Three Dramas | Page 9

no--that is what we
ought to preserve; we were given it for that! (HARALD hides his face
in his hands, and sits so for some time.)
Mrs. Evje. Any mother or any wife knows that.
Evje (standing with his back to the fire). You want to bring back the
age of romance, doctor!
The Doctor (with a laugh). Not its errors--because in those days
unclean minds brought to birth a great deal that was unclean.
(Seriously.) But what is it, when all is said and done, but a violent
protest on the part of the Teutonic people against the Romanesque
spirit and school--a remarkable school, but not ours. To us it seems a
barren, merely intellectual school--a mere mass of formulas which led
to a precocious development of the mind. And that was the spirit it
bred--critical and barren. But these schools of thought are now all we
have, and both of them are bad for us! They have no use for the heart or
the imagination; they do not breed faith or a longing for high
achievement. Look at our life! Is our life really our own?
Mrs. Evje. No. You have only to think of our language, our tastes, our
society, our--
The Doctor (interrupting her). Those are the externals of our life,
merely the externals! No, look within--look at such a view of life as we
were talking about, clamouring for "hardening"--is that ours? Can we,
for all our diligence, make as much way in it as, for instance, a born
Parisian journalist?--become like a bar of steel with a point at each end,

a pen-point and a sword-point? We can't do that; the Teutonic
temperament is not fitted for it.
Evje. Oh, we are well on the way towards it. Look at the heartless
intolerance in our politics; it will soon match what you were describing.
Harald. Everyone that disagrees with you is either an ambitious
scoundrel, or half mad, or a blockhead.
The Doctor (laughing). Yes, and here in the north, in our small
communities, where a man meets all his enemies in the same barber's
shop, we feel it as keenly as if we were digging our knives into each
other! (Seriously.) We may laugh at it, but if we could add up the sum
of suffering that has been caused to families and to individuals--if we
could see the concrete total before us--we should be tempted to believe
that our liberty had been given to us as a curse! For it is a cursed thing
to destroy the humanity that is in us, and make us cruel and hard to one
another.
Harald (getting up, but standing still). But, my good friends, if you are
of the same mind about that, and I with you--what is the next thing to
do?
The Doctor. The next thing to do?
Harald. Naturally, to unite in making an end of it.
Mrs. Evje (as she works). What can we do?
Evje. I am no politician and do not wish to become one.
The Doctor (laughing, and sitting down). No, a politician is a principle,
swathed round with a printed set of directions for use. I prefer to be
allowed to be a human being.
Harald. No one can fairly insist on your taking up any vocation to
which you do not feel you have a calling.
The Doctor. Of course not.
Harald. But one certainly might insist on your not helping to maintain a
condition of affairs that you detest.
All. We?
Harald. This newspaper, which is the ultimate reason of all this
conversation we have had--you take it in.
Evje. Why, you take it in yourself!
Harald. No. Every time there is anything nasty in it about me or mine,
it is sent to me anonymously.
The Doctor (with a laugh). I don't take it in; I read my hall-porter's

copy.
Harald. I have heard you say that before. I took an opportunity to ask
your hall-porter. He said he did not read it, and did not take it in either.
The Doctor (as before). Then I should like to know who does pay for it!
Evje. A newspaper is indispensable to a business man.
Harald. An influential business man could by himself, or at any rate
with one or two others, start a paper that would be as useful again to
him as this one is.
Evje. That is true enough; but, after all, if we agree with its politics?
Harald. I will accept help from any one whose opinions on public
affairs agree with my own. Who am I that I should pretend to judge
him? But I will not give him my help in anything that is malicious or
wicked.
The Doctor. Pshaw!
Harald. Everyone who subscribes to, or contributes to, or gives any