Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/74

 Wherefore? The abyss replies: From the father sprang the son! What shall be by Love erased? What be quietly effaced? Where, O where, does guilt begin In our heritage of sin? What Assizes, what Assessors, When that Judgment is declared? Who shall question, who be heard, Where we're all alike transgressors? Who will venture then to plead His foul-borrow'd title-deed? Will the old answer profit yet: "From my father dates my debt?" O, abysmal as the night, Riddle, who can read thee right! But the people dance light-footed, Heedless by the dizzy brink; Where the soul should cry and shrink, None has vision to perceive What uptowering guilt is rooted In that little word: We live.

[''Some men of the community come from behind the house and approach .'']

We were to meet again, you see.

His need of human help has ceased.

Yes; he is ransom'd and released; But in the chamber still sit three.

And what then?