Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Scandinavian Drama - Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Ghosts 31
ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have
no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we
can t get rid of them. . . . There must be Ghosts all
the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And
then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.
. . . When you forced me under the yoke you called
Duty and Obligation; when you praised as right and
proper what my whole soul rebelled against, as some
thing loathsome. It was then that I began to look into
the seams of your doctrine. I only wished to pick at a
single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole
thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was
all machine-sewn. ... It was a crime against us both.
Indeed, a crime on which the sacred institution
is built, and for which thousands of innocent chil
dren must pay with their happiness and life, while
their mothers continue to the very end without
ever learning how hideously criminal their life is.
Not so Mrs. Alving who, though at a terrible
price, works herself out to the truth; aye, even to
the height of understanding the dissolute life of
the father of her child, who had lived in cramped
provincial surroundings, and could find no purpose
in life, no outlet for his exuberance. It is through
her child, through Oswald, that all this becomes
illumed to her.
Oswald. Ah, the joy of life, mother; that s a thing
you don t know much about in these parts. I have
never felt it here. . . . And then, too, the joy of work.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
