He
was, too, no moonlight serenader, and his intense emotion is perfectly
compatible with the outline of some of the gossip which was repeated at
the time of his death; Ibsen being reported to have said of the Viennese
girl: "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her--for my play."
These things are very complex, and not to be hastily dismissed,
especially on the rough and ready English system. There would be give
and take in such a complicated situation, when the object was, as Ibsen
himself says, out of reach _unversichtbar_. There is no question that
for every pang which Hilda made her ancient lover suffer, he would
enrich his imagination with a dozen points of experience. There is no
paradox in saying that the poet was overwhelmed with a passion and yet
consciously made it serve as material for his plays. From this time
onwards every dramatic work of his bears the stamp of those hours among
the roses at Gossensass.
To the spring of 1891 belongs Ibsen's somewhat momentous visit to
Vienna, where he was invited by Dr. Max Burckhard, the director of the
Burg Theatre, to superintend the performance of his _Pretenders_.
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