Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

Ghosts: A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts

by Henrik Ibsen

Pages
about 82
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
1.5 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 50 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

(SCENE.--A large room looking upon a garden door in the left-hand wall, and two in the right. In the middle of the room, a round table with chairs set about it, and books, magazines and newspapers upon it. In the foreground on the left, a window, by which is a small sofa with a work-table in front of it. At the back the room opens into a conservatory rather smaller than the room. From the right-hand side of this, a door leads to the garden. Through the large panes of glass that form the outer wall of the conservatory, a gloomy fjord landscape can be discerned, half-obscured by steady rain.

ENGSTRAND is standing close to the garden door. His left leg is slightly deformed, and he wears a boot with a clump of wood under the sole. REGINA, with an empty garden-syringe in her hand, is trying to prevent his coming in.)

Regina (below her breath). What is it you want? Stay where you are. The rain is dripping off you.

Engstrand. Lord, how you talk, Regina. (Takes a few limping steps forward.) What I wanted to tell you was this--

Regina. Don't clump about like that, stupid! The young master is lying asleep upstairs.

Engstrand. --and the temptations of the world are manifold, you know--but, for all that, here I was at my work at half-past five this morning.

Regina. Yes, yes, but make yourself scarce now. I am not going to stand here as if I had a rendezvous with you.

Regina. I am not going to have anyone find you here; so now you know, and you can go.

Engstrand (coming a few steps nearer). Not a bit of it! Not before we have had a little chat. This afternoon I shall have finished my job down at the school house, and I shall be off home to town by tonight's boat.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.