Ghosts

by Henrik Ibsen

But then this long, hateful comedy will be ended.

Oh, that perpetual law and order! I often think that is what does all the mischief in this world of ours.

I am timid and faint-hearted because of the ghosts that hang about me, and that I can never quite shake off.

But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.

People so easily forget their past selves.

I am fighting my battle with ghosts, both within me and without.

Oh! if I could only live over again, and undo all I have done!

Many a time I have almost wished and hoped that at bottom you didn't care so very much about me.

I cannot go on bearing all this anguish of soul alone.

Everything will burn. All that recalls father's memory is doomed. Here am I, too, burning down.

[Nervously.] No, no—not to sleep! I never sleep. I only pretend to. [Sadly.] That will come soon enough.

Your poor father found no outlet for the overpowering joy of life that was in him.

Oh, I could almost bless the illness that has driven you home to me.

I never asked you for life. And what sort of a life have you given me? I will not have it! You shall take it back again!

Mother, give me the sun.