MRS. ALVING. Well well, suppose it is. My point is that your judgment
as to my married life is founded upon nothing but common knowledge and
report.
MANDERS. I admit that. What then?
MRS. ALVING. Well, then, Pastor Manders--I will tell you the truth. I
have sworn to myself that one day you should know it--you alone!
MANDERS. What is the truth, then?
MRS. ALVING. The truth is that my husband died just as dissolute as he
had lived all his days.
MANDERS. [Feeling after a chair.] What do you say?
MRS. ALVING. After nineteen years of marriage, as dissolute--in his
desires at any rate--as he was before you married us.
MANDERS. And those-those wild oats--those irregularities--those
excesses, if you like--you call "a dissolute life"?
MRS. ALVING. Our doctor used the expression.
MANDERS. I do not understand you.
MRS. ALVING. You need not.
MANDERS. It almost makes me dizzy. Your whole married life, the seeming
union of all these years, was nothing more than a hidden abyss!
MRS. ALVING. Neither more nor less. Now you know it.
MANDERS. This is--this is inconceivable to me. I cannot grasp it! I
cannot realise it! But how was it possible to--? How could such a state
of things be kept secret?
MRS. ALVING. That has been my ceaseless struggle, day after day. After
Oswald's birth, I thought Alving seemed to be a little better. But it
did not last long. And then I had to struggle twice as hard, fighting as
though for life or death, so that nobody should know what sort of man
my child's father was. And you know what power Alving had of winning
people's hearts. Nobody seemed able to believe anything but good of
him. He was one of those people whose life does not bite upon their
reputation. But at last, Mr. Manders--for you must know the whole
story--the most repulsive thing of all happened.
MANDERS. More repulsive than what you have told me?
MRS. ALVING. I had gone on bearing with him, although I knew very well
the secrets of his life out of doors. But when he brought the scandal
within our own walls--
MANDERS. Impossible! Here!
MRS. ALVING. Yes; here in our own home. It was there [Pointing towards
the first door on the right], in the dining-room, that I first came
to know of it. I was busy with something in there, and the door was
standing ajar. I heard our housemaid come up from the garden, with water
for those flowers.
MANDERS. Well--?
MRS. ALVING. Soon after, I heard Alving come in too. I heard him say
something softly to her. And then I heard--[With a short laugh]--oh! it
still sounds in my ears, so hateful and yet so ludicrous--I heard my own
servant-maid whisper, "Let me go, Mr. Alving! Let me be!"
MANDERS. What unseemly levity on his part! But it cannot have been more
than levity, Mrs. Alving; believe me, it cannot.
MRS. ALVING. I soon knew what to believe. Mr. Alving had his way with
the girl; and that connection had consequences, Mr. Manders.
MANDERS. [As though petrified.] Such things in this house--in this
house!
MRS. ALVING. I had borne a great deal in this house. To keep him at home
in the evenings, and at night, I had to make myself his boon companion
in his secret orgies up in his room. There I have had to sit alone with
him, to clink glasses and drink with him, and to listen to his ribald,
silly talk. I have had to fight with him to get him dragged to bed--
MANDERS. [Moved.] And you were able to bear all this!
MRS. ALVING. I had to bear it for my little boy's sake. But when the
last insult was added; when my own servant-maid--; then I swore to
myself: This shall come to an end! And so I took the reins into my own
hand--the whole control--over him and everything else. For now I had a
weapon against him, you see; he dared not oppose me. It was then I sent
Oswald away from home. He was nearly seven years old, and was beginning
to observe and ask questions, as children do. That I could not bear. It
seemed to me the child must be poisoned by merely breathing the air of
this polluted home. That was why I sent him away. And now you can see,
too, why he was never allowed to set foot inside his home so long as his
father lived. No one knows what that cost me.
MANDERS. You have indeed had a life of trial.
MRS. ALVING. I could never have borne it if I had not had my work. For
I may truly say that I have worked! All the additions to the estate--all
the improvements--all the labour-saving appliances, that Alving was so
much praised for having introduced--do you suppose he had energy for
anything of the sort?--he, who lay all day on the sofa, reading an old
Court Guide! No; but I may tell you this too: when he had his better
intervals, it was I who urged him on; it was I who had to drag the
whole load when he relapsed into his evil ways, or sank into querulous
wretchedness.
MANDERS. And it is to this man that you raise a memorial?
MRS. ALVING. There you see the power of an evil conscience.
MANDERS. Evil--? What do you mean?
MRS. ALVING. It always seemed to me impossible but that the truth must
come out and be believed. So the Orphanage was to deaden all rumours and
set every doubt at rest.
MANDERS. In that you have certainly not missed your aim, Mrs. Alving.
MRS. ALVING. And besides, I had one other reason. I was determined that
Oswald, my own boy, should inherit nothing whatever from his father.
MANDERS. Then it is Alving's fortune that--?
MRS. ALVING. Yes. The sums I have spent upon the Orphanage, year by
year, make up the amount--I have reckoned it up precisely--the amount
which made Lieutenant Alving "a good match" in his day.