Early Plays by Henrik Ibsen (best novels in english txt) 📕

When all the things I willed once, came to naught.

CATILINE.  [Waves his arms.]

Away,--away from me, ye sallow shades!

What claim you here of me, ye men and women?

I cannot give you--!  Oh, this multitude--!

FURIA.  To earth your spirit still is closely bound!

These thousand-threaded nets asunder tear!

Come, let me press this wreath upon your locks,--

'Tis gifted with a strong and soothing virtue;

It kills the memory, lulls the soul to rest!

CATILINE.  [Huskily.]

It kills the memory?  Dare I trust your word?

Then press your poison-wreath upon my forehead.

FURIA.  [Puts the wreath on his head.]

Now it is yours! Thus decked you shall appear

Before the prince of darkness, Catiline!

CATILINE.  Away! away!  I yearn to go below;--

I long to pass into the spirit lands.

Let us together go!  What holds me here?

What stays my steps?  Behind me here I feel

Upon the morning sky a misty star;--

It holds me in the land of living men;

It draws me as the moon attracts the sea.

FURIA.  Away!  Away!

CATILINE.  It beckons and it twinkles.

I cannot follow you until this light

Is quenched entirely, or by clouds obscured,--

I see it clearly now; 'tis not a star;

It is a human heart, throbbing and warm;

It binds me here; it fascinates and draws me

As draws the evening star the eye of children.

FURIA.  Then stop this beating heart!

CATILINE.  What do you mean?

FURIA.  The dagger in your belt--.  A single thrust,--

The star will vanish and the heart will die

That stand between us like an enemy.

CATILINE.  Ah, I should--?  Sharp and shining is the

dagger--

CATILINE.  [With a cry.]

Aurelia!  O Aurelia, where--where are you?

Were you but here--!  No, no,--I will not see you!

And yet methinks all would be well again,

And peace would come, if I could lay my head

Upon your bosom and repent--repent!

FURIA.  And what would you repent?

CATILINE.  Oh, everything!

That I have been, that I have ever lived.

FURIA.  'Tis now too late--too late!  Whence now you stand

No path leads back again.--Go try it, fool!

Now am I going home.  Place you your head

Upon her breast and see if there you find

The blessed peace your weary soul desires.

FURIA.  [With increasing wildness.]

Soon will the thousand dead rise up again;

Dishonored women will their numbers join;

And all,--aye, they will all demand of you

The life, the blood, the honor you destroyed.

In terror you will flee into the night,--

Will roam about the earth on every strand,

Like old Actean, hounded by his dogs,--

A shadow hounded by a thousand shades!

CATILINE.  I see it, Furia.  Here I have no peace.

I am an exile in the world of light!

I'll go with you into the spirit realms;--

The bond that binds me I will tear asunder.

FURIA.  Why grope you with the dagger?

CATILINE.  She shall die.

[The lightning strikes and the thunder rolls.]

FURIA.  The mighty powers rejoice at your resolve!--

See, Catiline,--see, yonder comes your wife.

[AURELIA comes through the forest in an anxious search.]

AURELIA.  Where shall I find him?  Where--where can he be!

I've searched in vain among the dead--

[Discovers him.]

AURELIA.  Great heavens,--

My Catiline!

[She rushes toward him.]

CATILINE.  [Bewildered.]  Speak not that name again!

AURELIA.  You are alive?

[Is about to throw herself in his arms.]

CATILINE.  [Thrusting her aside.]  Away!  I'm not alive.

AURELIA.  Oh, hear me, dearest--!

CATILINE.  No, I will not hear!

I hate you.  I see through your cunning wiles.

You wish to chain me to a living death.

Cease staring at me!  Ah, your eyes torment me,--

They pierce like daggers through my very soul!

Ah, yes, the dagger!  Die!  Come, close your eyes--

[He draws the dagger and seizes her by the hand.]

AURELIA.  Keep guard, oh gracious gods, o'er him and me!

CATILINE.  Quick, close your eyes; close them, I say;--in them

I see the starlight and the morning sky--.

Now shall I quench the heavenly star of dawn!

[The thunder rolls again.]

CATILINE.  Your heart; your blood!  Now speak the gods of life

Their last farewell to you and Catiline!

[He lifts the dagger toward her bosom; she escapes into the

tent; he pursues her.]

FURIA.  [Listens.]  She stretches out her hand imploringly.

She pleads with him for life.  He hears her not.

He strikes her down!  She reels in her own blood!

[CATILINE comes slowly out of the tent with the dagger in his

hand.]

CATILINE.  Now am I free.  Soon I shall cease to be.

Now sinks my soul in vague oblivion.

My eyes are growing dim, my hearing faint,

As if through rushing waters.  Ah, do you know

What I have slain with this my little dagger?

Not her alone,--but all the hearts on earth,--

All living things, all things that grow and bloom;--

The starlight have I dimmed, the crescent moon,

The flaming sun.  Ah, see,--it fails to rise;

'Twill never rise again; the sun is dead.

Now is the whole wide realm of earth transformed

Into a huge and clammy sepulchre,

Its vault of leaden grey;--beneath this vault

Stand you and I, bereft of light and darkness,

Of death and life,--two restless exiled shadows.

FURIA.  Now stand we, Catiline, before our goal!

CATILINE.  No, one step more--before I reach my goal.

Relieve me of my burden!  Do you not see,

I bend beneath the corpse of Catiline?

A dagger through the corpse of Catiline!

[He shows her the dagger.]

CATILINE.  Come, Furia, set me free!  Come, take this dagger;--

On it the star of morning I impaled;--

Take it--and plunge it straightway through the corpse;

Then it will loose its hold, and I am free.

FURIA.  [Takes the dagger.]

Your will be done, whom I have loved in hate!

Shake off your dust and come with me to rest.

[She buries the dagger deep in his heart; he sinks down at the

foot of the tree.]

CATILINE.  [After a moment comes to consciousness

again, passes his hand across his forehead, and speaks

faintly.]  Now, mysterious voice, your prophecy I understand!

I shall perish by my own, yet by a stranger's hand.

Nemesis has wrought her end.  Shroud me, gloom of night!

Raise your billows, murky Styx, roll on in all your might!

Ferry me across in safety; speed the vessel on

Toward the silent prince's realm, the land of shadows wan.

Two roads there are running yonder; I shall journey dumb

Toward the left--

AURELIA.  [From the tent, pale and faltering, her

bosom bloody.]  --no, toward the right!  Oh, toward Elysium!

CATILINE.  [Startled.]

How this bright and lurid picture fills my soul with dread!

She herself it is!  Aurelia, speak,--are you not dead?

AURELIA.  [Kneels before him.]

No, I live that I may still your agonizing cry,--

Live that I may lean my bosom on your breast and die.

CATILINE.  Oh, you live!

AURELIA.  I did but swoon; though my two eyes grew blurred,

Dimly yet I followed you and heard your every word.

And my love a spouse's strength again unto me gave;--

Breast to breast, my Catiline, we go into the grave!

CATILINE.  Oh, how gladly would I go!  Yet all in vain you sigh.

We must part.  Revenge compels me with a hollow cry.

You can hasten, free and blithesome, forth to peace and light;

I must cross the river Lethe down into the night.

[The day dawns in the background.]

AURELIA.  [Points toward the increasing light.]

No, the terrors and the gloom of death love scatters far.

See, the storm-clouds vanish; faintly gleams the morning star.

AURELIA.  [With uplifted arms.]

Light is victor!  Grand and full of freshness dawns the day!

Follow me, then!  Death already speeds me on his way.

[She sinks down over him.]

CATILINE.  [Presses her to himself and speaks with his last

strength.]  Oh, how sweet!  Now I remember my forgotten dream,

How the darkness was dispersed before a radiant beam,

How the song of children ushered in the new-born day.

Ah, my eye grows dim, my strength is fading fast away;

But my mind is clearer now than ever it has been:

All the wanderings of my life loom plainly up within.

Yes, my life a tempest was beneath the lightning blaze;

But my death is like the morning's rosy-tinted haze.

[Bends over her.]

CATILINE.

You have driven the gloom away; peace dwells within my breast.

I shall seek with you the dwelling place of light and rest!

CATILINE.  [He tears the dagger quickly out of his breast and

speaks with dying voice.]

The gods of dawn are smiling in atonement from above;

All the powers of darkness you have conquered with your love!

[During the last scene FURIA has withdrawn farther and farther

into the background and disappears at last among the trees.

CATILINE's head sinks down on AURELIA's breast; they die.]

[At the right of the stage sits RODERIK writing.  To

the left BLANKA in a half reclining position.]

BLANKA.  Lo! the sky in dying glory

  Surges like a sea ablaze,--

  It is all so still before me,

  Still as in a sylvan maze.

  Summer evening's mellow power

  Settles round us like a dove,

  Hovers like a swan above

  Ocean wave and forest flower.

  In the orange thicket slumber

  Gods and goddesses of yore,

  Stone reminders in great number

  Of a world that is no more.

  Virtue, valor, trust are gone,

  Rich in memory alone;

  Could there be a more complete

  Picture of the South effete?

[Rises.]

BLANKA.  But my father has related

  Stories of a distant land,

  Of a life, fresh, unabated,

  Neither carved nor wrought by hand!

  Here the spirit has forever

  Vanished into stone and wave,--

  There it breathes as free as ever,

  Like a warrior strong and brave!

  When the evening's crystallizing

  Vapors settle on my breast,

  Lo!  I see before me rising

  Norway's snow-illumined crest!

  Here is life decayed and dying,

  Sunk in torpor, still, forlorn,--

  There go avalanches flying,

  Life anew in death is born!

  If I had the white swan's coat--

RODERIK.  [After a pause writing.]

"Then, it is said, will Ragnarok have stilled

The wilder powers, brought forth a chastened life;

All-Father, Balder, and the gentle Freya

Will rule again the race of man in peace!"--

[After having watched her for a moment.]

RODERIK.  But, Blanka, now you dream away again;

You stare through space completely lost in thought,--

What is it that you seek?

BLANKA.  [Draws near.]  Forgive me, father!

I merely followed for a space the swan,

That sailed on snowy wings across the sea.

RODERIK.  And if I had not stopped you in your flight,

My young and pretty little swan! who knows

How far you might have flown away from me,--

Perchance to Thule?

BLANKA.  And indeed why not?

To Thule flies the swan in early spring,

If only to return again each fall.

[Seats herself at his feet.]

BLANKA.  Yet I--I am no swan,--no, call me rather

A captured falcon, sitting tame and true,

A golden ring about his foot.

RODERIK.  Well,--and the ring?

BLANKA.  The ring?  That is my love for you, dear father!

With that you have your youthful falcon bound,

I cannot fly,--not even though I wished to.

[Rises.]

BLANKA.  But when I see the swan sail o'er the wave,

Light as a cloud before the summer wind,

Then I remember all that you have told

Of the heroic life in distant Thule;

Then, as it seems, the bird is like a bark

With dragon head and wings of burnished gold;

I see the youthful hero in the prow,

A copper helmet on his yellow locks,

With eyes of blue, a manly, heaving breast,

His sword held firmly in his mighty hand.

I follow him upon his rapid course,

And all my dreams run riot round his bark,

And frolic sportively like merry dolphins

In fancy's deep and cooling sea!

RODERIK.  O you,--

You are an ardent dreamer, my good child,--

I almost fear your thoughts too often dwell

Upon the people in the rugged North.

BLANKA.  And, father, whose the fault, if it were so?

RODERIK.  You mean that I--?

BLANKA.  Yes, what else could I mean;

You live yourself but in the memory

Of early days among these mighty Norsemen;

Do not deny that often as you speak

Of warlike forays, combats, fights,

Your cheek begins to flush, your eye to glow;

It seems to me that you grow young again.

RODERIK.  Yes, yes, but I have reason so to do;

For I have lived among them in the North,

And every bit that memory calls to mind

Is