* * * *
RUBEK {looks impressively at her}. I was an artist, Irene.
IRENE {darkly}. That is just it. That is just it.
Thinking deeper and deeper on himself and on his former attitude towards this woman, it strikes him yet more forcibly that there are great gulfs set between his art and his life, and that even in his art his skill and genius are far from perfect. Since Irene left him he has done nothing but paint portrait busts of townsfolk. Finally, some kind of resolution is enkindled in him, a resolution to repair his botching, for he does not altogether despair of that. There is just a reminder of the will-glorification of Brand in the lines that follow.
RUBEK {struggling with himself, uncertainly}. If we could, oh, if only we could ….
IRENE. Why can we not do what we will?
In fine, the two agree in deeming their present state insufferable. It appears plain to her that Rubek lies under a heavy obligation to her, and with their recognition of this, and the entrance of Maja, fresh from the enchantment of Ulfheim, the first act closes.
RUBEK. When did you begin to seek for me, Irene?
IRENE {with a touch of jesting bitterness}. From the time when I realized that I had given away to you something rather indispensable. Something one ought never to part with.
RUBEK (bowing his head). Yes, that is bitterly true. You gave me three or four years of your youth.
IRENE. More, more than that I gave you — spendthrift as I then was.
RUBEK. Yes, you were prodigal, Irene. You gave me all your naked loveliness —
IRENE. To gaze upon —
RUBEK. And to glorify ….
* * * *
IRENE. But you have forgotten the most precious gift.
RUBEK. The most precious . . . what gift was that?
IRENE. I gave you my young living soul. And that gift left me empty within — soulless {looks at him with a fixed stare}. It was that I died of, Arnold.
It is evident, even from this mutilated account, that the first act is a masterly one. With no perceptible effort the drama rises, with n methodic natural ease it develops. The trim garden of the nineteenth-century hotel is slowly made the scene of a gradually growing dramatic struggle. Interest has been roused in each of the characters, sufficient to carry the mind into the succeeding act. The situation is not stupidly explained, but the action has set in, and at the close the play has reached a definite stage of progression.
The second act takes place close to a sanatorium on the mountains. A cascade leaps from a rock and flows in steady stream to the right. On the bank some children are playing, laughing and shouting. The time is evening. Rubek is discovered lying on a mound to the left. Maja enters shortly, equipped for hill-climbing. Helping herself with her stick across the stream, she calls out to Rubek and approaches him. He asks how she and her companion are amusing themselves, and questions her as to their hunting. An exquisitely humorous touch enlivens their talk. Rubek asks if they intend hunting the bear near the surrounding locality. She replies with a grand superiority.
MAJA. You don’t suppose that bears are to be found in the naked mountains, do you?
The next topic is the uncouth Ulfheim. Maja admires him because he is so ugly–then turns abruptly to her husband saying, pensively, that he also is ugly. The accused pleads his age.
RUBEK {shrugging his shoulders}. One grows old. One grows old, Frau Maja!
