Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/341



[Nodding.] Yes, yes, Vilhelm, your daughter has come to drive in her carriage. And Master Erhart, too. Tell me, did you notice the silver bells?

Yes, indeed. Silver bells did you say? Were they silver? Real, genuine silver bells?

You may be quite sure of that. Everything was genuine—both outside and in.

[In quiet emotion.] Isn't it strange how fortune can sometimes befriend one? It is my—my little gift of song that has transmuted itself into music in Frida. So after all, it is not for nothing that I was born a poet. For now she is going forth into the great wide world, that I once yearned so passionately to see. Little Frida sets out in a splendid covered sledge with silver bells on the harness

And runs over her father.

[Happily.] Oh, pooh! What does it matter about me, if only the child! Well, so I am too late, then, after all. I must just go home again and comfort her mother. I left her crying in the kitchen.