by Henrik Ibsen
ELLA RENTHEIM: And so you struck your bargain!
BORKMAN [vehement]: Yes, I did, Ella! The lust for power was untameable in me, you see! So I struck the bargain. Had to. And he helped me halfway up to the beckoning heights I wanted to reach. And I climbed and climbed. Year by year, I climbed –
ELLA RENTHEIM: And I was as good as erased from your life.
BORKMAN: But then he hurled me back down into the abyss. Because of you, Ella.
ELLA RENTHEIM [after a short, thoughtful silence]: Borkman – doesn’t it seem to you as though there has been something like a curse on our entire relationship?
BORKMAN [looks at her]: Curse?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Yes. Don’t you think so?
BORKMAN [uneasy]: Yes. But why, though –? [In an outburst] Oh Ella – I don’t even know who’s right any more – you or I!
ELLA RENTHEIM: It is you who have sinned. You have caused all human joy in me to die.
BORKMAN [anguished]: Don’t say that, Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM: All female joy at least. From the day when your image went blank inside me, I have lived my life as though in an eclipse. During those years it became more and more of a struggle – and in the end quite impossible – to love any living creature. Not humans, not animals, not plants. Only this single one –
BORKMAN: Which single one –?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Erhart, of course.
BORKMAN: Erhart –?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Erhart – your, your son, Borkman.
BORKMAN: Has he really been so close to your heart?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Why else would I have taken him in? And held on to him as long as I possibly could? Why?
BORKMAN: I thought it was out of pity. Like everything else.
ELLA RENTHEIM [with strong inner emotion]: Pity, you say! Ha, ha! I have never felt pity – not since you betrayed me. I was quite incapable of it. If a poor, starving child came into my kitchen, shivering with cold, crying, begging for a bit of food, I let the kitchen maid deal with it. Never felt any desire to take the child in with me, warm it at my own stove or take pleasure in watching it eat till it was satisfied. But I wasn’t like that when I was young; I remember it so clearly! It’s you who’ve created this empty, barren desert inside me – and around me too!
BORKMAN: Except for Erhart.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Yes. Except for your son. But not for any, for any other living thing. You’ve cheated me out of a mother’s joy and happiness in life. And a mother’s sorrows and tears too. And that was perhaps the greatest loss for me, you know.
BORKMAN: Do you think so, Ella?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Who knows? Perhaps a mother’s sorrows and tears would have served me best. [With stronger emotion] But at the time I couldn’t resign myself to the loss. And that’s why I took Erhart in. Won him over completely. Won his whole, warm, trusting infant heart for myself – until –. Oh!
BORKMAN: Until what?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Until his mother – his birth mother, I mean – took him back from me.
BORKMAN: But he had to leave you, I suppose. To come here, to town.
ELLA RENTHEIM [wringing her hands]: Yes, but you see, I can’t bear the desolation! The emptiness! I can’t bear the loss of your son’s heart!
BORKMAN [with a nasty look in his eyes]: Hmm – I’m sure you haven’t lost that, Ella. Hearts aren’t lost so easily to anyone in this house – downstairs on the ground floor.
ELLA RENTHEIM: But I have lost Erhart here. She has won him back. Or someone else has as well. It’s as clear as day in the letters he occasionally writes me.
BORKMAN: So that’s why you’ve come here – to take him back home with you?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Yes, if only that were possible –!
BORKMAN: It’s possible enough, if you really want it. Because it’s you who have the prior and strongest claim to him.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Oh, claims, claims! What’s the use of claims here? If I don’t have him of his own free will, I don’t have him at all. And I must have that! I must have my child’s heart, whole and undivided now!
BORKMAN: You must remember that Erhart is well into his twenties. You can hardly count on keeping his heart undivided, as you put it, for much longer.
ELLA RENTHEIM [with a heavy smile]: It wouldn’t have to be for so very long.
BORKMAN: Really? I’d have thought that if you wanted something, you’d want it to the end of your days.
ELLA RENTHEIM: And I do. But that doesn’t mean it has to be for long.
BORKMAN [taken aback]: What do you mean by that?
ELLA RENTHEIM: I expect you know I’ve been in poor health these last years?
BORKMAN: Have you?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Didn’t you know?
BORKMAN: No, can’t say I –
ELLA RENTHEIM [looks at him surprised]: Hasn’t Erhart told you?
BORKMAN: I really can’t recall just now.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Perhaps he hasn’t talked about me at all?
BORKMAN: No, I believe he has talked about you. But then again, I see so little of him. Hardly ever. There’s a certain person downstairs who keeps him away from me. Far away, you see.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Are you absolutely sure about that, Borkman?
BORKMAN: Yes, I am. [Changes his tone] So, you’ve been ill, then, Ella?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Yes, I have. And this autumn it has got worse, so much so that I’ve had to come here to speak to doctors who know more about it.
BORKMAN: And you’ve already seen them?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Yes, this morning.
BORKMAN: And what did they say?
ELLA RENTHEIM: They confirmed what I’ve long suspected –
BORKMAN: What’s that?
ELLA RENTHEIM [calm and even]: That my illness is fatal, Borkman.
BORKMAN: Oh, don’t believe it, Ella.
ELLA RENTHEIM: You see it’s a disease there’s no help or cure for. There’s nothing the doctors can do. They have to let it take its course. They can’t keep it in check. Just alleviate the suffering a little, maybe. But that’s something, anyway.
BORKMAN: Oh, but it may yet take a long time to run its course – believe me, it may.
ELLA RENTHEIM: I’m told it might last the winter.
BORKMAN [without thinking]: Well yes – the winters are long, you know.
ELLA RENTHEIM [quietly]: Long enough for me, at any rate.
BORKMAN [eagerly, changes the subject]: But what on earth could have brought on this illness? You’ve always led such a healthy and regular life –? What can have brought it on?
ELLA RENTHEIM [looks at him]: The doctors think perhaps that at some point in my life I’d had to go through some great emotional turmoil.
BORKMAN [flares up]: Emotional! Oh, I see! You mean this is my fault!
ELLA RENTHEIM [with mounting inward agitation]: It’s too late to discuss that now! But I must have my heart’s own and only child again before I go! It’s so unspeakably hard for me, the thought that I have to leave behind all that life is – leave behind the sun and light and air, without leaving behind me here one single human being who will think of me, remember me with love and mourn me – as a son thinks of and remembers the mother he has lost.
BORKMAN [after a short pause]: Take him, Ella – if you can win him.
ELLA RENTHEIM [animated]: Do you give your consent? Can you?
BORKMAN [gloomily]: Yes. And it’s no great sacrifice either. Because I don’t really own him anyway.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Thank you, thank you for the sacrifice all the same! – But I have one thing more to ask you. A big thing for me, Borkman.
BORKMAN: Well, just say it.
ELLA RENTHEIM: I expect you’ll think it childish of me – you wouldn’t understand –
BORKMAN: Then say it – say it!
ELLA RENTHEIM: When I’m gone, which will be soon, I’ll be leaving a fair bit –
BORKMAN: Yes, I suppose you will.
ELLA RENTHEIM: And it’s my intention to leave it all to E
rhart.
BORKMAN: Well, you don’t really have anyone closer to you than him.
ELLA RENTHEIM [warmly]: No, indeed, I don’t have anyone closer to me than him.
BORKMAN: No one from your own family. You’re the last.
ELLA RENTHEIM [nods slowly]: Yes, that’s just it. When I die – the Rentheim name dies with me. And the thought of being wiped out of existence – down to my very name – is choking me.
BORKMAN [flares up]: Ah – I see where this is going!
ELLA RENTHEIM [passionately]: Don’t let it happen. Let Erhart carry on my name!
BORKMAN [looks hard at her]: I understand you well enough. You want to free my son from having to bear his father’s name. That’s the idea.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Never! I would have borne it alongside you, defiantly and gladly! But a mother, who’s about to die –. A name binds you more than you think or believe, Borkman.
BORKMAN [cold and proud]: Very well, Ella. I’m man enough to bear my name alone.
ELLA RENTHEIM [grasping and pressing his hand]: Thank you, thank you! There has been a full settlement of accounts between us now! Yes, yes, let it be! You’ve done everything in your power to make amends. Because when I have left this life, I shall be leaving Erhart Rentheim behind me!
The tapestry door is pushed open. MRS BORKMAN, with the large shawl over her head, stands in the doorway.
MRS BORKMAN [in violent agitation]: Never, in all eternity, shall Erhart be called that!
ELLA RENTHEIM [shrinks back]: Gunhild!
BORKMAN [harshly and threatening]: Nobody has permission to come up to my room!
MRS BORKMAN [one step inside]: I give myself permission.
BORKMAN [goes towards her]: What do you want from me?
MRS BORKMAN: I will fight and battle for you. Shield you from the forces of evil.
ELLA RENTHEIM: The worst forces are within you, Gunhild!
MRS BORKMAN [hard]: That may be so. [Menacingly, with her arm raised] But let me tell you this – he will bear his father’s name! And raise it up high in honour once more! And I alone shall be his mother! I alone! My son’s heart shall be mine. Mine, and no one else’s.
She goes out by the tapestry door and closes it behind her.
ELLA RENTHEIM [shaken and agitated]: Borkman – Erhart will be wrecked in this storm. You and Gunhild must reach an understanding. We must go down to her at once.
BORKMAN [looks at her]: We? You mean me as well?
ELLA RENTHEIM: Both you and I.
BORKMAN [shakes his head]: She’s hard, you know. Hard as the ore I once dreamed of wresting from the mountains.
ELLA RENTHEIM: Then try it now!
BORKMAN does not answer; he stands looking uncertainly at her.
Act Three
Mrs Borkman’s drawing room. The lamp is still burning on the sofa table. The garden room is completely dark.
MRS BORKMAN with the shawl over her head, enters through the hall door in a state of profound inner turmoil, walks up to the window and pulls the curtain a little to one side; she then goes over and sits down beside the stove,1 but soon jumps up again, goes across to the bell pull and rings. Stands next to the sofa and waits a moment. No one comes. Then she rings again, this time with greater force.
After a short while the MAID enters from the hall. She looks sullen and sleepy and appears to have dressed in a hurry.
MRS BORKMAN [impatiently]: Where have you been, Malene? I had to ring for you twice!
MAID: Yes, ma’am, I heard you.
MRS BORKMAN: But you didn’t come.
MAID [sulkily]: I had to throw a few clothes on first, you know.
MRS BORKMAN: Yes, you’d better make yourself decent. And then you must run along and fetch my son right away.
MAID [looks at her in astonishment]: You want me to fetch young Mr Borkman?
MRS BORKMAN: Yes; just tell him he has to come home to me at once because I want to speak to him.
MAID [sulkily]: Then I suppose I’d better go and wake up the coachman over at the estate manager’s.
MRS BORKMAN: Why?
MAID: To harness the sleigh; it’s snowing something rotten tonight.
MRS BORKMAN: Oh, don’t bother with that. Only hurry up and go! It’s just round the corner.
MAID: But, ma’am, it is not just round the corner!
MRS BORKMAN: Of course it is. Don’t you know where the Hinkel villa is?
MAID [sarcastic]: Ahh! Is that where Mr Borkman is this evening?
MRS BORKMAN [surprised]: Why, where else would he be?
MAID [concealing a smile]: No, I just reckoned he’d be where he usually is.
MRS BORKMAN: Where do you mean?
MAID: At that Mrs Wilton’s, as they call her.
MRS BORKMAN: At Mrs Wilton’s? My son isn’t there much.
MAID [muttering]: No, only every day of the week, so I’m told.
MRS BORKMAN: What nonsense, Malene. Off you go now to Mr Hinkel’s and make sure you get hold of him.
MAID [with a toss of the head]: Yes, for goodness’ sake, I’m going.
She is about to leave through the hall. Just at that moment the hall door opens. ELLA RENTHEIM and BORKMAN appear in the doorway.
MRS BORKMAN [takes a step back]: What is the meaning of this?
MAID [terrified, involuntarily clasps her hands]: In the name of Jesus –!2
MRS BORKMAN [whispers to the MAID]: Tell him he must come at once, this minute.
MAID [quietly]: Yes, of course, ma’am.
ELLA RENTHEIM and, after her, BORKMAN enter the room. The MAID slips out behind them, through the door, closing it behind her.
Brief silence.
MRS BORKMAN [having regained her self-control, turns to ELLA]: What does he want with me down here?
ELLA RENTHEIM: He wants to try to reach an understanding with you, Gunhild.
MRS BORKMAN: He’s never tried to before.
ELLA RENTHEIM: He wants to tonight.
MRS BORKMAN: The last time we stood face to face – it was during the trial. When I was called to give evidence –
BORKMAN [approaching]: This evening I’m the one who’ll be giving evidence.
MRS BORKMAN [looks at him]: You!
BORKMAN: Not concerning my crime. The whole world knows about that.
MRS BORKMAN [with a bitter sigh]: Yes, that’s true. The whole world does know about it.
BORKMAN: But they don’t know why I did it; why I had to do it. People don’t understand that I had to because I was who I was – because I was John Gabriel Borkman – and no one else. And that is what I will try to explain to you.
MRS BORKMAN [shakes her head]: There’s no point. Motives aren’t grounds for acquittal. Nor are impulses.
BORKMAN: In their own eyes they are.
MRS BORKMAN [with a dismissive gesture]: Oh, stop! I’ve spent more than enough time turning that dark business of yours over and over in my mind!
BORKMAN: So have I. During those five interminable years in my cell – and elsewhere – I had ample time to think. And these last eight years up there in the gallery, I’ve had even more time. I’ve retried the entire case – on my own. Over and over. I’ve acted as my own prosecution, my own defence and my own judge. More impartial than anyone – that I will say. As I’ve paced the floor up there, I’ve turned every one of my actions inside out and upside down. Examined them from all sides, as unsparingly, as ruthlessly as any lawyer. And the verdict I keep returning to is this: the only victim of my crime is – myself.
MRS BORKMAN: But what about me? And what about your son?
BORKMAN: When I say myself that includes you and him.
MRS BORKMAN: And what about the hundreds of other people, then? The people you’re said to have ruined?
BORKMAN [more vehement]: I had the power! And then there was that irresistible calling within me! The trapped millions lay all over the country, deep inside the mountains, crying out to me! Crying out to me to free them! But none of the others heard
it. Only I did, I alone.
MRS BORKMAN: Disgracing the Borkman name, yes.
BORKMAN: What I’d like to know is, if the others had had the power, don’t you think they would have acted exactly as I did?
MRS BORKMAN: Nobody, nobody but you would have done that!
BORKMAN: Perhaps not. But that would have been because they didn’t have my talents. And if they had done it, it wouldn’t have been with my vision of what could be achieved. It would have been a different action altogether. – In short – I have acquitted myself.
ELLA RENTHEIM [soft and imploring]: And you dare say that with such certainty, Borkman?
BORKMAN [nods]: Acquitted myself to that extent. But then comes the great, crushing self-reproach.
MRS BORKMAN: What’s that?
BORKMAN: I have squandered eight precious years of my life pacing around up there! The very day I was set free, I should have walked out into the real world – out into reality, as hard as iron and devoid of dreams! I should have started at the bottom and raised myself once more up to the heights – higher than ever before – in spite of everything that lay in between.
MRS BORKMAN: Oh, it would have just been the same life all over again – believe you me.
BORKMAN [shakes his head, and looks at her with a didactic expression]: Nothing new happens. But what has happened does not repeat itself. It is the eye that transforms the action. The eye, reborn,3 transforms the old action. [Breaks off.] But you don’t understand.
MRS BORKMAN [curt]: No, I don’t understand.
BORKMAN: Ah, that is precisely my curse – I’ve never found a single soul who understands me.
ELLA RENTHEIM [looks at him]: Never, Borkman?
BORKMAN: Except one – perhaps. A long, long time ago. In the days when I didn’t think I needed to be understood. Since then, at any rate, no one! I’ve never had anyone alert enough to be at hand to summon me – ring like a morning bell for me – urge me on to intrepid work once more –. And to impress upon me that I have done nothing that is irredeemable –
MRS BORKMAN [laughs contemptuously]: So that is still something you need to have impressed upon you from the outside?
BORKMAN [getting angrier]: Yes, when the whole world hisses in chorus that I am a man for whom restitution and redemption4 are impossible, there are moments when I almost believe it myself. [Raises his head] But then my inmost, conquering conviction asserts itself again. And that acquits me.