Three Dramas, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [best e reader for academics txt] 📗

know it. That is what you have to be like to withstand arctic storms!--it will take to harm. But your brother--well, his life had been like that of the original palm tree, with the air sighing through its branches; the change of climate was too sudden for him. (Goes up to HARALD.) You have still to try it. Shall you be able to kill all the humanity that is in you? If you can make yourself as insensate a thing as this stone, I daresay you will be able to stand the life. But are you willing to venture upon political life at such a price? If you are--so be it; but remember that in that case you must also kill all humanity in Gertrud--in these two--in every one that is dear to you. Otherwise no one will understand you or follow you. If you cannot do that, you will never be more than a dabbler in politics--a quarter, an eighth part, of a politician--and all your efforts, in what you consider your vocation, will be pitiable!

Mrs. Evje (who has been occupied at the back of the room, but now sits down by the fare). That is quite true! I know cases of petrifaction like that--and God preserve anyone that I love from it!

Evje (coming forward towards HARALD). I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings--least of all just now. But I just want to add my warning, because I believe I have discovered that there is a danger that persecution may make you hard.

Harald. Yes!--but do you suppose it is only politics that offer that dangerous prospect?

The Doctor. You are quite right! It is all the cry nowadays, "Harden yourself!" It isn't only military men and doctors that have to be hardened; commercial men have to be hardened, civil servants have to be hardened, or dried up; and everybody else has to be hardened for life, apparently. But what does it all mean? It means that we are to drive out all warmth from our hearts, all desire from our imaginations. There is a child's heart at the bottom of every one of our hearts-ever young, full of laughter and tears; and that is what we shall have killed before we are "fitted for the battle of life," as they put it. No, no--that is what we ought to preserve; we were given it for that! (HARALD hides his face in his hands, and sits so for some time.)

Mrs. Evje. Any mother or any wife knows that.

Evje (standing with his back to the fire). You want to bring back the age of romance, doctor!

The Doctor (with a laugh). Not its errors--because in those days unclean minds brought to birth a great deal that was unclean. (Seriously.) But what is it, when all is said and done, but a violent protest on the part of the Teutonic people against the Romanesque spirit and school--a remarkable school, but not _ours_. To us it seems a barren, merely intellectual school--a mere mass of formulas which led to a precocious development of the mind. And that was the spirit it bred--critical and barren. But these schools of thought are now all we have, and both of them are bad for us! They have no use for the heart or the imagination; they do not breed faith or a longing for high achievement. Look at _our_ life! Is our life really our own?

Mrs. Evje. No. You have only to think of our language, our tastes, our society, our--

The Doctor (interrupting her). Those are the externals of our life, merely the externals! No, look within--look at such a view of life as we were talking about, clamouring for "hardening"--is that ours? Can we, for all our diligence, make as much way in it as, for instance, a born Parisian journalist?--become like a bar of steel with a point at each end, a pen-point and a sword-point? _We_ can't do that; the Teutonic temperament is not fitted for it.

Evje. Oh, we are well on the way towards it. Look at the heartless intolerance in our politics; it will soon match what you were describing.

Harald. Everyone that disagrees with you is either an ambitious scoundrel, or half mad, or a blockhead.

The Doctor (laughing). Yes, and here in the north, in our small communities, where a man meets all his enemies in the same barber's shop, we feel it as keenly as if we were digging our knives into each other! (Seriously.) We may laugh at it, but if we could add up the sum of suffering that has been caused to families and to individuals--if we could see the concrete total before us--we should be tempted to believe that our liberty had been given to us as a curse! For it _is_ a cursed thing to destroy the humanity that is in us, and make us cruel and hard to one another.

Harald (getting up, but standing still). But, my good friends, if you are of the same mind about that, and I with you--what is the next thing to do?

The Doctor. The next thing to do?

Harald. Naturally, to unite in making an end of it.

Mrs. Evje (as she works). What can _we_ do?

Evje. I am no politician and do not wish to become one.

The Doctor (laughing, and sitting down). No, a politician is a principle, swathed round with a printed set of directions for use. I prefer to be allowed to be a human being.

Harald. No one can fairly insist on your taking up any vocation to which you do not feel you have a calling.

The Doctor. Of course not.

Harald. But one certainly might insist on your not helping to maintain a condition of affairs that you detest.

All. We?

Harald. This newspaper, which is the ultimate reason of all this conversation we have had--you take it in.

Evje. Why, you take it in yourself!

Harald. No. Every time there is anything nasty in it about me or mine, it is sent to me anonymously.

The Doctor (with a laugh). I don't take it in; I read my hall-porter's copy.

Harald. I have heard you say that before. I took an opportunity to ask your hall-porter. He said _he_ did not read it, and did not take it in either.

The Doctor (as before). Then I should like to know who does pay for it!

Evje. A newspaper is indispensable to a business man.

Harald. An influential business man could by himself, or at any rate with one or two others, start a paper that would be as useful again to him as this one is.

Evje. That is true enough; but, after all, if we agree with its politics?

Harald. I will accept help from any one whose opinions on public affairs agree with my own. Who am I that I should pretend to judge him? But I will not give him my help in anything that is malicious or wicked.

The Doctor. Pshaw!

Harald. Everyone who subscribes to, or contributes to, or gives any information to a paper that is scurrilous, is giving his help to what is wicked. And, moreover, every one who is on terms of friendship with a man who is destroying public morality, is helping him to do it.

The Doctor (getting up). Does he still come here? (A silence.)

Evje. He and I are old schoolfellows--and I don't like breaking with old acquaintances.

Mrs. Evje. He is a most amusing man, too--though I can't deny that he is malicious. (The DOCTOR sits down again, humming to himself.)

Harald. But that is not all. Both you and the Doctor have--with some eloquence--

The Doctor (with a laugh). Thank you!

Harald.--expressed your abhorrence of certain political tendencies with which neither you nor I have any sympathy--which affront our ideas of humane conduct. You do not feel called upon to enter actively into the lists against them; but why do you try to prevent those who do feel so called upon? You lament the existing state of things--and yet you help to maintain it, and make a friend of the man who is its champion!

The Doctor (turning his head). Apparently we are on our defence, Evje!

Harald. No--I am. I was told a little while ago that I was in a fair way to become hardened and callous, and that I must abandon my career--and that I must do so for Gertrud's sake, too, because she would never be able to share the fight with me. I was told this at one of the bitterest moments in my life. And that made me hesitate for a moment. But now I have turned my face forward again, because you have enlightened me! (A short, sharp cough is heard in the hall.)

Mrs. Evje (getting up). That is he! (A knock is heard at the door; the DOCTOR gets up and pushes his chair back. The EDITOR comes in.)

The Editor. Good morning, my children! How are you?

Mrs. Evje (sitting down). I did not hear the bell.

The Editor. I don't suppose you did--I came in by the back door. I took you by surprise, eh? Discussing me, too--what? (Laughs.)

Evje. You have given us enough reason to, to-day, any way.

The Editor. Yes, haven't I? Such a thing for a man to do to his best friends--eh?

Evje. That is true.

The Editor. To his old schoolfellows--his neighbours--eh? I expect it has disturbed your natural moderation--eh?

Evje. I pride myself on my moderation.

The Editor. As much as on your brandy!

Evje. Are you going to begin your nonsense again?

The Editor. Good-morning, Doctor! Have you been making them a fine speech this morning?--about my paper? or about humanity?--romanticism? or catholicism?--eh? (Laughs.)

The Doctor (laughing). Certainly one of us two has made a fine speech this morning!

The Editor. Not me; mine was made yesterday!--How is your hall-porter?

The Doctor (laughing). Quite well, I am ashamed to say.

The Editor. There's a faithful subscriber to my paper, if you like! (The DOCTOR laughs.) Well, Mrs. Evje, I can give you news of your man, Master John!

Mrs. Evje. Can you? It is more than I can.

The Editor. Yes--he is in bed still. That is why I came in the back way--to enquire after his health.

Mrs. Evje. But how--?

The Editor. How is he after last night?

Mrs. Evje. Really, I believe you know everything. We had no idea he was out last night.

The Editor. Oh, that is the very latest intelligence! He has been figuring as a speaker--he was drunk, of course--before the Association founded by his master's future son-in-law. And he made a most effective speech--indeed, the speakers at that Association always make most effective speeches! It was all about a Sliding Scale of Taxation, Profit-Sharing for Workers, the necessity for a Labour majority in Parliament, etc., etc., all the usual Socialist rhodomontade. You see how infectious intellectual ideas are!

Evje. Well!--I shall turn him out of the house to-day!

The Editor. But that is not in accordance with your love of moderation, Evje!

Evje. It is a scandal.

The Editor (to EVJE). But not the worst. Because, if you want to avoid that sort of thing, there are others you must turn out of the house. (Glances towards HARALD.)

Evje. You seem determined to quarrel to-day?

The Editor. Yes, with your "moderation."

Evje. You would be none the worse of a little of