MRS. BORKMAN.
I know everything. I know that your aunt has come here to take you from me.
ERHART.
Aunt Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, listen to me a moment, Erhart!
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Continuing.] She wants me to give you up to her. She wants to stand in your mother"s place to you, Erhart! She wants you to be her son, and not mine, from this time forward. She wants you to inherit everything from her; to renounce your own name and take hers instead!
ERHART.
Aunt Ella, is this true?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, it is true.
ERHART.
I knew nothing of this. Why do you want to have me with you again?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Because I feel that I am losing you here.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Hardly.] You are losing him to me--yes. And that is just as it should be.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Looking beseechingly at him.] Erhart, I cannot afford to lose you. For, I must tell you I am a lonely--dying woman.
ERHART.
Dying----?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes, dying. Will you came and be with me to the end? Attach yourself wholly to me? Be to me, as though you were my own child----?
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Interrupting.] And forsake your mother, and perhaps your mission in life as well? Will you, Erhart?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
I am condemned to death. Answer me, Erhart.
ERHART.
[Warmly, with emotion.] Aunt Ella, you have been unspeakably good to me. With you I grew up in as perfect happiness as any boy can ever have known----
MRS. BORKMAN.
Erhart, Erhart!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Oh, how glad I am that you can still say that!
ERHART.
But I cannot sacrifice myself to you now. It is not possible for me to devote myself wholly to taking a son"s place towards you.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Triumphing.] Ah, I knew it! You shall not have him! You shall not have him, Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Sadly.] I see it. You have won him back.
MRS. BORKMAN.
Yes, yes! Mine he is, and mine he shall remain! Erhart, say it is so, dear; we two have still a long way to go together, have we not?
ERHART.
[Struggling with himself.] Mother, I may as well tell you plainly----
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Eagerly.] What?
ERHART.
I am afraid it is only a very little way you and I can go together.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Stands as though thunderstruck.] What do you mean by that?
ERHART.
[Plucking up spirit.] Good heavens, mother, I am young, after all! I feel as if the close air of this room must stifle me in the end.
MRS. BORKMAN.
Close air? Here--with me?
ERHART.
Yes, here with you, mother.
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Then come with me, Erhart.
ERHART.
Oh, Aunt Ella, it"s not a whit better with you. It"s different, but no better--no better for me. It smells of rose-leaves and lavender there too; it is as airless there as here.
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Shaken, but having recovered her composure with an effort.]
Airless in your mother"s room, you say!
ERHART.
[In growing impatience.] Yes, I don"t know how else to express it. All this morbid watchfulness and--and idolisation, or whatever you like to call it---- I can"t endure it any longer!
MRS. BORKMAN.
[Looking at him with deep solemnity.] Have you forgotten what you have consecrated your life to, Erhart?