Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/231

 BEGRIFFENFELDT
 * Here's a knife!

HUSSEIN [seizing it].
 * Ah, how I shall lick up the ink now!
 * Oh, what rapture to cut oneself!
 * [Cuts his throat.]

BEGRIFFENFELDT [stepping aside].
 * Pray do not sputter.

PEER [in increasing terror].
 * Hold him!

HUSSEIN
 * Ay, hold me! That is the word!
 * Hold! Hold the pen! On the desk with the paper-!
 * [Falls.]
 * I'm outworn. The postscript-remember it, pray:
 * He lived and he died as a fate-guided pen!

PEER [dizzily].
 * What shall I-! What am I? Thou mighty-, hold fast!
 * I am all that thou wilt,-I'm a Turk, I'm a sinner-
 * a hill-troll-; but help;-there was something that burst-!
 * [Shrieks.]
 * I cannot just hit on thy name at the moment;-
 * oh, come to my aid, thou-all madmen's protector!
 * [Sinks down insensible.]

BEGRIFFENFELD