Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/267



SCENE FIFTH
[Whitsun Eve.-In the depths of the forest. To the back, in a clearing, is a hut with a pair of reindeer horns over the porch-gable.] [PEER GYNT is creeping among the undergrowth, gathering wild onions.] PEER
 * Well, this is one standpoint. Where is the next?
 * One should try all things and choose the best.
 * Well, I have done so,-beginning from Caesar,
 * and downwards as far as to Nebuchadnezzar.
 * So I had, after all, to go through Bible history;-
 * the old boy's had to take to his mother again.
 * After all it is written: Of the earth art thou come.-
 * The main thing in life is to fill one's belly.
 * Fill it with onions? That's not much good;-
 * I must take to cunning, and set out snares.
 * There's water in the beck here; I shan't suffer thirst;
 * and I count as the first 'mong the beasts after all.
 * When my time comes to die-as most likely it will,-
 * I shall crawl in under a wind-fallen tree;
 * like the bear, I will heap up a leaf-mound above me,
 * and I'll scratch in big print on the bark of the tree:
 * Here rests Peer Gynt, that decent soul,
 * Kaiser o'er all of the other beasts.-
 * Kaiser?
 * [Laughs inwardly.]
 * Why, you old soothsayer-humbug!