Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/58



What ails you? Has aught crossed you? You seem so restless.

May be so.

There is something amiss. I have hardly known you this half year past.

Bethink you: this half year past my dearest sister Lucia has been sleeping in the vault below.

That is not all, Mistress Elina—it is not that alone that makes you now thoughtful and white and silent, now restless and ill at ease, as you are to-night.

Not that alone, you think? And wherefore not? Was she not gentle and pure and fair as a summer night? Biörn,—I tell you, Lucia was dear to me as my life. Have you forgotten how many a time, when we were children, we sat on your knee in the winter evenings? You sang songs to us, and told us tales

Ay, then you were blithe and gay.

Ah, then, Biörn! Then I lived a glorious life in fable-land, and in my own imaginings. Can