Alfred Allmers, a poor and obscure man of letters, has married Rita, a rich and beautiful heiress. During the first seven or eight years of their marriage they live frankly the life of the senses; and in amorous intoxication forget the world with its claims, being completely absorbed in each other. Their little son Eyolf they leave largely to his aunt, Asta (Allmers’s supposed sister), and only interest themselves in him spasmodically, and then to very little purpose. Rita is, in fact, not very fond of the child, and feels vaguely annoyed whenever she is reminded of her duties toward it. It is directly due to her erotic intensity that the boy, who has been left in his high-chair at table, tumbles down and is crippled for life. He then becomes a reproach to his mother, and she rather shuns than seeks the sight of him. I find this development of Rita to be true and consistent. Women, as a rule, after marriage, develop the wifely character at the expense of the maternal, or the maternal at the expense of the wifely. Rita Allmers belongs to the former class. She is young, beautiful, and passionate; her wifehood is all to her; her motherhood only incidental. But this condition cannot endure. The husband, at all events, feels a subtle change steal over his relation to his wife; and in order to make it clear to himself, he goes on a long pedestrian tour into the mountains. On his return, at the end of two weeks, he is received by Rita with a bacchanalian seductiveness which ill befits his serious mood. He has resolved to introduce a radical change in the household. He will henceforth devote himself to the education of his son, and make that his chief concern. His book on “Human Responsibility,” at which he has been writing in a desultory fashion, shall no longer divert his attention from the actual responsibility, which it were a sin to shirk. Rita, however, when he unfolds his plan to her, is anything but pleased. She wants him all to herself, and is not content to share him with anybody, even though it be her own child. She cannot be put off with crumbs of affection. She coaxes, she threatens; she hints at dire consequences. With the passionate vehemence of a spoiled and petted beauty, who believes her love disdained, she upbraids him, and cries out at last that she wishes the child had never been born. Presently a wild scream is heard from the pier, and little Eyolf’s crutch is seen floating upon the still waters of the fiord.