At Werle's house. In front a richly-upholstered study. (R.) A green baize door leading to Werle's office. At back, open folding doors, revealing an elegant dining-room, in which a brilliant Norwegian dinner-party is going on. Hired Waiters in profusion. A glass is tapped with a knife. Shouts of "Bravo!" Old Mr. Werle is heard making a long speech, proposing – according to the custom of Norwegian society on such occasions – the health of his House-keeper, Mrs. Sörby. Presently several short-sighted, flabby, and thin-haired Chamberlains enter from the dining-room with Hialmar Ekdal, who writhes shyly under their remarks.

A Chamberlain

As we are the sole surviving specimens of Norwegian nobility, suppose we sustain our reputation as aristocratic sparklers by enlarging upon the enormous amount we have eaten, and chaffing Hialmar Ekdal, the friend of our host's son, for being a professional photographer?

The other Chamberlains

Bravo! We will.

[They do; delight of Hialmar. Old Werle comes in, leaning on his Housekeeper's arm, followed by his son, Gregers Werle.

Old Werle

[Dejectedly.] Thirteen at table! [To Gregers, with a meaning glance at Hialmar.] This is the result of inviting an old college friend who has turned photographer! Wasting vintage wines on him, indeed.

[He passes on gloomily

Hialmar

[To Gregers.] I am almost sorry I came. Your old man is not friendly. Yet he set me up as a photographer fifteen years ago. Now he takes me down! But for him, I should never have married Gina, who, you may remember, was a servant in your family once.

Gregers

What? my old college friend married fifteen years ago – and to our Gina, of all people! If I had not been up at the works all these years, I suppose I should have heard something of such an event. But my father never mentioned it. Odd!

[He ponders; Old Ekdal comes out through the green baize-door, bowing, and begging pardon, carrying copying work. Old Werle says "Ugh" and "Pah" involuntarily. Hialmar shrinks back, and looks another way. A Chamberlain asks him pleasantly if he knows that old man.

Hialmar

I – oh no. Not in the least. No relation!

Gregers

[Shocked.] What, Hialmar, you, with your great soul, deny your own father!

Hialmar

[Vehemently.] Of course – what else can a photographer do with a disreputable old parent, who has been in a penitentiary for making a fraudulent map? I shall leave this splendid banquet. The Chamberlains are not kind to me, and I feel the crushing hand of fate on my head!

[Goes out hastily, feeling it

Mrs. Sörby

[Archly.] Any nobleman here say "Cold Punch"?

[Every nobleman says "Cold Punch" and follows her out in search of it with enthusiasm. Gregers approaches his father, who wishes he would go.

Gregers

Father, a word with you in private. I loathe you. I am nothing if not candid. Old Ekdal was your partner once, and it's my firm belief you deserved a prison quite as much as he did. However, you surely need not have married our Gina to my old friend Hialmar. You know very well she was no better than she should have been!

Old Werle

True – but then no more is Mrs. Sörby. And I am going to marry her– if you have no objection, that is.

Gregers

None in the world! How can I object to a step-mother who is playing Blind Man's Buff at the present moment with the Norwegian nobility? I am not so overstrained as all that. But really I cannot allow my old friend Hialmar, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, to remain in contented ignorance of Gina's past. No, I see my mission in life at last! I shall take my hat, and inform him that his home is built upon a lie. He will be so much obliged to me!

[Takes his hat, and goes out

Old Werle

Ha! – I am a wealthy merchant, of dubious morals, and I am about to marry my house-keeper, who is on intimate terms with the Norwegian aristocracy. I have a son who loathes me, and who is either an Ibsenian satire on the Master's own ideals, or else an utterly impossible prig – I don't know or care which. Altogether, I flatter myself my household affords an accurate and realistic picture of Scandinavian Society!

[Curtain

ACT SECOND

Hialmar Ekdal's Photographic Studio. Cameras, neck-rests, and other instruments of torture lying about. Gina Ekdal and Hedvig, her daughter, aged 14, and wearing spectacles, discovered sitting up for Hialmar.

Hedvig

Grandpapa is in his room with a bottle of brandy and a jug of hot water, doing some fresh copying work. Father is in society, dining out. He promised he would bring me home something nice!

Hialmar

[Coming in, in evening dress.] And he has not forgotten his promise, my child. Behold! [He presents her with the menu card; Hedvig gulps down her tears; Hialmar notices her disappointment, with annoyance.] And this all the gratitude I get! After dining out and coming home in a dress-coat and boots, which are disgracefully tight! Well well, just to show you how hurt I am, I won't have any beer now! What a selfish brute I am! [Relenting.] You may bring me just a little drop. [He bursts into tears.] I will play you a plaintive Bohemian dance on my flute. [He does.] No beer at such a sacred moment as this! [He drinks.] Ha, this is real domestic bliss!

[Gregers Werle comes in, in a countrified suit

Gregers

I have left my father's home – dinner-party and all – for ever. I am coming to lodge with you.

Hialmar

[Still melancholy.] Have some bread and butter. You won't? – then I will. I want it, after your father's lavish hospitality. [Hedvig goes to fetch bread and butter.] My daughter – a poor short-sighted little thing – but mine own.

Gregers

My father has had to take to strong glasses, too – he can hardly see after dinner. [To Old Ekdal, who stumbles in very drunk.] How can you, Lieutenant Ekdal, who were such a keen sportsman once, live in this poky little hole?

Old Ekdal

I am a sportsman still. The only difference is that once I shot bears in a forest, and now I pot tame rabbits in a garret. Quite as amusing – and safer.

[He goes to sleep on a sofa

Hialmar

[With pride.] It is quite true. You shall see.

[He pushes back sliding doors, and reveals a garret full of rabbits and poultry – moonlight effect. Hedvig returns with bread and butter.

Hedvig

[To Gregers.] If you stand just there, you get the best view of our Wild Duck. We are very proud of her, because she gives the play its title, you know, and has to be brought into the dialogue a good deal. Your father peppered her out shooting, and we saved her life.

Hialmar

Yes, Gregers, our estate is not large – but still we preserve, you see. And my poor old father and I sometimes get a day's gunning in the garret. He shoots with a pistol, which my illiterate wife here will call a "pigstol." He once, when he got into trouble, pointed it at himself. But the descendant of two lieutenant-colonels who had never quailed before living rabbit yet, faltered then. He didn't shoot. Then I put it to my own head. But at the decisive moment, I won the victory over myself. I remained in life. Now we only shoot rabbits and fowls with it. After all I am very happy and contented as I am.

[He eats some bread and butter

Gregers

But you ought not to be. You have a good deal of the Wild Duck about you. So have your wife and daughter. You are living in marsh vapours. Tomorrow I will take you out for a walk and explain what I mean. It is my mission in life. Good night!

[He goes out

Gina and Hedwig

What was the gentleman talking about, father?

Hialmar

[Eating bread and butter.] He has been dining, you know. No matter – what we have to do now, is to put my disreputable old whitehaired pariah of a parent to bed.

[He and Gina lift Old Eccles —we mean Old Ekdal —up by the legs and arms, and take him off to bed as the Curtain falls.

ACT THREE

Hialmar's Studio. A photograph has just been taken. Gina and Hedvig are tidying up.

Gina

[Apologetically.] There should have been a luncheon-party in this act, with Dr. Relling and Mölvik, who would have been in a state of comic "chippiness," after his excesses overnight. But, as it hadn't much to do with such plot as there is, we cut it out. It came cheaper. Here comes your father back from his walk with that lunatic, young Werle – you had better go and play with the Wild Duck.

[Hedvig goes

Hialmar

[Coming in.] I have been for a walk with Gregers; he meant well – but it was tiring. Gina, he has told me that, fifteen years ago, before I married you, you were rather a Wild Duck, so to speak. [Severely.] Why haven't you been writhing in penitence and remorse all these years, eh?

Gina

[Sensibly.] Why? Because I have had other things to do. You wouldn't take any photographs, so I had to.

Hialmar

All the same – it was a swamp of deceit. And where am I to find elasticity of spirit to bring out my grand invention now? I used to shut myself up in the parlour, and ponder and cry, when I thought that the effort of inventing anything would sap my vitality. [Pathetically.] I did want to leave you an inventor's widow; but I never shall now, particularly as I haven't made up my mind what to invent yet. Yes, it's all over. Rabbits are trash, and even poultry palls. And I'll wring that cursed Wild Duck's neck!

Gregers

[Coming in beaming.] Well, so you've got it over. Wasn't it soothing and ennobling, eh? and ain't you both obliged to me?

Gina

No; it's my opinion you'd better have minded your own business.

[Weeps

Gregers

[In great surprise.] Bless me! Pardon my Norwegian naïveté, but this ought really to be quite a new starting-point. Why, I confidently expected to have found you both beaming! – Mrs. Ekdal, being so illiterate, may take some little time to see it – but you, Hialmar, with your deep mind, surely you feel a new consecration, eh?

Hialmar

[Dubiously.] Oh – er – yes. I suppose so – in a sort of way.

[Hedvig runs in, overjoyed

Hedvig

Father, only see what Mrs. Sörby has given me for a birthday present – a beautiful deed of gift!

[Shows it

Hialmar

[Eluding her.] Ha! Mrs. Sörby, the family house-keeper. My father's sight failing! Hedvig in goggles! What vistas of heredity these astonishing coincidences open up! I am not short-sighted, at all events, and I see it all – all! This is my answer. [He takes the deed, and tears it across.] Now I have nothing more to do in this house. [Puts on overcoat.] My home has fallen in ruins about me. [Bursts into tears.] My hat!

Gregers

Oh, but you mustn't go. You must be all three together, to attain the true frame of mind for self-sacrificing forgiveness, you know!

Hialmar

Self-sacrificing forgiveness be blowed!

[He tears himself away, and goes out

Hedvig

[With despairing eyes.] Oh, he said it might be blowed! Now he'll never come home any more!

Gregers

Shall I tell you how to regain your father's confidence, and bring him home surely? Sacrifice the Wild Duck.

Hedvig

Do you think that will do any good?

Gregers

You just try it!

[Curtain

ACT FOURTH

Same Scene. Gregers enters, and finds Gina retouching photographs.

Gregers

[Pleasantly.] Hialmar not come in yet, after last night, I suppose?

Gina

Not he! He's been out on the loose all night with Relling and Mölvik. Now he's snoring on their sofa.

Gregers

[Disappointed.] Dear! – dear! – when he ought to be yearning to wrestle in solitude and self-examination!

Gina

[Rudely.] Self-examine your grandmother!

[She goes out; Hedvig comes in

Gregers

[To Hedvig.] Ah, I see you haven't found courage to settle the Wild Duck yet!

Hedvig

No – it seemed such a delightful idea at first. Now it strikes me as a trifle – well, Ibsenish.

Gregers

[Reprovingly.] I thought you hadn't grown up quite unharmed in this house! But if you really had the true, joyous spirit of self-sacrifice, you'd have a shot at that Wild Duck, if you died for it!

Hedvig

[Slowly.] I see; you mean that my constitution's changing, and I ought to behave as such?

Gregers

Exactly, I'm what Americans would term a "crank" – but I believe in you, Hedvig.

[Hedvig takes down the pistol from the mantelpiece, and goes into the garret with flashing eyes; Gina comes in.

Hialmar

[Looking in at door with hesitation; he is unwashed and dishevelled.] Has anybody happened to see my hat?

Gina

Gracious, what a sight you are! Sit down and have some breakfast, do.

[She brings it

Hialmar

[Indignantly.] What! touch food under this roof? Never! [Helps himself to bread-and-butter and coffee.] Go and pack up my scientific uncut books, my manuscripts, and all the best rabbits, in my portmanteau. I am going away for ever. On second thoughts, I shall stay in the spare room for another day or two – it won't be the same as living with you!

[He takes some salt meat

Gregers

Must you go? Just when you've got nice firm ground to build upon – thanks to me! Then there's your great invention, too.

Hialmar

Everything's invented already. And I only cared about my invention because, although it doesn't exist yet, I thought Hedvig believed in it, with all the strength of her sweet little short-sighted eyes! But now I don't believe in Hedvig!

[He pours himself out another cup of coffee

Gregers

[Earnestly.] But, Hialmar, if I can prove to you that she is ready to sacrifice her cherished Wild Duck? See!

[He pushes back sliding-door, and discovers Hedvig aiming at the Wild Duck with the butt-end of the pistol. Tableau.

Gina

[Excitedly.] But don't you see? It's the pigstol – that fatal Norwegian weapon which, in Ibsenian dramas, never shoots straight! And she has got it by the wrong end too. She will shoot herself!

Gregers

[Quietly.] She will! Let the child make amends. It will be a most realistic and impressive finale!

Gina

No, no – put down the pigstol, Hedvig. Do you hear, child?

Hedvig

[Still aiming.] I hear – but I shan't unless father tells me to.

Gregers

Hialmar, show the great soul I always said you had. This sorrow will set free what is noble in you. Don't spoil a fine situation. Be a man! Let the child shoot herself!

Hialmar

[Irresolutely.] Well, really, I don't know. There's a good deal in what Gregers says. H'm!

Gina

A good deal of tomfool rubbish! I'm illiterate, I know. I've been a Wild Duck in my time, and I waddle. But for all that, I'm the only person in the play with a grain of common-sense. And I'm sure – whatever Mr. Ibsen or Gregers choose to say – that a screaming burlesque like this ought not to end like a tragedy – even in this queer Norway of ours! And it shan't, either! Tell the child to put that nasty pigstol down, and come away – do!

Hialmar

[Yielding.] Ah, well, I am a farcical character myself, after all. Don't touch a hair of that duck's head, Hedvig. Come to my arms and all shall be forgiven!

[Hedvig throws down the pistol – which goes off and kills a rabbit – and rushes into her father's arms. Old Ekdal comes out of a corner with a fowl on each shoulder, and bursts into tears. Affecting family picture.

Gregers

[Annoyed.] It's all very pretty, I dare say – but it's not Ibsen! My real mission is to be the thirteenth at table. I don't know what I mean – but I fly to fulfil it!

[He goes

Hialmar

And now we've got rid of him, Hedvig, fetch me the deed of gift I tore up, and a slip of paper, and a penny bottle of gum, and we'll soon make a valid instrument of it again.

[He pastes the torn deed together as the Curtain slowly descends.

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