Peer.
[Rises, quiet and deadly pale.]
One that's remembered,—and one that's forgot. One that has squandered,—and one that has saved.— Oh, earnest!—and never can the game be played o'er! Oh, dread![1]—here was my Kaiserdom!
[Hurries off-along the wood path.
SCENE SIXTH. Night. A heath, with fir-trees. A forest fire has been raging; charred tree-trunks are seen stretching for miles. White mists here and there clinging to the earth.
Peer Gynt comes running over the heath.
Peer.
Ashes, fog-scuds, dust wind-driven,—
Here's enough for building with!
Stench and rottenness within it;
All a whited sepulchre.
Figments, dreams, and still-born knowledge
Lay the pyramid's foundation;
O'er them shall the work mount upwards,
With its step on step of falsehood.
Earnest shunned, repentance dreaded,
Flaunt at the apex like a scutcheon,
Fill the trump of judgment with their.
"Petrus Gyntus Cæsar fecit!" [Listens.
What is this, like children's weeping?
Weeping, but half-way to song.—
- ↑ See footnote, p. 212.
