Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/48

 ar? PEER
 * He's there still, for aught I know;-

[Snaps his fingers, turns on his heel, and adds:]
 * catch him, and you're welcome to him!

ASE
 * And your neck you haven't broken?
 * Haven't broken both your thighs?
 * and your backbone, too, is whole?
 * Oh, dear Lord-what thanks, what praise,
 * should be thine who helped my boy!
 * There's a rent, though, in your breeches;
 * but it's scarce worth talking of
 * when one thinks what dreadful things
 * might have come of such a leap-!

[Stops suddenly, looks at him open-mouthed and wide-eyed; cannot find words for some time, but at last bursts out:]
 * Oh, you devil's story-teller,
 * Cross of Christ, how you can lie!
 * All this screed you foist upon me,
 * I remember now, I knew it
 * when I was a girl of twenty.
 * Gudbrand Glesne it befell,
 * never you, you-

PEER
 * Me as well.
 * Such a thing can happen twice.

ASE [exasperated].
 * Yes, a lie, turned topsy-turvy,
 * can be prinked and tinselled out,
 * decked in plumage new and fine,