Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/451

 *dle-aged child,—is it possible that you cannot see that!

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[Annoyed.] Why do you keep on calling me a poet? . [With malign eyes.] Because there is something apologetic in the word, my friend. Something that suggests forgiveness of sins—and spreads a cloak over all frailty. [With a sudden change of tone.] But I was a human being—then! And I, too, had a life to live,—and a human destiny to fulfil. And all that, look you, I let slip—gave it all up in order to make myself your bondwoman.—Oh, it was self-murder—a deadly sin against myself! [Half whispering.] And that sin I can never expiate! [She seats herself near him beside the brook, keeps close, though unnoticed, watch upon him, and, as though in absence of mind, plucks some flowers from the shrubs around them.

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[With apparent self-control.] I should have borne children into the world—many children—real children—not such children as are hidden away in grave-vaults. That was my vocation. I ought never to have served you—poet.

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[Lost in recollection.] Yet those were beautiful days, Irene. Marvellously beautiful days—as I now look back upon them