Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (no david read aloud .TXT) 📕

from his new book to a man like Tesman, whom he despises. But though Tesman is a ninny, he is, as Hedda says, a “specialist”⁠—he is a competent, plodding student of his subject. Lovborg may quite naturally wish to see how his new method, or his excursion into a new field, strikes the average scholar of the Tesman type. He is, in fact, “trying it on the dog”⁠—neither an unreasonable nor an unusual proceeding. There is, no doubt, a certain improbability in the way in which Lovborg is represented as carrying his manuscript around, and especially in Mrs. Elvsted’s production of his rough draft from her pocket; but these are mechanical trifles, on which only a niggling criticism would dream of laying stress.

Of all Ibsen’s works, Hedda Gabler is the most detached, the most objective⁠—a character-study pure and simple. It is impossible⁠—or so it seems to me⁠—to extract any sort of general idea from it. One cannot even call it a satire, unless one is prepared to apply that term to the record of a “case” in a work of criminology. Reverting to Dumas’s dictum that a play should contain “a painting, a judgment, an ideal,” we may say the Hedda Gabler fulfils only the first of these requirements. The poet does not even pass judgment on his heroine: he simply paints her full-length portrait with scientific impassivity. But what a portrait! How searching in insight, how brilliant in colouring, how rich in detail! Grant Allen’s remark, above quoted, was, of course, a whimsical exaggeration; the Hedda type is not so common as all that, else the world would quickly come to an end. But particular traits and tendencies of the Hedda type are very common in modern life, and not only among women. Hyperaesthesia lies at the root of her tragedy. With a keenly critical, relentlessly solvent intelligence, she combines a morbid shrinking from all the gross and prosaic detail of the sensual life. She has nothing to take her out of herself⁠—not a single intellectual interest or moral enthusiasm. She cherishes, in a languid way, a petty social ambition; and even that she finds obstructed and baffled. At the same time she learns that another woman has had the courage to love and venture all, where she, in her cowardice, only hankered and refrained. Her malign egoism rises up uncontrolled, and calls to its aid her quick and subtle intellect. She ruins the other woman’s happiness, but in doing so incurs a danger from which her sense of personal dignity revolts. Life has no such charm for her that she cares to purchase it at the cost of squalid humiliation and self-contempt. The good and the bad in her alike impel her to have done with it all; and a pistol-shot ends what is surely one of the most poignant character-tragedies in literature. Ibsen’s brain never worked at higher pressure than in the conception and adjustment of those “crowded hours” in which Hedda, tangled in the web of Will and Circumstance, struggles on till she is too weary to struggle any more.

It may not be superfluous to note that the a in “Gabler” should be sounded long and full, like the a in “Garden”⁠—not like the a in “gable” or in “gabble.”

W. A.

Dramatis Personae

George Tesman6

Hedda Tesman, his wife

Miss Juliana Tesman, his aunt

Mrs. Elvsted

Judge7 Brack

Eilert Lövborg

Berta, servant at the Tesmans

The scene of the action is Tesman’s villa, in the west end of Christiania.

Hedda Gabler Act I

A spacious, handsome, and tastefully furnished drawing room, decorated in dark colours. In the back, a wide doorway with curtains drawn back, leading into a smaller room decorated in the same style as the drawing room. In the right-hand wall of the front room, a folding door leading out to the hall. In the opposite wall, on the left, a glass door, also with curtains drawn back. Through the panes can be seen part of a verandah outside, and trees covered with autumn foliage. An oval table, with a cover on it, and surrounded by chairs, stands well forward. In front, by the wall on the right, a wide stove of dark porcelain, a high-backed armchair, a cushioned footrest, and two footstools. A settee, with a small round table in front of it, fills the upper right-hand corner. In front, on the left, a little way from the wall, a sofa. Further back than the glass door, a piano. On either side of the doorway at the back a whatnot with terra-cotta and majolica ornaments.⁠—Against the back wall of the inner room a sofa, with a table, and one or two chairs. Over the sofa hangs the portrait of a handsome elderly man in a General’s uniform. Over the table a hanging lamp, with an opal glass shade.⁠—A number of bouquets are arranged about the drawing room, in vases and glasses. Others lie upon the tables. The floors in both rooms are covered with thick carpets.⁠—Morning light. The sun shines in through the glass door.

Miss Juliana Tesman, with her bonnet on a carrying a parasol, comes in from the hall, followed by Berta, who carries a bouquet wrapped in paper. Miss Tesman is a comely and pleasant-looking lady of about sixty-five. She is nicely but simply dressed in a grey walking costume. Berta is a middle-aged woman of plain and rather countrified appearance. Miss Tesman Stops close to the door, listens, and says softly: Upon my word, I don’t believe they are stirring yet! Berta Also softly. I told you so, Miss. Remember how late the steamboat got in last night. And then, when they got home!⁠—good Lord, what a lot the young mistress had to unpack before she could get to bed. Miss Tesman Well well⁠—let them have their sleep out. But let us see that they get a good breath