영어로 읽는 고전 _ 헨리크 입센의 건축가 솔네스
『건축가 솔네스』는 1892년에 출간된 희곡이다. 힐다라는 젊은 여자가 성공한 건축가 할바르 솔네스의 집을 찾아와, 여러 해 전 두 사람이 만난 적이 있으며 그가 자신에게 엄청난 약속을 했다고 주장한다. 힐다가 그의 가정 안으로 조금씩 파고들며 야심을 부추기는 사이, 솔네스는 자신이 뜻하는 바를 현실로 불러내는 불가사의한 힘을 지녔다고 믿게 된다. 사실적인 인물들 위에 상징적 요소를 겹쳐 놓은 이 심리극은 집착과 야망, 그리고 젊음이 지닌 위험한 매혹을 파고든다.
Classics Read in English _ The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen
Halvard Solness has everything he set out to have, and he is terrified. He builds the houses that everyone in the town wants; he keeps a gifted young draughtsman in his office and makes certain the young man never rises; he cannot climb a ladder. His wife Aline moves through the rooms of their fine new house like someone attending a long funeral — her family's old home burned years ago, and the fire made his career and killed their twin sons. Solness has never been able to decide whether he wished for that fire. The suspicion that wishing might be enough is what he cannot put down.
Then Hilda Wangel walks in with a rucksack and no invitation, and reminds him of a day ten years earlier when he climbed the tower of the church at Lysanger, hung the wreath at the top, and afterwards — she says — kissed her and promised her a kingdom in ten years' time. She has come to collect. Whether any of it happened is left open, and Ibsen keeps it open on purpose; what matters is that Solness, hearing himself described as a man who was once fearless, begins to want to be that man again.
So he does the thing he has told everyone he can no longer do. On the day the new house is finished, with the town gathered below and his wife begging him not to, he takes the wreath and climbs. Hilda stands in the garden waving her shawl and hearing, she insists, harps in the air. At the top he stands free and speaks — to whom, no one below can tell — and then falls. Ibsen was sixty-four and had built everything he intended to build. It is not difficult to see what he was writing about.
Summary
KNUT BROVIK.
[Rises suddenly, as if in distress, from the table; breathes heavily and laboriously as he comes forward into the doorway.] No, I can't bear it much longer!
KAIA.
[Going up to him.] You are feeling very ill this evening, are you not, Uncle?
BROVIK.
Oh, I seem to get worse every day.
RAGNAR.
[Has risen and advances.] You ought to go home, father. Try to get a little sleep—
BROVIK.
[Impatiently.] Go to bed, I suppose? Would you have me stifled outright?
KAIA.
Then take a little walk.
RAGNAR.
Yes, do. I will come with you.
