by Henrik Ibsen
what will you say that is? A flake
of snow, melting? No, no, it
flows from your anguished heart.
BRAND: Agnes, my own, my wife, let us both
be steadfast, even unto death.
Out there I was a chosen man
indeed. I was God’s champion.
While, in mid-fjord, the boat
laboured, sea-drenched I fought.
The tiller strained in my hand
yet steadied as it strained.
Eight souls froze at the oars
like corpses on their biers.
The mast groaned, cordage clashed, flung
loose on the wind. Our seams were sprung.
The canvas blew to shreds,
whipped to leeward. The seabirds’
cries were drowned. Through darkness I saw
cliff-falls, cataracts of snow,
crash down upon the rocks.
And all this while, He who makes
storm and calm held me to His will.
Through sea-howl I heard Him call.
AGNES: How easy it is to wage war
on the elements, and to dare
all. How hard it seems to wait
as I must, so very quiet,
while life ticks by; and be at home
to all the visitings of time;
and hear the ceaseless sparrow-
flutterings of sorrow
in the eaves of the heart’s house.
I long to be of use
in the great world. I dare not
remember, cannot forget.
Know me for what I am.
BRAND: Agnes, for shame, for shame!
How can you think to scorn
your life’s work, its true crown:
my helpmate and my wife?
Listen, and I’ll reveal
strange mercies wrought from grief.
Sometimes, Agnes, my eyes fill
with tears of gratitude.
I think that I see God,
so close. As never before
I greet Him face to face,
feel His fatherly care.
Then I desire to cast
myself on His breast,
weeping in His embrace.
AGNES: And may He always appear
so to you, Brand. Fathers forgive.
It is tyrants who rave.
BRAND: O Agnes, you must ever fear
to question Him. Never presume
to turn your face away from Him.
I am the servant of the Lord.
I am the warrior with the sword
of righteousness. Your gentle hands
shall soothe and heal my wounds.
Agnes, embrace your task!
AGNES: Everything that you ask
of me seems too heavy to bear.
I’m so weary I can scarcely hear
what you say. Thoughts ravel my mind
without beginning or end.
I gaze at my own life
almost with disbelief.
My dearest, let me grieve
and I may learn to live
and serve you, purged of sorrow
at last … I don’t know.
Brand, while you were away,
I saw my little boy
again, I saw him! He came
smiling into my room.
He looked, as once he did,
bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked.
He came towards my bed
as though to be cradled and rocked
in my arms. It made my blood run cold.
BRAND: Agnes!
AGNES: I knew that he’d turned
to ice, out there in the icy ground.
BRAND: Believe me, Agnes, our child
has been gathered to God,
he is in Paradise.
It is a corpse that lies
out there under the snow.
AGNES [shrinking away from him]:
Why do you tear and prod
at the wound, make the blood flow?
The body and the soul
go down into the soil
together. Together they rise up
out of our mortal sleep.
I cannot discriminate
like you; I cannot tell them apart.
To me they are as one,
soul, body … my son.
BRAND: Many an old wound shall
bleed to make you well.
AGNES: Stay by me in my need,
Brand; for I’ll not be led
against my will. Please try
to be gentle; speak gently.
Your voice is like a storm
when you drive a soul to choose
its own poor martyrdom.
Is there no gentler voice
that says to pain, ‘Be still,’
no song that greets the light,
no gentleness at all?
Your God, I see Him sit
just like some grim seigneur
in His stronghold. I fear
to irritate His gaze
with my weak woman’s cries.
BRAND: It seems, then, you’d prefer
the God you knew before.
AGNES: Einar’s mild God? Never!
Yet I feel as if I were drawn
by a longing for clear, pure air
where it’s drawing towards dawn.
Your visions, your new realms,
your calling, your iron will,
everything looms, overwhelms,
threatens me, like the cliff
that would bury us if it fell
or the fjord that cuts us off
from the world. Brand! Brand! Such
pain! And for what? Your little church
that crouches under the rock
like a mouse from a hawk?
BRAND [struck]:
Again, again, that thought,
like a tremor of air. What
makes you speak so? Why do you say
the church is too small?
AGNES [shaking her head sorrowfully]:
How can I
give reasons? How do I know?
How do the winds blow,
how does a scent travel
on the air? Must I unravel
everything that goes through my mind?
It is enough that I understand.
Call it instinct, if you will.
Brand, your church is too small.
BRAND: ‘The young shall see visions and the old
dream dreams.’13 What mysteries unfold,
my Agnes! Even she I met
wandering on the mountain height
in madness froze me with that call:
‘The church is hideous and small, small.’
Whether she knew of what she spoke
I cannot tell; but the womenfolk
echo her, murmuring all the time,
as though possessed of the same dream,
visionary things, things yet unknown,
strange intimations of new Zion.14
Dear angel of my destiny,
you bless and guide me on my way.
The church is small, I see it now.
It shall be built anew,
and the Lord God shall enter in
to His own temple once again.
AGNES: From this time forward, let it seem
as if a wide deserted sea
lay blank between my grief and me.
I shall decide upon a tomb
and bury the dead hopes of life;
and make each mirrored citadel
vanish as in a fairy tale.
I’ll be your consecrated wife.
BRAND: Agnes, the road leads on.
AGNES: You sound so cold and stern,
even now.
BRAND: It is God
who speaks, not I.
AGNES: You’ve said
that He is merciful
to those who
faint and fall,
if they’ll but persevere.
She turns to leave.
BRAND: Agnes, must you go?
AGNES [smiling]:
It’s Christmas Eve, my dear,
and I have things to do.
Last Christmas you chided me
a little for my extravagance:
a lit candle in every sconce,
and shining glass and greenery,
the room alive with laughter’s song
and all the gifts that love could bring.
The candles shall be lit again;
we’ll deck the tree; do what we can
to keep our Christmas, and rejoice
inwardly in the silent house.
If God should stare into this room
tonight, Brand, I need feel no shame.
I’ve watched and prayed, wiped every trace
of grief, each tear smudge, from my face,
you see; all gone now! I would meet
Him with a truly chastened heart.
BRAND pulls her towards him in an embrace; then abruptly lets her go.
BRAND: Go, light the candles. There, hush!
AGNES [smiling sorrowfully]:
And let the church be built all new
and bright by the spring thaw.
Let us make that our Christmas wish!
Exit.
BRAND [gazing after her]:
Help me, O help me, God,
to spare her more agony.
It’s like watching her die
in martyrdom’s slow flame.
What else must I perform
that Your law may be satisfied,
lex talionis,15 Your hawk
that will swoop down and take
the heart out of her?
Let me be the martyr,
not her. Dear God! Haven’t I faith
and strength, and will, enough for both?
Let her devoted love suffice.
Remit, O Lord, remit the sacrifice.
There is a knock at the door. The MAYOR enters.
MAYOR: Well, here I am, d’you see,
come to eat humble pie!
Sir, I’m a beaten man,
beaten and trampled on!
BRAND: You, mayor?
MAYOR: I’m not joking.
I tried to send you packing.
I admit, I said at the time,
I said, there isn’t room
for both of us. I was right,
no shadow of a doubt,
no doubt at all. Yet here
I am with my white flag.
My friend, I come to beg.
There’s a new spirit abroad
in the region, praise God;
suddenly it’s everywhere,
but not mine: yours,
pastor. The war’s
over. Stop the fight.
Now, let’s shake hands on that!
BRAND: Between the two of us
the strife can never cease;
for spiritual war
is endless, must be waged
however bruised and scourged
and desolate we are.
MAYOR: Don’t try to win a fight
if it pays you to lose:
I call that compromise.
BRAND: Though you deride God’s law,
nothing can make black white!
MAYOR: My dear man, you can holler,
‘White as the driven snow,’
till you’re blue in the face.
If our wise populace
prefers snow to be black,
then black it is. Hard luck!
BRAND: And what’s your favourite colour?
MAYOR: Mine’s a nice in-between
delicate shade of grey.
I’ve told you, I’m humane.
I meet people halfway.
I don’t gallop head-on
against opinion.
I let the crowd decide,
run with the multitude.
You’re the crowd’s candidate,
it seems; so here’s my vote.
I’ve had to shelve my plans
for new ditches and drains,
for new jetties and roads,
and Lord knows what besides.
Still, if that’s the game,
I’ll play it. ‘Bide your time,’
I tell myself, ‘and smile.
Hang on to fortune’s wheel
like the grim death. Your turn
always comes round again.’
BRAND: There speaks the ‘public spirit’
in essence, mayor. It
seems, then, that greed, if shrewd,
can pass as zeal-for-good.
MAYOR: That’s not how it is at all!
I’ve lived a life of real
self-sacrificing labour,
a man who’s served his neighbour
more than he’s served himself.
I spit on this world’s pelf.
But surely, surely, it’s fair,
isn’t it, minister,
that honesty and good sense
should gain some recompense?
When all’s been said you can’t
let your own kith and kin
go hungry. I’ve got daughters.
I must think of their futures.
You know what that can mean.
Chewing on the ideal
won’t get you a square meal
and it won’t pay the rent.
He who says otherwise
doesn’t know what life is!
BRAND: What will you do now?
MAYOR: Build.
BRAND: Did you say build?
MAYOR: I did.
I’ll serve the nation’s need
as I served it of old.
I’ll dazzle people’s eyes
with some great enterprise.
I’ll be cock of the roost,
I’ll strut upon my post.
By God, you’ll hear me crow
pro bono publico!16
My new election cry
is ‘Banish poverty!’
BRAND: And how will you do that?
MAYOR: I’ve given it some thought.
Well, come on, use your wits!
What am I planning? It’s
my ‘hygienic edifice’,
and cheap at the price!
A workhouse and a gaol
under the same roof;
perfectly clean and safe
and economical.
Then, having made a start,
I’ll add an extra wing
built to accommodate
wassail, that sort of thing,
banquets and lantern-slide
lectures, what you will:
the Patriots’ Pledge hall.
BRAND: There may be some need
for the things you name –
but there is one thing more,
with a far higher claim.
MAYOR: A madhouse, to be sure!
But who would foot the bill?
BRAND: Well, if you need to house
your madmen, why not use
the Patriots’ Pledge hall?
It would be suitable.
MAYOR [delighted]:
The Patriots’ Pledge hall
a madhouse all the time –
O pastor, what a scheme!
How could it ever fail?
We’ll soon have crime and sin
and madness all crammed in;
then we’ll cram in the poor
and lock and bolt the door.
BRAND: You’ve come begging, you said.
MAYOR: I think that puts the case
fairly enough. Indeed,
cash for a worthy cause
seems very hard to find.
A well-placed word or two
from ‘t’People’s’ Pastor Brand
would turn the tide. You know
I shan’t
forget a friend.
BRAND: I know I’m being bribed.
MAYOR: Couldn’t it be described
as the best way of healing
old wounds, and that sad breach
between us, from which each
of us, I know, has suffered,
since we’re both men of feeling.
BRAND: Suffered, did you say?
MAYOR: Of course, of course, the boy …
I trust that you’ll accept
condolences as offered.
You seemed, though, so imbued
with Christian fortitude
I took it that the worst
excess of grief had passed.
I came because I’d hoped …
BRAND: You’ve hoped and schemed in vain.
I also plan to build.
MAYOR: To steal my master plan –
well, I must say, that’s bold!
BRAND: You say so? Look out there –
[Points out of the window.]
no, there; what do you see?
MAYOR: Not much, if you ask me!
That old barn on the tilt?
Look, I don’t understand …
BRAND: The church. Mayor, I intend
the church shall be rebuilt
on a grander scale.
MAYOR: I’m master builder here.
Just leave things as they are,
I’ll make it worth your while.
Why pull the old place down?
BRAND: I have said: it is small.
MAYOR: Small? But I’ve never seen
it more than half-full.
BRAND: There’s no space, no air,
for the spirit to soar!
MAYOR [aside]:
If he goes on like this,
he’ll need the services
of the madhouse himself.
[Aloud]
Pastor, take my advice,
leave the church to the mice,
I beg you, on behalf
of the whole neighbourhood.
I rise to the defence
of our inheritance.
An architectural gem
destroyed for a mere whim?
No, it can’t be allowed!
BRAND: I’ll build God’s house with my
own substance; dedicate
every last farthing-bit
out of my legacy.
MAYOR: Well! I’m thunderstruck!
I can’t believe our luck,
I can’t, truly, I can’t!
Riches without stint,
a great gold, glittering stream –
tell me it’s not a dream!
BRAND: I made up my mind,
long ago, to renounce
that cursed inheritance.
MAYOR: I’m with you heart and soul,
I’m filled with purest zeal.
How’s that for a surprise?
Onward then! Hand in hand!
Together, to the end.
Here’s to our enterprise!
I dare to think that fate
has brought me here tonight.
I even dare to think
that you have me to thank
and that your miracle
is mine after all.
BRAND: Destroy that ‘hallowed fane’
out there? Why, it’s a shrine!
MAYOR: H’m, that’s as may be.