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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN
VOLUME IX
ROSMERSHOLM
THE LADY FROM THE SEA
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 IX
ROSMERSHOLM
THE LADY FROM THE SEA
WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY
WILLIAM ARCHER
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: colophon]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1910
_Copyright Edition_
_First printed April 1907
Second Impression December 1910_
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION TO “ROSMERSHOLM” vii
INTRODUCTION TO “THE LADY FROM THE SEA” xix
“ROSMERSHOLM” 1
_Translated by_ CHARLES ARCHER
“THE LADY FROM THE SEA” 165
_Translated by_ MRS. FRANCES E. ARCHER
ROSMERSHOLM
INTRODUCTION
No one who ever saw Henrik Ibsen, in his later years at any rate, could
doubt that he was a born aristocrat. It is said that a change came over
his appearance and manner after the publication of _Brand_—that he then
put off the Bohemian and put on the reserved, correct, punctilious
man-of-the-world. When I first saw him in 1881, he had the air of a
polished statesman or diplomatist. Distinction was the note of his
personality. So early as 1872, he had written to George Brandes, who was
then involved in one of his many controversies, “Be dignified! Dignity
is the only weapon against such assaults.” His actual words, _Vær
Fornem!_ mean, literally translated, “Be distinguished!” No democratic
movement which implied a levelling down, could ever command Ibsen’s
sympathy. He was a leveller up, or nothing.
This deep-rooted trait in his character found its supreme expression in
_Rosmersholm_.
One of his first remarks (to Brandes, January 3, 1882) after the storm
had broken out over _Ghosts_ was: “I feel most painfully affected by the
crudity, the plebeian element in all our public discussion. The very
praiseworthy attempt to make of our people a democratic community has
inadvertently gone a good way towards making us a plebeian community.
Distinction of soul seems to be on the decline at home.” The same trend
of thought makes itself felt again and again in Dr. Stockmann’s great
speech in the fourth act of _An Enemy of the People_; but it appears
only incidentally in that play, and not at all in _The Wild Duck_. It
was a visit which he paid to Norway in the summer of 1885 that brought
the need for “ennoblement” of character into the foreground of his
thought, and inspired him with the idea of _Rosmersholm_. “Since he had
last been home,” writes Henrik Jæger, “the great political battle had
been fought out, and had left behind it a fanaticism and bitterness of
spirit which astounded him. He was struck by the brutality of the
prevailing tone; he felt himself painfully affected by the rancorous and
vulgar personalities which drowned all rational discussion of the
principles at stake; and he observed with sorrow the many enmities to
which the contest had given rise.... On the whole, he received the
impression—as he remarked in conversation—that Norway was inhabited, not
by two million human beings, but by two million cats and dogs. This
impression has recorded itself in the picture of party divisions
presented in _Rosmersholm_. The bitterness of the vanquished is
admirably embodied in Rector Kroll; while the victors’ craven reluctance
to speak out their whole hearts is excellently characterised in the
freethinker and opportunist, Mortensgård.”
What was this “great political battle,” the echoes of which reverberate
through _Rosmersholm_? Though a knowledge of its details is in no way
essential to the comprehension of the play, the following account[1] of
it may not be out of place.
The Norwegian constitution of 1814 gave the King of Norway and Sweden a
suspensive veto on the enactments of the Norwegian Storthing or
Parliament, but provided that a bill passed by three successive
triennial Storthings should become law without the Royal assent. This
arrangement worked well enough until about 1870, when the Liberal party
became alive to a flaw in the Constitution. The whole legislative and
financial power was vested in the Storthing; but the Ministers had no
seats in it and acknowledged no responsibility save to the King. Thus
the overwhelming Liberal majority in the Storthing found itself baulked
at every turn by a Conservative ministry, over which it had no effective
control. In 1872, a Bill enacting that Ministers should sit in the
Storthing was passed by 80 votes to 29, and was vetoed by the King. It
was passed again and again by successive Storthings, the last time by 93
votes to 20; but now King Oscar came forward with a declaration that _on
matters affecting the Constitution_ his veto was not suspensive, but
absolute, and once more vetoed the Bill. This measure was met by the
Storthing with a resolution (June 9, 1880) that the Act had become law
in spite of the veto. The King ignored the resolution, and, by the
advice of his Ministers, claimed an absolute veto, not only on
constitutional questions, but on measures of supply. Then the Storthing
adopted the last resource provided by the Constitution: it impeached the
Ministers before the Supreme Court of the kingdom. Political rancour ran
incredibly high, and there was a great final tussle over the composition
of the Supreme Court; but the Liberals were masters of the situation,
and carried all before them. One by one the Ministers were dismissed
from office and fined. The King ostentatiously testified his sympathy
with them, and selected a new Ministry from the Extreme Right. They
failed to carry on the government of the country, and matters were at a
deadlock. At last, however, King Oscar gave way. On June 26, 1884, he
sent for Johan Sverdrup, the statesman who for a quarter of a century
had guided the counsels of the Liberal party. Sverdrup consented to form
a Ministry, and the battle ended in a Liberal victory along the whole
line.
Ten years elapsed between Ibsen’s hegira of 1864 and his first brief
return to his native land. Before his second visit eleven more years
intervened; and during the summer of 1885, which he spent for the most
part at Molde, he found the air still quivering with the rancours
begotten of the great struggle. In a speech which he addressed to a
meeting of workmen at Trondhjem (June 14, 1885) he said that the years
of his absence had brought “immense progress in most directions,” but
that he was disappointed to observe that “the most indispensable
individual rights were far less secured than he had hoped and expected
to find them under the new order of things.” He found neither freedom of
thought nor freedom of speech beyond a limit arbitrarily fixed by the
dominant majority. “There remains much to be done,” he continued,
“before we can be said to have attained real liberty. But I fear that
our present democracy will not be equal to the task. An element of
_nobility_ must be introduced into our national life, into our
Parliament, and into our Press. Of course it is not nobility of birth
that I am thinking of, nor of money, nor yet of knowledge, nor even of
ability and talent: I am thinking of nobility of character, of will, of
soul.”
When he spoke these words he had been little more than a week in Norway;
but it is clear that _Rosmersholm_ was already germinating in his mind.
On his return to Munich he began to think out the play, and on February
14, 1886, he wrote to Carl Snoilsky, the Swedish poet; “I am much taken
up with a new play, which I have long had in mind, and for which I made
careful studies during my visit to Norway.” It may be mentioned that
Ibsen had met Snoilsky at Molde during the previous summer, and that
they had seen a good deal of each other. The manuscript of _Rosmersholm_
was sent to the printers at the end of September 1886, and a letter to
Hegel accompanied it in which Ibsen said: “So far as I can see, the play
is not likely to call forth attacks from any quarter; but I hope it will
lead to lively discussion. I look for this especially in Sweden.” Why in
Sweden? Perhaps because, as we shall see presently, the story was partly
suggested by a recent episode in Swedish social history. Before
proceeding to the question of origins, however, I may quote the only
other reference to the play, of any importance, which occurs in Ibsen’s
letters. The chairman of a debating-club in Christiania had addressed to
the poet a letter on behalf of the club, which apparently contained some
question or suggestion as to the fundamental idea of the play. Ibsen’s
answer was dated Munich, February 13, 1887. “The call to work,” he said,
“is certainly distinguishable throughout _Rosmersholm_. But the play
also deals with the struggle with himself which every serious-minded man
must face in order to bring his life into harmony with his convictions.
For the different spiritual functions do not develop evenly and side by
side in any given human being. The acquisitive instinct hastens on from
conquest to conquest. The moral consciousness, the ‘conscience,’ on the
other hand, is very conservative. It has deep roots in tradition and the
past generally. Hence arises the conflict in the individual. But first
and foremost, of course, the play is a creative work, dealing with human
beings and human destinies.”
Dr. George Brandes is our authority for associating _Rosmersholm_ with
the social episode above alluded to—an episode which came within Ibsen’s
ken just while the play was in process of gestation. A Swedish nobleman,
personally known to Ibsen, and remarkable for that amenity and
distinction of manner which he attributes to Rosmer, had been unhappily
married to a lady who shared none of his interests, and was
intellectually quite unsympathetic to him. Much more sympathetic was a
female relative of his wife’s. The relation between them attracted
attention, and (as in _Rosmersholm_) was the subject of venomous
paragraphs in the local Press. Count Blank left his home and went
abroad, was joined by the sympathetic cousin, resigned the high office
which he held in his native country, and returned to his wife the
fortune she had brought him. Shortly afterwards the Countess died of
consumption, which was, of course, supposed to have been accelerated by
her husband’s misconduct. The use that Ibsen made of this unhappy story
affords a perfect example of the working-up of raw material in the
factory of genius. Not one of the traits that constitute the originality
and greatness of the play is to be found in the actual circumstances. He
remodelled the whole episode; it was plastic as a sculptor’s clay in his
hands; but doubtless it did give him something to seize upon and
re-create. For the character of Rebecca, it is believed (on rather
inadequate grounds, it seems to me) that Ibsen borrowed some traits from
Charlotte Stieglitz, who committed suicide in 1834, in the vain hope of
stimulating the intellectual activity of her husband, a minor poet.[2]
For Ulric Brendel, Dr. Brahm relates that Ibsen found a model in an
eccentric “dream-genius” known to him in Italy, who created only in his
mind, and despised writing. But Brendel is so clearly a piece of the
poet’s own “devilment” as he used to call it, that it is rather idle to
look for his “original.” The scene of the play is said to have been
suggested to Ibsen by an old family seat near Molde. Be this as it may,
Dr. Brandes is certainly mistaken in declaring that there is no such
“castle” as Rosmersholm in Norway, and thence arguing that Ibsen had
begun to write for a cosmopolitan rather than a Norwegian audience.
Rosmersholm is not a “castle” at all; and old houses such as Ibsen
describes are far from uncommon.
Published on November 23, 1886, _Rosmersholm_ was first acted in Bergen
in January 1887, in Gothenburg in March, in Christiania and Stockholm
not till April. Copenhagen did not see it until November 1887, when it
was acted by a Swedish travelling company. Its first production in
Germany took place at Augsburg in April 1887, the poet himself being
present. It was produced in Berlin in May 1887, in Vienna not till May
1893. There are few of the leading German theatres where it has not been
acted, and has not taken a more or less prominent place in the
repertory. In Germany indeed (though not elsewhere) it seems to rank
among Ibsen’s most popular works. In London _Rosmersholm_ was first
acted at the Vaudeville Theatre on February 23, 1891, Mr. F. R. Benson
playing Rosmer, and Miss Florence Farr, Rebecca. Four performances of it
were given at the Opera Comique in 1893, with Mr. Lewis Waller as
Rosmer, and Miss Elizabeth Robins as Rebecca. In 1892, a writer who
adopted the pseudonym of “Austin Fryers” produced, at the Globe Theatre,
a play called _Beata_, which purported to be a “prologue” to
_Rosmersholm_—the drama which Ibsen (perversely in Mr. Fryers’ judgment)
chose to narrate instead of exhibiting it in action. Not until 1893 was
_Rosmersholm_ produced in Paris, by the company entitled “L’Œuvre,”
under the direction of M. Lugnê Poé. This company afterwards acted it in
London and in many other cities—among the rest in Christiania. In Italy,
Eleonora Duse has recently added the play to her repertory, with scenery
designed by Mr. Gordon Craig. I have no record of any American
production.
With _Rosmersholm_ we reach the end of the series of social dramas which
began seventeen years earlier with _The League of Youth_. In all these
plays the individual is treated, more or less explicitly, as a social
unit, a member of a class, an example of some collective characteristic,
or a victim of some collective superstition, injustice or stupidity. The
plays which follow, on the other hand, beginning with _The Lady from the
Sea_, are plays of pure psychology. There are, no doubt, many women like
Ellida Wangel or Hedda Gabler; but it is as individuals, not as members
of a class, that they interest us; nor is their fate conditioned, like
that of Nora or Mrs. Alving, by any social prejudice or pressure. But in
_Rosmersholm_ man is still considered as a “political animal.” The play,
as we have seen, actually took its rise as a protest against a morbid
condition of the Norwegian public mind, as observed by the poet at a
particular point of time. George Brandes, indeed, has very justly
contended that it ought to rank with _An Enemy of the People_ and _The
Wild Duck_ as a direct outcome of that momentous incident in Ibsen’s
career, the fierce attack upon _Ghosts_. “Rosmer,” says Dr. Brandes,
“begins where Stockmann left off. He wants to do from the very first
what the doctor only wanted to do at the end of _An Enemy of the
People_—to make proud, free, noble beings of his countrymen. At the
beginning of the play, Rosmer is believed to be a decided Conservative
(which the Norwegian considered Ibsen to be for many years after _The
League of Youth_), and as long as this view is generally held, he is
esteemed and admired, while everything that concerns him is interpreted
in the most favourable manner. As soon, however, as his complete
intellectual emancipation is discovered, and especially when it appears
that he himself does not attempt to conceal the change in his views,
public opinion turns against him.... Ibsen had been almost as much
exposed as Rosmer to every sort of attack for some time after the
publication of _Ghosts_, which (from the Conservative point of view)
marked his conversion to Radicalism.” The analogy between Ibsen’s
experience and Rosmer’s is far too striking not to have been present to
the poet’s mind.
But, though the play distinctly belongs to the social series, it no less
distinctly foreshadows the transition to the psychological series.
Rosmer and Rebecca (or I am greatly mistaken) stand out from the social
background much more clearly than their predecessors. They seem to grow
away from it. At first they are concerned about political duties and
social ideals; but, as the action proceeds, all these considerations
drop away from them, or recur but as remembered dreams, and they are
alone with their tortured souls. Then we cannot but note the intrusion
of pure poetry—imagination scarcely deigning to allege a realistic
pretext—in the personage of Ulric Brendel. He is of the same kindred as
the Stranger in _The Lady from the Sea_, and the Rat-Wife in _Little
Eyolf_. He marks Ibsen’s final rebellion against the prosaic
restrictions which, from _Pillars of Society_ onwards, he had striven to
impose upon his genius.
He was yet to write plays more fascinating than _Romersholm_, but none
greater in point of technical mastery. It surpasses _The Wild Duck_ in
the simplicity of its material, and in that concentration which renders
its effect on the stage, perhaps, a little monotonous, and so detracts
from its popularity. In construction it is a very marvel of cunning
complexity. It is the consummate example in modern times of the
retrospective method of which, in ancient times, the consummate example
was the _Œdipus Rex_. This method has been blamed by many critics; but
the first great critic of English drama commended it in the practice of
the ancient poets. “They set the audience, as it were,” says Dryden, “at
the post where the race is to be concluded.” “In unskilful hands,” I
have said elsewhere, “the method might doubtless become very tedious;
but when, as in _Rosmersholm_, every phase of the retrospect has a
definite reaction upon the drama—the psychological process—actually
passing on the stage, the effect attained is surely one of peculiar
richness and depth. The drama of the past and the drama of the present
are interwoven in such a complex yet clear and stately harmony as Ibsen
himself has not often rivalled.”
THE LADY FROM THE SEA
INTRODUCTION
Ibsen’s birth-place, Skien, is not on the sea, but at the head of a long
and very narrow fiord. At Grimstad, however, and again at Bergen, he had
for years lived close to the skerry-bound coast. After he left Bergen,
he seldom came in touch with the open sea. The upper part of Christiania
Fiord is a mere salt-water lake; and in Germany he never saw the sea, in
Italy only on brief visits to Ischia, Sorrento, Amalfi. We find him, in
1880,[3] writing to Hegel from Munich: “Of all that I miss down here, I
miss the sea most. That is the deprivation to which I can least
reconcile myself.” Again, in 1885, before the visit which he paid that
year to Norway, he writes from Rome to the same correspondent, that he
has visions of buying a country-house by the sea, in the neighbourhood
of Christiania. “The sight of the sea,” he says, “is what I most miss in
these regions; and this feeling grows year by year.” During the weeks he
spent at Molde that year, there can be no doubt that he was gathering
not only the political impressions which he used in _Rosmersholm_, but
the impressions of ocean and fiord, and of the tide of European life
flowing past, but not mingling with, the “carp-pond” existence of a
small Norwegian town, which he was afterwards to embody in _The Lady
from the Sea_. That invaluable bibliographer, Halvorsen, is almost
certainly wrong in suggesting that Veblungsnes, at the head of the
Romsdalfiord, is the scene of the play. The “local situation” is much
more like that of Molde itself. There Ibsen must frequently have seen
the great English tourist steamer gliding noiselessly to its moorings,
before proceeding up the fiord to Veblungsnes, and then, on the
following day, slipping out to sea again.
Two years later, in 1887, Ibsen spent the summer at Frederikshavn and at
Sæby in the north of Jutland, not far from the Skaw. At Sæby I visited
him; and from a letter written at the time I make the following extract:
“He said that Fru Ibsen and he had first come to Frederikshavn, which he
himself liked very much—he could knock about all day among the shipping,
talking to the sailors, and so forth. Besides, he found the
neighbourhood of the sea favourable to contemplation and constructive
thought. Here, at Sæby, the sea was not so easily accessible. But Fru
Ibsen didn’t like Frederikshavn because of the absence of pleasant walks
about it; so Sæby was a sort of compromise between him and her.” I
remember that he enlarged to me at great length on the fascination which
the sea exercised over him. He was then, he said, “preparing some
tomfoolery for next year.” On his return to Munich, he put his ideas
into shape, and _The Lady from the Sea_ was published in November 1888.
Ibsen wrote few letters while the play was in process of preparation,
and none of them contains any noteworthy reference to it. On the other
hand, we possess a very curious first draft of the story[4] (dated March
5, 1880), which shows in a most interesting fashion how an idea grew in
his mind. Abbreviating freely, I will try to indicate the main points of
difference between the sketch and the finished play.
The scene of the action was originally conceived as a much smaller town
than it ultimately became, shut in and overshadowed by high, abrupt
rocks. (Note that when he wrote the sketch Ibsen had not yet visited
Molde.) There was to be an hotel and a sanatorium, and a good deal of
summer gaiety in the place; but the people were to long in an impotent,
will-less fashion for release from their imprisonment in the
“shadow-life” of this remote corner of the world. Through the short
summer, they were always to have the long winter impending over them;
and this was to be a type of life: “A bright summer day with the great
darkness behind it—that is all.” This motive, though traces of it
remain, is much less emphasized than was at first intended.
The characters were to fall into three groups: inhabitants of the town,
summer visitors, and passing tourists. The tourists were simply to “come
and go, and enter episodically into the action”; but the other two
groups are more or less individualised.
The first group is thus described: “The lawyer married a second time, to
the woman from the open sea outside. Has two young but grown-up
daughters by his first marriage. Elegant, distinguished, bitter. His
past tarnished by an indiscretion. His career thereby cut short. The
disreputable signboard-painter with the artist-dreams, happy in his
imaginings. The old, married clerk. Has written a play in his youth,
which was only once acted.[5] Is for ever touching it up, and lives in
the illusion that it will be published and will make a great success.
Takes no steps, however, to bring this about. Nevertheless, accounts
himself one of the ‘literary’ class. His wife and children believe
blindly in the play. (Perhaps a private tutor, not a clerk.) Tailor
Fresvik, the man-midwife of radicalism, who shows his ‘emancipation’ in
ludicrous attempts at debauchery—affairs with other men’s wives—talks of
divorce and so forth.”
We see that, in the course of elaboration, not only the profession, but
the character of Wangel was entirely altered. It is noteworthy, by the
way, that, with Ibsen, lawyers are always more or less unsympathetic
characters (Stensgård, Helmer, Krogstad, Brack) while doctors are more
or less sympathetic (Fieldbo, Rank, Stockmann, Relling, Wangel, Herdal).
We see, too, how he saved up for seventeen years the character of the
clerk-dramatist. Found superfluous in _The Lady from the Sea_, he became
the delightful Foldal of _John Gabriel Borkman_. The radical tailor was
destined never to come to life; and the characteristics of the
“signboard-painter” were divided between Ballested and Lyngstrand.
In the second group, however—that of the summer visitors—the consumptive
sculptor Lyngstrand is already pretty completely sketched. The group was
also to have included Lyngstrand’s “patron” and his patron’s wife—a
“stupid, uppish, and tactless woman, who wounds the patient sometimes
without meaning it, sometimes on purpose.” The patron’s wife has
entirely disappeared from the completed play, while the patron, though
mentioned, has not even a name.
But the oddest fact which this sketch brings to light is that Arnholm
and the Stranger were formed by the scission, so to speak, of one
character, denominated the “Strange Passenger.” Ellida[6] was originally
to have been a pastor’s daughter. She was to have engaged herself
secretly to a “young and unprincipled mate”—a midshipman dismissed the
navy. This engagement she broke off, partly at her father’s command,
partly of her own free will, because she could not forgive what she had
learnt of the young sailor’s past. Then, after her marriage, she came to
feel that in her ignorance and prejudice she had been too hard on him,
and to believe that “essentially—in her imagination—it was with him that
she had led her married life.” This is very like the feeling of Ellida
in the play; but her story has become much more strange and romantic. It
is not quite clear—the sketch being incomplete—whether the ex-midshipman
was to have appeared in person. But there was to have been a “Strange
Passenger” (so nicknamed by the other summer visitors) who had been in
love with Ellida in the old days, and of whom she was now to make a
confidant, very much as she does of Arnholm in the play. His character,
however, was to have been quite unlike that of Arnholm; he was to have
been “bitter, and given to cutting jests”—somewhat reminiscent, in fact,
of the Strange Passenger in _Peer Gynt_. Ibsen may have meant that the
nickname should be given him in allusion to that figure. We see, at any
rate, that the Strange Passenger, in his capacity as Ellida’s confidant,
became Arnholm, who is not in the least strange; while the strangeness
was transferred to Ellida’s former lover, who, originally conceived as a
comparatively commonplace personage, now became distinctively “the
Stranger.”
Fragments of dialogue are roughly sketched—especially the young
sculptor’s story of the shipwreck and of the group it has suggested to
him. Ellida’s fancy that mankind has taken a wrong turning in developing
into land-animals instead of water-animals is rather more carefully
worked out in the sketch than in the play. It takes the form of a
semi-serious biological theory, not attributed to any particular
character: “Why should we belong to the dry land? Why not to the air?
Why not to the sea? The common longing for wings—the strange dreams that
one can fly, and that one does fly without feeling the least surprise at
the fact—how is all this to be explained?” The suggestion evidently is
that these dreams are reminiscences of the bird stage in our
development; and then the poet goes on to suggest the same explanation
of the intense longing for the sea which he attributes to Ellida:
“People who are akin to the sea. Bound to the sea. Dependent on the sea.
Must get back to it. A fish-species forms the primordial link in the
evolutionary chain. Do rudiments of it survive in our nature? In the
nature of some of us?” He also indicates a fantasy of floating cities to
be towed southwards or northwards according to the season. “To learn to
control storms and the weather. Some such glorious time will come. And
we—we shall not be there to see it.” All this over-luxuriant growth of
fantasy has been carefully pruned in the completed play.
The main incidents of the first act are sketched out in a form not very
different from that which they ultimately assumed—and there the scenario
breaks off.
“The Stranger’s dæmonic power over Ellida was suggested,” says John
Paulsen, “by Welhaven’s strange influence over Camilla Wergeland;” while
Dr. Brahm asserts “on credible authority” that the incident of the rings
thrown into the sea reproduces an episode of Ibsen’s own early life in
Bergen. Until the “credible authority” is more clearly specified, we
need not pin our faith to the latter assertion; but the former receives
some confirmation in a letter which Ibsen addressed on May 3, 1889, to
the lady whom Paulsen mentions. This was Camilla Collett, born
Wergeland, a sister of the great lyric poet, Henrik Wergeland, and the
authoress of a book, _From the Camp of the Dumb_ (1877), which is said
to have greatly influenced Ibsen’s attitude towards the woman-question,
and to have stimulated him to the production of _A Doll’s House_. I do
not know the story of her relation to J. S. C. Welhaven, a distinguished
poet, and her brother’s chief rival; but it is clear from Ibsen’s letter
that she was in some way present to his mind during the composition of
_The Lady from the Sea_. This is what he wrote: “Allow me to send you a
few words of very sincere thanks for your comprehension of _The Lady
from the Sea_. I felt pretty sure in advance that from you more than any
one else I could rely upon such comprehension; but it gave me
inexpressible pleasure to find my hope confirmed by your letter. Yes,
there are points of resemblance—indeed many. And you have seen and felt
them—points, I mean, which I could arrive at only by divination. But it
is now many years since you, in virtue of your spiritual development,
began, in one form or another, to make your presence felt in my work.”
Camilla Collett died in 1895, at the age of eighty-two.
Nowhere has _The Lady from the Sea_ proved one of Ibsen’s most popular
works. It was acted in all the Scandinavian capitals, and in several
German cities, in February and March 1889. The poet himself was present
at the first performance at the Royal Theatre, Berlin, on March 4, and
afterwards (March 14) at a performance at Weimar, where he was called
before the curtain after each act, and received a laurel wreath. In a
letter to Hoffory, he expressed himself delighted with the actor who
played the Stranger at Weimar; “I could not desire, and could scarcely
conceive, a better embodiment of the part—a long gaunt figure, with
hawk-like features, piercing black eyes, and a fine, deep, veiled
voice.” The play holds the stage here and there in Germany, but is not
very frequently acted.
In London, five performances of Mrs. Marx-Aveling’s translation were
given, under the direction of Dr. Aveling, at Terry’s Theatre in May
1891—the year of the first performance in England of _Ghosts_,
_Rosmersholm_ and _Hedda Gabler_. This wholly inadequate production was
followed, eleven years later, by a revival at the Royalty Theatre, by
the Stage Society, in which Ellida was played by Miss Janet Achurch, and
the Stranger by Mr. Laurence Irving. In Paris, an organisation calling
itself “Les Escholiers,” produced _La Dame de la Mer_ in 1892. It was
afterwards played, both in Paris and on tour, by the Théâtre de l’Œuvre.
I find no record of performances in other countries.
The discovery that _The Lady from the Sea_ was planned so early as 1880
is particularly interesting in view of the fact that, in technical
concentration, and even, one is inclined to say, in intellectual power,
it falls notably below the level of its immediate predecessors, _The
Wild Duck_ and _Rosmersholm_, and its immediate successors, _Hedda
Gabler_ and _The Master Builder_. It would scarcely be going too far to
call it the weakest thing Ibsen produced between _A Doll’s House_ and
_John Gabriel Borkman_, both inclusive. I well remember the sense of
slackening dramatic fibre with which I read it on its first appearance;
the fear that age was beginning to tell upon the poet; and the relief
with which I found him, in _Hedda Gabler_, once more at the very height
of his power. Some readers may take exception to this view, and declare
that they prefer _The Lady from the Sea_ to several of the plays which I
would rank above it. In point of amenity and charm, it doubtless ranks
high among Ibsen’s works; its poetic merits are great; but the
comparative laxity of its technique seems to me quite unmistakable. The
main interest—the Ellida-Wangel interest, let us call it—is constantly
being interrupted by two subsidiary interests: the Arnholm-Boletta
interest, and the Boletta-Hilda-Lyngstrand interest. These lines of
interest touch each other, but are not effectually interwoven. In no
other play of Ibsen’s, in fact, since _The League of Youth_, is there
such a marked sub-plot, or, rather, two sub-plots; and, for my part,
judging them by the high Ibsen standard, I find neither of these
sub-plots particularly interesting. The main action, on the other hand,
is not only interesting but full of psychological truth. Ellida is one
of the most living of Ibsen’s women. There are few of his heroines whom
one has not seen and recognised in real life; but Ellida in particular I
happen to have known intimately, though Ibsen never heard of the lady in
question. The character of Wangel, too, is not only very amiable, but
very closely observed. Yet even in the working out of this main theme,
there is, I think, a technical weakness. We feel that, in the decisive
scene of the last act, Wangel’s mere statement that he sets Ellida free
is an insufficient pivot for the revolution which takes place in her
mind. Psychologically, no doubt, it is adequate, but dramatically it is
ineffective. The poet ought, I suggest, to have devised some more
convincing means of bringing home both to her and to us the fact of her
manumission. In default of a practical proof, a symbolic indication
might have served; but something we want beyond a mere verbal
declaration. It may be taken as a technical principle, I believe, that a
change of mind on which so much depends ought, for purposes of dramatic
effect, to be demonstrated by some outward and visible sign sufficiently
cogent to make the audience fully realise and believe in it.
Another technical weakness, more obvious, though perhaps less important,
is the astounding coincidence by which Lyngstrand, the one witness to
the Stranger’s frenzy on reading of Ellida’s faithlessness, is made, by
pure chance, to encounter Ellida and to tell her the story.[7] This is,
I think, the only real abuse of coincidence in Ibsen’s modern plays,
from _Pillars of Society_ onwards. One or two other much slighter
coincidences—such as, in _A Doll’s House_, Mrs. Linden’s former
acquaintance with Krogstad—are accounted for by the fact that Norway is
a very small country, in which, roughly speaking, every one of the
town-dwelling upper and middle class knows, or has heard of, every one
else.
As I have pointed out in the introduction to _Rosmersholm_, _The Lady
from the Sea_ is the first play in which Ibsen entirely abandons social
satire and devotes himself to pure psychology. It is also the first play
in which he trenches on the occult. He was to go much further in this
direction in _The Master Builder_ and _Little Eyolf_; but already he
pursues the plan, which was also Hawthorne’s, of carefully leaving us in
doubt as to whether, and how far, any supernormal influence is at work.
On the whole, however, he probably intends us to conclude that the
Stranger’s uncanny power over Ellida exists only in her imagination.
-----
Footnote 1:
Condensed from an article in the _Fortnightly Review_, September 1885.
Footnote 2:
See note (in the Norwegian and German editions) to Ibsen’s _Letters_,
No. 146. As to Charlotte Stieglitz, see Brandes’ _Main Currents in
Nineteenth Century Literature_, vol. vi., p. 296 (London, Heinemann,
1905).
Footnote 3:
The date is July 16. On March 5 of the same year he had (as we shall
see later) written down the first outline of what was afterwards to
become _The Lady from the Sea_.
Footnote 4:
Published in _Die neue Rundschau_, December 1906. The same magazine
contains a first draft of _A Doll’s House_. It appeared too late to be
noticed in the Introduction to that play.
Footnote 5:
I met in Rome, in 1881-82, when Ibsen was living there, a minor
official of the Vatican Library, then a middle-aged man, who had
written eighteen or twenty tragedies, all of which I saw in exquisite
manuscript. One of them, _Coriolano_, had been acted once, on the day,
I think, before the Italian troops entered Rome in 1870. Is it
possible that Ibsen, too, had come across this rival dramatist?
Footnote 6:
The name originally assigned her was “Thora.” Readers who know
anything of Norway will probably realise how absolutely right was the
substitution of “Ellida.” It is a masterstroke in the art of
nomenclature.
Footnote 7:
It is suggested that the coincidence is to be regarded as part of the
“occult” atmosphere of the play. But I doubt whether this was in the
poet’s mind; and, in any case, the defence does not seem a very good
one.
-----
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROSMERSHOLM
(1886)
CHARACTERS.
JOHANNES ROSMER, _of Rosmersholm, formerly clergyman of the
parish_.
REBECCA WEST, _in charge of Rosmer’s household_.
RECTOR[8] KROLL, _Rosmer’s brother-in-law_.
ULRIC BRENDEL.
PETER MORTENSGÅRD.[9]
MADAM HELSETH, _housekeeper at Rosmersholm_.
_The action takes place at Rosmersholm, an old family seat near a small
coast town in the west of Norway._
ROSMERSHOLM.
PLAY IN FOUR ACTS.
ACT FIRST.
_Sitting-room at Rosmersholm; spacious, old-fashioned, and comfortable.
In front, on the right, a stove decked with fresh birch-branches
and wild flowers. Farther back, on the same side, a door. In the
back wall, folding-doors opening into the hall. To the left, a
window, and before it a stand with flowers and plants. Beside the
stove a table with a sofa and easy chairs. On the walls, old and
more recent portraits of clergymen, officers, and government
officials in uniform. The window is open; so are the door into the
hall and the house door beyond. Outside can be seen an avenue of
fine old trees, leading up to the house. It is a summer evening,
after sunset._
REBECCA WEST _is sitting in an easy-chair by the window, and crocheting
a large white woollen shawl, which is nearly finished. She now and
then looks out expectantly through the leaves of the plants._
MADAM HELSETH _presently enters from the right._
MADAM HELSETH.
I suppose I had better begin to lay the table, Miss?
REBECCA WEST.
Yes, please do. The Pastor must soon be in now.
MADAM HELSETH.
Don’t you feel the draught, Miss, where you’re sitting?
REBECCA.
Yes, there is a little draught. Perhaps you had better shut the window.
[MADAM HELSETH _shuts the door into the hall, and then comes to
the window._
MADAM HELSETH.
[_About to shut the window, looks out._] Why, isn’t that the Pastor over
there?
REBECCA.
[_Hastily._] Where? [_Rises._] Yes, it is he. [_Behind the curtain._]
Stand aside—don’t let him see us.
MADAM HELSETH.
[_Keeping back from the window._] Only think, Miss—he’s beginning to
take the path by the mill again.
REBECCA.
He went that way the day before yesterday too. [_Peeps out between the
curtains and the window-frame._] But let us see whether——
MADAM HELSETH.
Will he venture across the foot-bridge?
REBECCA.
That is what I want to see. [_After a pause._] No, he is turning. He is
going by the upper road again. [_Leaves the window._] A long way round.
MADAM HELSETH.
Dear Lord, yes. No wonder the Pastor thinks twice about setting foot on
_that_ bridge. A place where a thing like that has happened——
REBECCA.
[_Folding up her work._] They cling to their dead here at Rosmersholm.
MADAM HELSETH.
Now _I_ would say, Miss, that it’s the dead that clings to Rosmersholm.
REBECCA.
[_Looks at her._] The dead?
MADAM HELSETH.
Yes, it’s almost as if they couldn’t tear themselves away from the folk
that are left.
REBECCA.
What makes you fancy that?
MADAM HELSETH.
Well, if it wasn’t for that, there would be no White Horse, I suppose.
REBECCA.
Now what is all this about the White Horse, Madam Helseth?
MADAM HELSETH.
Oh, I don’t like to talk about it. And, besides, you don’t believe in
such things.
REBECCA.
Do _you_ believe in it, then?
MADAM HELSETH.
[_Goes and shuts the window._] Oh, you’d only be for laughing at me,
Miss. [_Looks out._] Why, isn’t that Mr. Rosmer on the mill-path
again——?
REBECCA.
[_Looks out._] That man _there_? [_Goes to the window._] No, that’s the
Rector!
MADAM HELSETH.
Yes, so it is.
REBECCA.
This is delightful. You may be sure he’s coming here.
MADAM HELSETH.
He goes straight over the foot-bridge, _he_ does. And yet she was his
sister, his own flesh and blood. Well, I’ll go and lay the table then,
Miss West.
[_She goes out to the right._ REBECCA _stands at the window for
a short time; then smiles and nods to some one outside. It
begins to grow dark._
REBECCA.
[_Goes to the door on the right._] Oh, Madam Helseth, you might let us
have some little extra dish for supper. You know what the Rector likes
best.
MADAM HELSETH.
[_Outside._] Oh yes, Miss, I’ll see to it.
REBECCA.
[_Opens the door to the hall._] At last—! How glad I am to see you, my
dear Rector.
RECTOR KROLL.
[_In the hall, laying down his stick._] Thanks. Then I am not disturbing
you?
REBECCA.
_You_? How can you ask?
KROLL.
[_Comes in._] Amiable as ever. [_Looks round._] Is Rosmer upstairs in
his room?
REBECCA.
No, he is out walking. He has stayed out rather longer than usual; but
he is sure to be in directly. [_Motioning him to sit on the sofa._]
Won’t you sit down till he comes?
KROLL.
[_Laying down his hat._] Many thanks. [_Sits down and looks about him._]
Why, how you have brightened up the old room! Flowers everywhere!
REBECCA.
Mr. Rosmer is so fond of having fresh, growing flowers about him.
KROLL.
And you are too, are you not?
REBECCA.
Yes; they have a delightfully soothing effect on me. We had to do
without them though, till lately.
KROLL.
[_Nods sadly._] Yes, their scent was too much for poor Beata.
REBECCA.
Their colours, too. They quite bewildered her——
KROLL.
I remember, I remember. [_In a lighter tone._] Well, how are things
going out here?
REBECCA.
Oh, everything is going its quiet, jog-trot way. One day is just like
another.—And with you? Your wife——?
KROLL.
Ah, my dear Miss West, don’t let us talk about my affairs. There is
always something or other amiss in a family; especially in times like
these.
REBECCA.
[_After a pause, sitting down in an easy-chair beside the sofa._] How is
it you haven’t once been near us during the whole of the holidays?
KROLL.
Oh, it doesn’t do to make oneself a nuisance——
REBECCA.
If you knew how we have missed you——
KROLL.
And then I have been away——
REBECCA.
Yes, for the last week or two. We have heard of you at political
meetings.
KROLL.
[_Nods._] Yes, what do you say to that? Did you think I would turn
political agitator in my old age, eh?
REBECCA.
[_Smiling._] Well, you have always been a bit of an agitator, Rector
Kroll.
KROLL.
Why yes, just for my private amusement. But henceforth it is to be no
laughing matter, I can tell you.—Do you ever see those radical
newspapers?
REBECCA.
Well yes, my dear Rector, I can’t deny that——
KROLL.
My dear Miss West, I have nothing to say against it—nothing in _your_
case.
REBECCA.
No, surely not. One likes to know what’s going on—to keep up with the
time——
KROLL.
And of course I should not think of expecting you, as a woman, to side
actively with either party in the civil contest—I might almost say the
civil war—that is raging among us.—But you have seen then, I suppose,
how these gentlemen of “the people” have been pleased to treat me? What
infamous abuse they have had the audacity to heap on me?
REBECCA.
Yes; but it seems to me you gave as good as you got.
KROLL.
So I did, though I say it that shouldn’t. For now I have tasted blood;
and they shall soon find to their cost that I am not the man to turn the
other cheek——[_Breaks off._] But come come—don’t let us get upon that
subject this evening—it’s too painful and irritating.
REBECCA.
Oh no, don’t let us talk of it.
KROLL.
Tell me now—how do you get on at Rosmersholm, now that you are alone.
Since our poor Beata——
REBECCA.
Thank you, I get on very well. Of course one feels a great blank in many
ways—a great sorrow and longing. But otherwise——
KROLL.
And do you think of remaining here?—permanently, I mean.
REBECCA.
My dear Rector, I really haven’t thought about it, one way or the other.
I have got so used to the place now, that I feel almost as if I belonged
to it.
KROLL.
Why, of course you belong to it.
REBECCA.
And so long as Mr. Rosmer finds that I am of any use or comfort to
him—why, so long, I suppose, I shall stay here.
KROLL.
[_Looks at her with emotion._] Do you know,—it is really fine for a
woman to sacrifice her whole youth to others as you have done.
REBECCA.
Oh, what else should I have had to live for?
KROLL.
First, there was your untiring devotion to your paralytic and exacting
foster-father——
REBECCA.
You mustn’t suppose that Dr. West was such a charge when we were up in
Finmark. It was those terrible boat-voyages up there that broke him
down. But after we came here—well yes, the two years before he found
rest were certainly hard enough.
KROLL.
And the years that followed—were they not even harder for you?
REBECCA.
Oh how can you say such a thing? When I was so fond of Beata—and when
she, poor dear, stood so sadly in need of care and forbearance.
KROLL.
How good it is of you to think of her with so much kindness!
REBECCA.
[_Moves a little nearer._] My dear Rector, you say that with such a ring
of sincerity that I cannot think there is any ill-feeling lurking in the
background.
KROLL.
Ill-feeling? Why, what do you mean?
REBECCA.
Well, it would be only natural if you felt it painful to see a stranger
managing the household here at Rosmersholm.
KROLL.
Why, how on earth——!
REBECCA.
But you have no such feeling? [_Takes his hand._] Thanks, my dear
Rector; thank you again and again.
KROLL.
How on earth did you get such an idea into your head?
REBECCA.
I began to be a little afraid when your visits became so rare.
KROLL.
Then you have been on a totally wrong scent, Miss West. Besides—after
all, there has been no essential change. Even while poor Beata was
alive—in her last unhappy days—it was you, and you alone, that managed
everything.
REBECCA.
That was only a sort of regency in Beata’s name.
KROLL.
Be that as it may——. Do you know, Miss West—for my part, I should have
no objection whatever if you——. But I suppose I mustn’t say such a
thing.
REBECCA.
What must you not say?
KROLL.
If matters were to shape so that you took the empty place——
REBECCA.
I have the only place I want, Rector.
KROLL.
In fact, yes; but not in——
REBECCA.
[_Interrupting gravely._] For shame, Rector Kroll. How can you joke
about such things?
KROLL.
Oh well, our good Johannes Rosmer very likely thinks he has had more
than enough of married life already. But nevertheless——
REBECCA.
You are really too absurd, Rector.
KROLL.
Nevertheless——. Tell me, Miss West—if you will forgive the question—what
is your age?
REBECCA.
I’m sorry to say I am over nine-and-twenty, Rector; I am in my thirtieth
year.
KROLL.
Indeed. And Rosmer—how old is he? Let me see: he is five years younger
than I am, so that makes him well over forty-three. I think it would be
most suitable.
REBECCA.
[_Rises._] Of course, of course; most suitable.—Will you stay to supper
this evening?
KROLL.