Hialmar returns home in a grim mood after his walk with Gregers. He announces he will take over the studio work and account books himself. When Gina confesses to her past relationship with Werle, Hialmar is enraged by her deceit. Gregers enters, celebrating their new life founded on truth, but sees only gloom. Relling warns them not to involve Hedvig in their conflict. Hedvig receives a birthday gift from Werle of a monthly income for her father, but Hialmar tears up the letter. He questions if Hedvig is truly his child and leaves. A sobbing Hedvig wonders if this is why her father no longer wants her. Gregers suggests Hedvig

1. Act IV: Part One
• Gina has just taken a photograph of two sweethearts and stands in the doorway bidding them farewell.
• Hedvig enters, and they wonder why Hialmar has yet to return from his walk with Gregers.
• A grim Hialmar returns. He refuses Gina's offer of dinner and announces that he will take up the studio work
himself on the morrow.
• He pledges with disgust to never set into the garret again. Indeed, he almost wants to wring the wild duck's neck.
Hialmar. H'm, true. Well, then, from the day after to-morrow. I should almost like to
wring that cursed wild duck's neck!
• When Hedvig shrieks in horror, he promises to leave it alone. Hialmar is taking up the claims of the ideal, the
claims of his soul.
• Hialmar urges Hedvig to go out. It is dark enough now, and the vapors in the house are bad for her.
• Once she has departed, he tells Gina he will also keep the account books himself.
• He asks her why she never told him his father was so liberally paid by Hakon Werle. Gina first attempts to evade
his implicit accusations but ultimately demands that Hialmar explain what Gregers has told him.
• Hialmar asks if Gina was Werle's concubine.
• Gina confesses that when Werle approached her during her service as his servant, she refused. Convinced of
her guilt, Werle's wife drove her out of the house.
• After her death, however, the two became lovers.
Hialmar [striking his hands together.] And this is the mother of my child! How could
you hide this from me?
Gina. Yes, it was wrong of me; I ought certainly to have told you long ago.
Hialmar. You should have told me at the very first; — then I should have known the sort
of woman you were.
• Hialmar is enraged by her deceit.
• Gina protests that he would have come to a bad end without a practical wife such as herself.
• Hialmar moans that he will never finish his invention. The breadwinner's dream of the well-to- do-widow who lives
in the wake of his successes will come to naught.
Hialmar [placing himself in front of her.] Have you not every day, every hour, repented
of the spider's-web of deceit you have spun around me? Answer me that! How could you
help writhing with penitence and remorse? Gina Oh, my dear Ekdal, I've had all I could
do to look after the house and get through the day's work —
• Gregers enters, celebrating the commencement of the couple's new life, a communion founded on truth.
Hialmar. I have passed through the bitterest moments of my life.
Gregers. But also, I trust, the most ennobling.
Hialmar. Well, at any rate, we have got through it for the present.
Gina. God forgive you, Mr. Werle.

2. Gregers [in great surprise.] But I don't understand this.
Hialmar. What don't you understand?
Gregers. After so great a crisis — a crisis that is to be the starting-point of an entirely
new life — of a communion founded on truth, and free from all taint of deception —
• He is shocked however by the "dullness, oppression, and gloom" in the household; the "light of transfiguration"
should shine from them both.
Gregers. I confidently expected, when I entered the room, to find the light of
transfiguration shining upon me from both husband and wife. And now I see nothing
but dulness, oppression, gloom —
• Hialmar should rejoice in forgiving his erring wife and raising her up to someone worthy of love. Gina sarcastically
removes the lampshade.
• Relling enters and denounces Gregers as a quack.
Relling. Only uttering a heartfelt wish that this quacksalver would take himself off. If he
stays here, he is quite equal to making an utter mess of life, for both of you.
Gregers. These two will not make a mess of life, Mr. Relling. Of course I won't speak of
Hialmar — him we know. But she, too, in her innermost heart, has certainly something
loyal and sincere —
• He says that no marriage is based on the claims of the ideal.
• Relling reminds the Ekdals of the threat their conflict to Hedvig, and at a critical age no less.
Relling. Yes, you must be good enough to keep Hedvig outside of all this. You two are
grown-up people; you are free, in God's name, to make what mess and muddle you
please of your life. But you must deal cautiously with Hedvig, I tell you; else you may do
her a great injury.
• Gina notes her changing temperament and sees that Hedvig has taken to playing house-on-fire with the stove in
the kitchen.
• Suddenly Mrs. Sorby appears at the door. She has come to bid farewell to Gina as she and Werle are moving to
the Hoidal works tomorrow.
• Gregers reveals their marriage plans.
• Relling bitterly wishes her happiness. Apparently Relling and Sorby once shared a liaison.
• When Gregers threatens to tell his father of their affair, Mrs. Sorby informs him that they have confessed all their
secrets to each other and theirs is an honest marriage.
Gregers. Are you not in the least afraid that I may let my father know about this old
friendship?
Mrs. Sorby. Why, of course, I have told him all about it myself.
• Sorby has pledged to care for Werle in his increasing blindness.
• Hialmar is shocked that Werle is losing his eyesight too.

3. Hialmar [starts.] Going blind? That's strange. He, too, going blind!
• As she moves to leave, Sorby instructs Hialmar to apply to Graberg if he needs anything. Shocking even
Gregers, Hialmar not only declines this offer of help but promises to pay back their longstanding debt to the
firm—a debt far beyond the Ekdals' means.
• Gregers applauds the ambivalent Hialmar.
Gregers. Are you not glad to have had your true position made clear to you?
• Hialmar admits that Hakon Werle and Mrs. Sorby's union revolts his sense of justice. It appears that they have
come to realize the true marriage, one founded on complete confidence and unreserved candor, confession and
absolution. It seems that providence does not exist.
Hialmar. Well, then, is it not exasperating to think that it is not I, but he, who will realise
the true marriage?
• Hialmar does recognize the "guiding finger of fate," in Werle's imminent blindness. Such is God's retribution for
his lifetime of hoodwinking.
Hialmar. There is no doubt about it. At all events there ought not to be; for in that very
fact lies the righteous retribution. He has hoodwinked a confiding fellow creature in days
gone by —
• A breathless Hedvig then appears at the door. She passed Sorby on her way out and received a birthday gift.
• Hialmar demands that she present it. Hedvig withdraws an envelope, hoping that the good news will repair the
broken household.
Hedvig. Yes, it is only a letter. The rest will come afterwards, I suppose. But fancy — a
letter! I've never had a letter before. And there's "Miss" written upon it. [Reads.] "Miss
Hedvig Ekdal." Only fancy — that's me!
• Hialmar reads the letter. Werle has promised a monthly income to Old Ekdal which will pass onto Hedvig upon
his death.
Hedvig. And you'll get it all the same, father! You know quite well I shall give all the
money to you and mother.
• Gregers warns that Werle is trying to buy him off. He told him this morning that Hialmar was not the man Gregers
imagined.
• Gina sends a bewildered Hedvig into the kitchen.
• Hialmar methodically tears the letter in half and places it on the table. He confronts Gina anew and wonders
whether Hedvig is his and whether Werle facilitated their marriage for fear of scandal.
Hialmar. I want to know whether — your child has the right to live under my roof.
• Defiantly, Gina replies that she does not know.
• Hialmar announces that he has no longer has a place in the house and dons his overcoat.
• Gregers insists that the family must be together to attain the "true frame of mind for self-sacrifice and
forgiveness."
• Hedvig runs out, and Hialmar rejects her and flees.

4. Hialmar. Don't come near me, Hedvig! Keep far away. I cannot bear to see you. Oh!
those eyes — ! Good-bye.
• A sobbing Hedvig flings herself on the sofa. Gina goes after Hialmar.
• Hedvig wonders why her father no longer wants her and whether it is because she is not his child.
Hedvig [sobs.] But I can't go on being as miserable as this till I'm grown-up. — I think I
know what it is. — Perhaps I'm not really father's child.
• Gregers responds evasively. Hedvig moans that Hialmar should almost love her more if this is the case—just like
the wild duck.
• Gregers turns the conversation to the subject of the duck. Hedvig relates Hialmar's threat to kill the duck. She
has prayed for the duck's safety every night; she has taken to prayer ever since Hialmar's near-fatal illness.
• Gregers suggests that Hedvig sacrifice the duck, her most precious possession, to prove her love for her father.
Gregers. Suppose you were to make a free-will offering, for his sake, of the dearest
treasure you have in the world!
• Desperately Hedvig decides to ask grandfather to shoot it.
• Gina returns and reports that Hialmar has gone drinking with Relling and Molvik. She sighs that Relling was right:
creatures that preach "the claims of the what- you-may-call-it" only bring ruin.