No More Learning

HILDA (_sits down_): Then I suppose he's frightfully
clever.

SOLNESS: Oh, he's not bad, for my purpose.

HILDA: I can't understand why you should be so
stupid as to go about teaching people. No one but yourself
should be allowed to build.

SOLNESS: I keep brooding on that very thought.
(_Calling her to the window_) Look over there; that's
my new house.

HILDA: It seems to have a tremendously high tower.
Are there nurseries in _that_ house, too?

SOLNESS: Three--as there are here. But there will
never be any child in them. We have had children,
Aline and I, but we didn't keep them long, our two
little boys. The fright Aline got when our old house
was burnt down affected her health, and she failed to
rear them. Yet that fire made me. I built no more
churches; but cosy, comfortable homes for human beings.
But my position as an artist has been paid for in Aline's
happiness.
I could have prevented that fire by seeing to
a flue. But I didn't. And yet the flue didn't actually
cause the fire. Yet it was my fault in a certain sense.

HILDA: I'm afraid you must be--ill.

SOLNESS: I don't think I'll ever be quite of sound
mind on that point.

[RAGNAR _enters, and begs a few kind words about his
drawings to cheer his father, who is dying_. SOLNESS
_dismisses him almost brutally, and bids him never
think of building on his own account_.

HILDA (_when_ RAGNAR _has gone_): That was horribly
ugly--and hard and bad and cruel as well.

SOLNESS: Oh, you don't understand my position,
which I've paid so dear for. _(Confidentially)_ Hilda,
don't you agree with me that there exists special chosen
people, who have the power of desiring, _craving_ a thing,
until at last it _has_ to happen? And aren't there helpers
and servers who must do their part too? But they never
come of themselves. One has to call them very persistently,
inwardly. So the fire happened conveniently
for me; but the two little boys and Aline were sacrificed.
She will never be the woman she longed to be.