Little Eyolf | Page 4

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. Not a single word.
ASTA. Did he not even telegraph?
RITA. Yes, an hour before he arrived--quite curtly and coldly. [Laughs.] Don't you think that was like him, Asta?
ASTA. Yes; he goes so quietly about everything.
RITA. But that made it all the more delightful to have him again.
ASTA.