ACT SECOND
SCENE FIRST.
A narrow path, high up in the mountains. Early morning.
Peer Gynt comes hastily and sullenly along the path. Ingrid, still wearing some of her bridal ornaments, is trying to hold him back.
Peer.
Get you from me!
Ingrid.
[Weeping.]
After this, Peer?
Whither?
Peer.
Where you will for me.
Ingrid.
[Wringing her hands.]
Oh, what falsehood!
Peer.
Useless railing.
Each alone must go his way.
Ingrid.
Sin—and sin again unites us!
Peer.
Devil take all recollections!
Devil take the tribe of women—
All but one——!
Ingrid.
Who is that one, pray?
Peer.
’Tis not you.
Ingrid.
Who is it then?
Peer.
Go! Go thither whence you came!
Off! To your father!
Ingrid.
Dearest, sweetest——
Peer.
Peace!
Ingrid.
You cannot mean it, surely,
What you’re saying?
Peer.
Can and do.
Ingrid.
First to lure—and then forsake me!
Peer.
And what terms have you to offer?
Ingrid.
Hegstad Farm, and more besides.
Peer.
Is your psalm-book in your kerchief?
Where’s the gold-mane on your shoulders?
Do you glance adown your apron?
Do you hold your mother’s skirt-fold?
Speak!
Ingrid.
No, but——
Peer.
Went you to the Pastor[43]
This last spring-tide?
Ingrid.
No, but Peer——
Peer.
Is there shyness in your glances?
When I beg, can you deny?
Ingrid.
Heaven! I think his wits are going.
Peer.
Does your presence sanctify?[44]
Speak!
Ingrid.
No, but——
Peer.
What’s all the rest then?
[Going.
Ingrid.
[Blocking his way.]
Know you it will cost your neck
Should you fail me?
Peer.
What do I care?
Ingrid.
You may win both wealth and honour
If you take me——
Peer.
Can’t afford.
Ingrid.
[Bursting into tears.]
Oh, you lured me——!
Peer.
You were willing.
Ingrid.
I was desperate!
Peer.
Frantic I.
Ingrid.
[Threatening.]
Dearly shall you pay for this!
Peer.
Dearest payment cheap I’ll reckon.
Ingrid.
Is your purpose set?
Peer.
Like flint.
Ingrid.
Good! we’ll see, then, who’s the winner!
[Goes downwards.
Peer.
[Stands silent a moment, then cries:]
Devil take all recollections!
Devil take the tribe of women!
Ingrid.
[Turning her head, and calling mockingly upwards:]
All but one!
Peer.
Yes, all but one.
[They go their several ways.
SCENE SECOND.
Near a mountain tarn; the ground is soft and marshy round about. A storm is gathering.
Åse enters, calling and gazing around her despairingly, in every direction. Solveig has difficulty in keeping up with her. Solveig’s Father and Mother, with Helga, are some way behind.
Åse.
[Tossing about her arms, and tearing her hair.]
All things are against me with wrathful might!
Heaven, and the waters, and the grisly mountains!
The treacherous waters are lurking to murder him!
The mountains would crush him with landslip and rift!—
And the people too! They’re out after his life!
God knows they shan’t have it! I can’t bear to lose him!
Oh, the oaf! to think that the fiend should tempt him!
[Turning to Solveig.
Now isn’t it clean unbelievable this?
He, that did nought but romance and tell lies;—
He, whose sole strength was the strength of his jaw;
He, that did never a stroke of true work;—
He——! Oh, a body could both cry and laugh!—
Oh, we clung closely in sorrow and need.
Ay, you must know that my husband, he drank,
Loafed round the parish to roister and prate,
Wasted and trampled our gear under foot.
And meanwhile at home there sat Peerkin and I—
The best we could do was to try to forget;
For ever I’ve found it so hard to bear up.
It’s a terrible thing to look fate in the eyes;
And of course one is glad to be quit of one’s cares,
And try all one can to hold thinking aloof.
Some take to brandy, and others to lies;
And we—why we took to fairy-tales
Of princes and trolls and of all sorts of beasts;
And of bride-rapes as well. Ah, but who could have dreamt
That those devil’s yarns would have stuck in his head?
[In a fresh access of terror.
Hu! What a scream! It’s the nixie or droug![45]
Peer! Peer!—Up there on that hillock——!
[She runs to the top of a little rise, and looks out over the tarn. Solveig’s Father and Mother come up.
Åse.
Not a sign to be seen!
The Father.
[Quietly.]
It is worst for him!
Åse.
[Weeping.]
Oh, my Peer! Oh, my own lost lamb!
The Father.
[Nods mildly.]
You may well say lost.
Åse.
Oh no, don’t talk like that!
He is so clever. There’s no one like him.
The Father.
You foolish woman!
Åse.
Oh ay; oh ay;
Foolish I am, but the boy’s all right!
The Father.
[Still softly and with mild eyes.]
His heart is hardened, his soul is lost.
Åse.
[In terror.]
No, no, he can’t be so hard, our Lord!
The Father.
Do you think he can sigh for his debt of sin?
Åse.
[Eagerly.]
No, but he can ride through the air on a buck, though!
The Mother.
Christ, are you mad?
The Father.
Why, what do you mean?
Åse.
Never a deed is too great for him.
You shall see, if only he lives so long——
The Father.
Best if you saw him on the gallows hanging.
Åse.
[Shrieks.]
Oh, cross of Christ!
The Father.
In the hangman’s hands,
It may be his heart would be turned to repentance.
Åse.
[Bewildered.]
Oh, you’ll soon talk me out of my senses!
We must find him!
The Father.
To rescue his soul.
Åse.
And his body!
If he’s stuck in the swamp, we must drag him out;
If he’s taken by trolls, we must ring the bells for him.
The Father.
H’m!—Here’s a sheep path——
Åse.
The Lord will repay you
Your guidance and help!
The Father.
It’s a Christian’s duty.
Åse.
Then the others, fie! they are heathens all;
There was never a one that would go with us——
The Father.
They knew him too well.
Åse.
He was too good for them!
[Wrings her hands.
And to think—and to think that his life is at stake!
The Father.
Here are tracks of a man.
Åse.
Then it’s here we must search!
The Father.
We’ll scatter around on this side of our sæter.[46]
[He and his wife go on ahead.
Solveig.
[To Åse.]
Say on; tell me more.
Åse.
[Drying her eyes.]
Of my son, you mean?
Solveig.
Yes;—
Tell everything!
Åse.
[Smiles and tosses her head.]
Everything?—Soon you’d be tired!
Solveig.
Sooner by far will you tire of the telling
Than I of the hearing.
SCENE THIRD.
Low, treeless heights, close under the mountain moorlands; peaks in the distance. The shadows are long; it is late in the day.
Peer Gynt comes running at full speed, and stops short on the hillside.
Peer.
The parish is all at my heels in a pack!
Everyman of them armed or with gun or with club.
Foremost I hear the old Hegstad-churl howling.—
Now it’s noised far and wide that Peer Gynt is abroad!
It is different, this, from a bout with a smith!
This is life! Every limb grows as strong as a bear’s.
[Strikes out with his arms and leaps in the air.
To crush, overturn, stem the rush of the foss![47]
To strike! Wrench the fir-tree right up by the root!
This is life! This both hardens and lifts one high!
To hell then with all of the savourless lies!
[Rush across the hillside, screaming and singing.]
Trond of the Valfjeld![49] Bård and Kårë!
Troll-pack! To-night would you sleep in our arms?
Peer.
To whom do you call?
The Girls.
To the trolls! to the trolls!
First Girl.
Trond, come with kindness!
Second Girl.
Bård, come with force!
Third Girl.
The cots in the sæter are all standing empty!
First Girl.
Force is kindness!
Second Girl.
And kindness is force!
Third Girl.
If lads are a wanting, one plays with the trolls!
Peer.
Why, where are the lads, then?
All Three.
[With a horse-laugh.]
They cannot come hither!
First Girl.
Mine called me his sweetheart and called me his darling.
Now he has married a grey-headed widow.
Second Girl.
Mine met a gipsy-wench north on the upland.
Now they are tramping the country together.
Third Girl.
Mine put an end to our bastard brat.
Now his head’s grinning aloft on a stake.
All Three.
Trond of the Valfjeld! Bård and Kårë!
Troll-pack! To-night would you sleep in our arms!
Peer.
[Stands, with a sudden leap, in the midst of them.]
I’m a three-headed troll, and the boy for three girls!
The Girls.
Are you such a lad, eh?
Peer.
You shall judge for yourselves!
First Girl.
To the hut! To the hut!
Second Girl.
We have mead!
Peer.
Let it flow!
Third Girl.
No cot shall stand empty this Saturday night!
Second Girl.
[Kissing him.]
He sparkles and glisters like white-heated iron.
Third Girl.
[Doing likewise.]
Like a baby’s eyes from the blackest tarn.
Peer.
[Dancing in the midst of them.]
Heavy of heart and wanton of mind.
The eyes full of laughter, the throat of tears!
The Girls.
[Making mocking gestures towards the mountain-tops,
screaming and singing.]
Trond of the Valfjeld! Bård and Kårë!
Troll-pack!—To-night who shall sleep in our arms?
[They dance away over the heights, with Peer Gynt in their midst.
SCENE FOURTH.
Among the Rondë mountains. Sunset. Shining snow-peaks all around.
Peer Gynt enters, dizzy and bewildered.
Peer.
Tower over tower arises!
Hei, what a glittering gate!
Stand! Will you stand! It’s drifting
Further and further away!
High on the vane the wind-cock
Arches his wings for flight;—
Blue spread the rifts and bluer,
Locked is the fell and barred.—
What are those trunks and tree-roots,
That grow from the ridge’s clefts?
They are warriors heron-footed!
Now they, too, are fading away.
A shimmering like rainbow-streamers
Goes shooting through eyes and brain.
What is it, that far-off chiming?
What’s weighing my eyebrows down?
Hu, how my forehead’s throbbing—
A tightening red-hot ring——!
I cannot think who the devil
as bound it around my head!
[Sinks down.
Flight o’er the Edge of Gendin—
Stuff and accursed lies!
Up o’er the steepest hill-wall
With the bride,—and a whole day drunk;
Hunted by hawks and falcons,
Threatened by trolls and such,
Sporting with crazy wenches:—
and accursed stuff!
[Gazes long upwards.
Yonder sail two brown eagles.
Southward the wild geese fly.
And here I must splash and stumble
In quagmire and filth knee-deep!
[Springs up.
I’ll fly too! I will wash myself clean in
The bath of the keenest winds!
I’ll fly high! I will plunge myself fair in
The glorious christening-font!
I will soar far over the sæter;
I will ride myself pure of soul;
I will forth o’er the salt sea waters,
And high over Engelland’s prince!
Ay, gaze as ye may, young maidens;
My ride is for none of you;
You’re wasting your time in waiting—!
Yet maybe I’ll swoop down, too.—
What has come of the two brown eagles—?
They’ve vanished, the devil knows where!—
There’s the peak of a gable rising;
It’s soaring on every hand;
It’s growing from out the ruins;—
See, the gateway is standing wide!
Ha-ha, yonder house, I know it;
It’s grandfather’s new-built farm!
Gone are the clouts from the windows;
The crazy old fence is gone.
The lights gleam from every casement;
There’s a feast in the hall to-night.
There, that was the provost clinking
The back of his knife on his glass;—
There’s the captain flinging his bottle,
And shivering the mirror to bits.—
Let them waste; let it all be squandered!
Peace, mother; what need we care!
’Tis the rich Jon Gynt gives the banquet;
Hurrah for the race of Gynt!
What’s all this bustle and hubbub?
Why do they shout and bawl?
The captain is calling the son in;—
Oh, the provost would drink my health.
In then, Peer Gynt, to the judgment;
It rings forth in song and shout:
Peer Gynt, thou art come of great things,
And great things shall come of thee!