Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/283

 them, where the great free shoals of fish sweep out and in. But the poor tame house-fishes know nothing of all that; and they can never join in.

ARNHOLM.

I don't think it would agree with them at all if they did get out into the fiord.

BOLETTA.

Oh, they might take their chance of that, I should think.

ARNHOLM.

Besides, you can't say that you are so utterly out of the world here. Not in summer, at all events. This place is a sort of local centre, nowadays, in the life of the world—a point of convergence for many passing streams.

BOLETTA.

[Smiling.] Oh, you are in the passing stream yourself; it is easy for you to make game of us.

ARNHOLM.

I make game? What puts that into your head?

BOLETTA.

Why, all this about a centre, and a point of convergence for the life of the world, is simply what you have heard people say in the town. They are always talking like that.

ARNHOLM. Yes, frankly, I have noticed as much.