Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/222

 Fieldbo.

I not only think, I know it. But that is generally the way here: people are bent on learning, not on living. And you see what comes of it; you see hundreds of men with great gifts, who never seem to be more than half ripe; who are one thing in their ideas and feelings, and something quite different in their habits and acts. Just look at Stensgård

The Chamberlain.

Ah, Stensgård now! What do you make of Stensgård?

Fieldbo.

A patchwork. I have known him from childhood. His father was a mere rag of a man, a withered weed, a nobody. He kept a little huckster's shop, and eked things out with pawn-*broking; or rather his wife did for him. She was a coarse-grained woman, the most unwomanly I ever knew. She had her husband declared incapable;[1] she had not an ounce of heart in her. And in that home Stensgård passed his childhood. Then he went to the grammar-school. "He shall go to college," said his mother; "I'll make a smart solicitor of him." Squalor at home, high-pressure at school; soul, temperament, will, talents, all pulling in different ways—what could it lead to but disintegration of character?

The Chamberlain.

What could it lead to, eh? I should like to know what is good enough for you. We are to expect nothing of Stensgård; nothing of my son; but we may look to you, I suppose—to you?

1 "Gjort umyndig" = placed under a legal interdict.