Manders. What? Do you want me to believe that honourable men when they get away from home will--Oswald. Have you never, when these same honourable men come home again, heard them deliver themselves on the subject of the prevalence of immorality abroad?
Manders. Yes, of course, but--
Mrs. Alving. I have heard them, too.
Oswald. Well, you can take their word for it, unhesitatingly.
Some of them are experts in the matter. (Putting his hands to his head.) To think that the glorious freedom of the beautiful life over there should be so besmirched!
Mrs. Alving. You mustn't get too heated, Oswald; you gain nothing by that.
Oswald. No, you are quite right, mother. Besides, it isn't good for me. It's because I am so infernally tired, you know. I will go out and take a turn before dinner. I beg your pardon, Mr. Manders. It is impossible for you to realise the feeling; but it takes me that way (Goes out by the farther door on the right.)Mrs. Alving. My poor boy!
Manders. You may well say so. This is what it has brought him to!
(MRS. ALVING looks at him, but does not speak.) He called himself the prodigal son. It's only too true, alas--only too true! (MRS.
ALVING looks steadily at him.) And what do you say to all this?
Mrs. Alving. I say that Oswald was right in every single word he said.
Manders. Right? Right? To hold such principles as that?
Mrs. Alving. In my loneliness here I have come to just the same opinions as he, Mr. Manders. But I have never presumed to venture upon such topics in conversation. Now there is no need; my boy shall speak for me.
Manders. You deserve the deepest pity, Mrs. Alving. It is my duty to say an earnest word to you. It is no longer your businessman and adviser, no longer your old friend and your dead husband's old friend, that stands before you now. It is your priest that stands before you, just as he did once at the most critical moment of your life.
Mrs. Alving. And what is it that my priest has to say to me?
Manders. First of all I must stir your memory. The moment is well chosen. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of your husband's death; tomorrow the memorial to the departed will be unveiled;tomorrow I shall speak to the whole assembly that will be met together, But today I want to speak to you alone.
Mrs. Alving, Very well, Mr. Manders, speak!
Manders. Have you forgotten that after barely a year of married life you were standing at the very edge of a precipice?--that you forsook your house and home? that you ran away from your husband--yes, Mrs. Alving, ran away, ran away-=and refused to return to him in spite of his requests and entreaties?
Mrs. Alving. Have you forgotten how unspeakably unhappy I was during that first year?
Manders. To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?
No! we must do our duty, Mrs. Alving. And your duty was to cleave to the man you had chosen and to whom you were bound by a sacred bond.
Mrs. Alving. You know quite well what sort of a life my husband was living at that time--what excesses he was guilty of.
Menders. I know only too well what rumour used to say of him; and I should be the last person to approve of his conduct as a young man, supposing that rumour spoke the truth. But it is not a wife's part to be her husband's judge. You should have considered it your bounden duty humbly to have borne the cross that a higher will had laid upon you. But, instead of that, you rebelliously cast off your cross, you deserted the man whose stumbling footsteps you should have supported, you did what was bound to imperil your good name and reputation, and came very near to imperilling the reputation of others into the bargain.
Mrs. Alving. Of others? Of one other, you mean.
Manders. It was the height of imprudence, your seeking refuge with me.
Mrs. Alving. With our priest? With our intimate friend?
Manders. All the more on that account; you should thank God that I possessed the necessary strength of mind--that I was able to turn you from your outrageous intention, and that it was vouchsafed to me to succeed in leading you back into the path of duty, and back to your lawful husband.
Mrs. Alving. Yes, Mr. Manders, that certainly was your doing.
Manders. I was but the humble instrument of a higher power. And is it not true that my having been able to bring you again under the yoke of duty and obedience sowed the seeds of a rich blessing on all the rest of your life? Did things not turn out as Iforetold to you? Did not your husband turn from straying in the wrong path, as a man should? Did he not, after that, live a life of love and good report with you all his days? Did he not become a benefactor to the neighbourhood? Did he not so raise you up to his level, so that by degree you became his fellow-worker in all his undertakings--and a noble fellow-worker, too. I know, Mrs.
Alving; that praise I will give you. But now I come to the second serious false step in your life.
Mrs. Alving. What do you mean?
Manders, Just as once you forsook your duty as a wife, so, since then, you have forsaken your duty as a mother.
Mrs. Alving. Oh--!
Manders. You have been overmastered all your life by a disastrous spirit of willfulness. All your impulses have led you towards what is undisciplined and lawless. You have never been willing to submit to any restraint. Anything in life that has seemed irksome to you, you have thrown aside recklessly and unscrupulously, as if it were a burden that you were free to rid yourself of if you would. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and so you left your husband. Your duties as a mother were irksome to you, so you sent your child away among strangers.
Mrs. Alving. Yes, that is true; I did that.
Menders. And that is why you have become a stranger to him.
Mrs. Alving. No, no, I am not that!
