Chapter 4

BORKMAN. Who? Do you forget who has brought him up? First his aunt, from the time he was six or seven years old; and now, of late years, his mother!

FOLDAL. I believe you are doing them an injustice.

BORKMAN. [Firing up.] I never do any one injustice! Both of them have gone and poisoned his mind against me, I tell you!

FOLDAL. [Soothingly.] Well, well, well, I suppose they have.

BORKMAN. [Indignantly.] Oh these women! They wreck and ruin life for us! Play the devil with our whole destiny--our triumphal progress.

FOLDAL. Not all of them!

BORKMAN. Indeed? Can you tell me of a single one that is good for anything?

FOLDAL. No, that is the trouble. The few that I know are good for nothing.

BORKMAN. [With a snort of scorn.] Well then, what is the good of it? What is the good of such women existing--if you never know them?

FOLDAL. [Warmly.] Yes, John Gabriel, there is good in it, I assure you. It is such a blessed, beneficial thought that here or there in the world, somewhere, far away--the true woman exists after all.

BORKMAN. [Moving impatiently on the sofa.] Oh, do spare me that poetical nonsense.

FOLDAL. [Looks at him, deeply wounded.] Do you call my holiest faith poetical nonsense?

BORKMAN. [Harshly.] Yes I do! That is what has always prevented you from getting on in the world. If you would get all that out of your head, I could still help you on in life--help you to rise.

FOLDAL. [Boiling inwardly.] Oh, you can't do that.

BORKMAN. I can when once I come into power again.

FOLDAL. That won't be for many a day.

BORKMAN. [Vehemently.] Perhaps you think that day will never come? Answer me!

FOLDAL. I don't know what to answer.

BORKMAN. [Rising, cold and dignified, and waving his hand towards the door.] Then I no longer have any use for you.

FOLDAL. [Starting up.] No use----!

BORKMAN. Since you do not believe that the tide will turn for me----

FOLDAL. How can I believe in the teeth of all reason? You would have to be legally rehabilitated----

BORKMAN. Go on! go on!

FOLDAL. It's true I never passed my examination; but I have read enough law to know that----

BORKMAN. [Quickly.] It is impossible, you mean?

FOLDAL. There is no precedent for such a thing.

BORKMAN. Exceptional men are above precedents.

FOLDAL. The law knows nothing of such distinctions.

BORKMAN. [Harshly and decisively.] You are no poet, Vilhelm.

FOLDAL. [Unconsciously folding his hands.] Do you say that in sober earnest?

BORKMAN. [Dismissing the subject, without answering.] We are only wasting each other's time. You had better not come here again.

FOLDAL. Then you really want me to leave you?

BORKMAN. [Without looking at him.] I have no longer any use for you.

FOLDAL. [Softly, taking his portfolio.] No, no, no; I daresay not.

BORKMAN. Here you have been lying to me all the time.

FOLDAL. [Shaking his head.] Never lying, John Gabriel.

BORKMAN. Have you not sat here feeding me with hope, and trust, and confidence--that was all a lie?

FOLDAL. It wasn't a lie so long as you believed in my vocation. So long as you believed in me, I believed in you.

BORKMAN. Then we have been all the time deceiving each other. And perhaps deceiving ourselves--both of us.

FOLDAL. But isn't that just the essence of friendship, John Gabriel?

BORKMAN. [Smiling bitterly.] Yes, you are right there. Friendship means--deception. I have learnt that once before.

FOLDAL. [Looking at him.] I have no poetic vocation! And you could actually say it to me so bluntly.

BORKMAN. [In a gentler tone.] Well, you know, I don't pretend to know much about these matters.

FOLDAL. Perhaps you know more than you think.

BORKMAN. I?

FOLDAL. [Softly.] Yes, you. For I myself have had my doubts, now and then, I may tell you. The horrible doubt that I may have bungled my life for the sake of a delusion.

BORKMAN. If you have no faith in yourself, you are on the downward path indeed.

FOLDAL. That was why I found such comfort in coming here to lean upon your faith in me. [Taking his hat.] But now you have become a stranger to me.

BORKMAN. And you to me.

FOLDAL. Good night, John Gabriel.

BORKMAN. Good night, Vilhelm. [Foldal goes out to the left.

[BORKMAN stands for a moment gazing at the closed door; makes a movement as though to call FOLDAL back, but changes his mind, and begins to pace the floor with his hands behind his back. Then he stops at the table beside the sofa and puts out the lamp. The room becomes half dark. After a short pause, there comes a knock at the tapestry door.

BORKMAN. [At the table, starts, turns, and asks in a loud voice:] Who is that knocking? [No answer, another knock.

BORKMAN. [Without moving.] Who is it? Come in!

[ELLA RENTHEIM, with a lighted candle in her hand, appears in the doorway. She wears her black dress, as before, with her cloak thrown loosely round her shoulders.

BORKMAN. [Staring at her.] Who are you? What do you want with me?

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Closes the door and advances.] It is I, Borkman.

[She puts down the candle on the piano and remains standing beside it.

BORKMAN. [Stands as though thunderstruck, stares fixedly at her, and says in a half-whisper.] Is it--is it Ella? Is it Ella Rentheim?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, it's "your" Ella, as you used to call me in the old days; many, many years ago.

BORKMAN. [As before.] Yes, it is you Ella, I can see you now.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Can you recognise me?

BORKMAN. Yes, now I begin to----

ELLA RENTHEIM. The years have told on me, and brought winter with them, Borkman. Do you not think so?

BORKMAN. [In a forced voice.] You are a good deal changed--just at first glance.

ELLA RENTHEIM. There are no dark curls on my neck now--the curls you once loved to twist round your fingers.

BORKMAN. [Quickly.] True! I can see now, Ella, you have done your hair differently.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [With a sad smile.] Precisely; it is the way I do my hair that makes the difference.

BORKMAN. [Changing the subject.] I had no idea that you were in this part of the world.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I have only just arrived.

BORKMAN. Why have you come all this way now, in winter?

ELLA RENTHEIM. That you shall hear.

BORKMAN. Is it me you have come to see?

ELLA RENTHEIM. You among others. But if I am to tell you my errand, I must begin far back.

BORKMAN. You look tired.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, I am tired.

BORKMAN. Won't you sit down? There on the sofa.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, thank you; I need rest.

[She crosses to the right and seats herself in the furthest forward corner of the sofa. BORKMAN stands beside the table with his hands behind his back looking at her. A short silence.

ELLA RENTHEIM. It seems an endless time since we two met, Borkman, face to face.

BORKMAN. [Gloomily.] It is a long, long time. And terrible things have passed since then.

ELLA RENTHEIM. A whole lifetime has passed--a wasted lifetime.

BORKMAN. [Looking keenly at her.] Wasted!

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, I say wasted--for both of us.

BORKMAN. [In a cold business tone.] I cannot regard my life as wasted yet.

ELLA RENTHEIM. And what about mine?

BORKMAN. There you have yourself to blame, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [With a start.] And you can say that?

BORKMAN. You could quite well have been happy without me.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Do you believe that?

BORKMAN. If you had made up your mind to.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Bitterly.] Oh, yes, I know well enough there was some one else ready to marry me.

BORKMAN. But you rejected him.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, I did.

BORKMAN. Time after time you rejected him. Year after year----

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Scornfully.] Year after year I rejected happiness, I suppose you think?

BORKMAN. You might perfectly well have been happy with him. And then I should have been saved.

ELLA RENTHEIM. You?

BORKMAN. Yes, you would have saved me, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. How do you mean?

BORKMAN. He thought I was at the bottom of your obstinacy--of your perpetual refusals. And then he took his revenge. It was so easy for him; he had all my frank, confiding letters in his keeping. He made his own use of them; and then it was all over with me--for the time, that is to say. So you see it is all your doing, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh indeed, Borkman. If we look into the matter, it appears that it is I who owe you reparation.

BORKMAN. It depends how you look at it. I know quite well all that you have done for us. You bought in this house, and the whole property, at the auction. You placed the house entirely at my disposal--and your sister too. You took charge of Erhart, and cared for him in every way----

ELLA RENTHEIM. As long as I was allowed to----

BORKMAN. By your sister, you mean. I have never mixed myself up in these domestic affairs. As I was saying, I know all the sacrifices you have made for me and for your sister. But you were in a position to do so, Ella; and you must not forget that it was I who placed you in that position.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Indignantly.] There you make a great mistake, Borkman! It was the love of my inmost heart for Erhart--and for you too--that made me do it!

BORKMAN. [Interrupting.] My dear Ella, do not let us get upon questions of sentiment and that sort of thing. I mean, of course, that if you acted generously, it was I that put it in your power to do so.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Smiling.] H'm! In my power----

BORKMAN. [Warmly.] Yes, put it in your power, I say! On the eve of the great decisive battle--when I could not afford to spare either kith or kin--when I had to grasp at--when I did grasp at the millions that were entrusted to me--then I spared all that was yours, every farthing, although I could have taken it, and made use of it, as I did of all the rest!

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Coldly and quietly.] That is quite true, Borkman.

BORKMAN. Yes it is. And that was why, when they came and took me, they found all your securities untouched in the strong-room of the bank.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking at him.] I have often and often wondered what was your real reason for sparing all my property? That, and that alone.

BORKMAN. My reason?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, your reason. Tell me.

BORKMAN. [Harshly and scornfully.] Perhaps you think it was that I might have something to fall back upon, if things went wrong?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh no, I am sure you did not think of that in those days.

BORKMAN. Never! I was so absolutely certain of victory.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Well then, why was it that----?

BORKMAN. [Shrugging his shoulders.] Upon my soul, Ella, it is not so easy to remember one's motives of twenty years ago. I only know that when I used to grapple, silently and alone, with all the great projects I had in my mind, I had something like the feeling of a man who is starting on a balloon voyage. All through my sleepless nights I was inflating my giant balloon, and preparing to soar away into perilous, unknown regions.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Smiling.] You, who never had the least doubt of victory?

BORKMAN. [Impatiently.] Men are made so, Ella. They both doubt and believe at the same time. [Looking straight before him.] And I suppose that was why I would not take you and yours with me in the balloon.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Eagerly.] Why, I ask you? Tell me why!

BORKMAN. [Without looking at her.] One shrinks from risking what one holds dearest on such a voyage.

ELLA RENTHEIM. You had risked what was dearest to you on that voyage. Your whole future life----

BORKMAN. Life is not always what one holds dearest.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Breathlessly.] Was that how you felt at that time?

BORKMAN. I fancy it was.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I was the dearest thing in the world to you?

BORKMAN. I seem to remember something of the sort.

ELLA RENTHEIM. And yet years had passed since you had deserted me--and married-- married another!

BORKMAN. Deserted you, you say? You must know very well that it was higher motives--well then, other motives that compelled me. Without his support I could not have done anything.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Controlling herself.] So you deserted me from--higher motives.

BORKMAN. I could not get on without his help. And he made you the price of helping me.

ELLA RENTHEIM. And you paid the price. Paid it in full--without haggling.

BORKMAN. I had no choice. I had to conquer or fall.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [In a trembling voice, looking at him.] Can what you tell me be true--that I was then the dearest thing in the world to you?

BORKMAN. Both then and afterwards--long, long, after.

ELLA RENTHEIM. But you bartered me away none the less; drove a bargain with another man for your love. Sold my love for a--for a directorship.

BORKMAN. [Gloomily and bowed down.] I was driven by inexorable necessity, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Rises from the sofa, quivering with passion.] Criminal!

BORKMAN. [Starts, but controls himself.] I have heard that word before.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, don't imagine I'm thinking of anything you may have done against the law of the land! The use you made of all those vouchers and securities, or whatever you call them--do you think I care a straw about that! If I could have stood at your side when the crash came----

BORKMAN. [Eagerly.] What then, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Trust me, I should have borne it all so gladly along with you. The shame, the ruin--I would have helped you to bear it all--all!

BORKMAN. Would you have had the will--the strength?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Both the will and the strength. For then I did not know of your great, your terrible crime.

BORKMAN. What crime? What are you speaking of?

ELLA RENTHEIM. I am speaking of that crime for which there is no forgiveness.

BORKMAN. [Staring at her.] You must be out of your mind.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Approaching him.] You are a murderer! You have committed the one mortal sin!

BORKMAN. [Falling back towards the piano.] You are raving, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. You have killed the love-life in me. [Still nearer him.] Do you understand what that means? The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness. I have never understood what it could be; but now I understand. The great, unpardonable sin is to murder the love-life in a human soul.

BORKMAN. And you say I have done that?

ELLA RENTHEIM. You have done that. I have never rightly understood until this evening what had really happened to me. That you deserted me and turned to Gunhild instead--I took that to be mere common fickleness on your part, and the result of heartless scheming on hers. I almost think I despised you a little, in spite of everything. But now I see it! You deserted the woman you loved! Me, me, me! What you held dearest in the world you were ready to barter away for gain. That is the double murder you have committed! The murder of your own soul and of mine!

BORKMAN. [With cold self-control.] How well I recognise your passionate, ungovernable spirit, Ella. No doubt it is natural enough that you should look at the thing in this light. Of course, you are a woman, and therefore it would seem that your own heart is the one thing you know or care about in this world.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, yes it is.

BORKMAN. Your own heart is the only thing that exists for you.

ELLA RENTHEIM. The only thing! The only thing! You are right there.

BORKMAN. But you must remember that I am a man. As a woman, you were the dearest thing in the world to me. But if the worst comes to the worst, one woman can always take the place of another.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looks at him with a smile.] Was that your experience when you had made Gunhild your wife?

BORKMAN. No. But the great aims I had in life helped me to bear even that. I wanted to have at my command all the sources of power in this country. All the wealth that lay hidden in the soil, and the rocks, and the forests, and the sea-- I wanted to gather it all into my hands to make myself master of it all, and so to promote the well-being of many, many thousands.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Lost in recollection.] I know it. Think of all the evenings we spent in talking over your projects.

BORKMAN. Yes, I could talk to you, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I jested with your plans, and asked whether you wanted to awaken all the sleeping spirits of the mine.

BORKMAN. [Nodding.] I remember that phrase. [Slowly.] All the sleeping spirits of the mine.

ELLA RENTHEIM. But you did not take it as a jest. You said: "Yes, yes, Ella, that is just what I want to do."

BORKMAN. And so it was. If only I could get my foot in the stirrup---- And that depended on that one man. He could and would secure me the control of the bank--if I on my side----

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, just so! If you on your side would renounce the woman you loved--and who loved you beyond words in return.

BORKMAN. I knew his consuming passion for you. I knew that on no other condition would he----

ELLA RENTHEIM. And so you struck the bargain.

BORKMAN. [Vehemently.] Yes, I did, Ella! For the love of power is uncontrollable in me, you see! So I struck the bargain; I had to. And he helped me half-way up towards the beckoning heights that I was bent on reaching. And I mounted and mounted; year by year I mounted----

ELLA RENTHEIM. And I was as though wiped out of your life.

BORKMAN. And after all he hurled me into the abyss again. On account of you, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [After a short thoughtful silence.] Borkman, does it not seem to you as if there had been a sort of curse on our whole relation?

BORKMAN. [Looking at her.] A curse?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes. Don't you think so?

BORKMAN. [Uneasily.] Yes. But why is it? [With an outburst.] Oh Ella, I begin to wonder which is in the right--you or I!

ELLA RENTHEIM. It is you who have sinned. You have done to death all the gladness of my life in me.

BORKMAN. [Anxiously.] Do not say that, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. All a woman's gladness at any rate. From the day when your image began to dwindle in my mind, I have lived my life as though under an eclipse. During all these years it has grown harder and harder for me--and at last utterly impossible--to love any living creature. Human beings, animals, plants: I shrank from all--from all but one----

BORKMAN. What one?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Erhart, of course.

BORKMAN. Erhart?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Erhart--your son, Borkman.

BORKMAN. Has he really been so close to your heart?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Why else should I have taken him to me, and kept him as long as ever I could? Why?

BORKMAN. I thought it was out of pity, like all the rest that you did.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [In strong inward emotion.] Pity! Ha, ha! I have never known pity, since you deserted me. I was incapable of feeling it. If a poor starved child came into my kitchen, shivering, and crying, and begging for a morsel of food, I let the servants look to it. I never felt any desire to take the child to myself, to warm it at my own hearth, to have the pleasure of seeing it eat and be satisfied. And yet I was not like that when I was young; that I remember clearly! It is you that have created an empty, barren desert within me--and without me too!

BORKMAN. Except only for Erhart.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, except for your son. But I am hardened to every other living thing. You have cheated me of a mother's joy and happiness in life--and of a mother's sorrows and tears as well. And perhaps that is the heaviest part of the loss to me.

BORKMAN. Do you say that, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Who knows? It may be that a mother's sorrows and tears were what I needed most. [With still deeper emotion.] But at that time I could not resign myself to my loss; and that was why I took Erhart to me. I won him entirely. Won his whole, warm, trustful childish heart--until---- Oh!

BORKMAN. Until what?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Until his mother--his mother in the flesh, I mean--took him from me again.

BORKMAN. He had to leave you in any case; he had to come to town.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Wringing her hands.] Yes, but I cannot bear the solitude-- the emptiness! I cannot bear the loss of your son's heart!

BORKMAN. [With an evil expression in his eyes.] H'm--I doubt whether you have lost it, Ella. Hearts are not so easily lost to a certain person--in the room below.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I have lost Erhart here, and she has won him back again. Or if not she, some one else. That is plain enough in the letters he writes me from time to time.

BORKMAN. Then it is to take him back with you that you have come here?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, if only it were possible----!

BORKMAN. It is possible enough, if you have set your heart upon it. For you have the first and strongest claims upon him.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, claims, claims! What is the use of claims? If he is not mine of his own free will, he is not mine at all. And have him I must! I must have my boy's heart, whole and undivided--now!

BORKMAN. You must remember that Erhart is well into his twenties. You could scarcely reckon on keeping his heart very long undivided, as you express it.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [With a melancholy smile.] It would not need to be for so very long.

BORKMAN. Indeed? I should have thought that when you want a thing, you want it to the end of your days.

ELLA RENTHEIM. So I do. But that need not mean for very long.

BORKMAN. [Taken aback.] What do you mean by that?

ELLA RENTHEIM. I suppose you know I have been in bad health for many years past?

BORKMAN. Have you?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Do you not know that?

BORKMAN. No, I cannot say I did----

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking at him in surprise.] Has Erhart not told you so?

BORKMAN. I really don't remember at the moment.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Perhaps he has not spoken of me at all?

BORKMAN. Oh, yes, I believe he has spoken of you. But the fact is, I so seldom see anything of him--scarcely ever. There is a certain person below that keeps him away from me. Keeps him away, you understand?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Are you quite sure of that, Borkman?

BORKMAN. Yes, absolutely sure. [Changing his tone.] And so you have been in bad health, Ella?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, I have. And this autumn I grew so much worse that I had to come to town and take better medical advice.

BORKMAN. And you have seen the doctors already?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, this morning.

BORKMAN. And what did they say to you?

ELLA RENTHEIM. They gave me full assurance of what I had long suspected.

BORKMAN. Well?

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Calmly and quietly.] My illness will never be cured, Borkman.

BORKMAN. Oh, you must not believe that, Ella.

ELLA RENTHEIM. It is a disease that there is no help or cure for. The doctors can do nothing with it. They must just let it take its course. They cannot possibly check it; at most, they can allay the suffering. And that is always something.

BORKMAN. Oh, but it will take a long time to run its course. I am sure it will.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I may perhaps last out the winter, they told me.

BORKMAN. [Without thinking.] Oh, well, the winter is long.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Quietly.] Long enough for me, at any rate.

BORKMAN. [Eagerly, changing the subject.] But what in all the world can have brought on this illness? You, who have always lived such a healthy and regular life? What can have brought it on?

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking at him.] The doctors thought that perhaps at one time in my life I had had to go through some great stress of emotion.

BORKMAN. [Firing up.] Emotion! Aha, I understand! You mean that it is my fault?