Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/291

 Arnholm.

[Joking.] Well, who knows? But what's done is done. We have once for all taken the wrong turning and become land animals instead of sea animals. All things considered, I'm afraid it is too late now to rectify the error.

Ellida.

Yes, that is the mournful truth. And I believe people have an instinctive feeling of it themselves—it haunts them like a secret sorrow and regret. Believe me, this lies at the very root of the melancholy of mankind. I am sure it does.

Arnholm.

But my dear Mrs. Wangel,—I have never noticed that people are so profoundly melancholy. I should say, on the contrary, that most people take life cheerfully and lightly—with a great, calm, unconscious joy.

Ellida.

Oh no, that is not so. That joy—it is just like our joy in the long, light summer days. It has in it the foreboding of the darkness to come. And this foreboding casts its shadow over the joy of mankind,—just as the driving scud casts its shadow over the fiord. There it lies all blue and shining; and then all of a sudden

Boletta.

You shouldn't let yourself dwell on such sad thoughts. You were so bright and cheerful moment ago

Ellida. Yes yes, so I was. All this is—it's so stupid of