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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN
VOLUME VII
A DOLL’S HOUSE
GHOSTS
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN
_Copyright Edition. Complete in 11 Volumes._
_Crown 8vo, price 4s. each._
=ENTIRELY REVISED AND EDITED BY=
=WILLIAM ARCHER=
Vol. I. Lady Inger, The Feast at Solhoug, Love’s
Comedy
Vol. II. The Vikings, The Pretenders
Vol. III. Brand
Vol. IV. Peer Gynt
Vol. V. Emperor and Galilean (2 parts)
Vol. VI. The League of Youth, Pillars of Society
Vol. VII. A Doll’s House, Ghosts
Vol. VIII. An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck
Vol. IX. Rosmersholm, The Lady from the Sea
Vol. X. Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder
Vol. XI. Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman, When
We Dead Awaken
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.
21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN
COPYRIGHT EDITION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOLUME VII
A DOLL’S HOUSE
GHOSTS
WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY
WILLIAM ARCHER
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: title page]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1909
_Collected Edition first printed 1906_
_Second Impression 1909_
_Copyright 1906 by William Heinemann_
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION TO “A DOLL’S HOUSE” vii
INTRODUCTION TO “GHOSTS” xvii
“A DOLL’S HOUSE” 1
_Translated by_ WILLIAM ARCHER
“GHOSTS” 157
_Translated by_ WILLIAM ARCHER
A DOLL’S HOUSE.
INTRODUCTION.
On June 27, 1879, Ibsen wrote from Rome to Marcus Grönvold: “It is now
rather hot in Rome, so in about a week we are going to Amalfi, which,
being close to the sea, is cooler, and offers opportunity for bathing. I
intend to complete there a new dramatic work on which I am now engaged.”
From Amalfi, on September 20, he wrote to John Paulsen: “A new dramatic
work, which I have just completed, has occupied so much of my time
during these last months that I have had absolutely none to spare for
answering letters.” This “new dramatic work” was _Et Dukkehjem_, which
was published in Copenhagen, December 4, 1879. Dr. George Brandes has
given some account of the episode in real life which suggested to Ibsen
the plot of this play; but the real Nora, it appears, committed forgery,
not to save her husband’s life, but to redecorate her house. The impulse
received from this incident must have been trifling. It is much more to
the purpose to remember that the character and situation of Nora had
been clearly foreshadowed, ten years earlier, in the figure of Selma in
_The League of Youth_.
It is with _A Doll’s House_ that Ibsen enters upon his kingdom as a
world-poet. He had done greater work in the past, and he was to do
greater work in the future; but this was the play which was destined to
carry his name beyond the limits of Scandinavia, and even of Germany, to
the remotest regions of civilisation. Here the Fates were not altogether
kind to him. The fact that for many years he was known to thousands of
people solely as the author of _A Doll’s House_, and its successor,
_Ghosts_, was largely responsible for the extravagant misconceptions of
his genius and character which prevailed during the last decade of the
nineteenth century, and are not yet entirely extinct. In these plays he
seemed to be delivering a direct assault on marriage, from the
standpoint of feminine individualism; wherefore he was taken to be a
preacher and pamphleteer rather than a poet. In these plays, and in
these only, he made physical disease a considerable factor in the
action; whence it was concluded that he had a morbid predilection for
“nauseous” subjects. In these plays he laid special and perhaps
disproportionate stress on the influence of heredity; whence he was
believed to be possessed by a monomania on the point. In these plays,
finally, he was trying to act the essentially uncongenial part of the
prosaic realist. The effort broke down at many points, and the poet
reasserted himself; but these flaws in the prosaic texture were regarded
as mere bewildering errors and eccentricities. In short, he was
introduced to the world at large through two plays which showed his
power, indeed, almost in perfection, but left the higher and subtler
qualities of his genius for the most part unrepresented. Hence the
grotesquely distorted vision of him which for so long haunted the minds
even of intelligent people. Hence, for example, the amazing opinion,
given forth as a truism by more than one critic of great ability, that
the author of _Peer Gynt_ was devoid of humour.
Within a little more than a fortnight of its publication _A Doll’s
House_ was presented at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, where Fru
Hennings, as Nora, made the great success of her career. The play was
soon being acted, as well as read, all over Scandinavia. Nora’s
startling “declaration of independence” afforded such an inexhaustible
theme for heated discussion, that at last it had to be formally barred
at social gatherings, just as, in Paris twenty years later, the Dreyfus
Case was proclaimed a prohibited topic. The popularity of _Pillars of
Society_ in Germany had paved the way for its successor, which spread
far and wide over the German stage in the spring of 1880, and has ever
since held its place in the repertory of the leading theatres. As his
works were at that time wholly unprotected in Germany, Ibsen could not
prevent managers from altering the end of the play to suit their taste
and fancy. He was thus driven, under protest, to write an alternative
ending, in which, at the last moment, the thought of her children
restrained Nora from leaving home. He preferred, as he said, “to commit
the outrage himself, rather than leave his work to the tender mercies of
adapters.” The patched-up ending soon dropped out of use and out of
memory. Ibsen’s own account of the matter will be found in his
_Correspondence_, Letter 142.
It took ten years for the play to pass beyond the limits of Scandinavia
and Germany. Madame Modjeska, it is true, presented a version of it in
Louisville, Kentucky, in 1883, but it attracted no attention. In the
following year Messrs. Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman produced at
the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, a play entitled _Breaking a
Butterfly_, which was described as being “founded on Ibsen’s _Norah_”
but bore only a remote resemblance to the original. In this production
Mr. Beerbohm Tree took the part of Dunkley, a melodramatic villain who
filled the place of Krogstad. In 1885, again, an adventurous amateur
club gave a quaint performance of Miss Lord’s translation of the play at
a hall in Argyle Street, London. Not until June 7, 1889, was a _A Doll’s
House_ competently, and even brilliantly, presented to the English
public, by Mr. Charles Charrington and Miss Janet Achurch, at the
Novelty Theatre, London, afterwards re-named the Great Queen Street
Theatre. It was this production that really made Ibsen known to the
English-speaking peoples. In other words, it marked his second great
stride towards world-wide, as distinct from merely national, renown—if
we reckon as the first stride the success of _Pillars of Society_ in
Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Charrington took _A Doll’s House_ with them on a
long Australian tour; Miss Beatrice Cameron (Mrs. Richard Mansfield) was
encouraged by the success of the London production to present the play
in New York, whence it soon spread to other American cities; while in
London itself it was frequently revived and vehemently discussed. The
Ibsen controversy, indeed, did not break out in its full virulence until
1891, when _Ghosts_ and _Hedda Gabler_ were produced in London; but from
the date of the Novelty production onwards, Ibsen was generally
recognised as a potent factor in the intellectual and artistic life of
the day.
A French adaptation of _Et Dukkehjem_ was produced in Brussels in March
1889, but attracted little attention. Not until 1894 was the play
introduced to the Parisian public, at the Gymnase, with Madame Réjane as
Nora. This actress has since played the part frequently, not only in
Paris but in London and in America. In Italian the play was first
produced in 1889, and soon passed into the repertory of Eleonora Duse,
who appeared as Nora in London in 1893. Few heroines in modern drama
have been played by so many actresses of the first rank. To those
already enumerated must be added Hedwig Niemann-Raabe and Agnes Sorma in
Germany, and Minnie Maddern-Fiske in America; and, even so, the list is
far from complete. There is probably no country in the world, possessing
a theatre on the European model, in which _A Doll’s House_ has not been
more or less frequently acted.
Undoubtedly the great attraction of the part of Nora to the average
actress was the tarantella scene. This was a theatrical effect, of an
obvious, unmistakable kind. It might have been—though I am not aware
that it ever actually was—made the subject of a picture-poster. But
this, as it seems to me, was Ibsen’s last concession to the ideal of
technique which he had acquired, in the old Bergen days, from his French
masters. I have elsewhere[1] analysed _A Doll’s House_ at some length,
from the technical point of view, suggesting that it marks a distinct,
and one might almost say a sudden, revolution in the poet’s
understanding of the methods and aims of his art. There is pretty good
reason to suppose, as it seems to me, that he altered the plan of the
play while it was actually in process of composition. He seems
originally to have schemed a “happy ending,” like that of _The League of
Youth_ or _Pillars of Society_. No doubt it is convenient, even for the
purposes of the play as it stands, that all fear of hostile action on
Krogstad’s part should be dissipated before Nora and Helmer settle down
to their final explanation; but is the convenience sufficiently great to
account for the invention, to that end alone, of Mrs. Linden’s relation
to, and influence over, Krogstad? I very much question it. I think the
“happy ending” which is actually reached when Krogstad returns the
forged document was, in Ibsen’s original conception, intended to be
equivalent to the stopping of the _Indian Girl_, and the return of Olaf,
in _Pillars of Society_—that is to say, it was to be the end of the
drama properly so called, and the rest was to be a more or less
conventional winding-up, a confession of faults on both sides,
accompanied by mutual congratulations on the blowing-over of the
threatened storm. This is the end which, as we see, every one expected:
the end which adapters, in Germany, England, and elsewhere, insisted on
giving to the play. There was just a shade of excuse for these
gentlemen, inasmuch as the poet himself seemed to have elaborately
prepared the way for them; and I suggest that the fact of his having
done so shows that the play, in embryo, passed through the phase of
technical development represented by _Pillars of Society_—the phase to
which its amenders would have forced it to return. Ibsen, on the other
hand, when he proceeded from planning in outline to creation in detail,
found his characters outgrow his plot. When the action, in the
theatrical sense, was over, they were only on the threshold of the
essential drama; and in that drama, compressed into the final scene of
the play, Ibsen found his true power and his true mission.
How impossible, in his subsequent work, would be such figures as Mrs.
Linden, the confidant, and Krogstad, the villain! They are not quite the
ordinary confidant and villain, for Ibsen is always Ibsen, and his power
of vitalisation is extraordinary. Yet we clearly feel them to belong to
a different order of art from that of his later plays. How impossible,
too, in the poet’s after years, would have been the little tricks of
ironic coincidence and picturesque contrast which abound in _A Doll’s
House_! The festal atmosphere of the whole play, the Christmas-tree, the
tarantella, the masquerade ball, with its distant sounds of music—all
the shimmer and tinsel of the background against which Nora’s
soul-torture and Rank’s despair are thrown into relief belong to the
system of external, artificial antithesis beloved by romantic
playwrights from Lope de Vega onward, and carried to its limit by Victor
Hugo. The same artificiality is apparent in minor details. “Oh, what a
wonderful thing it is to live to be happy!” cries Nora, and instantly
“The hall-door bell rings” and Krogstad’s shadow falls across the
threshold. So, too, for his second entrance, an elaborate effect of
contrast is arranged, between Nora’s gleeful romp with her children and
the sinister figure which stands unannounced in their midst. It would be
too much to call these things absolutely unnatural, but the very
precision of the coincidence is eloquent of pre-arrangement. At any
rate, they belong to an order of effects which in future Ibsen
sedulously eschews. The one apparent exception to this rule which I can
remember occurs in _The Master Builder_, where Solness’s remark,
“Presently the younger generation will come knocking at my door,” gives
the cue for Hilda’s knock and entrance. But here an interesting
distinction is to be noted. Throughout _The Master Builder_ the poet
subtly indicates the operation of mysterious, unseen agencies—the
“helpers and servers” of whom Solness speaks, as well as the Power with
which he held converse at the crisis in his life—guiding, or at any rate
tampering with, the destinies of the characters. This being so, it is
evident that the effect of pre-arrangement produced by Hilda’s appearing
exactly on the given cue was deliberately aimed at. Like so many other
details in the play, it might be a mere coincidence, or it might be a
result of inscrutable design—we were purposely left in doubt. But the
suggestion of pre-arrangement which helped to create the atmosphere of
the _The Master Builder_ was wholly out of place in _A Doll’s House_. In
the later play it was a subtle stroke of art; in the earlier it was the
effect of imperfectly dissembled artifice.
My conjecture of an actual modification of Ibsen’s design during the
progress of the play may possibly be mistaken. There can be no doubt, on
the other hand, that Ibsen’s full originality first reveals itself in
the latter half of the third act. This is proved by the very protests,
nay, the actual rebellion, which the last scene called forth. Up to that
point he had been doing, approximately, what theatrical orthodoxy
demanded of him. But when Nora, having put off her masquerade dress,
returned to make up her account with Helmer, and with marriage as Helmer
understood it, the poet flew in the face of orthodoxy, and its
professors cried out in bewilderment and wrath. But it was just at this
point that, in practice, the real grip and thrill of the drama were
found to come in. The tarantella scene never, in my experience—and I
have seen five or six great actresses in the part—produced an effect in
any degree commensurate with the effort involved. But when Nora and
Helmer faced each other, one on each side of the table, and set to work
to ravel out the skein of their illusions, then one felt oneself face to
face with a new thing in drama—an order of experience, at once
intellectual and emotional, not hitherto attained in the theatre. This
every one felt, I think, who was in any way accessible to that order of
experience. For my own part, I shall never forget how surprised I was on
first seeing the play, to find this scene, in its naked simplicity, far
more exciting and moving than all the artfully-arranged situations of
the earlier acts. To the same effect, from another point of view, we
have the testimony of Fru Hennings, the first actress who ever played
the part of Nora. In an interview published soon after Ibsen’s death,
she spoke of the delight it was to her, in her youth, to embody the Nora
of the first and second acts, the “lark,” the “squirrel,” the
irresponsible, butterfly Nora. “When I now play the part,” she went on,
“the first acts leave me indifferent. Not until the third act am I
really interested—but then, intensely.” To call the first and second
acts positively uninteresting would of course be a gross exaggeration.
What one really means is that their workmanship is still a little
derivative and immature, and that not until the third act does the poet
reveal the full originality and individuality of his genius.
GHOSTS.
INTRODUCTION.
The winter of 1879-80 Ibsen spent in Munich, and the greater part of the
summer of 1880 at Berchtesgaden. November 1880 saw him back in Rome, and
he passed the summer of 1881 at Sorrento. There, fourteen years earlier,
he had written the last acts of _Peer Gynt_; there he now wrote, or at
any rate completed, _Gengangere_. It was published in December 1881,
after he had returned to Rome. On December 22 he wrote to Ludwig
Passarge, one of his German translators, “My new play has now appeared,
and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian press; every
day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or praising it....
I consider it utterly impossible that any German theatre will accept the
play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to play it in the
Scandinavian countries for some time to come.” How rightly he judged we
shall see anon.
In the newspapers there was far more obloquy than praise. Two men,
however, stood by him from the first: Björnson, from whom he had been
practically estranged ever since _The League of Youth_, and George
Brandes. The latter published an article in which he declared (I quote
from memory) that the play might or might not be Ibsen’s greatest work,
but that it was certainly his noblest deed. It was, doubtless, in
acknowledgment of this article that Ibsen wrote to Brandes on January 3,
1882: “Yesterday I had the great pleasure of receiving your brilliantly
clear and so warmly appreciative review of _Ghosts_.... All who read
your article must, it seems to me, have their eyes opened to what I
meant by my new book—assuming, that is, that they have any _wish_ to
see. For I cannot get rid of the impression that a very large number of
the false interpretations which have appeared in the newspapers are the
work of people who know better. In Norway, however, I am willing to
believe that the stultification has in most cases been unintentional;
and the reason is not far to seek. In that country a great many of the
critics are theologians, more or less disguised; and these gentlemen
are, as a rule, quite unable to write rationally about creative
literature. That enfeeblement of judgment which, at least in the case of
the average man, is an inevitable consequence of prolonged occupation
with theological studies, betrays itself more especially in the judging
of human character, human actions, and human motives. Practical business
judgment, on the other hand, does not suffer so much from studies of
this order. Therefore the reverend gentlemen are very often excellent
members of local boards; but they are unquestionably our worst critics.”
This passage is interesting as showing clearly the point of view from
which Ibsen conceived the character of Manders. In the next paragraph of
the same letter he discusses the attitude of “the so-called Liberal
press”; but as the paragraph contains the germ of _An Enemy of the
People_, it may most fittingly be quoted in the introduction to that
play.
Three days later (January 6) Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish
novelist: “I was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our
Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have an
unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and
misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge....
They endeavour to make me responsible for the opinions which certain of
the personages of my drama express. And yet there is not in the whole
book a single opinion, a single utterance, which can be laid to the
account of the author. I took good care to avoid this. The very method,
the order of technique which imposes its form upon the play, forbids the
author to appear in the speeches of his characters. My object was to
make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real
experience; and nothing could more effectually prevent such an
impression than the intrusion of the author’s private opinions into the
dialogue. Do they imagine at home that I am so inexpert in the theory of
drama as not to know this? Of course I know it, and act accordingly. In
no other play that I have written is the author so external to the
action, so entirely absent from it, as in this last one.”
“They say,” he continued, “that the book preaches Nihilism. Not at all.
It is not concerned to preach anything whatsoever. It merely points to
the ferment of Nihilism going on under the surface, at home as
elsewhere. A Pastor Manders will always goad one or other Mrs. Alving to
revolt. And just because she is a woman, she will, when once she has
begun, go to the utmost extremes.”
Towards the end of January Ibsen wrote from Rome to Olaf Skavlan: “These
last weeks have brought me a wealth of experiences, lessons, and
discoveries. I, of course, foresaw that my new play would call forth a
howl from the camp of the stagnationists; and for this I care no more
than for the barking of a pack of chained dogs. But the pusillanimity
which I have observed among the so-called Liberals has given me cause
for reflection. The very day after my play was published the _Dagblad_
rushed out a hurriedly-written article, evidently designed to purge
itself of all suspicion of complicity in my work. This was entirely
unnecessary. I myself am responsible for what I write, I and no one
else. I cannot possibly embarrass any party, for to no party do I
belong. I stand like a solitary franc-tireur at the outposts, and fight
for my own hand. The only man in Norway who has stood up freely,
frankly, and courageously for me is Björnson. It is just like him. He
has in truth a great, kingly soul, and I shall never forget his action
in this matter.”
One more quotation completes the history of these stirring January days,
as written by Ibsen himself. It occurs in a letter to a Danish
journalist, Otto Borchsenius. “It may well be,” the poet writes, “that
the play is in several respects rather daring. But it seemed to me that
the time had come for moving some boundary-posts. And this was an
undertaking for which a man of the older generation, like myself, was
better fitted than the many younger authors who might desire to do
something of the kind. I was prepared for a storm; but such storms one
must not shrink from encountering. That would be cowardice.”
It happened that, just in these days, the present writer had frequent
opportunities of conversing with Ibsen, and of hearing from his own lips
almost all the views expressed in the above extracts. He was especially
emphatic, I remember, in protesting against the notion that the opinions
expressed by Mrs. Alving or Oswald were to be attributed to himself. He
insisted, on the contrary, that Mrs. Alving’s views were merely typical
of the moral chaos inevitably produced by re-action from the narrow
conventionalism represented by Manders.
With one consent, the leading theatres of the three Scandinavian
capitals declined to have anything to do with the play. It was more than
eighteen months old before it found its way to the stage at all. In
August 1883 it was acted for the first time at Helsingborg, Sweden, by a
travelling company under the direction of an eminent Swedish actor,
August Lindberg, who himself played Oswald. He took it on tour round the
principal cities of Scandinavia, playing it, among the rest, at a minor
theatre in Christiania. It happened that the boards of the Christiania
Theatre were at the same time occupied by a French farce; and public
demonstrations of protest were made against the managerial policy which
gave _Tête de Linotte_ the preference over _Gengangere_. Gradually the
prejudice against the play broke down. Already in the autumn of 1883 it
was produced at the Royal (Dramatiska) Theatre in Stockholm. When the
new National Theatre was opened in Christiania in 1899, _Gengangere_
found an early place in its repertory; and even the Royal Theatre in
Copenhagen has since opened its doors to the tragedy.
Not until April 1886 was _Gespenster_ acted in Germany, and then only at
a private performance, at the Stadttheater, Augsburg, the poet himself
being present. In the following winter it was acted at the famous Court
Theatre at Meiningen, again in the presence of the poet. The first
(private) performance in Berlin took place on January 9, 1887, at the
Residenz Theater; and when the Freie Bühne, founded on the model of the
Paris Théâtre Libre, began its operations two years later (September 29,
1889), _Gespenster_ was the first play that it produced. The Freie Bühne
gave the initial impulse to the whole modern movement which has given
Germany a new dramatic literature; and the leaders of the movement,
whether authors or critics, were one and all ardent disciples of Ibsen,
who regarded _Gespenster_ as his typical masterpiece. In Germany, then,
the play certainly did, in Ibsen’s own words, “move some
boundary-posts.” The Prussian censorship, presently withdrew its veto,
and on November 27, 1894, the two leading literary theatres of Berlin,
the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, gave simultaneous
performances of the tragedy. Everywhere in Germany and Austria it is now
freely performed; but it is naturally one of the least popular of
Ibsen’s plays.
It was with _Les Revenants_ that Ibsen made his first appearance on the
French stage. The play was produced by the Théâtre Libre (at the Théâtre
des Menus-Plaisirs) on May 29, 1890. Here, again, it became the
watchword of the new school of authors and critics, and aroused a good
deal of opposition among the old school. But the most hostile French
criticisms were moderation itself compared with the torrents of abuse
which were poured upon _Ghosts_ by the journalists of London when, on
March 13, 1891, the Independent Theatre, under the direction of Mr. J.
T. Grein, gave a private performance of the play at the Royalty Theatre,
Soho. I have elsewhere[2] placed upon record some of the amazing feats
of vituperation achieved of the critics, and will not here recall them.
It is sufficient to say that if the play had been a tenth part as
nauseous as the epithets hurled at it and its author, the Censor’s veto
would have been amply justified. That veto is still (1906) in force.
England enjoys the proud distinction of being the one country in the
world where _Ghosts_ may not be publicly acted.
In the United States, the first performance of the play in English took
place at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York City, on January 5, 1894. The
production was described by Mr. W. D. Howells as “a great theatrical
event—the very greatest I have ever known.” Other leading men of letters
were equally impressed by it. Five years later, a second production took
place at the Carnegie Lyceum; and an adventurous manager has even taken
the play on tour in the United States. The Italian version of the
tragedy, _Gli Spettri_, has ever since 1892 taken a prominent place in
the repertory of the great actors Zaccone and Novelli, who have acted
it, not only throughout Italy, but in Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain,
and South America.
In an interview, published immediately after Ibsen’s death, Björnstjerne
Björnson, questioned as to what he held to be his brother-poet’s
greatest work, replied, without a moment’s hesitation, _Gengangere_.
This dictum can scarcely, I think, be accepted without some
qualification. Even confining our attention to the modern plays, and
leaving out of comparison _The Pretenders_, _Brand_, and _Peer Gynt_, we
can scarcely call _Ghosts_ Ibsen’s richest or most human play, and
certainly not his profoundest or most poetical. If some omnipotent
Censorship decreed the annihilation of all his works save one, few
people, I imagine, would vote that that one should be _Ghosts_. Even if
half a dozen works were to be saved from the wreck, I doubt whether I,
for my part, would include _Ghosts_ in the list. It is, in my judgment,
a little bare, hard, austere. It is the first work in which Ibsen
applies his new technical method—evolved, as I have suggested, during
the composition of _A Doll’s House_—and he applies it with something of
fanaticism. He is under the sway of a prosaic ideal—confessed in the
phrase, “My object was to make the reader feel that he was going through
a piece of real experience”—and he is putting some constraint upon the
poet within him. The action moves a little stiffly, and all in one
rhythm. It lacks variety and suppleness. Moreover, the play affords some
slight excuse for the criticism which persists in regarding Ibsen as a
preacher rather than as a creator—an author who cares more for ideas and
doctrines than for human beings. Though Mrs. Alving, Engstrand and
Regina are rounded and breathing characters, it cannot be denied that
Manders strikes one as a clerical type rather than an individual, while
even Oswald might not quite unfairly be described as simply and solely
his father’s son, an object-lesson in heredity. We cannot be said to
know him, individually and intimately, as we know Helmer or Stockmann,
Hialmar Ekdal or Gregers Werle. Then, again, there are one or two
curious flaws in the play. The question whether Oswald’s “case” is one
which actually presents itself in the medical books seems to me of very
trifling moment. It is typically true, even if it be not true in detail.
The suddenness of the catastrophe may possibly be exaggerated, its
premonitions and even its essential nature may be misdescribed. On the
other hand, I conceive it probable that the poet had documents to found
upon, which may be unknown to his critics. I have never taken any pains
to satisfy myself upon the point, which seems to me quite immaterial.
There is not the slightest doubt that the life-history of a Captain
Alving may, and often does, entail upon posterity consequences quite as
tragic as those which ensue in Oswald’s case, and far more
wide-spreading. That being so, the artistic justification of the poets
presentment of the case is certainly not dependent on its absolute
scientific accuracy. The flaws above alluded to are of another nature.
One of them is the prominence given to the fact that the Asylum is
uninsured. No doubt there is some symbolical purport in the
circumstance; but I cannot think that it is either sufficiently clear or
sufficiently important to justify the emphasis thrown upon it at the end
of the second act. Another dubious point is Oswald’s argument in the
first act as to the expensiveness of marriage as compared with free
union. Since the parties to free union, as he describes it, accept all
the responsibilities of marriage, and only pretermit the ceremony, the
difference of expense, one would suppose, must be neither more nor less
than the actual marriage fee. I have never seen this remark of Oswald’s
adequately explained, either as a matter of economic fact, or as a trait
of character. Another blemish, of somewhat greater moment, is the
inconceivable facility with which, in the third act, Manders suffers
himself to be victimised by Engstrand. All these little things, taken
together, detract, as it seems to me, from the artistic completeness of
the play, and impair its claim to rank as the poet’s masterpiece. Even
in prose drama, his greatest and most consummate achievements were yet
to come.
Must we, then, wholly dissent from Björnson’s judgment? I think not. In
a historical, if not in an æsthetic, sense, _Ghosts_ may well rank as
Ibsen’s greatest work. It was the play which first gave the full measure
of his technical and spiritual originality and daring. It has done far
more than any other of his plays to “move boundary-posts.” It has
advanced the frontiers of dramatic art and implanted new ideals, both
technical and intellectual, in the minds of a whole generation of
playwrights. It ranks with _Hernani_ and _La Dame aux Camélias_ among
the epoch-making plays of the nineteenth century, while in point of
essential originality it towers above them. We cannot, I think, get
nearer to the truth than George Brandes did in the above-quoted phrase
from his first notice of the play, describing it as not, perhaps, the
poet’s greatest work, but certainly his noblest deed. In another essay,
Brandes has pointed to it, with equal justice, as marking Ibsen’s final
breach with his early—one might almost say his hereditary—romanticism.
He here becomes, at last, “the most modern of the moderns.” “This, I am
convinced,” says the Danish critic, “is his imperishable glory, and will
give lasting life to his works.”
W. A.
A DOLL’S HOUSE
CHARACTERS.
TORVALD HELMER.
NORA, _his wife_.
DOCTOR RANK.
MRS. LINDEN.[3]
NILS KROGSTAD.
THE HELMERS’ THREE CHILDREN.
ANNA,[4] _their nurse_.
A MAID-SERVANT (ELLEN).
A PORTER.
_The action passes in Helmer’s house (a flat) in Christiania._
-----
Footnote 1:
_Fortnightly Review_, July 1906.
Footnote 2:
See “The Mausoleum of Ibsen,” _Fortnightly Review_, August 1893. See
also Mr. Bernard Shaw’s _Quintessence of Ibsenism_, p. 89, and my
introduction to _Ghosts_ in the single-volume edition (Walter Scott).
Footnote 3:
In the original “Fru Linde.”
Footnote 4:
In the original “Anne-Marie.”
A DOLL’S HOUSE.
--------------
ACT FIRST.
_A room, comfortably and tastefully, but not expensively, furnished. In
the back, on the right, a door leads to the hall; on the left
another door leads to HELMER’S study. Between the two doors a
pianoforte. In the middle of the left wall a door, and nearer the
front a window. Near the window a round table with arm-chairs and
a small sofa. In the right wall, somewhat to the back, a door, and
against the same wall, further forward, a porcelain stove; in
front of it a couple of arm-chairs and a rocking-chair. Between
the stove and the side-door a small table. Engravings on the
walls. A what-not with china and bric-à-brac. A small bookcase
filled with handsomely bound books. Carpet. A fire in the stove.
It is a winter day._
_A bell rings in the hall outside. Presently the outer door of the flat
is heard to open. Then NORA enters, humming gaily. She is in
outdoor dress, and carries several parcels, which she lays on the
right-hand table. She leaves the door into the hall open, and a
PORTER is seen outside, carrying a Christmas-tree and a basket,
which he gives to the MAID-SERVANT who has opened the door._
NORA.
Hide the Christmas-tree carefully, Ellen; the children must on no
account see it before this evening, when it’s lighted up. [_To the_
PORTER, _taking out her purse._] How much?
PORTER.
Fifty öre.[5]
NORA.
There is a crown. No, keep the change.
[_The_ PORTER _thanks her and goes._ NORA _shuts the door. She
continues smiling in quiet glee as she takes off her outdoor
things. Taking from her pocket a bag of macaroons, she eats
one or two. Then she goes on tip-toe to her husband’s door
and listens._
NORA.
Yes; he is at home.
[_She begins humming again, crossing to the table on the right._
HELMER.
[_In his room._] Is that my lark twittering there?
NORA.
[_Busy opening some of her parcels._] Yes, it is.
HELMER.
Is it the squirrel frisking around?
NORA.
Yes!
HELMER.
When did the squirrel get home?
NORA.
Just this minute. [_Hides the bag of macaroons in her pocket and wipes
her mouth._] Come here, Torvald, and see what I’ve been buying.
HELMER.
Don’t interrupt me. [_A little later he opens the door and looks in, pen
in hand._] Buying, did you say? What! All that? Has my little
spendthrift been making the money fly again?
NORA.
Why, Torvald, surely we can afford to launch out a little now. It’s the
first Christmas we haven’t had to pinch.
HELMER.
Come come; we can’t afford to squander money.
NORA.
Oh yes, Torvald, do let us squander a little, now—just the least little
bit! You know you’ll soon be earning heaps of money.
HELMER.
Yes, from New Year’s Day. But there’s a whole quarter before my first
salary is due.
NORA.
Never mind; we can borrow in the meantime.
HELMER.
Nora! [_He goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear._] Still my
little featherbrain! Supposing I borrowed a thousand crowns to-day, and
you made ducks and drakes of them during Christmas week, and then on New
Year’s Eve a tile blew off the roof and knocked my brains out——
NORA.
[_Laying her hand on his mouth._] Hush! How can you talk so horridly?
HELMER.
But supposing it were to happen—what then?
NORA.
If anything so dreadful happened, it would be all the same to me whether
I was in debt or not.
HELMER.
But what about the creditors?
NORA.
They! Who cares for _them_? They’re only strangers.
HELMER.
Nora, Nora! What a _woman_ you are! But seriously, Nora, you know my
principles on these points. No debts! No borrowing! Home life ceases to
be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt. We
two have held out bravely till now, and we are not going to give in at
the last.
NORA.
[_Going to the fireplace._] Very well—as you please, Torvald.
HELMER.
[_Following her._] Come come; my little lark mustn’t droop her wings
like that. What? Is my squirrel in the sulks? [_Takes out his purse._]
Nora, what do you think I have here?
NORA.
[_Turning round quickly._] Money!
HELMER.
There! [_Gives her some notes._] Of course I know all sorts of things
are wanted at Christmas.
NORA.
[_Counting._] Ten, twenty, thirty, forty. Oh, thank you, thank you,
Torvald! This will go a long way.
HELMER.
I should hope so.
NORA.
Yes, indeed; a long way! But come here, and let me show you all I’ve
been buying. And so cheap! Look, here’s a new suit for Ivar, and a
little sword. Here are a horse and a trumpet for Bob. And here are a
doll and a cradle for Emmy. They’re only common; but they’re good enough
for her to pull to pieces. And dress-stuffs and kerchiefs for the
servants. I ought to have got something better for old Anna.
HELMER.
And what’s in that other parcel?
NORA.
[_Crying out._] No, Torvald, you’re not to see that until this evening!
HELMER.
Oh! Ah! But now tell me, you little spendthrift, have you thought of
anything for yourself?
NORA.
For myself! Oh, I don’t want anything.
HELMER.
Nonsense! Just tell me something sensible you would like to have.
NORA.
No, really I don’t know of anything——Well, listen, Torvald——
HELMER.
Well?
NORA.
[_Playing with his coat-buttons, without looking him in the face._] If
you really want to give me something, you might, you know—you might——
HELMER.
Well? Out with it!
NORA.
[_Quickly._] You might give me money, Torvald. Only just what you think
you can spare; then I can buy something with it later on.
HELMER.
But, Nora——
NORA.
Oh, please do, dear Torvald, please do! I should hang the money in
lovely gilt paper on the Christmas-tree. Wouldn’t that be fun?
HELMER.
What do they call the birds that are always making the money fly?
NORA.
Yes, I know—spendthrifts,[6] of course. But please do as I ask you,
Torvald. Then I shall have time to think what I want most. Isn’t that
very sensible, now?
HELMER.
[_Smiling._] Certainly; that is to say, if you really kept the money I
gave you, and really spent it on something for yourself. But it all goes
in housekeeping, and for all manner of useless things, and then I have
to pay up again.
NORA.
But, Torvald——
HELMER.
Can you deny it, Nora dear? [_He puts his arm round her._] It’s a sweet
little lark, but it gets through a lot of money. No one would believe
how much it costs a man to keep such a little bird as you.
NORA.
For shame! How can you say so? Why, I save as much as ever I can.
HELMER.
[_Laughing._] Very true—as much as you can—but that’s precisely nothing.
NORA.
[_Hums and smiles with covert glee._] H’m! If you only knew, Torvald,
what expenses we larks and squirrels have.
HELMER.
You’re a strange little being! Just like your father—always on the
look-out for all the money you can lay your hands on; but the moment you
have it, it seems to slip through your fingers; you never know what
becomes of it. Well, one must take you as you are. It’s in the blood.
Yes, Nora, that sort of thing is hereditary.
NORA.
I wish I had inherited many of papa’s qualities.
HELMER.
And I don’t wish you anything but just what you are—my own, sweet little
song-bird. But I say—it strikes me you look so—so—what shall I call
it?—so suspicious to-day——
NORA.
Do I?
HELMER.
You do, indeed. Look me full in the face.
NORA.
[_Looking at him._] Well?
HELMER.
[_Threatening with his finger._] Hasn’t the little sweet-tooth been
playing pranks to-day?
NORA.
No; how can you think such a thing!
HELMER.
Didn’t she just look in at the confectioner’s?
NORA.
No, Torvald; really——
HELMER.
Not to sip a little jelly?
NORA.
No; certainly not.
HELMER.
Hasn’t she even nibbled a macaroon or two?
NORA.
No, Torvald, indeed, indeed!
HELMER.
Well, well, well; of course I’m only joking.
NORA.
[_Goes to the table on the right._] I shouldn’t think of doing what you
disapprove of.
HELMER.
No, I’m sure of that; and, besides, you’ve given me your word——[_Going
towards her._] Well, keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself,
Nora darling. The Christmas-tree will bring them all to light, I
daresay.
NORA.
Have you remembered to invite Doctor Rank?
HELMER.
No. But it’s not necessary; he’ll come as a matter of course. Besides, I
shall ask him when he looks in to-day. I’ve ordered some capital wine.
Nora, you can’t think how I look forward to this evening.
NORA.
And I too. How the children will enjoy themselves, Torvald!
HELMER.
Ah, it’s glorious to feel that one has an assured position and ample
means. Isn’t it delightful to think of?
NORA.
Oh, it’s wonderful!
HELMER.
Do you remember last Christmas? For three whole weeks beforehand you
shut yourself up every evening till long past midnight to make flowers
for the Christmas-tree, and all sorts of other marvels that were to have
astonished us. I was never so bored in my life.
NORA.
I didn’t bore myself at all.
HELMER.
[_Smiling._] But it came to little enough in the end, Nora.
NORA.
Oh, are you going to tease me about that again? How could I help the cat
getting in and pulling it all to pieces?
HELMER.
To be sure you couldn’t, my poor little Nora. You did your best to give
us all pleasure, and that’s the main point. But, all the same, it’s a
good thing the hard times are over.
NORA.
Oh, isn’t it wonderful?
HELMER.
Now I needn’t sit here boring myself all alone; and you needn’t tire
your blessed eyes and your delicate little fingers——
NORA.
[_Clapping her hands._] No, I needn’t, need I, Torvald? Oh, how
wonderful it is to think of! [_Takes his arm._] And now I’ll tell you
how I think we ought to manage, Torvald. As soon as Christmas is
over—-[_The hall-door bell rings._] Oh, there’s a ring! [_Arranging the
room._] That’s somebody come to call. How tiresome!
HELMER.
I’m “not at home” to callers; remember that.
ELLEN.
[_In the doorway._] A lady to see you, ma’am.
NORA.
Show her in.
ELLEN.
[_To_ HELMER.] And the doctor has just come, sir.
HELMER.
Has he gone into my study?
ELLEN.
Yes, sir.
[HELMER _goes into his study._ ELLEN _ushers in_ MRS. LINDEN,
_in travelling costume, and goes out, closing the door._
MRS. LINDEN.
[_Embarrassed and hesitating._] How do you do, Nora?
NORA.
[_Doubtfully._] How do you do?
MRS. LINDEN.
I see you don’t recognise me.
NORA.
No, I don’t think—oh yes!—I believe——[_Suddenly brightening._] What,
Christina! Is it really you?
MRS. LINDEN.
Yes; really I!
NORA.
Christina! And to think I didn’t know you! But how could I——[_More
softly._] How changed you are, Christina!
MRS. LINDEN.
Yes, no doubt. In nine or ten years——
NORA.
Is it really so long since we met? Yes, so it is. Oh, the last eight
years have been a happy time, I can tell you. And now you have come to
town? All that long journey in mid-winter! How brave of you!
MRS. LINDEN.
I arrived by this morning’s steamer.
NORA.
To have a merry Christmas, of course. Oh, how delightful! Yes, we _will_
have a merry Christmas. Do take your things off. Aren’t you frozen?
[_Helping her._] There; now we’ll sit cosily by the fire. No, you take
the arm-chair; I shall sit in this rocking-chair. [_Seizes her hands._]
Yes, now I can see the dear old face again. It was only at the first
glance——But you’re a little paler, Christina—and perhaps a little
thinner.
MRS. LINDEN.
And much, much older, Nora.
NORA.
Yes, perhaps a little older—not much—ever so little. [_She suddenly
checks herself; seriously._] Oh, what a thoughtless wretch I am! Here I
sit chattering on, and——Dear, dear Christina, can you forgive me!
MRS. LINDEN.
What do you mean, Nora?
NORA.
[_Softly._] Poor Christina! I forgot: you are a widow.
MRS. LINDEN.
Yes; my husband died three years ago.
NORA.
I know, I know; I saw it in the papers. Oh, believe me, Christina, I did
mean to write to you; but I kept putting it off, and something always
came in the way.
MRS. LINDEN.
I can quite understand that, Nora dear.
NORA.
No, Christina; it was horrid of me. Oh, you poor darling! how much you
must have gone through!—And he left you nothing?
MRS. LINDEN.
Nothing.
NORA.
And no children?
MRS. LINDEN.
None.
NORA.
Nothing, nothing at all?
MRS. LINDEN.
Not even a sorrow or a longing to dwell upon.
NORA.
[_Looking at her incredulously._] My dear Christina, how is that
possible?
MRS. LINDEN.
[_Smiling sadly and stroking her hair._] Oh, it happens so sometimes,
Nora.
NORA.
So utterly alone! How dreadful that must be! I have three of the
loveliest children. I can’t show them to you just now; they’re out with
their nurse. But now you must tell me everything.
MRS. LINDEN.
No, no; I want you to tell me——
NORA.
No, you must begin; I won’t be egotistical to-day. To-day I’ll think
only of you. Oh! but I must tell you one thing—perhaps you’ve heard of
our great stroke of fortune?
MRS. LINDEN.
No. What is it?
NORA.
Only think! my husband has been made manager of the Joint Stock Bank.
MRS. LINDEN.
Your husband! Oh, how fortunate!
NORA.
Yes; isn’t it? A lawyer’s position is so uncertain, you see, especially
when he won’t touch any business that’s the least bit—shady, as of
course Torvald never would; and there I quite agree with him. Oh! you
can imagine how glad we are. He is to enter on his new position at the
New Year, and then he’ll have a large salary, and percentages. In future
we shall be able to live quite differently—just as we please, in fact.
Oh, Christina, I feel so lighthearted and happy! It’s delightful to have
lots of money, and no need to worry about things, isn’t it?
MRS. LINDEN.
Yes; at any rate it must be delightful to have what you need.
NORA.
No, not only what you need, but heaps of money—_heaps_!
MRS. LINDEN.
[_Smiling._] Nora, Nora, haven’t you learnt reason yet? In our
schooldays you were a shocking little spendthrift.
NORA.
[_Quietly smiling._] Yes; that’s what Torvald says I am still. [_Holding
up her forefinger._] But “Nora, Nora” is not so silly as you all think.
Oh! I haven’t had the chance to be much of a spendthrift. We have both
had to work.
MRS. LINDEN.
You too?
NORA.