Ghosts: A Family-Drama in Three Acts by Henrik Ibsen

Author:Henrik Ibsen
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Norwegian drama -- Translations into English, Families -- Drama, Tragedies, Mothers and sons -- Drama, Domestic drama, Europe -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Drama
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2019-03-07T21:30:01+00:00

Act III

The room as be­fore. All the doors stand open. The lamp is still burn­ing on the table. It is dark out of doors; there is only a faint glow from the con­flag­ra­tion in the back­ground to the left.

Mrs. Alv­ing, with a shawl over her head, stands in the con­ser­vat­ory, look­ing out. Re­gina, also with a shawl on, stands a little be­hind her.

Mrs. Alv­ing The whole thing burnt!—burnt to the ground!

Re­gina The base­ment is still burn­ing.

Mrs. Alv­ing How is it Os­wald doesn’t come home? There’s noth­ing to be saved.

Re­gina Should you like me to take down his hat to him?

Mrs. Alv­ing Has he not even got his hat on?

Re­gina Point­ing to the hall. No; there it hangs.

Mrs. Alv­ing Let it be. He must come up now. I shall go and look for him my­self. She goes out through the garden door.

Manders Comes in from the hall. Is not Mrs. Alv­ing here?

Re­gina She has just gone down the garden.

Manders This is the most ter­rible night I ever went through.

Re­gina Yes; isn’t it a dread­ful mis­for­tune, sir?

Manders Oh, don’t talk about it! I can hardly bear to think of it.

Re­gina How can it have happened—?

Manders Don’t ask me, Miss Eng­strand! How should I know? Do you, too—? Is it not enough that your fath­er—?

Re­gina What about him?

Manders Oh, he has driv­en me dis­trac­ted—

Eng­strand Enters through the hall. Your Rev­er­ence—

Manders Turns round in ter­ror. Are you after me here, too?

Eng­strand Yes, strike me dead, but I must—! Oh, Lord! what am I say­ing? But this is a ter­rible ugly busi­ness, your Rev­er­ence.

Manders Walks to and fro. Alas! alas!

Re­gina What’s the mat­ter?

Eng­strand Why, it all came of this here pray­er-meet­ing, you see. Softly. The bird’s limed, my girl. Aloud. And to think it should be my do­ing that such a thing should be his Rev­er­ence’s do­ing!

Manders But I as­sure you, Eng­strand—

Eng­strand There wasn’t an­oth­er soul ex­cept your Rev­er­ence as ever laid a fin­ger on the candles down there.

Manders Stops. So you de­clare. But I cer­tainly can­not re­col­lect that I ever had a candle in my hand.

Eng­strand And I saw as clear as day­light how your Rev­er­ence took the candle and snuffed it with your fin­gers, and threw away the snuff among the shav­ings.

Manders And you stood and looked on?

Eng­strand Yes; I saw it as plain as a pikestaff, I did.

Manders It’s quite bey­ond my com­pre­hen­sion. Be­sides, it has nev­er been my habit to snuff candles with my fin­gers.

Eng­strand And

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