Little Eyolf | Page 4

that it seems to touch life at so many different
points. But I must not be understood as implying that Ibsen constructed
the play with any such definitely allegoric design as is here set forth. I
do not believe that this creator of men and women ever started from an
abstract conception. He did not first compose his philosophic tune and
then set his puppets dancing to it. The germ in his mind was dramatic,
not ethical; it was only as the drama developed that its meanings
dawned upon him; and he left them implicit and fragmentary, like the

symbolism of life itself, seldom formulated, never worked out with
schematic precision. He simply took a cutting from the tree of life, and,
planting it in the rich soil of his imagination, let it ramify and burgeon
as it would.
Even if one did not know the date of Little Eyolf, one could confidently
assign it to the latest period of Ibsen's career, on noting a certain
difference of scale between its foundations and its superstructure. In his
earlier plays, down to and including Hedda Gabler, we feel his
invention at work to the very last moment, often with more intensity in
the last act than in the first; in his later plays he seems to be in haste to
pass as early as possible from invention to pure analysis. In this play,
after the death of Eyolf (surely one of the most inspired "situations" in
all drama) there is practically no external action whatsoever. Nothing
happens save in the souls of the characters; there is no further invention,
but rather what one may perhaps call inquisition. This does not prevent
the second act from being quite the most poignant or the third act from
being one of the most moving that Ibsen ever wrote. Far from wishing
to depreciate the play, I rate it more highly, perhaps, than most
critics--among the very greatest of Ibsen's achievements. I merely note
as a characteristic of the poet's latest manner this disparity of scale
between the work foreshadowed, so to speak, and the work completed.
We shall find it still more evident in the case of John Gabriel Borkman.

LITTLE EYOLF (1894)
CHARACTERS
ALFRED ALLMERS, landed proprietor and man of letters formerly a
tutor. MRS. RITA ALLMERS, his wife. EYOLF, their child, nine
years old. MISS ASTA ALLMERS, Alfred's younger half-sister.
ENGINEER BORGHEIM. THE RAT-WIFE.
The action takes place on ALLMERS'S property, bordering on the fjord,
twelve or fourteen miles from Christiania.

LITTLE EYOLF
PLAY IN THREE ACTS
ACT FIRST
[A pretty and richly-decorated garden-room, full of furniture, flowers,
and plants. At the back, open glass doors, leading out to a verandah. An
extensive view over the fiord. In the distance, wooded hillsides. A door
in each of the side walls, the one on the right a folding door, placed far
back. In front on the right, a sofa, with cushions and rugs. Beside the
sofa, a small table, and chairs. In front, on the left, a larger table, with
arm-chairs around it. On the table stands an open hand-bag. It is an
early summer morning, with warm sunshine.]
[Mrs. RITA ALLMERS stands beside the table, facing towards the left,
engaged in unpacking the bag. She is a handsome, rather tall,
well-developed blonde, about thirty years of age, dressed in a
light-coloured morning-gown.]
[Shortly after, Miss ASTA ALLMERS enters by the door on the right,
wearing a light brown summer dress, with hat, jacket, and parasol.
Under her arm she carries a locked portfolio of considerable size. She is
slim, of middle height, with dark hair, and deep, earnest eyes.
Twenty-five years old.]
ASTA. [As she enters.] Good-morning, my dear Rita.
RITA. [Turns her head, and nods to her.] What! is that you, Asta?
Come all the way from town so early?
ASTA. [Takes of her things, and lays them on a chair beside the door.]
Yes, such a restless feeling came over me. I felt I must come out to-day,
and see how little Eyolf was getting on--and you too. [Lays the
portfolio on the table beside the sofa.] So I took the steamer, and here I
am.
RITA. [Smiling to her.] And I daresay you met one or other of your

friends on board? Quite by chance, of course.
ASTA. [Quietly.] No, I did not meet a soul I knew. [Sees the bag.]
Why, Rita, what have you got there?
RITA. [Still unpacking.] Alfred's travelling-bag. Don't you recognise
it?
ASTA. [Joyfully, approaching her.] What! Has Alfred come home?
RITA. Yes, only think--he came quite unexpectedly by the late train
last night.
ASTA. Oh, then that was what my feeling meant! It was that that drew
me out here! And he hadn't written a line to let you know? Not even a
post-card?
RITA.