John Gabriel Borkman | Page 6

hope so!
ELLA RENTHEIM. Is it not rather what you demand of him?
MRS. BORKMAN. [Curtly.] Erhart and I always make the same demands upon ourselves.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Sadly and slowly.] You are so very certain of your boy, then, Gunhild?
MRS. BORKMAN. [With veiled triumph.] Yes, that I am--thank Heaven. You may be sure of that!
ELLA RENTHEIM. Then I should think in reality you must be happy after all; in spite of all the rest.
MRS. BORKMAN. So I am--so far as that goes. But then, every moment, all the rest comes rushing in upon me like a storm.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [With a change of tone.] Tell me--you may as well tell me at once--for that is really what I have come for----
MRS. BORKMAN. What?
ELLA RENTHEIM. Something I felt I must talk to you about.--Tell me--Erhart does not live out here with--with you others?
MRS. BORKMAN. [Harshly.] Erhart cannot live out here with me. He has to live in town----
ELLA RENTHEIM. So he wrote to me.
MRS. BORKMAN. He must, for the sake of his studies. But he comes out to me for a little while every evening.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Well, may I see him then? May I speak to him at once?
MRS. BORKMAN. He has not come yet; but I expect him every moment.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Why, Gunhild, surely he must have come. I can hear his footsteps overhead.
MRS. BORKMAN. [With a rapid upward glance.] Up in the long gallery?
ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes. I have heard him walking up and down there ever since I came.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Looking away from her.] That is not Erhart, Ella.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Surprised.] Not Erhart? [Divining.] Who is it then?
MRS. BORKMAN. It is he.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Softly, with suppressed pain.] Borkman? John Gabriel Borkman?
MRS. BORKMAN. He walks up and down like that--backwards and forwards--from morning to night--day out and day in.
ELLA RENTHEIM. I have heard something of this----
MRS. BORKMAN. I daresay. People find plenty to say about us, no doubt.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Erhart has spoken of it in his letters. He said that his father generally remained by himself--up there--and you alone down here.
MRS. BORKMAN. Yes; that is how it has been, Ella, ever since they let him out, and sent him home to me. All these long eight years.
ELLA RENTHEIM. I never believed it could really be so. It seemed impossible!
MRS. BORKMAN. [Nods.] It is so; and it can never be otherwise.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Looking at her.] This must be a terrible life, Gunhild.
MRS. BORKMAN. Worse than terrible--almost unendurable.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, it must be.
MRS. BORKMAN. Always to hear his footsteps up there--from early morning till far into the night. And everything sounds so clear in this house!
ELLA RENTHEIM. Yes, it is strange how clear the sound is.
MRS. BORKMAN. I often feel as if I had a sick wolf pacing his cage up there in the gallery, right over my head. [Listens and whispers.] Hark! Do you hear! Backwards and forwards, up and down, goes the wolf.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Tentatively.] Is no change possible, Gunhild?
MRS. BORKMAN. [With a gesture of repulsion.] He has never made any movement towards a change.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Could you not make the first movement, then?
MRS. BORKMAN. [Indignantly.] I! After all the wrong he has done me! No thank you! Rather let the wolf go on prowling up there.
ELLA RENTHEIM. This room is too hot for me. You must let me take off my things after all.
MRS. BORKMAN. Yes, I asked you to.
[ELLA RENTHEIM takes off her hat and cloak and lays them on a chair beside the door leading to the hall.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Do you never happen to meet him, away from home?
MRS. BORKMAN. [With a bitter laugh.] In society, do you mean?
ELLA RENTHEIM. I mean, when he goes out walking. In the woods, or----
MRS. BORKMAN. He never goes out.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Not even in the twilight?
MRS. BORKMAN. Never.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [With emotion.] He cannot bring himself to go out?
MRS. BORKMAN. I suppose not. He has his great cloak and his hat hanging in the cupboard--the cupboard in the hall, you know----
ELLA RENTHEIM. [To herself.] The cupboard we used to hide in when we were little.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Nods.] And now and then--late in the evening--I can hear him come down as though to go out. But he always stops when he is halfway downstairs, and turns back--straight back to the gallery.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Quietly.] Do none of his old friends ever come up to see him?
MRS. BORKMAN. He has no old friends.
ELLA RENTHEIM. He had so many--once.
MRS. BORKMAN. H'm! He took the best possible way to get rid of them. He was a dear friend to his friends, was John Gabriel.
ELLA RENTHEIM. Oh, yes, that is true, Gunhild.
MRS. BORKMAN. [Vehemently.] All the same, I call it mean, petty, base, contemptible of them, to think so much of the paltry losses they may have suffered through him. They were only money losses, nothing more.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [Not answering her.]