Three Dramas

B >> Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson >> Three Dramas

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Nicole Apostola

THREE DRAMAS

THE EDITOR--THE BANKRUPT--THE KING

BY BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON

INTRODUCTION

The three plays here presented were the outcome of a period when
Bjornson's views on many topics were undergoing a drastic revision
and he was abandoning much of his previous orthodoxy in many
directions. Two of them were written during, and one immediately
after, a three years' absence from Norway--years spent almost
entirely in southern Europe. [Note: Further details respecting
Bjornson's life will be found in the Introduction to Three Comedies
by Bjornson, published in Everyman's Library in 1912.] For nearly
ten years previous to this voluntary exile, Bjornson had been
immersed in theatrical management and political propagandism. His
political activities (guided by a more or less pronounced
republican tendency) centred in an agitation for a truer equality
between the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, his point of view being
that Norway had come to be regarded too much as a mere appanage of
Sweden. Between that and his manifold and distracting cares as
theatrical director, he had let imaginative work slide for the time
being; but his years abroad had a recuperative effect, and, in
addition, broadened his mental outlook in a remarkable manner.
Foreign travel, a wider acquaintance with differing types of
humanity, and, above all, a newly-won acquaintance with the
contemporary literature of other countries, made a deep impression
upon Bjornson's vigorously receptive mind. He browsed voraciously
upon the works of foreign writers. Herbert Spencer, Darwin, John
Stuart Mill, Taine, Max-Mueller, formed a portion of his mental
pabulum at this time--and the result was a significant alteration
of mental attitude on a number of questions, and a determination to
make the attempt to embody his theories in dramatic form. He had
gained all at once, as he wrote to Georg Brandes, the eminent
Danish critic, "eyes that saw and ears that heard." Up to this time
the poet in him had been predominant; now it was to be the social
philosopher that held the reins. Just as Ibsen did, so Bjornson
abandoned historical drama and artificial comedy for an attempt at
prose drama which should have at all events a serious thesis. In
this he anticipated Ibsen; for (unless we include the satirical
political comedy, _The League of Youth_, which was published in
1869, among Ibsen's "social dramas") Ibsen did not enter the field
with _Pillars of Society_ [Note: Published in _The Pretenders and
Two Other Plays_, in Everyman's Library, 1913.] until 1877,
whereas Bjornson's _The Editor_, _The Bankrupt_, and _The King_
were all published between 1874 and 1877. Intellectual and literary
life in Denmark had been a good deal stirred and quickened in the
early seventies, and the influence of that awakening was inevitably
felt by the more eager spirits in the other Scandinavian countries.
It is amusing to note, as one Norwegian writer has pointed out,
that this intellectual upheaval (which, in its turn, was a
reflection of that taking place in outer Europe) came at a time
when the bulk of the Scandinavian folk "were congratulating
themselves that the doubt and ferment of unrest which were
undermining the foundations of the great communities abroad had not
had the power to ruffle the placid surface of our good,
old-fashioned, Scandinavian orthodoxy." Bjornson makes several sly
hits in these plays (as does Ibsen in _Pillars of Society_) at this
distrust of the opinions and manners of the larger communities
outside of Scandinavia, notably America, with which the
Scandinavian countries were more particularly in touch through
emigration.

Brandes characterises the impelling motive of these three plays as
a passionate appeal for a higher standard of truth--in journalism,
in finance, in monarchy: an appeal for less casuistry and more
honesty. Such a motive was characteristic of the vehement honesty
of Bjornson's own character; he must always, as he says in one of
his letters, go over to the side of any one whom he believed to
"hold the truth in his hands."

_The Editor_ (_Redaktoeren_) was written while Bjornson was in
Florence, and was published at Copenhagen in 1874. It was at first
not accepted for performance at Christiania or Copenhagen, though
an unauthorised performance of it was given at one of the lesser
Christiania theatres in 1875, Meanwhile a Swedish version of it had
been produced, authoritatively, at Stockholm in February of that
year. The play eventually made its way on the Norwegian and Danish
stage; but, before that, it had been seen in German dress at Munich
and Hamburg. As an inevitable result of his recent activities as a
political speaker and pamphleteer, Bjornson had come in for a good
deal of vituperation in the press, a fact which no doubt added some
gall to the ink with which he drew the portrait of the journalist
in this play. The Stockholm critics, indeed, had condemned _The
Editor_ as merely a pamphleteering attack on the editor of a
well-known journal. In answer to this criticism Bjornson wrote from
Rome in March, 1875: "It is said that my play is a pamphleteering
attack on a certain individual. That is a deliberate lie. I have
studied the journalist type, which is here represented, in many
other countries besides my own. The chief characteristic of this
type is to be actuated by an inordinate egotism that is perpetually
being inflamed by passion; that makes use of bogeys to frighten
people, and does this in such a way that, while it makes all its
honest contemporaries afraid of any freedom of thought, it also
produces the same result on every single individual by means
of reckless persecution. As I wished to portray that type, I
naturally took a good deal of the portrait from the representative
of the type that I knew best; but, like every artist who wishes to
produce a complete creation, I had to build it up from separate
revelations of itself. There can, therefore, be no question of any
individual being represented in my play except in so far as he may
partially agree with the type."

However much Bjornson may have written _The Editor_ with a
"purpose," his vivid dramatic sense kept him from becoming merely
didactic. The little tragedy that takes place amongst this homely
group of people makes quite a moving play, thanks to the skill with
which the types are depicted--the bourgeois father and mother, with
their mixture of timidity and self-interest; the manly,
straightforward young politician, resolute to carry on the work
that has sapped his brother's life; the warped, de-humanised nature
of the journalist; the sturdy common-sense of the yeoman farmer;
and the doctor, the "family friend," as a sort of mocking chorus.
Besides its plea for a higher regard for truth, the play also
attacks the precept, preached by worldly wisdom, that we ought to
harden our natures to make ourselves invulnerable; a proposition
which was hateful to one of Bjornson's persistently impressionable
and ingenuous nature. The fact remains, as Brandes grimly admits,
that "nowadays we have only a very qualified sympathy with public
characters who succumb to the persecution of the press." Brandes
sees in the play, besides its obvious motive, an allegory. Halvdan
Rejn, the weary and dying politician, is (he says) meant for Henrik
Wergeland, a Norwegian poet-politician who had similar struggles,
sank under the weight of similar at tacks, died after a long
illness, and was far higher reputed after his death than during his
life. In Harald Rejn, with his honest enthusiasm and misjudged
political endeavours Brandes sees Bjornson himself; while the
yeoman brother, Haakon, seems to him to typify the Norwegian
people.

_The Bankrupt_ (_En Fallit_: literally _A Bankruptcy_) was partly
written in Rome, partly in Tyrol, and published at Copenhagen in
1875. It was a thing entirely new to the Scandinavian stage for a
dramatist to deal seriously with the tragi-comedy of money, and,
while making a forcible plea for honesty, to contrive to produce a
stirring and entertaining play on what might seem so prosaic a
foundation as business finance. Some of the play's earliest critics
dismissed it as "dry," "prosaic," "trivial," because of the nature
of its subject; but it made a speedy success on the boards, and
very soon became a popular item in the repertories of the
Christiania, Bergen and Copenhagen theatres. It was actually first
performed, in a Swedish translation, at Stockholm, a few days
before it was produced at Christiania. Very soon, too, the play
reached Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and other German and Austrian
theatres. It was played in Paris, at the Theatre Libre in 1894. The
character of Berent, the lawyer, which became a favourite one with
the famous Swedish actor Ernst Possart, was admittedly more or less
of a portrait of a well-known Norwegian lawyer, by name Dunker.
When Bjornson was writing the play, he went to stay for some days
with Dunker, who was to instruct him as to the legal aspect of
bankruptcy. Bjornson took the opportunity of studying the lawyer as
well as the law.

_The King_ (_Kongen_) was written at Aulestad, the Norwegian home
in which Bjornson settled after his return from abroad, and was
published at Copenhagen in 1877. It is perhaps not surprising that
the play, with its curious blend of poetry and social philosophy,
and its somewhat exuberant (though always interesting) wordiness,
was not at first a conspicuous success on the stage; but the
interest aroused by the published book was enormous. It was widely
read and vigorously discussed, both in Scandinavia and abroad; and
while, on the one hand, it brought upon Bjornson the most
scurrilous abuse and the harshest criticism from his political
opponents, on the other hand a prominent compatriot of his (whose
opinion was worth having) gave it as his verdict, at a political
meeting held soon after the play's publication, that "the most
notable thing that has happened in Norway of late--or at any rate,
one of the most notable--in my opinion is this last book of
Bjornson's--_The King_."

The idea of a "democratic monarchy"--a kind of reformed
constitutional monarchy, that should be a half-way house on the
road to republicanism--was not entirely new; Bjornson's success was
in presenting the problem as seen from the _inside_--that is to
say, from the king's point of view. His opponents, of course,
branded him as a red-hot republican, which he was not. In a preface
he wrote for a later edition of the play, he says that he did not
intend the play mainly as an argument in favour of republicanism,
but "to extend the boundaries of free discussion"; but that, at
the same time, he believed the republic to be the ultimate form of
government, and all European states to be proceeding at varying
rates of speed towards it.

_The King_ is composed of curiously incongruous elements. The
railway meeting in the first act is pure comedy of a kind to
compare with the meeting in Ibsen's _An Enemy of Society_; the last
act is melodrama with a large admixture of remarkably interesting
social philosophy; the intervening acts betray the poet that always
underlay the dramatist in Bjornson. The crudity, again, of the
melodramatic appearance of the wraith of Clara's father in the
third act, contrasts strangely with the mature thoughtfulness of
much of the last act and with the tender charm of what has gone
before: And--strangest incongruity of all in a play so essentially
"actual"--there is in the original, between each act, a mysterious
"mellemspil," or "interlude," in verse, consisting of somewhat
cryptic dialogues between Genii and Unseen Choirs in the clouds,
between an "Old Grey Man" and a "Chorus of Tyrants" in a desolate
scene of snow and ice, between Choruses of Men, Women, and Children
in a sylvan landscape, and so forth--their utterances being of the
nature of the obscurest choruses in the Greek dramatists, but for
the most part with a less obvious relevance to the play itself.
Such a device leads the present-day reader's thoughts inevitably to
the use made of the "unseen chorus," in a similar way, by Thomas
Hardy in _The Dynasts_; but Hardy's interludes are closely relevant
to his drama and help it on its way, which Bjornson's do not. They
have been entirely omitted in the present translation, on the
ground of their complete superfluity as well as from the extreme
difficulty of retaining their "atmosphere" in translation.

None of the three plays in the present volume have previously been
translated into English. German, French, and Swedish versions of
_The Editor_ are extant; German, Swedish, Finnish, French, and
Hungarian of _The Bankrupt_; French and Spanish of _The King_.

R. FARQUHARSON SHARP.

The following is a list of the works of Bjornstjerne Bjornson:--

DRAMATIC AND POETIC WORKS.--Mellem Slagene (Between the Battles),
1857. Halte-Hulda (Lame Hulda), 1858. Kong Sverre (King Sverre),
1861. Sigurd Slembe (Sigurd the Bastard), 1862; translated by
W. M. Payne, 1888. Maria Stuart i Skotland, 1864. De Nygifte (The
Newly-Married Couple), 1865; translated by T. Soelfeldt, 1868; by
S. and E. Hjerleid, 1870; as A Lesson in Marriage, by G. I.
Colbron, 1911. Sigurd Jorsalfar (Sigurd the Crusader), 1872.
Redaktoeren (The Editor), 1874. En Fallit (A Bankruptcy), 1874.
Kongen (The King), 1877. Leonarda, 1879. Det ny System (The New
System), 1879. En Hanske, 1883; translated as A Gauntlet, by
H. L. Braekstad 1890; by Osman Edwards 1894. Over AEvne (Beyond our
Strength), Part I., 1883; translated as Pastor Sang, by W. Wilson,
1893; Part II., 1895. Geografi og Kaerlighed (Geography and Love),
1885; Paul Lange og Tora Parsberg, 1898; translated by H. L.
Braekstad, 1899. Laboremus, 1901; translation published by
Chapman and Hall, 1901. Paa Storhove (At Storhove), 1904;
Daglannet, 1904; Naar den ny Vin blomstrer (When the Vineyards
are in Blossom), 1909; The Newly-Married Couple, Leonarda, and A
Gauntlet, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp (Everyman's Library),
1912.

Digte og Sange (Poems and Songs), 1870; Arnljot Gelline, 1870.

FICTION.--Synnoeve Solbakken 1857; translated as Trust and Trial,
by Mary Howitt, 1858; as Love and Life in Norway, by Hon. Augusta
Bethell and A. Plesner, 1870; as The Betrothal, in H. and
A. Zimmern's Half-hours with Foreign Novelists, 1880; also
translated by Julie Sutter, 1881; by R. B. Anderson, 1881. Arne,
1858; translated by T. Krag, 1861; by A. Plesner and S. Rugeley-
Powers, 1866; by R. B. Anderson, 1881; by W. Low (Bohn's Library),
1890. Smaastykker (Sketches), 1860. En glad Gut, 1860; translated
as Ovind, by S. and E. Hjerleid 1869; as The Happy Boy, by R. B.
Anderson, 1881; as The Happy Lad (published by Blackie), 1882.
Fiskerjenten, 1868 translated as The Fisher Maiden, by M. E. Niles,
1869; as The Fishing Girl, by A. Plesner and F. Richardson, 1870;
as The Fishing Girl, by S. and E. Hjerleid, 1871; as The Fisher
Maiden, by R. B. Anderson, 1882. Brude-Slaatten, 1873; translated
as The Bridal March, by R. B. Anderson, 1882; by J. E. Williams,
1893. Fortaellinger (Tales), 1872. Magnhild, 1877; translated by
R. B. Anderson, 1883. Kaptejn Mansana, 1879; translated as Captain
Mansana by R. B. Anderson, 1882. Det flager i Byen og paa Havnen
(Flags are Flying in Town and Port), 1884; translated as The
Heritage of the Kurts, by C Fairfax 1892. Paa Guds Veje, 1889;
translated as In God's Way, by E. Carmichael, 1890. Nye Fortaellinger
(New Tales), 1894; To Fortaelinger (Two Tales), 1901; Mary, 1906.
Collected edition of the Novels, translated into English, edited by
E. Gosse, 13 vols., 1895-1909.

[See Life of Bjornson by W. M. Payne, 1910; E. Gosse's Study of
the Writings of Bjornson, in edition of Novels, 1895; H. H.
Boyesen's Essays on Scandinavian Literature, 1895; G. Brandes'
Critical Studies of Ibsen and Bjornson, 1899.]

CONTENTS

THE EDITOR
THE BANKRUPT
THE KING

THE EDITOR

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

EVJE, a prosperous distiller.
MRS. EVJE.
GERTRUD, their daughter, engaged to HARALD REJN.
The DOCTOR.
The EDITOR.
HAAKON REJN, a yeoman farmer.
HALVDAN REJN and HARALD REJN, his brothers.
The DOCTOR'S ASSISTANT.
INGEBORG, maid to the Evjes.
JOHN, coachman to the Evjes.
HALVDAN REJN's HOUSEKEEPER.
HALVDAN REJN's MAID.
A Lamplighter.

The action takes place in a town in Norway.

THE EDITOR

ACT I

(SCENE.--The breakfast-room at the EVJES' house. A glass-cupboard,
in two partitions, stands against the left-hand wall, well forward.
On the top of it stand a variety of objects. Beyond it, a stove. At
the back of the room, a sideboard. In the middle of the room a
small round folding table, laid for four persons. There is an
armchair by the stove; a sofa on the right; chairs, etc. A door at
the back of the room, and another in the left-hand wall. There are
paintings on the walls, and the general impression of the room is
one of snug comfort. EVJE, MRS. EVJE, and GERTRUD are seated at the
table. INGEBORG is standing by the sideboard. Breakfast is
proceeding in silence as the curtain rises. INGEBORG takes away
EVJE'S cup and re-fills it. As she brings it back to him, a ring is
heard at the bell. GERTRUD gets up.)

Evje. Sit still; John will go to the door. (GERTRUD sits down
again. Directly afterwards, another ring is heard.)

Mrs. Evje. What can John be doing?

Ingeborg. I will go. (Goes out. She comes back, showing in HARALD
REJN, who hangs up his hat and coat in the hall before coming
in.)

Harald. Good morning!

Evje and Mrs. Evje. Good morning! (HARALD shakes hands with them.)

Harald (to GERTRUD, who is sitting on the right). Good morning,
Gertrud! Am I a bit late to-day? (GERTRUD, who has taken his hand,
looks lovingly at him but says nothing.)

Mrs. Evje. Yes, I suppose you have been for a long constitutional,
although the weather is none of the best.

Harald. It is not; I expect we shall have a thick fog by the
afternoon.

Evje. Did you have breakfast before you went out?

Harald. I did, thanks. (To INGEBORG, who has come forward with a
cup of coffee.) No, thank you. I will sit down here while you are
finishing. (Sits down on the sofa behind GERTRUD.)

Mrs. Evje. How is your brother Halvdan?

Harald. A little better to-day, thanks--but of course we cannot
build on that.

Evje. Is your eldest brother coming to see him?

Harald. Yes, we expect him every day. Probably his wife has
come with him, and that has been the reason of the delay; she
finds it difficult to get away.

Mrs. Evje. Halvdan so often talks of her.

Harald. Yes, I believe she is the best friend he has.

Evje. No wonder, then, that she wants to come and say good-bye
to him. By the way, have you seen how the paper bids him
good-bye to-day?

Harald. Yes, I have seen it.

Mrs. Evje (hurriedly). I hope Halvdan has not seen it?

Harald (smiling). No, it is a long time now since Halvdan read a
newspaper. (A pause.)

Evje. Then I suppose you have read what they say about you too?

Harald. Naturally.

Mrs. Evje. It is worse than anything they have said about you
before.

Harald. Well--of course, you know, my election meeting comes on
this evening.

Evje. I can tell you it has upset _us_.

Mrs. Evje. Day after day we wake up to find our house invaded by
these abominations. That is a nice thought to begin your day's
work with!

Harald. Is it so indispensable, then, to educated people to begin
their day by reading such things?

Mrs. Evje. Well--one must have a paper.

Evje. And most people read it. Besides, one can't deny that a lot
of what is in it is true, although its general tendency is to run
everyone down.

Harald (getting up). Quite so, yes. (Leans over GERTRUD'S
shoulder.) Gertrud, have you read it?

Gertrud (does not look at him, and hesitates for a moment; then
says gently): Yes.

Harald (under his breath). So that is it! (Walks away from her.)

Evje. We have had a little bit of a scene here, I must tell you.

Harald (walking up and down). Yes, I can understand that.

Evje. I will repeat what I have said already: they write about
_you_, and _we_ have to suffer for it.

Mrs. Evje. Yes, and Gertrud especially.

Gertrud. No--I don't want anyone to consider me in the matter at
all. Besides, it is not what they say of you in the paper that
hurts me--. (Stops abruptly.)

Harald (who has come up to her). But what your parents are
feeling about it? Is that it? (GERTRUD does not answer.)

Evje (pushing back his plate). There, I have finished! (They rise
from the table. MRS. EVJE helps INGEBORG to clear away the
things, which INGEBORG carries out of the room.)

Mrs. Evje. Couldn't you wash your hands of politics, Harald?
(GERTRUD goes out to the left.)

Evje (who has followed GERTRUD with his eyes). We cannot deny that
it pains us considerably that in our old age our peaceful home
should be invaded by all this squabbling and abomination.

Mrs. Evje (who rung for INGEBORG to move the table). You have no
need to do it, either, Harald! You are a grown man, and your own
master. (INGEBORG comes in. HARALD helps her to move the table.)

Evje (to his wife). Don't let Ingeborg hear. Come along, we will go
into my room.

Mrs. Evje. You forget, all the windows are open there. I have had
the fire lit here, so that we could stay here.

Evje. Very well--then we will sit here. (Sits down by the fire.)
Will you have a cigar?

Harald. No, thanks. (INGEBORG goes out.)

Evje (taking a cigar and lighting it). As my wife said just now--
couldn't you wash your hands of politics, Harald? You, who have
both talent and means, need not be at a loss for a vocation in
life.

Harald (sitting down on the sofa). If I have any talent, it is for
politics--and so I intend to devote my means to that.

Evje. What do you propose to gain by it?

Harald. What any one who believes in a cause hopes to gain--that
is to say, to help it on.

Evje. And to become a cabinet minister?

Harald. I certainly can't do that any other way; well, I admit--
that _is_ my idea.

Evje. You will not be elected now.

Harald. That we shall see.

Evje. But suppose you are not re-elected to-morrow?

Harald. Then I must find some other way.

Evje. Always with the same object?

Harald. Always with the same object. (EVJE sighs.)

Mrs. Evje (who has taken her sewing and sat down by the fire).
Oh, these politics!

Harald. At any rate, they are the most prominent factors in
life just now.

Evje. We do not suppose we can exercise any influence over you. But
at any rate it is possible that you yourself have not considered
the position into which you have put the whole of us. (Both he and
his wife avoid looking at HARALD during this discussion.)

Mrs. Evje. Say what you really mean, dear--that he is making us
all thoroughly unhappy, and that is the truth!

Harald (getting up, and walking up and down). Well, look here--I
have a proposal to make. It is, that you should abandon all
opposition to Gertrud's marrying me at once. To-day again my
brother has expressed the wish that we should be married by his
bedside; so that he should be able to take part in it. I scarcely
need add how happy it would make me.

Evje. But whether she is here at home or married to you, you know,
her parents' distress would be just as great every time their child
was persecuted.

Mrs. Evje. Surely you can appreciate that!

Harald. But what answer am I to give to my brother's request?--
most likely the last he will ever--. (Stops.)

Evje (after a pause). He is very kind to wish it, as he always is.
Nothing would make us happier; but we who are her parents do not
consider that you could make our daughter happy as long as you
remain in politics and on the lines on which you are now
travelling.

Harald (after a pause, during which he has stood still). That is to
say, you contemplate breaking off our engagement?

Evje (looking at him quickly). Far from it!

Mrs. Evje (at the same time). How can you say such a thing?

Evje (turning towards the fire again). We have spoken about it
to Gertrud to-day--as to whether it would not be possible to
induce you to choose some other career.

Mrs. Evje. You understand now, why you found Gertrud upset. You
must listen to us now, as she did, in all friendliness.

Evje (getting up and standing with his back to the fire). The first
thing I do in the morning is to read my paper. You know what
was in it to-day--the same as is in it now every day.

Mrs. Evje. No; I am sure it has never been as bad as to-day.

Harald (walking up and down again). The election is just at
hand!

Evje. Well--it is just as painful to us, her father and mother,
whether it is before or after the election. We are not accustomed
to associate with any one who has not first-class credentials--and
now we have to endure seeing doubt cast upon our own son-in-law's.
Do not misunderstand me; to my mind, for credentials to be
first-class they must not only actually be so, but must also be
considered to be so by people in general. (HARALD begins to walk
up and down again.) The second thing I do in the morning is to
open my letters. Amongst to-day's were several from friends we
had invited to a party we thought of giving--if, that is to say,
your brother's illness took no sudden turn for the worse. No fewer
than ten of them refuse our invitation--most of them making some
excuse, and a few with a little more show of a real reason; but one
of them speaks straight out, and I have his letter here. (Takes it
from his pocket.) I have kept it for you. It is from my father's
old friend, the bishop. I haven't my spectacles--and for me to have
mislaid my spectacles will show you what a state of mind I am in. I
don't think I have done such a thing for--. Here, read it yourself!
Read it aloud!

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