Daughter. Yes, you—you have a father and I had one too, when I was still quite, quite tiny.
Lise. What became of him, then?
Daughter. Mother always says he left us because he was a bad lot.
Lise. It’s hard to find where the truth lies. But—I tell you what, if you come home to us now you’ll meet the director of the Imperial Theater, and it’s possible it might be a question of an engagement.
Daughter. What do you say?
Lise. Yes, yes—that’s it. And he takes an interest in you—I mean Gerhard—and I have made him take an interest in you, and you know quite well what trifles often decide one’s whole life; a personal interview, a good recommendation at the right moment—well, now, you can’t refuse any longer, without standing in the way of your own career.
Daughter. Oh, darling, I should think I did want to come. You know that quite well; but I don’t go out without mamma.
Lise. Why not? Can you give me any reason?
Daughter. I don’t know. She taught me to say that when I was a child. And now it’s got deeply rooted.
Lise. Has she extracted some promise from you?
Daughter. No, she didn’t have any need to do that. She just said “Say that!” and I said it.
Lise. Do you think then that you’re doing her a wrong if you leave her for an hour or two?
Daughter. I don’t think that she would miss me, because when I am at home she’s- always got some fault to find with me. But I should find it painful if I went to a house when she wasn’t allowed to come too.
Lise. Do you mean to say you’ve thought of the possibility of her visiting us?
Daughter. No—God forgive me, I never thought of it for a moment.
Lise. But supposing you were to get married?
Daughter. I shall never get married.
Lise. Has your mother taught you to say that as well?
Daughter. Yes, probably. She has always warned me of men.
Lise. Of married men as well?
Daughter. Presumably.
Lise. Look here, Helen, you should really emancipate yourself.
Daughter. Ugh! I haven’t the faintest desire to be a new woman.
Lise. No, I don’t mean that. But you must free yourself from a position of dependence which you have grown out of, and which may make you unhappy for life.
Daughter. I scarcely think I shall ever be able to. Just consider how I’ve been tied down to my mother since I was a child; that I’ve never dared to think a thought that wasn’t hers, have never wished anything but her wishes. I know that it’s a handicap; that it stands in my way, but I can’t do anything against it.
Lise. And if your mother goes to rest, one fine day, you’ll be all alone in the world.
Daughter. That’s how I shall find myself.
Lise. But you’ve got no set, no friend; and no one can live as lonely as all that. You must find some firm support. Have you never been in love?
Daughter. I don’t know. I’ve never dared to think of anything like that, and mother has never allowed young men even to look at me. Do you yourself think of such things?
Lise. Yes. If anyone’s fond of me I should like to have him.
Daughter. You’ll probably marry your cousin Gerhard.
Lise. I shall never do that—because he does not love me.
Daughter. Not love you?
Lise. No, because he’s fond of you.
Daughter. Me?
Lise. Yes—and he has commissioned me to inquire if he can call on you.
Daughter. Here? No, that’s impossible. And besides, do you think I would stand in your way? Do you think I could supplant you in his regard, you who are so pretty, so delicate. [Takes LISE’S hand in hers.] What a hand! And the wrists! I saw your foot when we were in the Bath-house together. [Falls on her knees before LISE, who has sat doun.] A foot on which there isn’t even a crooked nail, on which the toes are as round and as rosy as a baby’s hand. [Kisses LISE’S foot.] You belong to the nobility—you’re made of different stuff from what I am.
Lise. Leave off, please, and don’t talk so silly. [Gets up.] If you only knew—but…
Daughter. And I’m sure you’re as good as you’re beautiful; we always think that down below here when we look up at you above there, with your delicate chiseled features, where trouble hasn’t made any wrinkles, where envy and jealousy have not drawn their hateful lines
Lise. Look here, Helen; I really think you’re quite mad on me.
Daughter. Yes, I am that, too. I wish I were like you a bit, just as a miserable whitlow-grass is like an anemone, and that’s why I see in you my better self, something that I should like to be and never can be. You have tripped into my life during the last summer days as lightly and as delicately as an angel; now the autumn’s come: the day after to-morrow we go back to town—then we shan’t know each other any more—and we mustn’t know each other any more. You can never draw me up, dear, but I can draw you down—and I don’t want to do that! I want to have you so high, so high and so far away, that I can’t see your blemishes. And so good-bye, Lise, my first and only friend.
Lise. No, that’s enough. Helen, do you know—who I am? Well—I—am your sister.
Daughter. You What can you mean?
Lise. We have—the same father.
Daughter. And you are my sister, my little sister? But what is my father then? But of course he must be captain of a yacht, because your father is one. How silly I am! But then he married, after. Is he kind to you? He wasn’t to my mother.
Lise. You don’t know. But aren’t you awfully glad to have found a little sister— one too who isn’t so very loud?
Daughter. Oh, rather, I’m so glad that I really don’t know what to say. [Embrace.] But I really daren’t be properly glad because I don’t know what’s going to happen after all this. What will mother say, and what will it be like if we meet papa?
Lise. Just leave your mother to me. She can’t be far away now. And you keep in the background till you are wanted. And now come and give me a kiss, little ’un. [They kiss.]
Daughter. My sister. How strange the word sounds, just like the word father when one has never uttered it.
Lise. Don’t, let’s go on chattering now, but let’s stick to the point. Do you think that your mother would still refuse her permission if we were to invite you—to come and see your sister and your father?
Daughter. Without my mother? Oh, she hates your—my father so dreadfully.
Lise. But suppose she has no reason to do so? If you only knew how full the world is of concoctions and lies and mistakes and misunderstandings. My father used to tell the story of a chum he used to have when he first went to sea as a cadet. A gold watch was stolen from one of the officers’ cabins and— God knows why!— suspicion fell on the cadet. His mates avoided him, practically sent him to Coventry, and that embittered him to such an extent that he became impossible to associate with, got mixed up in a row and had to leave. Two years afterward the thief was discovered, in the person of a boatswain; but no satisfaction could be given to the innocent boy, because people had only been suspicious of him. And the suspicion will stick to him for the rest of his life, although it was refuted, and the wretch still keeps a nickname which was given to him at the time. His life grew up like a house that’s built and based on its own bad fame, and when the false foundation is cut away the building remains standing all the same; it floated in the air like the castle in “The Arabian Nights.” You see—that’s what happens in the world. But even worse things can happen, as in the case of that instrument maker in Arboga, who got the name of being an incendiary because his house had been set fire to; or as happened to a certain Anderson, whom people called Thief Anders because he had been the victim of a celebrated burglary.