MANDERS. Where to? Home to her father, of course.
MRS. ALVING. To whom did you say?
MANDERS. To her--But then, Engstrand is not--? Good God, Mrs. Alving,
it's impossible! You must be mistaken after all.
MRS. ALVING. Unfortunately there is no possibility of mistake. Johanna
confessed everything to me; and Alving could not deny it. So there was
nothing to be done but to get the matter hushed up.
MANDERS. No, you could do nothing else.
MRS. ALVING. The girl left our service at once, and got a good sum of
money to hold her tongue for the time. The rest she managed for herself
when she got to town. She renewed her old acquaintance with Engstrand,
no doubt let him see that she had money in her purse, and told him some
tale about a foreigner who put in here with a yacht that summer. So she
and Engstrand got married in hot haste. Why, you married them yourself.
MANDERS. But then how to account for--? I recollect distinctly Engstrand
coming to give notice of the marriage. He was quite overwhelmed with
contrition, and bitterly reproached himself for the misbehaviour he and
his sweetheart had been guilty of.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; of course he had to take the blame upon himself.
MANDERS. But such a piece of duplicity on his part! And towards me too!
I never could have believed it of Jacob Engstrand. I shall not fail
to take him seriously to task; he may be sure of that.--And then the
immorality of such a connection! For money--! How much did the girl
receive?
MRS. ALVING. Three hundred dollars.
MANDERS. Just think of it--for a miserable three hundred dollars, to go
and marry a fallen woman!
MRS. ALVING. Then what have you to say of me? I went and married a
fallen man.
MANDERS. Why--good heavens!--what are you talking about! A fallen man!
MRS. ALVING. Do you think Alving was any purer when I went with him to
the altar than Johanna was when Engstrand married her?
MANDERS. Well, but there is a world of difference between the two
cases--
MRS. ALVING. Not so much difference after all--except in the price:--a
miserable three hundred dollars and a whole fortune.
MANDERS. How can you compare such absolutely dissimilar cases? You had
taken counsel with your own heart and with your natural advisers.
MRS. ALVING. [Without looking at him.] I thought you understood where
what you call my heart had strayed to at the time.
MANDERS. [Distantly.] Had I understood anything of the kind, I should
not have been a daily guest in your husband's house.
MRS. ALVING. At any rate, the fact remains that with myself I took no
counsel whatever.
MANDERS. Well then, with your nearest relatives--as your duty bade
you--with your mother and your two aunts.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true. Those three cast up the account for me.
Oh, it's marvellous how clearly they made out that it would be downright
madness to refuse such an offer. If mother could only see me now, and
know what all that grandeur has come to!
MANDERS. Nobody can be held responsible for the result. This, at least,
remains clear: your marriage was in full accordance with law and order.
MRS. ALVING. [At the window.] Oh, that perpetual law and order! I often
think that is what does all the mischief in this world of ours.
MANDERS. Mrs. Alving, that is a sinful way of talking.
MRS. ALVING. Well, I can't help it; I must have done with all this
constraint and insincerity. I can endure it no longer. I must work my
way out to freedom.
MANDERS. What do you mean by that?
MRS. ALVING. [Drumming on the window frame.] I ought never to have
concealed the facts of Alving's life. But at that time I dared not
do anything else--I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such a
coward.
MANDERS. A coward?
MRS. ALVING. If people had come to know anything, they would have
said--"Poor man! with a runaway wife, no wonder he kicks over the
traces."
MANDERS. Such remarks might have been made with a certain show of right.
MRS. ALVING. [Looking steadily at him.] If I were what I ought to be, I
should go to Oswald and say, "Listen, my boy: your father led a vicious
life--"
MANDERS. Merciful heavens--!
MRS. ALVING.--and then I should tell him all I have told you--every word
of it.
MANDERS. You shock me unspeakably, Mrs. Alving.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; I know that. I know that very well. I myself am
shocked at the idea. [Goes away from the window.] I am such a coward.
MANDERS. You call it "cowardice" to do your plain duty? Have you
forgotten that a son ought to love and honour his father and mother?
MRS. ALVING. Do not let us talk in such general terms. Let us ask: Ought
Oswald to love and honour Chamberlain Alving?
MANDERS. Is there no voice in your mother's heart that forbids you to
destroy your son's ideals?
MRS. ALVING. But what about the truth?
MANDERS. But what about the ideals?
MRS. ALVING. Oh--ideals, ideals! If only I were not such a coward!
MANDERS. Do not despise ideals, Mrs. Alving; they will avenge themselves
cruelly. Take Oswald's case: he, unfortunately, seems to have few enough
ideals as it is; but I can see that his father stands before him as an
ideal.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true.
MANDERS. And this habit of mind you have yourself implanted and fostered
by your letters.
MRS. ALVING. Yes; in my superstitious awe for duty and the proprieties,
I lied to my boy, year after year. Oh, what a coward--what a coward I
have been!
MANDERS. You have established a happy illusion in your son's heart, Mrs.
Alving; and assuredly you ought not to undervalue it.
MRS. ALVING. H'm; who knows whether it is so happy after all--? But, at
any rate, I will not have any tampering with Regina. He shall not go and
wreck the poor girl's life.
MANDERS. No; good God--that would be terrible!
MRS. ALVING. If I knew he was in earnest, and that it would be for his
happiness--
MANDERS. What? What then?
MRS. ALVING. But it couldn't be; for unfortunately Regina is not the
right sort of woman.
MANDERS. Well, what then? What do you mean?
MRS. ALVING. If I weren't such a pitiful coward, I should say to him,
"Marry her, or make what arrangement you please, only let us have
nothing underhand about it."
MANDERS. Merciful heavens, would you let them marry! Anything so
dreadful--! so unheard of--
MRS. ALVING. Do you really mean "unheard of"? Frankly, Pastor Manders,
do you suppose that throughout the country there are not plenty of
married couples as closely akin as they?
MANDERS. I don't in the least understand you.
MRS. ALVING. Oh yes, indeed you do.
MANDERS. Ah, you are thinking of the possibility that--Alas! yes, family
life is certainly not always so pure as it ought to be. But in such a
case as you point to, one can never know--at least with any certainty.
Here, on the other hand--that you, a mother, can think of letting your
son--
MRS. ALVING. But I cannot--I wouldn't for anything in the world; that is
precisely what I am saying.
MANDERS. No, because you are a "coward," as you put it. But if you were
not a "coward," then--? Good God! a connection so shocking!
MRS. ALVING. So far as that goes, they say we are all sprung from
connections of that sort. And who is it that arranged the world so,
Pastor Manders?
MANDERS. Questions of that kind I must decline to discuss with you, Mrs.
Alving; you are far from being in the right frame of mind for them. But
that you dare to call your scruples "cowardly"--!
MRS. ALVING. Let me tell you what I mean. I am timid and faint-hearted
because of the ghosts that hang about me, and that I can never quite
shake off.
MANDERS. What do you say hangs about you?
MRS. ALVING. Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was
as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us
ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our
father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas,
and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they
cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take
up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There
must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea.
And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.
MANDERS. Aha--here we have the fruits of your reading. And pretty fruits
they are, upon my word! Oh, those horrible, revolutionary, free-thinking
books!
MRS. ALVING. You are mistaken, my dear Pastor. It was you yourself who
set me thinking; and I thank you for it with all my heart.