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n.
- And lightly enough I can slip my cable
- from these your Dovrefied ways of life.
- I am willing to swear that a cow is a maid;
- an oath one can always eat up again:-
- but to know that one never can free oneself,
- that one can't even die like a decent soul;
- to live as a hill-troll for all one's days-
- to feel that one never can beat a retreat,-
- as the book has it, that's what your heart is set on;
- but that is a thing I can never agree to.
THE OLD MAN
- Now, sure as I live, I shall soon lose my temper;
- and then I am not to be trifled with.
- You pasty-faced loon! Do you know who I am?
- First with my daughter you make too free-
PEER
- There you lie in your throat!
THE OLD MAN
- You must marry her.
PEER
- Do you dare to accuse me-?
THE OLD MAN
- What? Can you deny
- that you lusted for her in heart and eye?
PEER [with a snort of contempt].
- No more? Who the deuce cares a straw for that?
THE OLD MAN
- It's ever the same with this humankin