Генрик Ибсен - The Master Builder

HILDA.

Yes, it is the impossible that he is doing now! [With the indefinable expression in her eyes.] Can you see any one else up there with him?

RAGNAR.

There is no one else.

HILDA.

Yes, there is one he is striving with.

RAGNAR.

You are mistaken.

HILDA.

Then do you hear no song in the air, either?

RAGNAR.

It must be the wind in the tree–tops.

HILDA.

I hear a song—a mighty song! [Shouts in wild jubilation and glee.] Look, look! Now he is waving his hat! He is waving it to us down here! Oh, wave, wave back to him! For now it is finished! [Snatches the white shawl from the Doctor, waves it, and shouts up to SOLNESS.] Hurrah for Master Builder Solness!

DR. HERDAL.

Stop! Stop! For God's sake—!

[The ladies on the verandah wave their pocket–handkerchiefs, and the shouts of "Hurrah" are taken up in the street. Then they are suddenly silenced, and the crowd bursts out into a shriek of horror. A human body, with planks and fragments of wood, is vaguely perceived crashing down behind the trees.

MRS. SOLNESS AND THE LADIES.

[At the same time.] He is falling! He is falling!

[MRS. SOLNESS totters, falls backwards, swooning, and is caught, amid cries and confusion, by the ladies. The crowd in the street breaks down the fence and storms into the garden. At the same time DR. HERDAL, too, rushes down thither. A short pause.

HILDA.

[Stares fixedly upwards and says, as if petrified.] My Master Builder.

RAGNAR.

[Supports himself, trembling, against the railing.] He must be dashed to pieces—killed on the spot.

ONE OF THE LADIES.

[Whilst MRS. SOLNESS is carried into the house.] Run down for the doctor—

RAGNAR.

I can't stir a root—

ANOTHER LADY.

Then call to some one!

RAGNAR.

[Tries to call out.] How is it? Is he alive?

A VOICE.

[Below, in the garden.] Mr. Solness is dead!

OTHER VOICES.

[Nearer.] The head is all crushed.—he fell right into the quarry.

HILDA.

[Turns to RAGNAR, and says quietly.] I can't see him up there now.

RAGNAR.

This is terrible. So, after all, he could not do it.

HILDA.

[As if in quiet spell–bound triumph.] But he mounted right to the top. And I heard harps in the air. [Waves her shawl in the air, and shrieks with wild intensity.] My—my Master Builder!

"To the May–sun of a September life—in Tyrol."

"High, painful happiness—to struggle for the unattainable!"

Neus deutsche Rundschau , December, 1906, p.1462.

This conception I have worked out at much greater length in an essay entitled The Melody of the Master Builder , appended to the shilling edition of the play, published in 1893. I there retell the story, transplanting it to England and making the hero a journalist instead of an architect, in order to show that (if we grant the reality of certain commonly–accepted phenomena of hypnotism) there is nothing incredible or even extravagantly improbable about it. The argument is far too long to be included here, but the reader who is interested in the subject may find it worth referring to.

For an instance of the technical methods by which he suggested the supernormal element in the atmosphere of the play, see Introduction to A Doll's House , p. xiv.