endurable.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, it must be.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Always to hear his footsteps up there--from early morning till
far into the night. And everything sounds so clear in this house!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, it is strange how clear the sound is.

MRS. BORKMAN.
I often feel as if I had a sick wolf pacing his cage up there in
the gallery, right over my head. [Listens and whispers.] Hark!
Do you hear! Backwards and forwards, up and down, goes the wolf.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Tentatively.] Is no change possible, Gunhild?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With a gesture of repulsion.] He has never made any movement
towards a change.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Could you not make the first movement, then?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Indignantly.] I! After all the wrong he has done me! No thank
you! Rather let the wolf go on prowling up there.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
This room is too hot for me. You must let me take off my things
after all.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Yes, I asked you to.

[ELLA RENTHEIM takes off her hat and cloak and lays them on a
chair beside the door leading to the hall.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Do you never happen to meet him, away from home?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With a bitter laugh.] In society, do you mean?

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I mean, when he goes out walking. In the woods, or----

MRS. BORKMAN.
He never goes out.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Not even in the twilight?

MRS. BORKMAN.
Never.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[With emotion.] He cannot bring himself to go out?

MRS. BORKMAN.
I suppose not. He has his great cloak and his hat hanging in
the cupboard--the cupboard in the hall, you know----

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[To herself.] The cupboard we used to hide in when we were
little.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Nods.] And now and then--late in the evening--I can hear him
come down as though to go out. But he always stops when he is
halfway downstairs, and turns back--straight back to the gallery.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Quietly.] Do none of his old friends ever come up to see him?

MRS. BORKMAN.
He has no old friends.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
He had so many--once.

MRS. BORKMAN.
H'm! He took the best possible way to get rid of them. He was
a dear friend to his friends, was John Gabriel.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, yes, that is true, Gunhild.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Vehemently.] All the same, I call it mean, petty, base,
contemptible of them, to think so much of the paltry losses
they may have suffered through him. They we