The Master Builder and Other Plays

by Henrik Ibsen

  ACT TWO

  The grand former gallery on the first floor of the Rentheim house. The walls are covered with old tapestries depicting hunting scenes, shepherds and shepherdesses, all in faded, bleached-out colours. On the wall to the left, a folding door, and further forward, a piano. In the left-hand corner of the back wall, a door covered in a tapestry, without a frame. Against the middle of the right wall, a large carved oak writing table covered with books and papers. Further forward on the same side, a sofa with a table and chairs. The furniture is all in the stiff Empire style.1 Lighted lamps on the table and writing table.

  JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN stands next to the piano with his hands behind his back, listening to FRIDA FOLDAL playing the final bars of the Danse macabre.

  BORKMAN is of average height, a compact, powerfully built man in his sixties. Distinguished appearance, chiselled profile, piercing eyes and greyish-white curly hair and beard. He is dressed in a slightly old-fashioned black suit and a white necktie. FRIDA FOLDAL is a pretty, pale girl of fifteen with a rather tired and strained expression. She is wearing a cheap, light-coloured dress.

  The piece comes to an end. Silence.

  BORKMAN: Can you guess where I first heard notes like those, Miss Foldal?

  FRIDA [looks up at him]: No, Mr Borkman?

  BORKMAN: It was down in the mines.

  FRIDA [does not understand]: Really? Down in the mines?

  BORKMAN: I’m a miner’s son,2 as you probably know. Or perhaps you didn’t?

  FRIDA: No, Mr Borkman.

  BORKMAN: A miner’s son. My father sometimes took me down into the mines with him –. Down where the metal ore sings.

  FRIDA: Oh, does it – sing?

  BORKMAN [nods]: As it’s being loosened. The hammer strokes that loosen it are the chimes of midnight; they strike and set it free. That’s why the ore sings – it sings with joy – in its own way.

  FRIDA: Why does it do that, Mr Borkman?

  BORKMAN: It wants to come up into the light of day and serve people.

  He paces up and down the room, his hands all the while behind his back.

  FRIDA [sits and waits a little, then looks at her watch and stands up]: Please excuse me, Mr Borkman. I’m afraid I have to leave.

  BORKMAN [stands in front of her]: So soon, Miss Foldal?

  FRIDA [puts her music in its case]: Yes, I’m afraid so. [Visibly embarrassed] I have another engagement this evening.

  BORKMAN: Somewhere there’s a party?

  FRIDA: Yes.

  BORKMAN: And will you be playing for the guests?

  FRIDA [biting her lip]: No; I’ll be doing the dance music.

  BORKMAN: Only the dance music?

  FRIDA: Yes; they’ll be dancing after dinner.

  BORKMAN [stands and looks at her]: Do you like playing dance music? Going from house to house like that?

  FRIDA [putting on her coat]: Yes, when I can get a booking. I always make a little from it.

  BORKMAN [interested]: Is that what you think about as you sit there playing for the dances?

  FRIDA: No; most of the time I think about how hard it is that I can’t join in the dancing.

  BORKMAN [nodding]: That’s exactly what I wanted to know. [Moving restlessly across the floor] Yes, yes, yes – not being allowed to join in yourself, that’s the hardest thing of all. [Stops] But there is one thing that counts for more than that, Frida.

  FRIDA [looks questioningly at him]: And what’s that, Mr Borkman?

  BORKMAN: The fact that you have ten times more music in you than all those dancers put together.

  FRIDA [smiles evasively]: Oh, I’m not so sure!

  BORKMAN [holds up his index finger admonishingly]: Never be so mad as to doubt yourself!

  FRIDA: But, dear Lord, if no one is aware of it –

  BORKMAN: It’s enough that you are aware of it. Where is it you’re playing this evening?

  FRIDA: Over at the lawyer’s house, at the Hinkels’.

  BORKMAN [suddenly looks sharply at her]: The Hinkels’!

  FRIDA: Yes.

  BORKMAN [with a scathing smile]: Do people actually go to that man’s house? Can he persuade people to visit him?

  FRIDA: Yes, there’ll be a lot of people there, according to Mrs Wilton.

  BORKMAN [vehemently]: But what sort of people? Can you tell me that?

  FRIDA [a little anxious]: No, I really don’t know. No – yes, I do. I do know that young Mr Borkman is to be there this evening.

  BORKMAN [puzzled]: Erhart? My son?

  FRIDA: Yes, he’s going.

  BORKMAN: How do you know?

  FRIDA: He said so himself. An hour ago.

  BORKMAN: Is he out here today?

  FRIDA: Yes, he’s been at Mrs Wilton’s all afternoon.

  BORKMAN [searchingly]: Do you know whether he’s come here as well? I mean, has he been in and spoken to anyone downstairs?

  FRIDA: Yes, he’s looked in on Mrs Borkman.

  BORKMAN [bitterly]: Aha! – I might have known.

  FRIDA: There was also a lady visiting, a stranger, I think.

  BORKMAN: Was there? Really? Oh yes, I suppose Mrs Borkman does have visitors every now and then.

  FRIDA: If I see young Mr Borkman later, shall I ask him to come up and see you too?

  BORKMAN [harshly]: You will say nothing! I won’t have it. If people want to visit me, they’ll come of their own accord. I beg no one.

  FRIDA: No, no; I won’t say anything, then. – Goodnight, Mr Borkman.

  BORKMAN [pacing up and down and growling]: Goodnight.

  FRIDA: But might I perhaps be allowed to run down the spiral staircase? It’s quicker.

  BORKMAN: Oh, heavens – as far as I’m concerned you can run down whatever staircase you please. Goodnight to you!

  FRIDA: Goodnight, Mr Borkman.

  She exits through the little tapestry door at the back, left.

  BORKMAN, preoccupied, goes up to the piano and is about to close it but leaves it as it is. Looks around the emptiness and begins pacing the floor, up and down, from the corner by the piano to the right-hand corner at the back – all the time restless and unsettled, back and forth. Eventually he walks over to the writing table, looks over in the direction of the folding door, hastily snatches a hand-held mirror, looks at himself in it and straightens his necktie.

  A knock at the folding door. BORKMAN hears it, looks quickly towards the door but says nothing.

  Shortly afterwards, another knock, louder this time.

  BORKMAN [standing beside the writing table, his left hand resting on it and his right hand thrust inside his jacket]:3 Come in!

  VILHELM FOLDAL enters the room warily. He is a stooped, exhausted man with gentle blue eyes and long, thin grey hair falling over his coat collar. A folder under his arm. A soft felt hat in his hand, and large horn-rimmed spectacles, which he pushes up on to his forehead.

  BORKMAN [changes position and looks at the man who enters, with a mixture of disappointment and pleasure]: Oh, it’s you, is it?

  FOLDAL: Good evening, John Gabriel. Yes, as you see, it’s me.

  BORKMAN [with a stern look]: This is a bit late, isn’t it?

  FOLDAL: Well, it’s quite a way, you know. Especially if you do it on foot.

  BORKMAN: But why do you always walk, Vilhelm? The tram4 passes right outside your door.

  FOLDAL: Walking is healthier – and you save the ten øre from the fare. – Anyway – has Frida been up here to play to you of late?

  BORKMAN: She just this minute left. Didn’t you see her outside?

  FOLDAL: No, I haven’t seen anything of her for a long time; not since she went to live with that Mrs Wilton.

  BORKMAN [sits on the sofa and gestures at a chair]: You may sit too, Vilhelm.

  FOLDAL [sits on the edge of the chair]: Thank you very much. [Looks at him with sadness.] You can’t imagine how lonely I’ve felt since Frida left home.

  BORKMAN: Oh, come on – you have plenty to spare.

  FOLDAL: Yes,
God knows I have. Five in all. But Frida was the only one who even began to understand me. [Shaking his head sadly] The others don’t understand me at all.

  BORKMAN [gloomy, staring straight ahead and drumming on the table with his fingers]: No, that’s just it. That is the curse which we, the exceptional, we, the elect,5 have to bear. The hoi polloi, the masses – all the average folk – they don’t understand us, Vilhelm.

  FOLDAL [resigned]: I can live without being understood. With a little patience, one can always wait a bit longer for that. [In a choked voice] But there is something more bitter than that, you know.

  BORKMAN [vehement]: There is nothing more bitter than that!

  FOLDAL: Yes, there is, John Gabriel. There was a scene back at the house tonight – just before I came out here.

  BORKMAN: Really? Why?

  FOLDAL [in an outburst]: Those people at home – they despise me.

  BORKMAN [flares up]: Despise –?

  FOLDAL [wiping his eyes]: I’ve been aware of it for a long time. But today it all came out.

  BORKMAN [after a short silence]: You certainly made a bad choice when you married, didn’t you?

  FOLDAL: It wasn’t really a choice in my case. Besides, when the years start piling up, it makes you think hard about marriage. And back then I was so reduced, literally on my knees –

  BORKMAN [jumps up in anger]: Are you referring to me? Blaming me –?

  FOLDAL [alarmed]: No, for God’s sake, no, John Gabriel –!

  BORKMAN: Yes, you were. You’re sitting there thinking about all the misfortune that swept over the bank –

  FOLDAL [reassuringly]: But I don’t blame you for that! God forbid –!

  BORKMAN [growling, sits down]: Well, that’s all right, then.

  FOLDAL: Besides, you mustn’t think it’s my wife I’m complaining about. It’s true she hasn’t much education, poor thing; but she’s a good sort all the same. – No, it’s the children, you see –

  BORKMAN: I thought as much.

  FOLDAL: Because the children – well, they’re more cultured. And because of that they expect more from life.

  BORKMAN [looks at him sympathetically]: And that’s why the young ones despise you, is it, Vilhelm?

  FOLDAL [shrugs his shoulders]: But I haven’t made much of a career for myself, you see. It has to be said –

  BORKMAN [moves closer, and puts his hand on FOLDAL’s arm]: Don’t they know that you wrote a tragedy in your youth?

  FOLDAL: Yes, of course they know that. But it doesn’t seem to have made much of an impression on them.

  BORKMAN: Then they don’t understand. Your tragedy is good. I’m quite convinced it is.

  FOLDAL [brightening]: Yes, don’t you think there are some good things in it, John Gabriel? Good God, if only I could get it put on one day –. [Opens his folder, and begins looking through it eagerly.] Look! Just let me show you a part that I’ve changed –

  BORKMAN: Have you got it with you?

  FOLDAL: Yes, I have. It’s been so long since I last read it to you. I thought perhaps you might find it diverting to listen to an act or two –

  BORKMAN [stands up with a deprecatory gesture]: No, no, save it for another time.

  FOLDAL: All right, as you wish then.

  BORKMAN paces up and down the floor. FOLDAL puts the manuscript away.

  BORKMAN [stops in front of him]: You are quite right about what you just said – you’ve never had a proper career. But I promise you this, Vilhelm, when the hour of restitution strikes for me –

  FOLDAL [begins to stand up]: Oh, thank you –!

  BORKMAN [motions with his hand]: No, I’d rather you remain seated. [With mounting excitement] When the hour of restitution strikes –. When they realize they cannot do without me – when they come up to me here in this room – when they kiss the rod6 and beg me to assume the reins of the bank once more –! The new bank that they founded – but cannot manage –. [Positions himself by the writing table just as before and strikes his breast.] Here will I stand to receive them! And people far and wide, up and down the country, will be talking about the conditions John Gabriel Borkman has made in order to – [Stops suddenly and stares at FOLDAL.] You look so disbelievingly at me! Perhaps you don’t believe that they will come? That they must, must, must come to me one day? Don’t you believe that?

  FOLDAL: Yes, God knows I do, John Gabriel.

  BORKMAN [sitting back down on the sofa]: I am so firm in my belief. Unshakeable in the knowledge – that they will come. – If I did not have that certainty – I would have put a bullet through my head a long time ago.

  FOLDAL [anxiously]: No! Not for anything in the world –!

  BORKMAN [triumphantly]: But they are coming! They will come! You’ll see! I’m expecting them any day, any minute. And as you see, I am always ready to receive them.

  FOLDAL [with a sigh]: I just wish they’d hurry up!

  BORKMAN [agitated]: That’s right; time flies you know: the years fly past; life – ah, no – I daren’t think about that! [Looks at him] Do you know how I feel sometimes?

  FOLDAL: How?

  BORKMAN: I feel like a Napoleon, shot and maimed in his first battle.

  FOLDAL [places his hand on his folder]: I know that feeling too.

  BORKMAN: Yes, but on a smaller scale, of course.

  FOLDAL [quietly]: John Gabriel, my little world of poetry is very precious to me.

  BORKMAN [vehemently]: Yes, but I who could have made millions! All the mountain mines I would have had under my control! Countless new pits! The waterfalls!7 The quarries! Trade routes, shipping links covering every corner of the globe! I would have set it all up, all of it, singlehandedly!

  FOLDAL: Yes, I know, I know that. You shrank from nothing.

  BORKMAN [clenching his hands]: But now I have to sit here, like some great wounded game fowl8 looking on while others steal a march on me – taking it all away from me, piece by piece!

  FOLDAL: That’s what is happening to me too.

  BORKMAN [ignoring him]: Just think. How close I was to my goal! If only I’d had a margin of eight days to sort things out, all the deposits would have been honoured. All the securities I’d put to work with such daring would have been back in place, just as before. I came within a hair’s breadth of establishing dizzyingly vast corporations. And not a single person would have been even one øre out of pocket.

  FOLDAL: Heavens, yes – you came so incredibly close –

  BORKMAN [with suppressed rage]: And then to be overwhelmed by treachery! Right at the critical moment! [Looks at him.] Do you know what I hold to be the most infamous crime a man can commit?

  FOLDAL: No, tell me.

  BORKMAN: It’s not murder. Not robbery, nor nighttime break-ins. Not even perjury. Because people tend to do those things to people they hate, or are indifferent to, or don’t care about.

  FOLDAL: So what is the most infamous crime, John Gabriel?

  BORKMAN [with emphasis]: The most infamous of all crimes is abusing the trust of a friend.

  FOLDAL [slightly dubious]: Yes, but listen –

  BORKMAN [flares up]: I know what you’re going to say! It’s written all over your face. But you’re wrong. The people who had their securities in the bank would have got everything back – every little bit. No; listen, the most infamous crime a man can commit is to misuse a friend’s letters – reveal to the entire world what has been said to him in confidence, to him alone, in private, like whispering in a dark, empty, locked room. The kind of man who will stoop to such methods is poisoned to the core and infected with the morality of an übervillain.9 I once had a friend like that. – And it was he who crushed me.

  FOLDAL: Oh, yes. I think I can guess who you mean.

  BORKMAN: Every last blot on my copybook, I laid bare to him. Then when the moment came he turned the very weapons I had placed in his hands against me.

  FOLDAL: I’ve never been able to understand why he –. Of course, there were all sorts of rumours going round at the time.
r />   BORKMAN: What rumours? Tell me. I don’t know anything about this. I went straight into – into isolation. What were people saying, Vilhelm?

  FOLDAL: That you were to be made a cabinet minister.

  BORKMAN: I was offered it. But I turned it down.

  FOLDAL: So you weren’t standing in his way?

  BORKMAN: Oh, no; that wasn’t why he betrayed me.

  FOLDAL: Well, then I really don’t see –

  BORKMAN: I might as well tell you, Vilhelm –

  FOLDAL: Go on?

  BORKMAN: It was – some business involving a woman, Vilhelm.

  FOLDAL: A woman? No but, John Gabriel –?

  BORKMAN [interrupts]: Yes, yes, yes – enough of these stupid old stories. After all, neither of us became a minister, neither he nor I.

  FOLDAL: But he went right to the top.

  BORKMAN: And I to the bottom.

  FOLDAL: Oh, it’s a frightful tragedy –

  BORKMAN [nods to him]: Almost as frightful as yours, come to think of it.

  FOLDAL [innocently]: Yes, at least as frightful.

  BORKMAN [laughing quietly]: But from another perspective it really is a sort of comedy as well.

  FOLDAL: A comedy? This?

  BORKMAN: Yes, the way it’s now taking shape. Wait till you hear this –

  FOLDAL: Yes?

  BORKMAN: You say you didn’t see Frida when you arrived?

  FOLDAL: No.

  BORKMAN: As we two sit here, she’s playing the dance music at the home of the man who betrayed and ruined me.

  FOLDAL: I had no idea!

  BORKMAN: Yes, she took her sheet music and left me for – for the grand house.

  FOLDAL [apologetically]: Yes, yes, poor child –

  BORKMAN: And can you guess who she’s playing for – among others?

  FOLDAL: Who?

  BORKMAN: For my son, Vilhelm.

  FOLDAL: What?

  BORKMAN: What do you think of that, Vilhelm? My son is down among the dancers this evening. Now isn’t that, like I say, a comedy?

  FOLDAL: Yes, but surely he doesn’t know, John Gabriel?

  BORKMAN: Know what?

  FOLDAL: He can’t know that he – that man – well –