Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 2).djvu/370



[Knocking at the gate.] Open! Come out, you and the church-robber, else will we burn the convent down!

[As if seized by a strong resolution.] The great king's-thought! 'Tis that has poisoned your young loving soul! Pure and blameless I was to give you back; 'tis faith in me that drives you thus wildly from crime to crime, from deadly sin to deadly sin! Oh, but I can save you yet: I can save us all! [Calls toward the background.] Wait, wait, ye townsmen without there: I come!

[Seizing his hand in terror.] My father! what would you do?

[Clinging to him with a shriek.] Skule!

[''Tears them away from him, and calls with wild, radiant joy.''] Loose him, loose him, women;—now his thought puts forth wings!

[Firmly and forcibly, to .] You saw in me the heaven-chosen one,—him who should do the great king's-work in the land. Look at me better, misguided boy! The rags of kingship I have decked myself withal, they were borrowed and stolen—now I put them off me, one by one.