Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/354

 other. I have merely let everything remain as I found it the day I came. It is you—and no one else—who have willed it so.

Wangel.

I meant to do what was best for you.

Ellida.

Oh yes, Wangel, I know that so well! But now all this must be paid for; it will have its revenge. There is nothing here now that has any binding power over me—nothing to support—nothing to help me. There is no counter-fascination for me in what should have been the dearest treasure of our common life.

Wangel.

I see that well enough, Ellida; and so from to-morrow you shall have your freedom again. Hereafter you shall live your own life.

Ellida.

You call that my own life! Oh no, my own true life slid into a wrong groove when I joined it to yours. [Clenches her hands together in fear and agitation.] And now—to-night—in half an hour—the man I have forsaken will be here—the man to whom my faith should have been inviolable, as his has been to me! Now he is coming to offer me—for the last and only time—a chance of beginning life afresh—of living my own real life—the life that at once frightens and fascinates me—and that I cannot forgo. Not of my own free will!

Wangel.

That is just why you require your husband—*