[Steps down among the crowd and says emphatically.]
If life were set in its old course,
the old routine of Adam’s curse,
spiritless labour, soulless greed,
I might throw you some hunks of bread.
If all a man does is crawl home
each night, dog-tired, let him become
the thing he seems – an animal.
A stifling weariness of days
entombs us in the blank belief
that God has torn our destinies,
our very names, out of the Book of Life.
And yet He is merciful.
ONE OF THE CROWD: Argh! Kick us when we’re down!
MAYOR: Who does he mean, Mammon?
BRAND: If I could heal you with my blood
I’d willingly see it poured
out of every vein.
But that would be a sin
against God, and His gift
of suffering. His desire
is to show mercy, to lift
you out of your own mire.
Rejoice in what He gives.
A people that so strives,
though all else has gone,
will be restored to its own.
But when that spirit’s dead
it is death indeed.
A WOMAN: A storm, a storm! The fjord’s
lashing out at his words!
ANOTHER WOMAN: Don’t heed what he says!
He utters blasphemies.
BRAND: What wonders can your God perform?
A THIRD WOMAN: A storm, look, a storm!
ONE OF THE CROWD: Stone him! Grr, drive him out!
ANOTHER: Yes. Yes! Grab his coat!
The PEASANTS swarm threateningly round BRAND. The MAYOR intervenes. A WOMAN, wild and dishevelled, comes running down the slope.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Help me, for the love of Christ!
MAYOR: I’ll do what I can, ma’am,
provided that your name
is on our parish list.
Let me take a look.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: No, no! For pity’s sake …
hunger’s nothing now …
I’ve seen a horror worse
than you can know!
MAYOR: What d’you mean? Speak up!
DISTRESSED WOMAN: I can’t
tell you. It’s a priest I want.
MAYOR: There isn’t a priest
in these parts.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Then I’m lost,
utterly alone.
BRAND [approaching]:
A priest, you say? There may be one …
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Tell him to hurry. Please …
BRAND: I must know what’s the matter.
I assure you, the priest will come.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Across all that wild water?
BRAND: Yes.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Back there … at home …
my husband … bairns as well …
Say he won’t go to hell!
BRAND: First you must tell me why
you’ve come.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: My breasts were dry,
and the babe went unfed.
Folk wouldn’t heed, nor God.
My man couldn’t bear it.
It broke his spirit,
and he just upped and killed
it, like that, the child …
BRAND: He killed …
ONE OF THE CROWD [with dread]:
His child.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: The moment
it was done, his torment
was dreadful to see,
and he wanted to die.
He turned the knife on him-
self, and screamed Satan’s name.
He’ll not live, but he’s afraid
to go. He lies with the child dead
and frozen in his arms,
and cries and blasphemes.
Come with me, sir. At least
he’ll not go unconfessed.
MAYOR: What’s your name?
[Points to his papers.]
Is it here?
BRAND [sharply, to the PEASANTS]:
Take me across the fjord.
A MAN: In this? We wouldn’t dare!
BRAND: A soul facing its doom
can’t linger till it’s calm.
ANOTHER MAN: The madman’s tempting God!
MAYOR: Go the long way round.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: There’d still be the river
to cross; and the bridge is down.
Just after I’d crossed over …
it went … I might have drowned.
BRAND [stepping down into a boat and loosening the sail]:
You! Will you risk your boat?
OWNER: No … yes …
BRAND: Good, that’s a start!
Now, who’ll chance his life?
FIRST MAN: I’m staying where it’s safe.
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Oh, my man, sir, my man,
he’ll die all unshriven,
and shut out of Heaven!
BRAND [calling from the boat]:
I need someone to bale
and to trim the sail –
one! No more!
You there, so keen to give
just now! Give all you have!
A MAN [threatening]:
Get back on t’shore.
BRAND [holding on with the boat hook and shouting]:
None of you man enough?
Very well, then, a woman …
[To the DISTRESSED WOMAN]
You there! Come on, come on!
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Oh, I can’t … it’s so rough …
my poor bairns, orphan’d
they’ll be if I’m taken …
oh … oh …
BRAND [laughing]:
You built on sand,6
poor soul, and your house is shaken
to pieces.
AGNES: [turning, with flaming cheeks, quickly to EINAR, and putting her hand on his arm]:
You heard? Everything?
EINAR: Yes! Admirable! So strong
in his calling!
AGNES: Follow that call!
God bless you, farewell!
[Calls out to BRAND.]
Here’s one worthy man:
take him!
BRAND: Quickly then!
Here take the rope!
EINAR [pale]:
Which one do you mean,
Agnes? Not me, surely?
AGNES: I was blind. I see clearly
now. Go, I offer you up.
EINAR: Believe me, I would
have gone; I would! I’d have sailed
joyfully into that storm,
once upon a time.
AGNES [trembling]:
But now …?
EINAR: Life is so very sweet,
Agnes; I daren’t do it.
AGNES [shrinking away from him]:
Einar, what do you mean?
EINAR: I mean … I’m afraid.
AGNES: Then you have made
an impassable ocean
rage between us for ever.
[To BRAND]
I’ll come with you. Wait!
BRAND: Now or too late!
DISTRESSED WOMAN [terrified as AGNES leaps on board]:
Mercy, sweet Saviour!
EINAR: Stay, Agnes, for my sake!
BRAND [to the DISTRESSED WOMAN]:
Woman, where do you live?
DISTRESSED WOMAN: Over there. There, d’you see?
Behind the black rock.
The boat moves off from the shore.
EINAR [shouting after them]:
Don’t throw your life away,
my dearest! Save yourself, save
yourself. Think of your family!
AGNES: I’m as safe as can be,
Einar. Don’t be afraid.
We journey
with God.
The boat sails off. The PEASANTS throng the slopes and gaze after it in tense excitement.
A MAN: There they are, clear of the Point
already!
ANOTHER MAN: No they ain’t.
FIRST MAN: They are, they are, you fool.
It’s astern and to leeward
I tell you!
A THIRD MAN: See that squall!
Ugh … they’ll not weather that.
MAYOR: Whoo-oo! There goes his hat!
A WOMAN: Look, his hair, all raven-black,
Look how it’s blown back.
FIRST MAN: The sea’s hissing and boiling
up, like a fountain.
EINAR: What was that? That scream?
I heard it through the storm.
ANOTHER WOMAN: From high on the mountain.
A THIRD WOMAN [pointing upwards]:
Would you believe …? See, Gerd,
Gerd, laughing and howling,
Driving the boat on!
FIRST WOMAN: Blowing a ram’s horn,
And calling up the fiends
to ride on the winds.
SECOND WOMAN: She’s hooting through her hands
now. Drearsome it sounds.
FIRST MAN: Hoot away, you vile troll,
choke on your own spell,
you’ll not do them harm.
True faith, that’s their shield!
SECOND MAN: With that man at the helm,
I’d go as his crew
through a sea twice as wild.
FIRST MAN [to EINAR]:
Who is he, d’you know?
EINAR: Some kind of – priest.
THIRD MAN: Well, one thing’s plain.
Priest or not, he’s a man.
FIRST MAN: There’s our pastor, I say –
our new pastor.
ONE OF THE CROWD: Ay!
They disperse over the hill slopes.
MAYOR: God help us, why such fuss?
The woman’s not from here;
and he’s not one of us.
Why should he interfere,
rushing off, risking his neck,
and for nothing, so to speak?
Well, I go by the book
in my own bailiwick!
Exit.
SCENE 2
Outside the cottage on the headland. It is late in the day. The fjord lies smooth and still. AGNES is sitting by the shore. Presently BRAND comes out of the cottage.
BRAND: So now it’s finished. Death’s quiet hand
has smoothed away his grin of dread
and wiped the terror from his mind.
It seems so peaceful to be dead.
He knew as much of his own crime
as his tongue fumbled at to name,
as his stained hands could bear to touch,
as his poor brain could grope to reach.
He knew the half of what he’d done,
mumbling, ‘I killed the little one.’
What of the ones he didn’t kill
but murdered just the same? Two boys,
staring from the dark ingle-nook,
constrained to look, and look, and look,
with more than terror in their eyes,
not understanding what they saw.
Who can redeem their souls from hell?
What purifying flame shall burn
to ash their memories’ carrion?
Condemned to burgeon in the glare
of that one awful, endless sight
like leaves in darkness, sickly-white,
growing more sickly as they grow,
they in their turn shall generate
offspring of their own despair,
scions of wretchedness and hate,
and all the streams of life shall run
from the one ever-spreading stain.
Where did it all begin, and why,
eternal culpability?
What answer blares from the abyss?
‘Remember who the father was.’
When the Day of Judgement comes
every soul shall stand accused,
shall be condemned as it condemns,
shall curse, knowing itself accursed.
There’ll be no mercy for the plea
‘Forgive us our heredity’!
Absurd riddle, making all
capacities incapable!
Not one soul in a thousand sees
the mountain of offences rise
from the base origins of life,
the two bare, basic words to live.
A few PEASANTS come from behind the cottage and approach BRAND.
SPOKESMAN: So then, we meet again.
BRAND: Why are you here? The man
is dead now; he’s no need
of anything you could give.
SPOKESMAN: Not for himself, maybe.
He’s with the Lord above.
But what about the three
poor souls he left behind,
and left without a crumb?
We’re here because of them …
brought them some scraps of food …
what bits we could find.
BRAND: Until you hazard all,
the gift’s of no avail.
SPOKESMAN: I’ll tell you how it is.
If that stranger who lies
in there, all stiff and stark,
had been mid-fjord,
clinging to a rock
or an upturned boat,
I’d have gone to his aid
and hauled him out.
I’d not see him drown.
BRAND: Yet you’ve little concern
for the death of the soul.
SPOKESMAN: It’s scholar’s talk, is that.
We’re simple folk. We toil
morn to night with our hands,
all the hours that God sends.
BRAND: Then turn your backs on the dawn light.
Gaze at nothing but the ground,
stoop your shoulders to the yoke,
bend your backs until they break.
SPOKESMAN: I expected you’d say,
‘Look up, look up, my friend,
look up and be free!’
BRAND: Then be free, if you can.
SPOKESMAN: Ay, sir. But teach us how.
You must lead us.
BRAND: Why?
SPOKESMAN: Many times we’ve been shown
the road we should take
to find our destiny.
With you it’s more than show.
It is, and that’s a fact!
The truth is, one brave act
is better than fine talk.
You’re just the man we need
in this neighbourhood.
BRAND [uneasy]:
What do you need me for?
SPOKESMAN: To be our pastor, sir.
BRAND: Your pastor? I, remain
SPOKESMAN: It wasn’t always
like this! In the old days,
when the harvests were good
and the cattle well fed,
and nobody was clemmed
with hunger, nor numbed
with cold and despair,
we had our own priest
and a church full of prayer.
But that’s in the past.
These days the sheep starve
twice over, you might say.
BRAND: Don’t ask me to stay.
Ask anything but that!
God has called me to serve
a hungry multitude
in the world outside.
What could I do here, shut
in by mountain and fjord?
How would I be heard?
SPOKESMAN: Speak out bold and clear
and all the mountains hear
and add their voice to yours,
and then the world hears.
BRAND [preparing to leave]:
It’s time I set sail.
SPOKESMAN [barring his way]:
No, wait! This call, this call
to serve, that you go on
about: it means a lot to you, then?
BRAND: I have no other life.
SPOKESMAN: Then stay. Remember: ‘If
you hazard less than all,
the gift’s of no avail’!
BRAND: No man can give away
his inmost spirit,
that’s his for ever,
or hold back, or divert,
the relentless river
of his destiny.
SPOKESMAN: Why, sir, if you drown
destiny in a tarn,
it’s not lost, you know!
Come what may,
it’ll reach the sea
as rain, or dew.
BRAND [staring at him]:
How do you know that?
SPOKESMAN: You taught us it,
when the sea raged,
and the wind surged,
and you went out
and defied death,
put all your faith
in a small boat,
risked life and all
for that poor soul
in there, you shook
our souls awake,
by God you did!
I’d swear we heard
a voice that rang
out clear and strong,
bells on the wind.
You understand …
[Lowers his voice.]
tomorrow’s too late,
tomorrow we’ll forget,
tomorrow we’ll haul down
the brave flag that’s flown
over our heads today.
We’ll not glance at the sky.
BRAND [sternly]:
If you flinch from the call,
and if you won’t fight
to be as you ought,
then be honest; remain
earth-bound, grovelling men,
dumb creatures of toil.
SPOKESMAN [looking at him for a few moments]:
You’ve quenched the flame you lit.
God forgive you for that,
and pity us who saw
a great light that’s gone now.
He leaves and the others follow silently.
BRAND [gazing after them]:
One by one, see, one by one,
homeward in a straggling line,
head bowed and shoulders stooped,
half-expecting to be whipped,
as Adam must have looked, when told
to turn his back on Paradise
and go and wander through the world.
Like Adam with his stricken face
staring at nothing, each of them
bears this knowledge for his shame:
blind creatures formed from my desire
to make man new and whole and pure.
Formed and deformed – whose the default?
My masterstroke? This thing of guilt?
I seek what’s worth the being-won,
some end well worthy its renown!
[He is about to leave, but stops as he sees AGNES on the shore.]
Has she sat there all this while?
What is it she can hear?
Is it singing in the air?
In the storm, as we drove