polite,
considerate glance towards BORKMAN.] I cannot consecrate my life
to making atonement for another--whoever that other may be.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Seized with growing anxiety.] Who is it that has transformed
you, Erhart?

ERHART.
[Struck.] Who? Can you not conceive that it is I myself?

MRS. BORKMAN.
No, no, no! You have come under some strange power. You
are not in your mother's power any longer; nor in your--your
foster-mother's either.

ERHART.
[With laboured defiance.] I am in my own power, mother! And
working my own will!

BORKMAN.
[Advancing towards ERHART.] Then perhaps my hour has come at
last.

ERHART.
[Distantly and with measured politeness.] How so! How do you
mean, sir?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Scornfully.] Yes, you may well ask that.

BORKMAN.
[Continuing undisturbed.] Listen, Erhart--will you not cast in
your lot with your father? It is not through any other man's life
that a man who has fallen can be raised up again. These are only
empty fables that have been told to you down here in the airless
room. If you were to set yourself to live your life like all the
saints together, it would be of no use whatever to me.

ERHART.
[With measured respectfulness.] That is very true indeed.

BORKMAN.
Yes, it is. And it would be of no use either if I should resign
myself to wither away in abject penitence. I have tried to feed
myself upon hopes and dreams, all through these years. But I am
not the man to be content with that; and now I mean to have done
with dreaming.

ERHART.
[With a slight bow.] And what will--what will you do, sir?

BORKMAN.
I will work out my own redemption, that is what I will do. I
will begin at the bottom again. It is only through his present
and his future that a man can atone for his past. Through work,
indefatigable work, for all that, in my youth, seemed to give life
its meaning--and that now seems a thousand times greater than it
did then. Erhart, will you join with me and help me in this new
life?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Raising her hand warningly.] Do not do it, Erhart!

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Warmly.] Yes, yes do it! Oh, help him, Erhart!

MRS. BORKMAN.
And you advise him to do that? You, the lonely dying woman.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
I don't care about myself.

MRS. BORKMAN.
No, so long as it is not I that take him from you.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
Precisely so, Gunhild.

BORKMAN.
Will you, Erhart?

ERHART.
[