Early Plays | Page 5

letters in which he informed me
that Catiline had now been submitted to the theater; that it would soon
be given a performance,--about that there could naturally be no doubt
inasmuch as the management consisted of very discriminating men;
and that there could be as little doubt that the booksellers of the town
would one and all gladly pay a round fee for the first edition, the main
point being, he thought, only to discover the one who would make the
highest bid.
After a long and tense period of waiting there began to appear in the

meantime a few difficulties. My friend had the piece returned from the
management with a particularly polite but equally peremptory rejection.
He now took the manuscript from bookseller to bookseller; but all to a
man expressed themselves to the same effect as the theatrical
management. The highest bidder demanded so and so much to publish
the piece without any fee.
All this, however, was far from lessening my friend's belief in victory.
He wrote to the contrary that it was best even so; I should come
forward myself as the publisher of my drama; the necessary funds he
would advance me; the profits we should divide in consideration of his
undertaking the business end of the deal, except the proof-reading,
which he regarded as superfluous in view of the handsome and legible
manuscript the printers had to follow. In a later letter he declared that,
considering these promising prospects for the future, he contemplated
abandoning his studies in order to consecrate himself completely to the
publishing of my works; two or three plays a year, he thought, I should
with ease be able to write, and according to a calculation of
probabilities he had made he had discovered that with our surplus we
should at no distant time be able to undertake the journey so often
agreed upon or discussed, through Europe and the Orient.
My journey was for the time being limited to Christiania. I arrived
there in the beginning of the spring of 1850 and just previous to my
arrival Catiline had appeared in the bookstalls. The drama created a stir
and awakened considerable interest among the students, but the critics
dwelt largely on the faulty verses and thought the book in other
respects immature. A more appreciative judgment was uttered from but
one single quarter, but this expression came from a man whose
appreciation has always been dear to me and weighty and whom I
herewith offer my renewed gratitude. Not very many copies of the
limited edition were sold; my friend had a good share of them in his
custody, and I remember that one evening when our domestic
arrangements heaped up for us insurmountable difficulties, this pile of
printed matter was fortunately disposed of as waste paper to a huckster.
During the days immediately following we lacked none of the prime
necessities of life.
During my sojourn at home last summer and particularly since my
return here there loomed up before me more clearly and more sharply

than ever before the kaleidoscopic scenes of my literary life. Among
other things I also brought out Catiline. The contents of the book as
regards details I had almost forgotten; but by reading it through anew I
found that it nevertheless contained a great deal which I could still
acknowledge, particularly if it be remembered that it is my first
undertaking. Much, around which my later writings center, the
contradiction between ability and desire, between will and possibility,
the intermingled tragedy and comedy in humanity and in the
individual,--appeared already here in vague foreshadowings, and I
conceived therefore the plan of preparing a new edition, a kind of
jubilee-edition,--a plan to which my publisher with his usual readiness
gave his approval.
But it was naturally not enough simply to reprint without further ado
the old original edition, for this is, as already pointed out, nothing but a
copy of my imperfect and uncorrected concept or of the very first rough
draft. In the rereading of it I remembered clearly what I originally had
had in mind, and I saw moreover that the form practically nowhere
gave a satisfactory rendering of what I had wished.
I determined therefore to revise this drama of my youth in a way in
which I believe even at that time I should have been able to do it had
the time been at my disposal and the circumstances more favorable for
me. The ideas, the conceptions, and the development of the whole, I
have not on the other hand altered. The book has remained the original;
only now it appears in a complete form.
With this in mind I pray that my friends in Scandinavia and elsewhere
will receive it; I pray that they will receive it as