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8 This Etext was produced by Douglas Levy.
For Nikki.
HEDDA GABLER
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer
Introduction by William Archer
INTRODUCTION.
From Munich, on June 29, 1890, Ibsen wrote to the Swedish poet, Count
Carl Soilsky: "Our intention has all along been to spend the summer
in the Tyrol again. But circumstances are against our doing so. I
am at present engaged upon a new dramatic work, which for several
reasons has made very slow progress, and I do not leave Munich until
I can take with me the completed first draft. There is little or no
prospect of my being able to complete it in July." Ibsen did not
leave Munich at all that season. On October 30 he wrote: "At present
I am utterly engrossed in a new play. Not one leisure hour have I
had for several months." Three weeks later (November 20) he wrote
to his French translator, Count Prozor: "My new play is finished; the
manuscript went off to Copenhagen the day before yesterday. . . . It
produces a curious feeling of emptiness to be thus suddenly separated
from a work which has occupied one's time and thoughts for several
months, to the exclusion of all else. But it is a good thing, too,
to have done with it. The constant intercourse with the fictitious
personages was beginning to make me quite nervous." To the same
correspondent he wrote on December 4: "The title of the play is
_Hedda Gabler_. My intention in giving it this name was to indicate
that Hedda, as a personality, is to be regarded rather as her father's
daughter than as her husband's wife. It was not my desire to deal in
this play with so-called problems. What I principally wanted to do
was to depict human beings, human emotions, and human destinies, upon
a groundwork of certain of the social conditions and principles of
the present day."
So far we read the history of the play in the official
"Correspondence."(1) Some interesting glimpses into the poet's moods
during the period between the completion of _The Lady from the Sea_
and the publication of _Hedda Gabler_ are to be found in the series
of letters to Fraulein Emilie Bardach, of Vienna, published by Dr.
George Brandes.(2) This young lady Ibsen met at Gossensass in the
Tyrol in the autumn of 1889. The record of their brief friendship
belongs to the history of _The Master Builder_ rather than to that of
_Hedda Gabler_, but the allusions to his work in his letters to her
during the winter of 1889 demand some examination.
So early as October 7, 1889, he writes to her: "A new poem begins to
dawn in me. I will execute it this winter, and try to transfer to it
the bright atmosphere of the summer. But I feel that it will end in
sadness--such is my nature." Was this "dawning" poem _Hedda Gabler_?
Or was it rather _The Master Builder_ that was germinating in his
mind? Who shall say? The latter hypothesis seems the more probable,
for it is hard to believe that at any stage in the incubation of
_Hedda Gabler_ he can have conceived it as even beginning in gaiety.
A week later, however, he appears to have made up his mind that the
time had not come for the poetic utilisation of his recent experiences.
He writes on October 15: "Here I sit as usual at my writing-table.
Now I would fain work, but am unable to. My fancy, indeed, is very
active. But it always wanders awayours. I cannot repress my summer
memories--nor do I wish to. I live through my experience again and
again and yet again. To transmute it all into a poem, I find, in the
meantime, impossible." Clearly, then, he felt that his imagination
ought to have been engaged on some theme having no relation to his
summer experiences--the theme, no doubt, of _Hedda Gabler_. In his
next letter, dated October 29, he writes: "Do not be troubled because
I cannot, in the meantime, create (_dichten_). In reality I am for
ever creating, or, at any rate, dreaming of something which, when in
the fulness of time it ripens, will reveal itself as a creation
(_Dichtung_)." On November 19 he says: "I am very busily occupied
with preparations for my new poem. I sit almost the whole day at my
writing-table. Go out only in the evening for a little while." The
five following letters contain no allusion to the play; but on
September 18, 1890, he wrote: "My wife and son are at present at
Riva, on the Lake of Garda, and will probably remain there until the
middle of October, or even longer. Thus I am quite alone here, and
cannot get away. The new play on which I am at present engaged will
probably not be ready until November, though I sit at my writing-
table daily, and almost the whole day long."
Here ends the history of _Hedda Gabler_, so far as the poet's letters
carry us. Its hard clear outlines, and perhaps somewhat bleak
atmosphere, seem to have resulted from a sort of reaction against
the sentimental "dreamery" begotten of his Gossensass experiences.
He sought refuge in the chill materialism of Hedda from the ardent
transcendentalism of Hilda, whom he already heard knocking at the
door. He was not yet in the mood to deal with her on the plane of
poetry.(3)
_Hedda Gabler_ was published in Copenhagen on December 16, 1890.
This was the first of Ibsen's plays to be translated from proof-
sheets and published in England and America almost simultaneously
with its first appearance in Scandinavia. The earliest theatrical
performance took place at the Residenz Theater, Munich, on the last
day of January 1891, in the presence of the poet, Frau Conrad-Ramlo
playing the title-part. The Lessing Theater, Berlin, followed suit
on February 10. Not till February 25 was the play seen in Copenhagen,
with Fru Hennings as Hedda. On the following night it was given for
the first time in Christiania, the Norwegian Hedda being Froken
Constance Bruun. It was this production which the poet saw when he
visited the Christiania Theater for the first time after his return
to Norway, August 28, 1891. It would take pages to give even the
baldest list of the productions and revivals of _Hedda Gabler_ in
Scandinavia and Germany, where it has always ranked among Ibsen's
most popular works. The admirable production of the play by Miss
Elizabeth Robins and Miss Marion Lea, at the Vaudeville Theatre,
London, April 20, 1891, may rank as the second great step towards the
popularisation of Ibsen in England, the first being the Charrington-
Achurch production of _A Doll's House_ in 1889. Miss Robins
afterwards repeated her fine performance of Hedda many times, in
London, in the English provinces, and in New York. The character has
also been acted in London by Eleonora Duse, and as I write (March, 5,
1907) by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, at the Court Theatre. In Australia
and America, Hedda has frequently been acted by Miss Nance O'Neill
and other actresses--quite recently by a Russian actress, Madame Alla
Nazimova, who (playing in English) seems to have made a notable
success both in this part and in Nora. The first French Hedda Gabler
was Mlle. Marthe Brandes, who played the part at the Vaudeville
Theatre, Paris, on December 17, 1891, the performance being introduced
by a lecture by M. Jules Lemaitre. In Holland, in Italy, in Russia,
the play has been acted times without number. In short (as might
easily have been foretold) it has rivalled _A Doll's House_ in world-
wide popularity.
It has been suggested,(4) I think without sufficient ground, that Ibsen
deliberately conceived _Hedda Gabler_ as an "international" play, and
that the scene is really the "west end" of any European city. To me
it seems quite clear that Ibsen had Christiania in mind, and the
Christiania of a somewhat earlier period than the 'nineties. The
electric cars, telephones, and other conspicuous factors in the life
of a modern capital are notably absent from the play. There is no
electric light in Secretary Falk's villa. It is still the habit for
ladies to return on foot from evening parties, with gallant swains
escorting them. This "suburbanism," which so distressed the London
critics of 1891, was characteristic of the Christiania Ibsen himself
had known in the 'sixties--the Christiania of _Love's Comedy_--rather
than of the greatly extended and modernised city of the end of the
century. Moreover Lovborg's allusions to the fiord, and the suggested
picture of Sheriff Elvsted, his family and his avocations are all
distinctively Norwegian. The truth seems to be very simple--the
environment and the subsidiary personages are all thoroughly national,
but Hedda herself is an "international" type, a product of civilisation
by no means peculiar to Norway.
We cannot point to any individual model or models who "sat to" Ibsen
for the character of Hedda.(5) The late Grant Allen declared that
Hedda was "nothing more nor less than the girl we take down to dinner
in London nineteen times out of twenty"; in which case Ibsen must
have suffered from a superfluidity of models, rather than from any
difficulty in finding one. But the fact is that in this, as in all
other instances, the word "model" must be taken in a very different
sense from that in which it is commonly used in painting. Ibsen
undoubtedly used models for this trait and that, but never for a
whole figure. If his characters can be called portraits at all, they
are composite portraits. Even when it seems pretty clear that the
initial impulse towards the creation of a particular character came
from some individual, the original figure is entirely transmuted in
the process of harmonisation with the dramatic scheme. We need not,
therefore, look for a definite prototype of Hedda; but Dr. Brandes
shows that two of that lady's exploits were probably suggested by
the anecdotic history of the day.
Ibsen had no doubt heard how the wife of a well-known Norwegian
composer, in a fit of raging jealousy excited by her husband's
prolonged absence from home, burnt the manuscript of a symphony
which he had just finished. The circumstances under which Hedda
burns Lovborg's manuscript are, of course, entirely different and
infinitely more dramatic; but here we have merely another instance
of the dramatisation or "poetisation" of the raw material of life.
Again, a still more painful incident probably came to his knowledge
about the same time. A beautiful and very intellectual woman was
married to a well-known man who had been addicted to drink, but had
entirely conquered the vice. One day a mad whim seized her to put
his self-mastery and her power over him to the test. As it happened
to be his birthday, she rolled into his study a small keg of brandy,
and then withdrew. She returned some time after wards to find that
he had broached the keg, and lay insensible on the floor. In this
anecdote we cannot but recognise the germ, not only of Hedda's
temptation of Lovborg, but of a large part of her character.
"Thus," says Dr. Brandes, "out of small and scattered traits of
reality Ibsen fashioned his close-knit and profoundly thought-out
works of art."
For the character of Eilert Lovborg, again, Ibsen seem unquestionably
to have borrowed several traits from a definite original. A young
Danish man of letters, whom Dr. Brandes calls Holm, was an
enthusiastic admirer of Ibsen, and came to be on very friendly terms
with him. One day Ibsen was astonished to receive, in Munich, a
parcel addressed from Berlin by this young man, containing, without
a word of explanation, a packet of his (Ibsen's) letters, and a
photograph which he had presented to Holm. Ibsen brooded and brooded
over the incident, and at last came to the conclusion that the young
man had intended to return her letters and photograph to a young lady
to whom he was known to be attached, and had in a fit of aberration
mixed up the two objects of his worship. Some time after, Holm
appeared at Ibsen's rooms. He talked quite rationally, but professed
to have no knowledge whatever of the letter-incident, though he
admitted the truth of Ibsen's conjecture that the "belle dame sans
merci" had demanded the return of her letters and portrait. Ibsen
was determined to get at the root of the mystery; and a little inquiry
into his young friend's habits revealed the fact that he broke his
fast on a bottle of port wine, consumed a bottle of Rhine wine at
lunch, of Burgundy at dinner, and finished off the evening with one
or two more bottles of port. Then he heard, too, how, in the course
of a night's carouse, Holm had lost the manuscript of a book; and in
these traits he saw the outline of the figure of Eilert Lovborg.
Some time elapsed, and again Ibsen received a postal packet from Holm.
This one contained his will, in which Ibsen figured as his residuary
legatee. But many other legatees were mentioned in the instrument--
all of them ladies, such as Fraulein Alma Rothbart, of Bremen, and
Fraulein Elise Kraushaar, of Berlin. The bequests to these meritorious
spinsters were so generous that their sum considerably exceeded the
amount of the testator's property. Ibsen gently but firmly declined
the proffered inheritance; but Holm's will no doubt suggested to him
the figure of that red-haired "Mademoiselle Diana," who is heard of
but not seen in _Hedda Gabler_, and enabled him to add some further
traits to the portraiture of Lovborg. When the play appeared, Holm
recognised himself with glee in the character of the bibulous man of
letters, and thereafter adopted "Eilert Lovborg" as his pseudonym. I
do not, therefore, see why Dr. Brandes should suppress his real name;
but I willingly imitate him in erring on the side of discretion. The
poor fellow died several years ago.
Some critics have been greatly troubled as to the precise meaning of
Hedda's fantastic vision of Lovborg "with vine-leaves in his hair."
Surely this is a very obvious image or symbol of the beautiful, the
ideal, aspect of bacchic elation and revelry. Antique art, or I am
much mistaken, shows us many figures of Dionysus himself and his
followers with vine-leaves entwined their hair. To Ibsen's mind, at
any rate, the image had long been familiar. In _Peer Gynt_ (Act iv.
sc. 8), when Peer, having carried off Anitra, finds himself in a
particularly festive mood, he cries: "Were there vine-leaves around,
I would garland my brow." Again, in _Emperor and Galilean_ (Pt. ii.
Act 1) where Julian, in the procession of Dionysus, impersonates the
god himself, it is directed that he shall wear a wreath of vine-
leaves. Professor Dietrichson relates that among the young artists
whose society Ibsen frequented during his first years in Rome, it
was customary, at their little festivals, for the revellers to deck
themselves in this fashion. But the image is so obvious that there
is no need to trace it to any personal experience. The attempt to
place Hedda's vine-leaves among Ibsen's obscurities is an example of
the firm resolution not to understand which animated the criticism
of the 'nineties.
Dr. Brandes has dealt very severely with the character of Eilert
Lovborg, alleging that we cannot believe in the genius attributed
to him. But where is he described as a genius? The poet represents
him as a very able student of sociology; but that is quite a different
thing from attributing to him such genius as must necessarily shine
forth in every word he utters. Dr. Brandes, indeed, declines to
believe even in his ability as a sociologist, on the ground that it
is idle to write about the social development of the future. "To
our prosaic minds," he says, "it may seem as if the most sensible
utterance on the subject is that of the fool of the play: 'The future!
Good heavens, we know nothing of the future.'" The best retort to
this criticism is that which Eilert himself makes: "There's a thing
or two to be said about it all the same." The intelligent forecasting
of the future (as Mr. H. G. Wells has shown) is not only clearly
distinguishable from fantastic Utopianism, but is indispensable to
any large statesmanship or enlightened social activity. With very
real and very great respect for Dr. Brandes, I cannot think that he
has been fortunate in his treatment of Lovborg's character. It has
been represented as an absurdity that he would think of reading
abstracts from his new book to a man like Tesman, whom he despises.
But though Tesman is a ninny, he is, as Hedda says, a "specialist"--
he is a competent, plodding student of his subject. Lovborg may
quite naturally wish to see how his new method, or his excursion
into a new field, strikes the average scholar of the Tesman type.
He is, in fact, "trying it on the dog"--neither an unreasonable nor
an unusual proceeding. There is, no doubt, a certain improbability
in the way in which Lovborg is represented as carrying his manuscript
around, and especially in Mrs. Elvsted's production of his rough
draft from her pocket; but these are mechanical trifles, on which
only a niggling criticism would dream of laying stress.
Of all Ibsen's works, _Hedda Gabler_ is the most detached, the most
objective--a character-study pure and simple. It is impossible--or
so it seems to me--to extract any sort of general idea from it. One
cannot even call it a satire, unless one is prepared to apply that
term to the record of a "case" in a work of criminology. Reverting
to Dumas's dictum that a play should contain "a painting, a judgment,
an ideal," we may say the _Hedda Gabler_ fulfils only the first of
these requirements. The poet does not even pass judgment on his
heroine: he simply paints her full-length portrait with scientific
impassivity. But what a portrait! How searching in insight, how
brilliant in colouring, how rich in detail! Grant Allen's remark,
above quoted, was, of course, a whimsical exaggeration; the Hedda
type is not so common as all that, else the world would quickly
come to an end. But particular traits and tendencies of the Hedda
type are very common in modern life, and not only among women.
Hyperaesthesia lies at the root of her tragedy. With a keenly
critical, relentlessly solvent intelligence, she combines a morbid
shrinking from all the gross and prosaic detail of the sensual life.
She has nothing to take her out of herself--not a single intellectual
interest or moral enthusiasm. She cherishes, in a languid way, a
petty social ambition; and even that she finds obstructed and
baffled. At the same time she learns that another woman has had
the courage to love and venture all, where she, in her cowardice,
only hankered and refrained. Her malign egoism rises up uncontrolled,
and calls to its aid her quick and subtle intellect. She ruins the
other woman's happiness, but in doing so incurs a danger from which
her sense of personal dignity revolts. Life has no such charm for
her that she cares to purchase it at the cost of squalid humiliation
and self-contempt. The good and the bad in her alike impel her to
have done with it all; and a pistol-shot ends what is surely one of
the most poignant character-tragedies in literature. Ibsen's brain
never worked at higher pressure than in the conception and adjustment
of those "crowded hours" in which Hedda, tangled in the web of Will
and Circumstance, struggles on till she is too weary to struggle any
more.
It may not be superfluous to note that the "a" in "Gabler" should be
sounded long and full, like the "a" in "Garden"--NOT like the "a" in
"gable" or in "gabble."
W. A.
FOOTNOTES.
(1)Letters 214, 216, 217, 219.
(2)In the Ibsen volume of _Die Literatur_ (Berlin).
(3)Dr. Julius Elias (_Neue deutsche Rundschau_, December 1906, p. 1462)
makes the curious assertion that the character of Thea Elvsted was
in part borrowed from this "Gossensasser Hildetypus." It is hard to
see how even Gibes' ingenuity could distil from the same flower two
such different essences as Thea and Hilda.
(4)See article by Herman Bang in _Neue deutsche Rundschau_, December
1906, p. 1495.
(5)Dr. Brahm (_Neue deutsche Rundschau_, December 1906, P. 1422) says
that after the first performance of _Hedda Gabler_ in Berlin Ibsen
confided to him that the character had been suggested by a German
lady whom he met in Munich, and who did not shoot, but poisoned
herself. Nothing more seems to be known of this lady. See, too,
an article by Julius Elias in the same magazine, p. 1460.
Transcriber's Note:
The inclusion or ommision of commas between repeated words ("well,
well"; "there there", etc.) in this etext is reproduced faithfully
from both the 1914 and 1926 editions of _Hedda Gabler_, copyright
1907 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Modern editions of the same
translation use the commas consistently throughout. -D.L.
HEDDA GABLER.
PLAY IN FOUR ACTS.
CHARACTERS.
GEORGE TESMAN.*
HEDDA TESMAN, his wife.
MISS JULIANA TESMAN, his aunt.
MRS. ELVSTED.
JUDGE** BRACK.
EILERT LOVBORG.
BERTA, servant at the Tesmans.
*Tesman, whose Christian name in the original is "Jorgen," is
described as "stipendiat i kulturhistorie"--that is to say, the
holder of a scholarship for purposes of research into the History
of Civilisation.
**In the original "Assessor."
The scene of the action is Tesman's villa, in the west end
of Christiania.
ACT FIRST.
A spacious, handsome, and tastefully furnished drawing room,
decorated in dark colours. In the back, a wide doorway with
curtains drawn back, leading into a smaller room decorated
in the same style as the drawing-room. In the right-hand
wall of the front room, a folding door leading out to the
hall. In the opposite wall, on the left, a glass door, also
with curtains drawn back. Through the panes can be seen
part of a verandah outside, and trees covered with autumn
foliage. An oval table, with a cover on it, and surrounded
by chairs, stands well forward. In front, by the wall on
the right, a wide stove of dark porcelain, a high-backed
arm-chair, a cushioned foot-rest, and two footstools. A
settee, with a small round table in front of it, fills the
upper right-hand corner. In front, on the left, a little
way from the wall, a sofa. Further back than the glass
door, a piano. On either side of the doorway at the back
a whatnot with terra-cotta and majolica ornaments.--
Against the back wall of the inner room a sofa, with a
table, and one or two chairs. Over the sofa hangs the
portrait of a handsome elderly man in a General's uniform.
Over the table a hanging lamp, with an opal glass shade.--A
number of bouquets are arranged about the drawing-room, in
vases and glasses. Others lie upon the tables. The floors
in both rooms are covered with thick carpets.--Morning light.
The sun shines in through the glass door.
MISS JULIANA TESMAN, with her bonnet on a carrying a parasol,
comes in from the hall, followed by BERTA, who carries a
bouquet wrapped in paper. MISS TESMAN is a comely and pleasant-
looking lady of about sixty-five. She is nicely but simply
dressed in a grey walking-costume. BERTA is a middle-aged
woman of plain and rather countrified appearance.
MISS TESMAN.
[Stops close to the door, listens, and says softly:] Upon my word, I
don't believe they are stirring yet!
BERTA.
[Also softly.] I told you so, Miss. Remember how late the steamboat
got in last night. And then, when they got home!--good Lord, what a
lot the young mistress had to unpack before she could get to bed.
MISS TESMAN.
Well well--let them have their sleep out. But let us see that they
get a good breath of the fresh morning air when they do appear.
[She goes to the glass door and throws it open.
BERTA.
[Beside the table, at a loss what to do with the bouquet in her hand.]
I declare there isn't a bit of room left. I think I'll put it down
here, Miss. [She places it on the piano.
MISS TESMAN.
So you've got a new mistress now, my dear Berta. Heaven knows it was
a wrench to me to part with you.
BERTA.
[On the point of weeping.] And do you think it wasn't hard for me,
too, Miss? After all the blessed years I've been with you and Miss
Rina.(1)
MISS TESMAN.
We must make the best of it, Berta. There was nothing else to be
done. George can't do without you, you see-he absolutely can't.
He has had you to look after him ever since he was a little boy.
BERTA.
Ah but, Miss Julia, I can't help thinking of Miss Rina lying helpless
at home there, poor thing. And with only that new girl too! She'll
never learn to take proper care of an invalid.
MISS TESMAN.
Oh, I shall manage to train her. And of course, you know, I shall
take most of it upon myself. You needn't be uneasy about my poor
sister, my dear Berta.
BERTA.
Well, but there's another thing, Miss. I'm so mortally afraid I
shan't be able to suit the young mistress.
MISS TESMAN.
Oh well--just at first there may be one or two things---
BERTA.
Most like she'll be terrible grand in her ways.
MISS TESMAN.
Well, you can't wonder at that--General Gabler's daughter! Think of
the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father's time. Don't
you remember how we used to see her riding down the road along with
the General? In that long black habit--and with feathers in her hat?
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