Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/381

 Ellida.

Yes Over for all time!

The Stranger.

I see it. There is something here that is stronger than my will.

Ellida.

Your will has no longer a feather's weight with me. For me you are a dead man, who has come home from the sea—and who is returning to it again. But I am no longer in terror of you: you fascinate me no more.

The Stranger.

Good-bye, Mrs. Wangel! [He vaults over the fence.] Henceforth you[1] are nothing but—a bygone shipwreck in my life.

[He goes out to the left.

Wangel.

[Looks at her awhile.] Ellida—your mind is like the sea: it has its ebb and flow. What brought the transformation?

Ellida.

Oh, do you not understand that the transformation came,—that it had to come—when I could choose in freedom.

Wangel.

And the unknown,—it fascinates you no longer?

Ellida.

It neither fascinates nor frightens me. I could have seen into it—gone into it—if I had wished to. I was free to choose it; and therefore I was able to reject it.

1 Here, for the first time, he uses the formal De.