Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/281

Have me judged by the law in the old-fashioned way!
For a certain time place me with Him of the Hoof;—
Say a hundred years, come the worst to the worst;
That, now, is a thing that one surely can bear;
They say that the torment is moral no more,
So it can't be so pyramid-like after all.
It is, as 'tis written, a mere transition;
And as the fox said: One waits; there comes
An hour of deliverance; one lives in seclusion,
And hopes in the meantime for happier days.—
But this other notion—to have to be merged,
Like a mote, in the carcass of some outsider,—
This casting-ladle business, this Gynt-cessation,—
It stirs up my innermost soul in revolt!

The Button-moulder.

Bless me, my dear Peer, there is surely no need
To get so wrought up about trifles like this.
Yourself you never have been at all;—
Then what does it matter, your dying right out?

Peer.

Have I not been——? I could almost laugh!
Peer Gynt, then, has been something else, I suppose!
No, Button-moulder, you judge in the dark.
If you could but look into my very reins,
You'd find only Peer there, and Peer all through,—
Nothing else in the world, no, nor anything more.

The Button-moulder.

It's impossible. Here I have got my orders.
Look, here it is written: Peer Gynt shalt thou summon.