A Dama do Mar de Ibsen

Ellida (with growing excitement). Wangel, let me tell you this--
tell it you so that he may hear it. You can indeed keep me here!
You have the means and the power to do it. And you intend to do
it. But my mind--all my thoughts, all the longings and desires of
my soul--these you cannot bind! These will rush and press out
into the unknown that I was created for, and that you have kept
from me!

Wangel (in quiet sorrow). I see it, Ellida. Step by step you are
slipping from me. The craving for the boundless, the infinite,
the unattainable will drive your soul into the darkness of night
at last.

Ellida. Yes! I feel it hovering over me like black noiseless
wings.

Wangel. It shall not come to that. No other deliverance is
possible for you. I at least can see no other. And so--so I cry
off our bargain at once. Now you can choose your own path in
perfect--perfect freedom.

Ellida (stares at him a while as if stricken dumb). Is it true--
true what you say? Do you mean that--mean it with all your heart?

Wangel. Yes--with all my sorrowing heart--I mean it.

Ellida. And can you do it? Can you let it be so?

Wangel. Yes, I can. Because I love you so dearly.

Ellida (in a low, trembling voice). And have I come so near--so
close to you?

Wangel. The years and the living together have done that.

Ellida (clasping her hands together). And I--who so little
understood this!

Wangel. Your thoughts went elsewhere. And now--now you are
completely free of me and mine--and--and mine. Now your own true
life may resume its real bent again, for now you can choose in
freedom, and on your own responsibility, Ellida.

Ellida (clasps her head with her hands, and stares at WANGEL). In
freedom, and on my own responsibility! Responsibility, too? That
changes everything.

(The ship bell rings again.)

The Stranger. Do you hear, Ellida? It has rung now for the last
time. Come.

Ellida (turns towards him, looks firmly at him, and speaks in a
resolute voice). I shall never go with you after this!

The Stranger. You will not!

Ellida (clinging to WANGEL). I shall never go away from you after
this.

The Stranger. So it is over?

Ellida. Yes. Over for all time.

The Stranger. I see. There is something here stronger than my
will.

Ellida. Your will has not a shadow of power over me any longer.
To me you are as one dead--who has come home from the sea, and
who returns to it again. I no longer dread you. And I am no
longer drawn to you.

The Stranger. Goodbye, Mrs. Wangel! (He swings himself over the
fence.) Henceforth, you are nothing but a shipwreck in my life
that I have tided over. (He goes out.)

Wangel (looks at her for a while). Ellida, your mind is like the
sea-- it has ebb and flow. Whence came the change?
Ellida. Ah! don't you understand that the change came--was bound
to come when I could choose in freedom?

Wangel. And the unknown?--It no longer lures you?

Ellida. Neither lures nor frightens me. I could have seen it--
gone out into it, if only I myself had willed it. I could have
chosen it. And that is why I could also renounce it.

Wangel. I begin to understand little by little. You think and
conceive in pictures--in visible figures. Your longing and aching
for the sea, your attraction towards this strange man, these were
the expression of an awakening and growing desire for freedom;
nothing else.

Ellida. I don't know about that. But you have been a good
physician for me. You found, and you dared to use the right
remedy--the only one that could help me.

Wangel. Yes, in utmost need and danger we doctors dare much. And
now you are coming back to me again, Ellida?

Ellida. Yes, dear, faithful Wangel--now I am coming back to you
again. Now I can. For now I come to you freely, and on my own
responsibility.

THE END

Vi esta peça pela primeira vez, com 14 anos, na televisão espanhola (em 1965 a televisão portuguesa não chegava a Chaves...). Em 1979 fui a Londres e tive o privilégio de a ver  interpretada pela grande (em todos os sentidos do termo) Vanessa Redgrave. Desde então Ibsen e a sua "Dama do Mar" ficaram naquele acervo de primeiras leituras e primeiras experiências que ajudam para sempre a moldar o que fazemos de nós.

Reli hoje a peça, nesta noite de chegada a Oslo, e ela guardara para mim o mesmo brilho e o mesmo fascínio. Mas pensei (e alguém certamente já terá pensado nisto) quantas semelhanças ou convergências há com "O Holandês Voador" de Wagner - embora Wagner, do mesmo modo que no "Tristão e Isolda", venha para nos dizer que o absoluto do amor só se realiza na Morte, enquanto Ibsen, pelo contrário, está do lado da vida, da vida enquanto escolha e liberdade.