Ghosts

A spacious garden-room, with one door to the left, and two doors to the right. In the middle of the room a round table, with chairs about it. On the table lie books, periodicals, and newspapers. In the foreground to the left a window, and by it a small sofa, with a worktable in front of it. In the background, the room is continued into a somewhat narrower conservatory, the walls of which are formed by large panes of glass. In the right-hand wall of the conservatory is a door leading down into the garden. Through the glass wall a gloomy fjord landscape is faintly visible, veiled by steady rain.

Engstrand, the carpenter, stands by the garden door. His left leg is somewhat bent; he has a clump of wood under the sole of his boot. Regina, with an empty garden syringe in her hand, hinders him from advancing.

Regina

In a low voice. What do you want? Stop where you are. You’re positively dripping.

Engstrand

It’s the Lord’s own rain, my girl.

Regina

It’s the devil’s rain, I say.

Engstrand

Lord, how you talk, Regina. Limps a step or two forward into the room. It’s just this as I wanted to say⁠—

Regina

Don’t clatter so with that foot of yours, I tell you! The young master’s asleep upstairs.

Engstrand

Asleep? In the middle of the day?

Regina

It’s no business of yours.

Engstrand

I was out on the loose last night⁠—

Regina

I can quite believe that.

Engstrand

Yes, we’re weak vessels, we poor mortals, my girl⁠—

Regina

So it seems.

Engstrand

—and temptations are manifold in this world, you see. But all the same, I was hard at work, God knows, at half-past five this morning.

Manders

What is the truth, then?

Mrs. Alving

The truth is that my husband died just as dissolute as he had lived all his days.

Manders

Feeling after a chair. What do you say?

Mrs. Alving

After nineteen years of marriage, as dissolute⁠—in his desires at any rate⁠—as he was before you married us.

Manders

And those⁠—those wild oats⁠—those irregularities⁠—those excesses, if you like⁠—you call “a dissolute life”?

Mrs. Alving

Our doctor used the expression.

Manders

I do not understand you.

Mrs. Alving

You need not.

Manders

It almost makes me dizzy. Your whole married life, the seeming union of all these years, was nothing more than a hidden abyss!

Mrs. Alving

Neither more nor less. Now you know it.

Manders

This is⁠—this is inconceivable to me. I cannot grasp it! I cannot realise it! But how was it possible to⁠—? How could such a state of things be kept secret?

Mrs. Alving

That has been my ceaseless struggle, day after day. After Oswald’s birth, I thought Alving seemed to be a little better. But it did not last long. And then I had to struggle twice as hard, fighting as though for life or death, so that nobody should know what sort of man my child’s father was. And you know what power Alving had of winning people’s hearts. Nobody seemed able to believe anything but good of him. He was one of those people whose life does not bite upon their reputation. But at last, Mr. Manders⁠—for you must know the whole story⁠—the most repulsive thing of all happened.

I may as well help to uncork it. He also goes into the dining room, the door of which swings half open behind him.

Mrs. Alving

Who has opened the parcel. Yes, I thought so. Here is the Ceremonial Ode, Pastor Manders.

Manders

With folded hands. With what countenance I am to deliver my discourse tomorrow⁠—!

Mrs. Alving

Oh, you will get through it somehow.

Manders

Softly, so as not to be heard in the dining room. Yes; it would not do to provoke scandal.

Mrs. Alving

Under her breath, but firmly. No. But then this long, hateful comedy will be ended. From the day after tomorrow, I shall act in every way as though he who is dead had never lived in this house. There shall be no one here but my boy and his mother.

From the dining room comes the noise of a chair overturned, and at the same moment is heard:

Regina

Sharply, but in a whisper. Oswald! take care! are you mad? Let me go!

Mrs. Alving

Starts in terror. Ah⁠—!

She stares wildly towards the half-open door. Oswald is heard laughing and humming. A bottle is uncorked.

Manders

Agitated. What can be the matter? What is it, Mrs. Alving?

Mrs. Alving

Hoarsely. Ghosts! The couple from the conservatory⁠—risen again!

Manders

Is it possible! Regina⁠—? Is she⁠—?

Mrs. Alving

Yes. Come. Not a word⁠—!

She seizes Pastor Manders by the arm, and walks unsteadily towards the dining room.

Mrs. Alving

Let me tell you what I mean. I am timid and fainthearted because of the ghosts that hang about me, and that I can never quite shake off.

Manders

What do you say hangs about you?

Mrs. Alving

Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.

Manders

Mrs. Alving

Yes, yes⁠—

Oswald

But it wasn’t that. I soon found that out. I couldn’t work any more. I wanted to begin upon a big new picture, but my powers seemed to fail me; all my strength was crippled; I could form no definite images; everything swam before me⁠—whirling round and round. Oh, it was an awful state! At last I sent for a doctor⁠—and from him I learned the truth.

Mrs. Alving

How do you mean?

Oswald

He was one of the first doctors in Paris. I told him my symptoms; and then he set to work asking me a string of questions which I thought had nothing to do with the matter. I couldn’t imagine what the man was after⁠—

Mrs. Alving

Well?

Oswald

At last he said: “There has been something worm-eaten in you from your birth.” He used that very word⁠—vermoulu.

Mrs. Alving

Breathlessly. What did he mean by that?

Oswald

I didn’t understand either, and begged him to explain himself more clearly. And then the old cynic said⁠—Clenching his fist. Oh⁠—!

Mrs. Alving

What did he say?

Oswald

He said, “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.”