The Master Builder | Page 4

the title runs
in the original--we enter upon the final stage in Ibsen's career. "You are
essentially right," the poet wrote to Count Prozor in March 1900,
"when you say that the series which closes with the Epilogue (_When
We Dead Awaken_) began with Master Builder Solness."
"Ibsen," says Dr. Brahm, "wrote in Christiania all the four works which
he thus seems to bracket together--Solness, Eyolf, Borkman, and When
We Dead Awaken. He returned to Norway in July 1891, for a stay of
indefinite length; but the restless wanderer over Europe was destined to
leave his home no more. . . . He had not returned, however, to throw
himself, as of old, into the battle of the passing day. Polemics are
entirely absent from the poetry of his old age. He leaves the State and
Society at peace. He who had departed as the creator of Falk [in
_Love's Comedy_] now, on his return, gazes into the secret places of
human nature and the wonder of his own soul."
Dr. Brahm, however, seems to be mistaken in thinking that Ibsen
returned to Norway with no definite intention of settling down. Dr.
Julius Elias (an excellent authority) reports that shortly before Ibsen left
Munich in 1891, he remarked one day, "I must get back to the North!"
"Is that a sudden impulse?" asked Elias. "Oh no," was the reply; "I want
to be a good head of a household and have my affairs in order. To that
end I must consolidate may property, lay it down in good securities,
and get it under control--and that one can best do where one has rights
of citizenship." Some critics will no doubt be shocked to find the poet
whom they have written down an "anarchist" confessing such
bourgeois motives.
After his return to Norway, Ibsen's correspondence became very scant,
and we have no letters dating from the period when he was at work on
The Master Builder. On the other hand, we possess a curious lyrical
prelude to the play, which he put on paper on March 16, 1892. It is said
to have been his habit, before setting to work on a play, to "crystallise
in a poem the mood which then possessed him;" but the following is
the only one of these keynote poems which has been published. I give it
in the original language, with a literal translation:
DE SAD DER, DE TO--
De sad der, de to, i saa lunt et hus ved host og i venterdage, Saa

braendte huset. Alt ligger i grus. De to faar i asken rage.
For nede id en er et smykke gemt,-- et smykke, som aldrig kan braende.
Og leder de trofast, haender det nemt at det findes af ham eller hende.
Men finder de end, brandlidte to, det dyre, ildfaste smykke,-- aldrig han
finder sin braendte tro, han aldrig sin braendte lykke.
THEY SAT THERE, THE TWO--
They sat there, the two, in so cosy a house, through autumn and winter
days. Then the house burned down. Everything lies in ruins. The two
must grope among the ashes.
For among them is hidden a jewel--a jewel that never can burn. And if
they search faithfully, it may easily happen that he or she may find it.
But even should they find it, the burnt-out two--find this precious
unburnable jewel--never will she find her burnt faith, he never his burnt
happiness.
This is the latest piece of Ibsen's verse that has been given to the world;
but one of his earliest poems--first printed in 1858--was also, in some
sort, a prelude to The Master Builder. Of this a literal translation may
suffice. It is called
BUILDING-PLANS
I remember as clearly as if it had been to-day the evening when, in the
paper, I saw my first poem in print. There I sat in my den, and, with
long-drawn puffs, I smoked and I dreamed in blissful
self-complacency.
"I will build a cloud-castle. It shall shine all over the North. It shall
have two wings: one little and one great. The great wing shall shelter a
deathless poet; the little wing shall serve as a young girl's bower."
The plan seemed to me nobly harmonious; but as time went on it fell
into confusion. When the master grew reasonable, the castle turned
utterly crazy; the great wing became too little, the little wing fell to
ruin.
Thus we see that, thirty-five years before the date of The Master
Builder, Ibsen's imagination was preoccupied with a symbol of a
master building a castle in the air, and a young girl in one of its towers.
There has been some competition among the poet's young lady friends
for the honour of having served as his model for Hilda. Several, no
doubt, are entitled to some share