The Master Builder and Other Plays Read online

  MRS SOLNESS and DR HERDAL go over to the LADIES who are standing closer to the steps, looking out across the garden. HILDE remains by the balustrade in the foreground. RAGNAR comes up to her.

  RAGNAR [in a half-whisper, stifling a laugh]: Miss Wangel – do you see all those young people down on the street?

  HILDE: Yes.

  RAGNAR: Those are friends of mine who want to see the master.

  HILDE: Why do they want to see him?

  RAGNAR: They want to see for themselves that he doesn’t dare climb to the top of his own house.

  HILDE: Oh they do, do they, those lads!

  RAGNAR [with indignant contempt]: He’s kept us down for so long, that man. Now we’re here to see how he likes being stuck down below.

  HILDE: Well, you won’t see it. Not this time.

  RAGNAR [smiling]: Oh? So where will we see him then?

  HILDE: High – high up next to the weather-vane, that’s where you’ll see him!

  RAGNAR [laughing]: Him! Hah, that’ll be the day!

  HILDE: He wants to climb to the top. And so you’re going to see him up there.

  RAGNAR: Oh, he wants to, yes! Of that I’ve no doubt. But the simple fact is that he can’t. His head will start to spin long, long before he’s even halfway up. He’ll have to crawl down again on his hands and knees!

  DR HERDAL [pointing down the garden]: Look! There’s the foreman going up the ladders.

  MRS SOLNESS: And he’ll have that wreath to carry too, of course. Oh, I do hope he’ll take care!

  RAGNAR [staring in disbelief and shouting]: But that’s –!

  HILDE [with a cry of delight]: It’s the master builder himself!

  MRS SOLNESS [screaming in horror]: Yes, it’s Halvard! Oh, dear God –! Halvard! Halvard!

  DR HERDAL: Ssh! Don’t scream at him!

  MRS SOLNESS [almost beside herself]: I must go to him! Make him come back down!

  DR HERDAL [holding her]: Stay perfectly still everyone! Not a sound!

  HILDE [motionless, following SOLNESS with her eyes]: He’s climbing and climbing. Higher and higher. And higher still! Look! Just look!

  RAGNAR [breathlessly]: Now he has to turn back. There’s nothing else for it.

  HILDE: He’s climbing and climbing. He’ll soon be at the top.

  MRS SOLNESS: Oh, I’ll die of fright. I cannot bear to watch!

  DR HERDAL: Well, don’t look up at him then.

  HILDE: There he is on the uppermost platform! At the very top!

  DR HERDAL: Don’t anyone move! D’you hear?

  HILDE [quietly exultant]: At last! At last! Now I see him great and free again!

  RAGNAR [almost speechless]: But this is –

  HILDE: This is how I’ve pictured him all through the past ten years. How solidly he stands! Terribly exciting, though. Look at him! Now he’s hanging the wreath on the spire!

  RAGNAR: This – it’s like watching something that’s quite impossible.

  HILDE: Ah, but that’s exactly what he is doing – the impossible! [With that indefinable look in her eyes] Can you see anyone else up there with him?

  RAGNAR: There is no one else.

  HILDE: Yes there is, he’s arguing with someone.

  RAGNAR: No, you’re wrong.

  HILDE: And I suppose you don’t hear singing in the air either?

  RAGNAR: It must be the wind in the treetops.

  HILDE: I can hear singing. A magnificent song! [Crying out in rapturous exultation] Look, look! Now he’s waving his hat in the air! He’s waving down at us! Oh, let’s wave back up at him! Because now, now it is finished!5 [She pulls the white shawl off the DOCTOR’s arm, waves it in the air and shouts up at the tower.] Hooray for Master Builder Solness!

  DR HERDAL: Stop it! Stop it! For God’s sake –!

  The LADIES on the veranda wave their handkerchiefs and cheers rise up from the street. Suddenly the cheering ceases, turning instead to cries of horror. Vaguely, through the trees, a body is seen plunging to earth along with planks and bits of wood.

  MRS SOLNESS AND THE LADIES [as one]: He’s falling! He’s falling!

  MRS SOLNESS sways, swoons backwards and is caught by the LADIES amid shouts and confusion.

  The CROWD on the street breaks down the fence and pours into the garden. DR HERDAL also rushes down. Brief pause.

  HILDE [eyes turned unwaveringly upwards, in stunned tones]: My master builder.

  RAGNAR [leaning, trembling, against the balustrade]: He must have been smashed to pieces. Killed outright.

  ONE OF THE LADIES [while MRS SOLNESS is carried into the house]: Run for the doctor –

  RAGNAR: My feet won’t budge –

  ANOTHER LADY: Well, call down to someone then!

  RAGNAR [tries to call out]: How is it? Is he alive?

  A VOICE [from the garden]: Solness the master builder is dead!

  MORE VOICES [closer to]: His head’s smashed in. – He fell straight into the quarry.

  HILDE [turns to RAGNAR and says softly]: I can’t see him up there now.

  RAGNAR: What a dreadful thing. So he wasn’t up to it after all.

  HILDE [with a sort of quiet, bewildered triumph]: But he got to the very top. And I heard harps playing in the air. [She waves her shawl above her head and cries with wild rapture] My – my master builder!

  LITTLE EYOLF

  A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

  * * *

  CHARACTERS

  ALFRED ALLMERS, landowner, man of letters, former tutor

  MRS RITA ALLMERS, his wife

  EYOLF, their child, age nine

  MISS1 ASTA ALLMERS, Alfred’s younger half-sister

  MR BORGHEIM, 2engineer

  THE RAT-MAID3

  The action takes place at Allmers’s estate by the fjord a couple of miles outside of town.

  Act One

  An elegant, lavishly appointed conservatory. Lots of furniture, flowers and plants. In the background,1 French windows are open on to a veranda. Wide view of the fjord. Wooded hillsides in the distance. In each of the side walls a doorway, the one on the right, farthest back, with double doors.To the right in the foreground a sofa with scatter cushions and throws. Around the sofa some chairs and a small table. To the left in the foreground a larger table with armchairs set round it. On this table sits an open travelling bag. It is early on a summer morning, the weather warm and sunny.

  MRS RITA ALLMERS stands by the table with her back turned to the right, unpacking the bag. She is a good-looking woman, quite tall, shapely, blonde, around thirty. She is wearing a light-coloured morning dress.

  After a few moments MISS ASTA ALLMERS enters through the door on the right, clad in a light-brown summer costume with hat, jacket and parasol. Under her arm she carries a rather large locked attaché case. She is slim, of average height, with dark hair and deep, solemn eyes. Twenty-five years old.

  ASTA [from the doorway]: Good morning, Rita dear!

  RITA [turning her head and nodding to her]: Well, well – is that you, Asta! Come from town so early in the day? All the way out here to us?

  ASTA [laying her outdoor things on a chair by the door]: Yes, I simply couldn’t rest. I felt I had to come out and see little Eyolf today. And you. [Places her attaché case on the table in front of the sofa] And so I took the steamer over.

  RITA [smiling at her]: And you didn’t happen to meet some good friend on board? Quite by chance, I mean.

  ASTA [placidly]: No, I didn’t meet anyone I knew. [Spies the travelling bag] But, Rita – what’s that over there?

  RITA [continuing to unpack]: Alfred’s bag. Don’t you recognize it?

  ASTA [happily, coming closer]: What! Has Alfred come home?

  RITA: Yes, would you believe it – he arrived quite unexpectedly on the night train.

  ASTA: Ah, so that was what I felt. That’s what drew me out here! – And he didn’t write in advance at all? Not so much as a postcard?

  RITA: Not a word.

  ASTA: Not even a telegram?


  RITA: Well, yes, it arrived an hour before he did. Very curt and cold. [Laughing] Isn’t that just like him, Asta?

  ASTA: Oh, yes. He keeps things so much to himself.

  RITA: Ah, but then it was all the nicer2 to have him back.

  ASTA: Yes, I’m sure it must have been.

  RITA: A whole fortnight before I expected to see him!

  ASTA: And all’s well with him? He’s not downhearted?

  RITA [snapping the travelling bag shut and smiling at her]: He looked positively transfigured when he walked through the door.

  ASTA: And wasn’t even a little tired?

  RITA: Oh, I think he was tired all right. Very tired, in fact. But then, he’d walked most of the way, poor man.

  ASTA: And the mountain air might well have been a bit too keen for him.

  RITA: No, I don’t believe that for a minute. I haven’t heard him cough once.

  ASTA: Well, there you are then! So it was a good thing after all that the doctor persuaded him to make that trip.

  RITA: Yes, well now that it’s finally over, I suppose –. But I have to tell you, I’ve had the most awful time of it, Asta. I’ve never wanted to talk about it. And with you so seldom coming out to see me –

  ASTA: Yes, that really wasn’t right of me, I suppose. But –

  RITA: Now, now – you had your school in town, I know. [Smiling] And our road-builder – he was away too, of course.

  ASTA: Oh, let’s not start that, Rita!

  RITA: Well, all right then. Let the road-builder pass. But how I have missed Alfred, Asta! How empty3 it was here! How desolate! Ugh, it was as if someone had been buried in this house –!

  ASTA: Oh, good heavens – it was only six – seven – weeks –

  RITA: Yes, but you have to remember that Alfred’s never been away from me before. Never for as much as a whole day. Never in all the ten years –

  ASTA: Well, then I’d say it was high time he got away for a while this year. He should have gone walking in the mountains every summer. He really should have.

  RITA [with a half smile]: Oh, how you do talk. If I was as – as sensible as you, I suppose I might have let him loose before – possibly. But I didn’t see how I could, Asta! I had the feeling that I would never get him back. Surely you can understand that?

  ASTA: No. But I suppose that’s because I don’t have anyone to lose.

  RITA [with a roguish smile]: Do you really not have anyone –?

  ASTA: Not that I know of. [Breaking off] But tell me Rita – where is Alfred? Is he asleep, perhaps?

  RITA: Oh, far from it. He was up just as early today as he always is.

  ASTA: Ah, so he can’t have been all that tired after all.

  RITA: Oh, last night he was. When he arrived. But he’s had Eyolf in there with him for over an hour now.

  ASTA: That poor pale little boy! Does he have to start studying and studying again?

  RITA [with a shrug]: Well, Alfred will have it, you know.

  ASTA: Yes, but I think you should set yourself against it, Rita.

  RITA [somewhat impatiently]: No – you know – I really cannot interfere in that. Alfred understands these things far better than I do, I’m sure. – And besides, what do you suggest Eyolf should do with himself? I mean, it’s not as if he can run around and play – like other children, can he?

  ASTA [firmly]: I’m going to speak to Alfred about this.

  RITA: Yes, dear, you do that. – Ah, look here –

  ALFRED ALLMERS enters through the door on the left, dressed in a summer suit, leading EYOLF by the hand. He is a slim, fine-boned man of thirty-six or thirty-seven, with gentle eyes, wispy brown hair and beard and a grave, thoughtful look about him. EYOLF wears a suit cut like a uniform, with gold braid and lion-embossed gilt buttons. He is lame and walks with a crutch under his left arm. His leg is paralysed. He is small for his age, sickly looking, but with fine, intelligent eyes.

  ALLMERS [dropping EYOLF’s hand and stepping joyfully forward, extending both hands to ASTA]: Asta! Dearest Asta! That you should be out here! That I should see you so soon!

  ASTA: I felt I had to –. Welcome home!

  ALLMERS [shaking her hands]: Thank you so much.

  RITA: Doesn’t he look splendid?

  ASTA [eyes fixed on him]: Marvellous. Quite marvellous! Such a sparkle in your eyes! Yes, well I expect you got a lot of writing done while you were away. [Exclaiming happily] Or maybe the book’s actually finished, Alfred?

  ALLMERS [shrugging]: The book –? Oh, that –

  ASTA: Yes, I thought it would go so smoothly for you if you could just get away.

  ALLMERS: I thought so too. But – it didn’t turn out that way at all, you see. In fact I haven’t written one line of my book.

  ASTA: You haven’t written –!

  RITA: So that’s it! I couldn’t understand why all that paper was still lying untouched in your bag.

  ASTA: But, Alfred dear, what were you doing all that time?

  ALLMERS [smiling]: Just walking, and thinking, thinking, thinking.

  RITA [putting her arm around his shoulder]: Thinking a little of those at home too?

  ALLMERS: Yes, you can be sure I did. A lot, in fact. Every single day.

  RITA [letting go of him]: Well, then everything’s all right, isn’t it.

  ASTA: But not written any of your book? And yet you look so happy and content? You don’t usually look like that. Not when your work’s not going well, I mean?

  ALLMERS: You’re right. But that’s because I was so stupid before, you see. Thinking, that gives scope4 for the best in us. What gets put down on paper isn’t worth much.

  ASTA [crying out]: Not worth much!

  RITA [laughing]: Alfred, have you gone mad!

  EYOLF [looking up at him trustingly]: Oh, but, Daddy – the things you write are worth something.

  ALLMERS [smiles and strokes his hair]: Yes, yes, if you say so –. But mark my words – there’s someone coming after me5 who will do it better.

  EYOLF: Who will that be? Oh, tell me!

  ALLMERS: All in good time. He’ll come, you’ll see, and make himself known.

  EYOLF: And what will you do then?

  ALLMERS [gravely]: Then I’ll go back to the mountains –

  RITA: Shame on you, Alfred!

  ALLMERS: – up to the heights and the wide-open spaces.

  EYOLF: Daddy, don’t you think I’ll soon be well enough to come with you?

  ALLMERS [painfully moved]: Yes, yes, maybe you will, my little lad.

  EYOLF: Because I think it would be so nice if I could go climbing in the mountains too.

  ASTA [changing the subject]: My, how trim and smart you’re looking today, Eyolf!

  EYOLF: Yes, don’t you think so, Aunt?

  ASTA: Yes indeed. Did you put on your new suit for Daddy?

  EYOLF: Yes, I asked Mummy if I could. Because I wanted Daddy to see me in it.

  ALLMERS [whispering to RITA]: You shouldn’t have given him a suit like that.

  RITA [softly]: Oh, but he’s been pestering me for so long. Begging for one. He would give me no peace.

  EYOLF: And do you know what, Daddy? – Mr Borgheim bought me a bow. And taught me to shoot with it, too.

  ALLMERS: Well, well, that’s just the thing for you, isn’t it, Eyolf.

  EYOLF: And next time he comes I’m going to ask him to teach me to swim as well.

  ALLMERS: To swim! Oh, now why would you want to do that!

  EYOLF: Well, because all the boys down on the beach, they can swim. I’m the only one who can’t.

  ALLMERS [moved, puts his arms around him]: You shall be allowed to learn anything you like. Anything you want.

  EYOLF: Oh, Daddy, do you know what I want more than anything?

  ALLMERS: What? Tell me.

  EYOLF: More than anything I want to learn to be a soldier.

  ALLMERS: Oh, little Eyolf, there are so many other things better than that.

  EYOLF: Yes, but when I grow up I’l
l have to be a soldier.6 You do know that, don’t you?

  ALLMERS [clenching his fists]: Yes, yes; well, we’ll see –

  ASTA [sitting down at the table on the left]: Eyolf! Come here to me and I’ll tell you something.

  EYOLF [going over to her]: What is it, Aunt?

  ASTA: Just fancy, Eyolf – I’ve seen the Rat-Maid.

  EYOLF: What! You’ve seen the Rat-Maid! Oh, you’re only teasing me!

  ASTA: No, it’s true. I saw her yesterday.

  EYOLF: So where did you see her?

  ASTA: I saw her on the road, outside of town.

  ALLMERS: I saw her as well, further inland.

  RITA [seated on the sofa]: Maybe we’ll get to see her too, Eyolf.

  EYOLF: Aunt, don’t you think it’s odd, her being called the Rat-Maid?

  ASTA: People just call her that because she travels up and down the country, driving out all the rats.

  ALLMERS: Her real name’s Miss Varg, I think.

  EYOLF: Varg? But that means a wolf.

  ALLMERS [patting him on the head]: You know that as well, do you, Eyolf?

  EYOLF [thoughtfully]: So maybe it’s true after all: that she turns into a werewolf at night. Do you think so, Daddy?

  ALLMERS: Oh, no, I don’t think so. – Now run on down to the garden and play for a while.

  EYOLF: Don’t you think it would be better if I took some books with me?

  ALLMERS: No, no books from now on. Why not go down to the beach instead, to the other boys.

  EYOLF [awkwardly]: No, Daddy, I don’t want to go down to the boys today.

  ALLMERS: Oh? Why not?

  EYOLF: Well, because I’m wearing this suit.

  ALLMERS [frowning]: Do they make fun of – of your nice clothes!

  EYOLF [evasively]: No, they wouldn’t dare. Because I’d punch them if they did.

  ALLMERS: Ah, I see – then what –?

  EYOLF: It’s just that they’re so rude and rough, those boys. And they say that I can’t ever be a soldier.

  ALLMERS [with pent-up indignation]: What makes them say that, do you think?

  EYOLF: I suppose they must be jealous of me. You see, Daddy, they’re all so poor that they have to go barefoot.

  ALLMERS [softly, in strangled tones]: Oh, Rita – how this gnaws7 at my heart!