What’s the matter here?
They say Hedvig has shot herself.
Come and help us!
Shot herself!
[He pushes the table aside and begins to examine her.
[Kneeling and looking anxiously up at him.] It can’t be dangerous? Speak, Relling! She is scarcely bleeding at all. It can’t be dangerous?
How did it happen?
Oh, we don’t know——!
She wanted to shoot the wild duck.
The wild duck?
The pistol must have gone off.
H'm. Indeed.
The woods avenge themselves. But I'm not afraid, all the same.
[Goes into the garret and closes the door after him.
Well, Relling,—why don’t you say something?
The ball has entered the breast.
Yes, but she’s coming to!
Surely you can see that Hedvig is dead.
[Bursts into tears.] Oh my child, my child!child!
[Huskily.] In the depths of the sea——
[Jumps up.] No, no, she must live! Oh, for God’s sake, Relling—only a moment—only just till I can tell her how unspeakably I loved her all the time!
The bullet has gone through her heart. Internal hemorrhage. Death must have been instantaneous.
And I! I hunted her from me like an animal! And she crept terrified into the garret and died for love of me! [Sobbing.] I can never atone to her! I can never tell her——! [Clenches his hands and cries, upwards.] O thou above——! If thou be indeed! Why hast thou done this thing to me?
Hush, hush, you mustn’t go on that awful way. We had no right to keep her, I suppose.
The child is not dead, but sleepeth.
Bosh!
[Becomes calm, goes over to the sofa, folds his arms, and looks at Hedvig.] There she lies so stiff and still.
[Tries to loosen the pistol.] She’s holding it so tight, so tight.
No, no, Relling, don’t break her fingers; let the pigstol be.
She shall take it with her.
Yes, let her. But the child mustn’t lie here for a show. She shall go to her own room, so she shall. Help me, Ekdal.
[Hialmar and Gina take Hedvig between them.
[As they are carrying her.] Oh Gina, Gina, can you survive this!
We must help each other to bear it. For now at least she belongs to both of us.
[Stretches out his arms and mumbles.] Blessed be the Lord; to earth thou shalt return; to earth thou shalt return——
[Whispers.] Hold your tongue, you fool; you’re drunk.
[Hialmar and Gina carry the body out through the kitchen door. Relling shuts it after them. Molvik slinks out into the passage.
[Goes over to Gregers and says:] No one shall ever convince me that the pistol went off by accident.
[Who has stood terrified, with convulsive twitchings.] Who can say how the dreadful thing happened?
The powder has burnt the body of her dress. She must have pressed the pistol right against her breast and fired.
Hedvig has not died in vain. Did you not see how sorrow set free what is noble in him?
Most people are ennobled by the actual presence of death. But how long do you suppose this nobility will last in him?
Why should it not endure and increase throughout his life?
Before a year is over, little Hedvig will be nothing to him but a pretty theme for declamation.
How dare you say that of Hialmar Ekdal?
We will talk of this again, when the grass has first withered on her grave. Then you’ll hear him spouting about “the child too early torn from her father’s heart;” then you’ll see him steep himself in a syrup of sentiment and self-admiration and self-pity. Just you wait!
If you are right and I am wrong, then life is not worth living.
Oh, life would be quite tolerable, after all, if only we could be rid of the confounded duns that keep on pestering us, in our poverty, with the claim of the ideal.
[Looking straight before him.] In that case, I am glad that my destiny is what it is.
May I inquire,—what is your destiny?
[Going.] To be the thirteenth at table.
The devil it is.
1. Samliv med Ibsen, p. 173.
2. See article by Julius Elias in Die neue Rundschau, December 1906, p. 1461.
3. Samliv med Ibsen, p. 33.
4. Herr Paulsen uses the English words; but it will appear from the sequel that Ibsen’s ideal was not so much the self-made as the self-mended man.
5. “Burgomaster” is the most convenient substitute for “Byfogd,” but “Town Clerk” would perhaps be more nearly equivalent. It is impossible to find exact counterparts in English for the different grades of the Norwegian bureaucracy.
6. Pronounce: Keel.
7. Amtmand, the chief magistrate of an Amt or county: consequently a high dignitary in the official hierarchy.
8. See Pillars of Society.
9. The word “mådehold,” in Norwegian, means both “moderation” and “temperance.”
10. It will be remembered that Aslaksen figures in The League of Youth, of which Stensgård is the central character. Stensgård, we see, has justified Lundestad’s prophecy by attaining the high administrative dignity of “Stiftamtmand,” here roughly translated “Governor.”
11. The reference is to the continental feuilleton at the foot of the page.
12. Literally, “unprovided-for.”
13. “Has no right” represents the Norwegian “tör ikke”—the phrase which, elsewhere in this scene, is translated “dare not.” The latter rendering should perhaps have been adhered to throughout; but in this passage the Norwegian words convey a shade of meaning which is best represented by “has no right.”
14. “De lokale forholde”—the local conditions, or the circumstances of the locality, a phrase constantly in Aslaksen’s mouth in The League of Youth. In the present context it is about equivalent to “the lie of the land.”
15. The “sunshine” of Court favour.
16. A New and Universal History of the Cities of London and Westminster, by Walter Harrison. London, 1775, folio.
17. Gregers here uses the old-fashioned expression “havsens bund,” while Hedvig would have him use the more commonplace “havets bund” or “havbunden.”
18. By Norwegian law, before a widower can marry again, a certain proportion of his property must be settled on his children by his former marriage.
19. “Livslögnen,” literally “the life-lie.”
There are quite a few instances of missing punctuation. The conventional period following the character’s name is sometimes missing and has been added for consistency’s sake without further comment. Those missing from setting and stage direction are also added without comment, since there is no obvious purpose to be served by the omission. However, the restoration of punctuation missing from dialogue is noted below, since the punctuation is frequently expressive. Several instances of dubious ‘?’ marks have been corrected, based on context.
As noted below, on p. 62, there is apparently a missing word in the phrase ‘And even it were so...’, most likely ‘if’.
Volume I of this series included errata for each succeeding volume, and noted the following for Volume VIII. Each of these was corrected in printing.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
| xii.11 | was four [old years/years old] before | Transposed. |
| xxii.22 | [‘]But you really ought to do so. | Restored. |
| xxiii.3 | the name of his only sister[,] | Restored. |
| 21.29 | one ought at least to vote[.] | Added. |
| 41.10 | Dr. Stockman[n]. | Added. |
| 62.19 | And even[ ]it were so? | sic: if? |
| 64.20 | or a whole pamph[l]et about it. | Inserted. |
| 69.29 | Father! Dismissal[!] | Added. |
| 76.2 | “People’s Messenger[.]” | Added. |
| 76.3 | an entrance-door[—]to the right | Restored. |
| 79.13 | Asla[sk/ks]en! just come here a moment. | Transposed. |
| 81.28 | but that’s too outrageous[!] | Probable. |
| 106.18 | just as I thought[.] | Added. |
| 106.24 | You know very well what I want[.] | Added. |
| 108.9 | Dr. Hovst[e/a]d. | Replaced. |
| 109.33 | sunshine and spring air, Thomas[.] | Added. |
| 113.25 | won’t be so easy a[t/s] you think | Replaced. |
| 114.24 | It[’]s because in this town | Inserted. |
| 124.14 | We protest[!] | Added. |
| 144.20 | Dr. Stockman[n] has unmasked | Added. |
| 144.24 | we ought to formul[u/a]te this opinion | Replaced. |
| 149.7 | Good[.] Come Katrina, come boys! | Added. |
| 169.23 | Dr. Stockman[n]. | Added. |
| 169.25 | Mort[o/e]n Kiil. | Replaced. |
| 174.25 | Yo[ /u]r attitude, you say? | Restored. |
| 211.21 | something good, mind[.] | Added. |
| 217.7 | But that unhappy Ekdal family[.] | Added. |
| 217.30 | I am not telling you the truth[?] | Added. |
| 218.9 | Ekdal taught p[r/h]otography? | Replaced. |
| 224.25 | opposed to it[!/?] | Replaced. |
| 241.27 | they are t[w/o]o big for curls. | Replaced. |
| 259.10 | you keep poultry, Lieutenant Ekdal[.] | Added. |
| 259.24 | like to roost high, you see[.] | Added. |
| 270.2 | You’re very strange[.] | Added. |
| 276.8 | a matter of life and death[.] | Added. |
| 296.10 | to make this great invention[.] | Added. |
| 303.3 | you’re not to say anything, father[.] | Added. |
| 303.29 | I brought him home last night[./?] | Replaced. |
| 307.22 | don’t sit there cricketizing me[.] | Added. |
| 309.29 | I carry it in my breast[.] | Added. |
| 321.14 | to have gone so far, Ekdal[;] you’re not | Added. |
| 361.15 | I'll try it to-morrow morning[!] | Added. |
| 378.16 | you haven’t caught cold, Ekdal[.] | Added. |
| 397.2 | Oh my child, my child[!] | Added. |