The Lady from the Sea Part 22

Arnholm. Hm--has she?

Lyngstrand. I suppose Mrs. w.a.n.gel was very much frightened about that American yesterday?

Arnholm. What do you know about that?

Lyngstrand. I told Mrs. w.a.n.gel that I had seen him in the flesh behind the garden.

Arnholm. Oh! I see.

Bolette (to ARNHOLM). No doubt you and father sat up very late last night, talking?

Arnholm. Yes, rather late. We were talking over serious matters.

Bolette. Did you put in a word for me, and my affairs, too?

Arnholm. No, dear Bolette, I couldn't manage it. He was so completely taken up with something else.

Bolette (sighs). Ah! yes; he always is.

Arnholm (looks at her meaningly). But later on today we'll talk more fully about--the matter. Where's your father now? Not at home?

Bolette. Yes, he is. He must be down in the office. I'll fetch him.

Arnholm. No, thanks. Don't do that. I'd rather go down to him.

Bolette (listening). Wait one moment, Mr. Arnholm; I believe that's father on the stairs. Yes, I suppose he's been up to look after her.

(w.a.n.gEL comes in from the door on the left.)

w.a.n.gel (shaking ARNHOLM'S hand). What, dear friend, are you here already? It was good of you to come so early, for I should like to talk a little further with you.

Bolette (to LYNGSTRAND). Hadn't we better go down to Hilde in the garden?

Lyngstrand. I shall be delighted, Miss w.a.n.gel.

(He and BOLETTE go down into the garden, and pa.s.s out between the trees in the background.)

Arnholm (following them with his eyes, turns to w.a.n.gEL). Do you know anything about that young man?

w.a.n.gel. No, nothing at all.

Arnholm. But do you think it right he should knock about so much with the girls?

w.a.n.gel. Does he? I really hadn't noticed it.

Arnholm. You ought to see to it, I think.

w.a.n.gel. Yes, I suppose you're right. But, good Lord! What's a man to do? The girls are so accustomed to look after themselves now. They won't listen to me, nor to Ellida.

Arnholm. Not to her either?

w.a.n.gel. No; and besides I really cannot expect Ellida to trouble about such things. She's not fit for that (breaking off). But it wasn't that which we were to talk of. Now tell me, have you thought the matter over--thought over all I told you of?

Arnholm. I have thought of nothing else ever since we parted last night.

w.a.n.gel. And what do you think should be done?

Arnholm. Dear w.a.n.gel, I think you, as a doctor, must know that better than I.

w.a.n.gel. Oh! if you only knew how difficult it is for a doctor to judge rightly about a patient who is so dear to him! Besides, this is no ordinary illness. No ordinary doctor and no ordinary medicines can help her.

Arnholm. How is she today?

w.a.n.gel. I was upstairs with her just now, and then she seemed to me quite calm; but behind all her moods something lies hidden which it is impossible for me to fathom; and then she is so changeable, so capricious--she varies so suddenly.

Arnholm. No doubt that is the result of her morbid state of mind.

w.a.n.gel. Not altogether. When you go down to the bedrock, it was born in her. Ellida belongs to the sea-folk. That is the matter.

Arnholm. What do you really mean, my dear doctor?

w.a.n.gel. Haven't you noticed that the people from out there by the open sea are, in a way, a people apart? It is almost as if they themselves lived the life of the sea. There is the rush of waves, and ebb and flow too, both in their thoughts and in their feelings, and so they can never bear transplanting. Oh! I ought to have remembered that. It was a sin against Ellida to take her away from there, and bring her here.

Arnholm. You have come to that opinion?

w.a.n.gel. Yes, more and more. But I ought to have told myself this beforehand. Oh! I knew it well enough at bottom! But I put it from me.

For, you see, I loved her so! Therefore, I thought of myself first of all. I was inexcusably selfish at that time!

Arnholm. Hm. I suppose every man is a little selfish under such circ.u.mstances. Moreover, I've never noticed that vice in you, Doctor w.a.n.gel.

w.a.n.gel (walks uneasily about the room). Oh, yes! And I have been since then, too. Why, I am so much, much older than she is. I ought to have been at once as a father to her and a guide. I ought to have done my best to develop and enlighten her mind. Unfortunately nothing ever came of that. You see, I hadn't stamina enough, for I preferred her just as she was. So things went worse and worse with her, and then I didn't know what to do. (In a lower voice.) That was why I wrote to you in my trouble, and asked you to come here.

Arnholm (looks at him in astonishment). What, was it for this you wrote?

w.a.n.gel. Yes; but don't let anyone notice anything.

Arnholm. How on earth, dear doctor--what good did you expect me to be? I don't understand it.

w.a.n.gel. No, naturally. For I was on an altogether false track. I thought Ellida's heart had at one time gone out to you, and that she still secretly cared for you a little--that perhaps it would do her good to see you again, and talk of her home and the old days.

Arnholm. So it was your wife you meant when you wrote that she expected me, and--and perhaps longed for me.

w.a.n.gel. Yes, who else?

Arnholm (hurriedly). No, no. You're right. But I didn't understand.

w.a.n.gel. Naturally, as I said, for I was on an absolutely wrong track.