Chapter 5

ELLA RENTHEIM. [With increasing inward agitation.] It is too late to go into that matter now! But I must have my heart's own child again before I go! It is so unspeakably sad for me to think that I must go away from all that is called life--away from sun, and light, and air--and not leave behind me one single human being who will think of me--who will remember me lovingly and mournfully--as a son remembers and thinks of the mother he has lost.

BORKMAN. [After a short pause.] Take him, Ella, if you can win him.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [With animation.] Do you give your consent? Can you?

BORKMAN. [Gloomily.] Yes. And it is no great sacrifice either. For in any case he is not mine.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Thank you, thank you all the same for the sacrifice! But I have one thing more to beg of you--a great thing for me, Borkman.

BORKMAN. Well, what is it?

ELLA RENTHEIM. I daresay you will think it childish of me--you will not understand----

BORKMAN. Go on--tell me what it is.

ELLA RENTHEIM. When I die--as I must soon--I shall have a fair amount to leave behind me.

BORKMAN. Yes, I suppose so.

ELLA RENTHEIM. And I intend to leave it all to Erhart.

BORKMAN. Well, you have really no one nearer to you than he.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Warmly.] No, indeed, I have no one nearer me than he.

BORKMAN. No one of your own family. You are the last.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Nodding slowly.] Yes, that is just it. When I die, the name of Rentheim dies with me. And that is such a torturing thought to me. To be wiped out of existence--even to your very name----

BORKMAN. [Firing up.] Ah, I see what you are driving at!

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Passionately.] Do not let this be my forte. Let Erhart bear my name after me!

BORKMAN. I understand you well enough. You want to save my son from having to bear his father's name. That is your meaning.

ELLA RENTHEIM. No, no, not that! I myself would have borne it proudly and gladly along with you! But a mother who is at the point of death---- There is more binding force in a name than you think or believe, Borkman.

BORKMAN. [Coldly and proudly.] Well and good, Ella. I am man enough to bear my own name alone.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Seizing and pressing his hand.] Thank you, thank you! Now there has been a full settlement between us! Yes, yes, let it be so! You have made all the atonement in your power. For when I have gone from the world, I shall leave Erhart Rentheim behind me!

[The tapestry door is thrown open. MRS. BORKMAN, with the large shawl over her head, stands in the doorway.

MRS. BORKMAN. [In violent agitation.] Never to his dying day shall Erhart be called by that name!

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Shrinking back.] Gunhild!

BORKMAN. [Harshly and threateningly.] I allow no one to come up to my room!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Advancing a step.] I do not ask your permission.

BORKMAN. [Going towards her.] What do you want with me?

MRS. BORKMAN. I will fight with all my might for you. I will protect you from the powers of evil.

ELLA RENTHEIM. The worst "powers of evil" are in yourself, Gunhild!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Harshly.] So be it then. [Menacingly, with upstretched arm.] But this I tell you--he shall bear his father's name! And bear it aloft in honour again! My son's heart shall be mine--mine and no other's.

[She goes out by the tapestry door and shuts it behind her.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Shaken and shattered.] Borkman, Erhart's life will be wrecked in this storm. There must be an understanding between you and Gunhild. We must go down to her at once.

BORKMAN. [Looking at her.] We? I too, do you mean?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Both you and I.

BORKMAN. [Shaking his head.] She is hard, I tell you. Hard as the metal I once dreamed of hewing out of the rocks.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Then try it now!

[BORKMAN does not answer, but stands looking doubtfully at her.

ACT THIRD

MRS. BORKMAN's drawing room. The lamp is still burning on the table beside the sofa in front. The garden-room at the back is quite dark.

MRS. BORKMAN, with the shawl still over her head, enters, in violent agitation, by the hall door, goes up to the window, draws the curtain a little aside, and looks out; then she seats herself beside the stove, but immediately springs up again, goes to the bell-pull and rings. Stands beside the sofa, and waits a moment. No one comes. Then she rings again, this time more violently.

THE MAID presently enters from the hall. She looks sleepy and out of temper, and appears to have dressed in great haste.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Impatiently.] What has become of you, Malena? I have rung for you twice!

THE MAID. Yes, ma'am, I heard you.

MRS. BORKMAN. And yet you didn't come?

THE MAID. [Sulkily.] I had to put some clothes on first, I suppose.

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, you must dress yourself properly, and then you must run and fetch my son.

THE MAID. [Looking at her in astonishment.] You want me to fetch Mr. Erhart?

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes; tell him he must come home to me at once; I want to speak to him.

THE MAID. [Grumbling.] Then I'd better go to the bailiff's and call up the coachman.

MRS. BORKMAN. Why?

THE MAID. To get him to harness the sledge. The snow's dreadful to-night.

MRS. BORKMAN. Oh, that doesn't matter; only make haste and go. It's just round the corner.

THE MAID. Why, ma'am you can't call that just round the corner!

MRS. BORKMAN. Of course it is. Don't you know Mr. Hinkel's villa?

THE MAID. [With malice.] Oh, indeed! It's there Mr. Erhart is this evening?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Taken aback.] Why, where else should he be?

THE MAID. [With a slight smile.] Well, I only thought he might be where he usually is.

MRS. BORKMAN. Where do you mean?

THE MAID. At Mrs. Wilton's, as they call her.

MRS. BORKMAN. Mrs. Wilton's? My son isn't so often there.

THE MAID. [Half muttering.] I've heard say as he's there every day of his life.

MRS. BORKMAN. That's all nonsense, Malena. Go straight to Mr. Hinkel's and try to to get hold of him.

THE MAID. [With a toss of her head.] Oh, very well; I'm going.

[She is on the point of going out by the hall, but just at that moment the hall door is opened, and ELLA RENTHEIM and BORKMAN appear on the threshold.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Staggers a step backwards.] What does this mean?

THE MAID. [Terrified, instinctively folding her hands.] Lord save us!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Whispers to THE MAID.] Tell him he must come this instant.

THE MAID. [Softly.] Yes, ma'am.

[ELLA RENTHEIM and, after her, BORKMAN enter the room. THE MAID sidles behind them to the door, goes out, and closes it after her.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Having recovered her self-control, turns to ELLA.] What does he want down here in my room?

ELLA RENTHEIM. He wants to come to an understanding with you, Gunhild.

MRS. BORKMAN. He has never tried that before.

ELLA RENTHEIM. He is going to, this evening.

MRS. BORKMAN. The last time we stood face to face--it was in the Court, when I was summoned to give an account----

BORKMAN. [Approaching.] And this evening it is _I_ who will give an account of myself.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking at him.] You?

BORKMAN. Not of what I have done amiss. All the world knows that.

MRS. BORKMAN. [With a bitter sigh.] Yes, that is true; all the world knows that.

BORKMAN. But it does not know why I did it; why I had to do it. People do not understand that I had to, because I was myself--because I was John Gabriel Borkman--myself, and not another. And that is what I will try to explain to you.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Shaking her head.] It is of no use. Temptations and promptings acquit no one.

BORKMAN. They may acquit one in one's own eyes.

MRS. BORKMAN. [With a gesture of repulsion.] Oh, let all that alone! I have thought over that black business of yours enough and to spare.

BORKMAN. I too. During those five endless years in my cell--and elsewhere --I had time to think it over. And during the eight years up there in the gallery I have had still more ample time. I have re-tried the whole case--by myself. Time after time I have re-tried it. I have been my own accuser, my own defender, and my own judge. I have been more impartial than any one else could be--that I venture to say. I have paced up and down the gallery there, turning every one of my actions upside down and inside out. I have examined them from all sides as unsparingly, as pitilessly, as any lawyer of them all. And the final judgment I have always come to is this: the one person I have sinned against is--myself.

MRS. BORKMAN. And what about me? What about your son?

BORKMAN. You and he are included in what I mean when I say myself.

MRS. BORKMAN. And what about the hundreds of others, then--the people you are said to have ruined?

BORKMAN. [More vehemently.] I had power in my hands! And then I felt the irresistible vocation within me! The prisoned millions lay all over the country, deep in the bowels of the earth, calling aloud to me! They shrieked to me to free them! But no one else heard their cry--I alone had ears for it.

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, to the branding of the name of Borkman.

BORKMAN. If the others had had the power, do you think they would not have acted exactly as I did?

MRS. BORKMAN. No one, no one but you would have done it!

BORKMAN. Perhaps not. But that would have been because they had not my brains. And if they had done it, it would not have been with my aims in view. The act would have been a different act. In short, I have acquitted myself.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Softly and appealingly.] Oh, can you say that so confidently, Borkman?

BORKMAN. [Nodding.] Acquitted myself on that score. But then comes the great, crushing self-accusation.

MRS. BORKMAN. What is that?

BORKMAN. I have skulked up there and wasted eight precious years of my life! The very day I was set free, I should have gone forth into the world--out into the steel-hard, dreamless world of reality! I should have begun at the bottom and swung myself up to the heights anew--higher than ever before--in spite of all that lay between.

MRS. BORKMAN. Oh, it would have been the same thing over again; take my word for that.

BORKMAN. [Shakes his head, and looks at her with a sententious air.] It is true that nothing new happens; but what has happened does not repeat itself either. It is the eye that transforms the action. The eye, born anew, transforms the old action. [Breaking off.] But you do not understand this.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Curtly.] No, I do not understand it.

BORKMAN. Ah, that is just the curse--I have never found one single soul to understand me.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking at him.] Never, Borkman?

BORKMAN. Except one--perhaps. Long, long ago. In the days when I did not think I needed understanding. Since then, at any rate, no one has understood me! There has been no one alive enough to my needs to be afoot and rouse me--to ring the morning bell for me--to call me up to manful work anew. And to impress upon me that I had done nothing inexpiable.

MRS. BORKMAN. [With a scornful laugh.] So, after all, you require to have that impressed on you from without?

BORKMAN. [With increasing indignation.] Yes, when the whole world hisses in chorus that I have sunk never to rise again, there come moments when I almost believe it myself. [Raising his head.] But then my inmost assurance rises again triumphant; and that acquits me.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking harshly at him.] Why have you never come and asked me for what you call understanding?

BORKMAN. What use would it have been to come to you?

MRS. BORKMAN. [With a gesture of repulsion.] You have never loved anything outside yourself; that is the secret of the whole matter.

BORKMAN. [Proudly.] I have loved power.

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, power!

BORKMAN. The power to create human happiness in wide, wide circles around me!

MRS. BORKMAN. You had once the power to make me happy. Have you used it to that end?

BORKMAN. [Without looking at her.] Some one must generally go down in a shipwreck.

MRS. BORKMAN. And your own son! Have you used your power--have you lived and laboured--to make him happy?

BORKMAN. I do not know him.

MRS. BORKMAN. No, that is true. You do not even know him.

BORKMAN. [Harshly.] You, his mother, have taken care of that!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking at him with a lofty air.] Oh, you do not know what I have taken care of!

BORKMAN. You?

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, I. I alone.

BORKMAN. Then tell me.

MRS. BORKMAN. I have taken care of your memory.

BORKMAN. [With a short dry laugh.] My memory? Oh, indeed! It sounds almost as if I were dead already.

MRS. BORKMAN. [With emphasis.] And so you are.

BORKMAN. [Slowly.] Yes, perhaps you are right. [Firing up.] But no, no! Not yet! I have been close to the verge of death. But now I have awakened. I have come to myself. A whole life lies before me yet. I can see it awaiting me, radiant and quickening. And you--you shall see it too.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Raising her hand.] Never dream of life again! Lie quiet where you are.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Shocked.] Gunhild! Gunhild, how can you----!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Not listening to her.] I will raise the monument over your grave.

BORKMAN. The pillar of shame, I suppose you mean?

MRS. BORKMAN. [With increasing excitement.] Oh, no, it shall be no pillar of metal or stone. And no one shall be suffered to carve any scornful legend on the monument I shall raise. There shall be, as it were, a quickset hedge of trees and bushes, close, close around your tomb. They shall hide away all the darkness that has been. The eyes of men and the thoughts of men shall no longer dwell on John Gabriel Borkman!

BORKMAN. [Hoarsely and cuttingly.] And this labour of love you will perform?

MRS. BORKMAN. Not by my own strength. I cannot think of that. But I have brought up one to help me, who shall live for this alone. His life shall be so pure and high and bright, that your burrowing in the dark shall be as though it had never been!

BORKMAN. [Darkly and threateningly.] If it is Erhart you mean, say so at once!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking him straight in the eyes.] Yes, it is Erhart; my son; he whom you are ready to renounce in atonement for your own acts.

BORKMAN. [With a look towards ELLA.] In atonement for my blackest sin.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Repelling the idea.] A sin towards a stranger only. Remember the sin towards me! [Looking triumphantly at them both.] But he will not obey you! When I cry out to him in my need, he will come to me! It is with me that he will remain! With me, and never with any one else. [Suddenly listens, and cries.] I hear him! He is here, he is here! Erhart!

[ERHART BORKMAN hastily tears open the hall door, and enters the room. He is wearing an overcoat and has his hat on.

ERHART. [Pale and anxious.] Mother! What in Heaven's name----! [Seeing BORKMAN, who is standing beside the doorway leading into the garden-room, he starts and takes off his hat. After a moment's silence, he asks:] What do you want with me, mother? What has happened?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Stretching her arms towards him.] I want to see you, Erhart! I want to have you with me, always!

ERHART. [Stammering.] Have me----? Always? What do you mean by that?

MRS. BORKMAN. I will have you, I say! There is some one who wants to take you away from me!

ERHART. [Recoiling a step.] Ah--so you know?

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes. Do you know it, too?

ERHART. [Surprised, looking at her.] Do _I_ know it? Yes, of course.

MRS. BORKMAN. Aha, so you have planned it all out! Behind my back! Erhart! Erhart!

ERHART. [Quickly.] Mother, tell me what it is you know!

MRS. BORKMAN. I know everything. I know that your aunt has come here to take you from me.

ERHART. Aunt Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, listen to me a moment, Erhart!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Continuing.] She wants me to give you up to her. She wants to stand in your mother's place to you, Erhart! She wants you to be her son, and not mine, from this time forward. She wants you to inherit everything from her; to renounce your own name and take hers instead!

ERHART. Aunt Ella, is this true?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, it is true.

ERHART. I knew nothing of this. Why do you want to have me with you again?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Because I feel that I am losing you here.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Hardly.] You are losing him to me--yes. And that is just as it should be.

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking beseechingly at him.] Erhart, I cannot afford to lose you. For, I must tell you I am a lonely--dying woman.

ERHART. Dying----?

ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, dying. Will you came and be with me to the end? Attach yourself wholly to me? Be to me, as though you were my own child----?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Interrupting.] And forsake your mother, and perhaps your mission in life as well? Will you, Erhart?

ELLA RENTHEIM. I am condemned to death. Answer me, Erhart.

ERHART. [Warmly, with emotion.] Aunt Ella, you have been unspeakably good to me. With you I grew up in as perfect happiness as any boy can ever have known----

MRS. BORKMAN. Erhart, Erhart!

ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, how glad I am that you can still say that!

ERHART. But I cannot sacrifice myself to you now. It is not possible for me to devote myself wholly to taking a son's place towards you.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Triumphing.] Ah, I knew it! You shall not have him! You shall not have him, Ella!

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Sadly.] I see it. You have won him back.

MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, yes! Mine he is, and mine he shall remain! Erhart, say it is so, dear; we two have still a long way to go together, have we not?

ERHART. [Struggling with himself.] Mother, I may as well tell you plainly----

MRS. BORKMAN. [Eagerly.] What?

ERHART. I am afraid it is only a very little way you and I can go together.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Stands as though thunderstruck.] What do you mean by that?

ERHART. [Plucking up spirit.] Good heavens, mother, I am young, after all! I feel as if the close air of this room must stifle me in the end.

MRS. BORKMAN. Close air? Here--with me?

ERHART. Yes, here with you, mother.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Then come with me, Erhart.

ERHART. Oh, Aunt Ella, it's not a whit better with you. It's different, but no better--no better for me. It smells of rose-leaves and lavender there too; it is as airless there as here.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Shaken, but having recovered her composure with an effort.] Airless in your mother's room, you say!

ERHART. [In growing impatience.] Yes, I don't know how else to express it. All this morbid watchfulness and--and idolisation, or whatever you like to call it---- I can't endure it any longer!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking at him with deep solemnity.] Have you forgotten what you have consecrated your life to, Erhart?

ERHART. [With an outburst.] Oh, say rather what you have consecrated my life to. You, you have been my will. You have never given me leave to have any of my own. But now I cannot bear this yoke any longer. I am young; remember that, mother. [With a polite, considerate glance towards BORKMAN.] I cannot consecrate my life to making atonement for another--whoever that other may be.

MRS. BORKMAN. [Seized with growing anxiety.] Who is it that has transformed you, Erhart?

ERHART. [Struck.] Who? Can you not conceive that it is I myself?

MRS. BORKMAN. No, no, no! You have come under some strange power. You are not in your mother's power any longer; nor in your--your foster-mother's either.

ERHART. [With laboured defiance.] I am in my own power, mother! And working my own will!

BORKMAN. [Advancing towards ERHART.] Then perhaps my hour has come at last.

ERHART. [Distantly and with measured politeness.] How so! How do you mean, sir?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Scornfully.] Yes, you may well ask that.

BORKMAN. [Continuing undisturbed.] Listen, Erhart--will you not cast in your lot with your father? It is not through any other man's life that a man who has fallen can be raised up again. These are only empty fables that have been told to you down here in the airless room. If you were to set yourself to live your life like all the saints together, it would be of no use whatever to me.

ERHART. [With measured respectfulness.] That is very true indeed.

BORKMAN. Yes, it is. And it would be of no use either if I should resign myself to wither away in abject penitence. I have tried to feed myself upon hopes and dreams, all through these years. But I am not the man to be content with that; and now I mean to have done with dreaming.

ERHART. [With a slight bow.] And what will--what will you do, sir?

BORKMAN. I will work out my own redemption, that is what I will do. I will begin at the bottom again. It is only through his present and his future that a man can atone for his past. Through work, indefatigable work, for all that, in my youth, seemed to give life its meaning--and that now seems a thousand times greater than it did then. Erhart, will you join with me and help me in this new life?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Raising her hand warningly.] Do not do it, Erhart!

ELLA RENTHEIM. [Warmly.] Yes, yes do it! Oh, help him, Erhart!

MRS. BORKMAN. And you advise him to do that? You, the lonely dying woman.

ELLA RENTHEIM. I don't care about myself.

MRS. BORKMAN. No, so long as it is not I that take him from you.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Precisely so, Gunhild.

BORKMAN. Will you, Erhart?

ERHART. [Wrung with pain.] Father, I cannot now. It is utterly impossible!

BORKMAN. What do you want to do then?

ERHART. [With a sudden glow.] I am young! I want to live, for once in a way, as well as other people! I want to live my own life!

ELLA RENTHEIM. You cannot give up two or three little months to brighten the close of a poor waning life?

ERHART. I cannot, Aunt, however much I may wish to.

ELLA RENTHEIM. Not for the sake of one who loves you so dearly?

MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking sharply at him.] And your mother has no power over you either, any more?

ERHART. I will always love you, mother; but I cannot go on living for you alone. This is no life for me.

BORKMAN. Then come and join with me, after all! For life, life means work, Erhart. Come, we two will go forth into life and work together!

ERHART. [Passionately.] Yes, but I don't want to work now! For I am young! That's what I never realised before; but now the knowledge is tingling through every vein in my body. I will not work! I will only live, live, live!

MRS. BORKMAN. [With a cry of divination.] Erhart, what will you live for?

ERHART. [With sparkling eyes.] For happiness, mother!

MRS. BORKMAN. And where do you think you can find that?

ERHART. I have found it, already!

MRS. BORKMAN. [Shrieks.] Erhart! [ERHART goes quickly to the hall door and throws it open.]

ERHART. [Calls out.] Fanny, you can come in now!

[MRS. WILTON, in outdoor wraps, appears on the threshold.

MRS. BORKMAN. [With uplifted hands.] Mrs. Wilton!

MRS. WILTON. [Hesitating a little, with an enquiring glance at ERHART.] Do you want me to----?

ERHART. Yes, now you can come in. I have told them everything.

[MRS. WILTON comes forward into the room. ERHART closes the door behind her. She bows formally to BORKMAN, who returns her bow in silence. A short pause.

MRS. WILTON. [In a subdued but firm voice.] So the word has been spoken-- and I suppose you all think I have brought a great calamity upon this house?