Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/132

 part I have in these affairs. 'Tis said of me that I am false as the sea-foam. Mayhap I am; but if I be, it is women who have made me so. Had I sooner found what I sought,—had I met a woman proud and noble and high-souled even as you, then had my path been different indeed. At this moment, maybe, I had been standing at your side as the champion of all that suffer wrong in Norway's land. For  I believe: a woman is the mightiest power in the world, and in her hand it lies to guide a man whither God Almighty would have him go.

[To herself.] Can it be as he says? Nay, nay; there is falsehood in his eyes and deceit on his lips. And yet—no song is sweeter than his words.

[Coming closer, speaks low and more intimately.] As you have dwelt here at Östråt, alone with your changeful thoughts, how often have you felt your bosom stifling; how often have the roof and walls seemed to shrink together till they crushed your very soul. Then have your longings taken wing with you; then have you yearned to fly far from here, you knew not whither.—How often have you not wandered alone by the fiord; far out a ship has sailed by in fair array, with knights and ladies on her deck, with song and music of stringed instruments;—a faint, far-off rumour of great events has reached your ears;—and you have felt a longing in your breast, an unconquerable