Here you are, the first man in the town, living in wealth and pride, in power and honour—you who have set the brand of crime upon an innocent man.Bernick.Do you think I do not feel deeply how I have wronged him? Do you think I am not prepared to make atonement?Lona.How? By speaking out?Bernick.Can you ask such a thing?Lona.What else can atone for such a wrong?And Johan also says (p. 75):In two months I shall be back again.Bernick.And then you will tell all?Johan.Then the guilty one must take the guilt upon himself.Bernick actually makes the confession demanded of him from pure contrition, for at the time he makes it all proofsof his crime are destroyed, and he has nothing more to fear from other persons. His confession is couched in most edifying terms (p. 108):I must begin by rejecting the panegyric with which you ... have overwhelmed me. I do not deserve it; for until to-day I have not been disinterested in my dealings.... I have no right to this homage; for ... my intention was to retain the whole myself.... My fellow-citizens must know me to the core ... that from this evening we begin a new time. The old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum open for instruction.... My fellow-citizens, I will come out of the lie; it had almost poisoned every fibre of my being. You shall know all. Fifteen years agoIwas the guilty one, etc.InRosmersholmthere is hardly any other subject treated of than the confession of all before all. In the very first visit of Kroll (p. 15) Rebecca urges Rosmer to confess:Rebecca(comes up close to Rosmer, and says rapidly and in a low voice, so that the Rector does not hear her). Do it now!Rosmer(also in a low voice). Not this evening.Rebecca(as before). Yes, this very evening.As he does not at once obey she will speak for him (p. 19):Rebecca.You must let me tell you frankly.Rosmer(quickly). No, no; be quiet. Not just now!Rosmer soon does it himself (p. 28):Kroll.We two are in practical agreement—at any rate, on the great essential questions.Rosmer(in a low voice). No; not now.Kroll(tries to jump up). What is this?Rosmer(holding him). No; you must sit still. I entreat you, Kroll.Kroll.What can this mean? I don’t understand you. Speak plainly.Rosmer.A new summer has blossomed in my soul. I see with eyes grown young again; and so now I stand——Kroll.Where? where, Rosmer?Rosmer.Where your children stand.Kroll.You? you? Impossible! Where do you say you stand?Rosmer.On the same side as Laurits and Hilda.Kroll(bows his head). An apostate! Johannes Rosmer an apostate!... Is this becoming language for a priest?Rosmer.I am no longer a priest.Kroll.Well, but—the faith of your childhood——?Rosmer.Is mine no longer.... I have given it up. Ihadto give it up.... Peace, and joy, and mutual forbearance must once more enter our souls. That is why I am stepping forward and openly avowing myself for what I am....Rebecca.There now; he’s on his way to his great sacrifice.(We may here note the purely theological designation given to Rosmer’s act.)Rosmer.I feel so relieved now it is over. You see, I am quite calm Rebecca....Like Rosmer, Rebecca also confesses to Rector Kroll (p. 86):Rebecca.Yes, Herr Rector, Rosmer and I—we saythouto each other. The relation between us has led to that.... Come, let us sit down, dear—all three of us—and then I will tell the whole story.Rosmer(seats himself mechanically). What has come over you, Rebecca? This unnatural calmness—what is it?Rebecca.I have only to tell you something.... Now it must out. It was not you, Rosmer. You are innocent; it wasIwho lured Beata out into the paths of delusion ... that led to the mill-race. Now you know it, both of you....Rosmer(after a pause). Have you confessed all now, Rebecca?No, not yet all. But she hastens to complete to Rosmer the confession begun to Kroll (p. 98):Rosmer.Have you more confessions to make?Rebecca.The greatest of all is to come.Rosmer.The greatest?Rebecca.What you have never suspected. What gives light and shade to all the rest, etc.InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida (p. 19) confesses to Arnholm the story of her insensate betrothal with the foreign sailor. Arnholm so little comprehends the need of this confession, made without rhyme or reason, that he asks with astonishment: ‘What is your object, then, in telling me that you were bound?’ ‘Because I must have someone in whom to confide,’ is Ellida’s sole—and, moreover, sufficient—answer.InHedda Gablerthe inevitable confessions take place before the commencement of the piece. ‘Yes, Hedda,’ Lövborg says (p. 123). ‘And when I used to confess to you! Told you about myself—things that nobody else knew in those days. Sat there and admitted that I had been out on the loose for whole days and nights.... Ah, Hedda, what power was it in you that forced me to acknowledge things like that?... Had not you an idea that you could wash me clean if only I came to you in confession?’ He confesses in order to receive absolution.InThe Wild Duckconfession is equally prominent, but it is deliciously ridiculed. The scene in which Gina confesses to her husband her early liaison with Werle is one of the most exquisite things in contemporary drama (Act IV.).Hjalmar.Is it true—can it be true that—that there was an—an understanding between you and Mr. Werle, while you were in service there?Gina.That’s not true. Not at that time. Mr. Werle did come after me, I own it; and his wife thought there was something in it ... so that I left her service.Hjalmar.But afterwards, then!Gina.Well, then I went home. And mother—well, she wasn’t the woman you took her for, Ekdal; she kept on worrying and worrying at me about one thing and another. For Mr. Werle was a widower by that time.Hjalmar.Well, and then?Gina.I suppose you must know it. He didn’t give it up until he’d had his way.Hjalmar(striking his hands together). And this is the mother of my child! How could you hide this from me?Gina.It was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.Hjalmar.You should have told me at the very first; then I should have known what you were.Gina.But would you have married me all the same?Hjalmar.How can you suppose so?Gina.That’s just why I didn’t dare to tell you anything then. I’d come to care for you so much, you know; and I couldn’t go and make myself utterly miserable....Hjalmar.Haven’t you every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s web of deceit you had spun around me? Answer me that! How could you help writhing with penitence and remorse?Gina.My dear Ekdal, I’ve plenty to do looking after the house, and all the daily business——Further on the idea of self-deliverance and purification through confession is pitilessly travestied.Gregers.Haven’t you done it yet?Hjalmar(aloud). Itisdone.Gregers.Itis?... After so great a crisis—a crisis that’s to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from falsehood of any kind.... Surely you feel a new consecration after the great crisis.Hjalmar.Yes, of course I do—that is, in a sort of way.Gregers.For I’m sure there’s nothing in the world to compare with the joy of forgiving one who has erred, and raising her up to one’s self in love, etc.On his way to the guillotine, Avinain, the French assassin, condensed the experience of his life in the pithy saying, ‘Never confess.’ But this is advice which only those of strong will and healthy minds can follow. A lively idea vehemently demands to be transformed into movement. The movement exacting the least effort is that of the small muscles of the larynx, tongue, and lips,i.e., the organs of speech. Anyone, therefore, having a specially lively idea experiences a strong desire to relax those cell-groups of his brain in which this idea is elaborated by allowing the transmission of their stimulus to the organs of speech. In a word, he desires to speak out. And if he is weak, if the inhibitive power of the will is not greater than the motor impulse proceeding from the ideational centre, he will burst out into speech, be the consequences what they may. That this psychological law has always been known is proved by all literature, from the fable of King Midas to Dostojewski’sRaskolnikow; and the Catholic Church furnished one more proof of her profound knowledge of human nature which she transformed the primitive Christian custom of confession before the assembled congregation, which was to be a self-humiliation and expiation, into auricular confession, which serves the purpose of a safe and blissful alleviation and relaxation,and constitutes for ordinary men a primary psychic need of the first order. It was this sort of confession which Ibsen, probably unconsciously, had in view. (‘Because I must have someone in whom I can confide,’ as Ellida says.) Himself a degenerate, Ibsen can picture to himself only the intellectual life of degenerates, in whom the mechanism of inhibition is always disordered, and who, therefore, cannot escape from the impulse to confess, when anything of an absorbing or exciting character exists in their consciousness.The third and most important theological obsession of Ibsen is the saving act of Christ, the redemption of the guilty by a voluntary acceptance of their guilt. This devolution of sin upon a lamb of sacrifice occupies the same position in Ibsen’s drama as in Richard Wagner’s. Themotifof the sacrificial lamb and of redemption is constantly present in his mind, certainly not always clear and comprehensible, but, conformably with the confusion of his thought, diversely distorted, obscured, and, so to speak, incontrapuntalinversion. Now Ibsen’s personages voluntarily and joyfully bear the cross, in keeping with the Christ-idea; now it is put upon their shoulders by force or artifice, which is, as theologians would say, a diabolical mockery of this idea; now the sacrifice for another is sincere, now mere hypocrisy; the effects Ibsen draws from the incessantly recurringmotifare, agreeably with its form, now moral and affecting, now comically base and repulsive.InThe Pillars of Societythere is a talk of some ‘scandal’ which occurred years before the commencement of the piece. The husband of the actress Dorf, on returning home one evening, found her with a stranger, who, on his entrance, sprang out of the window. The affair caused great excitement and indignation in the Norwegian Gotham. Immediately afterwards Johan Tönnesen fled to America. Everyone looked upon him as the ‘culprit.’ In reality, however, it was his brother-in-law, Bernick. Johan had voluntarily incurred the blame of Bernick’s fault. On his return from America the sinner and the sacrificial lamb discuss the circumstance (p. 45):Bernick.Johan, now we are alone, you must give me leave to thank you.Johan.Oh, nonsense!Bernick.My house and home, my domestic happiness, my whole position as a citizen in society—all these I owe to you.Johan.Well, I am glad of it....Bernick.Thanks, thanks all the same. Not one in ten thousand would have done what you then did for me.Johan.Oh, nonsense!... One of us had to take the blame upon him.Bernick.But to whom did it lie nearer than to the guilty one?Johan.Stop!Thenit lay nearer to the innocent one. I was alone, free, an orphan.... You, on the other hand, had your old mother in life; and, besides, you had just become secretly engaged to Betty, and she was veryfond of you. What would have become of her if she had come to know——?Bernick.True, true, true; but ... but yet, that you should turn appearances against yourself, and go away——Johan.Have no scruples, my dear Karsten ... you had to be saved, and you were my friend.Here the idea of the sacrificial lamb is normal and rational. But it is soon afterwards introduced into the same piece in a distorted shape. Bernick sends the rotten-keeledIndian Girlto sea, to her certain destruction, in spite of his foreman Aune’s opposition. While, however, planning this wholesale murder, he also schemes for laying the burden of his crime on the innocent Aune (p. 65):Krap.... There is rascality at work, Consul.Bernick.I cannot believe it, Krap. I cannot, and will not believe such a thing of Aune.Krap.I am sorry for it, but it is the plain truth.... All bogus! TheIndian Girlwill never get to New York....Bernick.But this is horrible! What do you think can be his motive?Krap.He probably wants to bring the machines into discredit....Bernick.And for that he would sacrifice all these lives?... But such a piece of villainy as this! Listen, Krap; this affair must be examined into again. Not a word of it to anyone.... During the dinner-hour you must go down there again; I must have perfect certainty.... We cannot make ourselves accomplices in a crime. I must keep my conscience unspotted, etc.InGhoststhe idea of the lamb of sacrifice is equally travestied. The asylum founded by Mrs. Alving has been burnt. The joiner, Engstrand, that theatrical villain, succeeds in persuading the idiotic pastor, Manders, that he—Manders—was the cause of the fire. And as the pastor is made desperate by the possible legal consequences, Engstrand goes to him and says (p. 184):Jacob Engstrand isn’t the man to desert a noble benefactor in the hour of need, as the saying is [!].Manders.Yes; but, my good fellow, how——?Engstrand.Jacob Engstrand may be likened to a guardian angel—he may, your reverence.Manders.No, no; I can’t accept that.Engstrand.Oh, you will though, all the same. I know a man that’s taken others’ sins upon himself before now, I do.Manders.Jacob (wrings his hand). You are a rare character.InA Doll’s Housethe idea develops itself with great beauty. Nora confidently expects that her husband, on hearing of her forgery, will assume the blame, and she is resolved not to accept his sacrifice (p. 76):Nora.I only wanted to tell you that, Christina; you shall be my witness.... In case there were to be anybody who wanted to take the ... the whole blame, I mean ... then you will be able to bear witness that it is not true, Christina. I know very well what I am saying; I am in full possession of my senses, and I say to you, Nobody else knew anything about it; I alone have done everything.... But a miracle will come to pass even yet ... but it is so terrible, Christina! It must not happen for anything in the world!In the deepest excitement she looks for the expected miracle, the renewal of Christ’s act of salvation in the narrow circumstances of a small village—‘I am the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.’ And, since the miracle does not come to pass, there takes place the immense transformation in her nature which forms the real subject of the piece. Nora explains this to her husband with the greatest clearness (p. 116):...The thought never once occurred to me that you could allow yourself to submit to the conditions of such a man. I was so firmly convinced that you would say to him, ‘Pray make the affair known to all the world’; and when that had been done ... then you would, as I firmly believed, stand before the world, take everything upon yourself, and say, ‘I am the guilty person.’ ... That was the miracle that I hoped and feared. And it was to hinder that that I wanted to put an end to my life.InThe Wild Duckthe idea of the sacrificial lamb recurs no less than three times, and is the moving force of the whole piece. The infringement of the forest laws, of which the elder Ekdal was convicted, was not committed by him, but by Werle:Werle.... I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing.Gregers.Lieutenant Ekdal seems to have been in the dark as to what he was doing.Werle.That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty, and I acquitted.Gregers.Yes, of course I know that nothing was proved against you.Werle.Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up old troubles?... I’ve done all I could without positively exposing myself, and giving rise to all sorts of suspicion and gossip.... I’ve given Ekdal copying to do from the office, and I pay him far, far more for it than his work is worth.Werle thus shuffles his fault on Ekdal, and the latter breaks down under the weight of the cross. Afterwards, when Hjalmar learns that little Hedwig is not his child, and disowns her, the idiot Gregers Werle goes to the despairing maiden, and says:But suppose you were to sacrifice the wild duck, of your own free will, for his sake?Hedwig(rising). The wild duck!Gregers.Suppose you were to sacrifice, for his sake, the dearest treasure you have in the world?Hedwig.Do you think that would do any good?Gregers.Try it, Hedwig.Hedwig(softly, with flashing eyes). Yes, I will try it.Here, then, Hedwig is not to offer herself in sacrifice, but a pet animal, thus abasing the idea from Christianity to paganism. Finally, it crops up a third time. At the last moment Hedwig cannot make up her mind to kill the duck, and prefers turning the pistol against her own breast, thus purchasing with her own life that of the bird. This dismal dénouement is worrying and foolish, because useless; the poetical effect would have beenfully attained if Hedwig, instead of dying, had only slightly wounded herself; for in this way she would have furnished equally strong proof that she was seriously determined to bear witness to her love for her father by the sacrifice of her young life, and to restore peace between him and her mother. But æsthetic criticism is not my function; I willingly yield that to phrase-makers. All that I have to indicate is the triple recurrence inThe Wild Duckof the idea of the sacrificial lamb.At its third appearance this idea suffers a significant transformation. Hedwig sacrifices herself, not in expiation of an offence—for she is ignorant of her mother’s guilt—but to accomplish a work of love. Here the mystico-theological element of redemption recedes into the background so far as to be almost imperceptible, and there remains hardly more than the purely human element of the joy felt in self-sacrifice for others—an impulse not rare among good women, and which is a manifestation of the unsatisfied yearning for maternity (often unknown to themselves), and at the same time one of the noblest and holiest forms of altruism. Ibsen shows this impulse in many of his female characters, the source of which in the religious mysticism of the poet would not be at once noticed, if from the numerous other conjugations of the root-idea of the sacrificial lamb we had not already acquired the sure habit of recognising it even in its obscurations. Hedwig constitutes a transition from the theological to the purely human form of voluntary self-sacrifice. The over-strung child carries renunciation to the orthodox extreme of yielding up her life; Ibsen’s other women, to whose character Hedwig supplies the key, go only to the point of lovingly active self-denial. They do not die for others, but they live for others. InA Doll’s HouseMrs. Linden has this hunger for self-sacrifice.I must work in order to endure life [she says to Krogstad—p. 87]. I have worked from my youth up, and work has been my one best friend. But now I am quite alone in the world—so terribly empty and forsaken. There is no happiness in working for one’s self. Nils, give me somebody and something to work for....Krogstad.What! you really could? Tell me, do you know my past?Mrs. Linden.Yes.Krogstad.And do you know my reputation?Mrs. Linden.Did you not hint it just now, when you said that with me you could have been another man?Krogstad.I am perfectly certain of it.Mrs. Linden.Could it not yet be so?Krogstad.Christina, do you say this after full deliberation?...Mrs. Linden.I need somebody to mother, and your children need a mother.Here the idea is not so disguised as to be unrecognisable. Krogstad is a culprit and an outlaw. If Mrs. Linden offers tolive for him, it is certainly chiefly from the instinct of maternity. But in this natural feeling there is also a tinge of the mystic idea of the sinner’s redemption through disinterested love. InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida wishes to return to her birthplace on the sea, Skjoldvik, because she believes there is nothing for her to do in Wangel’s house. At the announcement of her resolution her stepdaughter, Hilda, evinces a profound despair. Then for the first time Ellida learns that Hilda loves her; there is then born in her the thought that she has someone to live for, and she says dreamily: ‘Oh, if there should be something for me to do here!’ InRosmersholmRebecca says to Kroll (p. 8):So long as Mr. Rosmer thinks I am of any use or comfort to him, why, so long, I suppose, I shall stay here.Kroll(looks at her with emotion). Do you know, it’s really fine for a woman to sacrifice her whole youth to others, as you have done.Rebecca.Oh, what else should I have had to live for?InThe Pillars of Societythere are two of these touching self-sacrificing souls—Miss Martha Bernick and Miss Hessel. Miss Bernick has reared the illegitimate child Dina, and has consecrated her own life to her (p. 52):Martha.I have been a mother to that much-wronged child—have brought her up as well as I could.Johan.And sacrificed your whole life in so doing.Martha.It has not been thrown away.She loves Johan, but as she sees that he is attracted by Dina she unites the two. She explains herself in regard to the incident in an exceedingly affecting scene with Johan’s half-sister (p. 95):Lona.Now we are alone, Martha. You have lost her, and I him.Martha.You him?Lona.Oh, I had half lost him already over there. The boy longed to stand on his own feet, so I made him thinkIwas longing for home.Martha.That was it? Now I understand why you came. But he will want you back again, Lona.Lona.An old stepsister—what can he want with her now? Men snap many bonds to arrive at happiness.Martha.It is so, sometimes.Lona.But now we two must hold together, Martha.Martha.Can I be anything to you?Lona.Who more? We two foster-mothers—have we not both lost our children? Now we are alone.Martha.Yes, alone. And therefore I will tell you—I have loved him more than all the world.Lona.Martha! (seizes her arm). Is this the truth?Martha.My whole life lies in the words. I have loved him, and waited for him. From summer to summer I have looked for his coming. And then he came, but he did not see me.Lona.Loved him! and it was you that gave his happiness into his hands.Martha.Should I not have given him his happiness, since I loved him?Yes, I have loved him. My whole life has been for him.... He did not see me.Lona.It was Dina that overshadowed you, Martha.Martha.It is well that she did! When he went away we were of the same age. When I saw him again—oh, that horrible moment!—it seemed to me that I was ten years older than he. He had lived in the bright, quivering sunshine, and drunk in youth and health at every breath; and here sat I, the while, spinning and spinning——Lona.The thread of his happiness, Martha.Martha.Yes, it was gold I spun. No bitterness! Is it not true, Lona, we have been two good sisters to him?InHedda Gablerit is Miss Tesman, aunt of the imbecile Tesman, who plays the pathetic part of the sacrificial mother. She has brought him up, and when he marries gives him the largest part of her modest income. ‘Oh, aunt,’ bleats the poor idiot (p. 18), ‘you will never be tired of sacrificing yourself for me!’ ‘Do you think,’ replies the good creature, ‘I have any other joy in this world than to smooth the way for you, my dear boy—you who have never had a father or a mother to look after you?’ And when subsequently the paralytic sister of Miss Tesman is dead, Hedda and she hold this conversation (p. 196):Hedda.It will be lonesome for you now, Miss Tesman.Miss Tesman.The first few days, yes. But that won’t last very long. Dear Rina’s little room will not always be empty, that I know.Hedda.Indeed! Who is going to move into it, eh?Miss Tesman.Oh, there is always some poor invalid or other who needs to be looked after and tended, unfortunately.Hedda.Will you really take such a burden upon you again?Miss Tesman.Burden! God forgive you, child! that has never been a burden to me.Hedda.But now, if a stranger should come, then surely——Miss Tesman.Oh, one soon becomes friends with sick people. And I must positively have someone to live for, too.The three Christo-dogmatic obsessions of original sin, confession, and self-sacrifice, filling Ibsen’s dramas, as we have seen, from the first line to the last, are not the only tokens of his mysticism. This betrays itself by a whole series of other peculiarities, which shall be briefly indicated.At the head of these stands the astoundingly chaotic nature of his thought. One cannot believe one’s eyes while reading how his fulsome flatterers have had the audacity to extol him for the ‘clearness’ and ‘precision’ of his thought. Do these individuals, then, imagine that no one capable of forming a judgment will ever read a line of Ibsen? A clearly-defined thought is an extraordinary rarity in this Norwegian dramatist. Everything floats and undulates, nebulous and amorphous, such as we are accustomed to see in weak-brained degenerates. And if he once succeeds, with toil and stress, in grasping anything and expressing it in a moderately intelligible manner,he unfailingly hastens, a few pages later, or in a subsequent piece, to say the exact opposite. A talk is made of Ibsen’s ‘ideas on morality’ and of his ‘philosophy.’ He has not formulated a single proposition on morality, a single conception of the world and life, that he has not himself either refuted or fittingly ridiculed.He seems to preach free love, and his eulogy of a licentiousness unchecked by any self-control, regardless of contracts, laws, and morality, has made of him a ‘modern spirit’ in the eyes of Georg Brandes and similar protectors of those ‘youths who wish to amuse themselves a little.’ Mrs. Alving (Ghosts, p. 158), calls a ‘crime’ the act of Pastor Manders in repulsing her, after she has quitted her husband and thrown herself on the pastor’s neck. This highly-strung dame pushes Regina into the arms of Oswald, her son, when in shameless speech he informs her that it would give him pleasure to possess the girl. And this very same Mrs. Alving speaks in terms of the deepest indignation of her dead husband as ‘profligate’ (p. 146), and again designates him in the presence of her son as a ‘broken-down man’ (in the original it is ‘et forfaldent Menneske,’ an epithet usually bestowed on fallen women), and why? Because he had had wanton relations with women! Well, but is it in Ibsen’s opinion permissible, or not permissible, to gratify carnal lust as often as it is awakened? If it is permissible, how does Mrs. Alving come to speak with scorn of her husband? If it is not permissible, how dared she offer herself to Pastor Manders, and be the procuress between Regina and her own half-brother? Or does the moral law hold good for man only, and not for woman? An English proverb says, ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’ Ibsen evidently does not share the opinion of popular lore. A woman who runs away from her legal husband and pursues a lover (Mrs. Elvsted and Ejlert Lövborg, inHedda Gabler), or who offers to form an illicit connection with a man, although nothing prevents their marrying without further ado like other rational ratepayers (Mrs. Linden and Krogstad inA Doll’s House)—such women have Ibsen’s entire approbation and sympathy. But if a man seduces a maiden and liberally provides for her subsequent maintenance (Werle and Gina inThe Wild Duck), or, again, if he has illicit relations with a married woman (Consul Bernick and the actress Dorf inThe Pillars of Society), then it is so heinous a crime that the culprit remains branded his whole life, and is nailed by the poet to the pillory with the cruelty of a mediæval executioner.The same contradiction finds its expression in another and more general form. At one time Ibsen contends with ferocious, impetuosity that everyone is ‘a law unto himself’ alone,i.e., thathe should obey every one of his caprices, nay, even of his diseased impulsions; that, as his commentators idiotically put it, he should (sich auslebe) ‘live out his life.’ InThe Pillars of SocietyMiss Bernick says to Dina (p. 94):Promise me to make him [her betrothed] happy.Dina.I will not promise anything. I hate this promising; things must come as they can [i.e., as the circumstances of the moment may suggest to the wayward brain].Martha.Yes, yes; so they must. You need only remain as you are, true and faithful to yourself.Dina.That I will, Aunt Martha.InRosmersholm, Rosmer says admiringly of the scoundrel Brendel (p. 28): ‘At least he has had the courage to live his life his own way. I don’t think that’s such a small matter after all.’ In the same piece Rebecca complains (p. 97): ‘Rosmersholm has broken me.... Broken me utterly and hopelessly. I had a fresh, undaunted will when I came here. Now I have bent my neck under a strange law.’ And further on (p. 102): ‘It is the Rosmer view of life ... that has infected my will.... and made it sick, enslaved it to laws that had no power over me before.’ Ejlert Lövborg laments in like fashion inHedda Gabler. ‘But it isthis—that I don’t want to live that kind of life either. Not now, over again. It is the courage of life and the defiance of life that she’ (Thea Elvested, with her sweet, loving constraint) ‘has snapped in me.’ Quite in opposition to these views, Ibsen, in hisGhosts, makes Regina proclaim her ‘right to live out her life’ in these words (p. 189): ‘Oh! I really can’t stop out here in the country and wear myself out nursing sick people ... a poor girl must make the best of her young days.... I, too, want to enjoy my life, Mrs. Alving.’ Mrs. Alving replies: ‘Alas! yes.’ This ‘alas’ is bewildering. Alas? Why ‘alas’? Does she not obey her ‘law’ if she satisfies her ‘joy in living,’ and, as she forthwith explains, enters the house of ill-fame for sailors set up by the joiner Engstrand? How can Mrs. Alving utter this ‘alas,’ when she also was ‘obeying her law’ in offering herself as the mistress of Pastor Manders, and since she wished to aid her son in ‘obeying his law,’ when he had set his eyes on Regina? It is because Ibsen, in his lucid moments, feels that there may be something of danger in ‘obeying one’s law,’ and this ‘alas’ of Mrs. Alving escapes him as a confession. InThe Wild Duckhe ridicules his own dogma in the most liberal style. In that piece there is one Molvig, a candidate for a University degree, who also ‘obeys his law.’ This law prescribes that he shall learn nothing, evade his examinations, and pass his nights in taverns. The scoffer, Relling, asserts (p. 317) that it ‘comes over him like a sort of possession; and then I have to go out on the loose withhim. Molvig is a demoniac, you see, ... and demoniac natures are not made to walk straight through the world; they must meander now and then. And in order that there shall be no doubt as to what Relling means by this, he subsequently explains (p. 361): ‘“What the devil do you mean by demoniac?” “It’s only a piece of hocus-pocus I’ve invented to keep up a spark of life in him. But for that the poor harmless creature would have succumbed to self-contempt and despair many a long year ago.”’That is true. Molvig is a pitiable weakling, unable to conquer his indolence and passion for drink; abandoned to his own devices, he would recognise himself for the miserable creature he is, and despise himself as profoundly as he deserves; but Relling arrives on the scene, and gives his lack of character the title ‘demoniac,’ and now ‘the child has a fine name,’ which Molvig can make a parade of to himself and others. Ibsen does exactly the same thing as his Relling. The weakness of will, incapable of resisting base and pitiable instincts, he praises as the ‘will to live out one’s life,’ as the ‘freedom of a spirit who obeys his own law only,’ and recommends it as the sole rule of life. But, unlike Relling, he is for the most part ignorant of the fact that he is practising a deception (which I by no means regard in Relling’s light as pious and charitable), and believes in his own humbug. That is, for the most part; not always. Here and there, as inThe Wild Duck, he recognises his error and scourges it severely; and his inmost feeling is so little influenced by his self-deceptive phrase, fit for a weak-willed degenerate, that he involuntarily and unconsciously betrays, in all his productions, his deep abhorrence of men who ‘obey their own law in order to live out their life.’ He punishes Chamberlain Alving in his son, and makes him cursed by his widow because he has ‘lived out his life.’ He imputes it as a crime to Consul Bernick and the merchant Werle that they have ‘lived out their life,’ the former in sacrificing his brother-in-law Johan to protect himself, and for his intrigue with Mrs. Dorf, the actress; and the latter for allowing Ekdal to bear the blame of his fault, and for seducing Gina. He surrounds with an aureole the glorified heads of Rosmer and Rebecca, because they did not ‘live out their life,’ but, on the contrary, ‘died their death,’ if I may put it so; because they obeyed, not ‘their own law,’ but that of others, the universal moral law that annihilated them. Whenever one of his characters acts in accordance with Ibsen’s doctrine, and does what is agreeable to himself regardless of morals and law, he experiences such contrition and self-torment that he is unable to find calm and joy until he has disburdened his conscience by confession and expiation.‘This living out one’s life’ makes its appearance in Ibsen in the form also of a rigid individualism. The ‘self’ is the only real thing; the ‘I’ must be cherished and developed, as, indeed, Barrès preaches independently of Ibsen. The first duty of every human being is to be just to his ‘I,’ to satisfy its demands, to sacrifice to it every consideration for others. When Nora wishes to abandon her husband, he cries (p. 112):Only think what people will say about it!Nora.I cannot take that into consideration. I only know that to go is necessary for me.Helmer.Oh, it drives one wild! Is this the way you can evade your holiest duties?Nora.What do you consider my holiest duties?Helmer.... Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?Nora.I have other duties equally sacred.Helmer.... What duties do you mean?Nora.Duties towards myself.Helmer.Before all else you are a wife and a mother.Nora.I no longer think so. I think that before all else I am a human being just as you are, or, at least, I will try to become one.InGhostsOswald says to his mother with triumphant brutality (p. 192): ‘I can’t be much taken up with other people. I have enough to do thinking about myself.’ How in the same piece Regina emphasizes her ‘I’ and its rights, we have already seen. InAn Enemy of the People, Stockmann proclaims the right of the ‘I’ in face of the majority, and even the race, in these words (p. 283): ‘It is a hideous lie: the doctrine that the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses, are the pith of the people—that, indeed, they are the people—that the common man, that this ignorant, undeveloped member of society, has the same right to condemn or to sanction, to govern and to rule, as the few people of intellectual power.’ And (p. 312): ‘I only want to drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are the worst foes of free men ... that the considerations of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside down until life is simply hideous.... Now I am one of the strongest men upon earth.... You see the fact is that the strongest man upon earth is he who stands most alone.’ But this very Stockmann, who will hear nothing of ‘the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses,’ as he reiterates with insufferable tautology, who feels, his ‘I’ powerful only in a majestic solitude, calls his fellow-citizens ‘old women who think only of their families,[340]and not of the general good.’ And in the very same piece (A Doll’s House), in which Ibsen evidently bestows loud applause on Nora for declaring that ‘her only duties were to herself,’ and that she ‘could have no consideration for anyone else,’ he stigmatizes her husband as a pitiable, low-spirited weakling, because on hiswife’s confession of forgery he first of all thinks of his own reputation only, and hence of his ‘duty to himself,’ his only consideration being for himself, and not for his wife. Here there recurs the same phenomenon as in Ibsen’s notions concerning sexual morality. Unchastity in a man is a crime, but in a woman is permissible. In the same way the rude emphasizing of the ‘I’ is a merit only in the woman. The man has no right to be an egoist. How, for example, Ibsen rails at egoism through Bernick (inThe Pillars of Society), whom he makes say naïvely, in reference to his sister Martha, that she ‘is quite insignificant’ (p. 49), and that he does not wish to have her otherwise!You know, in a large house like ours, it is always well to have some steady-going person like her, whom one can put to anything that may turn up.Johan.Yes, but she herself?Bernick.She herself? Why, of course she has enough to interest herself in—Betty and Olaf, and me, you know. People should not think of themselves first, and women least of all.And how severely Ibsen condemns the egoism of Mrs. Elvsted’s husband (Hedda Gabler), when he puts these bitter words into her mouth (p. 52): ‘He is not really fond of anybody but himself. Perhaps of the children a little!’But the most remarkable thing about this philosopher of individualism is that he not only expressly condemns egoism in the man as a low vice, but unconsciously also admires disinterestedness in the woman as an angelic perfection. InA Doll’s House(p. 113) he brags that ‘my most sacred duties are towards myself.’ And yet the only touching and charming characters in his pieces with whom this inflexible individualist is successful are the saintly women who live and die for others only—these Hedwigs, Miss Bernicks, Miss Hessels, Aunt Tesmans, etc., who never think of their ‘I,’ but make the sacrifice of all their impulses and wishes to the welfare of others their sole task on earth. This contradiction, violent to the point of absurdity, is very well explained by the nature of Ibsen’s mind. His mystico-religious obsession of voluntary self-sacrifice for others is necessarily stronger than his pseudo-philosophic lucubration on individualism.Among the ‘moral ideas’ of Ibsen are counted his professed thirst for truth. At least enough has been said and written on this subject. ‘Only just think,’ Helmer says to Nora (A Doll’s House, pp. 44, 45), ‘how a man so conscious of guilt as that must go about everywhere lying, and a hypocrite, and an actor; how he must wear a mask towards his neighbour, and even his wife and children, his own children. That’s the worst, Nora.... Because such a misty atmosphere of lying brings contagion into the whole family.’ ‘Is there no voice in yourmother’s heart that forbids you to destroy your son’s ideals?’ asks Pastor Manders inGhosts(p. 155), when Mrs. Alving has revealed to her son her defunct husband’s ‘immorality.’ To which Mrs. Alving magniloquently replies, ‘But what about the truth?’ InThe Pillars of Society, Lona Hessel thus preaches to Consul Bernick (p. 57):
Here you are, the first man in the town, living in wealth and pride, in power and honour—you who have set the brand of crime upon an innocent man.Bernick.Do you think I do not feel deeply how I have wronged him? Do you think I am not prepared to make atonement?Lona.How? By speaking out?Bernick.Can you ask such a thing?Lona.What else can atone for such a wrong?And Johan also says (p. 75):In two months I shall be back again.Bernick.And then you will tell all?Johan.Then the guilty one must take the guilt upon himself.Bernick actually makes the confession demanded of him from pure contrition, for at the time he makes it all proofsof his crime are destroyed, and he has nothing more to fear from other persons. His confession is couched in most edifying terms (p. 108):I must begin by rejecting the panegyric with which you ... have overwhelmed me. I do not deserve it; for until to-day I have not been disinterested in my dealings.... I have no right to this homage; for ... my intention was to retain the whole myself.... My fellow-citizens must know me to the core ... that from this evening we begin a new time. The old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum open for instruction.... My fellow-citizens, I will come out of the lie; it had almost poisoned every fibre of my being. You shall know all. Fifteen years agoIwas the guilty one, etc.InRosmersholmthere is hardly any other subject treated of than the confession of all before all. In the very first visit of Kroll (p. 15) Rebecca urges Rosmer to confess:Rebecca(comes up close to Rosmer, and says rapidly and in a low voice, so that the Rector does not hear her). Do it now!Rosmer(also in a low voice). Not this evening.Rebecca(as before). Yes, this very evening.As he does not at once obey she will speak for him (p. 19):Rebecca.You must let me tell you frankly.Rosmer(quickly). No, no; be quiet. Not just now!Rosmer soon does it himself (p. 28):Kroll.We two are in practical agreement—at any rate, on the great essential questions.Rosmer(in a low voice). No; not now.Kroll(tries to jump up). What is this?Rosmer(holding him). No; you must sit still. I entreat you, Kroll.Kroll.What can this mean? I don’t understand you. Speak plainly.Rosmer.A new summer has blossomed in my soul. I see with eyes grown young again; and so now I stand——Kroll.Where? where, Rosmer?Rosmer.Where your children stand.Kroll.You? you? Impossible! Where do you say you stand?Rosmer.On the same side as Laurits and Hilda.Kroll(bows his head). An apostate! Johannes Rosmer an apostate!... Is this becoming language for a priest?Rosmer.I am no longer a priest.Kroll.Well, but—the faith of your childhood——?Rosmer.Is mine no longer.... I have given it up. Ihadto give it up.... Peace, and joy, and mutual forbearance must once more enter our souls. That is why I am stepping forward and openly avowing myself for what I am....Rebecca.There now; he’s on his way to his great sacrifice.(We may here note the purely theological designation given to Rosmer’s act.)Rosmer.I feel so relieved now it is over. You see, I am quite calm Rebecca....Like Rosmer, Rebecca also confesses to Rector Kroll (p. 86):Rebecca.Yes, Herr Rector, Rosmer and I—we saythouto each other. The relation between us has led to that.... Come, let us sit down, dear—all three of us—and then I will tell the whole story.Rosmer(seats himself mechanically). What has come over you, Rebecca? This unnatural calmness—what is it?Rebecca.I have only to tell you something.... Now it must out. It was not you, Rosmer. You are innocent; it wasIwho lured Beata out into the paths of delusion ... that led to the mill-race. Now you know it, both of you....Rosmer(after a pause). Have you confessed all now, Rebecca?No, not yet all. But she hastens to complete to Rosmer the confession begun to Kroll (p. 98):Rosmer.Have you more confessions to make?Rebecca.The greatest of all is to come.Rosmer.The greatest?Rebecca.What you have never suspected. What gives light and shade to all the rest, etc.InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida (p. 19) confesses to Arnholm the story of her insensate betrothal with the foreign sailor. Arnholm so little comprehends the need of this confession, made without rhyme or reason, that he asks with astonishment: ‘What is your object, then, in telling me that you were bound?’ ‘Because I must have someone in whom to confide,’ is Ellida’s sole—and, moreover, sufficient—answer.InHedda Gablerthe inevitable confessions take place before the commencement of the piece. ‘Yes, Hedda,’ Lövborg says (p. 123). ‘And when I used to confess to you! Told you about myself—things that nobody else knew in those days. Sat there and admitted that I had been out on the loose for whole days and nights.... Ah, Hedda, what power was it in you that forced me to acknowledge things like that?... Had not you an idea that you could wash me clean if only I came to you in confession?’ He confesses in order to receive absolution.InThe Wild Duckconfession is equally prominent, but it is deliciously ridiculed. The scene in which Gina confesses to her husband her early liaison with Werle is one of the most exquisite things in contemporary drama (Act IV.).Hjalmar.Is it true—can it be true that—that there was an—an understanding between you and Mr. Werle, while you were in service there?Gina.That’s not true. Not at that time. Mr. Werle did come after me, I own it; and his wife thought there was something in it ... so that I left her service.Hjalmar.But afterwards, then!Gina.Well, then I went home. And mother—well, she wasn’t the woman you took her for, Ekdal; she kept on worrying and worrying at me about one thing and another. For Mr. Werle was a widower by that time.Hjalmar.Well, and then?Gina.I suppose you must know it. He didn’t give it up until he’d had his way.Hjalmar(striking his hands together). And this is the mother of my child! How could you hide this from me?Gina.It was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.Hjalmar.You should have told me at the very first; then I should have known what you were.Gina.But would you have married me all the same?Hjalmar.How can you suppose so?Gina.That’s just why I didn’t dare to tell you anything then. I’d come to care for you so much, you know; and I couldn’t go and make myself utterly miserable....Hjalmar.Haven’t you every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s web of deceit you had spun around me? Answer me that! How could you help writhing with penitence and remorse?Gina.My dear Ekdal, I’ve plenty to do looking after the house, and all the daily business——Further on the idea of self-deliverance and purification through confession is pitilessly travestied.Gregers.Haven’t you done it yet?Hjalmar(aloud). Itisdone.Gregers.Itis?... After so great a crisis—a crisis that’s to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from falsehood of any kind.... Surely you feel a new consecration after the great crisis.Hjalmar.Yes, of course I do—that is, in a sort of way.Gregers.For I’m sure there’s nothing in the world to compare with the joy of forgiving one who has erred, and raising her up to one’s self in love, etc.On his way to the guillotine, Avinain, the French assassin, condensed the experience of his life in the pithy saying, ‘Never confess.’ But this is advice which only those of strong will and healthy minds can follow. A lively idea vehemently demands to be transformed into movement. The movement exacting the least effort is that of the small muscles of the larynx, tongue, and lips,i.e., the organs of speech. Anyone, therefore, having a specially lively idea experiences a strong desire to relax those cell-groups of his brain in which this idea is elaborated by allowing the transmission of their stimulus to the organs of speech. In a word, he desires to speak out. And if he is weak, if the inhibitive power of the will is not greater than the motor impulse proceeding from the ideational centre, he will burst out into speech, be the consequences what they may. That this psychological law has always been known is proved by all literature, from the fable of King Midas to Dostojewski’sRaskolnikow; and the Catholic Church furnished one more proof of her profound knowledge of human nature which she transformed the primitive Christian custom of confession before the assembled congregation, which was to be a self-humiliation and expiation, into auricular confession, which serves the purpose of a safe and blissful alleviation and relaxation,and constitutes for ordinary men a primary psychic need of the first order. It was this sort of confession which Ibsen, probably unconsciously, had in view. (‘Because I must have someone in whom I can confide,’ as Ellida says.) Himself a degenerate, Ibsen can picture to himself only the intellectual life of degenerates, in whom the mechanism of inhibition is always disordered, and who, therefore, cannot escape from the impulse to confess, when anything of an absorbing or exciting character exists in their consciousness.The third and most important theological obsession of Ibsen is the saving act of Christ, the redemption of the guilty by a voluntary acceptance of their guilt. This devolution of sin upon a lamb of sacrifice occupies the same position in Ibsen’s drama as in Richard Wagner’s. Themotifof the sacrificial lamb and of redemption is constantly present in his mind, certainly not always clear and comprehensible, but, conformably with the confusion of his thought, diversely distorted, obscured, and, so to speak, incontrapuntalinversion. Now Ibsen’s personages voluntarily and joyfully bear the cross, in keeping with the Christ-idea; now it is put upon their shoulders by force or artifice, which is, as theologians would say, a diabolical mockery of this idea; now the sacrifice for another is sincere, now mere hypocrisy; the effects Ibsen draws from the incessantly recurringmotifare, agreeably with its form, now moral and affecting, now comically base and repulsive.InThe Pillars of Societythere is a talk of some ‘scandal’ which occurred years before the commencement of the piece. The husband of the actress Dorf, on returning home one evening, found her with a stranger, who, on his entrance, sprang out of the window. The affair caused great excitement and indignation in the Norwegian Gotham. Immediately afterwards Johan Tönnesen fled to America. Everyone looked upon him as the ‘culprit.’ In reality, however, it was his brother-in-law, Bernick. Johan had voluntarily incurred the blame of Bernick’s fault. On his return from America the sinner and the sacrificial lamb discuss the circumstance (p. 45):Bernick.Johan, now we are alone, you must give me leave to thank you.Johan.Oh, nonsense!Bernick.My house and home, my domestic happiness, my whole position as a citizen in society—all these I owe to you.Johan.Well, I am glad of it....Bernick.Thanks, thanks all the same. Not one in ten thousand would have done what you then did for me.Johan.Oh, nonsense!... One of us had to take the blame upon him.Bernick.But to whom did it lie nearer than to the guilty one?Johan.Stop!Thenit lay nearer to the innocent one. I was alone, free, an orphan.... You, on the other hand, had your old mother in life; and, besides, you had just become secretly engaged to Betty, and she was veryfond of you. What would have become of her if she had come to know——?Bernick.True, true, true; but ... but yet, that you should turn appearances against yourself, and go away——Johan.Have no scruples, my dear Karsten ... you had to be saved, and you were my friend.Here the idea of the sacrificial lamb is normal and rational. But it is soon afterwards introduced into the same piece in a distorted shape. Bernick sends the rotten-keeledIndian Girlto sea, to her certain destruction, in spite of his foreman Aune’s opposition. While, however, planning this wholesale murder, he also schemes for laying the burden of his crime on the innocent Aune (p. 65):Krap.... There is rascality at work, Consul.Bernick.I cannot believe it, Krap. I cannot, and will not believe such a thing of Aune.Krap.I am sorry for it, but it is the plain truth.... All bogus! TheIndian Girlwill never get to New York....Bernick.But this is horrible! What do you think can be his motive?Krap.He probably wants to bring the machines into discredit....Bernick.And for that he would sacrifice all these lives?... But such a piece of villainy as this! Listen, Krap; this affair must be examined into again. Not a word of it to anyone.... During the dinner-hour you must go down there again; I must have perfect certainty.... We cannot make ourselves accomplices in a crime. I must keep my conscience unspotted, etc.InGhoststhe idea of the lamb of sacrifice is equally travestied. The asylum founded by Mrs. Alving has been burnt. The joiner, Engstrand, that theatrical villain, succeeds in persuading the idiotic pastor, Manders, that he—Manders—was the cause of the fire. And as the pastor is made desperate by the possible legal consequences, Engstrand goes to him and says (p. 184):Jacob Engstrand isn’t the man to desert a noble benefactor in the hour of need, as the saying is [!].Manders.Yes; but, my good fellow, how——?Engstrand.Jacob Engstrand may be likened to a guardian angel—he may, your reverence.Manders.No, no; I can’t accept that.Engstrand.Oh, you will though, all the same. I know a man that’s taken others’ sins upon himself before now, I do.Manders.Jacob (wrings his hand). You are a rare character.InA Doll’s Housethe idea develops itself with great beauty. Nora confidently expects that her husband, on hearing of her forgery, will assume the blame, and she is resolved not to accept his sacrifice (p. 76):Nora.I only wanted to tell you that, Christina; you shall be my witness.... In case there were to be anybody who wanted to take the ... the whole blame, I mean ... then you will be able to bear witness that it is not true, Christina. I know very well what I am saying; I am in full possession of my senses, and I say to you, Nobody else knew anything about it; I alone have done everything.... But a miracle will come to pass even yet ... but it is so terrible, Christina! It must not happen for anything in the world!In the deepest excitement she looks for the expected miracle, the renewal of Christ’s act of salvation in the narrow circumstances of a small village—‘I am the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.’ And, since the miracle does not come to pass, there takes place the immense transformation in her nature which forms the real subject of the piece. Nora explains this to her husband with the greatest clearness (p. 116):...The thought never once occurred to me that you could allow yourself to submit to the conditions of such a man. I was so firmly convinced that you would say to him, ‘Pray make the affair known to all the world’; and when that had been done ... then you would, as I firmly believed, stand before the world, take everything upon yourself, and say, ‘I am the guilty person.’ ... That was the miracle that I hoped and feared. And it was to hinder that that I wanted to put an end to my life.InThe Wild Duckthe idea of the sacrificial lamb recurs no less than three times, and is the moving force of the whole piece. The infringement of the forest laws, of which the elder Ekdal was convicted, was not committed by him, but by Werle:Werle.... I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing.Gregers.Lieutenant Ekdal seems to have been in the dark as to what he was doing.Werle.That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty, and I acquitted.Gregers.Yes, of course I know that nothing was proved against you.Werle.Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up old troubles?... I’ve done all I could without positively exposing myself, and giving rise to all sorts of suspicion and gossip.... I’ve given Ekdal copying to do from the office, and I pay him far, far more for it than his work is worth.Werle thus shuffles his fault on Ekdal, and the latter breaks down under the weight of the cross. Afterwards, when Hjalmar learns that little Hedwig is not his child, and disowns her, the idiot Gregers Werle goes to the despairing maiden, and says:But suppose you were to sacrifice the wild duck, of your own free will, for his sake?Hedwig(rising). The wild duck!Gregers.Suppose you were to sacrifice, for his sake, the dearest treasure you have in the world?Hedwig.Do you think that would do any good?Gregers.Try it, Hedwig.Hedwig(softly, with flashing eyes). Yes, I will try it.Here, then, Hedwig is not to offer herself in sacrifice, but a pet animal, thus abasing the idea from Christianity to paganism. Finally, it crops up a third time. At the last moment Hedwig cannot make up her mind to kill the duck, and prefers turning the pistol against her own breast, thus purchasing with her own life that of the bird. This dismal dénouement is worrying and foolish, because useless; the poetical effect would have beenfully attained if Hedwig, instead of dying, had only slightly wounded herself; for in this way she would have furnished equally strong proof that she was seriously determined to bear witness to her love for her father by the sacrifice of her young life, and to restore peace between him and her mother. But æsthetic criticism is not my function; I willingly yield that to phrase-makers. All that I have to indicate is the triple recurrence inThe Wild Duckof the idea of the sacrificial lamb.At its third appearance this idea suffers a significant transformation. Hedwig sacrifices herself, not in expiation of an offence—for she is ignorant of her mother’s guilt—but to accomplish a work of love. Here the mystico-theological element of redemption recedes into the background so far as to be almost imperceptible, and there remains hardly more than the purely human element of the joy felt in self-sacrifice for others—an impulse not rare among good women, and which is a manifestation of the unsatisfied yearning for maternity (often unknown to themselves), and at the same time one of the noblest and holiest forms of altruism. Ibsen shows this impulse in many of his female characters, the source of which in the religious mysticism of the poet would not be at once noticed, if from the numerous other conjugations of the root-idea of the sacrificial lamb we had not already acquired the sure habit of recognising it even in its obscurations. Hedwig constitutes a transition from the theological to the purely human form of voluntary self-sacrifice. The over-strung child carries renunciation to the orthodox extreme of yielding up her life; Ibsen’s other women, to whose character Hedwig supplies the key, go only to the point of lovingly active self-denial. They do not die for others, but they live for others. InA Doll’s HouseMrs. Linden has this hunger for self-sacrifice.I must work in order to endure life [she says to Krogstad—p. 87]. I have worked from my youth up, and work has been my one best friend. But now I am quite alone in the world—so terribly empty and forsaken. There is no happiness in working for one’s self. Nils, give me somebody and something to work for....Krogstad.What! you really could? Tell me, do you know my past?Mrs. Linden.Yes.Krogstad.And do you know my reputation?Mrs. Linden.Did you not hint it just now, when you said that with me you could have been another man?Krogstad.I am perfectly certain of it.Mrs. Linden.Could it not yet be so?Krogstad.Christina, do you say this after full deliberation?...Mrs. Linden.I need somebody to mother, and your children need a mother.Here the idea is not so disguised as to be unrecognisable. Krogstad is a culprit and an outlaw. If Mrs. Linden offers tolive for him, it is certainly chiefly from the instinct of maternity. But in this natural feeling there is also a tinge of the mystic idea of the sinner’s redemption through disinterested love. InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida wishes to return to her birthplace on the sea, Skjoldvik, because she believes there is nothing for her to do in Wangel’s house. At the announcement of her resolution her stepdaughter, Hilda, evinces a profound despair. Then for the first time Ellida learns that Hilda loves her; there is then born in her the thought that she has someone to live for, and she says dreamily: ‘Oh, if there should be something for me to do here!’ InRosmersholmRebecca says to Kroll (p. 8):So long as Mr. Rosmer thinks I am of any use or comfort to him, why, so long, I suppose, I shall stay here.Kroll(looks at her with emotion). Do you know, it’s really fine for a woman to sacrifice her whole youth to others, as you have done.Rebecca.Oh, what else should I have had to live for?InThe Pillars of Societythere are two of these touching self-sacrificing souls—Miss Martha Bernick and Miss Hessel. Miss Bernick has reared the illegitimate child Dina, and has consecrated her own life to her (p. 52):Martha.I have been a mother to that much-wronged child—have brought her up as well as I could.Johan.And sacrificed your whole life in so doing.Martha.It has not been thrown away.She loves Johan, but as she sees that he is attracted by Dina she unites the two. She explains herself in regard to the incident in an exceedingly affecting scene with Johan’s half-sister (p. 95):Lona.Now we are alone, Martha. You have lost her, and I him.Martha.You him?Lona.Oh, I had half lost him already over there. The boy longed to stand on his own feet, so I made him thinkIwas longing for home.Martha.That was it? Now I understand why you came. But he will want you back again, Lona.Lona.An old stepsister—what can he want with her now? Men snap many bonds to arrive at happiness.Martha.It is so, sometimes.Lona.But now we two must hold together, Martha.Martha.Can I be anything to you?Lona.Who more? We two foster-mothers—have we not both lost our children? Now we are alone.Martha.Yes, alone. And therefore I will tell you—I have loved him more than all the world.Lona.Martha! (seizes her arm). Is this the truth?Martha.My whole life lies in the words. I have loved him, and waited for him. From summer to summer I have looked for his coming. And then he came, but he did not see me.Lona.Loved him! and it was you that gave his happiness into his hands.Martha.Should I not have given him his happiness, since I loved him?Yes, I have loved him. My whole life has been for him.... He did not see me.Lona.It was Dina that overshadowed you, Martha.Martha.It is well that she did! When he went away we were of the same age. When I saw him again—oh, that horrible moment!—it seemed to me that I was ten years older than he. He had lived in the bright, quivering sunshine, and drunk in youth and health at every breath; and here sat I, the while, spinning and spinning——Lona.The thread of his happiness, Martha.Martha.Yes, it was gold I spun. No bitterness! Is it not true, Lona, we have been two good sisters to him?InHedda Gablerit is Miss Tesman, aunt of the imbecile Tesman, who plays the pathetic part of the sacrificial mother. She has brought him up, and when he marries gives him the largest part of her modest income. ‘Oh, aunt,’ bleats the poor idiot (p. 18), ‘you will never be tired of sacrificing yourself for me!’ ‘Do you think,’ replies the good creature, ‘I have any other joy in this world than to smooth the way for you, my dear boy—you who have never had a father or a mother to look after you?’ And when subsequently the paralytic sister of Miss Tesman is dead, Hedda and she hold this conversation (p. 196):Hedda.It will be lonesome for you now, Miss Tesman.Miss Tesman.The first few days, yes. But that won’t last very long. Dear Rina’s little room will not always be empty, that I know.Hedda.Indeed! Who is going to move into it, eh?Miss Tesman.Oh, there is always some poor invalid or other who needs to be looked after and tended, unfortunately.Hedda.Will you really take such a burden upon you again?Miss Tesman.Burden! God forgive you, child! that has never been a burden to me.Hedda.But now, if a stranger should come, then surely——Miss Tesman.Oh, one soon becomes friends with sick people. And I must positively have someone to live for, too.The three Christo-dogmatic obsessions of original sin, confession, and self-sacrifice, filling Ibsen’s dramas, as we have seen, from the first line to the last, are not the only tokens of his mysticism. This betrays itself by a whole series of other peculiarities, which shall be briefly indicated.At the head of these stands the astoundingly chaotic nature of his thought. One cannot believe one’s eyes while reading how his fulsome flatterers have had the audacity to extol him for the ‘clearness’ and ‘precision’ of his thought. Do these individuals, then, imagine that no one capable of forming a judgment will ever read a line of Ibsen? A clearly-defined thought is an extraordinary rarity in this Norwegian dramatist. Everything floats and undulates, nebulous and amorphous, such as we are accustomed to see in weak-brained degenerates. And if he once succeeds, with toil and stress, in grasping anything and expressing it in a moderately intelligible manner,he unfailingly hastens, a few pages later, or in a subsequent piece, to say the exact opposite. A talk is made of Ibsen’s ‘ideas on morality’ and of his ‘philosophy.’ He has not formulated a single proposition on morality, a single conception of the world and life, that he has not himself either refuted or fittingly ridiculed.He seems to preach free love, and his eulogy of a licentiousness unchecked by any self-control, regardless of contracts, laws, and morality, has made of him a ‘modern spirit’ in the eyes of Georg Brandes and similar protectors of those ‘youths who wish to amuse themselves a little.’ Mrs. Alving (Ghosts, p. 158), calls a ‘crime’ the act of Pastor Manders in repulsing her, after she has quitted her husband and thrown herself on the pastor’s neck. This highly-strung dame pushes Regina into the arms of Oswald, her son, when in shameless speech he informs her that it would give him pleasure to possess the girl. And this very same Mrs. Alving speaks in terms of the deepest indignation of her dead husband as ‘profligate’ (p. 146), and again designates him in the presence of her son as a ‘broken-down man’ (in the original it is ‘et forfaldent Menneske,’ an epithet usually bestowed on fallen women), and why? Because he had had wanton relations with women! Well, but is it in Ibsen’s opinion permissible, or not permissible, to gratify carnal lust as often as it is awakened? If it is permissible, how does Mrs. Alving come to speak with scorn of her husband? If it is not permissible, how dared she offer herself to Pastor Manders, and be the procuress between Regina and her own half-brother? Or does the moral law hold good for man only, and not for woman? An English proverb says, ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’ Ibsen evidently does not share the opinion of popular lore. A woman who runs away from her legal husband and pursues a lover (Mrs. Elvsted and Ejlert Lövborg, inHedda Gabler), or who offers to form an illicit connection with a man, although nothing prevents their marrying without further ado like other rational ratepayers (Mrs. Linden and Krogstad inA Doll’s House)—such women have Ibsen’s entire approbation and sympathy. But if a man seduces a maiden and liberally provides for her subsequent maintenance (Werle and Gina inThe Wild Duck), or, again, if he has illicit relations with a married woman (Consul Bernick and the actress Dorf inThe Pillars of Society), then it is so heinous a crime that the culprit remains branded his whole life, and is nailed by the poet to the pillory with the cruelty of a mediæval executioner.The same contradiction finds its expression in another and more general form. At one time Ibsen contends with ferocious, impetuosity that everyone is ‘a law unto himself’ alone,i.e., thathe should obey every one of his caprices, nay, even of his diseased impulsions; that, as his commentators idiotically put it, he should (sich auslebe) ‘live out his life.’ InThe Pillars of SocietyMiss Bernick says to Dina (p. 94):Promise me to make him [her betrothed] happy.Dina.I will not promise anything. I hate this promising; things must come as they can [i.e., as the circumstances of the moment may suggest to the wayward brain].Martha.Yes, yes; so they must. You need only remain as you are, true and faithful to yourself.Dina.That I will, Aunt Martha.InRosmersholm, Rosmer says admiringly of the scoundrel Brendel (p. 28): ‘At least he has had the courage to live his life his own way. I don’t think that’s such a small matter after all.’ In the same piece Rebecca complains (p. 97): ‘Rosmersholm has broken me.... Broken me utterly and hopelessly. I had a fresh, undaunted will when I came here. Now I have bent my neck under a strange law.’ And further on (p. 102): ‘It is the Rosmer view of life ... that has infected my will.... and made it sick, enslaved it to laws that had no power over me before.’ Ejlert Lövborg laments in like fashion inHedda Gabler. ‘But it isthis—that I don’t want to live that kind of life either. Not now, over again. It is the courage of life and the defiance of life that she’ (Thea Elvested, with her sweet, loving constraint) ‘has snapped in me.’ Quite in opposition to these views, Ibsen, in hisGhosts, makes Regina proclaim her ‘right to live out her life’ in these words (p. 189): ‘Oh! I really can’t stop out here in the country and wear myself out nursing sick people ... a poor girl must make the best of her young days.... I, too, want to enjoy my life, Mrs. Alving.’ Mrs. Alving replies: ‘Alas! yes.’ This ‘alas’ is bewildering. Alas? Why ‘alas’? Does she not obey her ‘law’ if she satisfies her ‘joy in living,’ and, as she forthwith explains, enters the house of ill-fame for sailors set up by the joiner Engstrand? How can Mrs. Alving utter this ‘alas,’ when she also was ‘obeying her law’ in offering herself as the mistress of Pastor Manders, and since she wished to aid her son in ‘obeying his law,’ when he had set his eyes on Regina? It is because Ibsen, in his lucid moments, feels that there may be something of danger in ‘obeying one’s law,’ and this ‘alas’ of Mrs. Alving escapes him as a confession. InThe Wild Duckhe ridicules his own dogma in the most liberal style. In that piece there is one Molvig, a candidate for a University degree, who also ‘obeys his law.’ This law prescribes that he shall learn nothing, evade his examinations, and pass his nights in taverns. The scoffer, Relling, asserts (p. 317) that it ‘comes over him like a sort of possession; and then I have to go out on the loose withhim. Molvig is a demoniac, you see, ... and demoniac natures are not made to walk straight through the world; they must meander now and then. And in order that there shall be no doubt as to what Relling means by this, he subsequently explains (p. 361): ‘“What the devil do you mean by demoniac?” “It’s only a piece of hocus-pocus I’ve invented to keep up a spark of life in him. But for that the poor harmless creature would have succumbed to self-contempt and despair many a long year ago.”’That is true. Molvig is a pitiable weakling, unable to conquer his indolence and passion for drink; abandoned to his own devices, he would recognise himself for the miserable creature he is, and despise himself as profoundly as he deserves; but Relling arrives on the scene, and gives his lack of character the title ‘demoniac,’ and now ‘the child has a fine name,’ which Molvig can make a parade of to himself and others. Ibsen does exactly the same thing as his Relling. The weakness of will, incapable of resisting base and pitiable instincts, he praises as the ‘will to live out one’s life,’ as the ‘freedom of a spirit who obeys his own law only,’ and recommends it as the sole rule of life. But, unlike Relling, he is for the most part ignorant of the fact that he is practising a deception (which I by no means regard in Relling’s light as pious and charitable), and believes in his own humbug. That is, for the most part; not always. Here and there, as inThe Wild Duck, he recognises his error and scourges it severely; and his inmost feeling is so little influenced by his self-deceptive phrase, fit for a weak-willed degenerate, that he involuntarily and unconsciously betrays, in all his productions, his deep abhorrence of men who ‘obey their own law in order to live out their life.’ He punishes Chamberlain Alving in his son, and makes him cursed by his widow because he has ‘lived out his life.’ He imputes it as a crime to Consul Bernick and the merchant Werle that they have ‘lived out their life,’ the former in sacrificing his brother-in-law Johan to protect himself, and for his intrigue with Mrs. Dorf, the actress; and the latter for allowing Ekdal to bear the blame of his fault, and for seducing Gina. He surrounds with an aureole the glorified heads of Rosmer and Rebecca, because they did not ‘live out their life,’ but, on the contrary, ‘died their death,’ if I may put it so; because they obeyed, not ‘their own law,’ but that of others, the universal moral law that annihilated them. Whenever one of his characters acts in accordance with Ibsen’s doctrine, and does what is agreeable to himself regardless of morals and law, he experiences such contrition and self-torment that he is unable to find calm and joy until he has disburdened his conscience by confession and expiation.‘This living out one’s life’ makes its appearance in Ibsen in the form also of a rigid individualism. The ‘self’ is the only real thing; the ‘I’ must be cherished and developed, as, indeed, Barrès preaches independently of Ibsen. The first duty of every human being is to be just to his ‘I,’ to satisfy its demands, to sacrifice to it every consideration for others. When Nora wishes to abandon her husband, he cries (p. 112):Only think what people will say about it!Nora.I cannot take that into consideration. I only know that to go is necessary for me.Helmer.Oh, it drives one wild! Is this the way you can evade your holiest duties?Nora.What do you consider my holiest duties?Helmer.... Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?Nora.I have other duties equally sacred.Helmer.... What duties do you mean?Nora.Duties towards myself.Helmer.Before all else you are a wife and a mother.Nora.I no longer think so. I think that before all else I am a human being just as you are, or, at least, I will try to become one.InGhostsOswald says to his mother with triumphant brutality (p. 192): ‘I can’t be much taken up with other people. I have enough to do thinking about myself.’ How in the same piece Regina emphasizes her ‘I’ and its rights, we have already seen. InAn Enemy of the People, Stockmann proclaims the right of the ‘I’ in face of the majority, and even the race, in these words (p. 283): ‘It is a hideous lie: the doctrine that the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses, are the pith of the people—that, indeed, they are the people—that the common man, that this ignorant, undeveloped member of society, has the same right to condemn or to sanction, to govern and to rule, as the few people of intellectual power.’ And (p. 312): ‘I only want to drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are the worst foes of free men ... that the considerations of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside down until life is simply hideous.... Now I am one of the strongest men upon earth.... You see the fact is that the strongest man upon earth is he who stands most alone.’ But this very Stockmann, who will hear nothing of ‘the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses,’ as he reiterates with insufferable tautology, who feels, his ‘I’ powerful only in a majestic solitude, calls his fellow-citizens ‘old women who think only of their families,[340]and not of the general good.’ And in the very same piece (A Doll’s House), in which Ibsen evidently bestows loud applause on Nora for declaring that ‘her only duties were to herself,’ and that she ‘could have no consideration for anyone else,’ he stigmatizes her husband as a pitiable, low-spirited weakling, because on hiswife’s confession of forgery he first of all thinks of his own reputation only, and hence of his ‘duty to himself,’ his only consideration being for himself, and not for his wife. Here there recurs the same phenomenon as in Ibsen’s notions concerning sexual morality. Unchastity in a man is a crime, but in a woman is permissible. In the same way the rude emphasizing of the ‘I’ is a merit only in the woman. The man has no right to be an egoist. How, for example, Ibsen rails at egoism through Bernick (inThe Pillars of Society), whom he makes say naïvely, in reference to his sister Martha, that she ‘is quite insignificant’ (p. 49), and that he does not wish to have her otherwise!You know, in a large house like ours, it is always well to have some steady-going person like her, whom one can put to anything that may turn up.Johan.Yes, but she herself?Bernick.She herself? Why, of course she has enough to interest herself in—Betty and Olaf, and me, you know. People should not think of themselves first, and women least of all.And how severely Ibsen condemns the egoism of Mrs. Elvsted’s husband (Hedda Gabler), when he puts these bitter words into her mouth (p. 52): ‘He is not really fond of anybody but himself. Perhaps of the children a little!’But the most remarkable thing about this philosopher of individualism is that he not only expressly condemns egoism in the man as a low vice, but unconsciously also admires disinterestedness in the woman as an angelic perfection. InA Doll’s House(p. 113) he brags that ‘my most sacred duties are towards myself.’ And yet the only touching and charming characters in his pieces with whom this inflexible individualist is successful are the saintly women who live and die for others only—these Hedwigs, Miss Bernicks, Miss Hessels, Aunt Tesmans, etc., who never think of their ‘I,’ but make the sacrifice of all their impulses and wishes to the welfare of others their sole task on earth. This contradiction, violent to the point of absurdity, is very well explained by the nature of Ibsen’s mind. His mystico-religious obsession of voluntary self-sacrifice for others is necessarily stronger than his pseudo-philosophic lucubration on individualism.Among the ‘moral ideas’ of Ibsen are counted his professed thirst for truth. At least enough has been said and written on this subject. ‘Only just think,’ Helmer says to Nora (A Doll’s House, pp. 44, 45), ‘how a man so conscious of guilt as that must go about everywhere lying, and a hypocrite, and an actor; how he must wear a mask towards his neighbour, and even his wife and children, his own children. That’s the worst, Nora.... Because such a misty atmosphere of lying brings contagion into the whole family.’ ‘Is there no voice in yourmother’s heart that forbids you to destroy your son’s ideals?’ asks Pastor Manders inGhosts(p. 155), when Mrs. Alving has revealed to her son her defunct husband’s ‘immorality.’ To which Mrs. Alving magniloquently replies, ‘But what about the truth?’ InThe Pillars of Society, Lona Hessel thus preaches to Consul Bernick (p. 57):
Here you are, the first man in the town, living in wealth and pride, in power and honour—you who have set the brand of crime upon an innocent man.Bernick.Do you think I do not feel deeply how I have wronged him? Do you think I am not prepared to make atonement?Lona.How? By speaking out?Bernick.Can you ask such a thing?Lona.What else can atone for such a wrong?
Here you are, the first man in the town, living in wealth and pride, in power and honour—you who have set the brand of crime upon an innocent man.
Bernick.Do you think I do not feel deeply how I have wronged him? Do you think I am not prepared to make atonement?
Lona.How? By speaking out?
Bernick.Can you ask such a thing?
Lona.What else can atone for such a wrong?
And Johan also says (p. 75):
In two months I shall be back again.Bernick.And then you will tell all?Johan.Then the guilty one must take the guilt upon himself.
In two months I shall be back again.
Bernick.And then you will tell all?
Johan.Then the guilty one must take the guilt upon himself.
Bernick actually makes the confession demanded of him from pure contrition, for at the time he makes it all proofsof his crime are destroyed, and he has nothing more to fear from other persons. His confession is couched in most edifying terms (p. 108):
I must begin by rejecting the panegyric with which you ... have overwhelmed me. I do not deserve it; for until to-day I have not been disinterested in my dealings.... I have no right to this homage; for ... my intention was to retain the whole myself.... My fellow-citizens must know me to the core ... that from this evening we begin a new time. The old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum open for instruction.... My fellow-citizens, I will come out of the lie; it had almost poisoned every fibre of my being. You shall know all. Fifteen years agoIwas the guilty one, etc.
InRosmersholmthere is hardly any other subject treated of than the confession of all before all. In the very first visit of Kroll (p. 15) Rebecca urges Rosmer to confess:
Rebecca(comes up close to Rosmer, and says rapidly and in a low voice, so that the Rector does not hear her). Do it now!Rosmer(also in a low voice). Not this evening.Rebecca(as before). Yes, this very evening.
Rebecca(comes up close to Rosmer, and says rapidly and in a low voice, so that the Rector does not hear her). Do it now!
Rosmer(also in a low voice). Not this evening.
Rebecca(as before). Yes, this very evening.
As he does not at once obey she will speak for him (p. 19):
Rebecca.You must let me tell you frankly.Rosmer(quickly). No, no; be quiet. Not just now!
Rebecca.You must let me tell you frankly.
Rosmer(quickly). No, no; be quiet. Not just now!
Rosmer soon does it himself (p. 28):
Kroll.We two are in practical agreement—at any rate, on the great essential questions.Rosmer(in a low voice). No; not now.Kroll(tries to jump up). What is this?Rosmer(holding him). No; you must sit still. I entreat you, Kroll.Kroll.What can this mean? I don’t understand you. Speak plainly.Rosmer.A new summer has blossomed in my soul. I see with eyes grown young again; and so now I stand——Kroll.Where? where, Rosmer?Rosmer.Where your children stand.Kroll.You? you? Impossible! Where do you say you stand?Rosmer.On the same side as Laurits and Hilda.Kroll(bows his head). An apostate! Johannes Rosmer an apostate!... Is this becoming language for a priest?Rosmer.I am no longer a priest.Kroll.Well, but—the faith of your childhood——?Rosmer.Is mine no longer.... I have given it up. Ihadto give it up.... Peace, and joy, and mutual forbearance must once more enter our souls. That is why I am stepping forward and openly avowing myself for what I am....Rebecca.There now; he’s on his way to his great sacrifice.
Kroll.We two are in practical agreement—at any rate, on the great essential questions.
Rosmer(in a low voice). No; not now.
Kroll(tries to jump up). What is this?
Rosmer(holding him). No; you must sit still. I entreat you, Kroll.
Kroll.What can this mean? I don’t understand you. Speak plainly.
Rosmer.A new summer has blossomed in my soul. I see with eyes grown young again; and so now I stand——
Kroll.Where? where, Rosmer?
Rosmer.Where your children stand.
Kroll.You? you? Impossible! Where do you say you stand?
Rosmer.On the same side as Laurits and Hilda.
Kroll(bows his head). An apostate! Johannes Rosmer an apostate!... Is this becoming language for a priest?
Rosmer.I am no longer a priest.
Kroll.Well, but—the faith of your childhood——?
Rosmer.Is mine no longer.... I have given it up. Ihadto give it up.... Peace, and joy, and mutual forbearance must once more enter our souls. That is why I am stepping forward and openly avowing myself for what I am....
Rebecca.There now; he’s on his way to his great sacrifice.
(We may here note the purely theological designation given to Rosmer’s act.)
Rosmer.I feel so relieved now it is over. You see, I am quite calm Rebecca....
Like Rosmer, Rebecca also confesses to Rector Kroll (p. 86):
Rebecca.Yes, Herr Rector, Rosmer and I—we saythouto each other. The relation between us has led to that.... Come, let us sit down, dear—all three of us—and then I will tell the whole story.Rosmer(seats himself mechanically). What has come over you, Rebecca? This unnatural calmness—what is it?Rebecca.I have only to tell you something.... Now it must out. It was not you, Rosmer. You are innocent; it wasIwho lured Beata out into the paths of delusion ... that led to the mill-race. Now you know it, both of you....Rosmer(after a pause). Have you confessed all now, Rebecca?
Rebecca.Yes, Herr Rector, Rosmer and I—we saythouto each other. The relation between us has led to that.... Come, let us sit down, dear—all three of us—and then I will tell the whole story.
Rosmer(seats himself mechanically). What has come over you, Rebecca? This unnatural calmness—what is it?
Rebecca.I have only to tell you something.... Now it must out. It was not you, Rosmer. You are innocent; it wasIwho lured Beata out into the paths of delusion ... that led to the mill-race. Now you know it, both of you....
Rosmer(after a pause). Have you confessed all now, Rebecca?
No, not yet all. But she hastens to complete to Rosmer the confession begun to Kroll (p. 98):
Rosmer.Have you more confessions to make?Rebecca.The greatest of all is to come.Rosmer.The greatest?Rebecca.What you have never suspected. What gives light and shade to all the rest, etc.
Rosmer.Have you more confessions to make?
Rebecca.The greatest of all is to come.
Rosmer.The greatest?
Rebecca.What you have never suspected. What gives light and shade to all the rest, etc.
InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida (p. 19) confesses to Arnholm the story of her insensate betrothal with the foreign sailor. Arnholm so little comprehends the need of this confession, made without rhyme or reason, that he asks with astonishment: ‘What is your object, then, in telling me that you were bound?’ ‘Because I must have someone in whom to confide,’ is Ellida’s sole—and, moreover, sufficient—answer.
InHedda Gablerthe inevitable confessions take place before the commencement of the piece. ‘Yes, Hedda,’ Lövborg says (p. 123). ‘And when I used to confess to you! Told you about myself—things that nobody else knew in those days. Sat there and admitted that I had been out on the loose for whole days and nights.... Ah, Hedda, what power was it in you that forced me to acknowledge things like that?... Had not you an idea that you could wash me clean if only I came to you in confession?’ He confesses in order to receive absolution.
InThe Wild Duckconfession is equally prominent, but it is deliciously ridiculed. The scene in which Gina confesses to her husband her early liaison with Werle is one of the most exquisite things in contemporary drama (Act IV.).
Hjalmar.Is it true—can it be true that—that there was an—an understanding between you and Mr. Werle, while you were in service there?Gina.That’s not true. Not at that time. Mr. Werle did come after me, I own it; and his wife thought there was something in it ... so that I left her service.Hjalmar.But afterwards, then!Gina.Well, then I went home. And mother—well, she wasn’t the woman you took her for, Ekdal; she kept on worrying and worrying at me about one thing and another. For Mr. Werle was a widower by that time.Hjalmar.Well, and then?Gina.I suppose you must know it. He didn’t give it up until he’d had his way.Hjalmar(striking his hands together). And this is the mother of my child! How could you hide this from me?Gina.It was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.Hjalmar.You should have told me at the very first; then I should have known what you were.Gina.But would you have married me all the same?Hjalmar.How can you suppose so?Gina.That’s just why I didn’t dare to tell you anything then. I’d come to care for you so much, you know; and I couldn’t go and make myself utterly miserable....Hjalmar.Haven’t you every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s web of deceit you had spun around me? Answer me that! How could you help writhing with penitence and remorse?Gina.My dear Ekdal, I’ve plenty to do looking after the house, and all the daily business——
Hjalmar.Is it true—can it be true that—that there was an—an understanding between you and Mr. Werle, while you were in service there?
Gina.That’s not true. Not at that time. Mr. Werle did come after me, I own it; and his wife thought there was something in it ... so that I left her service.
Hjalmar.But afterwards, then!
Gina.Well, then I went home. And mother—well, she wasn’t the woman you took her for, Ekdal; she kept on worrying and worrying at me about one thing and another. For Mr. Werle was a widower by that time.
Hjalmar.Well, and then?
Gina.I suppose you must know it. He didn’t give it up until he’d had his way.
Hjalmar(striking his hands together). And this is the mother of my child! How could you hide this from me?
Gina.It was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.
Hjalmar.You should have told me at the very first; then I should have known what you were.
Gina.But would you have married me all the same?
Hjalmar.How can you suppose so?
Gina.That’s just why I didn’t dare to tell you anything then. I’d come to care for you so much, you know; and I couldn’t go and make myself utterly miserable....
Hjalmar.Haven’t you every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s web of deceit you had spun around me? Answer me that! How could you help writhing with penitence and remorse?
Gina.My dear Ekdal, I’ve plenty to do looking after the house, and all the daily business——
Further on the idea of self-deliverance and purification through confession is pitilessly travestied.
Gregers.Haven’t you done it yet?Hjalmar(aloud). Itisdone.Gregers.Itis?... After so great a crisis—a crisis that’s to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from falsehood of any kind.... Surely you feel a new consecration after the great crisis.Hjalmar.Yes, of course I do—that is, in a sort of way.Gregers.For I’m sure there’s nothing in the world to compare with the joy of forgiving one who has erred, and raising her up to one’s self in love, etc.
Gregers.Haven’t you done it yet?
Hjalmar(aloud). Itisdone.
Gregers.Itis?... After so great a crisis—a crisis that’s to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from falsehood of any kind.... Surely you feel a new consecration after the great crisis.
Hjalmar.Yes, of course I do—that is, in a sort of way.
Gregers.For I’m sure there’s nothing in the world to compare with the joy of forgiving one who has erred, and raising her up to one’s self in love, etc.
On his way to the guillotine, Avinain, the French assassin, condensed the experience of his life in the pithy saying, ‘Never confess.’ But this is advice which only those of strong will and healthy minds can follow. A lively idea vehemently demands to be transformed into movement. The movement exacting the least effort is that of the small muscles of the larynx, tongue, and lips,i.e., the organs of speech. Anyone, therefore, having a specially lively idea experiences a strong desire to relax those cell-groups of his brain in which this idea is elaborated by allowing the transmission of their stimulus to the organs of speech. In a word, he desires to speak out. And if he is weak, if the inhibitive power of the will is not greater than the motor impulse proceeding from the ideational centre, he will burst out into speech, be the consequences what they may. That this psychological law has always been known is proved by all literature, from the fable of King Midas to Dostojewski’sRaskolnikow; and the Catholic Church furnished one more proof of her profound knowledge of human nature which she transformed the primitive Christian custom of confession before the assembled congregation, which was to be a self-humiliation and expiation, into auricular confession, which serves the purpose of a safe and blissful alleviation and relaxation,and constitutes for ordinary men a primary psychic need of the first order. It was this sort of confession which Ibsen, probably unconsciously, had in view. (‘Because I must have someone in whom I can confide,’ as Ellida says.) Himself a degenerate, Ibsen can picture to himself only the intellectual life of degenerates, in whom the mechanism of inhibition is always disordered, and who, therefore, cannot escape from the impulse to confess, when anything of an absorbing or exciting character exists in their consciousness.
The third and most important theological obsession of Ibsen is the saving act of Christ, the redemption of the guilty by a voluntary acceptance of their guilt. This devolution of sin upon a lamb of sacrifice occupies the same position in Ibsen’s drama as in Richard Wagner’s. Themotifof the sacrificial lamb and of redemption is constantly present in his mind, certainly not always clear and comprehensible, but, conformably with the confusion of his thought, diversely distorted, obscured, and, so to speak, incontrapuntalinversion. Now Ibsen’s personages voluntarily and joyfully bear the cross, in keeping with the Christ-idea; now it is put upon their shoulders by force or artifice, which is, as theologians would say, a diabolical mockery of this idea; now the sacrifice for another is sincere, now mere hypocrisy; the effects Ibsen draws from the incessantly recurringmotifare, agreeably with its form, now moral and affecting, now comically base and repulsive.
InThe Pillars of Societythere is a talk of some ‘scandal’ which occurred years before the commencement of the piece. The husband of the actress Dorf, on returning home one evening, found her with a stranger, who, on his entrance, sprang out of the window. The affair caused great excitement and indignation in the Norwegian Gotham. Immediately afterwards Johan Tönnesen fled to America. Everyone looked upon him as the ‘culprit.’ In reality, however, it was his brother-in-law, Bernick. Johan had voluntarily incurred the blame of Bernick’s fault. On his return from America the sinner and the sacrificial lamb discuss the circumstance (p. 45):
Bernick.Johan, now we are alone, you must give me leave to thank you.Johan.Oh, nonsense!Bernick.My house and home, my domestic happiness, my whole position as a citizen in society—all these I owe to you.Johan.Well, I am glad of it....Bernick.Thanks, thanks all the same. Not one in ten thousand would have done what you then did for me.Johan.Oh, nonsense!... One of us had to take the blame upon him.Bernick.But to whom did it lie nearer than to the guilty one?Johan.Stop!Thenit lay nearer to the innocent one. I was alone, free, an orphan.... You, on the other hand, had your old mother in life; and, besides, you had just become secretly engaged to Betty, and she was veryfond of you. What would have become of her if she had come to know——?Bernick.True, true, true; but ... but yet, that you should turn appearances against yourself, and go away——Johan.Have no scruples, my dear Karsten ... you had to be saved, and you were my friend.
Bernick.Johan, now we are alone, you must give me leave to thank you.
Johan.Oh, nonsense!
Bernick.My house and home, my domestic happiness, my whole position as a citizen in society—all these I owe to you.
Johan.Well, I am glad of it....
Bernick.Thanks, thanks all the same. Not one in ten thousand would have done what you then did for me.
Johan.Oh, nonsense!... One of us had to take the blame upon him.
Bernick.But to whom did it lie nearer than to the guilty one?
Johan.Stop!Thenit lay nearer to the innocent one. I was alone, free, an orphan.... You, on the other hand, had your old mother in life; and, besides, you had just become secretly engaged to Betty, and she was veryfond of you. What would have become of her if she had come to know——?
Bernick.True, true, true; but ... but yet, that you should turn appearances against yourself, and go away——
Johan.Have no scruples, my dear Karsten ... you had to be saved, and you were my friend.
Here the idea of the sacrificial lamb is normal and rational. But it is soon afterwards introduced into the same piece in a distorted shape. Bernick sends the rotten-keeledIndian Girlto sea, to her certain destruction, in spite of his foreman Aune’s opposition. While, however, planning this wholesale murder, he also schemes for laying the burden of his crime on the innocent Aune (p. 65):
Krap.... There is rascality at work, Consul.Bernick.I cannot believe it, Krap. I cannot, and will not believe such a thing of Aune.Krap.I am sorry for it, but it is the plain truth.... All bogus! TheIndian Girlwill never get to New York....Bernick.But this is horrible! What do you think can be his motive?Krap.He probably wants to bring the machines into discredit....Bernick.And for that he would sacrifice all these lives?... But such a piece of villainy as this! Listen, Krap; this affair must be examined into again. Not a word of it to anyone.... During the dinner-hour you must go down there again; I must have perfect certainty.... We cannot make ourselves accomplices in a crime. I must keep my conscience unspotted, etc.
Krap.... There is rascality at work, Consul.
Bernick.I cannot believe it, Krap. I cannot, and will not believe such a thing of Aune.
Krap.I am sorry for it, but it is the plain truth.... All bogus! TheIndian Girlwill never get to New York....
Bernick.But this is horrible! What do you think can be his motive?
Krap.He probably wants to bring the machines into discredit....
Bernick.And for that he would sacrifice all these lives?... But such a piece of villainy as this! Listen, Krap; this affair must be examined into again. Not a word of it to anyone.... During the dinner-hour you must go down there again; I must have perfect certainty.... We cannot make ourselves accomplices in a crime. I must keep my conscience unspotted, etc.
InGhoststhe idea of the lamb of sacrifice is equally travestied. The asylum founded by Mrs. Alving has been burnt. The joiner, Engstrand, that theatrical villain, succeeds in persuading the idiotic pastor, Manders, that he—Manders—was the cause of the fire. And as the pastor is made desperate by the possible legal consequences, Engstrand goes to him and says (p. 184):
Jacob Engstrand isn’t the man to desert a noble benefactor in the hour of need, as the saying is [!].Manders.Yes; but, my good fellow, how——?Engstrand.Jacob Engstrand may be likened to a guardian angel—he may, your reverence.Manders.No, no; I can’t accept that.Engstrand.Oh, you will though, all the same. I know a man that’s taken others’ sins upon himself before now, I do.Manders.Jacob (wrings his hand). You are a rare character.
Jacob Engstrand isn’t the man to desert a noble benefactor in the hour of need, as the saying is [!].
Manders.Yes; but, my good fellow, how——?
Engstrand.Jacob Engstrand may be likened to a guardian angel—he may, your reverence.
Manders.No, no; I can’t accept that.
Engstrand.Oh, you will though, all the same. I know a man that’s taken others’ sins upon himself before now, I do.
Manders.Jacob (wrings his hand). You are a rare character.
InA Doll’s Housethe idea develops itself with great beauty. Nora confidently expects that her husband, on hearing of her forgery, will assume the blame, and she is resolved not to accept his sacrifice (p. 76):
Nora.I only wanted to tell you that, Christina; you shall be my witness.... In case there were to be anybody who wanted to take the ... the whole blame, I mean ... then you will be able to bear witness that it is not true, Christina. I know very well what I am saying; I am in full possession of my senses, and I say to you, Nobody else knew anything about it; I alone have done everything.... But a miracle will come to pass even yet ... but it is so terrible, Christina! It must not happen for anything in the world!
Nora.I only wanted to tell you that, Christina; you shall be my witness.... In case there were to be anybody who wanted to take the ... the whole blame, I mean ... then you will be able to bear witness that it is not true, Christina. I know very well what I am saying; I am in full possession of my senses, and I say to you, Nobody else knew anything about it; I alone have done everything.... But a miracle will come to pass even yet ... but it is so terrible, Christina! It must not happen for anything in the world!
In the deepest excitement she looks for the expected miracle, the renewal of Christ’s act of salvation in the narrow circumstances of a small village—‘I am the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.’ And, since the miracle does not come to pass, there takes place the immense transformation in her nature which forms the real subject of the piece. Nora explains this to her husband with the greatest clearness (p. 116):
...The thought never once occurred to me that you could allow yourself to submit to the conditions of such a man. I was so firmly convinced that you would say to him, ‘Pray make the affair known to all the world’; and when that had been done ... then you would, as I firmly believed, stand before the world, take everything upon yourself, and say, ‘I am the guilty person.’ ... That was the miracle that I hoped and feared. And it was to hinder that that I wanted to put an end to my life.
InThe Wild Duckthe idea of the sacrificial lamb recurs no less than three times, and is the moving force of the whole piece. The infringement of the forest laws, of which the elder Ekdal was convicted, was not committed by him, but by Werle:
Werle.... I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing.Gregers.Lieutenant Ekdal seems to have been in the dark as to what he was doing.Werle.That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty, and I acquitted.Gregers.Yes, of course I know that nothing was proved against you.Werle.Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up old troubles?... I’ve done all I could without positively exposing myself, and giving rise to all sorts of suspicion and gossip.... I’ve given Ekdal copying to do from the office, and I pay him far, far more for it than his work is worth.
Werle.... I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing.
Gregers.Lieutenant Ekdal seems to have been in the dark as to what he was doing.
Werle.That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty, and I acquitted.
Gregers.Yes, of course I know that nothing was proved against you.
Werle.Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up old troubles?... I’ve done all I could without positively exposing myself, and giving rise to all sorts of suspicion and gossip.... I’ve given Ekdal copying to do from the office, and I pay him far, far more for it than his work is worth.
Werle thus shuffles his fault on Ekdal, and the latter breaks down under the weight of the cross. Afterwards, when Hjalmar learns that little Hedwig is not his child, and disowns her, the idiot Gregers Werle goes to the despairing maiden, and says:
But suppose you were to sacrifice the wild duck, of your own free will, for his sake?Hedwig(rising). The wild duck!Gregers.Suppose you were to sacrifice, for his sake, the dearest treasure you have in the world?Hedwig.Do you think that would do any good?Gregers.Try it, Hedwig.Hedwig(softly, with flashing eyes). Yes, I will try it.
But suppose you were to sacrifice the wild duck, of your own free will, for his sake?
Hedwig(rising). The wild duck!
Gregers.Suppose you were to sacrifice, for his sake, the dearest treasure you have in the world?
Hedwig.Do you think that would do any good?
Gregers.Try it, Hedwig.
Hedwig(softly, with flashing eyes). Yes, I will try it.
Here, then, Hedwig is not to offer herself in sacrifice, but a pet animal, thus abasing the idea from Christianity to paganism. Finally, it crops up a third time. At the last moment Hedwig cannot make up her mind to kill the duck, and prefers turning the pistol against her own breast, thus purchasing with her own life that of the bird. This dismal dénouement is worrying and foolish, because useless; the poetical effect would have beenfully attained if Hedwig, instead of dying, had only slightly wounded herself; for in this way she would have furnished equally strong proof that she was seriously determined to bear witness to her love for her father by the sacrifice of her young life, and to restore peace between him and her mother. But æsthetic criticism is not my function; I willingly yield that to phrase-makers. All that I have to indicate is the triple recurrence inThe Wild Duckof the idea of the sacrificial lamb.
At its third appearance this idea suffers a significant transformation. Hedwig sacrifices herself, not in expiation of an offence—for she is ignorant of her mother’s guilt—but to accomplish a work of love. Here the mystico-theological element of redemption recedes into the background so far as to be almost imperceptible, and there remains hardly more than the purely human element of the joy felt in self-sacrifice for others—an impulse not rare among good women, and which is a manifestation of the unsatisfied yearning for maternity (often unknown to themselves), and at the same time one of the noblest and holiest forms of altruism. Ibsen shows this impulse in many of his female characters, the source of which in the religious mysticism of the poet would not be at once noticed, if from the numerous other conjugations of the root-idea of the sacrificial lamb we had not already acquired the sure habit of recognising it even in its obscurations. Hedwig constitutes a transition from the theological to the purely human form of voluntary self-sacrifice. The over-strung child carries renunciation to the orthodox extreme of yielding up her life; Ibsen’s other women, to whose character Hedwig supplies the key, go only to the point of lovingly active self-denial. They do not die for others, but they live for others. InA Doll’s HouseMrs. Linden has this hunger for self-sacrifice.
I must work in order to endure life [she says to Krogstad—p. 87]. I have worked from my youth up, and work has been my one best friend. But now I am quite alone in the world—so terribly empty and forsaken. There is no happiness in working for one’s self. Nils, give me somebody and something to work for....Krogstad.What! you really could? Tell me, do you know my past?Mrs. Linden.Yes.Krogstad.And do you know my reputation?Mrs. Linden.Did you not hint it just now, when you said that with me you could have been another man?Krogstad.I am perfectly certain of it.Mrs. Linden.Could it not yet be so?Krogstad.Christina, do you say this after full deliberation?...Mrs. Linden.I need somebody to mother, and your children need a mother.
I must work in order to endure life [she says to Krogstad—p. 87]. I have worked from my youth up, and work has been my one best friend. But now I am quite alone in the world—so terribly empty and forsaken. There is no happiness in working for one’s self. Nils, give me somebody and something to work for....
Krogstad.What! you really could? Tell me, do you know my past?
Mrs. Linden.Yes.
Krogstad.And do you know my reputation?
Mrs. Linden.Did you not hint it just now, when you said that with me you could have been another man?
Krogstad.I am perfectly certain of it.
Mrs. Linden.Could it not yet be so?
Krogstad.Christina, do you say this after full deliberation?...
Mrs. Linden.I need somebody to mother, and your children need a mother.
Here the idea is not so disguised as to be unrecognisable. Krogstad is a culprit and an outlaw. If Mrs. Linden offers tolive for him, it is certainly chiefly from the instinct of maternity. But in this natural feeling there is also a tinge of the mystic idea of the sinner’s redemption through disinterested love. InThe Lady from the Sea, Ellida wishes to return to her birthplace on the sea, Skjoldvik, because she believes there is nothing for her to do in Wangel’s house. At the announcement of her resolution her stepdaughter, Hilda, evinces a profound despair. Then for the first time Ellida learns that Hilda loves her; there is then born in her the thought that she has someone to live for, and she says dreamily: ‘Oh, if there should be something for me to do here!’ InRosmersholmRebecca says to Kroll (p. 8):
So long as Mr. Rosmer thinks I am of any use or comfort to him, why, so long, I suppose, I shall stay here.Kroll(looks at her with emotion). Do you know, it’s really fine for a woman to sacrifice her whole youth to others, as you have done.Rebecca.Oh, what else should I have had to live for?
So long as Mr. Rosmer thinks I am of any use or comfort to him, why, so long, I suppose, I shall stay here.
Kroll(looks at her with emotion). Do you know, it’s really fine for a woman to sacrifice her whole youth to others, as you have done.
Rebecca.Oh, what else should I have had to live for?
InThe Pillars of Societythere are two of these touching self-sacrificing souls—Miss Martha Bernick and Miss Hessel. Miss Bernick has reared the illegitimate child Dina, and has consecrated her own life to her (p. 52):
Martha.I have been a mother to that much-wronged child—have brought her up as well as I could.Johan.And sacrificed your whole life in so doing.Martha.It has not been thrown away.
Martha.I have been a mother to that much-wronged child—have brought her up as well as I could.
Johan.And sacrificed your whole life in so doing.
Martha.It has not been thrown away.
She loves Johan, but as she sees that he is attracted by Dina she unites the two. She explains herself in regard to the incident in an exceedingly affecting scene with Johan’s half-sister (p. 95):
Lona.Now we are alone, Martha. You have lost her, and I him.Martha.You him?Lona.Oh, I had half lost him already over there. The boy longed to stand on his own feet, so I made him thinkIwas longing for home.Martha.That was it? Now I understand why you came. But he will want you back again, Lona.Lona.An old stepsister—what can he want with her now? Men snap many bonds to arrive at happiness.Martha.It is so, sometimes.Lona.But now we two must hold together, Martha.Martha.Can I be anything to you?Lona.Who more? We two foster-mothers—have we not both lost our children? Now we are alone.Martha.Yes, alone. And therefore I will tell you—I have loved him more than all the world.Lona.Martha! (seizes her arm). Is this the truth?Martha.My whole life lies in the words. I have loved him, and waited for him. From summer to summer I have looked for his coming. And then he came, but he did not see me.Lona.Loved him! and it was you that gave his happiness into his hands.Martha.Should I not have given him his happiness, since I loved him?Yes, I have loved him. My whole life has been for him.... He did not see me.Lona.It was Dina that overshadowed you, Martha.Martha.It is well that she did! When he went away we were of the same age. When I saw him again—oh, that horrible moment!—it seemed to me that I was ten years older than he. He had lived in the bright, quivering sunshine, and drunk in youth and health at every breath; and here sat I, the while, spinning and spinning——Lona.The thread of his happiness, Martha.Martha.Yes, it was gold I spun. No bitterness! Is it not true, Lona, we have been two good sisters to him?
Lona.Now we are alone, Martha. You have lost her, and I him.
Martha.You him?
Lona.Oh, I had half lost him already over there. The boy longed to stand on his own feet, so I made him thinkIwas longing for home.
Martha.That was it? Now I understand why you came. But he will want you back again, Lona.
Lona.An old stepsister—what can he want with her now? Men snap many bonds to arrive at happiness.
Martha.It is so, sometimes.
Lona.But now we two must hold together, Martha.
Martha.Can I be anything to you?
Lona.Who more? We two foster-mothers—have we not both lost our children? Now we are alone.
Martha.Yes, alone. And therefore I will tell you—I have loved him more than all the world.
Lona.Martha! (seizes her arm). Is this the truth?
Martha.My whole life lies in the words. I have loved him, and waited for him. From summer to summer I have looked for his coming. And then he came, but he did not see me.
Lona.Loved him! and it was you that gave his happiness into his hands.
Martha.Should I not have given him his happiness, since I loved him?Yes, I have loved him. My whole life has been for him.... He did not see me.
Lona.It was Dina that overshadowed you, Martha.
Martha.It is well that she did! When he went away we were of the same age. When I saw him again—oh, that horrible moment!—it seemed to me that I was ten years older than he. He had lived in the bright, quivering sunshine, and drunk in youth and health at every breath; and here sat I, the while, spinning and spinning——
Lona.The thread of his happiness, Martha.
Martha.Yes, it was gold I spun. No bitterness! Is it not true, Lona, we have been two good sisters to him?
InHedda Gablerit is Miss Tesman, aunt of the imbecile Tesman, who plays the pathetic part of the sacrificial mother. She has brought him up, and when he marries gives him the largest part of her modest income. ‘Oh, aunt,’ bleats the poor idiot (p. 18), ‘you will never be tired of sacrificing yourself for me!’ ‘Do you think,’ replies the good creature, ‘I have any other joy in this world than to smooth the way for you, my dear boy—you who have never had a father or a mother to look after you?’ And when subsequently the paralytic sister of Miss Tesman is dead, Hedda and she hold this conversation (p. 196):
Hedda.It will be lonesome for you now, Miss Tesman.Miss Tesman.The first few days, yes. But that won’t last very long. Dear Rina’s little room will not always be empty, that I know.Hedda.Indeed! Who is going to move into it, eh?Miss Tesman.Oh, there is always some poor invalid or other who needs to be looked after and tended, unfortunately.Hedda.Will you really take such a burden upon you again?Miss Tesman.Burden! God forgive you, child! that has never been a burden to me.Hedda.But now, if a stranger should come, then surely——Miss Tesman.Oh, one soon becomes friends with sick people. And I must positively have someone to live for, too.
Hedda.It will be lonesome for you now, Miss Tesman.
Miss Tesman.The first few days, yes. But that won’t last very long. Dear Rina’s little room will not always be empty, that I know.
Hedda.Indeed! Who is going to move into it, eh?
Miss Tesman.Oh, there is always some poor invalid or other who needs to be looked after and tended, unfortunately.
Hedda.Will you really take such a burden upon you again?
Miss Tesman.Burden! God forgive you, child! that has never been a burden to me.
Hedda.But now, if a stranger should come, then surely——
Miss Tesman.Oh, one soon becomes friends with sick people. And I must positively have someone to live for, too.
The three Christo-dogmatic obsessions of original sin, confession, and self-sacrifice, filling Ibsen’s dramas, as we have seen, from the first line to the last, are not the only tokens of his mysticism. This betrays itself by a whole series of other peculiarities, which shall be briefly indicated.
At the head of these stands the astoundingly chaotic nature of his thought. One cannot believe one’s eyes while reading how his fulsome flatterers have had the audacity to extol him for the ‘clearness’ and ‘precision’ of his thought. Do these individuals, then, imagine that no one capable of forming a judgment will ever read a line of Ibsen? A clearly-defined thought is an extraordinary rarity in this Norwegian dramatist. Everything floats and undulates, nebulous and amorphous, such as we are accustomed to see in weak-brained degenerates. And if he once succeeds, with toil and stress, in grasping anything and expressing it in a moderately intelligible manner,he unfailingly hastens, a few pages later, or in a subsequent piece, to say the exact opposite. A talk is made of Ibsen’s ‘ideas on morality’ and of his ‘philosophy.’ He has not formulated a single proposition on morality, a single conception of the world and life, that he has not himself either refuted or fittingly ridiculed.
He seems to preach free love, and his eulogy of a licentiousness unchecked by any self-control, regardless of contracts, laws, and morality, has made of him a ‘modern spirit’ in the eyes of Georg Brandes and similar protectors of those ‘youths who wish to amuse themselves a little.’ Mrs. Alving (Ghosts, p. 158), calls a ‘crime’ the act of Pastor Manders in repulsing her, after she has quitted her husband and thrown herself on the pastor’s neck. This highly-strung dame pushes Regina into the arms of Oswald, her son, when in shameless speech he informs her that it would give him pleasure to possess the girl. And this very same Mrs. Alving speaks in terms of the deepest indignation of her dead husband as ‘profligate’ (p. 146), and again designates him in the presence of her son as a ‘broken-down man’ (in the original it is ‘et forfaldent Menneske,’ an epithet usually bestowed on fallen women), and why? Because he had had wanton relations with women! Well, but is it in Ibsen’s opinion permissible, or not permissible, to gratify carnal lust as often as it is awakened? If it is permissible, how does Mrs. Alving come to speak with scorn of her husband? If it is not permissible, how dared she offer herself to Pastor Manders, and be the procuress between Regina and her own half-brother? Or does the moral law hold good for man only, and not for woman? An English proverb says, ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’ Ibsen evidently does not share the opinion of popular lore. A woman who runs away from her legal husband and pursues a lover (Mrs. Elvsted and Ejlert Lövborg, inHedda Gabler), or who offers to form an illicit connection with a man, although nothing prevents their marrying without further ado like other rational ratepayers (Mrs. Linden and Krogstad inA Doll’s House)—such women have Ibsen’s entire approbation and sympathy. But if a man seduces a maiden and liberally provides for her subsequent maintenance (Werle and Gina inThe Wild Duck), or, again, if he has illicit relations with a married woman (Consul Bernick and the actress Dorf inThe Pillars of Society), then it is so heinous a crime that the culprit remains branded his whole life, and is nailed by the poet to the pillory with the cruelty of a mediæval executioner.
The same contradiction finds its expression in another and more general form. At one time Ibsen contends with ferocious, impetuosity that everyone is ‘a law unto himself’ alone,i.e., thathe should obey every one of his caprices, nay, even of his diseased impulsions; that, as his commentators idiotically put it, he should (sich auslebe) ‘live out his life.’ InThe Pillars of SocietyMiss Bernick says to Dina (p. 94):
Promise me to make him [her betrothed] happy.Dina.I will not promise anything. I hate this promising; things must come as they can [i.e., as the circumstances of the moment may suggest to the wayward brain].Martha.Yes, yes; so they must. You need only remain as you are, true and faithful to yourself.Dina.That I will, Aunt Martha.
Promise me to make him [her betrothed] happy.
Dina.I will not promise anything. I hate this promising; things must come as they can [i.e., as the circumstances of the moment may suggest to the wayward brain].
Martha.Yes, yes; so they must. You need only remain as you are, true and faithful to yourself.
Dina.That I will, Aunt Martha.
InRosmersholm, Rosmer says admiringly of the scoundrel Brendel (p. 28): ‘At least he has had the courage to live his life his own way. I don’t think that’s such a small matter after all.’ In the same piece Rebecca complains (p. 97): ‘Rosmersholm has broken me.... Broken me utterly and hopelessly. I had a fresh, undaunted will when I came here. Now I have bent my neck under a strange law.’ And further on (p. 102): ‘It is the Rosmer view of life ... that has infected my will.... and made it sick, enslaved it to laws that had no power over me before.’ Ejlert Lövborg laments in like fashion inHedda Gabler. ‘But it isthis—that I don’t want to live that kind of life either. Not now, over again. It is the courage of life and the defiance of life that she’ (Thea Elvested, with her sweet, loving constraint) ‘has snapped in me.’ Quite in opposition to these views, Ibsen, in hisGhosts, makes Regina proclaim her ‘right to live out her life’ in these words (p. 189): ‘Oh! I really can’t stop out here in the country and wear myself out nursing sick people ... a poor girl must make the best of her young days.... I, too, want to enjoy my life, Mrs. Alving.’ Mrs. Alving replies: ‘Alas! yes.’ This ‘alas’ is bewildering. Alas? Why ‘alas’? Does she not obey her ‘law’ if she satisfies her ‘joy in living,’ and, as she forthwith explains, enters the house of ill-fame for sailors set up by the joiner Engstrand? How can Mrs. Alving utter this ‘alas,’ when she also was ‘obeying her law’ in offering herself as the mistress of Pastor Manders, and since she wished to aid her son in ‘obeying his law,’ when he had set his eyes on Regina? It is because Ibsen, in his lucid moments, feels that there may be something of danger in ‘obeying one’s law,’ and this ‘alas’ of Mrs. Alving escapes him as a confession. InThe Wild Duckhe ridicules his own dogma in the most liberal style. In that piece there is one Molvig, a candidate for a University degree, who also ‘obeys his law.’ This law prescribes that he shall learn nothing, evade his examinations, and pass his nights in taverns. The scoffer, Relling, asserts (p. 317) that it ‘comes over him like a sort of possession; and then I have to go out on the loose withhim. Molvig is a demoniac, you see, ... and demoniac natures are not made to walk straight through the world; they must meander now and then. And in order that there shall be no doubt as to what Relling means by this, he subsequently explains (p. 361): ‘“What the devil do you mean by demoniac?” “It’s only a piece of hocus-pocus I’ve invented to keep up a spark of life in him. But for that the poor harmless creature would have succumbed to self-contempt and despair many a long year ago.”’
That is true. Molvig is a pitiable weakling, unable to conquer his indolence and passion for drink; abandoned to his own devices, he would recognise himself for the miserable creature he is, and despise himself as profoundly as he deserves; but Relling arrives on the scene, and gives his lack of character the title ‘demoniac,’ and now ‘the child has a fine name,’ which Molvig can make a parade of to himself and others. Ibsen does exactly the same thing as his Relling. The weakness of will, incapable of resisting base and pitiable instincts, he praises as the ‘will to live out one’s life,’ as the ‘freedom of a spirit who obeys his own law only,’ and recommends it as the sole rule of life. But, unlike Relling, he is for the most part ignorant of the fact that he is practising a deception (which I by no means regard in Relling’s light as pious and charitable), and believes in his own humbug. That is, for the most part; not always. Here and there, as inThe Wild Duck, he recognises his error and scourges it severely; and his inmost feeling is so little influenced by his self-deceptive phrase, fit for a weak-willed degenerate, that he involuntarily and unconsciously betrays, in all his productions, his deep abhorrence of men who ‘obey their own law in order to live out their life.’ He punishes Chamberlain Alving in his son, and makes him cursed by his widow because he has ‘lived out his life.’ He imputes it as a crime to Consul Bernick and the merchant Werle that they have ‘lived out their life,’ the former in sacrificing his brother-in-law Johan to protect himself, and for his intrigue with Mrs. Dorf, the actress; and the latter for allowing Ekdal to bear the blame of his fault, and for seducing Gina. He surrounds with an aureole the glorified heads of Rosmer and Rebecca, because they did not ‘live out their life,’ but, on the contrary, ‘died their death,’ if I may put it so; because they obeyed, not ‘their own law,’ but that of others, the universal moral law that annihilated them. Whenever one of his characters acts in accordance with Ibsen’s doctrine, and does what is agreeable to himself regardless of morals and law, he experiences such contrition and self-torment that he is unable to find calm and joy until he has disburdened his conscience by confession and expiation.
‘This living out one’s life’ makes its appearance in Ibsen in the form also of a rigid individualism. The ‘self’ is the only real thing; the ‘I’ must be cherished and developed, as, indeed, Barrès preaches independently of Ibsen. The first duty of every human being is to be just to his ‘I,’ to satisfy its demands, to sacrifice to it every consideration for others. When Nora wishes to abandon her husband, he cries (p. 112):
Only think what people will say about it!Nora.I cannot take that into consideration. I only know that to go is necessary for me.Helmer.Oh, it drives one wild! Is this the way you can evade your holiest duties?Nora.What do you consider my holiest duties?Helmer.... Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?Nora.I have other duties equally sacred.Helmer.... What duties do you mean?Nora.Duties towards myself.Helmer.Before all else you are a wife and a mother.Nora.I no longer think so. I think that before all else I am a human being just as you are, or, at least, I will try to become one.
Only think what people will say about it!
Nora.I cannot take that into consideration. I only know that to go is necessary for me.
Helmer.Oh, it drives one wild! Is this the way you can evade your holiest duties?
Nora.What do you consider my holiest duties?
Helmer.... Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?
Nora.I have other duties equally sacred.
Helmer.... What duties do you mean?
Nora.Duties towards myself.
Helmer.Before all else you are a wife and a mother.
Nora.I no longer think so. I think that before all else I am a human being just as you are, or, at least, I will try to become one.
InGhostsOswald says to his mother with triumphant brutality (p. 192): ‘I can’t be much taken up with other people. I have enough to do thinking about myself.’ How in the same piece Regina emphasizes her ‘I’ and its rights, we have already seen. InAn Enemy of the People, Stockmann proclaims the right of the ‘I’ in face of the majority, and even the race, in these words (p. 283): ‘It is a hideous lie: the doctrine that the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses, are the pith of the people—that, indeed, they are the people—that the common man, that this ignorant, undeveloped member of society, has the same right to condemn or to sanction, to govern and to rule, as the few people of intellectual power.’ And (p. 312): ‘I only want to drive into the heads of these curs that the Liberals are the worst foes of free men ... that the considerations of expediency turn morality and righteousness upside down until life is simply hideous.... Now I am one of the strongest men upon earth.... You see the fact is that the strongest man upon earth is he who stands most alone.’ But this very Stockmann, who will hear nothing of ‘the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses,’ as he reiterates with insufferable tautology, who feels, his ‘I’ powerful only in a majestic solitude, calls his fellow-citizens ‘old women who think only of their families,[340]and not of the general good.’ And in the very same piece (A Doll’s House), in which Ibsen evidently bestows loud applause on Nora for declaring that ‘her only duties were to herself,’ and that she ‘could have no consideration for anyone else,’ he stigmatizes her husband as a pitiable, low-spirited weakling, because on hiswife’s confession of forgery he first of all thinks of his own reputation only, and hence of his ‘duty to himself,’ his only consideration being for himself, and not for his wife. Here there recurs the same phenomenon as in Ibsen’s notions concerning sexual morality. Unchastity in a man is a crime, but in a woman is permissible. In the same way the rude emphasizing of the ‘I’ is a merit only in the woman. The man has no right to be an egoist. How, for example, Ibsen rails at egoism through Bernick (inThe Pillars of Society), whom he makes say naïvely, in reference to his sister Martha, that she ‘is quite insignificant’ (p. 49), and that he does not wish to have her otherwise!
You know, in a large house like ours, it is always well to have some steady-going person like her, whom one can put to anything that may turn up.Johan.Yes, but she herself?Bernick.She herself? Why, of course she has enough to interest herself in—Betty and Olaf, and me, you know. People should not think of themselves first, and women least of all.
You know, in a large house like ours, it is always well to have some steady-going person like her, whom one can put to anything that may turn up.
Johan.Yes, but she herself?
Bernick.She herself? Why, of course she has enough to interest herself in—Betty and Olaf, and me, you know. People should not think of themselves first, and women least of all.
And how severely Ibsen condemns the egoism of Mrs. Elvsted’s husband (Hedda Gabler), when he puts these bitter words into her mouth (p. 52): ‘He is not really fond of anybody but himself. Perhaps of the children a little!’
But the most remarkable thing about this philosopher of individualism is that he not only expressly condemns egoism in the man as a low vice, but unconsciously also admires disinterestedness in the woman as an angelic perfection. InA Doll’s House(p. 113) he brags that ‘my most sacred duties are towards myself.’ And yet the only touching and charming characters in his pieces with whom this inflexible individualist is successful are the saintly women who live and die for others only—these Hedwigs, Miss Bernicks, Miss Hessels, Aunt Tesmans, etc., who never think of their ‘I,’ but make the sacrifice of all their impulses and wishes to the welfare of others their sole task on earth. This contradiction, violent to the point of absurdity, is very well explained by the nature of Ibsen’s mind. His mystico-religious obsession of voluntary self-sacrifice for others is necessarily stronger than his pseudo-philosophic lucubration on individualism.
Among the ‘moral ideas’ of Ibsen are counted his professed thirst for truth. At least enough has been said and written on this subject. ‘Only just think,’ Helmer says to Nora (A Doll’s House, pp. 44, 45), ‘how a man so conscious of guilt as that must go about everywhere lying, and a hypocrite, and an actor; how he must wear a mask towards his neighbour, and even his wife and children, his own children. That’s the worst, Nora.... Because such a misty atmosphere of lying brings contagion into the whole family.’ ‘Is there no voice in yourmother’s heart that forbids you to destroy your son’s ideals?’ asks Pastor Manders inGhosts(p. 155), when Mrs. Alving has revealed to her son her defunct husband’s ‘immorality.’ To which Mrs. Alving magniloquently replies, ‘But what about the truth?’ InThe Pillars of Society, Lona Hessel thus preaches to Consul Bernick (p. 57):