The Master Builder Part 51

HILDA.

Don't you think that fire would have happened all the same--even without your wis.h.i.+ng for it?

SOLNESS.

If the house had been old Knut Brovik's, it would never have burnt down so conveniently for him. I am sure of that; for he does not know how to call for the helpers--no, nor for the servers, either. [Rises in unrest.] So you see, Hilda--it is my fault, after all, that the lives of the two little boys had to be sacrificed. And do you think it is not my fault, too, that Aline has never been the woman she should and might have been--and that she most longed to be?

HILDA.

Yes, but if it is all the work of these helpers and servers--?

SOLNESS.

Who called for the helpers and servers? It was I! And they came and obeyed my will. [In increasing excitement.] That is what people call having the luck on your side; but I must tell you what this sort of luck feels like! It feels like a great raw place here on my breast. And the helpers and servers keep on flaying pieces of skin off other people in order to close my sore!--But still the sore is not healed--never, never!

Oh, if you knew how it can sometimes gnaw and burn!

HILDA.

[Looks attentively at him.] You are ill, Mr. Solness. Very ill, I almost think.

SOLNESS.

Say mad; for that is what you mean.

HILDA.

No, I don't think there is much amiss with your intellect.

SOLNESS.

With what then? Out with it!

HILDA.

I wonder whether you were not sent into the world with a sickly conscience.

SOLNESS.

A sickly conscience? What devilry is that?

HILDA.

I mean that your conscience is feeble--too delicately built, as it were--hasn't strength to take a grip of things--to lift and bear what is heavy.

SOLNESS.

[Growls.] H'm! May I ask, then, what sort of a conscience one ought to have?

HILDA.

I should like your conscience to be--to be thoroughly robust.

SOLNESS.

Indeed? Robust, eh? Is your own conscience robust, may I ask?

HILDA.

Yes, I think it is. I have never noticed that it wasn't.

SOLNESS.

It has not been put very severely to the test, I should think.

HILDA.

[With a quivering of the lips.] Oh, it was no such simple matter to leave father--I am so awfully fond of him.

SOLNESS.

Dear me! for a month or two--

HILDA.

I think I shall never go home again.

SOLNESS.