Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/188

 Brendel. Can you spare me an ideal or two?

Rosmer. What do you say?

Brendel.

One or two cast-off ideals. It would be an act of charity. For I'm cleaned out, my boy. Ruined, beggared.

Rebecca.

Have you not delivered your lecture?

Brendel.

No, seductive lady. What do you think? Just as I am standing ready to pour forth the horn of plenty, I make the painful discovery that I am bankrupt.

Rebecca.

But all your unwritten works?

Brendel.

For five-and-twenty years I have sat like a miser on his double-locked treasure-chest. And then yesterday—when I open it and want to display the treasure—there's none there! The teeth of time had ground it into dust. There was nix and nothing in the whole concern.

Rosmer. But are you so sure of that?

Brendel.

There's no room for doubt, my dear fellow. The President has convinced me of it.