Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/211



[In a toneless voice.] Made shipwreck of my soul.—Good-night, my mother!

Ha-ha-ha! It goes down-hill apace with Inger Gyldenlöve's house. went the last of my daughters.

Why could I not keep silence? Had she known nought, it may be she had been happy—after a kind.

It  to be so. It is written up yonder in the stars that I am to break off one green branch after another till the trunk stand leafless at last.

'Tis well, 'tis well! I shall have my son again. Of the others, of my daughters, I will not think.

My reckoning? To face my reckoning?—It falls not due till the last great day of wrath.— comes not yet awhile.

[Calling from outside on the right.] Ho—shut the gate!

Count Sture's voice!

[Rushes in, unarmed, and with his clothes torn, and shouts with a laugh of desperation.] Well met again, Inger Gyldenlöve!