morrow I am going to set to work in real earnest.

  HEDVIG

  To-morrow! Don’t you remember what day it is to-morrow?

  HIALMAR

  Oh yes, by-the-bye——. Well, the day after, then. Henceforth I mean to do everything myself; I shall take all the work into my own hands.

  GINA

  Why, what can be the good of that, Ekdal? It’ll only make your life a burden to you. I can manage the photography all right; and you can go on working at your invention.

  HEDVIG

  And think of the wild duck, father,—and all the hens and rabbits and——!

  HIALMAR

  Don’t talk to me of all that trash! From to-morrow I will never set foot in the garret again.

  HEDVIG

  Oh but, father, you promised that we should have a little party——

  HIALMAR

  H’m, true. Well then, from the day after to-morrow. I should almost like to wring that cursed wild duck’s neck!

  HEDVIG [Shrieks.]

  The wild duck!

  GINA

  Well I never!

  HEDVIG [Shaking him.]

  Oh no, father; you know it’s my wild duck!

  HIALMAR

  That is why I don’t do it. I haven’t the heart to—for your sake, Hedvig. But in my inmost soul I feel that I ought to do it. I ought not to tolerate under my roof a creature that has been through those hands.

  GINA

  Why, good gracious, even if grandfather did get it from that poor creature, Pettersen——

  HIALMAR [Wandering about.]

  There are certain claims—what shall I call them?—let me say claims of the ideal—certain obligations, which a man cannot disregard without injury to his soul.

  HEDVIG [Going after him.]

  But think of the wild duck,—the poor wild duck!

  HIALMAR [Stops.]

  I tell you I will spare it—for your sake. Not a hair of its head shall be—I mean, it shall be spared. There are greater problems than that to be dealt with. But you should go out a little now, Hedvig, as usual; it is getting dusk enough for you now.

  HEDVIG

  No, I don’t care about going out now.

  HIALMAR

  Yes do; it seems to me your eyes are blinking a great deal; all these vapours in here are bad for you. The air is heavy under this roof.

  HEDVIG

  Very well then, I’ll run down the kitchen stair and go for a little walk. My cloak and hat?—oh, they’re in my own room. Father—be sure you don’t do the wild duck any harm whilst I’m out.

  HIALMAR

  Not a feather of its head shall be touched.

  [Draws her to him.]

  You and I, Hedvig—we two——! Well, go along.

  [HEDVIG nods to her parents and goes out through the kitchen.]

  HIALMAR [Walks about without looking up.]

  Gina.

  GINA

  Yes?

  HIALMAR

  From to-morrow—or, say, from the day after to-morrow—I should like to keep the household account-book myself.

  GINA

  Do you want to keep the accounts too, now?

  HIALMAR

  Yes; or to check the receipts at any rate.

  GINA

  Lord help us! that’s soon done.

  HIALMAR

  One would hardly think so; at any rate you seem to make the

  money go a very long way.

  [Stops and looks at her.]

  How do you manage it?

  GINA

  It’s because me and Hedvig, we need so little.

  HIALMAR

  Is it the case that father is very liberally paid for the copying he does for Mr. Werle?

  GINA

  I don’t know as he gets anything out of the way. I don’t know the rates for that sort of work.

  HIALMAR

  Well, what does he get, about? Let me hear!

  GINA

  Oh, it varies; I daresay it’ll come to about as much as he costs us, with a little pocket-money over.

  HIALMAR

  As much as he costs us! And you have never told me this before!

  GINA

  No, how could I tell you? It pleased you so much to think he got everything from you.

  HIALMAR

  And he gets it from Mr. Werle.

  GINA

  Oh well, he has plenty and to spare, he has.

  HIALMAR

  Light the lamp for me, please!

  GINA [Lighting the lamp.]

  And of course we don’t know as it’s Mr. Werle himself; it may he Gråberg——

  HIALMAR

  Why attempt such an evasion?

  GINA

  I don’t know; I only thought——

  HIALMAR

  H’m!

  GINA

  It wasn’t me that got grandfather that copying. It was Bertha, when she used to come about us.

  HIALMAR

  It seems to me your voice is trembling.

  GINA [Putting the lamp-shade on.]

  Is it?

  HIALMAR

  And your hands are shaking, are they not?

  GINA [Firmly.]

  Come right out with it, Ekdal. What has he been saying about me?

  HIALMAR

  Is it true—can it be true that—that there was an—an understanding between you and Mr. Werle, while you were in service there?

  GINA

  That’s not true. Not at that time. Mr. Werle did come after me, that’s a fact. And his wife thought there was something in it, and then she made such a hocus-pocus and hurly-burly, and she hustled me and bustled me about so, that I left her service.

  HIALMAR

  But afterwards, then?

  GINA

  Well, then I went home. And mother—well, she wasn’t the woman you took her for, Ekdal; she kept on worrying and worrying at me about one thing and another—for Mr. Werle was a widower by that time.

  HIALMAR

  Well, and then?

  GINA

  I suppose you’ve got to know it. He gave me no peace until he’d had his way.

  HIALMAR [Striking his hands together.]

  And this is the mother of my child! How could you hide this from me?

  GINA

  Yes, it was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.

  HIALMAR

  You should have told me at the very first;—then I should have known the sort of woman you were.

  GINA

  But would you have married me all the same?

  HIALMAR

  How can you dream that I would?

  GINA

  That’s just why I didn’t dare tell you anything, then. For I’d come to care for you so much, you see; and I couldn’t go and make myself utterly miserable——

  HIALMAR [Walks about.]

  And this is my Hedvig’s mother. And to know that all I see before

  me—

  [Kicks at a chair]

  —all that I call my home—I owe to a favoured predecessor! Oh

  that scoundrel Werle!

  GINA

  Do you repent of the fourteen—the fifteen years as we’ve lived together?

  HIALMAR [Placing himself in front of her.]

  Have you not every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s-web of deceit you have spun around me? Answer me that! How could you help writhing with penitence and remorse?

  GINA

  Oh, my dear Ekdal, I’ve had all I could do to look after the house and get through the day’s work——

  HIALMAR

  Then you never think of reviewing your past?

  GINA

  No; Heaven knows I’d almost forgotten those old stories.

  HIALMAR

  Oh, this dull, callous contentment! To me there is something revolting about it. Think of it—never so much as a twinge of remorse!

  GINA

  But tell me, Ekdal—what would have become of you if you hadn’t had a wife like me?

  HIALMAR

  Like you——!

  GINA

  Yes; for you know I’ve always been more practical and wide-awake than you. Of course I’m a year or two older.

  HIALMAR

  What would have become of me!

  GINA

  You’d got into all sorts of bad ways when first you met me; that you can’t deny.

  HIALMAR

  “Bad ways” do you call them? Little do you know what a man goes through when he is in grief and despair—especially a man of my fiery temperament.

  GINA

  Well, well, that may be so. And I’ve no reason to crow over you, neither; for you turned a moral of a husband, that you did, as soon as ever you had a house and home of your own.—And now we’d got everything so nice and cosy about us; and me and Hedvig was just thinking we’d soon be able to let ourselves go a bit, in the way of both food and clothes.

  HIALMAR

  In the swamp of deceit, yes.

  GINA

  I wish to goodness that detestable being had never set his foot inside our doors!

  HIALMAR

  And I, too, thought my home such a pleasant one. That was a delusion. Where shall I now find the elasticity of spirit to bring my invention into the world of reality? Perhaps it will die with me; and then it will be your past, Gina, that will have killed it.

  GINA [Nearly crying.]

  You mustn’t say such things, Ekdal. Me, that has only wanted to do the best I could for you, all my days!

  HIALMAR

  I ask you, what becomes of the breadwinner’s dream? When I used to lie in there on the sofa and brood over my invention, I had a clear enough presentiment that it would sap my vitality to the last drop. I felt even then that the day when I held the patent in my hand—that day—would bring my—release. And then it was my dream that you should live on after me, the dead inventor’s well-to-do widow.

  GINA [Drying her tears.]

  No, you mustn’t talk like that, Ekdal. May the Lord never let me see the day I am left a widow!

  HIALMAR

  Oh, the whole dream has vanished. It is all over now. All over!

  GREGERS WERLE opens the passage door cautiously and looks in.

  GREGERS

  May I come in?

  HIALMAR

  Yes, come in.

  GREGERS [Comes forward, his face beaming with satisfaction, and holds out both his hands to them.]

  Well, dear friends——!

  [Looks from one to the other, and whispers to HIALMAR.]

  Have you not done it yet?

  HIALMAR [Aloud.]

  It is done.

  GREGERS

  It is?

  HIALMAR

  I have passed through the bitterest moments of my life.

  GREGERS

  But also, I trust, the most ennobling.

  HIALMAR

  Well, at any rate, we have got through it for the present.

  GINA

  God forgive you, Mr. Werle.

  GREGERS [In great surprise.]

  But I don’t understand this.

  HIALMAR

  What don’t you understand?

  GREGERS

  After so great a crisis—a crisis that is to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from all taint of deception——

  HIALMAR

  Yes yes, I know; I know that quite well.

  GREGERS

  I confidently expected, when I entered the room, to find the light of transfiguration shining upon me from both husband and wife. And now I see nothing but dulness, oppression, gloom——

  GINA

  Oh, is that it?

  [Takes off the lamp-shade.]

  GREGERS

  You will not understand me, Mrs. Ekdal. Ah well, you, I suppose, need time to——. But you, Hialmar? Surely you feel a new consecration after the great crisis.

  HIALMAR

  Yes, of course I do. That is—in a sort of way.

  GREGERS

  For surely nothing in the world can compare with the joy of forgiving one who has erred, and raising her up to oneself in love.

  HIALMAR

  Do you think a man can so easily throw off the effects of the bitter cup I have drained?

  GREGERS

  No, not a common man, perhaps. But a man like you——!

  HIALMAR

  Good God! I know that well enough. But you must keep me up to it, Gregers. It takes time, you know.

  GREGERS

  You have much of the wild duck in you, Hialmar.

  RELLING has come in at the passage door.

  RELLING

  Oho! is the wild duck to the fore again?

  HIALMAR

  Yes; Mr. Werle’s wing-broken victim.

  RELLING

  Mr. Werle’s——? So it’s him you are talking about?

  HIALMAR

  Him and—ourselves.

  RELLING [In an undertone to GREGERS.]

  May the devil fly away with you!

  HIALMAR

  What is that you are saying?

  RELLING

  Only uttering a heartfelt wish that this quacksalver would take himself off. If he stays here, he is quite equal to making an utter mess of life, for both of you.

  GREGERS

  These two will not make a mess of life, Mr. Relling. Of course I won’t speak of Hialmar—him we know. But she, too, in her innermost heart, has certainly something loyal and sincere——

  GINA [Almost crying.]

  You might have let me alone for what I was, then.