Mother. We can't bear to lose her, Axel! She has never been away from us a single day since she was born. She is the spoilt child of our sorrow; if death itself claimed her, we should have to hold fast on to her.
Father. Axel, you are not a wicked man; you have not come amongst us to make us all unhappy?
Axel. If I were to give in now, this state of things would occur again every week or so, and none of us could stand that. For that reason, my dear parents, prove yourselves capable of a sacrifice. Let us put an end to it once for all—and let Laura move into town with me next week.
Father. Good heavens—it is impossible!
Mother. You won't have the heart to do that. Look at her, and then say that again! (AXEL turns away.) No, I knew you could not. (To the FATHER.) You talk to him! Tell him the truth, set him right, since he has broken in upon a good and loving family only to bring misfortune to it.
Father. In this house, as far back as I can remember, no hard words have ever been used. It seems to me like some evil dream, that I am struggling to wake out of and cannot! (A pause.) Mr. Hargaut, when we gave our daughter to you, we made no conditions. We admitted you into a happy family, to a position of wealth, to a promising future; and we expected, in return, some little affection, some little appreciation—at least some little respect. But you behave like—like a stranger, who is admitted to one's intimacy and good offices, and then one morning goes off with the most valuable possessions in the house—like an ungrateful, cruel—! We have confided our child, the dearest, sweetest child, our only child, to—a man without a heart! We were two happy parents, rich in her love—parents whom every one envied and we now are two poor bereaved wretches, who must creep away together into a corner in their unhappy disillusionment. (Sits down.)
Mother. And this is the way you can treat the man who has given you everything! What answer have you to give him?
Axel. It makes my heart bleed. If I had thought it would be as hard as this, indeed I would never have begun it; but if we leave the matter unsettled, now that it has been broached, we shall never be on proper terms with one another again. Of that I am certain. If it is a matter that pains us all, for that very reason let us go through with it and get it settled.
Father. Poor confiding fools that we have been!
Mother. Can't you give us some respite, so that we may think things over quietly? This is simply tearing us apart.
Axel. It would only prolong your pain, and it would end in your hating me. No, it must be done now—at once; otherwise it will never be done.
Mother. Oh dear, oh dear! (Sits down.)
Father. Axel! Listen to us for a moment! It is quite possible you may be in the right; but for that very reason I beg you—I, who have never yet begged anything of any one—I beg you, be merciful! I am an old man, and cannot stand it—and she (looking at his wife) still less.
Axel. Ah, I am not hard-hearted—but I must try to be resolute. If I lose now, I shall be losing her for life, I know. Therefore she shall go with me!
Mother (springing up). No, she shall not! If you loved her, as you say you do, you hypocrite, you would remain where she is—and here she shall stay!
Laura (who has been standing beside MATHILDE, goes to her MOTHER). Yes, to my dying day.
Father (getting up). No! We must not alter God's law. It is written: "A man shall forsake his father and his mother, and cleave only unto his wife"—and in the same way she must cleave only to him. Laura shall go when he wishes.
Laura. Father, can you—have you the heart to—?
Father. No, I haven't the heart to, my child. But I shall do it nevertheless, because it is right. Oh, Laura!—(Embraces her. The MOTHER joins her embrace to his.)
Mathilde (to AXEL). You Jesuit!—You have no consideration, no mercy; you trample upon hearts as you would upon the grass that grows in your path. But you shall not find this so easy as you think. It is true she is a child—but I shall go with her! I don't know you, and I don't trust you. (Clenches her fist.) But I shall watch over her!
[Curtain.]
ACT II
(SCENE.—AXEL's house, a year later. The room is arranged almost identically like that in the first act. Two large portraits of LAURA'S parents, very well executed, hang in full view. LAURA is sitting at the table, MATHILDE on the couch on the right.)
Mathilde (reading aloud from a book). "'No,' was the decided answer. Originally it was he that was to blame, but now it is she. He tore her from her parents, her home and her familiar surroundings; but since then he has sought her forgiveness so perseveringly, and her love so humbly, that it would take all the obstinacy of a spoilt child to withstand him. Just as formerly he could think of nothing but his love, so now she will consider nothing except her self-love; but she is so much the more to blame than he, as her motives are less good than his. She is like a child that has woke up too early in the morning; it strikes and kicks at any one that comes to pet it."
Laura. Mathilde—does it really say that?
Mathilde. Indeed it does.
Laura. Just as you read it?
Mathilde. Look for yourself.
Laura (takes the book and looks at it, then lays it down). It is almost our own story, word for word. I would give anything to know who has written it.
Mathilde. It is a mere coincidence—
Laura. No, some wicked wretch has seen something like this—some creature that is heartless enough to be able to mock at a parent's love; it must be some one who either is worthless himself or has had worthless parents!
Mathilde. Why, Laura, how seriously you take it!
Laura. Yes, it irritates me, this libelling of all fidelity. What is fidelity, if it does not mean that a child should be true to its parents?
Mathilde. But I was just reading to you about that. (Reads.) "The object of fidelity changes, as we ourselves change. The child's duty is to be true to its parents; the married, to one another; the aged, to their children—"
Laura. Don't read any more! I won't hear any more! Its whole train of thought offends me. (After a pause.) What a horrid book! (Indifferently.) What happens to them in the end?
Mathilde (in the same tone). To whom?
Laura. That couple—in the book.
Mathilde (still in an indifferent tone). It doesn't end happily. (A pause.)
Laura (looking up). Which of them suffers?
Mathilde. Which do you think?
Laura (beginning to sew again). She, I should think—because she is unhappy already.
Mathilde. You have guessed right. She falls in love.
Laura (astonished). Falls in love?
Mathilde. Yes. Sometime or other, love is awakened in the heart of every woman; and then, if she cannot love her husband, in the course of time she will love some one else.
Laura (dismayed). Some one else!
Mathilde. Yes. (A pause.)
Laura. That is horrible! (Begins to sew, then lays her hand down on the table, then begins to sew again.) And what happens to him?
Mathilde. He falls ill, very ill. And then some one finds him out and comforts him—a woman.
Laura (looking up). How does that happen?
Mathilde. His heart is like an empty house, in an atmosphere of sadness and longing. Little by little she—the woman who comforts him—creeps into it; and so in time there comes the day when he can say he is happy. (A pause.)
Laura (quietly). Who is she?
Mathilde. One of those poor-spirited creatures that can be content with the aftermath of love.
Laura (after a pause, during which she has been looking fixedly at MATHILDE). Could you be that?
Mathilde. No!—I must be first or nothing!
Laura. But about her?
Mathilde. The wife?
Laura. Yes. What happens to her?
Mathilde. Directly she realises that love for another has taken possession of her husband, she turns towards him with all her heart; but it is too late then. (LAURA sits absorbed for a few moments; then gets up hurriedly and goes to a little work-table that is standing at the end of the couch on the left, opens it, looks for something in it, stops to think, then looks in it again.) What are you looking for?
Laura. A photograph.
Mathilde. Axel's?
Laura. No—but what has become of it?
Mathilde. Don't you remember that one day you took it up and said you would not have it? So I hid it.
Laura. You?
Mathilde. Yes—till you should ask about it. (Gets up, opens her work-table that stands by the right-hand couch.) Here it is. (Gives it to her.)
Laura. So you have got it! (Lays it in her table drawer without looking at it, shuts the drawer, goes a few paces away, then comes back, turns the key in the drawer and takes it out.) Has Axel read the new book?
Mathilde. I don't know. Shall I give it to him?
Laura. Just as you like. Perhaps you would like to read it aloud to him. (A Maid comes in with a letter; LAURA takes it, and the Maid goes out again.) From my parents! (Kisses the letter with emotion.) The only ones who love me! (Goes out hurriedly. At the same moment AXEL comes in from the outer door.)
Axel. She always goes when I come in!
Mathilde (getting up). This time it was an accident, though. (Looks at him.) How pale you are!
Axel (seriously). I am rather worried.—Have you read the new novel?
Mathilde (putting the book in her pocket). What novel?
Axel. "The Newly-Married Couple"—quite a small book.
Mathilde. Oh, that one—I have just been reading it.
Axel (eagerly). And Laura too? Has Laura read it?
Mathilde. She thinks it is a poor story.
Axel. It isn't that, but it is an extraordinary one. It quite startles me—it is like coming into one's own room and seeing one's self sitting there. It has caught hold of unformed thoughts that lie hidden deep in my soul.
Mathilde. Every good book does that.
Axel. Everything will happen to me just as it does in that book; the premises are all here, only I had not recognised them.
Mathilde. I have heard of very young doctors feeling the symptoms of all the diseases they read about.
Axel. Oh, but this is more than mere imagination. My temptations come bodily before me. My thoughts are the result of what happens, just as naturally as smoke is the result of fire—and these thoughts (lancing at MATHILDE) lead me far.
Mathilde. As far as I can see, the book only teaches consideration for a woman, especially if she is young.
Axel. That is true. But, look here—a young man, brought up among students, cannot possibly possess, ready-made, all this consideration that a woman's nature requires. He doesn't become a married man in one day, but by degrees. He cannot make a clean sweep of his habits and take up the silken bonds of duty, all in a moment. The inspiration of a first love gives him the capacity, but he has to learn how to use it. I never saw what I had neglected till I had frightened her away from me. But what is there that I have not done, since then, to win her? I have gone very gently to work and tried from every side to get at her—I have tempted her with gifts and with penitence—but you can see for yourself she shrinks from me more and more. My thoughts, wearied with longings and with the strain of inventing new devices, follow her, and my love for her only grows—but there are times when such thoughts are succeeded by a void so great that my whole life seems slipping away into it. It is then I need some one to cling to—. Oh, Mathilde, you have meant very much to me at times like that. (Goes up to her.)
Mathilde (getting up). Yes, all sorts of things happen in a year that one never thought of at the beginning of it.
Axel (sitting down). Good God, what a year! I haven't the courage to face another like it. This book has frightened me.
Mathilde (aside). That's a good thing, anyway.
Axel (getting up). Besides—the amount of work I have to do, to keep up everything here just as she was accustomed to have it, is getting to be too much for me, Mathilde. It won't answer in the long run. If only I had the reward of thanks that the humblest working-man gets-if it were only a smile; but when I have been travelling about for a week at a time, exposed to all sorts of weather in these open boats in winter, do I get any welcome on my home-coming? When I sit up late, night after night, does she ever realise whom I am doing it for? Has she as much as noticed that I have done so—or that I have, at great expense, furnished this house like her parents'? No, she takes everything as a matter of course; and if any one were to say to her, "He has done all this for your sake," she would merely answer, "He need not have done so, I had it all in my own home."
Mathilde. Yes, you have come to a turning-point now.
Axel. What do you mean?
Mathilde. Nothing particular—here she comes!
Axel. Has anything happened? She is in such a hurry!
[LAURA comes in with an open letter in her hand.]
Laura (in a low voice, to MATHILDE). Mother and father are so lonely at home that they are going abroad, to Italy; but they are coming here, Mathilde, before they leave the country.
Mathilde. Coming here? When?
Laura. Directly. I hadn't noticed—the letter is written from the nearest posting station; they want to take us by surprise—they will be here in a few minutes. Good heavens, what are we to do?
Mathilde (quickly). Tell Axel that!
Laura. I tell him?
Mathilde. Yes, you must.
Laura (in a frightened voice). I?
Mathilde (to AXEL). Laura has something she wants to tell you.
Laura. Mathilde!
Axel. This is something new.
Laura. Oh, do tell him, Mathilde. (MATHILDE says nothing, but goes to the back of the room.)
Axel (coming up to her). What is it?
Laura (timidly). My parents are coming.
Axel. Here?
Laura. Yes.
Axel. When? To-day?
Laura. Yes. Almost directly.
Axel. And no one has told me! (Takes up his hat to go.)
Laura (frightened). Axel!
Axel. It is certainly not for the pleasure of finding me here that they are coming.
Laura. But you mustn't go!
Mathilde. No, you mustn't do that.
Axel. Are they not going to put up here?
Laura. Yes, I thought—if you are willing—in your room.
Axel. So that is what it is to be—I am to go away and they are to take my place.
Mathilde. Take my room, and I will move into Laura's. I will easily arrange that. (Goes out.)
Axel. Why all this beating about the bush? It is quite natural that you should want to see them, and equally natural that I should remove myself when they come; only you should have broken it to me—a little more considerately. Because I suppose they are coming now to take you with them—and, even if it means nothing to you to put an end to everything like this, at all events you ought to know what it means to me!
Laura. I did not know till this moment that they were coming.
Axel. But it must be your letters that have brought them here—your complaints—
Laura. I have made no complaints.
Axel. You have only told them how matters stand here.
Laura. Never. (A pause.)
Axel (in astonishment). What have you been writing to them all this year, then—a letter every day?
Laura. I have told them everything was going well here.
Axel. Is it possible? All this time? Laura! Dare I believe it? Such consideration—(Comes nearer to her.) Ah, at last, then—?
Laura (frightened). I did it out of consideration for them.
Axel (coldly). For them? Well, I am sorry for them, then. They will soon see how things stand between us.
Laura. They are only to be here a day or two. Then they go abroad.
Axel. Abroad? But I suppose some one is going with them?—you, perhaps?
Laura. You can't, can you?
Axel. No.—So you are going away from me, Laura!—I am to remain here with Mathilde—it is just like that book.
Laura. With Mathilde? Well—perhaps Mathilde could go with them?
Axel. You know we can't do without her here—as things are at present.
Laura. Perhaps you would rather I—?
Axel. There is no need for you to ask my leave. You go if you wish.
Laura. Yes, you can do without me.—All the same, I think I shall stay!
Axel. You will stay—with me?
Laura. Yes.
Axel (in a happier voice, coming up to her). That is not out of consideration for your parents?
Laura. No, that it isn't! (He draws back in astonishment. MATHILDE comes in.)