Third Scene
The front of the house as in the First Scene. There is light in the confectioner’s place in the basement. The gas is also lit on the second floor, where now the shades are raised and the windows open.
Starck is sitting near the gateway.
MASTER. [Seated on the green bench] That was a nice little shower we had.
STARCK. Quite a blessing! Now the raspberries will be coming in again——
MASTER. Then I’ll ask you to put aside a few jars for us. We have grown tired of making the jam ourselves. It only gets spoiled.
STARCK. Yes, I know. Jars of jam are like mischievous children: you have to watch them all the time. There are people who put in salicylic acid, but those are newfangled tricks in which I take no stock.
MASTER. Salicylic acid—yes, they say it’s antiseptic—and perhaps it’s a good thing.
STARCK. Yes, but you can taste it—and it’s a trick.
MASTER. Tell me, Mr. Starck, have you got a telephone?
STARCK. No, I have no telephone.
MASTER. Oh!
STARCK. Why do you ask?
MASTER. Oh, I happened to think—a telephone is handy at times—for orders—and important communications——
STARCK. That may be. But sometimes it is just as well to escape—communications.
MASTER. Quite right! Quite right!—Yes, my heart always beats a little faster when I hear it ring—one never knows what one is going to hear—and I want peace—peace, above all else.
STARCK. So do I.
MASTER. [Looking at his watch] The lamplighter ought to be here soon.
STARCK. He must have forgotten us, for I see that the lamps are already lit further down the avenue.
MASTER. Then he’ll be here soon. It will be a lot of fun to see our lamp lighted again.
The telephone in the dining-room rings. LOUISE comes in to answer the call. The MASTER rises and puts one hand up to his heart. He tries to listen, but the public cannot hear anything of what is said within. Pause. After a while LOUISE comes out by way of the square.
MASTER. [Anxiously] What news?
LOUISE. No change.
MASTER. Was that my brother?
LOUISE. No, it was the lady.
MASTER. What did she want?
LOUISE. To speak to you, sir.
MASTER. I don’t want to!—Have I to console my executioner? I used to do it, but now I am tired of it.—Look up there! They have forgotten to turn out the light—and light makes empty rooms more dreadful than darkness—the ghosts become visible. [In a lowered voice] And how about Starck’s Agnes? Do you think he knows anything?
LOUISE. It’s hard to tell, for he never speaks about his sorrows—nor does anybody else in the Silent House!
MASTER. Do you think he should be told?
LOUISE. For Heaven’s sake, no!
MASTER. But I fear it isn’t the first time she gave him trouble.
LOUISE. He never speaks of her.
MASTER. It’s horrible! I wonder if we’ll get to the end of it soon? [The telephone rings again] Now it’s ringing again. Don’t answer. I don’t want to hear anything.—My child—in such company! An adventurer and a strumpet!—It’s beyond limit!—Poor Gerda!
LOUISE. It’s better to have certainty. I’ll go in—You must do something!
MASTER. I cannot move—I can receive blows, but to strike back—no!
LOUISE. But if you don’t repel a danger, it will press closer; and if you don’t resist, you’ll be destroyed.
MASTER. But if you refuse to be drawn in, you become unassailable.
LOUISE. Unassailable?
MASTER. Things straighten out much better if you don’t mess them up still further by interference. How can you want me to direct matters where so many passions are at play? Do you think I can suppress anybody’s emotions, or give them a new turn?
LOUISE. But how about the child?
MASTER. I have surrendered my rights—and besides—frankly speaking—I don’t care for them—not at all now, when she has been here and spoiled the images harboured in my memory. She has wiped out all the beauty that I had cherished, and now there is nothing left.
LOUISE. But that’s to be set free!
MASTER. Look, how empty the place seems in there—as if everybody had moved out; and up there—as if there had been a fire.
LOUISE. Who is coming there?
AGNES enters, excited and frightened, but trying hard to control herself; she makes for the gateway, where the confectioner is seated on his chair.
LOUISE [To the MASTER] There is Agnes? What can this mean?
MASTER. Agnes? Then things are getting straightened out.
STARCK. [With perfect calm] Good evening, girl! Where have you been?
AGNES. I have been for a walk.
STARCK. Your mother has asked for you several times.
AGNES. Is that so? Well, here I am.
STARCK. Please go down and help her start a fire under the little oven.
AGNES. Is she angry with me, then?
STARCK. You know that she cannot be angry with you.
AGNES. Oh, yes, but she doesn’t say anything.
STARCK. Well, girl, isn’t it better to escape being scolded?
AGNES disappears into the gateway.
MASTER. [To LOUISE] Does he know, or doesn’t he?
LOUISE. Let’s hope that he will remain in ignorance.
MASTER. But what can have happened? A breach? [To STARCK] Say, Mr. Starck——
STARCK. What is it?
MASTER. I thought—Did you notice if anybody left the house a while ago?
STARCK. I saw the iceman, and also a mail-carrier, I think.
MASTER. Oh! [To LOUISE] Perhaps it was a mistake—that we didn’t hear right—I can’t explain it—Or maybe he is not telling the truth? What did she say when she telephoned?
LOUISE. That she wanted to speak to you.
MASTER. How did it sound? Was she excited?
LOUISE. Yes.
MASTER. I think it’s rather shameless of her to appeal to me in a matter like this.
LOUISE. But the child!
MASTER. Just think, I met my daughter on the stairway, and when I asked her if she recognised me she called me uncle and told me that her father was up-stairs. Of course, he is her stepfather, and has all the rights—They have just spent their time exterminating me, blackguarding me——
LOUISE. A cab is stopping at the corner.
Starck withdraws into the gateway.
MASTER. I only hope they don’t come back to burden me again! Just think: to have to hear my child singing the praise of her father—the other one! And then to begin the old story all over again: “Why did you marry me?”—“Oh, you know; but what made you want me?”—“You know very well!”—And so on, until the end of the world.
LOUISE. It was the consul that came.
MASTER. How does he look?
LOUISE. He is taking his time.
MASTER. Practising what he is to say, I suppose. Does he look satisfied?
LOUISE. Thoughtful, rather——
MASTER. Hm!—That’s the way it always was. Whenever he saw that woman he became disloyal to me. She had the power of charming everybody but me. To me she seemed coarse, vulgar, ugly, stupid; to all the rest she seemed refined, pleasant, handsome, intelligent. All the hatred aroused by my independence centred in her under the form of a boundless sympathy for whoever wronged me in any way. Through her they strove to control and influence me, to wound me, and, at last, to kill me.
LOUISE. Now, I’ll go in and watch the telephone—I suppose this storm will pass like all others.
MASTER. Men cannot bear independence. They want you to obey them. Every one of my subordinates in the department, down to the very messengers, wanted me to obey him. And when I wouldn’t they called me a despot. The servants in our house wanted me to obey them and eat food that had been warmed up. When I wouldn’t, they set my wife against me. And finally my wife wanted me to obey the child, but then I left, and then all of them combined against the tyrant—which was I!—Get in there quick now, Louise, so we can set off our mines out here.
The CONSUL enters from the left.
MASTER. Results—not details—please!
CONSUL. Let’s sit down. I am a little tired.
MASTER. I think it has rained on the bench.
CONSUL. It can’t be too wet for me if you have been sitting on it.
MASTER. As you like!—Where is my child?
CONSUL. Can I begin at the beginning?
MASTER. Begin!
CONSUL [Speaking slowly] I got to the depot with Gerda—and at the ticket-office I discovered him and Agnes——
MASTER. So Agnes was with him?
CONSUL. And so was the child!—Gerda stayed outside, and I went up to them. At that moment he was handing Agnes the tickets, but when she discovered that they were for third class she threw them in his face and walked out to the cab-stand.
MASTER. Ugh!
CONSUL. As soon as I had established a connection with the man, Gerda hurried up and got hold of the child, disappearing with it in the crowd——
MASTER. What did the man have to say?
CONSUL. Oh, you know—when you come to hear the other side—and so on.
MASTER. I want to hear it. Of course, he isn’t as bad as we thought—he has his good sides——
CONSUL. Exactly!
MASTER. I thought so! But you don’t want me to sit here listening to eulogies of my enemy?
CONSUL. Oh, not eulogies, but ameliorating circumstances——
MASTER. Did you ever want to listen to me when I tried to explain the true state of affairs to you? Yes, you did listen—but your reply was a disapproving silence, as if I had been lying to you. You have always sided with what was wrong, and you have believed nothing but lies, and the reason was—that you were in love with Gerda! But there was also another reason——
CONSUL. Brother, don’t say anything more! You see nothing but your own side of things.
MASTER. How can you expect me to view my conditions from the standpoint of my enemy? I cannot take sides against myself, can I?
CONSUL. I am not your enemy.
MASTER. Yes, when you make friends with one who has wronged me!—Where is my child?
CONSUL. I don’t know.
MASTER. What was the outcome at the depot?
CONSUL. He took a south-bound train alone.
MASTER. And the others?
CONSUL. Disappeared.
MASTER. Then I may have them after me again. [Pause] Did you see if they went with him?
CONSUL. He went alone.
MASTER. Well, then we are done with that one, at least. Number two—there remain now—the mother and the child.
CONSUL. Why is the light burning up there in their rooms?
MASTER. Because they forgot to turn it out.
CONSUL. I’ll go up——
MASTER. No, don’t go!—I only hope that they don’t come back here!—To repeat, always repeat, begin the same lesson all over again!
CONSUL. But it has begun to straighten out.
MASTER. Yet the worst remains—Do you think they will come back?
CONSUL. Not she—not since she had to make you amends in the presence of Louise.
MASTER. I had forgotten that! She really did me the honour of becoming jealous! I do think there is justice in this world!
CONSUL. And then she learned that Agnes was younger than herself.
MASTER. Poor Gerda! But in a case like this you mustn’t tell people that justice exists—an avenging justice—for it is sheer falsehood that they love justice! And you must deal gently with their filth. And Nemesis—exists only for the other person.—There it’s ringing again? That telephone makes a noise like a rattlesnake!
LOUISE becomes visible at the telephone inside. Pause.
MASTER. [To LOUISE] Did the snake bite?
LOUISE. [At the window] May I speak to you, sir?
MASTER. [Going up to the window] Speak out!
LOUISE. The lady has gone to her mother, in the country, to live there with her little girl.
MASTER. [To his brother] Mother and child in the country—in a good home! Now it’s straightened out!—Oh!
LOUISE. And she asked us to turn out the light up-stairs.
MASTER. Do that at once, Louise, and pull down the shades so we don’t have to look at it any longer.
LOUISE leaves the dining-room.
STARCK. [Coming out on the sidewalk again and looking up] I think the storm has passed over.
MASTER. It seems really to have cleared up, and that means we’ll have moonlight.
CONSUL. That was a blessed rain!
STARCK. Perfectly splendid!
MASTER. Look, there’s the lamplighter coming at last!
The LAMPLIGHTER enters, lights the street lamp beside the bench, and passes on.
MASTER. The first lamp! Now the fall is here! That’s our season, old chaps! It’s getting dark, but then comes reason to light us with its bull’s-eyes, so that we don’t go astray.
LOUISE becomes visible at one of the windows on the second floor; immediately afterward everything is dark up there.
MASTER. [To LOUISE] Close the windows and pull down the shades so that all memories can lie down and sleep in peace! The peace of old age! And this fall I move away from the Silent House.
Curtain.