cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

down on his breast as possible, while he let out three long, deep sighs, whereupon he
suddenly heaved his face and hands up towards the ceiling and declaimed:
"So at last it must come to this! For thirty years now I have been a
Scandinavian artist and, if I may say so, a Scandinavian cavalier! Until
this day there was not a blot on my name. Young lady! What I have
fought for with honor and nobility for thirty years you have destroyed in an
instant. Now, may the devil burn me, I would not give two shillings for
my good name and reputation."
This incomparable speech had an irresistibly comic effect. It was only the general
mood of despondency which prevented it from being taken with deserved applause. I,
who had been careful not to say a word during the whole proceedings, and possibly
therefore was closest to being regarded as a representative of the absent well- intentioned
public, did not have sufficient control over my facial expressions to be able completely to
conceal a suppressed laugh over the director's correct appraisal of his name and
reputation, and I should have had that (ie., self-control), since I saw clearly that my quiet
amusement wounded him more than the others' horse laughs. I had now fallen out with
one of the band's chiefs.
The next day the threatened actor showed me an indescribably rude letter he
wanted to send to Miller. I advised him against it as altogether unnecessary, but when
that did not help, offered at least to edit or rewrite the most injurious phrases. The same
thing could after all be intimated in a more careful form, which did not expose the letter
writer to the unpleasantnesses which he otherwise would be able to expect. There was for
example no risk in expressing himself thus and so.... In short: my warnings and advice
were followed.
In the evening, before the performance, as we were sitting in the dressing room
and making ourselves up, Miller was in a good mood, as if nothing had happened. In the
middle of a conversation with the theatre's tailor he suddenly turned around to my
comrade with the words:
"It is true: thanks for the letter: it has amused me. He writes well!"
The letter writer made no answer to his question about what it meant, and I could
not very well inject myself into the affair, but I understood immediately that the
keen-minded director had guessed what other "he" had embellished the letter's style. I
127