AT THE GATE OF THE KINGDOM

"THE LADY: So, Ingeborg, now there are only a few handkerchiefs and other small things left and I can do that alone. Now you go on that errand. Throw on a scarf. INGEBORG: Yes, (willing to go). THE LADY: Yes, but take the basket with you. INGEBORG: Oh yes, that's true (takes the largest basket full of linen and walks past the veranda to the back steps of the house)."

1895

At the Kingdom's Gate (1895) is a play in four acts. Together with Livets spill (1886) and Aftenrøde (1898), the drama forms a trilogy with Ivar Kareno in the lead role.

In Ved rikets port, Kareno is a 29-year-old, adamant and unyielding anti-democratic philosophy student who lives and breathes his Nietzsche-inspired studies. Together with his wife Elina, he experiences financial difficulties, but refuses on principle to accept help from his friend Jerven. The fervor he devotes to his philosophical work stands in contrast to his disengaged relationship with Elina. His elitist opinions are challenged when Elina leaves Kareno in favor of her lover, journalist Bondesen.

It was because she was intended for the role of Elina in the National Theatre's production of the play that Marie Andersen first met Hamsun in 1908.