Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/444

 wet, living clay, that I loved—as it rose up, a vital human creature, out of those raw, shapeless masses—for that was our creation, our child. Mine and yours.

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[Sadly.] It was so in spirit and in truth.

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Let me tell you, Arnold—it is for the sake of this child of ours that I have undertaken this long pilgrimage.

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[Suddenly alert.] For the statue's?

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Call it what you will. I call it our child.

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And now you want to see it? Finished? In marble, which you always thought so cold? [Eagerly.] You do not know, perhaps, that it is installed in a great museum somewhere—far out in the world?

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I have heard a sort of legend about it.

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And museums were always a horror to you. You called them grave-vaults