Ibsen’s New Play
By
H. H. Boyesen
NEVER has the great master written anything simpler and more human than “Little Eyolf.” The two fundamental chords which sound with varying force through all his earlier works are here struck anew with increased distinctness and resonance. The ennobling power of suffering, the educational value of pain, – that is the first lesson which the play conveys; and the second, which is closely akin to it, is the development of personality through the discipline of renunciation.
Alfred Allmers, a poor and obscure man of letters, has married Rita, a rich and beautiful heiress. During the first seven or eight years of their marriage they live frankly the life of the senses; and in amorous intoxication forget the world with its claims, being completely absorbed in each other. Their little son Eyolf they leave largely to his aunt, Asta (Allmers’s supposed sister), and only interest themselves in him spasmodically, and then to very little purpose. Rita is, in fact, not very fond of the child, and feels vaguely annoyed whenever she is reminded of her duties toward it. It is directly due to her erotic intensity that the boy, who has been left in his high-chair at table, tumbles down and is crippled for life. He then becomes a reproach to his mother, and she rather shuns than seeks the sight of him.
I find this development of Rita to be true and consistent. Women, as a rule, after marriage, develop the wifely character at the expense of the maternal, or the maternal at the expense of the wifely. Rita Allmers belongs to the former class. She is young, beautiful, and passionate; her wifehood is all to her; her motherhood only incidental. But this condition cannot endure. The husband, at all events, feels a subtle change steal over his relation to his wife; and in order to make it clear to himself, he goes on a long pedestrian tour into the mountains. On his return, at the end of two weeks, he is received by Rita with a bacchanalian seductiveness which ill befits his serious mood. He has resolved to introduce a radical change in the household. He will henceforth devote himself to the education of his son, and make that his chief concern. His book on “Human Responsibility,” at which he has been writing in a desultory fashion, shall no longer divert his attention from the actual responsibility, which it were a sin to shirk. Rita, however, when he unfolds his plan to her, is anything but pleased. She wants him all to herself, and is not content to share him with anybody, even though it be her own child. She cannot be put off with crumbs of affection. She coaxes, she threatens; she hints at dire consequences. With the passionate vehemence of a spoiled and petted beauty, who believes her love disdained, she upbraids him, and cries out at last that she wishes the child had never been born. Presently a wild scream is heard from the pier, and little Eyolf’s crutch is seen floating upon the still waters of the fiord.
The second act opens with a scene in which Asta is endeavoring to console Allmers in his affliction. He is trying to find the purpose, the meaning of his bereavement. “For there must be a meaning in it,” he exclaims. “Life, existence, – destiny cannot be so utterly meaningless.” Asta had loved the dead child, and he feels drawn to her by the communion of sorrow. From Rita, on the other hand, he feels repelled, because he cannot, in spite of her wild distraction, believe in the genuineness of her grief. She demands black crape, flag at half mast, and all the outward symbols of mourning; but the sensation which now is torturing her is not pain at the loss of the boy, but self-reproach. The keen tooth of remorse is piercing the very marrow of her bones. For the first time in her life she forgets how she looks, – what impression she is making. And that is, psychologically, a wholesome change. The centre of her consciousness is wrenched violently out of herself, and she sees existence with a different vision. A most admirable symbol for this unsleeping remorse which is stinging and scorching her conscience is “the great, open eyes” of little Eyolf, as he was seen lying on the bottom of the fiord. These eyes pursue the guilty mother. “They will haunt me all my life long,” she declares. Keen, simple, and soul-searching is the conversation between husband and wife, as the first quiverings of a spiritual life are awakened in both of them under the lash of an accusing conscience. Even while they upbraid each other, each trying to shift his share of responsibility upon the other, a vague shame takes possession of them, and the guilty heart knows and avows its guilt. They conceive of Eyolf’s death as a judgment upon them, as a retribution for their shirking their parental duty. For the first time in their lives they stand soul to soul in all their naked paltriness. It is scarcely strange that they should shrink from each other. But a new sincerity is born of the very futility of embellishing pretences. The secret thoughts which each has had of the other, but never has dared to utter, pop forth, like toads out of their holes, and show their ugly faces. His book, which Allmers had professed to regard as his great life-work, was, as Rita has long since guessed, a mere makeshift to give a spurious air of importance to his idleness, and he has abandoned it, not as a sacrifice to parental duty, but because he distrusted his ability to finish it. But when such things have been said – when each has stripped the other of all dissembling draperies – how is life to continue? How is their marriage to regain its former beauty and happiness? Alas, never! The old relation is definitely terminated and can never be renewed. It is because she feels this so deeply that Rita declares that henceforth she must have much company about her; for, she adds, “It will never do for Alfred and me to be alone.” And Allmers, under the same profound revulsion of feeling, expresses his desire to separate from his wife. She wishes forgetfulness, and hopes to drown her remorse in social dissipations; while to him forgetfulness seems like disloyalty to the dead, and he determines to consecrate the future to his grief, with a dim idea that he may thus atone for his guilt. Being equally miserable alone or together, they turn in their despair to Asta and implore her to remain with them, and take the place of little Eyolf. But Asta, having discovered that Alfred is not her brother, is afraid to assume the dangerous rôle of consoler, and departs with the engineer Borgheim, who has long been in love with her.
In that dreary lethargy which follows violent grief, Rita and Allmers stand without the energy to readjust their lives to the changed conditions. The world is disenchanted for them; the very daylight beats upon their eyes with a brazen fierceness, and all things are empty, futile, devoid of meaning. But in the midst of this oppressive stillness new thoughts are born; new sentiments begin to stir. They are bound together, if by nothing else, by their communion in guilt. Their past memories and their common remorse constitute a bond which is scarcely less powerful than love. Very simply and patiently is the new birth of the spiritual life in both of them indicated in the following dialogue: —
Allmers – Yes, but you – you yourself – have bound me to you by our life together.
Rita – Oh, in your eyes I am not – I am not – entrancingly beautiful any more.
Allmers – The law of change may perhaps keep us together, none the less.
Rita (Nodding slowly) – There is a change in me now – I feel the anguish of it.
Allmers – Anguish?
Rita – Yes, for change, too, is a sort of birth.
Allmers – It is – or a resurrection. Transition to a higher life.
Rita (Gazing sadly before her) – Yes, with the loss of all – all life’s happiness.
Allmers – That loss is just the gain.
Rita – Oh, phrases! Good heavens! we are creatures of earth, after all.
Allmers – But something akin to the sea and the heavens, too, Rita.
Rita – You, perhaps; not I.
Allmers – Oh, yes – you, too; more than you suspect.
The force of the common memories asserts itself anew, and they resolve to remain together and help each other bear the burden of life. Death is no longer a horror, but a quiet fellow-traveller, neither welcomed nor dreaded. Very beautifully and naturally is the transition to the new altruistic endeavor indicated in their wonder why the little companions of Eyolf, who all could swim, made no effort to save him. Never had Eyolf’s father and mother interested themselves in these boys; nor had they made the least effort to ameliorate the hard lot of the poor fishing population, settled