Rosmer. Well, it was very lucky for him--Kroll. Indeed it was. (Leans over the table, towards ROSMER.) Now I am coming to a matter of which, for the sake of our old--our former--friendship, it is my duty to warn you.
Rosmer. My dear fellow, what is that?
Kroll. It is this; that certain games are going on behind your back in this house.
Rosmer. How can you think that? Is it Rebec--is it Miss West you are alluding to?
Kroll. Precisely. And I can quite understand it on her part; she has been accustomed, for such a long time now, to do as she likes here. But nevertheless--Rosmer. My dear Kroll, you are absolutely mistaken. She and Ihave no secrets from one another about anything whatever.
Kroll. Then has she confessed to you that she has been corresponding with the editor of the "Searchlight"?
Rosmer. Oh, you mean the couple of lines she wrote to him on Ulrik Brendel's behalf?
Kroll. You have found that out, then? And do you approve of her being on terms of this sort with that scurrilous hack, who almost every week tries to pillory me for my attitude in my school and out of it?
Rosmer. My dear fellow, I don't suppose that side of the question has ever occurred to her. And in any case, of course she has entire freedom of action, just as I have myself.
Kroll. Indeed? Well, I suppose that is quite in accordance with the new turn your views have taken--because I suppose Miss West looks at things from the same standpoint as you?
Rosmer. She does. We two have worked our way forward in complete companionship.
Kroll (looking at him and shaking his head slowly). Oh, you blind, deluded man!
Rosmer. I? What makes you say that?
Kroll. Because I dare not--I WILL not--think the worst. No, no, let me finish what I want to say. Am I to believe that you really prize my friendship, Rosmer? And my respect, too? Do you?
Rosmer. Surely I need not answer that question.
Kroll. Well, but there are other things that require answering--that require full explanation on your part. Will you submit to it if I hold a sort of inquiry--?
Rosmer. An inquiry?
Kroll. Yes, if I ask you questions about one or two things that it may be painful for you to recall to mind. For instance, the matter of your apostasy--well, your emancipation, if you choose to call it so--is bound up with so much else for which, for your own sake, you ought to account to me.
Rosmer. My dear fellow, ask me about anything you please. I have nothing to conceal.
Kroll. Well, then, tell me this--what do you yourself believe was the real reason of Beata's making away with herself?
Rosmer. Can you have any doubt? Or perhaps I should rather say, need one look for reasons for what an unhappy sick woman, who is unaccountable for her actions, may do?
Kroll. Are you certain that Beata was so entirely unaccountable for her actions? The doctors, at all events, did not consider that so absolutely certain.
Rosmer. If the doctors had ever seen her in the state in which Ihave so often seen her, both night and day, they would have had no doubt about it.
Kroll. I did not doubt it either, at the time.
Rosmer. Of course not. It was impossible to doubt it, unfortunately. You remember what I told you of her ungovernable, wild fits of passion--which she expected me to reciprocate. She terrified me! And think how she tortured herself with baseless self-reproaches in the last years of her life!
Kroll. Yes, when she knew that she would always be childless.
Rosmer. Well, think what it meant--to be perpetually in the clutches of such--agony of mind over a thing that she was not in the slightest degree responsible for--! Are you going to suggest that she was accountable for her actions?
Kroll. Hm!--Do you remember whether at that time you had, in the house any books dealing with the purport of marriage--according to the advanced views of to-day?
Rosmer. I remember Miss West's lending me a work of the kind. She inherited Dr. West's library, you know. But, my dear Kroll, you surely do not suppose that we were so imprudent as to let the poor sick creature get wind of any such ideas? I can solemnly swear that we were in no way to blame. It was the overwrought nerves of her own brain that were responsible for these frantic aberrations.
Kroll. There is one thing, at any rate, that I can tell you now, and that is that your poor tortured and overwrought Beata put an end to her own life in order that yours might be happy--and that you might be free to live as you pleased.
Rosmer (starting half up from his chair). What do you mean by that?
Kroll. You must listen to me quietly, Rosmer--because now I can speak of it. During the last year of her life she came twice to see me, to tell me what she suffered from her fears and her despair.
Rosmer. On that point?
Kroll. No. The first time she came she declared that you were on the high road to apostasy--that you were going to desert the faith that your father had taught you.
Rosmer (eagerly). What you say is impossible, Kroll!--absolutely impossible! You must be wrong about that.
Kroll. Why?
Rosmer. Because as long as Beata lived I was still doubting and fighting with myself. And I fought out that fight alone and in the completest secrecy. I do not imagine that even Rebecca--Kroll. Rebecca?
Rosmer. Oh, well--Miss West. I call her Rebecca for the sake of convenience.
Kroll. So I have observed.
Rosmer. That is why it is so incomprehensible to me that Beata should have had any suspicion of it. Why did she never speak to me about it?--for she never did, by a single word.
Kroll. Poor soul--she begged and implored me to speak to you.
Rosmer. Then why did you never do so?
Kroll. Do you think I had a moment's doubt, at that time, that her mind was unhinged? Such an accusation as that, against a man like you! Well, she came to see me again, about a month later.
She seemed calmer then; but, as she was going away, she said:
"They may expect to see the White Horse soon at Rosmersholm."Rosmer. Yes, I know--the White Horse. She often used to talk about that.
