The Master Builder | Page 5

in it. One is not surprised to learn that
among the papers he left behind were sheaves upon sheaves of letters

from women. "All these ladies," says Dr. Julius Elias, "demanded
something of him--some cure for their agonies of soul, or for the
incomprehension from which they suffered; some solution of the riddle
of their nature. Almost every one of them regarded herself as a problem
to which Ibsen could not but have the time and the interest to apply
himself. They all thought they had a claim on the creator of Nora. . . .
Of this chapter of his experience, Fru Ibsen spoke with ironic humour.
'Ibsen (I have often said to him), Ibsen, keep these swarms of
over-strained womenfolk at arm's length.' 'Oh no (he would reply), let
them alone. I want to observe them more closely.' His observations
would take a longer or shorter time as the case might be, and would
always contribute to some work of art."
The principal model for Hilda was doubtless Fraulein Emilie Bardach,
of Vienna, whom he met at Gossensass in the autumn of 1889. He was
then sixty-one years of age; she is said to have been seventeen. As the
lady herself handed his letters to Dr. Brandes for publication, there can
be no indiscretion in speaking of them freely. Some passages from
them I have quoted in the introduction to _Hedda Gabler_--passages
which show that at first the poet deliberately put aside his Gossensass
impressions for use when he should stand at a greater distance from
them, and meanwhile devoted himself to work in a totally different key.
On October 15, 1889, he writes, in his second letter to Fraulein
Bardach: "I cannot repress my summer memories, nor do I want to. I
live through my experiences again and again. To transmute it all into a
poem I find, in the meantime, impossible. In the meantime? Shall I
succeed in doing so some time in the future? And do I really wish to
succeed? In the meantime, at any rate, I do not. . . . And yet it must
come in time." The letters number twelve in all, and are couched in a
tone of sentimental regret for the brief, bright summer days of their
acquaintanceship. The keynote is struck in the inscription on the back
of a photograph which he gave her before they parted: _An die
Maisonne eines Septemberlebens--in Tirol_,(1) 27/9/89. In her album
he had written the words:
Hohes, schmerzliches Gluck-- um das Unerreichbare zu ringen!(2)
in which we may, if we like, see a foreshadowing of the Solness frame
of mind. In the fifth letter of the series he refers to her as "an enigmatic
Princess"; in the sixth he twice calls her "my dear Princess"; but this is

the only point at which the letters quite definitely and unmistakably
point forward to The Master Builder. In the ninth letter (February 6,
1890) he says: "I feel it a matter of conscience to end, or at any rate, to
restrict, our correspondence." The tenth letter, six months later, is one
of kindly condolence on the death of the young lady's father. In the
eleventh (very short) note, dated December 30, 1890, he acknowledges
some small gift, but says: "Please, for the present, do not write me
again. . . . I will soon send you my new play [_Hedda Gabler_].
Receive it in friendship, but in silence!" This injunction she apparently
obeyed. When The Master Builder appeared, it would seem that Ibsen
did not even send her a copy of the play; and we gather that he was
rather annoyed when she sent him a photograph signed "Princess of
Orangia." On his seventieth birthday, however, she telegraphed her
congratulations, to which he returned a very cordial reply. And here
their relations ended.
That she was right, however, in regarding herself as his principal model
for Hilda appears from an anecdote related by Dr. Elias.(3) It is not an
altogether pleasing anecdote, but Dr. Elias is an unexceptionable
witness, and it can by no means be omitted from an examination into
the origins of The Master Builder. Ibsen had come to Berlin in
February 1891 for the first performance of Hedda Gabler. Such
experiences were always a trial to him, and he felt greatly relieved
when they were over. Packing, too, he detested; and Elias having
helped him through this terrible ordeal, the two sat down to lunch
together, while awaiting the train. An expansive mood descended upon
Ibsen, and chuckling over his champagne glass, he said: "Do you know,
my next play is already hovering before me--of course in vague outline.
But of one thing I have got firm hold. An experience: a woman's figure.
Very interesting, very interesting indeed. Again a spice of the