The same room—except that the sofa has been slightly moved, and one of the Japanese cotton-wool frogs has fallen into the fire-place. Mrs. Linden sits and reads a book—but without understanding a single line.

Mrs. Linden

[Laying down her book, as a light tread is heard outside.] Here he is at last! [Krogstad comes in, and stands in the doorway.] Mr. Krogstad, I have given you a secret rendezvous in this room, because it belongs to my employer, Mr. Helmer, who has lately discharged you. The etiquette of Norway permits these slight freedoms on the part of a female cashier.

Krogstad

It does. Are we alone? [Nora is heard overhead dancing the Tarantella.] Yes, I hear Mrs. Helmer's fairy footfall above. She dances the Tarantella now – by-and-by she will dance to another tune! [Changing his tone.] I don't exactly know why you should wish to have this interview – after jilting me as you did, long ago, though?

Mrs. Linden

Don't you? I do. I am a widow – a Norwegian widow. And it has occurred to me that there may be a nobler side to your nature somewhere – though you have not precisely the best of reputations.

Krogstad

Right. I am a forger, and a money-lender; I am on the staff of the Norwegian Punch– a most scurrilous paper. More, I have been blackmailing Mrs. Helmer by trading on her fears, like a low cowardly cur. But, in spite of all that – [clasping his hands] – there are the makings of a fine man about me yet, Christina!

Mrs. Linden

I believe you – at least, I'll chance it. I want some one to care for, and I'll marry you.

Krogstad

[Suspiciously.] On condition, I suppose, that I suppress the letter denouncing Mrs. Helmer?

Mrs. Linden

How can you think so? I am her dearest friend; but I can still see her faults, and it is my firm opinion that a sharp lesson will do her all the good in the world. She is much too comfortable. So leave the letter in the box, and come home with me.

Krogstad

I am wildly happy! Engaged to the female cashier of the manager who has discharged me, our future is bright and secure!

[He goes out; and Mrs. Linden sets the furniture straight; presently a noise is heard outside, and Helmer enters, dragging Nora in. She is in fancy dress, and he in an open black domino.

Nora

I shan't! It's too early to come away from such a nice party. I won't go to bed!

[She whimpers

Helmer

[Tenderly.] There'sh a naughty lil' larkie for you, Mrs. Linen! Poshtively had to drag her 'way! She'sh a capricious lil' girl – from Capri. 'Scuse me! – 'fraid I've been and made a pun. Shan' 'cur again! Shplendid champagne the Consul gave us – 'counts for it! [Sits down smiling.] Do you knit, Mrs. Cotton?.. You shouldn't. Never knit. 'Broider. [Nodding to her, solemnly.] 'Member that. Alwaysh 'broider. More – [hiccoughing] – Oriental! Gobblesh you! – goo'ni!

Mrs. Linden

I only came in to – to see Nora's costume. Now I've seen it, I'll go.

[Goes out

Helmer

Awful bore that woman – hate boresh! [Looks at Nora, then comes nearer.] Oh, you prillil squillikins, I do love you so! Shomehow, I feel sho lively thishevenin'!

Nora

[Goes to other side of table.] I won't have all that, Torvald!

Helmer

Why? ain't you my lil' lark – ain't thish our lil' cage? Ver-well, then. [A ring.] Rank! confound it all! [Enter DR. Rank.] Rank, dear old boy, you've been [hiccoughs] going it upstairs. Cap'tal champagne, eh? 'Shamed of you, Rank!

[He sits down on sofa, and closes his eyes gently

Dr. Rank

Did you notice it? [With pride.] It was almost incredible the amount I contrived to put away. But I shall suffer for it to-morrow. [Gloomily.] Heredity again! I wish I was dead! I do.

Nora

Don't apologise. Torvald was just as bad; but he is always so good-tempered after champagne.

Dr. Rank

Ah, well, I just looked in to say that I haven't long to live. Don't weep for me, Mrs. Helmer, it's chronic – and hereditary too. Here are my P.P.C. cards. I'm a fading flower. Can you oblige me with a cigar?

Nora

[With a suppressed smile.] Certainly. Let me give you a light?

[Doctor Rank lights his cigar, after several ineffectual attempts, and goes out.

Helmer

[Compassionately.] Poo' old Rank – he'sh very bad to-ni'! [Pulls himself together.] But I forgot – Bishness – I mean, bu-si-ness – mush be 'tended to. I'll go and see if there are any letters. [Goes to box.] Hallo! some one's been at the lock with a hairpin – it's one of your hairpins!

[Holding it out to her

Nora

[Quickly.] Not mine – one of Bob's, or Ivar's – they both wear hairpins!

Helmer

[Turning over letters absently.] You must break them of it – bad habit! What a lot o' lettersh! double usual quantity. [Opens Krogstad's.] By Jove! [Reads it and falls back completely sobered.] What have you got to say to this?

Nora

[Crying aloud.] You shan't save me – let me go! I won't be saved!

Helmer

Save you, indeed! Who's going to save Me? You miserable little criminal. [Annoyed.] Ugh – ugh!

Nora

[With hardening expression.] Indeed, Torvald, your singing-bird acted for the best!

Helmer

Singing-bird! Your father was a rook – and you take after him. Heredity again! You have utterly destroyed my happiness. [Walks round several times.] Just as I was beginning to get on, too!

Nora

I have – but I will go away and jump into the water.

Helmer

What good will that do me? People will say I had a hand in this business. [Bitterly.] If you must forge, you might at least put your dates in correctly! But you never had any principle! [A ring.] The front-door bell! [A fat letter is seen to fall into the box; Helmer takes it, opens it, sees enclosure, and embraces Nora.] Krogstad won't split. See, he returns the forged I.O.U.! Oh, my poor little lark, what you must have gone through! Come under my wing, my little scared song-bird… Eh? you won't! Why, what's the matter now?

Nora

[With cold calm.] I have wings of my own, thank you, Torvald, and I mean to use them!

Helmer

What – leave your pretty cage, and [pathetically] the old cock bird, and the poor little innocent eggs!

Nora

Exactly. Sit down, and we will talk it over first. [Slowly.] Has it ever struck you that this is the first time you and I have ever talked seriously together about serious things?

Helmer

Come, I do like that! How on earth could we talk about serious things when your mouth was always full of macaroons?

Nora

[Shakes her head.] Ah, Torvald, the mouth of a mother of a family should have more solemn things in it than macaroons! I see that now, too late. No, you have wronged me. So did papa. Both of you called me a doll, and a squirrel, and a lark! You might have made something of me – and instead of that, you went and made too much of me – oh, you did!

Helmer

Well, you didn't seem to object to it, and really I don't exactly see what it is you do want!

Nora

No more do I – that is what I have got to find out. If I had been properly educated, I should have known better than to date poor papa's signature three days after he died. Now I must educate myself. I have to gain experience, and get clear about religion, and law, and things, and whether Society is right or I am – and I must go away and never come back any more till I am educated!

Helmer

Then you may be away some little time? And what's to become of me and the eggs meanwhile?

Nora

That, Torvald, is entirely your own affair. I have a higher duty than that towards you and the eggs. [Looking solemnly upward.] I mean my duty towards Myself!

Helmer

And all this because – in a momentary annoyance at finding myself in the power of a discharged cashier who calls me "I say, Torvald," I expressed myself with ultra-Gilbertian frankness! You talk like a silly child!

Nora

Because my eyes are opened, and I see my position with the eyes of Ibsen. I must go away at once, and begin to educate myself.

Helmer

May I ask how you are going to set about it?

Nora

Certainly. I shall begin – yes, I shall begin with a course of the Norwegian theatres. If that doesn't take the frivolity out of me, I don't really know what will!

[She gets her bonnet and ties it tightly

Helmer

Then you are really going? And you'll never think about me and the eggs any more! Oh, Nora!

Nora

Indeed, I shall – occasionally – as strangers. [She puts on a shawl sadly, and fetches her dressing-bag.] If I ever do come back, the greatest miracle of all will have to happen. Good-bye!

[She goes out through the hall; the front door is heard to bang loudly.

Helmer

[Sinking on a chair.] The room empty? Then she must be gone! Yes, my little lark has flown! [The dull sound of an unskilled latchkey is heard trying the lock; presently the door opens, and Nora, with a somewhat foolish expression, reappears.] What? back already! Then you are educated?

Nora

[Puts down dressing-bag.] No, Torvald, not yet. Only, you see, I found I had only threepence-halfpenny in my purse, and the Norwegian theatres are all closed at this hour – and so I thought I wouldn't leave the cage till to-morrow – after breakfast.

Helmer

[As if to himself.] The greatest miracle of all has happened. My little bird is not in the bush just yet!

[Nora takes down a showily-bound dictionary from the shelf and begins her education; Helmer fetches a bag of macaroons, sits near her, and tenders one humbly. A pause. Nora repulses it, proudly. He offers it again. She snatches at it suddenly, still without looking at him, and nibbles it thoughtfully as Curtain falls.

HEDDA GABLER

ACT FIRST

Scene —A sitting-room cheerfully decorated in dark colours. Broad doorway, hung with black crape, in the wall at back, leading to a back drawing-room, in which, above a sofa in black horsehair, hangs a posthumous portrait of the late General Gabler. On the piano is a handsome pall. Through the glass panes of the back drawing-room window are seen a dead wall and a cemetery. Settees, sofas, chairs, &c., handsomely upholstered in black bombazine, and studded with small round nails. Bouquets of immortelles and dead grasses are lying everywhere about.

Enter Aunt Julie (a good-natured-looking lady in a smart hat.)

Aunt Julie

Well, I declare, if I believe George or Hedda are up yet! [Enter George Tesman, humming, stout, careless, spectacled.] Ah, my dear boy, I have called before breakfast to inquire how you and Hedda are after returning late last night from your long honeymoon. Oh, dear me, yes; am I not your old aunt, and are not these attentions usual in Norway?

George

Good Lord, yes! My six months' honeymoon has been quite a little travelling scholarship, eh? I have been examining archives. Think of that! Look here, I'm going to write a book all about the domestic interests of the Cave-dwellers during the Deluge. I'm a clever young Norwegian man of letters, eh?

Aunt Julie

Fancy your knowing about that too! Now, dear me, thank Heaven!

George

Let me, as a dutiful Norwegian nephew, untie that smart, showy hat of yours. [Unties it, and pats her under the chin.] Well, to be sure, you have got yourself really up – fancy that!

[He puts hat on chair close to table

Aunt Julie

[Giggling.] It was for Hedda's sake – to go out walking with her in. [Hedda approaches from the back-room; she is pallid, with cold, open, steel-grey eyes; her hair is not very thick, but what there is of it is an agreeable medium brown.] Ah, dear Hedda!

[She attempts to cuddle her

Hedda

[Shrinking back.] Ugh, let me go, do! [Looking at Aunt Julie's hat.] Tesman, you must really tell the housemaid not to leave her old hat about on the drawing-room chairs. Oh, is it your hat? Sorry I spoke, I'm sure!

Aunt Julie

[Annoyed.] Good gracious, little Mrs. Hedda; my nice new hat that I bought to go out walking with you in!

George

[Patting her on the back.] Yes, Hedda, she did, and the parasol too! Fancy, Aunt Julie always positively thinks of everything, eh?

Hedda

[Coldly.] You hold your tongue. Catch me going out walking with your aunt! One doesn't do such things.

George

[Beaming.] Isn't she a charming woman? Such fascinating manners! My goodness, eh? Fancy that!

Aunt Julie

Ah, dear George, you ought indeed to be happy – but [brings out a flat package wrapped in newspaper] look here, my dear boy!

George

[Opens it.] What? my dear old morning shoes! my slippers! [Breaks down.] This is positively too touching, Hedda, eh? Do you remember how badly I wanted them all the honeymoon? Come and just have a look at them – you may!

Hedda

Bother your old slippers and your old aunt too! [aunt Julie goes out annoyed, followed by George, still thanking her warmly for the slippers; Hedda yawns; George comes back and places his old slippers reverently on the table.] Why, here comes Mrs. Elvsted —another early caller! She had irritating hair, and went about making a sensation with it – an old flame of yours, I've heard.

Enter Mrs. Elvsted; she is pretty and gentle, with copious wavy white-gold hair and round prominent eyes, and the manner of a frightened rabbit.

Mrs. Elvsted

[Nervous.] Oh, please, I'm so perfectly in despair. Ejlert Lövborg, you know, who was our tutor; he's written such a large new book. I inspired him. Oh, I know I don't look like it – but I did – he told me so. And, good gracious! now he's in this dangerous wicked town all alone, and he's a reformed character, and I'm so frightened about him; so, as the wife of a sheriff twenty years older than me, I came up to look after Mr. Lövborg. Do ask him here – then I can meet him. You will? How perfectly lovely of you! My husband's so fond of him!

Hedda

George, go and write an invitation at once; do you hear? [George looks around for his slippers, takes them up and goes out.] Now we can talk, my little Thea. Do you remember how I used to pull your hair when we met on the stairs, and say I would scorch it off? Seeing people with copious hair always does irritate me.

Mrs. Elvsted

Goodness, yes, you were always so playful and friendly, and I was so afraid of you. I am still. And please, I've run away from my husband. Everything around him was distasteful to me. And Mr. Lövborg and I were comrades – he was dissipated, and I got a sort of power over him, and he made a real person out of me – which I wasn't before, you know; but, oh, I do hope I'm real now. He talked to me and taught me to think – chiefly of him. So, when Mr. Lövborg came here, naturally I came too. There was nothing else to do! And fancy, there is another woman whose shadow still stands between him and me! She wanted to shoot him once, and so, of course, he can never forget her. I wish I knew her name – perhaps it was that red-haired opera-singer?

Hedda

[With cold self-command.] Very likely – but nobody does that sort of thing here. Hush! Run away now. Here comes Tesman with Judge Brack. [Mrs. Elvsted goes out; George comes in with Judge Brack, who is a short and elastic gentleman, with a round face, carefully brushed hair, and distinguished profile.] How awfully funny you do look by daylight, Judge!

Brack

[Holding his hat and dropping his eye-glass.] Sincerest thanks. Still the same graceful manners, dear little Mrs. Hed – Tesman! I came to invite dear Tesman to a little bachelor-party to celebrate his return from his long honeymoon. It is customary in Scandinavian society. It will be a lively affair, for I am a gay Norwegian dog.

George

Asked out – without my wife! Think of that! Eh? Oh, dear me, yes, I'll come!

Brack

By the way, Lövborg is here; he has written a wonderful book, which has made a quite extraordinary sensation. Bless me, yes!

George

Lövborg – fancy! Well, I am– glad. Such marvellous gifts! And I was so painfully certain he had gone to the bad. Fancy that, eh? But what will become of him now, poor fellow, eh? I am so anxious to know!

Brack

Well, he may possibly put up for the Professorship against you, and, though you are an uncommonly clever man of letters – for a Norwegian – it's not wholly improbable that he may cut you out!

George

But, look here, good Lord, Judge Brack! – [gesticulating] – that would show an incredible want of consideration for me! I married on my chance of getting that professorship. A man like Lövborg, too, who hasn't even been respectable, eh? One doesn't do such things as that!

Brack

Really? You forget we are all realistic and unconventional persons here, and do all kinds of odd things. But don't worry yourself!

[He goes out

George

[To Hedda.] Oh, I say, Hedda, what's to become of our fairyland now, eh? We can't have a liveried servant, or give dinner parties, or have a horse for riding. Fancy that!

Hedda

[Slowly, and wearily.] No, we shall really have to set up as fairies in reduced circumstances, now.

George

[Cheering up.] Still, we shall see Aunt Julie every day, and that will be something, and I've got back my old slippers. We shan't be altogether without some amusements, eh?

Hedda

[Crosses the floor.] Not while I have one thing to amuse myself with, at all events.

George

[Beaming with joy.] Oh, Heaven be praised and thanked for that! My goodness, so you have! And what may that be, Hedda, eh?

Hedda

[At the doorway, with suppressed scorn.] Yes, George you have the old slippers of the attentive aunt, and I have the horse-pistols of the deceased general!

George

[In an agony.] The pistols! Oh, my goodness! what pistols?

Hedda

[With cold eyes.] General Gabler's pistols – same which I shot – [recollecting herself] – no, that's Thackeray, not Ibsen – a very different person.

[She goes through the back drawing-room

George

[At doorway, shouting after her.] Dearest Hedda, not those dangerous things, eh? Why, they have never once been known to shoot straight yet! Don't! Have a catapult. For my sake, have a catapult!