Part 79 (1/2)

(_She informs him that he must depart the way he came. He consents but only in a very half-hearted manner. Between Aunt Sophy and Towser he is in a quandary. After several unsuccessful starts he flatly refuses to descend, and upbraids Jane for her cruelty. He dwells at length on the horrors of dog-bites, hydrophobia, madness, and death._)

_Bobby._ (_Injured._) As if I had not already been chewed up so that I can scarcely sit--(_hastily_)--I mean walk.

_Jane._ (_Relenting._) Gracious! Bobby, did he bite you?

_Bobby. Did_ he?

_Jane._ (_Seizing bottle from table._) Heavens! You must put something on it! Some antiseptic! Bobby come here!

_Bobby._ Oh, no, no! No, it's not serious!

_Jane._ Come here this instant!

_Bobby._ (_Flatly._) I won't do it!

(_He succeeds so well in working upon her sympathies that even a knock at Aunt Sophy's door is not enough to make her change her att.i.tude. She now as obstinately refuses to let him descend to certain death as previously he had refused to do it. The knocks are continued. Jane is rapidly losing her head when it suddenly occurs to her that if she stores Bobby away under the bed until Towser has departed or Aunt Sophy has gone to sleep, all may yet be well. While Bobby is ensconcing himself in this new position a three cornered conversation takes place, in which Jane becomes more and more involved._)

_Aunt Sophy._ (_Outside._) Jane, Jane, are you ill?

_Jane._ Ill? Oh, oh! I don't know!

_Aunt Sophy._ Open the door this minute or I'll break it down!

_Jane._ Break it down?

_Aunt Sophy._ Yes, this instant!

_Jane._ Oh, oh! Don't do that! It's not locked! ...

It may be interesting to compare the scenario of _A Doll's House_ from which Ibsen wrote his first draft with his original notes. Here is perfect ill.u.s.tration of the difference between sketchy notes which mean much to the writer and a scenario which at least broadly will convey to a reader the artistic and ethical purposes in the play the dramatist means to write.

NOTES FOR THE MODERN TRAGEDY

_Rome_, 19. 10, 78.

There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and another, altogether different, in woman. They do not understand each other; but in practical life the woman is judged by man's law, as though she were not a woman but a man.

The wife in the play ends by having no idea of what is right or wrong; natural feeling on the one hand and belief in authority on the other have altogether bewildered her.

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.

She has committed forgery, and she is proud of it; for she did it out of love for her husband, to save his life. But this husband, with his commonplace principles of honour is on the side of the law and regards the question with masculine eyes.

Spiritual conflicts. Oppressed and bewildered by the belief in authority, she loses faith in her moral right and ability to bring up her children. Bitterness. A mother in modern society, like certain insects who go away and die when she has done her duty in the propagation of the race.[12] Love of life, of home, of husband and children and family. Here and there a womanly shaking-off of her thoughts. Sudden return of anxiety and terror. She must bear it all alone. The catastrophe approaches, inexorably, inevitably. Despair, conflict, and destruction.

(Krogstad has acted dishonourably and thereby become well-to-do; now his prosperity does not help him, he cannot recover his honour.)[13]

_Persons_

_Stenborg, a Government clerk.

Nora, his wife.

Miss (Mrs.) Linde (a widow).

Attorney Krogstad.