Генрик Ибсен: When We Dead Awaken

IRENE.

Where are you thinking of going with her?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Slack and weary.] Oh, on a tedious coasting–voyage to the North, I suppose.

IRENE.

[Looks at him, smiles almost imperceptibly, and whispers.] You should rather go high up into the mountains. As high as ever you can. Higher, higher,—always higher, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[With eager expectation.] Are you going up there?

IRENE.

Have you the courage to meet me once again?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Struggling with himself, uncertainly.] If we could—oh, if only we could—!

IRENE.

Why can we not do what we will? [Looks at him and whispers beseechingly with folded hands.] Come, come, Arnold! Oh, come up to me—!

[MAIA enters, glowing with pleasure, from behind the hotel, and goes quickly up to the table where they were previously sitting.]

MAIA.

[Still at the corner of the hotel, without looking around.] Oh, you may say what you please, Rubek, but—[Stops, as she catches sight of IRENE]—Oh, I beg your pardon—I see you have made an acquaintance.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Curtly.] Renewed an acquaintance. [Rises.] What was it you wanted with me?

MAIA.

I only wanted to say this: you may do whatever you please, but I am not going with you on that disgusting steamboat.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Why not?

MAIA.

Because I want to go up on the mountains and into the forests—that's what I want. [Coaxingly.] Oh, you must let me do it, Rubek.—I shall be so good, so good afterwards!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Who is it that has put these ideas into your head?

MAIA.

Why he—that horrid bear–killer. Oh you cannot conceive all the marvelous things he has to tell about the mountains. And about life up there! They're ugly, horrid, repulsive, most of the yarns he spins—for I almost believe he's lying—but wonderfully alluring all the same. Oh, won't you let me go with him? Only to see if what he says is true, you understand. May I, Rubek?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Yes, I have not the slightest objection. Off you go to the mountains—as far and as long as you please. I shall perhaps be going the same way myself.

MAIA.

[Quickly.] No, no, no, you needn't do that! Not on my account!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I want to go to the mountains. I have made up my mind to go.

MAIA.

Oh thanks, thanks! May I tell the bear–killer at once?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Tell the bear–killer whatever you please.

MAIA.

Oh thanks, thanks, thanks! [Is about to take his hand; he repels the movement.] Oh, how dear and good you are to–day, Rubek!

[She runs into the hotel.

[At the same time the door of the pavilion is softly and noiselessly set ajar. The SISTER OF MERCY stands in the opening, intently on the watch. No one sees her.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Decidedly, turning to IRENE.] Shall we meet up there then?

IRENE.

[Rising slowly.] Yes, we shall certainly meet.—I have sought for you so long.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

When did you begin to seek for me, Irene?

IRENE.

[With a touch of jesting bitterness.] From the moment I realised that I had given away to you something rather indispensable, Arnold. Something one ought never to part with.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Bowing his head.] Yes, that is bitterly true. You gave me three or four years of your youth.

IRENE.

More, more than that I gave you—spend–thrift as I then was.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Yes, you were prodigal, Irene. You gave me all your naked loveliness—

IRENE. —to gaze upon—

PROFESSOR RUBEK. —and to glorify—

IRENE.

Yes, for your own glorification.—And the child's.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

And yours too, Irene.

IRENE.

But you have forgotten the most precious gift.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

The most precious—? What gift was that?

IRENE.

I gave you my young, living soul. And that gift left me empty within—soulless. [Looking at him with a fixed stare.] It was that I died of, Arnold.

[The SISTER OF MERCY opens the door wide and makes room for her.

She goes into the pavilion.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Stands and looks after her; then whispers.] Irene!

[Near a mountain resort. The landscape stretches, in the form of an immense treeless upland, towards a long mountain lake. Beyond the lake rises a range of peaks with blue–white snow in the clefts. In the foreground on the left a purling brook falls in severed streamlets down a steep wall of rock, and thence flows smoothly over the upland until it disappears to the right. Dwarf trees, plants, and stones along the course of the brook. In the foreground on the right a hillock, with a stone bench on the top of it. It is a summer afternoon, towards sunset.

[At some distance over the upland, on the other side of the brook, a troop of children is singing, dancing, and playing. Some are dressed in peasant costume, others in town–made clothes. Their happy laughter is heard, softened by distance, during the following.

[PROFESSOR RUBEK is sitting on the bench, with a plaid over his shoulders, and looking down at the children's play.

[Presently, MAIA comes forward from among some bushes on the upland to the left, well back, and scans the prospect with her hand shading her eyes. She wears a flat tourist cap, a short skirt, kilted up, reaching only midway between ankle and knee, and high, stout lace–boots. She has in her hand a long alpenstock.

MAIA.

[At last catches sight of RUBEK and calls.] Hallo!

[She advances over the upland, jumps over the brook, with the aid of her alpenstock, and climbs up the hillock.

MAIA.

[Panting.] Oh, how I have been rushing around looking for you, Rubek.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Nods indifferently and asks.] Have you just come from the hotel?

MAIA.

Yes, that was the last place I tried—that fly–trap.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Looking at her for moment.] I noticed that you were not at the dinner–table.

MAIA.

No, we had our dinner in the open air, we two.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

"We two"? What two?

MAIA.

Why, I and that horrid bear–killer, of course.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Oh, he.

MAIA.

Yes. And first thing to–morrow morning we are going off again.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

After bears?

MAIA.

Yes. Off to kill a brown–boy.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Have you found the tracks of any?

MAIA.

[With superiority.] You don't suppose that bears are to be found in the naked mountains, do you?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Where, then?

MAIA.

Far beneath. On the lower slopes; in the thickest parts of the forest. Places your ordinary town–folk could never get through—

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

And you two are going down there to–morrow?

MAIA.

[Throwing herself down among the heather.] Yes, so we have arranged.—Or perhaps we may start this evening.—If you have no objection, that's to say?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I? Far be it from me to—

MAIA.

[Quickly.] Of course Lars goes with us—with the dogs.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I feel no curiosity as to the movements of Mr. Lars and his dogs. [Changing the subject.] Would you not rather sit properly on the seat?

MAIA.

[Drowsily.] No, thank you. I'm lying so delightfully in the soft heather.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I can see that you are tired.

MAIA.

[Yawning.] I almost think I'm beginning to feel tired.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

You don't notice it till afterwards—when the excitement is over—

MAIA.

[In a drowsy tone.] Just so. I will lie and close my eyes.

[A short pause.

MAIA.

[With sudden impatience.] Ugh, Rubek—how can you endure to sit there listening to these children's screams! And to watch all the capers they are cutting, too!