Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (322 page)

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Looking him straight in the eyes.]
Yes, it is Erhart; my son; he whom you are ready to renounce in atonement for your own acts.

BORKMAN.
[With a look towards ELLA.]
In atonement for my blackest sin.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Repelling the idea.]
A sin towards a stranger only. Remember the sin towards me!
[Looking triumphantly at them both.]
But he will not obey you! When I cry out to him in my need, he will come to me! It is with me that he will remain! With me, and never with any one else.
[Suddenly listens, and cries.]
I hear him! He is here, he is here! Erhart!

[ERHART BORKMAN hastily tears open the hall door, and enters the room. He is wearing an overcoat and has his hat on.

ERHART.
[Pale and anxious.]
Mother! What in Heaven’s name —— !
[Seeing BORKMAN, who is standing beside the doorway leading into the garden-room, he starts and takes off his hat. After a moment’s silence, he asks:]
What do you want with me, mother? What has happened?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Stretching her arms towards him.]
I want to see you, Erhart!
I want to have you with me, always!

ERHART.
[Stammering.]
Have me —— ? Always? What do you mean by that?

MRS. BORKMAN. I will have you, I say! There is some one who wants to take you away from me!

ERHART.
[Recoiling a step.]
Ah — so you know?

MRS. BORKMAN.
Yes. Do you know it, too?

ERHART.
[Surprised, looking at her.]
Do
I
know it? Yes, of course.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Aha, so you have planned it all out! Behind my back! Erhart!
Erhart!

ERHART.
[Quickly.]
Mother, tell me what it is you know!

MRS. BORKMAN. I know everything. I know that your aunt has come here to take you from me.

ERHART.
Aunt Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, listen to me a moment, Erhart!

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Continuing.]
She wants me to give you up to her. She wants to stand in your mother’s place to you, Erhart! She wants you to be her son, and not mine, from this time forward. She wants you to inherit everything from her; to renounce your own name and take hers instead!

ERHART.
Aunt Ella, is this true?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, it is true.

ERHART. I knew nothing of this. Why do you want to have me with you again?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Because I feel that I am losing you here.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Hardly.]
You are losing him to me — yes. And that is just as it should be.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Looking beseechingly at him.]
Erhart, I cannot afford to lose you. For, I must tell you I am a lonely — dying woman.

ERHART.
Dying —— ?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, dying. Will you came and be with me to the end? Attach yourself wholly to me? Be to me, as though you were my own child —— ?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Interrupting.]
And forsake your mother, and perhaps your mission in life as well? Will you, Erhart?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I am condemned to death. Answer me, Erhart.

ERHART.
[Warmly, with emotion.]
Aunt Ella, you have been unspeakably good to me. With you I grew up in as perfect happiness as any boy can ever have known ——

MRS. BORKMAN.
Erhart, Erhart!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, how glad I am that you can still say that!

ERHART. But I cannot sacrifice myself to you now. It is not possible for me to devote myself wholly to taking a son’s place towards you.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Triumphing.]
Ah, I knew it! You shall not have him! You shall not have him, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Sadly.]
I see it. You have won him back.

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, yes! Mine he is, and mine he shall remain! Erhart, say it is so, dear; we two have still a long way to go together, have we not?

ERHART.
[Struggling with himself.]
Mother, I may as well tell you plainly ——

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Eagerly.]
What?

ERHART. I am afraid it is only a very little way you and I can go together.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Stands as though thunderstruck.]
What do yo mean by that?

ERHART.
[Plucking up spirit.]
Good heavens, mother, I am young, after all! I feel as if the close air of this room must stifle me in the end.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Close air? Here — with me?

ERHART.
Yes, here with you, mother.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Then come with me, Erhart.

ERHART. Oh, Aunt Ella, it’s not a whit better with you. It’s different, but no better — no better for me. It smells of rose-leaves and lavender there too; it is as airless there as here.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Shaken, but having recovered her composure with an effort.]
Airless in your mother’s room, you say!

ERHART.
[In growing impatience.]
Yes, I don’t know how else to express it. All this morbid watchfulness and — and idolisation, or whatever you like to call it —— I can’t endure it any longer!

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Looking at him with deep solemnity.]
Have you forgotten what you have consecrated your life to, Erhart?

ERHART.
[With an outburst.]
Oh, say rather what you have consecrated my life to. You, you have been my will. You have never given me leave to have any of my own. But now I cannot bear this yoke any longer. I am young; remember that, mother.
[With a polite, considerate glance towards BORKMAN.]
I cannot consecrate my life to making atonement for another — whoever that other may be.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Seized with growing anxiety.]
Who is it that has transformed you, Erhart?

ERHART.
[Struck.]
Who? Can you not conceive that it is I myself?

MRS. BORKMAN. No, no, no! You have come under some strange power. You are not in your mother’s power any longer; nor in your — your foster-mother’s either.

ERHART.
[With laboured defiance.]
I am in my own power, mother! And working my own will!

BORKMAN.
[Advancing towards ERHART.]
Then perhaps my hour has come at last.

ERHART.
[Distantly and with measured politeness.]
How so! How do you mean, sir?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Scornfully.]
Yes, you may well ask that.

BORKMAN.
[Continuing undisturbed.]
Listen, Erhart — will you not cast in your lot with your father? It is not through any other man’s life that a man who has fallen can be raised up again. These are only empty fables that have been told to you down here in the airless room. If you were to set yourself to live your life like all the saints together, it would be of no use whatever to me.

ERHART.
[With measured respectfulness.]
That is very true indeed.

BORKMAN. Yes, it is. And it would be of no use either if I should resign myself to wither away in abject penitence. I have tried to feed myself upon hopes and dreams, all through these years. But I am not the man to be content with that; and now I mean to have done with dreaming.

ERHART.
[With a slight bow.]
And what will — what will you do, sir?

BORKMAN. I will work out my own redemption, that is what I will do. I will begin at the bottom again. It is only through his present and his future that a man can atone for his past. Through work, indefatigable work, for all that, in my youth, seemed to give life its meaning — and that now seems a thousand times greater than it did then. Erhart, will you join with me and help me in this new life?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Raising her hand warningly.]
Do not do it, Erhart!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Warmly.]
Yes, yes do it! Oh, help him, Erhart!

MRS. BORKMAN.
And you advise him to do that? You, the lonely dying woman.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I don’t care about myself.

MRS. BORKMAN.
No, so long as it is not I that take him from you.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Precisely so, Gunhild.

BORKMAN.
Will you, Erhart?

ERHART.
[Wrung with pain.]
Father, I cannot now. It is utterly impossible!

BORKMAN.
What do you want to do then?

ERHART.
[With a sudden glow.]
I am young! I want to live, for once in a way, as well as other people! I want to live my own life!

ELLA RENTHEIM. You cannot give up two or three little months to brighten the close of a poor waning life?

ERHART.
I cannot, Aunt, however much I may wish to.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Not for the sake of one who loves you so dearly?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Looking sharply at him.]
And your mother has no power over you either, any more?

ERHART. I will always love you, mother; but I cannot go on living for you alone. This is no life for me.

BORKMAN. Then come and join with me, after all! For life, life means work, Erhart. Come, we two will go forth into life and work together!

ERHART.
[Passionately.]
Yes, but I don’t want to work now! For I am young! That’s what I never realised before; but now the knowledge is tingling through every vein in my body. I will not work! I will only live, live, live!

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With a cry of divination.]
Erhart, what will you live for?

ERHART.
[With sparkling eyes.]
For happiness, mother!

MRS. BORKMAN.
And where do you think you can find that?

ERHART.
I have found it, already!

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Shrieks.]
Erhart!
[ERHART goes quickly to the hall door and throws it open.]

ERHART.
[Calls out.]
Fanny, you can come in now!

[MRS. WILTON, in outdoor wraps, appears on the threshold.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With uplifted hands.]
Mrs. Wilton!

MRS. WILTON.
[Hesitating a little, with an enquiring glance at ERHART.]
Do you want me to —— ?

ERHART.
Yes, now you can come in. I have told them everything.

[MRS. WILTON comes forward into the room. ERHART closes the door behind her. She bows formally to BORKMAN, who returns her bow in silence. A short pause.

MRS. WILTON.
[In a subdued but firm voice.]
So the word has been spoken — and I suppose you all think I have brought a great calamity upon this house?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Slowly, looking hard at her.]
You have crushed the last remnant of interest in life for me.
[With an outburst.]
But all of this — all this is utterly impossible!

MRS. WILTON.
I can quite understand that it must appear impossible to you,
Mrs. Borkman.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Yes, you can surely see for yourself that it is impossible.
Or what —— ?

MRS. WILTON. I should rather say that it seems highly improbable. But it’s so, none the less.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Turning.]
Are you really in earnest about this, Erhart?

ERHART. This means happiness for me, mother — all the beauty and happiness of life. That is all I can say to you.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Clenching her hands together; to MRS. WILTON.]
Oh, how you have cajoled and deluded my unhappy son!