Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/69

 Rebecca.

Indeed!

Brendel.

What you have read, yes. My really important works no man or woman knows. No one—except myself.

Rebecca. How does that happen?

Brendel. Because they are not written.

Rosmer.

But, my dear Mr. Brendel

Brendel.

You know, my Johannes, that I am a bit of a Sybarite—a Feinschmecker. I have been so all my days. I like to take my pleasures in solitude; for then I enjoy them doubly—tenfold. So, you see, when golden dreams descended and enwrapped me—when new, dizzy, far-reaching thoughts were born in me, and wafted me aloft on their sustaining pinions—I bodied them forth in poems, visions, pictures—in the rough, as it were, you understand.

Rosmer. Yes, yes.

Brendel.

Oh, what pleasures, what intoxications I have enjoyed in my time! The mysterious bliss of creation—in the rough, as I said—applause, gratitude, renown, the wreath of bays—all these I have garnered with full hands quivering with joy.