Part 1 (2/2)

A Gauntlet (finished in 1883) shows a great advance in dramatic technique. The whole is closely knit and coherent, and the problems involved are treated with an exhaustiveness that is equally fair to both sides. As has been already said, the plays that had preceded it from Bjornson's pen aroused such active controversy that he found it at first impossible to get A Gauntlet produced in his own country. Its first performance was in Hamburg, in 1883, and for that the author modified and altered it greatly. Eventually it was played, in its original form, in the Scandinavian countries, and in its turn stirred up a bitter controversy on the ethics of male and female morality as regards marriage. It was currently said that hundreds of contemplated marriages were broken off in Norway as an effect of its statement of a vital problem. The remodelling the play originally underwent for its performance in Germany was drastic. The second and third acts were entirely recast, the character of Dr. Nordan was omitted and others introduced, and the ending was changed. The first version was, however, evidently the author's favourite, and it is that that is presented here. Bjornson never published the recast version, and in the ”memorial edition” of his works it is the present version that is given. The recast version was translated into English by Mr. Osman Edwards and produced (in an ”adapted” and mangled form, for which the translator was not responsible) at the Royalty Theatre in London in 1894.

R. FARQUHARSON SHARP.

THE NEWLY-MARRIED COUPLE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The FATHER.

The MOTHER.

LAURA, their daughter.

AXEL, her husband.

MATHILDE, her friend.

ACT I

(SCENE.--A handsomely furnished, carpeted room, with a door at the back leading to a lobby. The FATHER is sitting on a couch on the left-hand side, in the foreground, reading a newspaper. Other papers are lying on a small table in front of him. AXEL is on another couch drawn up in a similar position on the right-hand side. A newspaper, which he is not reading, is lying on his knee. The MOTHER is sitting, sewing, in an easy-chair drawn up beside a table in the middle of the room.)

[LAURA enters.]

Laura. Good morning, mother! (Kisses her.)

Mother. Good morning, dear. Have you slept well?

Laura. Very well, thanks. Good morning, dad! (Kisses him.)

Father. Good morning, little one, good morning. Happy and in good spirits?

Laura. Very. (Pa.s.ses in front of AXEL.) Good morning, Axel! (Sits down at the table, opposite her mother.)

Axel. Good morning.

Mother. I am very sorry to say, my child, that I must give up going to the ball with you to-night. It is such a long way to go, in this cold spring weather.

Father (without looking up from his paper). Your mother is not well. She was coughing in the night.

Laura. Coughing again?

Father. Twice. (The MOTHER coughs, and he looks up.) There, do you hear that? Your mother must not go out, on any account.

Laura. Then I won't go, either.

Father. That will be just as well; it is such raw weather. (To the MOTHER.) But you have no shawl on, my love; where is your shawl?

Laura. Axel, fetch mother's shawl; it is hanging in the lobby. (AXEL goes out into the lobby.)

Mother. We are not really into spring yet. I am surprised the stove is not lit in here.

Laura (to AXEL, who is arranging the shawl over the MOTHER'S shoulders).

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