Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (318 page)

BORKMAN. Then they don’t understand these things. For your tragedy is good. I am firmly convinced of that.

FOLDAL.
[Brightening up.]
Yes, don’t you think there are some good things in it, John Gabriel? Good God, if I could only manage to get it placed —— !
[Opens his portfolio, and begins eagerly turning over the contents.]
Look here! Just let me show you one or two alterations I have made.

BORKMAN.
Have you it with you?

FOLDAL. Yes, I thought I would bring it. It’s so long now since I have read it to you. And I thought perhaps it might amuse you to hear an act or two.

BORKMAN.
[Rising, with a negative gesture.]
No, no, we will keep that for another time.

FOLDAL.
Well, well, as you please.

 [BORKMAN paces up and down the room. FOLDAL puts the
      manuscript up again.

BORKMAN.
[Stopping in front of him.]
You are quite right in what you said just now — you have not made any career. But I promise you this, Vilhelm, that when once the hour of my restoration strikes ——

FOLDAL.
[Making a movement to rise.]
Oh, thanks, thanks!

BORKMAN.
[Waving his hand.]
No, please be seated.
[With rising excitement.]
When the hour of my restoration strikes — when they see that they cannot get on without me — when they come to me, here in the gallery, and crawl to my feet, and beseech me to take the reins of the bank again —— ! The new bank, that they have founded and can’t carry on ——
[Placing himself beside the writing-table in the same attitude as before, and striking his breast.]
Here I shall stand, and receive them! And it shall be known far and wide, all the country over, what conditions John Gabriel Borkman imposes before he will ——
[Stopping suddenly and staring at FOLDAL.]
You’re looking so doubtfully at me! Perhaps you do not believe that they will come? That they must, must, must come to me some day? Do you not believe it?

FOLDAL.
Yes, Heaven knows I do, John Gabriel.

BORKMAN.
[Seating himself again on the sofa.]
I firmly believe it. I am immovably convinced — I know that they will come. If I had not been certain of that I would have put a bullet through my head long ago.

FOLDAL.
[Anxiously.]
Oh no, for Heaven’s sake —— !

BORKMAN.
[Exultantly.]
But they will come! They will come sure enough!
You shall see! I expect them any day, any moment. And you see,
I hold myself in readiness to receive them.

FOLDAL.
[With a sigh.]
If only they would come quickly.

BORKMAN.
[Restlessly.]
Yes, time flies: the years slip away; life ——
Ah, no — I dare not think of it!
[Looking at him.]
Do you know
what I sometimes feel like?

FOLDAL.
What?

BORKMAN.
I feel like a Napoleon who has been maimed in his first battle.

FOLDAL.
[Placing his hand upon his portfolio.]
I have that feeling too.

BORKMAN.
Oh, well, that is on a smaller scale, of course.

FOLDAL.
[Quietly.]
My little world of poetry is very precious to me,
John Gabriel.

BORKMAN.
[Vehemently.]
Yes, but think of me, who could have created millions! All the mines I should have controlled! New veins innumerable! And the water-falls! And the quarries! And the trade routes, and the steamship-lines all the wide world over! I would have organised it all — I alone!

FOLDAL. Yes, I know, I know. There was nothing in the world you would have shrunk from.

BORKMAN.
[Clenching his hands together.]
And now I have to sit here, like a wounded eagle, and look on while others pass me in the race, and take everything away from me, piece by piece!

FOLDAL.
That is my fate too.

BORKMAN.
[Not noticing him.]
Only to think of it; so near to the goal as I was! If I had only had another week to look about me! All the deposits would have been covered. All the securities I had dealt with so daringly should have been in their places again as before. Vast companies were within a hair’s-breadth of being floated. Not a soul should have lost a half-penny.

FOLDAL.
Yes, yes; you were on the very verge of success.

BORKMAN.
[With suppressed fury.]
And then treachery overtook me! Just at the critical moment!
[Looking at him.]
Do you know what I hold to be the most infamous crime a man can be guilty of?

FOLDAL.
No, tell me.

BORKMAN. It is not murder. It is not robbery or house-breaking. It is not even perjury. For all these things people do to those they hate, or who are indifferent to them, and do not matter.

FOLDAL.
What is the worst of all then, John Gabriel?

BORKMAN.
[With emphasis.]
The most infamous of crimes is a friend’s betrayal of his friend’s confidence.

FOLDAL.
[Somewhat doubtfully.]
Yes, but you know ——

BORKMAN.
[Firing up.]
What are you going to say? I see it in your face. But it is of no use. The people who had their securities in the bank should have got them all back again — every farthing. No; I tell you the most infamous crime a man can commit is to misuse a friend’s letters; to publish to all the world what has been confided to him alone, in the closest secrecy, like a whisper in an empty, dark, double-locked room. The man who can do such things is infected and poisoned in every fibre with the morals of the higher rascality. And such a friend was mine — and it was he who crushed me.

FOLDAL.
I can guess whom you mean.

BORKMAN. There was not a nook or cranny of my life that I hesitated to lay open to him. And then, when the moment came, he turned against me the weapons I myself had placed in his hands.

FOLDAL. I have never been able to understand why he —— Of course, there were whispers of all sorts at the time.

BORKMAN.
What were the whispers? Tell me. You see I know nothing.
For I had to go straight into — into isolation. What did people
whisper, Vilhelm?

FOLDAL.
You were to have gone into the Cabinet, they said.

BORKMAN.
I was offered a portfolio, but I refused it.

FOLDAL.
Then it wasn’t there you stood in his way?

BORKMAN.
Oh, no; that was not the reason he betrayed me.

FOLDAL.
Then I really can’t understand ——

BORKMAN.
I may as well tell you, Vilhelm ——

FOLDAL.
Well?

BORKMAN.
There was — in fact, there was a woman in the case.

FOLDAL.
A woman in the case? Well but, John Gabriel ——

BORKMAN.
[Interrupting.]
Well, well — let us say no more of these stupid old stories. After all, neither of us got into the Cabinet, neither he nor I.

FOLDAL.
But he rose high in the world.

BORKMAN.
And I fell into the abyss.

FOLDAL.
Oh, it’s a terrible tragedy ——

BORKMAN.
[Nodding to him.]
Almost as terrible as yours, I fancy, when
I come to think of it.

FOLDAL.
[Naively.]
Yes, at least as terrible.

BORKMAN.
[Laughing quietly.]
But looked at from another point of view, it is really a sort of comedy as well.

FOLDAL.
A comedy? The story of your life?

BORKMAN. Yes, it seems to be taking a turn in that direction. For let me tell you ——

FOLDAL.
What?

BORKMAN.
You say you did not meet Frida as you came in?

FOLDAL.
No.

BORKMAN. At this moment, as we sit here, she is playing waltzes for the guests of the man who betrayed and ruined me.

FOLDAL.
I hadn’t the least idea of that.

BORKMAN. Yes, she took her music, and went straight from me to — to the great house.

FOLDAL.
[Apologetically.]
Well, you see, poor child ——

BORKMAN.
And can you guess for whom she is playing — among the rest?

FOLDAL.
No.

BORKMAN.
For my son.

FOLDAL.
What?

BORKMAN. What do you think of that, Vilhelm? My son is down there in the whirl of the dance this evening. Am I not right in calling it a comedy?

FOLDAL.
But in that case you may be sure he knows nothing about it.

BORKMAN.
What does he know?

FOLDAL.
You may be sure he doesn’t know how he — that man ——

BORKMAN.
Do not shrink from his name. I can quite well bear it now.

FOLDAL.
I’m certain your son doesn’t know the circumstances, John Gabriel.

BORKMAN.
[Gloomily, sitting and beating the table.]
Yes, he knows, as surely as I am sitting here.

FOLDAL.
Then how can he possibly be a guest in that house?

BORKMAN.
[Shaking his head.]
My son probably does not see things with my eyes. I’ll take my oath he is on my enemies’ side! No doubt he thinks, as they do, that Hinkel only did his confounded duty when he went and betrayed me.

FOLDAL. But, my dear friend, who can have got him to see things in that light?

BORKMAN. Who? Do you forget who has brought him up? First his aunt, from the time he was six or seven years old; and now, of late years, his mother!

FOLDAL.
I believe you are doing them an injustice.

BORKMAN.
[Firing up.]
I never do any one injustice! Both of them have gone and poisoned his mind against me, I tell you!

FOLDAL.
[Soothingly.]
Well, well, well, I suppose they have.

BORKMAN.
[Indignantly.]
Oh these women! They wreck and ruin life for us! Play the devil with our whole destiny — our triumphal progress.

FOLDAL.
Not all of them!

BORKMAN. Indeed? Can you tell me of a single one that is good for anything?

FOLDAL. No, that is the trouble. The few that I know are good for nothing.

BORKMAN.
[With a snort of scorn.]
Well then, what is the good of it?
What is the good of such women existing — if you never know them?

FOLDAL.
[Warmly.]
Yes, John Gabriel, there is good in it, I assure you.
It is such a blessed, beneficial thought that here or there in the
world, somewhere, far away — the true woman exists after all.

BORKMAN.
[Moving impatiently on the sofa.]
Oh, do spare me that poetical nonsense.

FOLDAL.
[Looks at him, deeply wounded.]
Do you call my holiest faith poetical nonsense?

BORKMAN.
[Harshly.]
Yes I do! That is what has always prevented you from getting on in the world. If you would get all that out of your head, I could still help you on in life — help you to rise.

FOLDAL.
[Boiling inwardly.]
Oh, you can’t do that.

BORKMAN.
I can when once I come into power again.

FOLDAL.
That won’t be for many a day.

BORKMAN.
[Vehemently.]
Perhaps you think that day will never come?
Answer me!

FOLDAL.
I don’t know what to answer.

BORKMAN.
[Rising, cold and dignified, and waving his hand towards the door.]
Then I no longer have any use for you.

FOLDAL.
[Starting up.]
No use —— !

BORKMAN.
Since you do not believe that the tide will turn for me ——