Peer Gynt and Brand
Page 12
Won’t let us rest, yon lawyer-men,
clinking up close wi’ whip and chain.
BRAND: Be quiet, woman. Here, you’re safe.
GYPSY WOMAN: Safe? Here? Crammed in wi’ walls and roof?
Nay, master, nay; we’re better far
to wander through the bitter air.
But gi’e us something for the brat.
His own brother stole the clout
o’ rags that he was swaddled in.
Look, lady, look, his naked skin
all white wi’ frost and blue wi’ cold!
BRAND: Woman, I beg you, set this child
free from the path of death-in-life.
He shall be cherished; every stain
of blood and guilt shall be washed off.
GYPSY WOMAN: Why, it was you folk cast him out,
it was, and now I curse you for it.
Where do you think, then, he was born?
Not in a bed! His mother took
bad at the bottom of a syke.
Christened he was, wi’ a dab o’ slush
and a charcoal stick out of the ash;
a swig o’ gin his comforter.
And when we lugged him out of her,
who cursed him and his puny whine?
His fathers – ay, he’d more than one?
BRAND: Agnes?
AGNES: Yes.
BRAND: What must you do?
AGNES: Give them to her? O Brand! No!
GYPSY WOMAN: Oh yes, rich lady, all you have!
Ragged sark or silken weave,
nowt’s too rotten or too good
if I can wrap it round his hide.
Like as not he’ll soon be dead.
At least he’ll die wi’ his limbs thawed.
BRAND: The choice, Agnes! Hear the call,
harsh and inescapable!
GYPSY WOMAN: You’ve plenty. You could dress your bairn
ten times over. Look at mine!
Spare us a shroud, for pity’s sake!
BRAND: The demand, Agnes! Hear it speak,
absolute and imperative!
GYPSY WOMAN: Gi’e us that, lady, gi’e us that!
AGNES: Don’t you dare, gypsy! Desecrate,
would you, my babe, my love,
and all these pretty things?
BRAND: Hush, child.
He’s dead. I say: he died in vain
if you lose faith. Then the road leads
nowhere but to the threshold
of the grave.
AGNES [brokenly]:
Thy will be done.
With my last strength I’ll tear out
my heart, trample it underfoot.
Share, then! Put my ‘superfluous
riches’ to some better use.
GYPSY WOMAN: Give it here! Give it here!
BRAND: Agnes, did you say ‘share’?
AGNES: Yes. I beg you, let me be killed
now, and not be made to yield
any more. Give her what she needs,
half, even. Let me keep the rest.
BRAND: Then half would have sufficed,
would it not, for your own son?
AGNES: Here, gypsy, take the christening-
robe, and the scarf, and the silken
bonnet; take everything
that will keep out the cold.
GYPSY WOMAN: Gi’e us, then.
BRAND: Agnes, are you sure
that’s all?
AGNES: Here’s the shirt he wore
on the day he died. I called
it his robe of martyrdom.
GYPSY WOMAN: It’ll do. Is that the lot,
lady? Right, then; I’ll flit –
after I’ve seen to him.
Exit.
AGNES: Demand on top of demand –
is it reasonable, Brand?
BRAND: Did you give with heart and soul,
without bitterness at all?
AGNES: No!
BRAND: No? Then you have flung away
your gifts, and you are still not free.
He prepares to leave.
AGNES: Brand!
BRAND: Yes?
AGNES: Oh, Brand, I lied!
Forgive me, for I hid
the last, my very last
relic. Hadn’t you guessed?
BRAND: Well?
AGNES [taking a folded child’s cap from her bosom]:
Look, one thing remains.
BRAND: His cap?
AGNES: Marked with the stains
of my tears, and his cold fever sweat;
and kept close-hidden at my heart!
BRAND: Worship your idols, then.
He prepares to leave.
AGNES: No, wait!
BRAND: For what?
AGNES: You know for what.
She holds out the cap.
BRAND [coming towards her without taking it]:
Without regret?
AGNES: Without regret!
BRAND: Very well, then. His cap,
give it to me. The woman
is still there, sitting on the step.
Exit.
AGNES: Everything’s gone now, everything’s lost.
[AGNES stands for some moments completely still; gradually the expression on her face is transformed into pure radiant joy. BRAND returns; she goes exultantly to meet him, throws her arms around his neck and cries out.]
O Brand, O Brand, at last I’m free
of everything that drew me to the dust!
BRAND: Agnes!
AGNES: The darkness has gone,
and the ghosts, and the nightmares,
the leaden fears that weighed me down.
And I know that victory
is certain, if the will endures.
The mists have all dispersed
and all the clouds have passed
away; and at the end of night
I see the first faint rosy light
of dawn. And I’ll not be afraid,
or hurt, or weep to hear the word
‘death’, or the sound of my child’s name.
I know that heaven is his home.
I have overcome grief,
and even the grave itself
yields, and our little Alf
shines in his immortality,
his face radiant with joy
just as it was in life.
If my strength were a thousandfold,
if my voice were like that
of a great choir, if I could
be heard in Heaven, I’d not
plead, now, for his return.
How wondrous is our God,
how infinite His resource
in making His ways known
to men. Through the sacrifice
of my child, through the command
‘Atone, and again, atone!’,
my soul has been restored.
God gives, takes back, His own.
I was purged by ordeal,
You guided my hand,
you battled for my soul,
though your grim silent heart
cried out even as you fought.
Now it is you who stand
in the valley of the choice,
you who must bear the cross,
the terrible birthing
of all or nothing.
BRAND: You speak in riddles, Agnes. It
is finished, all that agony.
AGNES: Beloved, you forget:
‘Whoever looks on God shall die.’17
BRAND [shrinking back]:
Dearest! What terrors wake
in my heart when you speak
like that! Be strong!
I could let all things go,
every earthly good; everything,
everything but you!
AGNE
S: Choose. You stand where the roads cross.
Quench this light new-lit in me,
choke the springs of divine grace,
allow me my idolatry.
The gypsy woman, call her back,
give me back the things she took.
Let me clutch them, weak and craven,
blindly ignorant of heaven.
Clip the wing-feathers of my soul,
fetter me at wrist and heel
with the constraints of each bleak day,
and then I’ll be as I once was,
a prisoner of mortality.
Choose. You stand where the roads cross.
BRAND: All would be lost if I
weakened, if I chose the way
you point to … but … far from this place,
beyond the memories
of all this bitter grief,
my Agnes, we shall find that life
and light are one.
AGNES: But you are bound,
by your own choice and His demand.
You must remain; must be the guide
of many souls in their great need.
Choose. You stand where the roads cross.
BRAND: No choice … I have no choice.
AGNES [throwing her arms round his neck]:
I give you thanks for all I have,
and for your own dear love
to me, poor, weary, stumbling one.
My eyes are heavy, and the mist
gathers, and I must rest.
BRAND: Beloved, sleep. Your work is done.
AGNES: Yes, the day labour, the soul’s fight,
are finished. Now the night-
candle shall burn with steady flame
as my thoughts rest on Him
from whom we came.
Exit.
BRAND [clenching his hands against his breast]:
Be steadfast, O my soul,
For in the loss of all
This world’s good lies our gain.
We, at the end, are blest
And all that we have lost
Is ours for evermore. Amen.
Act Five
SCENE 1
A year and a half later.18 The new church stands ready and decorated for the consecration ceremony. The river is close by. It is early misty morning. The church organ can be heard playing softly. A crowd is murmuring in the distance. The SEXTON is hanging up garlands outside the church. After a few moments, enter SCHOOLMASTER.
SCHOOLMASTER: Sexton? Up with the lark!
SEXTON: I’m never one to shirk;
not like some, schoolmaster.
Pass me that bunting.
SCHOOLMASTER: They’re
making a dreadful din
round at the pastor’s house.
Whatever’s going on?
SEXTON: They’re putting up a plaque,
gold-plated if you please!
SCHOOLMASTER: Well, Brand’s drawing the crowds,
no doubt of that! The fjord’s
already white with sails.
They’re flocking in from miles …
SEXTON: He’s chivvied folk awake,
has Brand. But for what?
In the old pastor’s time
everything was calm,
year in, year out.
Now it’s all rage and strife.
SCHOOLMASTER: That’s life, sexton, that’s life!
That’s what it takes to build
‘the brave new world’!
SEXTON: Maybe. But I feel lost.
This can’t be for the best.
Are you and I asleep?
Are we both out of step?
SCHOOLMASTER: Others slept. We had work
to do. And then they woke
and said we’d had our day,
just like they always say.
SEXTON: But you’ve just sung the praise
of this newfangledness!
SCHOOLMASTER: ‘When in Rome’, sexton, ‘when
in Rome’! You’ve heard the dean.
It’s not for us to march
contrary to the Church,
the spiritual elite.
We’re servants of the state.
But, sexton, man to man,
I’m all for discipline.
We live in troubled times.
Why should we fan the flames?
There’s no reason to feed
every faction and feud.
SEXTON: Brand, now; he’s in the thick
of things …
SCHOOLMASTER: Up to his neck!
But then, of course, he’s shrewd
and very hard to catch.
He knows the common herd,
he’s got the common touch.
If he says, ‘I’ve got plans,’
no one asks him, ‘For what?’ –
far-sighted citizens
all clutching at his coat
and tagging at his heels
up hill, down dale, blind fools!
SEXTON: You’ve been in politics,
you’re wise to all such tricks;
you know the public mind.
SCHOOLMASTER: This is the promised land,
but who’s it promised to?
Will someone tell me that?
I’d really like to know.
SEXTON: Listen!
SCHOOLMASTER: What’s that?
SEXTON: That sound!
SCHOOLMASTER: Strange … the organ …
SEXTON: That’s Brand
for sure! Only Brand plays
like that; sometimes whole days
and nights.
SCHOOLMASTER: He’s early.
SEXTON: Late,
more like. I’ll wager he’s not
slept at all. Since he became
a widower, his soul’s been gnawed.
Sometimes, I think, he grows half-mad
with grieving for his wife and son.
And then he plays some endless tune
as though, in every note you hear,
they cry and he’s their comforter,
or he weeps and they comfort him.
SCHOOLMASTER: Ah, if only one dared
let one’s soul be stirred …
SEXTON: And if one weren’t constrained
by rules of every kind …!
SCHOOLMASTER: Right-thinking men must take
a stronger stand. ‘Lord, make
me worthy to be mayor’
is no ignoble prayer.
That fire at the mayor’s house,
remember? The flames rose
and danced above the roof
and roared like Satan’s laugh.
And the mayor’s wife! Such screams,
as though she’d seen hell’s flames
and seen Old Nick and all
agog for the mayor’s soul!
‘Stay clear! Let it all go!’
she begged. He wouldn’t, though.
That good and faithful man,
he had the strength of ten,
saved every last receipt,
the archives, all complete!
The mayor – he’s my ideal
official: heart and soul
a mayor; inside and out
and tooth and nail, the lot!
SEXTON: Brave deeds and words may seem
old-fashioned, but, like you,
I find that they ring true;
worthy of all esteem!
Folk ought to show respect
for standards, that’s a fact.
SCHOOLMASTER: ‘The old order must die,’
there’s a fine rallying cry.
‘Feed history to the fire,’
you hear that everywhere.
When they saw fit to pull
down the old church and all
that went with it, the custom
of our lives, their trim and form …
SEXTON: I
was there, schoolmaster!
A great groan rent the air.
Folk were terrified!
Some had a look of shame;
some knew the fear of God,
I’d say, for the first time.
SCHOOLMASTER: For a while they felt bound
to the old in a thousand
ways. Then they took stock
of the new building work.
Dazzled by what they saw,
with a good deal of awe-
struck relish, one might say,
they awaited the great day.
Then, even as the spire climbed
higher, they grew alarmed.
Well, the great day has come.
SEXTON [pointing to one side]:
Lord bless us, what a swarm
of people! And that murmuring sound …
the sea under a rising wind …
SCHOOLMASTER: The spirit of the age! It stirs
the hearts of men with strange new fears,
with the deep tremors of the time;
as though a voice had summoned them.
SEXTON: I think … no, it’s absurd …
SCHOOLMASTER: What is? …
SEXTON: That we’ve been stirred
more than we dare admit.
SCHOOLMASTER: What nonsense! Do be quiet,
sexton! We’re both grown men,
not silly maids at school.
Discipline! Discipline!
Exit to one side.
SEXTON [to himself]:
Pah! Sexton, you’re a fool;
you’ll blether yourself sick.
‘I think that we’ve been stirred …’
Suppose the dean had heard!
What was it that I saw …?
Agh, I don’t want to know!
Idle hands, idle talk …
Exit on the other side. The organ is suddenly heard very loudly, and the playing ends with a shattering discord. Shortly afterwards BRAND comes out of the church.
BRAND: What have I made? Not music, not
music! Cries wrung from music’s throat!
Splayed chords of discord, a groan
rising in the place of praise, the organ
stormed, faltered; as if the Lord sat
in the empty choir, raging and quiet,
rebuking with His presence the voice
of thanksgiving and sacrifice.
‘Come, let us rebuild the Lord’s house,’
how splendid that sounded! Promise
like fulfilment, a temple hall
sacred to the immortal will.
High-arching over the world’s woes,
my great church: what a vision it was!
O Agnes, if you hadn’t died,
things would be different indeed.
Heaven and home were near your heart.
You were the laurel of true life.
[Notices the preparations for the festival.]
Those garlands, flags on every roof,
the people swarming to my house,
I’m scorched and frozen by this praise!
God grant me light, or cast me out
to the oblivion of the pit!