Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/244

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Speak, my Maximus!

All my labour is vain, I tell you. Why could you not silence the psalm-singing? It strangled all the omens; they would have spoken, but could utter nothing.

Silence, darkness;—and I can wait no longer! What do you counsel me to do?

Go forward blindly, Emperor Julian. The light will seek you out.

Yes, yes, yes; that I, too, believe. I need not, after all, have sent for you all this long way. Know you what I have just heard?

I will not know what you have heard. Take your fate into your own hands.

[Pacing restlessly up and down.] After all, what is he, this Constantius—this Fury-haunted sinner, this mouldering ruin of what was once a man?

Be that his epitaph, Emperor Julian!

In his whole treatment of me, has he not been like a rudderless wreck,—now drifting to the left