Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/209

What tempted me into that galley at all?
It's best, in the long run, to live as a Christian,
To put away peacock-like ostentation,
To base all one's dealings on law and morality,
To be ever oneself, and to earn at the last a
Speech at one's grave-side, and wreaths on one's coffin. [Walks a few steps.
The hussy;—she was on the very verge
Of turning my head clean topsy-turvy.
May I be a troll if I understand
What it was that dazed and bemused me so.
Well; it's well that's done: had the joke been carried
But one step on, I'd have looked absurd.—
I have erred;——but at least it's a consolation
That my error was due to the false situation.
It wasn't my personal self that fell.
'Twas in fact this prophetical way of life,
So utterly lacking the salt of activity,
That took its revenge in these qualms of bad taste.
It's a sorry business this prophetising!
One's office compels one to walk in a mist;
In playing the prophet, you throw up the game^[1]
The moment you act like a rational being.^[2]
In so far I've done what the occasion demanded,
In the mere fact of paying my court to that goose.
But, nevertheless—— [Bursts out laughing.
                      H'm, to think of it now!
To try to make time stop by jigging and dancing,
And to cope with the current by capering and prancing!
To thrum on the lute-strings, to fondle and sigh,
And end, like a rooster,—by getting well plucked!
Such conduct is truly prophetic frenzy.—

1. Literally, "you're looed" or "euchred."
2. Literally, "behave as though sober and wakeful.