Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/66



[Half laughing, half vexed.] If you begin all that rubbish again, I shall beat you.

[Looking sorrowfully at him.] But the book, Alfred?

It began, as it were, to drift away from me. But I was more and more beset by the thought of the higher duties that laid their claims upon me.

[Beaming, seizes his hand.] Alfred!

The thought of Eyolf, my dear Rita.

[Disappointed, drops his hand.] Ah—of Eyolf!

Poor little Eyolf has taken deeper and deeper hold of me. After that unlucky fall from the table—and especially since we have been assured that the injury is incurable

[Insistently.] But you take all the care you possibly can of him, Alfred!

As a schoolmaster, yes; but not as a father.