In the snow, high up in the mountains. The mist lies thick; rain and semi-darkness. BRAND, dressed in black, with a staff and a pack, is slowly making his way westwards. A PEASANT and his half-grown SON, who have joined him, are a little way behind.
PEASANT [calling after BRAND]:
Hey, stranger, not so fast!
Where are you?
BRAND: Here.
PEASANT: We’re lost;
it’s never been so thick.
BRAND: We’ve lost sight of the track.
SON: Hey, look, look, a great split
in the ice.
PEASANT: Stay clear of it
for God’s sake!
BRAND: I can hear
a cataract. That roar,
where is it?
PEASANT: That’s the beck
brasting through ice and rock;
the devil knows how deep.
You will, with one more step.
BRAND: I am a priest; I said
no faltering.
PEASANT: Ay, so you did.
all mortal strength. The ground –
hollow – d’you feel it quake?
Don’t tempt your luck. Turn back!
BRAND: This is my destined road.
PEASANT: Ay, and who said so?
BRAND: God
said so; the God I serve.
PEASANT: Man-of-God, you’ve got nerve.
But just heed what I say!
Though you’re bishop or dean,
or some such holy man,
you’ll be dead before day.
I can’t see past my nose!
It’s miles2 to the next house,
I know that for a fact.
Don’t be so stiff-necked.
You’ve only got the one
life, and when that’s gone …
BRAND: If we can’t see the way
we’ll not be led astray
by marsh light or false track.
PEASANT: There’s ice tarns, worse than t’beck;
they’ll be the death of us.
BRAND: Not so! We’ll walk across.
PEASANT: Walk on the water?
BRAND: He
walked on Lake Galilee.
PEASANT: A good few years ago
that was. It’s harder now.
Try if you must, go on;
but you’ll sink like a stone!
BRAND: I owe God life and death.
He’s welcome to them both.
PEASANT: You’re worse than lost, you’re mad!
BRAND [stopping; approaching the pair]:
But lately, man-of-earth,
you thought this journey worth
the risk. ‘Come ice, come snow,’
you said; and told me how
your lass, down at the fjord,
lies at death’s door.
PEASANT: Afeard,
’less she bids me farewell,
Old Nick will grab her soul.
BRAND: You must get there today;
you said so.
PEASANT: I did, ay!
BRAND: What would you sacrifice
that she might die in peace?
PEASANT: To keep her soul from harm
I’d barter house and home;
I’d give all that I have.
BRAND: ‘All’, you say. Would you give
your life?
PEASANT [scratching his ear]:
Life? Now wait,
now that’s asking a lot,
Christ it is! There’s my wife,
[Points to SON.]
and him.
BRAND: Christ gave His life.
Christ’s mother gave her son.
PEASANT: Maybe. Those days are gone,
and so are miracles.
It’s different nowawhiles.
BRAND: Go! You know not the Lord,
nor He you!
PEASANT: Agh, you’re hard!
SON [tugging at him]:
Come home, let’s be gone!
PEASANT: We will that! And you, man-
of-God!
BRAND: If I refuse?
PEASANT: Stranger, think on! Suppose
we go and leave you here;
in a snow drift or get drowned,
suppose word gets around.
I’d soon be up in court
accused of God knows what.
BRAND: A martyr in His cause.
PEASANT: And that’s not worth a curse –
I’m done with God and you!
SON [screaming, as a hollow rumbling is heard in the distance]:
An ice-fall!
BRAND [to the PEASANT, who has seized his collar]:
You! Let go!
PEASANT [wrestling with BRAND]:
Not I!
BRAND: Let go, you fool!
BRAND tears himself free and throws the PEASANT down in the snow.
PEASANT: Go to the devil!
BRAND: You’ll
go to him. That’s your fate,
you can be sure of that!
He walks off.
PEASANT [sitting rubbing his arm]:
That’s doing the Lord’s work,
is it? He nearly broke
my arm.
[Shouts after BRAND as he gets up.]
Hey, man-of-faith,
help us to find the path!
BRAND: No need. You’ve found your road:
the way that is called broad.
PEASANT: I pray he’s right this time –
God bring us safely home.
He and his SON walk off in an easterly direction.
BRAND [appears higher up, looking in the direction that the PEASANT took]:
Crawl off, then, you poor slave!
Drudge where you fear to strive.
When our weak flesh alone
fails us, we struggle on
and on with bleeding feet.
Sheer willpower bears the weight.
Strange how the lifeless cling
to life with ‘Life’s the thing!’
Small men, who set great store
by life, dread all the more
its vision and its pain.
How can you save such men,
who talk of ‘sacrifice’
yet barter truth for peace?
[Smiles as if remembering something.]
When I was a boy
daydreaming at school,
I thought, ‘Suppose an owl
were frightened of the dark.’
I laughed behind my book.
Many and many a day
the teacher had me out.
‘And there’s a fish,’ I thought,
‘somewhere, that hates the sea.’
As the taws cracked, I grinned;
those two thoughts gripped my mind.
I gazed across a gulf
dividing those who dare
from those who fear to be.
Too many souls are still
like that fish, or that owl:
with their true life to make
in the depths of the dark,
if they could but endure;
who flee from their dark star,
each from his own true self;
perish in this world’s air.
[Stops for a moment, notices something and listens.]
Yet, for a moment, there is song
in the air; and laughter among
the singing; and the sound of cheers.
The sun rises and the mist is thin
already; and the plains begin
to glitter. I see travellers
clearly outlined along the crest
of the near ridge; signs of farewell,
handclasps and kisses, a lifted veil,
two youngsters parting from the rest.
They race towards me hand in hand
across the moorland, like brother
and sister, through vivid heather.
Light as a feather she skims the ground;
and he is lithe, like a young birch.
They play a childish game of catch
and all of life becomes a game.
Their laughter’s like a morning hymn.
EINAR and AGNES, clad in light travelling clothes, both of them warm and glowing, come across the plateau, as if in the midst of a game. The mist is gone; it is a clear summer morning in the mountains.
EINAR: Butterfly, butterfly,
Where are you flying?
AGNES: Far far away
From your cruel sighing.
EINAR: Butterfly, butterfly,
Rest from your dance.
You’re all of a flutter.
AGNES: Why
All this pretence?
EINAR: Butterfly, butterfly,
Lie in my hand.
AGNES: If I do I shall die.
Let me go on the wind.
Without noticing, they have come to a precipice; they are now on the edge of it.
BRAND [crying out to them from above]:
Stop! Stop, you foolish pair!
AGNES [pointing upwards]:
Look! Up there!
BRAND: That cliff – it’s undermined! –
beneath you – can’t you understand? –
You are both dancing on thin air!
EINAR [putting his arm around AGNES and laughing as he looks towards BRAND]:
Agnes and I don’t have a care.
AGNES: Old age is time enough for fears.
EINAR: Our youth shall last a hundred years.
BRAND: I see. A summer of sweet mirth,
young butterflies. Then back to earth.
AGNES [swinging her veil]:
No, not to earth. My love and I
are wandering children of the sky.
EINAR: A hundred years, in this bright world,
of never really growing old.
Time on our side, all time a game …
BRAND: And then?
EINAR: Restored to heaven and home!
BRAND: You seem so very sure.
EINAR: Oh yes,
heaven’s our permanent address!
AGNES: Einar, Einar! He knows we came
over the ridge. Stop teasing him!
EINAR: We’ve said our fond farewell to friends,
kissed and embraced and shaken hands
and made all sorts of promises.
Don’t stand there like a troll of ice!
Come down, and let me thaw you out
with wonders that will melt your heart.
Be moved, man, by the power of joy;
don’t cast a gloom across our day.
My tale begins. As you perceive,
I am an artist. I can give
wings to my thoughts, and charm all life
to radiance: a flower, a wife.
as I chose Agnes for my bride
that day I strode up from the south …
AGNES: The spirit of eternal youth!
His confidence was like a king’s
and he could sing a thousand songs.
EINAR: A thousand? Yes! Some inner voice
kept whispering, ‘Your masterpiece
awaits you. Seek her where she dwells
beside the streams, on the high fells!’
And so I sought, up through the woods
of conifers and where the clouds
fly swiftly under Heaven’s vault,
that creature without flaw or fault.
Suddenly, suddenly, she was there:
beauty enough for my desire!
AGNES: Poor simple Agnes neatly caught,
a butterfly in passion’s net.
EINAR: Oh, nothing ventured, nothing won!
Formalities must wait their turn.
But their turn came; and the guests came;
and there was feasting at the farm,
where blessings sought and blessings given
made the old rafters ring to heaven.
Three days and nights of feast and song!
And, when we left, that loving throng
followed and cheered us on our way
and were true celebrants of joy.
We drank the wine of fellowship
together from a silver cup.
AGNES: All through the summer night …
EINAR: The mist
parted before us, where we passed.
BRAND: And now you go …?
EINAR: On to the town,
our wedding and our honeymoon.
We’ll sail away, two swans in flight,
far to the south!
EINAR: A legend! An unbroken dream
made safe from sorrow, as from time.
There, on the height, without a priest
in sight to bless us, we were blest.
BRAND: Oh, indeed. Who blessed you then?
EINAR: Our friends, with love; as you’ll have seen,
this very morning on the ridge.
In parting, we received their pledge
that every dark word, every dark
thought, that could raise a storm or lurk
in the bright foliage of a bower,
is banished from love’s book-of-prayer.
Even such words as bear a shade
of darker meaning, they forbade.
They named us the true heirs of joy.
BRAND: So be it then.
He prepares to leave.
EINAR [taken aback and looking more closely at BRAND]:
I say …
I remember that face!
Surely I recognize …
BRAND [coldly]:
A man you never met …
EINAR: Impossible to forget …
BRAND: I was your childhood friend
but we are men now.
EINAR: Brand,
it’s you! So I was right!
BRAND: As soon as I caught sight
of you, I knew you.
EINAR: Still
the same old Brand! At school,
even, you seemed remote,
secure in your own thought.
BRAND: And with good cause. Your calm
South-land was never home
to me. And I felt cold,
EINAR: Is this where you belong?
BRAND: Not now. When I was young
I did. Now I obey
the call, and cannot stay.
EINAR: So you’re a man-of-God.
BRAND [smiling]:
I have been so described.
I bear the Word, now here
now there. The mountain hare
is more settled than I.
But this is the true way.
EINAR: Where will it end, this true
journey?
BRAND: What’s that to you?
EINAR: Brand!
BRAND [changing his tone]:
Well, never mind …
I’ll soon be outward bound
like you … on the same boat.
EINAR: Agnes, do you hear that?
Brand’s journey is the same
as ours!
BRAND: Fondle your dream,
Einar. The place I seek,
if you came near, could turn
your wedding to a wake,
your dancers into stone.
I seek the death of God,
that dying God of yours
dying these thousand years.
I’ll see him in his shroud.
AGNES: Einar, we should go.
EINAR: Wait,
Agnes, wait a while.
[To BRAND]
What
madness! You must be ill!
sickness, I suppose.
A generation whose
pastimes are its care
has sunk almost past cure.
You flirt and play the fool
and leave the bitter toil
to that poor Holy One
sweating blood to atone,
your dear Christ hurt with thorns,
the saviour of your dance.
Dance on, dance to the end,
dance yourselves deaf and blind!
EINAR: You’re good at breathing fire,
a real hot-gospeller;
that fear-and-trembling school
has taught you very well!
BRAND: Einar, I leave the new
fashions in faith to you.
I’ve not come here to preach
for any sect or church.
Not as a formal Christian
even, but as my own man,
I tell you this: I know
the nature of the flaw
that has so thinned and drained
the spirit of our land.
EINAR [smiling]:
We’re not the kind to drink
deep of life’s cup, you think?
BRAND: No. If only you would,
high-stepping meek-and-mild!
Sin if you dare, but have the grace,
at least, to be fulfilled in vice.
At least live up to what you claim;
don’t water your good wine with shame!
Among our people I observe
such littleness and loss of nerve.
strictly reserved for Sunday use;
little charity, but much talk
of simple, plain, God-fearing folk.
A middling this, a middling that,
never humble, never great.
Above the worst, beneath the best,
each virtue vicious to the rest.
EINAR: Bravo, Brand! Have your say,
just as you will. I’ll play
‘Amen’ in the right place:
I’m quite ready to please.
I’m wholly unperturbed;
my God is still my God.
BRAND: Indeed He’s yours! You’ve even
been favoured by heaven
with that vision of Him –
it brought you some small fame –
the picture that you did
of your old, pampered God:
white-haired, moist-eyed with age,
his comic turns of rage
send children off to bed
giggling and half-afraid.
EINAR [angry]:
This is …
BRAND: ‘No joke’, you’d say?
Do you want sympathy?
You trim off life from faith,
haver from birth to death,
self-seekers who refuse
man’s true way-of-the-Cross,
which is: wholly to be
the all-enduring ‘I’.
My God is the great god of storm,
absolute arbiter of doom,
imperious in His love!
He is the voice that Moses heard,
He is the pillar of the cloud,
He is the hand that stayed the sun
for Joshua in Gibeon.
Your God can hardly move;
he’s weak of mind and heart,
easy to push about.
But mine is young: a Hercules,3
not fourscore of infirmities.
Though you may smile and preen,
Einar; though you bow down
to your own brazenness,
I shall heal this disease
that withers heart and brain,
and make you all new men!
EINAR: [shakes his head]:
You’ll blow the old lamps out
before new lamps are lit;
abandon the known word
for speech as yet unheard.
BRAND: Why must you misconstrue
so much? I seek for nothing new.
I know my mission: to uphold
truths long forgotten by the world;
eternal truths. I have not come
to preach dogmatics or proclaim
the right of some exclusive sect
to rule through pain of interdict.
For every church and creed
is something that this world has made;
and everything that’s made must end.
I speak of what endures,
of what is lost and found
eternally. Faith did not climb
slowly from the primeval slime,
nor burst from the volcanic fires.
It is incarnate through recourse
of spirit to our spirit’s source.
Though hucksters in and out of church
make tawdry everything they touch,
hawking the relics of their trade,
their bits of dogma, parts
of broken creeds and hearts,
that spirit shines amid the void,
amid the travesties
of things that are, the truth that is.
And truth-begotten, God’s true heir,
the new Adam …
EINAR: We should part here,
I think. It’s for the best.
BRAND: Here are two paths: the west
for you; for me the north.
Different ways, yet both
end at the fjord. Farewell,
butterflies!
[Turning as he starts the descent]
Learn to tell
true from false. Don’t forget
life’s the real work of art!
EINAR: [waving him away]:
Though you may shake my world
my God stands firm!
BRAND: He’s old,
Einar; don’t worry Him.
Leave me to bury Him!
He goes down the path. EINAR walks silently across and looks down after BRAND. AGNES stands for a moment as if lost in thought; then she starts, looks about her uneasily.
AGNES: It’s all so gloomy. Where’s the sun?
EINAR: Behind that cloud, there. Things will soon
look bright again.
AGNES: And there’s a fierce
wind out of nowhere. It’s like ice.
EINAR: Some freak gust hurtling through the pass,
I’d say. It’s much too cold for us
to linger here. Come on!
AGNES: How black
and forbidding that great south peak
seems now. It wasn’t always so,
surely?
EINAR: You’ve let Brand frighten you
with his dour face and talk of doom.
Look here, I’ll race you! You’ll get warm!
AGNES: I can’t. I’m tired.
EINAR: To tell the truth,
love, so am I. This downhill path
is tricky too. But we’ll be safe
on terra firma soon enough.
And, Agnes, now the sun’s come back
the world no longer looks so bleak.
What a picture! Such harmony
of sky with sea and sea with sky;
deep azure lit by silver streaks,
suffused with golden lights and darks,
out to the far horizon’s edge,
the boundless main! And, look, that smudge
of smoke – the steamer coming in,
the very ship we go to join.
By early evening we shall be
clear of this place, well out to sea.
We’ll dance on deck and sing; our games
will make Brand giddy if he comes.
AGNES: [without looking at him and in a hushed voice]:
Tell me, are we awake,
Einar? When that man spoke
he burned! It seemed each feature
changed! He grew in stature!
She goes down the path. EINAR follows.
A path along the mountain wall with a wild valley on the right-hand side. Above and behind the mountain one can see glimpses of great heights with peaks and snow. BRAND appears high up on the path, starts to descend, stops midway on a rock which juts out, and looks down into the valley.
BRAND: Now I see where I am:
strangely close to home.
Everything I recall
from childhood here still
but smaller now and much
shabbier; and the church
looks in need of repair.
The cliffs loom; the glacier
juts and hangs: it is an
ice wall concealing the sun.
And for all their rough gleam
the fjord waters look grim
and menacing. A small
boat pitches in a squall.
Down there’s the timber wharf
and nearby – iron-red roof,
red-flaking walls – the house
to which I would refuse
the name ‘home’ if I could;
the place where I endured
harsh kinship, an alien
life that was called mine.
Solitude and desire
magnified what was there.
As though in recompense
to my own soul, a sense
of greatness visited me,
made even a poverty-
stricken smallholding shine,
All that has faded. Now
there is nothing to show
what my child-soul once made
out of such solitude.
Returning, I am shorn
of all strength: Samson
in the harlot’s lap.4
[Looks again down into the abyss.]
It seems they have woken up.
Men, women, children come
from the cottages, climb
slowly among the outcrops
of rock, the lowest slopes;
now lost from sight and now
seen again, on the brow
by the church. Slaves to both
day labour and the sloth
of their own souls; their need
crawls and is not heard
in the courts of heaven;
and their prayers are craven:
‘Give us bread! give us bread!’
So they still eat their God.
Nothing else matters
to them: tossed on storm waters
of the age, the merest flotsam,
or rotting in a foul calm.
BRAND is about to go; a stone is thrown from above and rolls down the slope just missing him. GERD, a fifteen-year-old girl, runs along the ridge with stones in her apron.
GERD: Hey! Now he’s really wild!
BRAND: Who’s there? Ah – stupid child!
GERD: Look, he’s not a bit hurt,
though I’m sure he was hit.
[Throws more stones and cries out.]
Oh … he’s back … swooping down …
his claws … I’m all torn!
BRAND: Tell me, in God’s name, what …
GERD: Stay there and keep quiet
if you want to be safe.
It’s all right, he’s flown off.
BRAND: Who has flown off?
GERD: You
didn’t see the hawk?
BRAND: No.
GERD: Not that great ugly thing
with some sort of red ring
round his eye?
BRAND: I did not.
GERD: And with his crest all flat
against his head?
BRAND: No. Which
way are you going?
GERD: To church.
BRAND: But the church is down there.
GERD: [looking at him with a scornful smile and pointing downwards]:
Not that one. That’s a poor
tumbledown little place.
BRAND: You know a better?
GERD: Yes,
yes, yes! Follow me up
these mountains, to the top.
That’s where my own church is,
in the heart of the ice.
BRAND: Ah, now I understand.
I’d forgotten that legend
of the Ice Church: a great cleft
in the rock, where the drift-
ing snow and ice have built
the roof of a huge vault.
The church floor is a lake
frozen as hard as rock,
so all the stories say.
GERD: Well, they’re true!
from there. It’s sure to fall.
A gust of wind, a call,
or a gunshot, could bring
the end of everything.
GERD [not listening]:
I’ll show you where a herd
of dead reindeer appeared
out of the glacier last
spring, when it thawed.
BRAND: You must
never go there. I’ve told
you why.
GERD [pointing downwards]:
That musty old
church of yours! Stay away
from it. I’ve told you why.
BRAND: God bless you. Go in peace.
GERD: Oh, do come! Hear the ice
sing mass, and the wind make
sermons over the rock.
Oh, how you’ll burn and freeze!
It’s safe from the hawk’s eyes.
He settles on Black Peak
just like a weathercock.
BRAND [aside]:
Her spirit struggles to be heard;
flawed music from a broken reed.
God in His judgement sometimes draws
evil to good. Not from these thraws.
GERD: O the hawk, O the whirr
of his wings! Help me, sir!
I must hide. In my church
it’s safe. Hey! hey! can’t catch
me! O but he’s angry. Now
what shall I do? I’ll throw
things. Ugh! keep off me, keep
off me with those great sharp
claws! Strike me, I’ll strike you!
She runs off up the mountain.
BRAND: So that’s churchgoing too;
those howls are hymns of praise.
But is she worse than those
who seek God in the valley?
And is her church less holy?
Who sees? And who is blind?
Who wanders? Who is found?
Feckless, with his garlands on,
dances till he plunges down
into the terrible abyss.
Dullness mutters ‘thus and thus’,
his catechism’s sleepy rote,
and treads the old, deep-trodden rut.
Madness wanders from itself,
half shadowing the other half;
immortal longings gone astray,
confusing darkness with the day.
My way is clear, now. Heaven calls.
I know my task. When those three trolls
are dead, mankind shall breathe again,
freed from old pestilence and pain.
Arm, arm, my soul! Take up your sword!
Fight now for every child of God!
He descends into the populated valley.