Three Comedies

Riis (coming close up to her and speaking in an undertone). This is your doing! I see it clearly!

Mrs. Riis. I do not think you know what you are saying. (Goes out.)

Riis (coming forward). I really must apologise most humbly! It is the last thing I should ever have expected of Svava—because I pride myself that the obligations of courtesy have never been disregarded in my house before.

Mrs. Christensen. Perhaps something has happened?

Riis. I beg your pardon?—Good heavens!

Mrs. Christensen. Oh, do not misunderstand me! I only mean that young girls are so easily agitated, and then they do not like to show themselves.

Riis. All the same, Mrs. Christensen, all the same! At such a moment as this, too!—You really must excuse me, I shall have no peace till I find out for myself what has happened! (Hurries out.)

Christensen. If Alfred had been here, I suppose he would have been running about all over the park after these females, too.

Mrs. Christensen. Really, my dear!

Christensen. Aren't we alone?

Mrs. Christensen. Yes, but still—!

Christensen. Well, I say, as a certain famous man said before me: "What the devil was he doing in that galley?"

Mrs. Christensen. Do have a moment's patience! It is really necessary.

Christensen. Bah! Necessary! Riis is more afraid of a rupture than any of us. Did you see him just now?

Mrs. Christensen. Yes, of course I did, but—

Christensen. She has already gone much farther than she has any right to.

Mrs. Christensen. So Alfred thinks, too.

Christensen. Then he should have been here now, to say so. I asked him to come.

Mrs. Christensen. He is in love, and that makes a man a little timid.

Christensen. Nonsense!

Mrs. Christensen. Oh, that passes off when one is in love as often as you are. (Gets up.) Here they come!—No, not Svava.

Christensen. Is she not with them?

Mrs. Christensen. I don't see her.

Riis (appearing at the door). Here they are!

Mrs. Christensen. And your daughter too?

Riis. Yes, Svava too. She asked the others to go on ahead of her. I expect she wanted to collect herself a little.

Mrs. Christensen (sitting down again). Ah, you see, it was just what I thought, poor child!

Mrs. Riis (coming in). She will be here in a moment! (Goes up to MRS. CHRISTENSEN.) You must forgive her, Mrs. Christensen; she has had a bad time of it.

Mrs. Christensen. Bless my soul, of course I understand that! The first time one has an experience of this kind, it tells on one.

Christensen. This is positively beginning to get amusing!

[Enter NORDAN.]

Nordan. Here we are! She asked me to come on little ahead of her.

Riis. She is not going to keep us waiting any longer, I hope?

Nordan. She was just behind me.

Riis. Here she is! (Goes to the door to meet her; NORDAN and MRS. RIIS do the same from the other side of the room.)

Christensen. One would think she were the Queen of Sheba.

(SVAVA comes in, wearing her hat, and with her gloves and parasol in her hand. CHRISTENSEN and MRS. CHRISTENSEN get up from their seats. She bows slightly to them, and comes to the front of the stage on the right-hand side. All sit down in silence. NORDAN is at the extreme left, then MRS. RIIS, MRS. CHRISTENSEN and CHRISTENSEN. At the extreme right, but a little behind the others, is RIIS, who is sitting down one minute and standing the next.)

Mrs. Christensen. My dear Svava, we have come here to—well, you know what we have come for. What has happened has distressed us very much; but what is done cannot be undone. None of us can excuse Alfred. But all the same we think that he might be granted forgiveness, especially at the hands of one who must know that he loves her, and loves her sincerely. That makes it a different matter altogether, of course.

Christensen. Of course!

Riis. Of course!

Nordan. Of course!

Mrs. Christensen. And, even if you don't quite agree with me about that, I hope you will agree with me about Alfred himself. I mean to say, that we consider his character, my dear Svava, should vouch to you for his fidelity. I know that, if you require it, he will give you his word of honour that—

Mrs. Riis (getting up). No! No!

Mrs. Christensen. What is the matter, my dear Mrs. Riis?

Mrs. Riis. No words of honour! He has to take an oath when he marries, anyway.

Nordan. But surely two make it all the safer, Mrs. Riis?

Mrs. Riis. No, no! No oath! (Sits down again.)

Christensen. I was struck with our friend Dr. Nordan's remark. Tell me, my dear sir, do you also take it for granted that the sort of thing my son has done ought to be an absolute bar to marriage with an honourable woman?

Nordan. Quite the contrary! I am quite sure it never prevents any one getting married—and remarkably well married. It is only Svava that is behaving in an extraordinary manner in every respect.

Mrs. Christensen. I would not go so far as to say that; but there is one thing that Svava has overlooked. She is acting as if she were free. But she is not by any means free. A betrothal is equivalent to a marriage; at any rate, I am old-fashioned enough to consider it so, And the man to whom I have given my hand is thereby made my master and given authority over me, and I owe to him—as to a superior authority—my respect, whether he act well or ill. I cannot give him notice, or run away from him.

Riis. That is old-fashioned and sensible. I thank you heartily, Mrs. Christensen!

Nordan. And I too!

Mrs. Riis. But if it is too late after the betrothal—. (Checks herself.)

Mrs. Christensen. What do you mean, dear Mrs. Riis?

Mrs. Riis. Oh, nothing nothing at all.

Nordan. Mrs. Riis means that if it is too late after the betrothal, why do people not speak out before they are betrothed?

Riis. What a thing to say!

Christensen. Well, it wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it? I imagine proposals in future being worded somewhat in this way: "My dear Miss So-and-So, up to date I have had such and such a number of love affairs—that is to say, so many big ones and so many little ones." Don't you think it would be a capital way to lead the conversation on to—

Nordan.—to assuring her that she is the only one you have ever loved?

Christensen. Well, not exactly that, but—

Riis. Here comes Alfred!

Mrs. Riis. Alfred?

Mrs. Christensen. Yes, it really is he!

Riis (who has gone to the door to meet ALFRED). Ah, that is right! We are so glad you have come!

Christensen. Well, my boy?

Alfred. When it came to the point, I could not do anything else—I had to come here.

Christensen. I quite agree with you.

Riis. Yes, it was only the natural thing to do. (ALFRED comes forward and bows respectfully to SVAVA. She bows slightly, but without looking at him. He steps back again.)

Nordan. Good morning, my boy!

Alfred. Perhaps I have come at an inconvenient moment.

Riis. Not a bit of it! Quite the contrary!

Alfred. At the same time, it seems evident to me that my presence is not welcome to Miss Riis. (No one answers him.)

Mrs. Christensen. But it is a family council we are holding—isn't it, my dear girl?

Riis. I assure you, you are welcome! And we are all particularly anxious to hear what you have to say!

Christensen. That is so.

Alfred. I have not succeeded in getting a hearing yet, you know. I have been refused admittance repeatedly—both in person and when I wrote. So I thought that if I came now, perhaps I should get a hearing.

Riis. Of course. Who can object to that?

Nordan. You shall have your hearing.

Alfred. Perhaps I may take Miss Riis's silence to mean permission? In that case—well—it is nothing so very much that I have to say, either. It is merely to remind you that, when I asked for Miss Riis's hand, it was because I loved her with all my heart—her and no one else. I could not imagine any greater happiness, and any greater honour, than to be loved by her in return. And so I think still. (He pauses, as if he expected an answer. They all look at SVAVA.) What explanation I could have given of my own free will—indeed what explanation, under other circumstances, I should have felt impelled to give—I shall say nothing about now. But I owe no explanation! My honour demands that I should make point of that. It is my future that I owe to her. And with regard to that I must confess I have been hurt—deeply hurt—by the fact that Miss Riis could doubt me for a moment. Never in my life has any one doubted me before. With all respect, I must insist that my word shall be taken. (They are all silent.) That is all I have to say.

Mrs. Riis (getting up unwillingly). But, Alfred, suppose a woman, under the same circumstances, had come and said the same thing—who would believe her? (They are all silent. SVAVA bursts into tears.)

Mrs. Christensen. Poor child!

Riis. Believe her?

Mrs. Riis. Yes, believe her. Believe her if, after past like that, she came and assured us that she would make an honest wife?

Christensen. After a past like that?

Mrs. Riis. Perhaps that is putting it too harshly. But why should you require her to believe a man any more readily than a man would believe her? Because he would not believe her for a moment.

Riis (coming up behind her). Are you absolutely mad?

Christensen (half rising). Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen; the two young people must settle the affair now! (Sits down again.)

Alfred. I must confess I have never thought of what Mrs. Riis has just said, because such a thing never could happen. No man of honour would choose a woman of whose past he was not certain. Never!

Mrs. Riis. But what about a woman of honour, Alfred?

Alfred. Ah, that is quite different.

Nordan. To put it precisely: a woman owes a man both her past and her future; a man owes a woman only his future.

Alfred. Well, if you like to put it that way—yes.

Nordan (to SVAVA, as he gets up). I wanted you to postpone your answer, my child. But now I think you ought to answer at once. (SVAVA goes up to ALFRED, flings her glove in his face, and goes straight into her room. ALFRED turns and looks after her. RIIS disappears into his room on the right. Every one has risen from their seats. MRS. CHRISTENSEN takes ALFRED by the arm and goes nut with him; CHRISTENSEN follows them. MRS. RIIS is standing at the door of the room which SVAVA has locked after her.)

Nordan. That was throwing down a gauntlet, if you like!

Mrs. Riis (calling through the door). Svava!

Christensen (coming in and speaking to NORDAN, who has taken no notice of him and has not turned round). Then it is to be war?—Well, I fancy I know a thing or two about war. (Goes out. NORDAN turns round and stands looking after him.)

Mrs. Riis (still at the door). Svava! (RIIS comes rushing out of his room, with his hat on and his gloves and stick in his hand, and follows the CHRISTENSENS.) Svava!

ACT IIISCENE I

(SCENE.—DR. NORDAN'S garden, behind his neat one-storied house. He is sitting on a chair in the foreground reading. His old servant, THOMAS, opens the how door and looks out.)

Thomas. Doctor!

Nordan. What is it? (ALFRED comes into sight in the doorway.) Oh, it is you! (Gets up.) Well, my boy? You don't look up to much!

Alfred. No, but never mind that. Can you give me a bit of breakfast?

Nordan. Have you had no breakfast yet? Have you not been home then?—not been home all night?—not since yesterday? (Calls) Thomas!

Alfred. And when I have had something to eat, may I have a talk with you?

Nordan. Of course, my dear boy. (To THOMAS, who has come out of the house) Get some breakfast laid in that room, please (pointing to a window on the left).

Alfred. And may I have a wash too?

Nordan. Go with Thomas. I will be with you directly. (ALFRED and THOMAS go into the house. Then a carriage is heard stopping outside.) There is a carriage. Go and see who it is, Thomas. I won't see any patients! I am going away to-morrow.

Thomas. It is Mr. Christensen. (Goes into the house again.)

Nordan. Oho! (Goes to the window on the left.) Alfred!

Alfred (coming to the window). Yes?

Nordan. It is your father! If you do not want to be seen, pull down the blind. (The blind is dulled dawn.)

Thomas (showing in CHRISTENSEN). Will you come this way please, sir. (CHRISTENSEN is in court dress protected by a dustcoat, and wears the cross of a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Olaf.)

Christensen. I hope I do not disturb you, doctor?

Nordan. Not at all!—In full dress! I congratulate you.

Christensen. Yes, we newly-fledged knights have to go to Court to-day. But do you mind if I spend a minute or two here with you before I go on to the palace?—Any news from over there? From the Riis's?

Nordan. No. They are sitting waiting for the "war" to begin, I expect.

Christensen. They shall not have to wait long, then! I have made up my mind to begin it to-day. Has she come to her senses, by any chance? Women usually feel things like that very acutely. But they usually get over it, too.

Nordan. I do not think so. But I bow before your experience.

Christensen. Thank you! I should think that, as an old hand at playing the buffer in family jars, you had a much greater experience. Yesterday she was like an electric eel! And she gave her shock, too! The boy has not been home since. I am almost glad of that; it shows he has some sense of shame. I was beginning to doubt it.

Nordan. It is the coming "war" that interests me.

Christensen. Oh, you are anxious to see that, are you? Very well. As a matter of fact there is no need to draw up a plan of campaign. That affair of Mrs. North's can be taken up again any day, my dear fellow! It is in the hands of the bank, you know.

Nordan. But what has that to do with your son engagement?

Christensen. What has it to do with it? Miss Riis gives my son his dismissal because she cannot tolerate his conduct before marriage. Her own father indulges in the same sort of conduct when he is well on in married life! Tableau vivant très curieux!—to use a language Mr. Riis is very fond of.

Nordan. It is a shame to talk like that—because your son is the only one to blame in this matter.

Christensen. My son is not in the least to blame in the matter! He has not done the slightest thing that could harm or discredit the Riis's—not the slightest thing! He is a man of honour, who has given Miss Riis his promise and has kept it. Will any one dare to contradict that? Or to suggest that he will not keep his promise? If any one doubts him, it is an insult. Dr. Nordan! In this matter the alternatives are either an apology and peace—or war. For I am not going to put up with this sort of thing; and if my son puts up with it, I shall despise him.

Nordan. Oh, I quite believe your son had every honourable intention when he gave his promise. And very likely he would have kept it, too; I cannot say for certain, because I have learnt to doubt. I am a doctor—I have seen too much—and he did not appear to great advantage yesterday. You really must forgive my saying so—but after the liveliness of his young days, coupled with the tendencies he has inherited, do you think he really had any right to be surprised if people doubted him?—if his fiancée doubted him? Had he really any right to feel insulted, or to demand apologies? Apologies for what? For having doubted his virtue?—Just consider that!

Christensen. Why, what—?

Nordan. One moment! I was only half done. You said something about a reconciliation, you know; of course by that you meant a marriage. If your son is willing to marry a woman who distrusts him, then I shall despise him.

Christensen. Really—!

Nordan. Yes, indeed I shall. Our opinions are as different as all that. To my way of thinking, your son's only course is to submit—and wait; to keep silence, and wait—always supposing, of course, that he still loves her. That is my view of it.

Christensen. Well, I imagine that there are very few candidates for matrimony who have not been guilty of what my son has been guilty of; indeed, I am sure of it. And I imagine, too, that they have the same unfortunate "hereditary tendencies"—an expression on which you laid stress out of special friendship for me. But is that any reason why girls who are betrothed should behave as Miss Riis has been doing?—scream, and run away, and create a scandal? We should not be able to hear ourselves speak! It would be the queerest sort of anarchy the world has ever seen! Why, such doctrines as that are contrary to the very nature and order of things! They are mad! And when, into the bargain, they are thrown at our heads as if they were decisions of a High Court of Morality—well, then I strike! Good-bye! (Starts to go, but turns back.) And who is it that these High Court of Morality's decisions would for the most part affect, do you suppose? Just the ablest and most vigorous of our young men. Are we going to turn them out and make a separate despised caste of them? And what things would be affected, do you suppose? A great part of the world's literature and art; a great part of all that is loveliest and most captivating in the life of to-day; the world's greatest cities, most particularly—those wonders of the world—teeming with their millions of people! Let me tell you this: the life that disregards marriage or loosens the bonds of marriage, or transforms the whole institution—you know very well what I mean—the life that is accused of using the "weapons of seduction" in its fashions, its luxury, its entertainments, its art, its theatre—that life is one of the most potent factors in these teeming cities, one of the most fruitful sources of their existence! No one who has seen it can have any doubt about it, however ingenuous he may pretend to be. Are we to wish to play havoc with all that too?—to disown the flower of the world's youth, and ruin the world's finest cities? It seems to me that people wish to do so much in the name of morality, that they end by wishing to do what would be subversive of all morality.

Nordan. You are certainly embarking on your little war in the true statesmanlike spirit!

Christensen. It is nothing but sound common-sense, my dear sir; that is all that is necessary, I am sure. I shill have the whole town on my side, you may be certain of that!

Thomas (appearing at the house door). Doctor!

Nordan (turning round). Is it possible! (Hurries to the doorway, in which MRS. RIIS appears.)

Mrs. Riis. May I—?

Nordan. Of course! Will you come out here?

Mrs. Riis (to CHRISTENSEN, who bows to her). My visit is really to you, Mr. Christensen.

Christensen. I am honoured.

Mrs. Riis. I happened to look out into the street just as your carriage stopped and you got out. So I thought I would seize the opportunity—because you threatened us yesterday, you know. Is that not so? You declared war against us?

Christensen. My recollection of it is that war was declared, Mrs. Riis, but that I merely accepted the challenge.

Mrs. Riis. And what line is your campaign going to take, if I may ask the question?

Christensen. I have just had the honour of explaining my position to the doctor. I do not know whether it would be gallant to do as much to you.

Nordan. I will do it, then. The campaign will be directed against your husband. Mr. Christensen takes the offensive.

Mrs. Riis. Naturally!—because you know you can strike at him. But I have come to ask you to think better of it.

Christensen (with a laugh). Really?

Mrs. Riis. Once—many years ago now—I took my child in my arms and threatened to leave my husband. Thereupon he mentioned the name of another man, and shielded himself behind that—for it was a distinguished name. "See how lenient that man's wife is," he said. "And, because she is so, all her friends are lenient, and that will be all the better for their child." Those were his words.

Christensen. Well, as far as the advice they implied was concerned, it was good advice—and no doubt you followed it.

Mrs. Riis. The position of a divorced woman is a very humiliating one in the eyes of the world, and the daughter of such a woman fares very little better. The rich and distinguished folk who lead the fashion take care of that.

Christensen. But what—?

Mrs. Riis. That is my excuse for not having the courage to leave him. I was thinking of my child's future. But it is my husband's excuse, too; because he is one of those who follows the example of others.

Christensen. We all do that, Mrs. Riis.

Mrs. Riis. But it is the leaders of society that set the example, for the most part; and in this matter they set a tempting one. I suppose I can hardly be mistaken in thinking that I have heard your view of this matter, all along, through my husband's mouth? Or, if I am mistaken in that, I at all events surely heard it more accurately yesterday, when I heard your voice in everything that your son said?

Christensen. I stand by every word of what my son said.

Mrs. Riis. I thought so. This campaign of yours will really be a remarkable one! I see your influence in everything that has happened, from first to last. You are the moving spirit of the whole campaign—on both sides!

Nordan. Before you answer, Christensen—may I ask you, Mrs. Riis, to consider whether you want to make the breach hopelessly irreparable? Do you mean to make a reconciliation between the young people quite impossible?

Mrs. Riis. It is impossible, as it is.

Nordan. Why?

Mrs. Riis. Because all confidence is destroyed.

Nordan. More so now than before?

Mrs. Riis. Yes. I will confess that up to the moment. When Alfred's word of honour was offered yesterday—up to the moment when he demanded that his word of honour should be believed—I did not recognise the fact that it was my own story over again. But it was—word for word my own story! That was just the way we began; who will vouch for it that the sequel would not be the same as in our case?

Christensen. My son's character will vouch for that, Mrs. Riis!

Mrs. Riis. Character? A nice sort of character a man is likely to develop who indulges in secret and illicit courses from his boyhood! That is the very way faithlessness is bred. If any one wants to know the reason why character is such a rare thing, I think they will find the answer in that.

Christensen. A man's youth is by no means the test of his life. That depends on his marriage.

Mrs. Riis. And why should a man's faithlessness disappear when he is married? Can you tell me that?

Christensen. Because then he loves, of course.

Mrs. Riis. Because he loves? But do you mean that he has not loved before then? How absolutely you men have blinded yourselves!—No, love is not the least likely to be lasting when the will is vitiated. And that is what it is—vitiated by the life a bachelor leads.

Christensen. And yet I know plenty of sensual men who have strong wills.

Mrs. Riis. I am not speaking of strength of will, but of purity, faithfulness, nobility of will.

Christensen. Well, if my son is to be judged by any such nonsensical standard as that, I am devoutly thankful he has got out of the whole thing before it became serious—indeed I am! Now we have had enough of this. (Prepares to go.)

Mrs. Riis. As far as your son is concerned—. (Turns to NORDAN.) Doctor, answer me this, so that his father may hear it before he goes. When you refused to go with us to the betrothal party, had you already heard some thing about Alfred Christensen? Was what you had heard of such a nature that you felt you could not trust him?

Nordan (after a moment's thought). Not altogether, certainly.

Mrs. Riis (to CHRISTENSEN). There, you hear!—But will you let me ask you this, doctor: why did you not say so? Good God, why did you not speak?

Nordan. Listen to me, Mrs. Riis. When two young people, who after all are suited to one another—for they are that, are they not?

Christensen. They are that, I admit.

Nordan. When all of a sudden they fall madly in love with one another, what are you to do?

Christensen. Oh, rake up all sorts of stories and exaggerations—create a scandal!

Nordan. Indeed, I must confess—what as a matter of fact I have said—that I have become accustomed to things not being exactly as they should be in that respect. I looked upon these young people's engagement in the same light as I have looked on others—on most others—that is cruel to say, as a lottery. It might turn out well; on the other hand it might turn out very badly.