[Tries to seize it.] Have you a knife?
Always, always—both day and night—in bed as well!
Give me that knife, Irene!
[Concealing it.] You shall not have it. I may very likely find a use for it myself.
What use can you have for it, here?
[Looks fixedly at him.] It was intended for you, Arnold.
For me!
As we were sitting by the Lake of Taunitz last evening——
By the Lake of——
—outside the peasant’s hut—and playing with swans and water-lilies——
What then—what then?
—and when I heard you say with such deathly, icy coldness—that I was nothing but an episode in your life——
It was you that said that, Irene, not I.
[Continuing.]—then I had my knife out. I wanted to stab you in the back with it.
[Darkly.] And why did you hold your hand?
Because it flashed upon me with a sudden horror that you were dead already—long ago.
Dead?
Dead. Dead, you as well as I. We sat there by the Lake of Taunitz, we two clay-cold bodies—and played with each other.
I do not call that being dead. But you do not understand me.
Then where is the burning desire for me that you fought and battled against when I stood freely forth before you as the woman arisen from the dead?
Our love is assuredly not dead, Irene.
The love that belongs to the life of earth—the beautiful, miraculous earth-life—the inscrutable earth-life—that is dead in both of us.
[Passionately.] And do you know that just that love—it is burning and seething in me as hotly as ever before?
And I? Have you forgotten who I now am?
Be who or what you please, for aught I care! For me, you are the woman I see in my dreams of you.
I have stood on the turn-table—naked—and made a show of myself to many hundreds of men—after you.
It was I that drove you to the turn-table—blind as I then was—I, who placed the dead clay-image above the happiness of life—of love.
[Looking down.] Too late—too late!
Not by a hairsbreadth has all that has passed in the interval lowered you in my eyes.
[With head erect.] Nor in my own!
Well, what then! Then we are free—and there is still time for us to live our life, Irene.
[Looks sadly at him.] The desire for life is dead in me, Arnold. Now I have arisen. And I look for you. And I find you.—And then I see that you and life lie dead—as I have lain.
Oh, how utterly you are astray! Both in us and around us life is fermenting and throbbing as fiercely as ever!
[Smiling and shaking her head.] The young woman of your Resurrection Day can see all life lying on its bier.
[Throwing his arms violently around her.] Then let two of the dead—us two—for once live life to its uttermost—before we go down to our graves again!
[With a shriek.] Arnold!
But not here in the half darkness! Not here with this hideous dank shroud flapping around us——
[Carried away by passion.] No, no—up in the light, and in all the glittering glory! Up to the Peak of Promise!
There we will hold our marriage-feast, Irene—oh, my beloved!
[Proudly.] The sun may freely look on us, Arnold.
All the powers of light may freely look on us—and all the powers of darkness too. [Seizes her hand.] Will you then follow me, oh my grace-given bride?
[As though transfigured.] I follow you, freely and gladly, my lord and master!
[Drawing her along with him.] We must first pass through the mists, Irene, and then——
Yes, through all the mists, and then right up to the summit of the tower that shines in the sunrise.
[The mist-clouds close in over the scene—Professor Rubek and Irene, hand in hand, climb up over the snow-field to the right and soon disappear among the lower clouds. Keen storm-gusts hurtle and whistle through the air.
[The Sister of Mercy appears upon the stone-scree to the left. She stops and looks around silently and searchingly.
[Maia can be heard singing triumphantly far in the depths below.
[Suddenly a sound like thunder is heard from high up on the snow-field, which glides and whirls downwards with rushing speed. Professor Rubek and Irene can be dimly discerned as they are whirled along with the masses of snow and buried in them.
[Gives a shriek, stretches out her arms towards them and cries.] Irene!
[Stands silent a moment, then makes the sign of the cross before her in the air, and says.
Pax vobiscum!
[Maia’s triumphant song sounds from still farther down below.
1. The French word used by Count Prozor is “infatuation.” I can think of no other rendering for it; but I do not quite know what it means as applied to Allmers and Eyolf.
2. Main Currents of Nineteenth Century Literature, vol. VI. p. 299.
There are quite a few instances of missing punctuation. The conventional period following the character’s name is sometimes missing and has been added for consistency’s sake without further comment. Those missing from setting and stage direction are also added without comment, since there is no obvious purpose to be served by the omission. However, the restoration of punctuation missing from dialogue is noted below, since the punctuation can be expressive. One instances of dubious ‘?’ mark has been corrected to‘!’, based on context.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
| xiii.18 | of passion[.] | Added. |
| 40.22 | [No, ]that is true. | Restored. |
| 132.21 | nothing in the world had happened[.] | Added. |
| 337.25 | no mere port[r]ait-busts | Inserted. |
| 433.21 | Let me go, I tell you[?/!] | Replaced. |