The Lady From The Sea | Page 9

so dearly want to be. Just think; to model in that delicious clay, that yields so caressingly to your fingers!
Ellida. And what are you going to model? Is it to be mermen and mermaids? Or is it to be old Vikings?
Lyngstrand. No, not that. As soon as I can set about it, I am going to try if I can produce a great work--a group, as they call it.
Ellida. Yes; but what's the group to be?
Lyngstrand. Oh! something I've experienced myself.
Arnholm. Yes, yes; always stick to that.
Ellida. But what's it to be?
Lyngstrand. Well, I thought it should be the young wife of a sailor, who lies sleeping in strange unrest, and she is dreaming. I fancy I shall do it so that you will see she is dreaming.
Arnholm. Is there anything else?
Lyngstrand. Yes, there's to be another figure--a sort of apparition, as they say. It's her husband, to whom she has been faithless while he was away, and he is drowned at sea.
Arnholm. What?
Ellida. Drowned?
Lyngstrand. Yes, he was drowned on a sea voyage. But that's the wonderful part of it--he comes home all the same. It is night- time. And he is standing by her bed looking at her. He is to stand there dripping wet, like one drawn from the sea.
Ellida (leaning back in her chair). What an extraordinary idea! (Shutting her eyes.) Oh! I can see it so clearly, living before me!
Arnholm. But how on earth, Mr.--Mr.--I thought you said it was to be something you had experienced.
Lyngstrand. Yes. I did experience that--that is to say, to a certain extent.
Arnholm. You saw a dead man?
Lyngstrand. Well, I don't mean I've actually seen this-- experienced it in the flesh. But still--
Ellida (quickly, intently). Oh! tell me all you can about it! I must understand about all this.
Arnholm (smiling). Yes, that'll be quite in your line. Something that has to do with sea fancies.
Ellida. What was it, Mr. Lyngstrand?
Lyngstrand. Well, it was like this. At the time when we were to sail home in the brig from a town they called Halifax, we had to leave the boatswain behind in the hospital. So we had to engage an American instead. This new boatswain-
Ellida. The American?
Lyngstrand. Yes, one day he got the captain to lend him a lot of old newspapers and he was always reading them. For he wanted to teach himself Norwegian, he said.
Ellida. Well, and then?
Lyngstrand. It was one evening in rough weather. All hands were on deck--except the boatswain and myself. For he had sprained his foot and couldn't walk, and I was feeling rather low, and was lying in my berth. Well, he was sitting there in the forecastle, reading one of those old papers again.
Ellida. Well, well!
Lyngstrand. But just as he was sitting there quietly reading, I heard him utter a sort of yell. And when I looked at him, I saw his face was as white as chalk. And then he began to crush and crumple the paper, and to tear it into a thousand shreds. But he did it so quietly, quietly.
Ellida. Didn't he say anything? Didn't he speak?
Lyngstrand. Not directly; but a little after he said to himself, as it were: "Married--to another man. While I was away."
Ellida (closes her eyes, and says, half to herself). He said that?
Lyngstrand. Yes. And think--he said it in perfect Norwegian. That man must have learnt foreign languages very easily--
Ellida. And what then? What else happened?
Lyngstrand. Well, now the remarkable part is coming--that I shall never forget as long as I live. For he added, and that quite quietly, too: "But she is mine, and mine she shall remain. And she shall follow me, if I should come home and fetch her, as a drowned man from the dark sea."
Ellida (pouring herself out a glass of water. Her hand trembles). Ah! How close it is here today.
Lyngstrand. And he said this with such strength of will that I thought he must be the man to do it.
Ellida. Don't you know anything about--what became of the man?
Lyngstrand. Oh! madam, he's certainly not living now.
Ellida (quickly). Why do you think that?
Lyngstrand. Why? Because we were shipwrecked afterwards in the Channel. I had got into the longboat with the captain and five others. The mate got into the stern-boat; and the American was in that too, and another man.
Ellida. And nothing has been heard of them since?
Lyngstrand. Not a word. The friend who looks after me said so quite recently in a letter. But it's just because of this I was so anxious to make it into a work of art. I see the faithless sailor-wife so life-like before me, and the avenger who is drowned, and who nevertheless comes home from the sea. I can see them both so distinctly.
Ellida. I, too. (Rises.) Come; let us go in--or,