Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 2).djvu/78



Never! How canst thou think it? I, a woman!

A woman, a woman,—who knows what a woman may do!—But one thing thou canst tell me, Dagny, for that thou surely knowest: when a man clasps to his breast the woman he loves—is it true that her blood burns, that her bosom throbs—that she swoons in a strange ecstasy?

[Blushing.] Hiördis, how canst thou!

Come, tell me!

Surely thou thyself hast known it.

Ay once, and only once; it was that night when Gunnar sat with me in my bower; he crushed me in his arms till my byrnie burst, and then, then!

[Exclaiming.] What! Sigurd!

Sigurd? What of Sigurd? I spoke of Gunnar—that night when he bore me away