Hedda Gabler
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 omission 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.