Rosmersholm Part 15

Rebecca. Yes, new ties with the outside world. Live, work, do something! Do not sit here musing and brooding over insoluble conundrums.

Rosmer (getting up). New ties! (Walks across the room, turns at the door and comes back again.) A question occurs to my mind. Has it not occurred to you too, Rebecca?

Rebecca (catching her breath). Let me hear what it is.

Rosmer. What do you suppose will become of the tie between us, after to-day?

Rebecca. I think surely our friends.h.i.+p can endure, come what may.

Rosmer. Yes, but that is not exactly what I meant. I was thinking of what brought us together from the first, what links us so closely to one another--our common belief in the possibility of a man and a woman living together in chast.i.ty.

Rebecca. Yes, yes--what of it?

Rosmer. What I mean is--does not such a tie as that--such a tie as ours--seem to belong properly to a life lived in quiet, happy peacefulness?

Rebecca. Well?

Rosmer. But now I see stretching before me a life of strife and unrest and violent emotions. For I mean to live my life, Rebecca! I am not going to let myself be beaten to the ground by the dread of what may happen. I am not going to have my course of life prescribed for me, either by any living soul or by another.

Rebecca. No, no--do not! Be a free man in everything, John!

Rosmer. Do you understand what is in my Mind, then? Do you not know? Do you not see how I could best win my freedom from all these harrowing memories from the whole sad past?

Rebecca. Tell me!

Rosmer. By setting up, in opposition to them, a new and living reality.

Rebecca (feeling for the back of the chair). A living--? What do you mean?

Rosmer (coming closer to her). Rebecca--suppose I asked you now--will you be my second wife?

Rebecca (is speechless for a moment, then gives a cry of joy). Your wife! Yours--! I!

Rosmer. Yes--let us try what that will do. We two shall be one. There must no longer be any empty place left by the dead in this house.

Rebecca. I--in Beata's place--?

Rosmer. And then that chapter of my life will be closed--completely closed, never to be reopened.

Rebecca (in a low, trembling voice). Do you think so, John?

Rosmer. It must be so! It must! I cannot--I will not--go through life with a dead body on my back. Help me to throw it off, Rebecca; and then let us stifle all memories in our sense of freedom, in joy, in pa.s.sion.

You shall be to me the only wife I have ever had.

Rebecca (controlling herself). Never speak of this, again. I will never be your wife.

Rosmer. What! Never? Do you think, then, that you could not learn to love me? Is not our friends.h.i.+p already tinged with love?

Rebecca (stopping her ears, as if in fear). Don't speak like that, John! Don't say such things!

Rosmer (catching her by the arm). It is true! There is a growing possibility in the tie that is between us. I can see that you feel that, as well as I--do you not, Rebecca?

Rebecca (controlling herself completely). Listen. Let me tell you this--if you persist in this, I shall leave Rosmersholm.

Rosmer. Leave Rosmersholm! You! You cannot do that. It is impossible.

Rebecca. It is still more impossible for me to become your wife. Never, as long as I live, can I be that.

Rosmer (looks at her in surprise). You say "can"--and you say it so strangely. Why can you not?

Rebecca (taking both his hands in hers). Dear friend--for your own sake, as well as for mine, do not ask me why. (Lets go of his hands.) So, John. (Goes towards the door on the left.)

Rosmer. For the future the world will hold only one question for me--why?

Rebecca (turns and looks at him). In that case everything is at an end.

Rosmer. Between you and me?

Rebecca. Yes.

Rosmer. Things can never be at an end between us two. You shall never leave Rosmersholm.

Rebecca (with her hand on the door-handle). No, I dare say I shall not.

But, all the same, if you question me again, it will mean the end of everything.

Rosmer. The end of everything, all the same? How--?

Rebecca. Because then I shall go the way Beata went. Now you know, John.

Rosmer. Rebecca--!

Rebecca (stops at the door and nods: slowly). Now you know. (Goes out.)

Rosmer (stares in bewilderment at the shut door, and says to himself): What can it mean?

ACT III

(SCENE. The sitting-room at Rosmersholm. The window and the hall-door are open. The morning sun is seen s.h.i.+ning outside. REBECCA, dressed as in ACT I., is standing by the window, watering and arranging the flowers. Her work is lying on the armchair. MRS. HELSETH is going round the room with a feather brush, dusting the furniture.)

Rebecca (after a short pause). I wonder why Mr. Rosmer is so late in coming down to-day?

Mrs. Helseth. Oh, he is often as late as this, miss. He is sure to be down directly.

Rebecca. Have you seen anything of him?