HADDA PADDA. No, you don't understand. There was still one place where I was afraid to go, because it meant more to me than any other. I grasped my heart with fear, and there I seemed to find the place. It was the Angelica Gorge,--where you had put your life in my hands. I was afraid that if I went there, I would instantly lose the peace of mind I had gained. But if I could not bear that, then this peace was nothing but an illusion. I wanted to be sincere with myself--so I went up there last night.

INGOLF. We saw you walking up the mountain.

HADDA PADDA. I lay down on the edge of the cliff and looked down into the depth from which I had seen you come up. "Little heart," I said, "try to be calm while I am tormenting you: Here it was that he raised himself up on the rope _I_ held. Here it was that he showed me how well he loved me." But instead of feeling pain, my whole frame quivered with trembling joy. Here, too, I had conquered. Tears of grat.i.tude came into my eyes, I stretched myself farther out on the edge to make my tears of joy fall into the chasm, down to the very bottom.--Do you see now that I am not going to make a sacrifice. Now tell all this to Runa, for she should know it too.

INGOLF [very much moved, throws himself at her feet]. When you have risen I will kiss the ground your feet have marked.

HADDA PADDA. Then I shall never rise.... Don't lie down like that. Get up, Ingolf, INGOLF. I will lie down and forget. Let me dream of death for one moment.

HADDA PADDA. Death! You who are happy!

INGOLF. Death is not unhappiness.

HADDA PADDA. Come, sit down again. I will tell you what death is. Last night I was only a hair's breadth away from it.

INGOLF [starts, terror stricken, he half arises]. What are you saying?

HADDA PADDA. When I lay there on the edge of the gorge, looking down, something dazzlingly white flashed before my eyes. Quite instinctively I reached out for it. It was as if my hands perceived what it was, before my eyes had had time to make it clear to me. It was the string of pearls which bad loosened from my hair. I reached for it without considering how unsafely I was lying there, when suddenly I felt myself slipping down. The sensation cannot be described. While my right hand reached for the pearls which were dropping down into the gorge, my left caught hold of the turf on the brink. I was losing my balance and nothing held me up but a few blades of gra.s.s. I felt my heart in my throat, and a cold perspiration over my whole body. Now the gra.s.s was giving way, now I clawed my fingers down into the earth and dug my feet into it, but it was too hard; I tried to press my knees down into the turf--nothing helped, I was slipping. Life or death! To the right there was a stone.

I let go of the gra.s.s, and blindly swung my body to the right, my feet slipped beyond the edge,--but my hands had caught hold of the stone.

When I got to the edge again, I lay in a stupour for a long time, and I did not know whether I was at the bottom of the gorge or at the top.--Never have I loved life as I do to-day.

INGOLF. How horrible! But what made you wear the pearls?

HADDA PADDA. It was foolish, but I don't know whether you can blame me.

One day, when I was almost melancholy, and I could not talk to anybody, I was seized with an unconquerable home-sick feeling. I yearned for mother, and felt how much I loved her. I took the pearls out and looked at this precious heirloom, which she had given me. I fastened it in my hair,--and immediately I felt better. That was why I wore them the nest day too.

INGOLF. And now they lie at the bottom of the gorge!

HADDA PADDA. Yes.

INGOLF. What are you going to tell your mother?

HADDA PADDA. I won't tell her anything before I know whether they will be found.

INGOLF. Have you asked any one to search for them?

HADDA PADDA. I just thought of asking Steindor, but I can hardly bring myself to tell him,--if afterwards they should not be found.

INGOLF [A vague disquietude takes possession of him. He is silent for an instant, then stares at Hadda, trying to read the influence of his words upon her]. Well, you are going to-morrow, and the very next day I will go down into the gorge and look for them.

HADDA PADDA. Will you really, Ingolf? And not tell Runa that I lost them? Mother must not know that I have treated the pearls so carelessly.

INGOLF. I won't tell any one.

HADDA PADDA [looking at him with wide-opened eyes]. I'd like it even more if you would do it before I left. If you looked for them to-morrow morning while I am getting ready to go. Then you'd spare me the anxiety.

Take Steindor with you, will you?

INGOLF [gets up. All doubt leaves his mind as he looks into her face and he is ashamed of the unworthy suspicion that had touched his soul]. Yes, Hrafnhild, don't be distressed. We shall find your pearls.--Aren't you coming with me?

HADDA. PADDA. No, I will wait for the children.

INGOLF. Good-night, Hrafnhild. [Goes.]

HADDA PADDA. Good-night. [Looks after him for a long time. Her eyes fill with tears, and she throws herself down weeping violently. Soon the voices of children, laughing, are heard near by. She looks up, pa.s.ses her hand over her eyes, hears the children's footsteps and lies down again as if asleep.]

THE CHILDREN [enter. In addition to the berries, each of them carries a bouquet of flowers].

LITTLE SKULI. She's asleep. [He takes his bouquet, and those of the others, placing them around her head.]

The children sit down quietly, eating their berries.

CURTAIN

ACT IV

(A deep gorge viewed from the side, its walls running obliquely down from right to left. The upper end of the outer edge merges into the mountain slope, which shuts out the view to the left. It is foggy. On the left, as the fog lifts, a waterfall glistens in the distance, like a broad white streak in the air. The sides of the gorge are abruptly terminated by a cliff, the top of which is gra.s.s-grown. Here, Ingolf and Steindor are sitting. Beside them is a long rope.)

STEINDOR. Just look how it is drizzling!... I can write on my clothes.

[Forms letters on his sleeve.]

INGOLF [strokes his finger along his sleeve]. My suit just matches the drizzle.

STEINDOR [is silent].

INGOLF [is aroused, as from a reverie]. Are you rested?

STEINDOR. Oh, very nearly.

INGOLF. You should have let me pull you up. It is too tiring to raise oneself.

STEINDOR. I have been lowering myself into this gorge for fourteen years now, to get angelica, and always without help. This is no height at all.

INGOLF. How high do you think it is?

STEINDOR. Only half a rope-length.

INGOLF. How long is a rope-length?

STEINDOR. A hundred and twenty feet.

INGOLF. Have you lowered yourself that far?

STEINDOR. I guess even a little more. One summer on the Westmen Isles, I went down three rope-lengths, for fowl; but then, I tied the rope around my waist, and took a stick along, to push myself off from the rock, so that the rope wouldn't turn.

INGOLF. The rope turned round with me before.