Act One:
Page I – Page II – Page III – Page IV – Page V
Act Two:
Page I  –  Page II  –  Page III
Act Three:
Page I – Page II – Page III – Page IV

ACT TWO (Page III)

MRS. HALM (Smiling) : And so that little tempest has passed over.

              Such summer showers bring more good than harm;

              And afterwards, the sun shines twice as warm,

              And totally disperses the cloud cover.

 

MISS SKJAERE: Love's fragrant blossoms frequently require

              A little sprinkling to keep them sweet and fresh.

 

FALK:   Yes, kept too dry, they've a tendency to expire.

              In that regard,   Love more resembles fish –

 

SVANHILD:   No, love can flourish in the open air –

 

MISS SKJAERE:    Which fishes only die in –

 

FALK:                                                               Very true.

 

MISS SKJAERE: So there!   I trust that fully answers you.

 

MRS. STRÅMAND:   This tea's superb!   It has a delicate air.

 

FALK:     No, let's stay with the flower comparison

                Love is a flower, and craves the benison

              Of heaven's rain or otherwise it withers -

                            (Comes to a halt)

             

MISS SKJAERE:   And so - ?

 

FALK ˆ (Gallantly bowing)   A posse of aunts with sprinklers gathers.

              But poets have worked this metaphor to death,

              Which generations learn with their first breath;

              And so, with most, it's mindlessly abused.

              But flowers are so notoriously profuse -

              So name the particular one which we would rate,

              As a symbol of love, the most appropriate.

 

MISS SKJAERE: As everybody knows, it is the rose,

              Which sees life in the rosiest of hues.

 

A YOUNG LADY:   Love is a snowdrop, growing beneath pure white;

              Until emerging, hid from the world's sight.

 

AN AUNT:   No, it's a dandelion that thrives the best,

              After it's trodden down by man and beast.

              The shoots spring up when they've been most repressed

              (As our poet, Pedersen, has memorably expressed).

 

LIND:   Bluebells seem closer.   To lovers who are young,

              Ringing a lifelong Pentecostal song.   

 

MRS. HALM: No, it's an evergreen that can remain,

              Green in December as it was June.

 

GULDSTAD: Like Iceland moss, which, when the weather's drear,

                Makes our young ladies vapors disappear.

 

A GENTLEMAN: It's a wild chestnut, very valuable

              As firewood, but the fruit's uneatable.

 

SVANHILD: No, a camellia.    Wearing it at all,

              Once was considered the main point of the ball.

 

MRS. STRÅMAND: Oh no, it's like that flower I used to get –

              Just a moment – wasn't it gray - ?   – no, violet;

              What was it called - ? Let's see – it looked like that –

              Oh, it's extraordinary how one can forget!

 

STYVER:   This floral procession's getting a bit lame.

              I think love's closer to a flower pot;

              First it has space for one flower at a time,

              But as time passes it can hold a lot.

 

STRÅMAND (His flock of children round him) :

              Consider Love the way the pear-tree grows.

              In Spring it spreads its blossoms' scented snows.

              But as the year progresses, these give way,

              To budding leaves increasing day by day.

              As juices fill the paternal trunk, it bears,

              With the Lord's help, a plenitude of pears.

 

FALK:   So many claims, each one a firm position;

                Each embarked on a mistaken trek.       

              All miss the mark.   Now hear my definition,

              Which holds, however much you might object.

              (Rises and takes up a hortatory pose)

                    “ A plant there is, that grows in the far east

              It's ancient home's the garden of the Sun”

 

SOME LADIES:   Ah, it is tea!

 

FALK:                                      Yes!

 

MRS. STRÅMAND:                       You know, his voice is just

              Like Stråmand's when –

 

STRÅMAND:                                Hush, dear, let him go on.

 

FALK:    It's home is a far valley famed in fable,

              Thousands of miles beyond a desert sea;

              Fill my cup, Lind!   Thanks.   Now then,   follow me:

              My ‘Sermon on Love' trimmed for the tea-table.

                            (The guests gather closer)

              It has its home in a legendary land –

              – that country also is the home of Love   -

              Only   Sun-children truly understand

              The tender plant, and give the care it craves.

              With Love, the same condition too obtains;

              You need to have the Sun's blood in your veins

              If Love's to flourish warmly in you, growing

              From green leaf phase, to glorious flowering.

 

MISS SKJAERE:   But China's such a very ancient land,

              And tea itself is old, we understand –

 

STRÅMAND:   Known at the time of Jerusalem and Tyre

 

FALK:   True, and commended when Methuselah,

              In school was peering at his picture book.

 

MISS SKJAERE (Triumphantly) : Yet Love's is young – as all of us here know.

              And so your simile's non-apropos.  

 

FALK:   No, Love is very old, way past its peak.

              The authority for this conclusion we owe

              To folklore from the Cape of Hope to Rio.

              From northern Brevik down to southern Naples,

              It's even claimed Love's one of the immortals.

              I have no doubt that's somewhat magnifying.

              But that its very old there's no denying.

 

MISS SKJAERE:    But Love is always Love through thick and thin.

              Tea can be good or bad or anything.

 

MRS. STRÅMAND:   Yes, tea is very variously rated  

             

ANNA:    The young green buds are thought the absolute best.

 

SVANHILD: But those, only the emperor's daughters taste.

 

A YOUNG LADY:   I've heard it said they're often intoxicated.

 

ANOTHER: ‘Fragrance of lotus, flavor of marzipan'.

 

GULDSTAD:   That kind is not available in our land.

 

FALK (Meanwhile having descended from the veranda) :

Each of us hides a realm of fantasy

              Treasuring a ‘celestial kingdom' of its own,

              Imprisoning hordes of eager buds within

              A Chinese wall of crumbling modesty.

              There, tiny silken dolls with yearning visions,  

              Repine and sigh in their exquisite prisons,

              (Tulips in hand, faint hearts in palpitations)

              Whose dreams range far – so far – to vague locations;

              - For them are gathered the first buds to open.

              Nothing but coarser crops will later ripen.

              Thus, what descends to us are dust and stalks

              As inferior as hemp goods are from silks.

              A crop that's gained by kicking at the tree.

 

GULDSTAD:   Black tea, its called.

 

FALK (Nodding) :                           The most common form of tea.

 

A GENTLEMAN: And Holberg mentions tea derived from beef –

 

MISS SKJAERE (In disapproval): Not served in good society these days.

 

FALK:    Just like beef tea, you might say there's ‘beef love';

              It marked men's foreheads – in old novels and plays.

              Its hen-pecked modern counterparts survive

              Under pretence of matrimonial bliss.

              In short, the simile holds to the last detail.

              So that we find, as old accounts reveal,     

              That tea can suffer, lose the fine bouquets

              Of the distinct aromas we inhale,

              When its transported to us over the seas.

              Traversing hills, deserts, remote outbacks

              It pays its dues to Russians and Cossacks

              Who stamp their seals upon it thus assuring

              What finally reaches us is genuine.

              Now!   Doesn't Love arrive in the same way,

              Through deserts of arid custom?   What would be

              The outcries and dire threats of Judgment Day,

              For Love conveyed on seas of liberty?

              “Oh God,   it's lost morality's tart flavoring!

              These aren't approved aromas we are savoring.”

 

STRÅMAND:   And God be thanked, in well-conducted lands

              Such tastes are still accounted contraband!

 

FALK:   Yes, to gain free passage here at all

                They must endure rules frigid as Siberia.

                Untainted by the slightest breath of sea air,

                Such goods must show authority's approval,

              Stamped by church warden, organist and sexton,

              Friends, kin   acquaintance and whoever's next on

              The list of those who offer their endorsement

              After the Love God's passport grants consent.

                    Now for the last analogy to stand:

              Note how our culture lays its heavy hand

              On that ‘celestial kingdom' in the east:

              The wall has crumbled and its strength is broken,

              The last true mandarin hanged, the harvests taken

              By profane invading hands.   Its life now ceased,

              The ‘celestial kingdom' passes into fable,

              A fairy tale of memories long since past.

              Now sunk to gray in gray, our world's unable

              To resurrect the wondrous realm we've lost.

              That being so, what has become of Love?

              I think I know,   He's simply wandered off.

                                          (Lifts up his cup)

                    But why miss what our times could not endure?

              A tea toast to our dear defunct Love's honor!

              (Drinks up; there is some agitation in the company)

 

MISS SKJAERE:   A curious way of putting it, I must say!

 

THE LADIES: Suggesting that romance and love are dead!

 

STRÅMAND: While Love sits here, still hearty and well-fed;

              In all his guises joining us in tea.

              Here is the widow, in her somber black –

 

THE LADIES:   A faithful partner –

 

STYVER:                                        And a true love's pact,

              As many witnesses have testified.

 

GULDSTAD:    Then, following hard upon, we have Love's light

              Cavalry – all the varieties of fiancées.

             

STRÅMAND:   Those veterans who, despite harsh circumsances,

              Faced down time's ruin –

 

MISS SKJAERE (Interrupting) :     And then the novices   

                            The freshman couples of only yesterday.

 

STRÅMAND: Thus, winter, summer, fall and spring display

              Love to be garnered, proved upon the pulses :

              Seen with one's eyes, audible to one's ears.

 

FALK:   What of it?

 

MSS SKJAERE:   And still you cast it out of doors?

 

FALK:   You're wrong Miss Skjaere, thinking I malign

                Those who insist all these good things might be;

              But bear in mind that smoke is no sure sign

              Of raging fire in the vicinity.

              I'm only too aware that people wed,

              Start families -   and all that sort of thing.

              You'll never hear it said that Falk denied

              Existence of the veil, bouquet and ring.

              Of ardent, rose-red paper missives written

              By turtle doves who quarrel yet stay smitten.

              That sweethearts every day invade the park,

              And well-wishers are given tea and cake.

              How custom's written the scenario,

              With rules for the would-be Lothario.

              Lord knows, we've major-generals in excess,

              An arsenal of weaponry for war,

              Trumpets and drums, lances and cutlasses;

              But what's this pomp and circumstance really for?

              We've plenty of men got up with sword and gun;

              But as for heroes, can we count on one?

 

STRÅMAND:   Please, all in moderation!   It must be said,

              It doesn't always serve the truth to speak

              Too frankly, just when young love's being led

              To think itself so impetuous and unique.

              It doesn't give it any time to build on.  

              No, first in love's domestic joys must come

              A solid rock-base for love's firm foundation,

              That never wavers and can not be shaken.

 

MISS SKJAERE:    Oh, I'm completely of another mind!

              I would have thought that two hearts freely joined,

              Which any day could sever, yet hold for years,

              Is the best proof of how true love endures.

 

ANNA (Warmly) : No, no,   a young love newly waking,

              Is richer, deeper, to survive all shaking.

 

LIND (Thoughtfully) :    Or it's the scent of the Idea of Love.     

              A snowdrop's fragrance beneath the snows above.

 

FALK (Suddenly exclaiming) : Thou fallen Adam!   Longing, when too late,

              For the Paradise lost behind the barricade.

 

LIND:               Nonsense!

 

MRS. HALM (Offended by   FALK,   and rising):

                              It's no help in friendship's service

              To create a rift now we're all in accord;

              No need to fear for your friend's happiness.

 

SOME LADIES:   That's for sure!

 

OTHERS:                                      There we're all agreed!

 

MRS. HALM:   Anna's grades, we grant, in household skills aren't high

              But she'll catch up with that before the Fall.

 

MISS SKAERE:   And she's embroidered her wedding gown already.

 

AN AUNT (Patting ANNA'S head) :   Oh, she'll be prudent.   No need to worry at all.

 

FALK:   Will she, indeed?    A caricature of prudence!

              From lip to lip so goes the ghastly dance.

              Was it her ‘prudence' by which he was captivated ?

              Or her household skills which he so highly rated?

              He came here with the Spring, its cavalier,

              And chose the garden's choicest young wild rose.

              You pulled it up for him – he came back here –

              To find it rose hips –

 

MISS SKJAERE:                     You're being funny, I suppose?

 

FALK:   Fruit excellent for the kitchen, that God knows!

              But rose hips weren't his passion, but the rose.

 

MRS. HALM:   Was it a ballroom belle Mr. Lind was after?

              He's out of luck.   This is no   place to find her.

 

FALK:    I know it is our age's casuistry,

              To flirt with fictions of domestic bliss.

              That's just another deeply rooted lie,

              That like a vine shoots up and flourishes.

              I take my hat off, ma'am, to the ballroom belle;

              She's set up by the age as beauty's pattern,

              The Golden Fleece, the sought-after ideal

              For dancing -   though diminished in the kitchen.

 

MRS. HALM: (With suppressed irritation)   :

              Mr. Falk, your behavior's easily explained;

              A man engaged is a man lost to his friends.

              That's where the matter both begins and ends.

              I've seen enough examples   of that kind.

 

FALK: Hardly surprising, with seven nieces married –

 

MRS. HALM:   And married happily!

 

FALK: (Significantly) :                                    Are you so sure?

 

GULDSTAD:   What's this!

 

MISS SKJAERE:                 Mr. Falk!

 

LIND:                                                    There's no need

              To start a quarrel!

 

FALK:                                  No!   More like an all–out war!

 

STYVER:   As a non-combatant you're disqualified –

 

FALK:    So what?   I'll raise the banner for the fight,

              And enter into battle tooth and nail,

              Against   that Lie whose spreading vines prevail.

              Tenderly nurtured, rooted deep, they grow,

              Brazen, corrupt,   passing themselves off as true.

 

STYVER: Objection!   Not permissible to pass

              As evidence in the present case –

 

MISS SKJAERE:                                                   Hush, now!

 

FALK:   So this is Love's rejuvenating power,

              Prompt to console the widow for her loss!

              A power that removed ‘regret' and ‘pain'

              From young love's discourse, when love's sun still shone.

              This, the irresistible flood of Love,

              That rushes through a wedded couple's veins;

              A Love that bravely stands upon the deck,

              Setting its foot upon convention's neck,

              And the fool's wisdom of the world disdains.

              This is the Love whose lovely flame enfolds

              The long engagement and its life prolongs     

              In perpetuity.   Yes, that which holds

              Power to inspire an office clerk to songs.

              And now young Love's seductive happiness

              Fears to venture boldly overseas;

              It pleads for sacrifice, whereas true bliss,

              Should offer up itself in sacrifice.   

              But no, you prophets of mendacity

              Let's once, at least, call things their proper name.

              Call lonely widowhood a painful time,

              And celebrating widowhood, a lie.

 

STRÅMAND:   No, really, young man,   now you go too far.

              There's clear contempt in every word you say.

                            (Confronts   FALK, glaring at him)

              I can still arm for war when called to fly   

              To the cause of Faith against such heresy.

 

FALK:   War's just the stimulant my system needs.

 

STRÅMAND:   Good!   I can stand up to anything you throw.

                            (Approaching)

               A wedded couple's blessed , just like a priest, -

 

STYVER (Standing on   FALK's other side) :  

              Like fiancées –

 

FALK:                                  - they're like sextons, just so-so.

 

STRÅMAND:   You see these children? Regard them as they cling here.

              They are the witnesses, the proofs I bring here.

              How can you credibly – how is it feasible –

              Truth's armed against you – its impossible

              To stop up your ears   – it is against all reason ---

              Look at these fruits of love, these natural children –

              (Stops in confusion)

                    That is ---what I mean to say is --- naturally – -

 

MISS SKJAERE (Fanning herself with a handkerchief) :    

              Well, what an extraordinary thing to say!

 

FALK:   You see, your own words show infallibly

              The good, authentic, patriotic way,

              Distinguishing the feeble marriage example

              From true love's counterpart.   There isn't more

              Difference between the cooked state and the raw;

              Or meadow plants and some poor potted sample.

              With us, love's now a subject to be studied;

              It's long since it was passionate, full-bodied.

              Among us, love is more of   a profession,

              A guild, with coat of arms, that meets in session,

              At gatherings of married, upright men

              Decreeing laws and then enforcing them.

              A network branching thicker than a forest

              A Choral Club lacking only its annual Fest.

 

GULDSTAD:        And its own journal!

 

FALK:                                                      Excellent idea!   Let's

              Provide the journal.   There's no dearth of reviews

              For ladies, anglers, hunters and believers.

              Nor should we count the cost of the gazettes.

              We'll   print, as on parade, the latest news,

                Each love-knot binding the town's budding lovers;

              We'll scoop up every rosy tinted note

              Our panting Petrarchs to their Lauras wrote.

              Among the dire disasters of the times –

              (‘Killer At Large' and ‘Crinoline In Flames')

              We'll note each hitch in the long course of love,

              And in the Advertising Section have

              A page on second-hand rings at bargain prices.

              Triplets and twins will get their coverage;

              Weddings will bring broad banners and broad faces        

              Into the streets and onto the front page.

              Defaulters will discover themselves proclaimed,

              Alongside all the other latest crimes

              In something like the following style: “Again

              Love-demon yet another victim claims.”

              Yes, that should go down well.   When the time's right,

              And the subscribers have begun to bite,

              I'll use the bait   they'll all be waiting for;

              In the center pages, butcher a bachelor.

              Yes, you shall see me blare the battle call,

              Like a   tiger – roaring an editorial.

 

GULDSTAD:   The paper's title?

 

FALK:                                            Cupid's Sporting Journal.

 

STYVER (Approaching) : You're not being serious are you, honestly -

              Putting your name like this in jeopardy?

 

FALK:   Totally serious.   It's generally conceded

              That no-one can exist on love alone;

              I'll prove that piece of wisdom overrated.

              And live on love like a monarch on his throne;

              That's if, as I hope, Miss Skjaere chooses

              To let me serialize her   “Life-romance

              Of Pastor Stråmand” in bi-weekly doses.

 

STRÅMAND:   God help me!   How can you justify such plans?

              My “Life–romance”?   When was my life romantic?

 

MISS SKJAERE:   I've never said the like!

 

STYVER:                                                       A misconception!

 

STRÅMAND: The idea I'd be guilty of transgression

              Against propriety!   The slander's fantastic!

 

FALK:   Well, let it pass.  

                            (Slaps   STYVER on the shoulder)

                                        One friend here still nurses

              Integrity; I'll open with Styver's verses.

 

STYVER: (After a horrified glance at the priest)

                    Are you quite mad?   I really must protest

              You're accusing me of poetry ---?

 

MISS SKJAERE                                             -   Heaven forbid!

 

FALK:   Such has been rumored issuing from your office.

 

STYVER:   Out of my office?   Such things never did!

 

FALK:   Another defector!   At least there still abides

              One   steadfast brother who will not backslide.

              Lind's “Saga of a Heart”, waits publication,

              Telling of love too fine for Faith's rough ocean,

              Rating Love higher than men's mere salvation.

              Surely that shows a true, heroic devotion!

 

MRS. HALM:   Mister Falk,   that does it!   My patience is exhausted.

              There's no way we can live in the same house.

              I must ask you now to pack at leave at once.

 

FALK (With a bow, as the company retires) :

  I have to say that wasn't unexpected.

 

STRÅMAND:   Between us from now on it's war to the knife.

              You've heaped insults upon me and my wife,

              And even my girls, from Trina down to Anne.

              Yet you claim to be idealism's champion!

(Retires with wife and children)

                   

FALK:    Go, tread the path on which the Apostle's gone.     

              Bearing that Love you've managed to deny,

              Even before the warning cock's third cry.

 

MISS SKJAERE (In pain ) :   Here, Styver, come and help me to untie

              My corset strings.   Make haste – yes – that's the way!

 

STYVER (Retreating with   MISS SKJAERE on his arm ) :

  This ends our friendship!

 

LIND:                                                 And that goes for me!

 

FALK (Somberly)     You as well, Lind!

 

LIND:                                                       Goodbye!

 

FALK:                                                                      My closest friend…!

 

LIND: That can't be helped.   Anna insists it end --

 

  (He goes in;   SVANHILD has remained standing by the veranda steps)

 

FALK: That's it then!   Well, at least I've   cleared a space

              In all directions.

 

SVANHILD:                        Falk,   just let me say –

 

FALK (Politely indicating the house) : Your mother and your friends have gone that way,

Follow the aunts, if you'd avoid disgrace.

 

SVANHILD (Approaching) :   So let them go, for their way isn't mine.

              No herd instinct has power to constrain me    

 

FALK:   You're not going?

 

SVANHILD:                       No.   If your war's against the Lie,

              I'll be your squire– and keep you company.

 

FALK:   You, Svanhild;   you –

 

SVANHILD:                                Who only yesterday - -   ?

              Yes,   but then yesterday, were you   the same?

              You thought me some light reed on which to play –

 

 

FALK:    The flute responded, whistled me to shame!

              No, you were right; that was a child's conclusion.

              You've roused me to a more fit vocation.

              Amidst all chaos my faith maintains its station,

              Raising truth high above life's wild confusion.

              But it won't do, god-like, to stand aside,       

Just looking on the tumult of the contest.

              No!   Bear the mark of Beauty on your breast,

Like the crucifix King Olaf wore to the fight –

Behold, clear-eyed, across the field of war

  - Its dust and chaos, all its wild uproar -

              Sunlight break through the clouds, and realize

              That is our true, heroic enterprise.

 

SVANHILD: You will behold it if you can stand free,

              And stand alone.

 

FALK:                                Was I part of the herd

              The world requires?   No, all that's history,

              - That private pact between myself and God.

              Gone are the days of verse for drawing rooms;

              My muse will seek the earth and sky for home.

              Its war now, –   open combat in the light;

              The Lie - or I myself -   dies in this fight.

 

SVANHILD:   Go with my blessing forth, from words to deeds.

                Misjudging you;   I missed your warmth of heart;

                Forgive me – .    Is it as friends we part?

 

FALK:   Two can join my vessel's destiny.