Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/178

 Rosmer.

[Tries to spring up.] What is this?

Rebecca.

[Stops him.] Sit still, dear; there is more to tell.

Rosmer.

And you mean to say—that you have loved me—in that way!

Rebecca.

I thought that it should be called love—then. Yes, I thought it was love. But it was not. It was what I said. It was a wild, uncontrollable passion.

Rosmer.

[With difficulty.] Rebecca, is it really you—you yourself—that you are speaking of?

Rebecca.

Yes, would you believe it, Rosmer?

Rosmer.

Then it was because of this—under the influence of this—that you—that you "went to work," as you call it?

Rebecca.

It came upon me like a storm on the sea. It was like one of the storms we sometimes have in the North in the winter-time. It seizes you—and whirls you along with it—wherever it will. There is no resisting it.

Rosmer.

And so it swept the unhappy Beata into the mill race.