BRACK [Rising.]

  Oh, not at all! The triangle, you know, ought, if possible, to be spontaneously constructed.

  HEDDA

  There I agree with you.

  BRACK

  Well, now I have said all I had to say; and I had better be getting back to town. Good-bye, Mrs. Hedda. [He goes towards the glass door.]

  HEDDA [Rising.]

  Are you going through the garden?

  BRACK

  Yes, it’s a short cut for me.

  HEDDA

  And then it is a back way, too.

  BRACK

  Quite so. I have no objection to back ways. They may be piquant enough at times.

  HEDDA

  When there is ball practice going on, you mean?

  BRACK [In the doorway, laughing to her.]

  Oh, people don’t shoot their tame poultry, I fancy.

  HEDDA [Also laughing.]

  Oh no, when there is only one cock in the basket——

  [They exchange laughing nods of farewell. He goes. She closes the door be

  hind him.]

  [HEDDA, who has become quite serious, stands for a moment looking out.

  Presently she goes and peeps through the curtain over the middle doorway.

  Then she goes to the writing-table, takes LÖVBORG’s packet out of the

  bookcase, and is on the point of looking through its contents. BERTA is

  heard speaking loudly in the hall. HEDDA turns and listens. Then she

  hastily locks up the packet in the drawer, and lays the key on the inkstand.]

  EILERT LÖVBORG, with his greatcoat on and his hat in his hand, tears open the hall door. He looks somewhat confused and irritated.

  LÖVBORG [Looking towards the hall.]

  And I tell you I must and will come in! There!

  [He closes the door, turns, sees HEDDA, at once regains his self-control,

  and bows.]

  HEDDA [At the writing-table.]

  Well, Mr. Lövborg, this is rather a late hour to call for Thea.

  LÖVBORG

  You mean rather an early hour to call on you. Pray pardon me.

  HEDDA

  How do you know that she is still here?

  LÖVBORG

  They told me at her lodgings that she had been out all night.

  HEDDA [Going to the oval table.]

  Did you notice anything about the people of the house when they said that?

  LÖVBORG [Looks inquiringly at her.]

  Notice anything about them?

  HEDDA

  I mean, did they seem to think it odd?

  LÖVBORG [Suddenly understanding.]

  Oh yes, of course! I am dragging her down with me! However, I didn’t notice anything.—I suppose Tesman is not up yet?

  HEDDA

  No—I think not——

  LÖVBORG

  When did he come home?

  HEDDA

  Very late.

  LÖVBORG

  Did he tell you anything?

  HEDDA

  Yes, I gathered that you had had an exceedingly jolly evening at Judge Brack’s.

  LÖVBORG

  Nothing more?

  HEDDA

  I don’t think so. However, I was so dreadfully sleepy——

  MRS. ELVSTED enters through the curtains of the middle doorway.

  MRS. ELVSTED [Going towards him.]

  Ah, Lövborg! At last——!

  LÖVBORG

  Yes, at last. And too late!

  MRS. ELVSTED [Looks anxiously at him.]

  What is too late?

  LÖVBORG

  Everything is too late now. It is all over with me.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Oh no, no—don’t say that!

  LÖVBORG

  You will say the same when you hear——

  MRS. ELVSTED

  I won’t hear anything!

  HEDDA

  Perhaps you would prefer to talk to her alone? If so, I will leave you.

  LÖVBORG

  No, stay—you too. I beg you to stay.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Yes, but I won’t hear anything, I tell you.

  LÖVBORG

  It is not last night’s adventures that I want to talk about.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  What is it then——?

  LÖVBORG

  I want to say that now our ways must part.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Part!

  HEDDA [Involuntarily.]

  I knew it!

  LÖVBORG

  You can be of no more service to me, Thea.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  How can you stand there and say that! No more service to you! Am I not to help you now, as before? Are we not to go on working together?

  LÖVBORG

  Henceforward I shall do no work.

  MRS. ELVSTED [Despairingly.]

  Then what am I to do with my life?

  LÖVBORG

  You must try to live your life as if you had never known me.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  But you know I cannot do that!

  LÖVBORG

  Try if you cannot, Thea. You must go home again——

  MRS. ELVSTED [In vehement protest.]

  Never in this world! Where you are, there will I be also! I will not let myself be driven away like this! I will remain here! I will be with you when the book appears.

  HEDDA [Half aloud, in suspense.]

  Ah yes—the book!

  LÖVBORG [Looks at her.]

  My book and Thea’s; for that is what it is.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Yes, I feel that it is. And that is why I have a right to be with you when it appears! I will see with my own eyes how respect and honour pour in upon you afresh. And the happiness—the happiness—oh, I must share it with you!

  LÖVBORG

  Thea—our book will never appear.

  HEDDA

  Ah!

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Never appear!

  LÖVBORG

  Can never appear.

  MRS. ELVSTED [In agonised foreboding.]

  Lövborg—what have you done with the manuscript?

  HEDDA [Looks anxiously at him.]

  Yes, the manuscript——?

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Where is it?

  LÖVBORG

  Oh Thea—don’t ask me about it!

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Yes, yes, I will know. I demand to be told at once.

  LÖVBORG

  The manuscript——. Well then—I have torn the manuscript into a thousand pieces.

  MRS. ELVSTED [Shrieks.]

  Oh no, no——!

  HEDDA [Involuntarily.]

  But that’s not——

  LÖVBORG [Looks at her.]

  Not true, you think?

  HEDDA [Collecting herself]

  Oh well, of course—since you say so. But it sounded so improbable——

  LÖVBORG

  It is true, all the same.

  MRS. ELVSTED [Wringing her hands.]

  Oh God—oh God, Hedda—torn his own work to pieces!

  LÖVBORG

  I have torn my own life to pieces. So why should I not tear my life-work too——?

  MRS. ELVSTED

  And you did this last night?

  LÖVBORG

  Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces—and scattered them on the fiord—far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate—let them drift upon it—drift with the current and the wind. And then presently they will sink—deeper and deeper—as I shall, Thea.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Do you know, Lövborg, that what you have done with the book—I shall think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child.

  LÖVBORG

  Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder.

  MRS. ELVSTED

  How could you, then——! Did not the child belong to me too?

  HEDDA [Almost inaudibly.]

  Ah, the child——

  MRS. ELVSTED [Breathing heavily.]

  It is all over then. Well well, now I will go, Hedda.

  HEDDA

  But you are not going away from town?

  MRS. ELVSTED

  Oh, I don’t know what I shall do. I see nothing but darkness

  before me.

  [She goes out by the hall door.]

  HEDDA [Stands waiting for a moment.]

  So you are not going to see her home, Mr. Lövborg?

  LÖVBORG

  I? Through the streets? Would you have people see her walking with me?

  HEDDA

  Of course I don’t know what else may have happened last night. But is it so utterly irretrievable?

  LÖVBORG

  It will not end with last night—I know that perfectly well. And the thing is that now I have no taste for that sort of life either. I won’t begin it anew. She has broken my courage and my power of braving life out.

  HEDDA [Looking straight before her.]

  So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man’s destiny.

  [Looks at him.]

  But all the same, how could you treat her so heartlessly.

  LÖVBORG

  Oh, don’t say that it was heartless!

  HEDDA

  To go and destroy what has filled her whole soul for months and years! You do not call that heartless!

  LÖVBORG

  To you I can tell the truth, Hedda.

  HEDDA

  The truth?

  LÖVBORG

  First promise me—give me your word—that what I now confide to you Thea shall never know.

  HEDDA

  I give you my word.

  LÖVBORG

  Good. Then let me tell you that what I said just now was untrue.

  HEDDA

  About the manuscript?

  LÖVBORG

  Yes. I have not torn it to pieces—nor thrown it into the fiord.

  HEDDA

  No, no——. But—where is it then?

  LÖVBORG

  I have destroyed it none the less—utterly destroyed it, Hedda!

  HEDDA

  I don’t understand.

  LÖVBORG

  Thea said that what I had done seemed to her like a child-murder.

  HEDDA

  Yes, so she said.

  LÖVBORG

  But to kill his child—that is not the worst thing a father can do to it.

  HEDDA

  Not the worst?

  LÖVBORG

  No. I wanted to spare Thea from hearing the worst.

  HEDDA

  Then what is the worst?

  LÖVBORG

  Suppose now, Hedda, that a man—in the small hours of the morning—came home to his child’s mother after a night of riot and debauchery, and said: “Listen—I have been here and there—in this place and in that. And I have taken our child with me—to this place and to that. And I have lost the child—utterly lost it. The devil knows into what hands it may have fallen—who may have had their clutches on it.”

  HEDDA

  Well—but when all is said and done, you know—this was only a book——

  LÖVBORG

  Thea’s pure soul was in that book.

  HEDDA

  Yes, so I understand.

  LÖVBORG

  And you can understand, too, that for her and me together no future is possible.

  HEDDA

  What path do you mean to take then?

  LÖVBORG

  None. I will only try to make an end of it all—the sooner the better.

  HEDDA [A step nearer him.]

  Eilert Lövborg—listen to me.—Will you not try to—to do it beautifully?

  LÖVBORG

  Beautifully?

  [Smiling.]

  With vine-leaves in my hair, as you used to dream in the old

  days——?

  HEDDA

  No, no. I have lost my faith in the vine-leaves. But beautifully nevertheless! For once in a way!—Good-bye! You must go now—and do not come here any more.

  LÖVBORG

  Good-bye, Mrs. Tesman. And give George Tesman my love. [He is on the point of going.]

  HEDDA

  No, wait! I must give you a memento to take with you.

  [She goes to the writing-table and opens the drawer and the pistol-case;

  then returns to LÖVBORG with one of the pistols.]

  LÖVBORG [Looks at her.]

  This? Is this the memento?

  HEDDA [Nodding slowly.]

  Do you recognise it? It was aimed at you once.

  LÖVBORG

  You should have used it then.

  HEDDA

  Take it—and do you use it now.

  LÖVBORG [Puts the pistol in his breast pocket.]

  Thanks!

  HEDDA

  And beautifully, Eilert Lövborg. Promise me that!

  LÖVBORG

  Good-bye, Hedda Gabler.

  [He goes out by the hall door.]

  [HEDDA listens for a moment at the door. Then she goes up to the

  writing-table, takes out the packet of manuscript, peeps under the cover,

  draws a few of the sheets half out, and looks at them. Next she goes over

  and seats herself in the arm-chair beside the stove, with the packet in her

  lap. Presently she opens the stove door, and then the packet.]

  HEDDA [Throws one of the quires into the fire and whispers to herself.]

  Now I am burning your child, Thea!—Burning it, curly-locks!

  [Throwing one or two more quires into the stove.]

  Your child and Eilert Lövborg’s.

  [Throws the rest in.]

  I am burning—I am burning your child.

  ACT FOURTH

  The same rooms at the TESMANS’. It is evening.The drawing-room is in darkness.The back room is lighted by the hanging lamp over the table. The curtains over the glass door are drawn close.

  HEDDA, dressed in black, walks to and fro in the dark room.Then she goes into the back room and disappears for a moment to the left. She is heard to strike a few chords on the piano. Presently she comes in sight again, and returns to the drawing-room.

  BERTA enters from the right, through the inner room, with a lighted lamp, which she places on the table in front of the corner settee in the drawing-room. Her eyes are red with weeping, and she has black ribbons in her cap. She goes quietly and circumspectly out to the right. HEDDA goes up to the glass door, lifts the curtain a little aside, and looks out into the darkness.

  Shortly afterwards, MISS TESMAN, in mourning, with a bonnet and veil on, comes in from the hall. HEDDA goes towards her and holds out her hand.

  MISS TESMAN

  Yes, Hedda, here I am, in mourning and forlorn; for now my poor sister has at last found peace.

  HEDDA

  I have heard the news already, as you see. Tesman sent me a card.

  MISS TESMAN

  Yes, he promised me he would. But nevertheless I thought that to Hedda—here in the house of life—I ought myself to bring the tidings of death.

  HEDDA

  That was very kind of you.

  MISS TESMAN

  Ah, Rina ought not to have left us just now. This is not the time for Hedda’s house to be a house of mourning.

  HEDDA [Changing the subject.]

  She died quite peacefully, did she not, Miss Tesman?

  MISS TESMAN

  Oh, her end was so calm, so beautiful. And then she had the unspeakable happiness of seeing George once more—and bidding him good-bye.—Has he not come home yet?

  HEDDA

  No. He wrote that he might be detained. But won’t you sit down?

  MISS TESMAN

  No, thank you, my dear, dear Hedda. I should like to, but I have so much to do. I must prepare my dear one for her rest as well as I can. She shall go to her grave looking her best.

  HEDDA

  Can I not help you in any way?

  MISS TESMAN

  Oh, you must not think of it! Hedda Tesman must have no hand in such mournful work. Nor let her thoughts dwell on it either—not at this time.

  HEDDA

  One is not always mistress of one’s thoughts——

  MISS TESMAN [Continuing.]

  Ah yes, it is the way of the world. At home we shall be sewing a shroud; and here there will soon be sewing too, I suppose—but of another sort, thank God!

  GEORGE TESMAN enters by the hall door.

  HEDDA

  Ah, you have come at last!

  TESMAN

  You here, Aunt Julia? With Hedda? Fancy that!

  MISS TESMAN

  I was just going, my dear boy. Well, have you done all you promised?