Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/302

 NE
 * I understand
 * he has been himself both by night and by day,
 * and that, after all, is the principal point.

PEER
 * Himself? Then do such folks belong to your parish?

THE LEAN ONE
 * That depends; the door, at least, stands ajar for them.
 * Remember, in two ways a man can be
 * himself-there's a right and wrong side to the jacket.
 * You know they have lately discovered in Paris
 * a way to take portraits by help of the sun.
 * One can either produce a straightforward picture,
 * or else what is known as a negative one.
 * In the latter the lights and the shades are reversed,
 * and they're apt to seem ugly to commonplace eyes;
 * but for all that the likeness is latent in them,
 * and all you require is to bring it out.
 * If, then, a soul shall have pictured itself
 * in the course of its life by the negative method,
 * the plate is not therefore entirely cashiered,-
 * but without more ado they consign it to me.
 * I take it in hand, then, for further treatment,
 * and by suitable methods effect its development.
 * I steam it, I dip it, I burn it, I scour it,
 * with sulphur and other ingredients like that,
 * till the image appears which the plate was designed for,-
 * that, namely, which people call positiv