Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/49

 till none knows its lean old carcass.
 * That is just what you've been doing,
 * vamping up things, wild and grand,
 * garnishing with eagles' backs
 * and with all the other horrors,
 * lying right and lying left,
 * filling me with speechless dread,
 * till at last I recognised not
 * what of old I'd heard and known!

PEER
 * If another talked like that
 * I'd half kill him for his pains.

ASE [weeping].
 * Oh, would God I lay a corpse;
 * would the black earth held me sleeping!
 * Prayers and tears don't bite upon him.-
 * Peer, you're lost, and ever will be!

PEER
 * Darling, pretty little mother,
 * you are right in every word;-
 * don't be cross, be happy-

ASE
 * Silence!
 * Could I, if I would, be happy,
 * with a pig like you for son?
 * Think how bitter I must find it,
 * I, a poor defenceless widow,
 * ever to be put to shame!
 * [Weeping again.]
 * How much have we now remaining
 * from your grandsire's days of glory