The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Solness: But, seriously, what do you want to do here?

Hilda: I don't want that stupid imaginary kingdom—I've set my heart upon quite a different one.

Solness (gazing at her): I seem—it's strange—to have gone about all these years torturing myself with the effort to recover something—some experience which I seem to have forgotten. What a good thing it is that you have come to me now. I'd begun to be so afraid—so terribly afraid of the younger generation. One day they'll thunder at my door.

Hilda: Then I'd go out and open it. Let them come in to you on friendly terms, as it were.

Solness: No, no, no! The younger generation—it means retribution.

Hilda (with quivering lips): Can I be of any use to you, Mr. Solness?

Solness: Yes, you can. For you, too, come—under a new banner, it seems to me. Youth marshalled against youth! You are the very one I have most needed.

Hilda (with happy, wondering eyes): Oh, heavens, how lovely!

Solness: What?

Hilda: Then I have my kingdom!

Solness (involuntarily): Hilda!

Hilda (with quivering lips): Almost—I was going to say.

[She goes out. Solness follows her. Act II

Scene.—A small drawing-room in the house of Solness. Solness is examining Ragnar Brovik's drawings. Mrs. Solness is attending to her flowers.

Solness: Is she still asleep?

Mrs. Solness (looking at him): Is it Miss Wangel you are sitting there thinking about? She was up long ago.

Solness: Oh, was she? So we've found a use for one of our three nurseries, after all, Aline, now that Hilda occupies one of them.

Mrs. Solness: Yes, we have. Their emptiness is dreadful.

Solness: We'll get on far better after this, Aline. Things will be easier.

Mrs. Solness: Because she has come?

Solness (checking himself): I mean when once we've moved into our new house. It's for your sake I've built it.

Mrs. Solness: You do far too much for me.

Solness: I can't bear to hear you say that. Stick to what I said. Things 'll be easier in the new place.

Mrs. Solness (lamenting): Oh heavens, easier! Halvard, you can never build up a real home again for me. This is no home; It will be just as desolate, as empty there as here.

[Hilda Wangel comes in.

Hilda: Good-morning, Mr. Solness!

Solness (nods): Slept well?

Hilda: Deliciously! As if in a cradle. Oh, I lay and stretched myself like—like a princess. But I dreamed I was falling over a precipice. It's tremendously thrilling when you fall and fall——

Mrs. Solness (ready to go out): I must go into town now, Halvard. (To Hilda) And I'll try to get one or two things that may be of use to you.

Hilda: Oh, you dear, sweet Mrs. Solness. You're frightfully kind——

Mrs. Solness: It's only my duty.

[Mrs. Solness goes out.

Hilda: What made her say that about her duty? Doesn't it sting you?

Solness: H'm! Haven't thought much about it.

Hilda: Yes it does. Why should she talk in that way? She might have said something really warm and cordial, you understand.

Solness: Is that how you'd like to have it?

Hilda: Yes, precisely. (She wanders over to the table and looks over Ragnar's portfolio of drawings.) Are all these drawings yours?

Solness: No; they're drawn by a young man I employ.

Hilda (sits down): Then I suppose he's frightfully clever.

Solness: Oh, he's not bad, for my purpose.

Hilda: I can't understand why you should be so stupid as to go about teaching people. No one but yourself should be allowed to build.

Solness: I keep brooding on that very thought. (Calling her to the window) Look over there; that's my new house.

Hilda: It seems to have a tremendously high tower. Are there nurseries in that house, too?

Solness: Three—as there are here. But there will never be any child in them. We have had children, Aline and I, but we didn't keep them long, our two little boys. The fright Aline got when our old house was burnt down affected her health, and she failed to rear them. Yet that fire made me. I built no more churches; but cosy, comfortable homes for human beings. But my position as an artist has been paid for in Aline's happiness. I could have prevented that fire by seeing to a flue. But I didn't. And yet the flue didn't actually cause the fire. Yet it was my fault in a certain sense.

Hilda: I'm afraid you must be—ill.

Solness: I don't think I'll ever be quite of sound mind on that point.

[Ragnar enters, and begs a few kind words about his drawings to cheer his father, who is dying. Solness dismisses him almost brutally, and bids him never think of building on his own account.