Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/136

100 towered aloft in the distance, like dim, still banks of clouds, and the ship lay heavily, as though sleeping, upon the wine-blue plain.—

Then behold! the plain became more and more transparent, lighter, thinner; at last, it was no longer there, and my ship hung over a fearful, empty abyss. No verdure down there, no sunlight,—only the dead, black, slimy bottom of the sea, in all its ghastly nakedness.

But above, in the boundless dome, which before had seemed to me empty,—there was life; there invisibility clothed itself in form, and silence became sound.—Then I grasped the great redeeming realisation.

What realisation do you mean?

That which is, is not; and that which is not, is.

Oh, you are going to wreck and ruin in this maze of mists and gleams!

I? Do not miracles happen? Do not both omens and certain strange appearances among the stars declare that the divine will destines me to issues yet unrevealed?

Do not believe such signs; you cannot know whose work they are.