Striding out, with sword in hand,
Where the fight"—
 

(He stops abruptly, at the entrance of the FATHER, the MOTHER, LAURA and MATHILDE, who have come hurriedly from the breakfast table. A long pause.)

Laura. Axel, dear!

Mathilde. What, all by himself?

Mother. Do you think you are at a ball?

Father. And playing the part of musician as well as dancer?

Axel. I am amusing myself.

Father. With our furniture?

Axel. I only wanted to see if it was possible to move it.

Mother. If it was possible to move it?

Laura. But what were you shouting about?

Axel. I only wanted to try if I had any voice left.

Laura. If you had any voice left?

Mother. There is a big wood near the house, where you can practise that.

Father. And a waterfall—if you are anxious to emulate Demosthenes.

Laura. Axel, dear—are you out of your mind?

Axel. No, but I think I soon shall be.

Mother. Is there anything wrong?

Axel. Yes, a great deal.

Mother. What is it? Some unpleasant news by post?

Axel. No, not that—but I am unhappy.

Mother. Two days after your wedding?

Father. You have a very odd way of showing it.

Axel. I am taken like that sometimes.

Mother. But what is it? Evidently you are not as happy as we hoped you would be. Confide in us, Axel; we are your parents now, you know.

Axel. It is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but have not had the courage to mention.

Mother. Why? Aren't we good to you?

Axel. You are much too good to me.

Father. What do you mean by that?

Axel. That everything is made far too smooth for me here; my faculties get no exercise; I cannot satisfy my longing for activity and conflict—nor my ambition.

Father. Dear me! What do you want, if you please?

Axel. I want to work for myself, to owe my position in life to my own efforts—to become something.

Father. Really.—What a foolish idea! (Moves towards the door.)

Mother. But an idea we must take an interest in. He is our child's husband now, remember. What do you want to be, my boy? Member of Parliament?

Axel. No; but my uncle, who has about the largest legal practice in these parts, offered long ago to hand it over to me.

Mother. But you wouldn't be able to look after it from here, would you, Axel?

Father (at the door). A ridiculous idea!—Come back to breakfast. (Turns to go.)

Mother. That is true, isn't it? You couldn't look after it from here?

Axel. No; but I can move into town.

All. Move into town? (A pause. The FATHER turns back from the door.)

Father. That is still more impossible, of course.

Mother. There must be something at the bottom of this. Is anything worrying you? (Lowering her voice.) Are you in debt?

Axel. No, thanks to the kindness of you two. You have freed me from that.

Mother. Then what is it, Axel? You have been so, strange lately—what is it, my dear boy?

Father. Nonsensical ideas—probably his stomach is disordered. Remember the last time I ate lobster!—Come along in and have a glass of sherry, and you will forget all about it.

Axel. No, it isn't a thing one can forget. It is always in my thoughts—more and more insistently. I must have work for my mind—some outlet for my ambition. I am bored here.

Mother. Two days after your wedding!

Father. Set to work then, for heaven's sake! What is there to hinder you? Would you like to take charge of one of my farms? Or to start some improvements on the estate?—or anything you please! I have no doubt you have ideas, and I will provide the money—only do not let us have any of this fuss!

Axel. But then I shall be indebted to you for everything, and shall feel dependent.

Father. So you would rather feel indebted to your uncle?

Axel. He will give me nothing. I must buy it from him.

Father. Really!—How?

Axel. With my work and my—. Oh well, I suppose you would lend me a little capital?

Father. Not a penny.

Axel. But why?

Father. I will tell you why. Because my son in law must be my son-in-law, and not a speculating lawyer who sits with his door open and a sign hung out to beg for custom.

Axel. Is a lawyer's profession a dishonourable one, then?

Father. No, it is not. But you have been received into one of the oldest and richest families in the country, and you owe some respect to its traditions. Generation after generation, from time immemorial, the heads of our family have been lords of the manor—not office seekers or fortune hunters. The honourable offices I have held have all been offered to me and not sought by me; and I am not going to have you chattering about your university degree or your talents. You shall stay quietly here, and you will be offered more than you want.

Mother. Come, come, my dear, don't get heated over it; that always makes you so unwell. Let us arrive at some arrangement without wrangling. Axel, you must be reasonable; you know he cannot stand any over-exertion. Laura, get your father a glass of water. Come, my dear, let us go back to the dining-room.

Father. Thanks, I have no appetite left now.

Mother. There, you see!—Axel, Axel!

Laura. For shame, Axel!

Mother. Sit down, dear, sit down! My goodness, how hot you are!

Father. It is so warm in here.

Mother. That is the stove. Shut it down, Mathilde!

Laura (to AXEL). You are a nice one, I must say!

Father. The chairs—put them straight! (They do so.) And the table! (They do so.) That is better.

Mother. That is the worst of a stranger in the house—something of this sort may so easily happen.

Father. But a thing like this!—I have never in my life been contradicted before.

Mother. It is for the first and last time! He will soon learn who you are and what is due to you.

Father. And to think that, the first time, it should be my son-in-law that—

Mother. He will regret it for the rest of your life, you may be sure, and when you are gone he will have no peace of mind. We can only hope that the atmosphere of affection in this house will improve him. Really, lately, Axel has behaved as if he were bewitched.

Laura. Yes, hasn't he?

Mother. Good gracious, Laura, do you mean that you—

Laura. No, I didn't mean anything.

Mother. Laura, are you trying to conceal something?

Father. And from us? (Gets up.) Are things as bad as that?

Laura. I assure you, dear people, it is nothing; it is only—

Father and Mother (together). Only—?

Laura. No, no, it is nothing—only you frighten me so.

Father and Mother (together). She is crying!

Mathilde. She is crying!

Father. Now, sir—why is she crying?

Laura. But, father, father—look, I am not crying the least bit.

Mother and Mathilde. Yes, she is crying!

Axel. Yes—and will cry every day until we make a change here! (A pause, while they all look at him.) Well, as so much has been said, it may as well all come out. Our marriage is not a happy one, because it lacks the most essential thing of all.

Mother. Merciful heavens, what are you saying!

Father. Compose yourself; let me talk to him. What do you mean, sir?

Axel. Laura does not love me—

Laura. Yes, that is what he says!

Axel. She hasn't the least idea what love means, and will never learn as long as she is in her father's house.

Mother and Father. Why?

Axel. Because she lives only for her parents; me, she looks upon merely as an elder brother who is to assist her in loving them.

Mother. Is that so distasteful to you, then?

Axel. No, no. I am devoted to you and grateful to you, and I am proud of being your son; but it is only through her that I am that—and she has never yet really taken me to her heart. I am quite at liberty to go away or to stay, as I please; she is a fixture here. There is never one of her requests to me, scarcely a single wish she expresses—indeed, scarcely a sign of endearment she shows me, that she has not first of all divided up into three portions; and I get my one-third of it, and get it last or not at all.

Mother. He is jealous—and of us!

Father. Jealous of us!

Laura. Yes, indeed he is, mother.

Father. This is mere fancy, Axel—a ridiculous idea. Do not let any one else hear you saying that.

Axel. No, it is neither mere fancy nor is it ridiculous. It colours the whole of our relations to one another; it gnaws at my feelings, and then I torment her, make you angry, and lead an idle, empty, ill-tempered existence—

Father. You are ill, there is no doubt about it.

Axel. I am, and you have made me ill.

Father and Mother (together). We have?

Father. Please be a little—

Axel. You allow her to treat me simply as the largest sized of all the dolls you have given her to play with. You cannot bear to see her give away any more of her affection than she might give to one of her dolls.

Father. Please talk in a more seemly manner! Please show us a proper respect—

Axel. Forgive me, my dear parents, if I don't. What I mean is that a child cannot be a wife, and as long as she remains with you she will always be a child.

Mother. But, Axel, did we not tell you she was only a child—

Father. We warned you, we asked you to wait a year or two—

Mother. Because we could not see that she loved you sufficiently.

Father. But your answer was that it was just the child in her that you loved.

Mother. Just the child's innocence and simplicity. You said you felt purer in her presence; indeed, that she sometimes made you feel as if you were in church. And we, her father and mother, understood that, for we had felt it ourselves.

Father. We felt that just as much as you, my son.

Mother. Do you remember one morning, when she was asleep, that you said her life was a dream which it would be a sin to disturb?

Father. And said that the mere thought of her made you tread more softly for fear of waking her.

Axel. That is quite true. Her childlike nature shed happiness upon me, her gentle innocence stilled me. It is quite true that I felt her influence upon my senses like that of a beautiful morning.

Father. And now you are impatient with her for being a child!

Axel. Exactly! At the time when I was longing to lead her to the altar, I daresay I only thought of her as an inspiration to my better self and my best impulses. She was to me what the Madonna is to a good Catholic; but now she has become something more than that. The distance between us no longer exists; I cannot be satisfied with mere adoration, I must love; I cannot be satisfied with kneeling to her, I need my arms around her. Her glance has the same delicacy it always had, the same innocence; but I can no longer sit and gaze at her by the hour. Her glance must lose itself in mine in complete surrender. Her hand, her arm, her mouth are the same as they were; but I need to feel her hand stroking my hair, her arm round my neck, her mouth on mine; her thoughts must embrace mine and be like sunshine in my heart. She was a symbol to me, but the symbol has become flesh and blood. When first she came into my thoughts it was as a child; but I have watched her day by day grow into a woman, whose shyness and ignorance make her turn away from me, but whom I must possess. (LAURA moves quickly towards him.)

Mother. He loves our child!

Father. He loves her! (Embraces his wife.) What more is there to say, then? Everything is as it should be. Come along and have a glass of sherry!

Axel. No, everything is not as it should be. I can get her gratitude sometimes in a lucky moment, but not her heart. If I am fond of a certain thing, she is not. If I wish a thing, she wishes the opposite—for instance, if it's only a question of going to a ball, she won't take any pleasure in it unless her mother can go too.

Mother. Good heavens, is it nothing but that!

Laura. No, mother, it is nothing else; it is this ball.

Father. Then for any sake go to the ball! You are a couple of noodles. Come along, now.

Axel. The ball? It is not the ball. I don't care a bit about the ball.

Laura. No, that is just it, mother. When he gets what he wants, it turns out that it wasn't what he wanted at all, but something quite different. I don't understand what it is.

Axel. No, because it is not a question of any one thing, but of our whole relations to one another. Love is what I miss; she does not know what it means, and never will know—as long as she remains at home here. (A pause.)

Mother (slowly). As long as she remains at home?

Father (coming nearer to him, and trembling slightly). What do you mean by that?

Axel. It will be only when Laura finds she can no longer lean upon her parents, that she may possibly come to lean upon me.

Mother. What does he mean?

Father. I don't understand—

Axel. If she is to be something more than a good daughter—if she is to be a good wife—Laura must go away from here.

Mother. Laura go away?

Father. Our child?

Laura (to her MOTHER). Mother!

Axel. It would be wronging her whom I love so deeply, it would be wronging myself, and wronging you who mean so well, if now, when the power is in my hands, I had not the spirit to make use of it. Here, Laura lives only for you; when you die, life will be over for her. But that is not what marriage means, that is not what she promised at the altar, and that is what I cannot submit to. To go on like this will only make us all unhappy; and that is why Laura must go with me! (The MOTHER starts forward; LAURA goes to MATHILDE.)

Father. You cannot mean what you say.

Axel. I am in deadly earnest, and no one can shake my resolution.

Mother. Then Heaven have mercy on us! (A pause.)

Father. You know, Axel, that God gave us five children; and you know, too, that He took four away from us again. Laura is now our only child, our only joy.

Mother. We can't bear to lose her, Axel! She has never been away from us a single day since she was born. She is the spoilt child of our sorrow; if death itself claimed her, we should have to hold fast on to her.

Father. Axel, you are not a wicked man; you have not come amongst us to make us all unhappy?

Axel. If I were to give in now, this state of things would occur again every week or so, and none of us could stand that. For that reason, my dear parents, prove yourselves capable of a sacrifice. Let us put an end to it once for all—and let Laura move into town with me next week.

Father. Good heavens—it is impossible!

Mother. You won't have the heart to do that. Look at her, and then say that again! (AXEL turns away.) No, I knew you could not. (To the FATHER.) You talk to him! Tell him the truth, set him right, since he has broken in upon a good and loving family only to bring misfortune to it.

Father. In this house, as far back as I can remember, no hard words have ever been used. It seems to me like some evil dream, that I am struggling to wake out of and cannot! (A pause.) Mr. Hargaut, when we gave our daughter to you, we made no conditions. We admitted you into a happy family, to a position of wealth, to a promising future; and we expected, in return, some little affection, some little appreciation—at least some little respect. But you behave like—like a stranger, who is admitted to one's intimacy and good offices, and then one morning goes off with the most valuable possessions in the house—like an ungrateful, cruel—! We have confided our child, the dearest, sweetest child, our only child, to—a man without a heart! We were two happy parents, rich in her love—parents whom every one envied and we now are two poor bereaved wretches, who must creep away together into a corner in their unhappy disillusionment. (Sits down.)

Mother. And this is the way you can treat the man who has given you everything! What answer have you to give him?

Axel. It makes my heart bleed. If I had thought it would be as hard as this, indeed I would never have begun it; but if we leave the matter unsettled, now that it has been broached, we shall never be on proper terms with one another again. Of that I am certain. If it is a matter that pains us all, for that very reason let us go through with it and get it settled.

Father. Poor confiding fools that we have been!

Mother. Can't you give us some respite, so that we may think things over quietly? This is simply tearing us apart.

Axel. It would only prolong your pain, and it would end in your hating me. No, it must be done now—at once; otherwise it will never be done.

Mother. Oh dear, oh dear! (Sits down.)

Father. Axel! Listen to us for a moment! It is quite possible you may be in the right; but for that very reason I beg you—I, who have never yet begged anything of any one—I beg you, be merciful! I am an old man, and cannot stand it—and she (looking at his wife) still less.

Axel. Ah, I am not hard-hearted—but I must try to be resolute. If I lose now, I shall be losing her for life, I know. Therefore she shall go with me!

Mother (springing up). No, she shall not! If you loved her, as you say you do, you hypocrite, you would remain where she is—and here she shall stay!

Laura (who has been standing beside MATHILDE, goes to her MOTHER). Yes, to my dying day.

Father (getting up). No! We must not alter God's law. It is written: "A man shall forsake his father and his mother, and cleave only unto his wife"—and in the same way she must cleave only to him. Laura shall go when he wishes.

Laura. Father, can you—have you the heart to—?

Father. No, I haven't the heart to, my child. But I shall do it nevertheless, because it is right. Oh, Laura!—(Embraces her. The MOTHER joins her embrace to his.)

Mathilde (to AXEL). You Jesuit!—You have no consideration, no mercy; you trample upon hearts as you would upon the grass that grows in your path. But you shall not find this so easy as you think. It is true she is a child—but I shall go with her! I don't know you, and I don't trust you. (Clenches her fist.) But I shall watch over her!

[Curtain.]