Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (716 page)
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Authors: Henrik Ibsen
ROME, November 20th, 1884
Dear Jonas Lie:
MANY thanks for the letter which just reached me here. I do not know your address in Paris, so I am sending you these lines at once, hoping that they may still reach you in Berchtesgaden. I suppose you can imagine what great joy it gave me here in the solitude to receive such a message from you and your wife at the occasion of “The Wild Duck.” How it will be looked upon and judged at home I do not know as yet.
You may be sure that we have often thought of you and spoken of you lately. A rumor stated that you still had a large part of your new story unfinished, so that it was doubtful if it could appear in time for Christmas. But now I see you are through and we wish to utter our most hearty wishes for its success. I hope and expect that this time also you have put forth a work that will stand on a level with your two latest masterpieces, “One of Life’s Slaves” and “The Family at Gilje.”
But when will the time finally come that we shall be able to enjoy fully the fruit of our work outside the Scandinavian countries? It is said that they are now considering at home the possibility of making international agreements. But in that way alone they cannot remedy the injustice already done us older poets. It is the duty of the state to increase our poet pensions, and I think you ought now to take some step in that direction before the Storthing meets. If the new cabinet really means its protestations of liberal and modern views, then there ought not to be for a moment any doubt as to what is its plain duty in this matter.
I regret very much that you could not be present at the meeting at Schwaz this summer. There were several subjects which did not receive the explanation that they might have had if we three could have met together. Otherwise I am extremely glad about my meeting with Bjornson; I have come to understand him far better than before.
Now I will only wish that the cholera may not make your winter in Paris too disagreeable. At present it seems to be receding, and, moreover, the cold has set in and that the doctors consider desirable. Here the hotels are all empty but the sanitary conditions are good.
Once more I thank you for your letter and wish you good luck to your new book. My wife asks me to give her best regards to you both. I add mine to hers.
Yours most sincerely,
HENRIK IBSEN
MUNICH, January 27th, 1887
Dear Jonas Lie:
DAY after day I have intended to write to you. But, as usual with me, something else has always come between. Now, however, I will put everything else aside and send you a few lines.
First and foremost, then, I will ask you, on behalf of both my wife and myself, to accept our cordial congratulations on the occasion of “The Commodore’s Daughters.” I suppose you can yourself imagine what a joy it was to us two lonely people out here to receive this living message from home. Neither of us has ever been in those regions where most of the events take place, but from the very beginning of the book it seemed to us that we were, so to speak, quite at home there. And, above all, the people! We see them and we know them. We feel now as if we had known them a long, long time beforehand. Jan and Marte have our deepest sympathy. And what has happened to us in reading this work it seems to me must happen to every reader who possesses even but a trace of imagination and vision.
And next I will thank you for the kind letter with which you delighted me a couple of months ago. Since then I have been in a great bustle, and a part of the time absent travelling. The after-effect of this still makes itself felt in the shape of a great quantity of letter-writing, which, moreover, has to be carried on almost exclusively in German, which condition naturally increases the work considerably. That under these circumstances I should secure sufficient time and peace to grapple seriously with any new dramatic whimsies is out of the question. But I feel a number of such buzzing inside my head, and in the spring I hope to get some method into them. (“The Lady from the Sea.”)
We are seriously considering the possibility of spending the coming summer up at the Skaw if everything goes according to our wishes. The place has for a long time been a haunt of painters, and the great wide sea powerfully attracts us. At any rate we shall not go clear up to Norway. The conditions, the spirit, and the tone up there are to me quite unattractive. It is extremely distressing to see with what voracious eagerness they throw themselves into all kinds of bagatelles, just as if they were all-important affairs.
We have had a rather mild winter here with clear weather, and feel well in every respect. I hope the same is the case with you. When you have an opportunity to see Bjornson remember me to him and give him my thanks for the letter which he recently wrote me, and which I shall soon try to answer. But above all, give your wife and the children most cordial regards from both of us. Farewell all of you!
Yours most sincerely,
HENRIK IBSEN
(Letters XV-XVIII were first published in the Norwegian magazine
Samtiden,
February, 1908.)
MUNICH, February 4th, 1887
Dear Professor:
SINCE my return from Berlin I have almost every day thought of writing to you. But there has always been some hindrance until now you have forestalled me with your kind letter, for which I ask you to accept my most cordial thanks.
I wrote to Mrs von Borch yesterday and informed her that, except for a few more definitely stated conditions regarding the proofreading, I have no objection to her translation of “The Wild Duck” being published by Mr. Fischer, instead of by Reclam.
As regards “Lady Inger,” on the other hand, that is an old play which appeared about ten years ago in a German translation by Emma Klingenfeld from the publishing house of Theodor Ackermann here in Munich. The edition is not yet exhausted, so that under the circumstances a new translation of the drama should hardly be considered at present.
It was also an extremely great pleasure for me to learn, through
you,
that the German edition of “Rosmersholm” has had such a favourable reception in Berlin.
I look forward to your note on “Ghosts” with great expectation, and send you in advance my thanks for it.
My visit in Berlin and all connected with it I regard as a great and true personal happiness. It has had a wonderfully refreshing and renewing effect on my mind, and will quite certainly leave its traces in my future production.
I ask you, my dear professor, to accept my most cordial thanks for the large and important share which you had in all this, and to extend similar thanks to Dr. Brahm and Dr. Schlenther, and also to as many as possible of all the kind people with whom I had the good fortune to come in contact.
Your appointment as professor I have read in the Danish papers and I extend to you, on this occasion, my heartiest congratulations. Henceforth you will be associated with another political community. But I suppose that in many respects your scientific work will involve a continued connection with the northern countries.
And now I say farewell for this time, and am
Yours indebtedly and truly,
HENRIK IBSEN
MUNICH, February 26th, 1888
My dear Professor:
I THANK you most heartily for your two letters, which I now answer.
Brausewetter’s translation I have feared for a long time as I heard a rumor that such a one was in preparation; but I hoped to the very last that the time for its appearance could not be so near. Both he and Mr. Reclam have kept entirely silent to me.
A double pleasure it is to me under the circumstances to learn that the Berlin edition will be hastened as much as possible. I also feel greatly obliged to Mr. Fischer for this, and hope that his competitor will not cause him a very great loss, if he can immediately announce his own legally authorized edition as soon forthcoming.
Of my latest photograph, which I regard as the best one, but which is no longer on sale, I have now the promise of a few copies for to-morrow and I shall then take pleasure in sending you one without delay.
I ask you to use my letters in any way that you may find most serviceable for the matter in hand, and above all I am heartily thankful for the helpful introduction which your hinted promise has given me the pleasure to anticipate.
“Emperor and Galilean” is not the first work I have written in Germany, but, indeed, the first I have written under the influence of German intellectual life. In the fall of 1868, when I arrived from Italy and took up my residence in Dresden, I brought with me the plot of “The League of Youth,” and wrote that play the following winter. During my four years’ stay in Rome I had made multifarious historical studies and collected many notes for “Emperor and Galilean,” but had not devised any clear plan for its working out, and hence still less written any of the play. My view of life at that time was still the national Scandinavian, and so I could not make progress with the foreign subject. Then I experienced the great time in Germany, — the year of the war and the development afterward. To me all this had in many ways a transforming power. My view of the history of the world and of human life had been until then a national view. Now it broadened to a racial view, and I could write “Emperor and Galilean.” It was finished in the spring of 1873.
What you tell me of that sentiment still so favourable to me in Berlin pleases me greatly, and not the less so that perhaps I may now have an opportunity of getting one or more of my plays performed at the Schauspielhaus. My next work, when such a one is ready, will be offered there with great pleasure.
Cordial thanks for all your sacrificing friendship, and the same to all the others who so faithfully and indefatigably care for my affairs. How far would I have reached, I wonder, if I had been under the necessity of depending upon myself? Be sure that I in thankfulness deeply acknowledge this.
Yours truly and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN
(Mr. Anno is a German manager who Put on the stage “The Lady from the Sea” in Berlin for the first time March 4th, 1889, Ibsen being present.)
MUNICH, February 14th, 1889
My dear Professor:
YOUR kind letter which I received yesterday I now hasten to answer. So Mr. Anno desires that on the programs and in the performance the name “Bolette,” which is not known to Germans, be replaced by “Babette” or some other girl’s name. As the scene is not laid in Germany the reason advanced by him for the change can hardly be his only or chief one. I suppose that he has still another one and I therefore accede to his wish with pleasure. Babette may therefore be put in its place, — provided, of course, that Arnholm’s saying that the name is ugly will not seem inexplicable to a German audience. As to this I can have no sure opinion, but trust wholly to you in this matter also.
I must, however, decidedly object that there should be placed on the program “Ein Seeinann” or “Ein fremder Seemann” or “Ein Steuermann.” For he is not any of these. When Ellida met him ten years ago he was second mate. Seven years later he hired out as common boatswain, consequently as something considerably less. And now he appears as passenger on a tourist steamer.
To the crew of the ship he does not belong. He is dressed as a tourist, not as a travelling man. Nobody should know what he is, just as little should anybody know who he is or what he is really called. This uncertainty is just the chief point in the method chosen by me for the occasion. I kindly ask Mr. Anno to have attention directed to this during the rehearsals, otherwise the true vein of the presentation might easily be missed. But if the expression “Ein fremder Mann” possesses a comical flavor for the Berliners — could not the program have merely “Ein Fremder?” I have nothing to object to that. But should not even this improve the matter, then I do not think there is anything to do but to let the eventual gayeties have their free course. It is to be hoped they do not cause any more serious or lasting harm.
It is a great comfort for me to know that you, my dear professor, will have an eye upon the rehearsals, at least the last ones. For there may be so many things in the foreign conditions with which manager Anno is not quite familiar. And so I hope for a good result.
According to a telegram from Christiania “The Lady from the Sea” was performed there for the first time the day before yesterday and with quite extraordinary applause. From Weimar, where the play was to be given about this time, I have not yet heard anything. With best regards, I am,
Yours truly and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN