RUBEK. And where is he now?
IRENE. Oh, in a churchyard somewhere or other, with a fine, handsome monument over him; and with a bullet rattling in his skull.
RUBEK. Did he kill himself?
IRENE. Yes, he was good enough to take that off my hands.
RUBEK. Do you not lament his loss, Irene?
IRENE {not understanding}. Lament? What loss?
RUBEK. Why, the loss of Herr von Satow, of course.
IRENE. His name was not Satow.
RUBEK. Was it not?
IRENE. My second husband is called Satow. He is a Russian.
RUBEK. And where is he?
IRENE. Far away in the Ural Mountains. Among all his gold-mines.
RUBEK. So he lives there?
IRENE {shrugs her shoulders}. Lives? Lives? In reality I have killed him.
RUBEK {starts}. Killed — !
IRENE. Killed him with a fine sharp dagger which I always have with me in bed —
Rubek begins to understand that there is some meaning hidden beneath these strange words. He begins to think seriously on himself, his art, and on her, passing in review the course of his life since the creation of his masterpiece, ‘The Resurrection Day’. He sees that he has not fulfilled the promise of that work, and comes to realize that there is something lacking in his life. He asks Irene how she has lived since they last saw each other. Irene’s answer to his query is of great importance, for it strikes the key note of the entire play.
IRENE {rises slowly from her chair and says quiveringly}. I was dead for many years. They came and bound me — lacing my arms together at my back. Then they lowered me into a grave-vault, with iron bars before the loophole. And with padded walls, so that no one on the earth above could hear the grave-shrieks.
In Irene’s allusion to her position as model for the great picture, Ibsen gives further proof of his extraordinary knowledge of women. No other man could have so subtly expressed the nature of the relations between the sculptor and his model, had he even dreamt of them.
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