(The same scene. The landscape is still obscured by Mist. MANDERSand MRS. ALVING come in from the dining-room.)Mrs. Alving (calls into the dining-room from the doorway). Aren't you coming in here, Oswald?
Oswald. No, thanks; I think I will go out for a bit.
Mrs. Alving. Yes, do; the weather is clearing a little. (She shuts the dining-room door, then goes to the hall door and calls.) Regina!
Regina (from without). Yes, ma'am?
Mrs. Alving. Go down into the laundry and help with the garlands.
Regina. Yes, ma'am.
(MRS. ALVING satisfies herself that she has gone, then shuts the door.)Manders. I suppose he can't hear us?
Mrs. Alving. Not when the door is shut. Besides, he is going out.
Manders. I am still quite bewildered. I don't know how I managed to swallow a mouthful of your excellent dinner.
Mrs. Alving (walking up and down, and trying to control her agitation). Nor I. But, what are we to do?
Manders. Yes, what are we to do? Upon my word I don't know; I am so completely unaccustomed to things of this kind.
Mrs. Alving. I am convinced that nothing serious has happened yet.
Manders. Heaven forbid! But it is most unseemly behaviour, for all that.
Mrs. Alving. It is nothing more than a foolish jest of Oswald's, you may be sure.
Manders. Well, of course, as I said, I am quite inexperienced in such matters; but it certainly seems to me--Mrs. Alving. Out of the house she shall go--and at once. That part of it is as clear as daylight--Manders. Yes, that is quite clear.
Mrs. Alving. But where is she to go? We should not be justified in--Manders. Where to? Home to her father, of course.
Mrs. Alving. To whom, did you say?
Manders. To her--. No, of course Engstrand isn't--. But, great heavens, Mrs. Alving, how is such a thing possible? You surely may have been mistaken, in spite of everything.
Mrs. Alving. There was no chance of mistake, more's the pity.
Joanna was obliged to confess it to me--and my husband couldn't deny it. So there was nothing else to do but to hush it up.
Manders. No, that was the only thing to do.
Mrs. Alving. The girl was sent away at once, and was given a tolerably liberal sum to hold her tongue. She looked after the rest herself when she got to town. She renewed an old acquaintance with the carpenter Engstrand; gave him a hint, Isuppose, of how much money she had got, and told him some fairy tale about a foreigner who had been here in his yacht in the summer. So she and Engstrand were married in a great hurry. Why, you married them yourself!
Manders. I can't understand it--, I remember clearly Engstrand's coming to arrange about the marriage. He was full of contrition, and accused himself bitterly for the light conduct he and his fiancee had been guilty of.
Mrs. Alving. Of course he had to take the blame on himself.
Manders. But the deceitfulness of it! And with me, too! Ipositively would not have believed it of Jacob Engstrand. I shall most certainly give him a serious talking to. And the immorality of such a marriage! Simply for the sake of the money--! What sum was it that the girl had?
Mrs. Alving. It was seventy pounds.
Manders. Just think of it--for a paltry seventy pounds to let yourself be bound in marriage to a fallen woman!
Mrs. Alving. What about myself, then?--I let myself be bound in marriage to a fallen man.
Manders. Heaven forgive you! What are you saying? A fallen man?
Mrs. Alving. Do you suppose my husband was any purer, when I went with him to the altar, than Joanna was when Engstrand agreed to marry her?
Manders. The two cases are as different as day from night.
Mrs. Alving. Not so very different, after all. It is true there was a great difference in the price paid, between a paltry seventy pounds and a whole fortune.
Manders. How can you compare such totally different things! Ipresume you consulted your own heart--and your relations.
Mrs. Alving (looking away from him). I thought you understood where what you call my heart had strayed to at that time.
Manders (in a constrained voice). If I had understood anything of the kind, I would not have been a daily guest in your husband's house.
Mrs. Alving. Well, at any rate this much is certain-- Ididn't consult myself in the matter at all.
Manders. Still you consulted those nearest to you, as was only right--your mother, your two aunts.
Mrs. Alving. Yes, that is true. The three of them settled the whole matter for me. It seems incredible to me now, how clearly they made out that it would be sheer folly to reject such an offer. If my mother could only see what all that fine prospect has led to!
Manders. No one can be responsible for the result of it. Anyway there is this to be said, that the match was made in complete conformity with law and order.
Mrs. Alving (going to the window). Oh, law and order! I often think it is that that is at the bottom of all the misery in the world, Manders. Mrs. Alving, it is very wicked of you to say that.
Mrs. Alving. That may be so; but I don't attach importance to those obligations and considerations any longer. I cannot! I must struggle for my freedom.
Manders. What do you mean?
Mrs. Alving (taping on the window panes). I ought never to have concealed what sort of a life my husband led. But I had not the courage to do otherwise then--for my own sake, either. I was too much of a coward.
Manders. A coward?
Mrs. Alving. If others had known anything of what happened, they would have said: "Poor man, it is natural enough that he should go astray, when he has a wife that has run away from him."Manders. They would have had a certain amount of justification for saying so.
Mrs. Alving (looking fixedly at him). If I had been the woman Iought, I would have taken Oswald into my confidence and said to him: "Listen, my son, your father was a dissolute man"--Manders. Miserable woman.
Mrs. Alving. --and I would have told him all I have told you, from beginning to end.
Manders. I am almost shocked at you, Mrs. Alving.
Mrs. Alving. I know. I know quite well! I am shocked at myself when I think of it. (Comes away from the window.) I am coward enough for that.
