I thought it was all just as you wished.
Axel. You are giving me very abrupt answers. Have I offended you?
Mathilde. What makes you ask that?
Axel. Because lately you have avoided me. Remember how kind you were to me once—indeed, that I owe you everything. It was through you, you know, that I got at her. I had to make assignations with you, in order to meet her. I had to offer you my arm so as to be able to give her the other, and to talk to you so that she might hear my voice. The little darling thought she was doing you a service—
Mathilde. When as a matter of fact it was I that was doing her one—
Axel. Yes, and without suspecting it! That was the amusing part of it.
Mathilde. Yes, that was the amusing part of it.
Axel. But soon people began to say that you and I were secretly engaged, and that we were making a stalking-horse of Laura; so for her sake I had to bring matters to a head rather quickly.
Mathilde. Yes, you took a good many people by surprise.
Axel. Including even yourself, I believe—not to mention the old folk and Laura. But the worst of it is that I took my own happiness by surprise, too.
Mathilde. What do you mean?
Axel. Of course I knew Laura was only a child; but I thought she would grow up when she felt the approach of love. But she has never felt its approach; she is like a bud that will not open, and I cannot warm the atmosphere. But you could do that—you, in whom she has confided all her first longings—you, whose kind heart knows so well how to sacrifice its happiness for others. You know you are to some extent responsible, too, for the fact that the most important event in her life came upon her a little unpreparedly; so you ought to take her by the hand and guide her first steps away from her parents and towards me—direct her affections towards me—
Mathilde. I? (A pause.)
Axel. Won't you?
Mathilde. No—
Axel. But why not? You love her, don't you?
Mathilde. I do; but this is a thing—
Axel.—that you can do quite well! For you are better off than the rest of us—you have many more ways of reaching a person's soul than we have. Sometimes when we have been discussing something, and then you have given your opinion, it has reminded me of the refrains to the old ballads, which sum up the essence of the whole poem in two lines.
Mathilde. Yes, I have heard you flatter before.
Axel. I flatter? Why, what I have just asked you to do is a clearer proof than anything else how great my—
Mathilde. Stop, stop! I won't do it!
Axel. Why not? At least be frank with me!
Mathilde. Because—oh, because—(Turns away.)
Axel. But what has made you so unkind? (MATHILDE stops for a moment, as though she were going to answer; then goes hurriedly out.) What on earth is the matter with her? Has anything gone wrong between her and Laura? Or is it something about the house that is worrying her? She is too level-headed to be disturbed by trifles.—Well, whatever it is, it must look after itself; I have something else to think about. If the one of them can't understand me, and the other won't, and the old couple neither can nor will, I must act on my own account—and the sooner the better! Later on, it would look to other people like a rupture. It must be done now, before we settle down to this state of things; for if we were to do that, it would be all up with us. To acquiesce in such an unnatural state of affairs would be like crippling one's self on purpose. I am entangled hand and foot here in the meshes of a net of circumspection. I shall have to sail along at "dead slow" all my life—creep about among their furniture and their flowers as warily as among their habits. You might just as well try to stand the house on its head as to alter the slightest thing in it. I daren't move!—and it is becoming unbearable. Would it be a breach of a law of nature to move this couch a little closer to the wall, or this chair further away from it? And has it been ordained from all eternity that this table must stand just where it does? Can it be shifted? (Moves it.) It actually can! And the couch, too. Why does it stand so far forward? (Pushes it back.) And why are these chairs everlastingly in the way? This one shall stand there—and this one there. (Moves them.) I will have room for my legs; I positively believe I have forgotten how to walk. For a whole year I have hardly heard the sound of my own footstep—or of my own voice; they do nothing but whisper and cough here. I wonder if I have any voice left? (Sings.)
"Bursting every bar and band,
My fetters will I shatter;
Striding out, with sword in hand,
Where the fight"—
(He stops abruptly, at the entrance of the FATHER, the MOTHER, LAURA and MATHILDE, who have come hurriedly from the breakfast table. A long pause.)
Laura. Axel, dear!
Mathilde. What, all by himself?
Mother. Do you think you are at a ball?
Father. And playing the part of musician as well as dancer?
Axel. I am amusing myself.
Father. With our furniture?
Axel. I only wanted to see if it was possible to move it.
Mother. If it was possible to move it?
Laura. But what were you shouting about?
Axel. I only wanted to try if I had any voice left.
Laura. If you had any voice left?
Mother. There is a big wood near the house, where you can practise that.
Father. And a waterfall—if you are anxious to emulate Demosthenes.
Laura. Axel, dear—are you out of your mind?
Axel. No, but I think I soon shall be.
Mother. Is there anything wrong?
Axel. Yes, a great deal.
Mother. What is it? Some unpleasant news by post?
Axel. No, not that—but I am unhappy.
Mother. Two days after your wedding?
Father. You have a very odd way of showing it.
Axel. I am taken like that sometimes.
Mother. But what is it? Evidently you are not as happy as we hoped you would be. Confide in us, Axel; we are your parents now, you know.
Axel. It is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but have not had the courage to mention.
Mother. Why? Aren't we good to you?
Axel. You are much too good to me.
Father. What do you mean by that?
Axel. That everything is made far too smooth for me here; my faculties get no exercise; I cannot satisfy my longing for activity and conflict—nor
