RITA. [With a cutting laugh.] Oh yes! Now you have given yourself up to something worse.

ALLMERS. [Shocked.] Worse! Do you call our child something worse?

RITA. [Vehemently.] Yes, I do. As he comes between you and me, I call him so. For the book--the book was not a living being, as the child is.

[With increasing impetuosity.] But I won't endure it, Alfred! I will not endure it--I tell you so plainly!

ALLMERS. [Looks steadily at her, and says in a low voice.] I am often almost afraid of you, Rita.

RITA. [Gloomily.] I am often afraid of myself. And for that very reason you must not awake the evil in me.

ALLMERS. Why, good Heavens, do I do that?

RITA. Yes, you do--when you tear to shreds the holiest bonds between us.

ALLMERS. [Urgently.] Think what you're saying, Rita. It is your own child--our only child, that you are speaking of.

RITA. The child is only half mine. [With another outburst.] But you shall be mine alone! You shall be wholly mine! That I have a right to demand of you!

ALLMERS. [Shrugging his shoulders.] Oh, my dear Rita, it is of no use demanding anything. Everything must be freely given.

RITA. [Looks anxiously at him.] And that you cannot do henceforth?

ALLMERS. No, I cannot. I must divide myself between Eyolf and you.

RITA. But if Eyolf had never been born? What then?

ALLMERS. [Evasively.] Oh, that would be another matter. Then I should have only you to care for.

RITA. [Softly, her voice quivering.] Then I wish he had never been born.

ALLMERS. [Flashing out.] Rita! You don't know what you are saying!

RITA. [Trembling with emotion.] It was in pain unspeakable that I brought him into the world. But I bore it all with joy and rapture for your sake.

ALLMERS. [Warmly.] Oh yes, I know, I know.

RITA. [With decision.] But there it must end. I will live my life--together with you--wholly with you. I cannot go on being only Eyolf's mother--only his mother and nothing more. I will not, I tell you! I cannot! I will be all in all to you! To you, Alfred!

ALLMERS. But that is just what you are, Rita. Through our child--

RITA. Oh--vapid, nauseous phrases--nothing else! No, Alfred, I am not to be put off like that. I was fitted to become the child's mother, but not to be a mother to him. You must take me as I am, Alfred.

ALLMERS. And yet you used to be so fond of Eyolf.

RITA. I was so sorry for him--because you troubled yourself so little about him. You kept him reading and grinding at books. You scarcely even saw him.

ALLMERS. [Nodding slowly.] No; I was blind. The time had not yet come for me--

RITA. [Looking in his face.] But now, I suppose, it has come?

ALLMERS. Yes, at, last. Now I see that the highest task I can have in the world is to be a true father to Eyolf.

RITA. And to me?--what will you be to me?

ALLMERS. [Gently.] I will always go on caring for you--with calm, deep tenderness. [ He tries to take her hands.]

RITA. [Evading him.] I don't care a bit for your calm, deep tenderness.

I want you utterly and entirely--and alone! Just as I had you in the first rich, beautiful days. [Vehemently and harshly.] Never, never will I consent to be put off with sc.r.a.ps and leavings, Alfred!

ALLMERS. [In a conciliatory tone.] I should have thought there was happiness in plenty for all three of us, Rita.

RITA. [Scornfully.] Then you are easy to please. [Seats herself at the table on the left.] Now listen to me.

ALLMERS. [Approaching.] Well, what is it?

RITA. [Looking up at him with a veiled glow in her eyes.] When I got your telegram yesterday evening--

ALLMERS. Yes? What then?

RITA.--then I dressed myself in white--

ALLMERS. Yes, I noticed you were in white when I arrived.

RITA. I had let down my hair--

ALLMERS. Your sweet ma.s.ses of hair--

RITA.--so that it flowed down my neck and shoulders--

ALLMERS. I saw it, I saw it. Oh, how lovely you were, Rita!

RITA. There were rose-tinted shades over both the lamps. And we were alone, we two--the only waking beings in the whole house. And there was champagne on the table.

ALLMERS. I did not drink any of it.

RITA. [Looking bitterly at him.] No, that is true. [Laughs harshly.]

"There stood the champagne, but you tasted it not"--as the poet says.

[She rises from the armchair, goes with an air of weariness over to the sofa, and seats herself, half reclining, upon it.]

ALLMERS. [Crosses the room and stands before her.] I was so taken up with serious thoughts. I had made up my mind to talk to you of our future, Rita--and first and foremost of Eyolf.

RITA. [Smiling.] And so you did--

ALLMERS. No, I had not time to--for you began to undress.

RITA. Yes, and meanwhile you talked about Eyolf. Don't you remember? You wanted to know all about little Eyolf's digestion.

ALLMERS. [Looking reproachfully at her.] Rita--!