Little Eyolf | Page 9

letters in any case.
ASTA. [Fixing her eyes on him.] Then some time or other--some quiet
evening--I will tell you a little of what is in them.
ALLMERS. Yes, that will be much better. But do you keep your
mother's letters--you haven't so many mementos of her.

[He hands ASTA the portfolio. She takes it, and lays it on the chair
under her outdoor things. RITA comes into the room again.]
RITA. Ugh! I feel as if that horrible old woman had brought a sort of
graveyard smell with her.
ALLMERS. Yes, she was rather horrible.
RITA. I felt almost sick while she was in the room.
ALLMERS. However, I can very well understand the sort of
spellbound fascination that she talked about. The loneliness of the
mountain-peaks and of the great waste places has something of the
same magic about it.
ASTA. [Looks attentively at him.] What is it that has happened to you,
Alfred?
ALLMERS. [Smiling.] To me?
ASTA. Yes, something has happened--something seems almost to have
transformed you. Rita noticed it too.
RITA. Yes, I saw it the moment you came. A change for the better, I
hope, Alfred?
ALLMERS. It ought to be for the better. And it must and shall come to
good.
RITA. [With an outburst.] You have had some adventure on your
journey! Don't deny it! I can see it in your face!
ALLMERS. [Shaking his head.] No adventure in the world--outwardly
at least. But--
RITA. [Eagerly.] But--?
ALLMERS. It is true that within me there has been something of a
revolution.

RITA. Oh Heavens--!
ALLMERS. [Soothingly, patting her hand.] Only for the better, my
dear Rita. You may be perfectly certain of that.
RITA. [Seats herself on the sofa.] You must tell us all about it, at
once--tell us everything!
ALLMERS. [Turning to ASTA.] Yes, let us sit down, too, Asta. Then I
will try to tell you as well as I can.
[He seats himself on the sofa at RITA's side. ASTA moves a chair
forward, and places herself near him.]
RITA. [Looking at him expectantly.] Well--?
ALLMERS. [Gazing straight before him.] When I look back over my
life--and my fortunes--for the last ten or eleven years, it seems to me
almost like a fairy-tale or a dream. Don't you think so too, Asta?
ASTA. Yes, in many ways I think so.
ALLMERS. [Continuing.] When I remember what we two used to be,
Asta--we two poor orphan children--
RITA. [Impatiently.] Oh, that is such an old, old story.
ALLMERS. [Not listening to her.] And now here I am in comfort and
luxury. I have been able to follow my vocation. I have been able to
work and study--just as I had always longed to. [Holds out his hand.]
And all this great--this fabulous good fortune we owe to you, my
dearest Rita.
RITA. [Half playfully, half angrily, slaps his hand.] Oh, I do wish you
would stop talking like that.
ALLMERS. I speak of it only as a sort of introduction.
RITA. Then do skip the introduction!

ALLMERS. Rita,--you must not think it was the doctor's advice that
drove me up to the mountains.
ASTA. Was it not, Alfred?
RITA. What was it, then?
ALLMERS. It was this: I found there was no more peace for me, there
in my study.
RITA. No peace! Why, who disturbed you?
ALLMERS. [Shaking his head.] No one from without. But I felt as
though I were positively abusing--or, say rather, wasting--my best
powers--frittering away the time.
ASTA. [With wide eyes.] When you were writing at your book?
ALLMERS. [Nodding.] For I cannot think that my powers are confined
to that alone. I must surely have it in me to do one or two other things
as well.
RITA. Was that what you sat there brooding over?
ALLMERS. Yes, mainly that.
RITA. And so that is what has made you so discontented with yourself
of late; and with the rest of us as well. For you know you were
discontented, Alfred.
ALLMERS. [Gazing straight before him.] There I sat bent over my
table, day after day, and often half the night too--writing and writing at
the great thick book on "Human Responsibility." H'm!
ASTA. [Laying her hand upon his arm.] But, Alfred--that book is to be
your life-work.
RITA. Yes, you have said so often enough.

ALLMERS. I thought so. Ever since I grew up, I have thought so.
[With an affectionate expression in his eyes.] And it was you that
enabled me to devote myself to it, my dear Rita--
RITA. Oh, nonsense!
ALLMERS. [Smiling to her.]--you, with your gold, and your green
forests--
RITA. [Half laughing, half vexed.] If you begin all that rubbish again, I
shall beat you.
ASTA. [Looking sorrowfully at him.] But the book, Alfred?
ALLMERS. It began, as it were, to drift away