Borkman believing that by a brilliant career of commercial
rectitude her son will wipe out the memory of his father's crime;
Borkman, who has never given up the ambition of returning to business,
reposing his own hopes on the co-operation of his son.
But Erhart Borkman disappoints them all. He will be himself, he will
enjoy his life, he will throw off all the burdens both of responsibility
and of restitution. He has no ambition and little natural feeling; he
simply must be happy, and he suddenly elopes, leaving all their
anticipations bankrupt, with a certain joyous Mrs. Wilton, who has
nothing but her beauty to recommend her. Deserted thus by the _ignis
fatuus_ of youth, the collapse of the three old people is complete.
Under the shock the brain of Borkman gives way, and he wanders out into
the winter's night, full of vague dreams of what he can still do in the
world, if he can only break from his bondage and shatter his dream. He
dies there in the snow, and the two old sisters, who have followed him
in an anxiety which overcomes their mutual hatred, arrive in time to see
him pass away.
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