Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/399

 *tion of the spiritual tumult that is now going on in Hialmar Ekdal?

Relling.

Devil a bit of a spiritual tumult have I noticed in him.

Gregers.

What! Not at such a crisis, when his whole life has been placed on a new foundation? How can you think that such an individuality as Hialmar's?

Relling.

Oh, individuality—he! If he ever had any tendency to the abnormal developments you call individuality, I can assure you it was rooted out of him while he was still in his teens.

Gregers.

That would be strange indeed,—considering the loving care with which he was brought up.

Relling.

By those two high-flown, hysterical maiden aunts, you mean?

Gregers.

Let me tell you that they were women who never forgot the claim of the ideal—but of course you will only jeer at me again.

Relling.

No, I'm in no humour for that. I know all about those ladies; for he has ladled out no end of rhetoric on the subject of his "two soul-mothers." But I don't think he has much to thank them for. Ekdal's misfortune is that in his