Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/277

 necessary for your own sake. If I had told you all this—then I must also have told you—the unspeakable.

Wangel.

The unspeakable?

Ellida.

[Evasively.] No, no, no! Do not ask! Only one thing more, and I have done.—Wangel—how shall we fathom the mystery—of the child's eyes?

Wangel.

My own dear Ellida, I assure you it was pure imagination on your part. The child had exactly the same eyes as other normal children.

Ellida.

No, it had not! How could you help seeing it? The child's eyes changed colour with the sea. If the fiord lay in a sunny calm, the eyes were calm and sunny. And the same way in storms.—Oh, I saw it well enough, if you did not.

Wangel.

[Humouring her.] H'm,—perhaps so. But even if it were? What then?

Ellida.

[Softly, and drawing nearer to him.] I have seen eyes like that before.

Wangel. When? And where?

Ellida. Out at Bratthammer. Ten years ago.