Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/119

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 * And lightly enough I can slip my cable
 * from these your Dovrefied ways of life.
 * I am willing to swear that a cow is a maid;
 * an oath one can always eat up again:-
 * but to know that one never can free oneself,
 * that one can't even die like a decent soul;
 * to live as a hill-troll for all one's days-
 * to feel that one never can beat a retreat,-
 * as the book has it, that's what your heart is set on;
 * but that is a thing I can never agree to.

THE OLD MAN
 * Now, sure as I live, I shall soon lose my temper;
 * and then I am not to be trifled with.
 * You pasty-faced loon! Do you know who I am?
 * First with my daughter you make too free-

PEER
 * There you lie in your throat!

THE OLD MAN
 * You must marry her.

PEER
 * Do you dare to accuse me-?

THE OLD MAN
 * What? Can you deny
 * that you lusted for her in heart and eye?

PEER [with a snort of contempt].
 * No more? Who the deuce cares a straw for that?

THE OLD MAN
 * It's ever the same with this humankin