The next morning Professor Andersen and his colleague from Trondheim went skiing. His colleague drove out to a place called Bymarka, which was a popular skiing area. They took the skis and poles down from the roof rack and, standing next to the car, started to rub on wax. It was really miserable, chilly weather. Overcast, rather cold, and with snow and drizzle in the air. His colleague took the business of selecting ski wax very seriously. He had a thermometer with him, which he stuck in the snow to measure the temperature, then suggested to Professor Andersen that they should choose green wax as an under-coat, and blue wax on top of that, which Professor Andersen agreed with. He informed his colleague at the same time that, though it was true that he, like all Norwegians, was born with skis on his feet, nevertheless it was a long time ago, so he suggested they should go on a nice easy ski trip, something his colleague didn’t object to. With nice, easy strokes they set off through Bymarka in Trondheim. When they came to a downhill slope, his colleague set out boldly and confidently, while Professor Andersen stood a moment at the top and surveyed the situation, before he, too, set off. On the uphill slopes his colleague demonstrated his agility, and rushed upwards on light skis, while Professor Andersen again took it nice and easy and moved at his own pace. But over the flattish stretches they went side by side. After a while they arrived at a skiers’ cabin, where they went in and each had a hot blackcurrant drink. Professor Andersen took the opportunity, as he had done yesterday, to talk about something that was weighing on his mind. He was anxious about the future. His own future, as a professor of literature. Literature is not going to survive, not in the way we think of it. Its survival is just a matter of form, and that is no longer enough. All enthusiasm lies in the present, and in our day and age nothing can outdo the ability of commercialism to arouse enthusiasm and stir the hearts of the masses, and that is the spirit of the present time. He was afraid they had suffered a definitive defeat. They had to look this fact in the eye, if for no other reason than for their own peace of mind. He, for his part, couldn’t share the enthusiasm felt by the masses for the token forms of culture they were being offered; he didn’t understand how one could possibly feel enthusiastic about such things, but in practice it was quite evident that he erred, at any rate with regard to that. He didn’t want to comment on the quality of such culture, at least not to his colleague, who could see this too. He no longer wanted to conceal the fact that he thought the time he lived in was pathetic. He didn’t enjoy living in it at all, but at the same time he couldn’t present an alternative to it. ‘Because we aren’t timeless intellectuals, we are intellectuals in a commercial age, and deeply influenced by what stirs the hearts of the masses. What stirs the hearts of the masses are the consequences of our own inadequacy. Purely and simply. When were you last strongly stirred by watching or reading a Greek tragedy? I mean really stirred, shaken to the depths of your being. Not just nodding in recognition, quietly enjoying it, which we ought not to underestimate, that has to be said, quiet enjoyment has its significance, for the two of us. But stirred. As you can be when reading a novel from our own day and age? I think I’m on to something here. Our relationship to the past is marked by deep indifference, even if we do say something to the contrary, and even if we mean what we say when we say that it’s a matter of the greatest significance. Because it is a matter of the greatest significance, yet nevertheless we feel so bound to it by a sense of duty. It looks like our consciousness is insufficiently equipped to fulfil the body’s need for spiritual immortality. I can say that, being a professor of literature, and say it to you, my colleague. My nerves shriek in dread at the thought of no longer possessing a historical consciousness, because it means that our day and age will disappear along with us, so when we stage Ibsen at the National Theatre, my nerves relax, because if we can stage a play from the last century in one of the country’s finest buildings, with extensive publicity and often to a full house, then the coming generations may regard us in the same light. But it isn’t Ibsen’s work we perform, it’s Ibsen’s reputation. To the work as such, we are more or less indifferent, yes we are, now barely a hundred years after it was written. It’s the stage director’s work we see performed, Stein Winge’s or Kjetil Bang Hansen’s. It’s Winge’s work and Ibsen’s reputation. My stomach churns in protest at the thought of there being no reputation so great that it can’t survive a hundred years. We want to have immortal works, but do such things exist, for us? Ibsen’s best plays are just barely a hundred years old, we call them immortal already, but are they? Even now we can see how difficult it is to make them seem relevant to us. On stage they have to be modernised and made contemporary, so that we will experience something so-called great while watching them, and even then it doesn’t succeed, as a rule. And as drama to be read? Occasionally I think, after having read through and studied, for instance,
Ghosts: well, was that all? Was there nothing else? Was this the most outstanding accomplishment of the 1880s, was this the most outstanding intellectual accomplishment in Europe in the nineteenth century? Certainly it’s good, but is it really the most outstanding achievement that can be accomplished? It will probably turn out that it is, but my question still remains: was that all? Is there nothing else? I have actually studied Ghosts for years, and know that it’s perfect. Yes I am and will continue to be impressed by what it is, perfect, but nonetheless I ask: was that all? Was that it? I am not stirred by it. I’m not shaken. Not like the audience when it was performed for the first time, as a contemporary event. In my case it has not survived as the actual revelation it once was, and so how can I carry out my duty to society, which is to pass this play down to new generations? I’m in doubt, I’m so terribly in doubt about my own function in this age, which I really cannot stand any longer. The ravages of time, that is what gnaws at me, destroying everything. The ravages of time gnaw at even the most outstanding intellectual accomplishments and destroy them, making them pale and faded.’ ‘But you must be able to accept the patina of time,’ his colleague said suddenly.