Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (128 page)

FIELDBO.
Here?

STENSGARD.
Yes, here! Here there are fine manners; life moves gracefully here; the very floors seem laid to be trodden only by lacquered shoes. Here the arm-chairs are deep and the ladies sink exquisitely into them. Here conversation moves lightly and elegantly, like a game at battledore; here no blunders come plumping in to make an awkward silence. Oh, Fieldbo — here I feel for the first time what distinction means! Yes, we have indeed an aristocracy of our own; a little circle; an aristocracy of culture; and to it I will belong. Don’t you yourself feel the refining influence of this place? Don’t you feel that wealth here loses its grossness? When I think of Monsen’s money, I seem to see piles of fetid bank-notes and greasy mortgages — but here! here it is shimmering silver! And the people are the same. Look at the Chamberlain — what a fine high-bred old fellow!

FIELDBO.
He is, indeed.

STENSGARD.
And the son — alert, straightforward, capable!

FIELDBO.
Certainly.

STENSGARD.
And then the daughter-in-law! Isn’t she a pearl? Good God, what a rich, what a fascinating nature!

FIELDBO.
Thora — Miss Bratsberg has that, too.

STENSGARD.
Oh, yes; but she is less remarkable.

FIELDBO.
Oh, you don’t know her. You don’t know how deep, and steadfast, and true her nature is.

STENSGARD.
But, oh, the daughter-in-law! So frank, almost reckless; and yet so appreciative, so irresistible

FIELDBO.
Why, I really believe you’re in love with her.

STENSGARD.
With a married woman? Are you crazy? What good would that do me? No, but I am falling in love — I can feel that plainly. Yes, she is indeed deep, and steadfast, and true.

FIELDBO.
Who?

STENSGARD.
Miss Bratsberg, of course.

FIELDBO.
What? You’re never thinking of — ?

STENSGARD.
Yes, by heaven I am!

FIELDBO.
I assure you it’s quite out of the question.

STENSGARD.
Ho-ho! Will rules the world, my dear fellow! We shall see if it doesn’t.

FIELDBO.
Why, this is the merest extravagance! Yesterday it was Miss Monsen —

STENSGARD.
Oh, I was too hasty about that; besides, you yourself advised me not to —

FIELDBO.
I advise you most emphatically to dismiss all thought of either of them.

STENSGARD.
Indeed! Perhaps you yourself think of throwing the handkerchief to one of them?

FIELDBO.
I? No, I assure you —

STENSGARD.
Well, it wouldn’t have mattered if you had. If people stand in my way and want to balk me of my future, why, I stick at nothing.

FIELDBO.
Take care I don’t say the same!

STENSGARD.
You! What right have you to pose as guardian and protector to Chamberlain Bratsberg’s family?

FIELDBO.
I have at least the right of a friend.

STENSGARD.
Pooh! that sort of talk won’t do with me. Your motive is mere self-interest! It gratifies your petty vanity to imagine yourself cock-of-the-walk in this house; and so I am to be kept outside the pale.

FIELDBO.
That is the best thing that could happen to you. Here you are standing on hollow ground.

STENSGARD.
Am I indeed? Many thanks. I shall manage to prop it up.

FIELDBO.
Try; but I warn you, it will fall through with you first.

STENSGARD.
Ho-ho! So you are intriguing against me, are you? I’m glad I have found it out. I know you now; you are my enemy, the only one I have here.

FIELDBO.
Indeed I am not.

STENSGARD.
Indeed you are! You have always been so, ever since our school-days. Just look around here and see how every one appreciates me, stranger as I am. You, on the other hand, you who know me, have never appreciated me. That is the radical weakness of your character — you can never appreciate any one. What did you do in Christiania but go about from tea-party to tea-party, spreading yourself out in little witticisms? That sort of thing brings its own punishment! You dull your sense for all that makes life worth living, for all that is ennobling and inspiring; and presently you get left behind, fit for nothing.

FIELDBO.
Am I fit for nothing?

STENSGARD.
Have you ever been fit to appreciate me?

FIELDBO.
What was I to appreciate in you?

STENSGARD.
My will, if nothing else. Every one else appreciates it — the crowd at the fete yesterday — Chamberlain Bratsberg and his family —

FIELDBO.
Mr. Mons Monsen and his ditto — ! And by- the-bye, that reminds me — there’s some one out here waiting for you —

STENSGARD.
Who?

FIELDBO
[going towards the back.]
One who appreciates you.
[Opens the door and calls.]
Aslaksen, come in!

STENSGARD.
Aslaksen?

ASLAKSEN
[entering.]
Ah, at last!

FIELDBO.
Good-bye for the present; I won’t intrude upon friends in council.
[Goes into the garden.]

STENSGARD.
What in the devil’s name do you want here?

ASLAKSEN.
I must speak to you. You promised me yesterday an account of the founding of the League, and —

STENSGARD.
I can’t give it you; it must wait till another time.

ASLAKSEN.
Impossible, Mr. Stensgard; the paper appears to-morrow morning.

STENSGARD.
Nonsense! It has all to be altered. The matter has entered on a new phase; new forces have come into play. What I said about Chamberlain Bratsberg must be entirely recast before it can appear.

ASLAKSEN.
Oh, that about the Chamberlain, that’s in type already.

STENSGARD.
Then it must come out of type again.

ASLAKSEN.
Not go in?

STENSGARD.
I won’t have it published in that form. Why do you stare at me? Do you think I don’t know how to manage the affairs of the League?

ASLAKSEN.
Oh, certainly; but you must let me tell you —

STENSGARD.
Not arguing, Aslaksen; that I can’t stand and won’t stand!

ASLAKSEN.
Do you know, Mr. Stensgard, that you are doing your best to take the bread out of my mouth? Do you know that?

STENSGARD.
No; I know nothing of the sort.

ASLAKSEN.
But you are. Last winter, before you came here, my paper was looking up. I edited it myself, I must tell you, and I edited it on a principle.

STENSGARD.
You?

ASLAKSEN.
Yes, I! — I said to myself: it’s the great public that supports a paper; now the great public is the bad public — that comes of the local situation; and the bad public will have a bad paper. So you see I edited it —

STENSGARD.
Badly! Yes, that’s undeniable.

ASLAKSEN.
Well, and I prospered by it. But then you came and brought ideas into the district. The paper took on a colour, and then Lundestad’s supporters all fell away. The subscribers that are left won’t pay their subscriptions —

STENSGARD.
Ah, but the paper has become a good one.

ASLAKSEN.
I can’t live on a good paper. You were to make things lively; you were to grapple with abuses, as you promised yesterday. The bigwigs were to be pilloried; the paper was to be filled with things people were bound to read — and now, you leave me in the lurch —

STENSGARD.
Ho-ho! You think I am going to keep you supplied with libels! No, thank you, my good sir!

ASLAKSEN.
Mr. Stensgard, you mustn’t drive me to desperation, or you’ll repent it.

STENSGARD.
What do you mean?

ASLAKSEN.
I mean that I must make the paper pay in another way. Heaven knows I should be sorry to do it. Before you came I made an honest living out of accidents and suicides and other harmless things, that often hadn’t even happened. But now you have turned everything topsy- turvy; people now want very different fare —

STENSGARD.
Just let me tell you this: if you break loose in any way, if you go a single step beyond my orders, and try to exploit the movement in your own dirty interests, I’ll go to the opposition printer and start a new paper. We have money, you must know! We can bring your rag to ruin in a fortnight.

ASLAKSEN
[pale.]
You wouldn’t do that!

STENSGARD.
Yes, I would; and you’ll see I can edit a paper so as to appeal to the great public.

ASLAKSEN.
Then I’ll go this instant to Chamberlain Bratsberg —

STENSGARD.
You? What have you to do with him?

ASLAKSEN.
What have you to do with him? Do you think I don’t know why you are invited here? It’s because he is afraid of you, and of what you may do; and you are making capital of that. But if he’s afraid of what you may do, he’ll be no less afraid of what I may print; and I will make capital of that!

STENSGARD.
Would you dare to? A wretched creature like you — !

ASLAKSEN.
I’ll soon show you. If your speech is to be kept out of the paper, the Chamberlain shall pay me for keeping it out.

STENSGARD.
Try it; just try it! You’re drunk, fellow — !

ASLAKSEN.
Only in moderation. But I’ll fight like a lion if you try to take my poor crust out of my mouth. Little you know what sort of a home mine is: a bedridden wife, a crippled child —

STENSGARD.
Off with you! Do you think I want to be soiled with your squalor? What are your bedridden wives and deformed brats to me? If you stand in my way, if you dare so much as to obstruct a single one of my prospects, you shall be on the parish before the year’s out!

ASLAKSEN.
I’ll wait one day —

STENSGARD.
Ah, you’re coming to your senses.

ASLAKSEN.
I shall announce to the subscribers in a hand- bill that in consequence of an indisposition contracted at the fete, the editor —

STENSGARD.
Yes, do so; I daresay, later on, we shall come to an understanding.

ASLAKSEN.
I trust we may. — Remember this, Mr. Stensgard: that paper is my one ewe lamb.
[Goes out by the back.]

LUNDESTAD
[at the foremost garden door.]
Ah, Mr. Stensgard!

STENSGARD.
Ah, Mr. Lundestad!

LUNDESTAD.
You here alone? If you have no objection, I should like to have a little talk with you.

STENSGARD.
With pleasure.

LUNDESTAD.
In the first place, let me say that if any one has told you that I have said anything to your disadvantage, you mustn’t believe it.

STENSGARD.
To my disadvantage? What do you mean?

LUNDESTAD.
Oh, nothing; nothing, I assure you. You see, there are so many busybodies here, that go about doing nothing but setting people by the ears.

STENSGARD.
Well, on the whole — I’m afraid our relations are a little strained.

LUNDESTAD.
They are quite natural relations, Mr. Stensgard: the relation of the old to the new; it is always so.

STENSGARD.
Oh, come, Mr. Lundestad, you are not so old as all that.

LUNDESTAD.
Yes, indeed, I’m getting old. I have held my seat ever since 1839. It’s time I should be relieved.

STENSGARD.
Relieved?

LUNDESTAD.
Times change, you see. New problems arise, and for their solution we want new forces.

STENSGARD.
Now, frankly, Mr. Lundestad — are you really going to give up your seat to Monsen?

LUNDESTAD.
To Monsen? No, certainly not to Monsen.

STENSGARD.
Then I don’t understand —

LUNDESTAD.
Suppose, now, I did retire in Monsen’s favour: do you think he would be elected?