dy 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 devilry in it." Then he
related how he had met in the Tyrol a Viennese girl of very remarkable
character. She had at once made him her confidant. The gist of her
confessions was that she did not care a bit about one day marrying
a well brought-up young man--most likely she would never marry. What
tempted and charmed and delighted her was to lure other women's husbands
away from them. She was a little daemonic wrecker; she often appeared to
him like a little bird of prey, that would fain have made him, too, her
booty. He had studied her very, very closely. For the rest, she had had
no great success with him. "She did not get hold of me, but I got
hold of her--for my play. Then I fancy" (here he chuckled again) "she
consoled herself with some one else." Love seemed to mean for her only
a sort of morbid imagination. This, however, was only one side of her
nature. His little model had had a great deal of heart and of womanly
understanding; and thanks to the spontaneous power she could gain over
him, every woman might, if she wished it, guide some man towards the
good. "Thus Ibsen spoke," says Elias, "calmly and coolly, gazing as it
were into the far distance, like an artist taking an objective view of
some experience--like Lubek speaking of his soul-thefts. He had stolen
a soul, and put it to a double employment. Thea Elvsted and Hilda Wangel
are intimately related--are, indeed only different expressions of the
same nature." If Ibsen actually declared Thea and Hilda to be drawn from
one model, we must of course take his word for it; but the relationship
is hard to discern.

There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that the Gossensass episode gave
the primary impulse to _The Master Builder_. But it seems pretty well
established, too, that another lady, whom he met in Christiania after
his return in 1891, also contributed largely to the character of
Hilda. This may have been the reason why he resented Fraulein Bardach's
appropriating to herself the title of "Princess of Orangia."

The play was published in the middle of December 1892. It was acted both
in Germany and England before it was seen in the Scandinavian capitals.
Its first performance took place at the Lessing Theatre, Berlin, January
19, 1893, with Emanuel Reicher as Solness and Fr