MRS. ALVING. I have too.
OSWALD. Well, you may take their word for it. They know what they are
talking about! [Presses his hands to his head.] Oh! that that great,
free, glorious life out there should be defiled in such a way!
MRS. ALVING. You mustn't get excited, Oswald. It's not good for you.
OSWALD. Yes; you're quite right, mother. It's bad for me, I know.
You see, I'm wretchedly worn out. I shall go for a little turn before
dinner. Excuse me, Pastor: I know you can't take my point of view; but
I couldn't help speaking out. [He goes out by the second door to the
right.]
MRS. ALVING. My poor boy!
MANDERS. You may well say so. Then this is what he has come to!
[MRS. ALVING looks at him silently.]
MANDERS. [Walking up and down.] He called himself the Prodigal Son.
Alas! alas!
[MRS. ALVING continues looking at him.]
MANDERS. And what do you say to all this?
MRS. ALVING. I say that Oswald was right in every word.
MANDERS. [Stands still.] Right? Right! In such principles?
MRS. ALVING. Here, in my loneliness, I have come to the same way of
thinking, Pastor Manders. But I have never dared to say anything. Well!
now my boy shall speak for me.
MANDERS. You are greatly to be pitied, Mrs. Alving. But now I must speak
seriously to you. And now it is no longer your business manager and
adviser, your own and your husband's early friend, who stands before
you. It is the priest--the priest who stood before you in the moment of
your life when you had gone farthest astray.
MRS. ALVING. And what has the priest to say to me?
MANDERS. I will first stir up your memory a little. The moment is well
chosen. To-morrow will be the tenth anniversary of your husband's death.
To-morrow the memorial in his honour will be unveiled. To-morrow I shall
have to speak to the whole assembled multitude. But to-day I will speak
to you alone.
MRS. ALVING. Very well, Pastor Manders. Speak.
MANDERS. Do you remember that after less than a year of married life you
stood on the verge of an abyss? That you forsook your house and home?
That you fled from your husband? Yes, Mrs. Alving--fled, fled, and
refused to return to him, however much he begged and prayed you?
MRS. ALVING. Have you forgotten how infinitely miserable I was in that
first year?
MANDERS. It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for
happiness in this life. What right have we human beings to happiness?
We have simply to do our duty, Mrs. Alving! And your duty was to hold
firmly to the man you had once chosen, and to whom you were bound by the
holiest ties.
MRS. ALVING. You know very well what sort of life Alving was
leading--what excesses he was guilty of.
MANDERS. I know very well what rumours there were about him; and I am
the last to approve the life he led in his young days, if report did not
wrong him. But a wife is not appointed to be her husband's judge. It was
your duty to bear with humility the cross which a Higher Power had, in
its wisdom, laid upon you. But instead of that you rebelliously throw
away the cross, desert the backslider whom you should have supported, go
and risk your good name and reputation, and--nearly succeed in ruining
other people's reputation into the bargain.
MRS. ALVING. Other people's? One other person's, you mean.
MANDERS. It was incredibly reckless of you to seek refuge with me.
MRS. ALVING. With our clergyman? With our intimate friend?
MANDERS. Just on that account. Yes, you may thank God that I possessed
the necessary firmness; that I succeeded in dissuading you from your
wild designs; and that it was vouchsafed me to lead you back to the path
of duty, and home to your lawful husband.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, Pastor Manders, that was certainly your work.
MANDERS. I was but a poor instrument in a Higher Hand. And what a
blessing has it not proved to you, all the days of your life, that I
induced you to resume the yoke of duty and obedience! Did not everything
happen as I foretold? Did not Alving turn his back on his errors, as
a man should? Did he not live with you from that time, lovingly and
blamelessly, all his days? Did he not become a benefactor to the whole
district? And did he not help you to rise to his own level, so that you,
little by little, became his assistant in all his undertakings? And a
capital assistant, too--oh, I know, Mrs. Alving, that praise is due to
you.--But now I come to the next great error in your life.
MRS. ALVING. What do you mean?
MANDERS. Just as you once disowned a wife's duty, so you have since
disowned a mother's.
MRS. ALVING. Ah--!
MANDERS. You have been all your life under the dominion of a pestilent
spirit of self-will. The whole bias of your mind has been towards
insubordination and lawlessness. You have never known how to endure any
bond. Everything that has weighed upon you in life you have cast away
without care or conscience, like a burden you were free to throw off at
will. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and you left your
husband. You found it troublesome to be a mother, and you sent your
child forth among strangers.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true. I did so.
MANDERS. And thus you have become a stranger to him.
MRS. ALVING. No! no! I am not.
MANDERS. Yes, you are; you must be. And in what state of mind has he
returned to you? Bethink yourself well, Mrs. Alving. You sinned greatly
against your husband;--that you recognise by raising yonder memorial to
him. Recognise now, also, how you have sinned against your son--there
may yet be time to lead him back from the paths of error. Turn back
yourself, and save what may yet be saved in him. For [With uplifted
forefinger] verily, Mrs. Alving, you are a guilt-laden mother! This I
have thought it my duty to say to you.
[Silence.]
MRS. ALVING. [Slowly and with self-control.] You have now spoken out,
Pastor Manders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory of my
husband. I shall not speak to-morrow. But now I will speak frankly to
you, as you have spoken to me.