The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen

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Title: Ghosts
A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts

Author: Henrik Ibsen

Illustrator: R. Farquharson Sharp

Posting Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #2467]
Release Date: January, 2001
Last Updated: November 24, 2003

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHOSTS ***

Produced by Martin Adamson. HTML version by Al Haines.

GHOSTS

A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts

by

Henrik Ibsen

Translated by R. Farquharson Sharp

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Mrs. Alving (a widow).
Oswald Alving (her son, an artist).
Manders (the Pastor of the parish).
Engstrand (a carpenter).
Regina Engstrand (his daughter, in Mrs Alving's service).

(The action takes place at Mrs Alving's house on one of the larger
fjords of Western Norway.)

GHOSTS

ACT I

(SCENE.--A large room looking upon a garden door in the left-hand wall,
and two in the right. In the middle of the room, a round table with
chairs set about it, and books, magazines and newspapers upon it. In
the foreground on the left, a window, by which is a small sofa with a
work-table in front of it. At the back the room opens into a
conservatory rather smaller than the room. From the right-hand side of
this, a door leads to the garden. Through the large panes of glass that
form the outer wall of the conservatory, a gloomy fjord landscape can
be discerned, half-obscured by steady rain.

ENGSTRAND is standing close to the garden door. His left leg is
slightly deformed, and he wears a boot with a clump of wood under the
sole. REGINA, with an empty garden-syringe in her hand, is trying to
prevent his coming in.)

Regina (below her breath). What is it you want? Stay where you are. The
rain is dripping off you.

Engstrand. God's good rain, my girl.

Regina. The Devil's own rain, that's what it is!

Engstrand. Lord, how you talk, Regina. (Takes a few limping steps
forward.) What I wanted to tell you was this--

Regina. Don't clump about like that, stupid! The young master is lying
asleep upstairs.

Engstrand. Asleep still? In the middle of the day?

R