WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN.
INTRODUCTION.
From Pillars of Society to John Gabriel Borkman,
Ibsen's plays had followed each other at regular
intervals of two years, save when his indignation over
the abuse heaped upon Ghosts reduced to a single
year the interval between that play and An Enemy of the People. John Gabriel Borkman having appeared
in 1896, its successor was expected in 1898; but
Christmas came and brought no rumour of a new play.
In a man now over seventy, this breach of a long-established
habit seemed ominous. The new National
Theatre in Christiania was opened in September of
the following year; and when I then met Ibsen (for
the last time) he told me that he was actually at work
on a new play, which he thought of calling a "Dramatic
Epilogue." "He wrote When We Dead Awaken," says
Dr. Elias, "with such labour and such passionate agitation,
so spasmodically and so feverishly, that those
around him were almost alarmed. He must get on
with it, he must get on! He seemed to hear the beating
of dark pinions over his head. He seemed to feel the
grim Visitant, who had accompanied Alfred Allmers
on the mountain paths, already standing behind him
with uplifted hand. His relatives are firmly con-
