Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/301



[Softly and appealingly.] Oh, can you say that so confidently, Borkman?

[Nodding.] Acquitted myself on that score. But then comes the great, crushing self-accusation.

What is that?

I have skulked up there and wasted eight precious years of my life! The very day I was set free, I should have gone forth into the world—out into the steel-hard, dreamless world of reality! I should have begun at the bottom and swung myself up to the heights anew—higher than ever before—in spite of all that lay between.

Oh, it would only have been the same thing over again; take my word for that.

[Shakes his head, and looks at her with a sententious air.] It is true that nothing new happens; but what has happened does not repeat itself either. It is the eye that transforms the action. The eye, born anew, transforms the old action. [Breaking off.] But you do not understand this.