Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/120

84 as a picture from the ancient chronicles. Yes, I see in him David born again, to smite the champions of the heathen. God's spirit watch over him in the strife, now and for ever."

[Grasping his arm.] Enough of that! She too? What is it that you all, as with one mouth, demand of me? Have I sealed you a bond to do battle with the lions of power?

How comes it that all believers look towards you in breathless expectation?

[''Paces once or twice up and down the colonnade, then stops and stretches out his hand for the letter.''] Give it to me; let me see. [Reading.] "God's spirit watch over him in the strife, now and for ever."—

Oh, Basil, if I could! But I feel like Daedalus, between sky and sea. An appalling height and an abysmal depth.—What sense is there in these voices calling to me, from east and west, that I must save Christendom? Where is it, this Christendom that I am to save? With the Emperor or with Caesar? I think their deeds cry out, "No, no!" Among the powerful and high-born;—among those sensual and effeminate courtiers who fold their hands over their full bellies, and quaver: "Was the Son of God created out of nothing?" Or among the men of enlightenment, those who, like you and me, have drunk in beauty and learning from the heathen fountains? Do not most of our fellows lean to