Генрик Ибсен: The Lady from the Sea

Bolette (looking at him). Well; but you on your side?

Lyngstrand. I?

Bolette (looking out into the garden). Hush! Let us speak of something else. Here's Mr. Arnholm.

(ARNHOLM is seen in the garden below. He stops and talks to HILDE and BALLESTED.)

Lyngstrand. Are you fond of your old teacher, Miss Bolette?

Bolette. Fond of him?

Lyngstrand. Yes; I mean do you care for him?

Bolette. Yes, indeed I do, for he is a true friend—and adviser, too—and then he is always so ready to help when he can.

Lyngstrand. Isn't it extraordinary that he hasn't married!

Bolette. Do you think it is extraordinary?

Lyngstrand. Yes, for you say he's well–to–do.

Bolette. He is certainly said to be so. But probably it wasn't so easy to find anyone who'd have him.

Lyngstrand. Why?

Bolette. Oh! He's been the teacher of nearly all the young girls that he knows. He says that himself.

Lyngstrand. But what does that matter?

Bolette. Why, good heavens! One doesn't marry a man who's been your teacher!

Lyngstrand. Don't you think a young girl might love her teacher?

Bolette. Not after she's really grown up.

Lyngstrand. No—fancy that!

Bolette (cautioning him). Sh! sh!

(Meanwhile BALLESTED has been gathering together his things, and carries them out from the garden to the right. HILDE helps him. ARNHOLM goes up the verandah, and comes into the room.)

Arnholm. Good–morning, my dear Bolette. Good–morning, Mr.—Mr.—hm—(He looks displeased, and nods coldly to LYNGSTRAND, who rises.)

Bolette (rising up and going up to ARNHOLM). Good–morning, Mr. Arnholm.

Arnholm. Everything all right here today?

Bolette. Yes, thanks, quite.

Arnholm. Has your stepmother gone to bathe again today?

Bolette. No. She is upstairs in her room.

Arnholm. Not very bright?

Bolette. I don't know, for she has locked herself in.

Arnholm. Hm—has she?

Lyngstrand. I suppose Mrs. Wangel was very much frightened about that American yesterday?

Arnholm. What do you know about that?

Lyngstrand. I told Mrs. Wangel that I had seen him in the flesh behind the garden.

Arnholm. Oh! I see.

Bolette (to ARNHOLM). No doubt you and father sat up very late last night, talking?

Arnholm. Yes, rather late. We were talking over serious matters.

Bolette. Did you put in a word for me, and my affairs, too?

Arnholm. No, dear Bolette, I couldn't manage it. He was so completely taken up with something else.

Bolette (sighs). Ah! yes; he always is.

Arnholm (looks at her meaningly). But later on today we'll talk more fully about—the matter. Where's your father now? Not at home?

Bolette. Yes, he is. He must be down in the office. I'll fetch him.

Arnholm. No, thanks. Don't do that. I'd rather go down to him.

Bolette (listening). Wait one moment, Mr. Arnholm; I believe that's father on the stairs. Yes, I suppose he's been up to look after her.

(WANGEL comes in from the door on the left.)

Wangel (shaking ARNHOLM'S hand). What, dear friend, are you here already? It was good of you to come so early, for I should like to talk a little further with you.

Bolette (to LYNGSTRAND). Hadn't we better go down to Hilde in the garden?

Lyngstrand. I shall be delighted, Miss Wangel.

(He and BOLETTE go down into the garden, and pass out between the trees in the background.)

Arnholm (following them with his eyes, turns to WANGEL). Do you know anything about that young man?

Wangel. No, nothing at all.

Arnholm. But do you think it right he should knock about so much with the girls?

Wangel. Does he? I really hadn't noticed it.

Arnholm. You ought to see to it, I think.

Wangel. Yes, I suppose you're right. But, good Lord! What's a man to do? The girls are so accustomed to look after themselves now. They won't listen to me, nor to Ellida.

Arnholm. Not to her either?

Wangel. No; and besides I really cannot expect Ellida to trouble about such things. She's not fit for that (breaking off). But it wasn't that which we were to talk of. Now tell me, have you thought the matter over—thought over all I told you of?

Arnholm. I have thought of nothing else ever since we parted last night.

Wangel. And what do you think should be done?

Arnholm. Dear Wangel, I think you, as a doctor, must know that better than I.

Wangel. Oh! if you only knew how difficult it is for a doctor to judge rightly about a patient who is so dear to him! Besides, this is no ordinary illness. No ordinary doctor and no ordinary medicines can help her.

Arnholm. How is she today?

Wangel. I was upstairs with her just now, and then she seemed to me quite calm; but behind all her moods something lies hidden which it is impossible for me to fathom; and then she is so changeable, so capricious—she varies so suddenly.

Arnholm. No doubt that is the result of her morbid state of mind.

Wangel. Not altogether. When you go down to the bedrock, it was born in her. Ellida belongs to the sea–folk. That is the matter.

Arnholm. What do you really mean, my dear doctor?

Wangel. Haven't you noticed that the people from out there by the open sea are, in a way, a people apart? It is almost as if they themselves lived the life of the sea. There is the rush of waves, and ebb and flow too, both in their thoughts and in their feelings, and so they can never bear transplanting. Oh! I ought to have remembered that. It was a sin against Ellida to take her away from there, and bring her here.

Arnholm. You have come to that opinion?

Wangel. Yes, more and more. But I ought to have told myself this beforehand. Oh! I knew it well enough at bottom! But I put it from me. For, you see, I loved her so! Therefore, I thought of myself first of all. I was inexcusably selfish at that time!

Arnholm. Hm. I suppose every man is a little selfish under such circumstances. Moreover, I've never noticed that vice in you, Doctor Wangel.

Wangel (walks uneasily about the room). Oh, yes! And I have been since then, too. Why, I am so much, much older than she is. I ought to have been at once as a father to her and a guide. I ought to have done my best to develop and enlighten her mind. Unfortunately nothing ever came of that. You see, I hadn't stamina enough, for I preferred her just as she was. So things went worse and worse with her, and then I didn't know what to do. (In a lower voice.) That was why I wrote to you in my trouble, and asked you to come here.

Arnholm (looks at him in astonishment). What, was it for this you wrote?

Wangel. Yes; but don't let anyone notice anything.

Arnholm. How on earth, dear doctor—what good did you expect me to be? I don't understand it.

Wangel. No, naturally. For I was on an altogether false track. I thought Ellida's heart had at one time gone out to you, and that she still secretly cared for you a little—that perhaps it would do her good to see you again, and talk of her home and the old days.

Arnholm. So it was your wife you meant when you wrote that she expected me, and—and perhaps longed for me.

Wangel. Yes, who else?

Arnholm (hurriedly). No, no. You're right. But I didn't understand.

Wangel. Naturally, as I said, for I was on an absolutely wrong track.

Arnholm. And you call yourself selfish!

Wangel. Ah! but I had such a great sin to atone for. I felt I dared not neglect any means that might give the slightest relief to her mind.

Arnholm. How do you really explain the power this stranger exercises over her?

Wangel. Hm—dear friend—there may be sides to the matter that cannot be explained.

Arnholm. Do you mean anything inexplicable in itself—absolutely inexplicable?

Wangel. In any case not explicable as far as we know.