The Master Builder and Other Plays

by Henrik Ibsen

  RUBEK [smiles as though in a distant recollection]: Our child? Yes, that’s what we called it – at the time.

  IRENE: During my lifetime, yes.

  RUBEK [tries to shift to a cheerful mood]: Yes, Irene – can you believe it, ‘our child’ is now famous the world over. You’ve read about it, I assume?

  IRENE [nods]: And has made its father famous too. – That was your dream.

  RUBEK [more quietly, moved]: It’s you I owe it all to, all of it, Irene. Thank you.

  IRENE [sits a little and ponders]: If only I had done then as I should have done, Arnold –

  RUBEK: Oh? What was that?

  IRENE: I should have murdered that child.

  RUBEK: Murdered it, you say!

  IRENE [whispering]: Murdered it – before I left you. Crushed it. Crushed it to dust.21

  RUBEK [shakes his head reproachfully]: You wouldn’t have been able to, Irene. You didn’t have the heart.

  IRENE: No, in those days I didn’t have that kind of heart.

  RUBEK: But later? Since then?

  IRENE: Since then I have murdered it countless times. In the light of day and in darkness. Murdered it in hatred – in revenge – and in torment.

  RUBEK [walks right up to her table and asks in a quiet voice]: Irene – tell me now at last – after so many years – why did you leave me that time? Flee quite without trace – impossible to find –

  IRENE [slowly shakes her head]: Oh Arnold – why tell you this now – now that I’m in the hereafter?

  RUBEK: Was there someone else you fell in love with?

  IRENE: There was someone, who had no use for my love. No longer had any use for my life.

  RUBEK [changing the subject]: Hm – let’s not talk any more about what is past –

  IRENE: No, no, just don’t talk about the hereafter. What for me is now the hereafter.

  RUBEK: Where have you been, Irene? You vanished – despite all my efforts to find you.

  IRENE: I walked into the darkness – while the child stood there transfigured22 in the light.

  RUBEK: Have you travelled round the world much?

  IRENE: Yes. Travelled to many realms and lands.

  RUBEK [looks compassionately at her]: And what have you been doing with yourself, Irene?

  IRENE [turns her eyes on him]: Wait a moment; let me see –. Yes, I have it now. I’ve stood on revolving platforms in variety shows. Stood like a naked statue in tableaux vivants23 – made a lot of money. I wasn’t used to that when I was with you; you didn’t have any. – And I’ve been with men I could drive insane. – I wasn’t used to that with you either, Arnold. You, you were better at resisting.

  RUBEK [quickly moves on from the question]: And I suppose you married as well?

  IRENE: Yes, one of them.

  RUBEK: Who’s your husband?

  IRENE: He was a South American. Senior diplomat. [Looks away with a stony smile] I drove him insane; mad – incurably mad, hopelessly mad. – It was extremely amusing, believe me – while it lasted. Could still be laughing to myself about it. – If I had a self, that is.

  RUBEK: And where is he living now?

  IRENE: Down in some churchyard somewhere. With a tall, impressive monument standing over him. And a lead bullet rattling around inside his skull.

  RUBEK: Did he kill himself?

  IRENE: Yes. He was considerate enough to do it for me.

  RUBEK: Don’t you mourn him, Irene?

  IRENE [uncomprehending]: Who should I be mourning?

  RUBEK: Herr von Satow, of course.

  IRENE: He wasn’t called Satow.

  RUBEK: No?

  IRENE: My second husband is called Satow. He’s Russian –

  RUBEK: And where’s he?

  IRENE: Far away in the Urals. Among all his goldmines.

  RUBEK: He lives there, does he?

  IRENE [shrugs her shoulders]: Lives? Lives? Actually, I murdered him –

  RUBEK: Murdered –!

  IRENE: Murdered him with the fine, sharp dagger I always take to bed with me –

  RUBEK [in an outburst]: I don’t believe you, Irene!

  IRENE [smiles gently]: You can well believe me, Arnold.

  RUBEK [looks sympathetically at her]: Have you never had any children?

  IRENE: Yes, I’ve had several children.

  RUBEK: And where are these children now?

  IRENE: I killed them.

  RUBEK [sternly]: Now you’re lying to me again!

  IRENE: I killed them, I tell you. I murdered them, I can assure you. The minute, the very minute they came into the world. Oh, long, long before that. One after the other.

  RUBEK: [heavily, seriously]: There’s something hidden behind everything you say.

  IRENE: I can’t help that. Every word I say is whispered into my ear.

  RUBEK: I think I must be the only person who can guess at the meaning of this.

  IRENE: You should be the only one.

  RUBEK [rests his hands on the table and scrutinizes her]: Some strings inside you have snapped.

  IRENE [mildly]: That always happens when a warm-blooded young woman dies.

  RUBEK: Oh, Irene, try to put these wild ideas behind you. You’re alive! Alive – alive!

  IRENE [slowly rises from her chair and says emotionally]: I was dead for many years. They came and bound me. Tied my arms behind my back.24 Then they lowered me into a tomb with iron bars for a lid, with padded walls – so that no one in the world above could hear the screams from the grave –. But now, I’m half beginning to rise up from the dead.

  She sits down again.

  RUBEK [after a pause]: Do you think I’m the guilty one?

  IRENE: Yes.

  RUBEK: Guilty – of what you call your death?

  IRENE: Guilty of the fact that I had to die. [Switches to a tone of indifference.] Why don’t you sit down, Arnold?

  RUBEK: Do I dare?

  IRENE: Yes. – You mustn’t be afraid of cold shivers. I don’t think I’ve quite turned to ice yet.

  RUBEK [moves a chair and sits down at the table]: Look at this, Irene. We’re sitting together, just as we used to.

  IRENE: Keeping a slight distance between us. That too, just as we used to.

  RUBEK [comes closer]: It had to be that way back then.

  IRENE: Did it?

  RUBEK [decisively]: There had to be a distance between us –

  IRENE: But did there, really, Arnold?

  RUBEK [persists]: Do you remember what you answered when I asked you if you wanted to come far away with me?

  IRENE: I raised three fingers in the air25 and promised I would follow you to the ends of the earth, to the end of life. And that I would serve you in all things –

  RUBEK: As a model for my work of art –

  IRENE: – in full, free nakedness –

  RUBEK [moved]: And you did serve me, Irene – so boldly – so joyfully, so recklessly.

  IRENE: Yes, with all the throbbing blood of my youth I served you!

  RUBEK [with a grateful look, nods]: You may well say that.

  IRENE: Fell at your feet26 and served you, Arnold! [Shakes her fist at him] But you, you – you –!

  RUBEK [defensively]: I never committed any sin against you! Never, Irene!

  IRENE: Yes, you did! You sinned against my innermost being –

  RUBEK [recoils]: I –!

  IRENE: Yes, you! I exposed myself completely and wholly to your gaze – [More quietly] And you never once touched me.

  RUBEK: Irene, didn’t you understand that there were many days when I was driven almost wild by all your beauty?

  IRENE [continues unperturbed]: And anyway – if you had touched me, I think I would have killed you on the spot. Because I had a sharp pin with me. Hidden in my hair – [Strokes her brow thoughtfully.] Yes but – no, anyway – anyway – that you could –

  RUBEK [looks emphatically at her]: I was an artist, Irene.

  IRENE [darkly]: Precisely. Precisely.

  RUBEK: An a
rtist above all else. And I went around aching with ambition to create my masterpiece [loses himself in memories], it was to be called Resurrection Day. To be presented in the form of a young woman waking from the sleep of death –

  IRENE: Yes, our child –

  RUBEK [continues]: It was to be the world’s most noble, pure, ideal woman, awakening. Then I found you. I was able to use you for everything. And you threw yourself into it so happily and willingly. Abandoned your home and your family – and came with me.27

  IRENE: Following you was my childhood resurrection.

  RUBEK: Which was precisely why I was able to use you. You and no other. To me you became a sacred creature, one that could only be touched in contemplative adoration. I was still young then, Irene. And filled with the superstition that if I touched you, if I desired you sensually, my mind would be profaned and I would not be able to complete what I strived to create. – I still believe there is some truth in that.

  IRENE [nods with a hint of contempt]: The work of art first – then the human child.

  RUBEK: Yes, you may judge it as you will. But at the time I was completely in the power of the task I had assumed. And felt so jubilantly happy with it.

  IRENE: And you succeeded in your task, didn’t you, Arnold?

  RUBEK: Thanks to you, and bless you for it, I did succeed in my task. I wanted to create the pure woman as I imagined her awakening on the day of the resurrection. Not marvelling at anything new, unfamiliar or unimagined. But filled with a blessed joy at finding herself unchanged – she, the earthly woman – in higher, freer, more joyful realms – after the long, dreamless sleep of death. [Lowers his voice] That is how I created her. – I created her in your image,28 Irene.

  IRENE [lays her hands flat on the table and leans against the back of the chair]: And then you were finished with me –

  RUBEK [reproachful]: Irene!

  IRENE: – no longer had any use for me –

  RUBEK: How can you say that!

  IRENE: – started to look around for other ideals –

  RUBEK: Found none – none after you.

  IRENE: And no other models either, Arnold?

  RUBEK: To me you were no model. You were the origin of my creation.

  IRENE [is quiet for a moment]: What have you wrought since? In marble, I mean? Since the day I left you?

  RUBEK: Nothing since that day. I’ve just pottered around, modelling things.

  IRENE: What about that woman you now live with –?

  RUBEK [interrupts fiercely]: Don’t talk about her now! It brings on a burning pain in my chest.

  IRENE: Where do you plan to go with her?

  RUBEK [limp and tired]: On a slow journey, northwards, along the coast.

  IRENE [looks at him, smiles almost imperceptibly and whispers]: Go up into the mountains instead. As high as you can get. Higher, higher – always higher, Arnold.

  RUBEK [tense, expectant]: Do you want to go up there?

  IRENE: Do you have the courage to meet me one more time?

  RUBEK [struggling, unsure]: If only we could – oh, if only we could –!

  IRENE: Why can’t we do what we want? [Looks at him and whispers imploringly with hands folded] Come, come, Arnold! Oh, come up to me –!

  MAJA, radiantly happy, comes from behind the corner of the hotel and hurries over to the table where they had been sitting earlier.

  MAJA [still at the corner, without looking round]: No, you can say what you like, Rubek, I – [stops when she sees IRENE]. Oh, sorry – you’re already acquainted, I see.

  RUBEK [curtly]: Renewed our acquaintance. [Stands up.] So what did you want from me?

  MAJA: I just wanted to tell you – you can do what you like – but I will not be joining you on that ghastly steamer.

  RUBEK: Why not?

  MAJA: Because I want to go up in the mountains and into the forests – that’s what I want. [Ingratiatingly] Oh, you have to let me, Rubek! – I’ll be so good, so good afterwards!

  RUBEK: Who’s been putting these ideas into your head?

  MAJA: It’s him. That horrid bear killer. You can’t imagine all the wonderful things he’s been telling me about the mountains. About the life up there. It’s ugly, horrible, frightening, repellent, most of it, he lies as well –. Yes, I rather think he is lying. But it’s so wonderfully enticing even so. Oh, I do have permission to go with him, don’t I? Just so I can see if what he says is true, you know. Can I, Rubek?

  RUBEK: Yes, as far as I’m concerned you can. Off you go, up into the mountains – as far and for as long as you like. I might be going the same way myself.

  MAJA [quickly]: No, no, no, you really don’t have to! Not on my account!

  RUBEK: I want to go up into the mountains. I’ve made up my mind now.

  MAJA: Oh, thank you, thank you! Can I tell the bear killer right away?

  RUBEK: You can tell the bear killer whatever you please.

  MAJA: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! [Tries to take his hand; he pulls it away.]

  Oh, no – how sweet and kind you are today, Rubek!

  She runs into the hotel.

  At the same moment the pavilion door half opens slowly and noiselessly. The SISTER OF MERCY stands in the doorway, on guard, looking out. No one sees her.

  RUBEK [decisive, turns to IRENE]: So, are we meeting up there?

  IRENE [stands up slowly]: Yes, we certainly are. – I’ve been looking for you for so long.

  RUBEK: When did you start looking for me, Irene?

  IRENE [with a touch of joking bitterness]: From the time I realized I had given you something rather irreplaceable, Arnold. Something people should never part with.

  RUBEK [lowers his head]: Yes, that’s so achingly true. You gave me three or four years of your youth.

  IRENE: I gave you more, much more than that. Spendthrift – that I was in those days.

  RUBEK: Yes, you were extravagant, Irene. You gave me all your naked loveliness –

  IRENE: – for your gaze –

  RUBEK: – and glorification –

  IRENE: Yes, for your own glorification. – And for the child’s.

  RUBEK: For yours too, Irene.

  IRENE: But the most precious gift you’ve forgotten.

  RUBEK: The most precious –? What gift was that?

  IRENE: I gave you my young, living soul. Then I stood there, empty inside. – Soulless. [Stares at him stiffly.] That’s what I died of, Arnold.

  The SISTER OF MERCY holds the door wide open for her.

  She goes into the pavilion.

  RUBEK [stands and watches her, then whispers]: Irene!

  Act Two

  At a sanatorium high up in the mountains. The landscape of a vast treeless plateau extends out towards a long mountain lake. On the other side of the lake rises a range of mountain peaks with bluish snow in the crevasses. In the foreground to the left, a stream trickles down over a sheer rock face, branching into rivulets as it falls, and from there runs an even course over the plateau out to the right. Scrub, plants and stones alongside the course of the stream. In the foreground to the right, a hillock with a stone bench at the top. A late afternoon in summer, towards sunset.

  On the plateau, at some distance beyond the stream, a group of small children, some in city clothes, others in folk dress, are singing and dancing. Happy laughter is just audible during the following scenes.

  RUBEK sits up on the bench with a plaid over his shoulders and looks down at the children’s game.

  Shortly afterwards MAJA enters from among some bushes on the plain to the centre, left, and surveys the scene, her hand shielding her eyes. She is wearing a flat touring hat, a short skirt she has hitched up to mid-calf and tall, sturdy lace-up boots. She has a long mountain staff in her hand.

  MAJA [eventually catches sight of RUBEK and shouts]: Hello! [She walks across the plain, jumping over the stream with the help of her staff and climbs up the hill. Out of breath] I’ve been looking for you all over the place, Rubek.

 
RUBEK [nods indifferently and asks]: Have you come down from the sanatorium?

  MAJA: Yes, I’ve only just this minute escaped that flytrap.1

  RUBEK [glances at her]: I saw you weren’t at lunch.

  MAJA: No, the two of us had our lunch al fresco.

  RUBEK: ‘The two of us’? Which two might that be?

  MAJA: Myself – and that dreadful bear killer, of course.

  RUBEK: Oh, I see – him.

  MAJA: Yes, and we’ll be off again early tomorrow morning.

  RUBEK: After bears?

  MAJA: Yes. Off killing the big bear.

  RUBEK: Have you found any tracks?

  MAJA [haughtily]: You don’t get bears up here on the bare mountain.

  RUBEK: Where then?

  MAJA: Far below. Down on the lowland slopes; where the forest is densest. Where it’s quite impossible for ordinary townspeople to get through –

  RUBEK: And the two of you are going down there tomorrow?

  MAJA [throws herself down on to the heather]: Yes, we’ve arranged to. – But we might even set off as early as this evening. – If you don’t have any objections, that is?

  RUBEK: Me? That’s the last –

  MAJA [quickly]: Lars will be coming too. Of course. – With the hounds.

  RUBEK: I have not made this Lars fellow and his pack of hounds any business of mine at all. [Breaking off] Wouldn’t you rather be sitting properly here on the bench?

  MAJA [drowsy]: No, thanks. It’s so lovely lying in the soft heather.

  RUBEK: I can see that you’re tired.

  MAJA [yawning]: Almost think I’m beginning to feel it.

  RUBEK: That comes later. Once the excitement is all over –

  MAJA [in a sleepy voice]: Yes. I’ll just lie here and close my eyes.

  Short silence.

  MAJA [suddenly impatient]: Oh, Rubek – how can you stand sitting there listening to that racket those children are making? And watching all their capers?

  RUBEK: Every now and then – there’s a certain harmonic – almost musical quality to their movements. In the midst of all that clumsiness. And at those special moments – when they do come – it’s nice to sit and watch.

  MAJA [laughs a little contemptuously]: Oh yes, always and eternally the artist, aren’t you?

  RUBEK: And would really rather stay that way.