INGOLF. Were you really in love with me then?

HADDA PADDA. You don't know?... Then I did succeed in hiding it?

INGOLF. Why did you hide it, Hadda? Why, I almost believed you bore me a grudge. You seemed to hold more aloof each day.

HADDA PADDA. And even that did not betray me?

INGOLF. Why did you hide it, Hadda?

(Footsteps are heard outside.)

HADDA PADDA [kisses Ingolf hastily, gets up, and seats herself at his side, takes his hand]. Don't you understand, dear, I was afraid of knowing the certainty. The stronger my love grew, the more carefully I had to hide it. I dared not risk those beautiful dream-children of uncertainty for a disguised certainty. Whenever we talked together, and you looked up at me, I was startled. I thought you understood, and your hurried glance reached me only after the fear of seeing the answer in it.

INGOLF. You, the most sincere of women, could cherish so strong a love and seem so cold.

HADDA PADDA. Now I have made too great a virtue of my love. Some of my reserve was pride. Just think, you lived with us during your entire schooltime, and in the summer sister and I were by turns at your home.

We grew up, you, handsome and manly, and a lord of pleasures; and you always seemed to be careful not to pay me greater attention than the other girls, especially at parties. That was why I drew back.--I was eighteen, you were twenty; you were graduated and went abroad. And poor, proud little Hadda Padda was left alone.

INGOLF. Poor proud little Hadda Padda. [They laugh.]

HADDA PADDA. Then when you came back the next spring, it was Kristrun's turn to go to the country. And since then, you have not been home during the summer.

INGOLF. And when you went to Copenhagen the following winter, it just happened to be the only year I stayed home.

HADDA PADDA. Then I thought it surely was the will of fate to separate us. But I loved you even more. I could not give up hope. Not even when you wrote home, the year before last, that you had decided to live abroad. I got that news on the shortest day of the year. I watched the twilight darken into night until the very blackness swam before my eyes in blood-red spots. It was then I made up my mind to go.

INGOLF. Yes, you came in the autumn.

HADDA PADDA. And it was not before December, at a meeting of the Icelandic Society--we sat alone, in an outer room. Then I placed my fate in your hand.

INGOLF. Then you placed your hand in mine.

HADDA PADDA. Then I placed my life in your hand. I willed all my power into my hand and placed it in yours. That instant, nothing but my hand lived. Had you thrust it away, I would not now be living.

INGOLF. How silently happiness steals upon us. We sat alone in the room, far from the din of the dance. Then it came. I heard its tread in the quiver of your breath.... Then I felt it in my hand.

HADDA PADDA. And yet you sat there immovable, and made the very seconds fight for my life. When I held your hand, I was afraid lest a single finger tremble--till you closed your hand around my wrist, and drew me to you. [She leans toward him.]

INGOLF. Do you know what attracted me most to you?

HADDA PADDA. You don't know yourself.

INGOLF. Why not...?

HADDA PADDA. Because you love me.

INGOLF. But I think I know now.

HADDA PADDA. Well, what is it?

INGOLF. The thing that kept us apart so long.

HADDA PADDA. And that is?...

INGOLF. Your reticence. That awaiting att.i.tude you just called pride.

I have known other women. They came to me without first listening to my heart... but you did not.

HADDA PADDA. I looked into your eyes. I saw the flame in them increase, the longer they gazed at me.

INGOLF. The human heart is like the mountains: they give no echo if we get too near.

HADDA PADDA [lets herself slide down at Ingolf's knees, so that he sits bending over her]. Let me look at you for a long time.--How long your eyelashes are! Each time you blink, it is as though invisible petals were sprinkled upon me.

INGOLF [closing her hands in his]. Now you have no hands.... Shall I give them to you again? [Lets go, but looks at her one hand lying in his.] Your nails have a tinge like that of ice in sunshine.

HADDA PADDA [withdraws her hand, laughing, and gets up]. I am just thinking...

INGOLF. What are you thinking?

HADDA PADDA [walks a few steps and stops behind him]. I was lying down outside in the garden to-day. I could not keep awake. I dreamed I stood outside the Cathedral. It was dark inside, but all along the church floor, on either side, was a straight row of unlit candles. I remember all the white soft wicks, peeping half out, waiting for light. Then a sudden gust of wind swept through the whole church, and as it grazed the wicks, all the candles were lighted.

INGOLF [keeps silent].

HADDA PADDA. What do you think the dream means? I think it means happiness.

INGOLF. You must not deprive your dream of its beauty by interpreting it.

HADDA PADDA. Happiness comes to us like a beautiful dream that we don't dare to interpret.

INGOLF. You have promised to trust me as much as you love me.

HADDA PADDA. I see the future mirrored in those days we lived together.

INGOLF. I love you, Hadda Padda.

HADDA PADDA. Your words are the light, your caresses are the warmth.

Give me both, Ingolf. Kiss me.

INGOLF [kisses her].

HADDA PADDA. And I should not trust you? Has not a sacred hour welded our hearts together? And have you not placed your life in my hands?--Do you remember last summer, when I visited your home, how you lowered me with a rope down the Angelica Gorge? I have not often lived so exquisite an hour. Then I became quite foolhardy. When I came up again, I asked you to go down and let me hold the rope for you.

INGOLF. I hardly believed you were as strong as you are.

HADDA PADDA. If you had not had courage to go down by my hands, I am not quite sure that I could be so fond of you. I shall never forget that moment. I saw you come up again with an angelica crown on your head. I saw you rise up like a green-crowned sea-G.o.d from the deep.--

INGOLF. I can't bear the thought that I shall leave you in a few days.