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!
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