Rebecca (standing behind him, with her arms on the back of his chair). How beautiful it was when we used to sit there downstairs in the dusk--and helped each other to plan our lives out afresh.
You wanted to catch hold of actual life--the actual life of the day, as you used to say. You wanted to pass from house to house like a guest who brought emancipation with him--to win over men's thoughts and wills to your own --to fashion noble men all around you, in a wider and wider circle--noble men!
Rosmer. Noble men and happy men.
Rebecca. Yes, happy men.
Rosmer. Because it is happiness that gives the soul nobility, Rebecca.
Rebecca. Do you not think suffering too? The deepest suffering?
Rosmer. Yes, if one can win through it--conquer it--conquer it completely.
Rebecca. That is what you must do.
Rosmer (shaking his head sadly). I shall never conquer this completely. There will always be a doubt confronting me--a question. I shall never again be able to lose myself in the enjoyment of what makes life so wonderfully beautiful.
Rebecca (speaking over the back of his chair, softly). What do you mean, John?
Rosmer (looking up at her). Calm and happy innocence.
Rebecca (taking a step backwards). Of course. Innocence. (A short silence.)Rosmer (resting his head on his hands with his elbows on the table, and looking straight in front of him). How ingeniously--how systematically--she must have put one thing together with another!
First of all she begins to have a suspicion as to my orthodoxy.
How on earth did she get that idea in her mind? Any way, she did;and the idea grew into a certainty. And then--then, of course, it was easy for her to think everything else possible. (Sits up in his chair and, runs his hands through his hair.) The wild fancies I am haunted with! I shall never get quit of them. I am certain of that--certain. They will always be starting up before me to remind me of the dead.
Rebecca. Like the White Horse of Rosmersholm.
Rosmer. Yes, like that. Rushing at me out of the dark--out of the silence.
Rebecca. And, because of this morbid fancy of yours, you are going to give up the hold you had just gained upon real life?
Rosmer. You are right, it seems hard--hard, Rebecca. But I have no power of choice in the matter. How do you think I could ever get the mastery over it?
Rebecca (standing behind his chair). By ****** new ties for yourself.
Rosmer (starts, and looks up). New ties?
Rebecca. Yes, new ties with the outside world. Live, work, do something! Do not sit here musing and brooding over insoluble conundrums.
Rosmer (getting up). New ties! (Walks across the room, turns at the door and comes back again.) A question occurs to my mind. Has it not occurred to you too, Rebecca?
Rebecca (catching her breath). Let me hear what it is.
Rosmer. What do you suppose will become of the tie between us, after to-day?
Rebecca. I think surely our friendship can endure, come what may.
Rosmer. Yes, but that is not exactly what I meant. I was thinking of what brought us together from the first, what links us so closely to one another--our common belief in the possibility of a man and a woman living together in chastity.
Rebecca. Yes, yes--what of it?