Hadda Pada | Page 9

we go?
OLOF. Yes, Hadda dear. [Takes her arm--they go. Ingolf leans back in the arm-chair and closes his eyes.]
KRISTRUN [jumps on top of the chaise-longue, swings her arms crying]. Ingolf! Ride me pickaback! Right now! [Ingolf looks at her, smiling, casts a glance at the door and through the window, as he approaches the chaise-longue. Kristrun sits gracefully down on his shoulder. Her dress is drawn rather tightly, so that one of her legs shows. He takes hold of her leg to support her, and starts walking around the table.]
KRISTRUN [raises her head and looks into his eyes]. Will you be a good boy and take hold above the dress. [Lets go, and raises herself.] You silly boy, do you think you may hold me by my leg?
INGOLF. Well--I don't want to hold you by your leg!
KRISTRUN [grasps him around the shoulder]. You silly boy! Do you think you can lower your shoulder! I'm falling, I'm falling, hold on to my leg! [Ingolf walks on. They hear footsteps.]
KRISTRUN [about to spring down]. Somebody's coming! Oh, it's only the children. [Doddi and Skuli appear in the doorway.]
DODDI. Isn't father here? [The boys begin to laugh.]
KRISTRUN [clicks with her tongue]. There!--Now my horse must run!- -Now run, my colt! [Strokes his hair.] If he is spirited, I'll call him Goldmane!--Ge-yap! Ge-yap! ... He doesn't want to be called Goldmane? Skuli, hand me my whip, in the corner there, right by the sideboard. [Points into the dining-room.]
LITTLE SKULI. To beat Ingolf! No indeed!
KRISTRUN. Doddi dear, you do it! [Doddi runs for the whip, and gives it to her. She swings the whip around, so that it whizzes in the air. As Ingolf passes the piano, she runs the knob of the whip along the key-board.]
LITTLE SKULI. Let's go, Doddi. [They go out.]
KRISTRUN. Are you tired?
INGOLF. I seem to feel lighter, in holding you on my shoulder.
KRISTRUN. Hf--! Lighter?
INGOLF. Yes, certainly!
KRISTRUN. Hf--! In carrying me?
INGOLF. In feeling the weight of your body. In that way, I could bear you to the end of the world.
KRISTRUN [hops down, looks straight into his eyes]. Really now, I refuse to listen to such foolishness. ... Only look kindly at me once, instead of bearing me to the end of the world. [Sits down.]
INGOLF. Kindly!--Kristrun, do I deserve the cruelty you have shown me these last days.--Every moment of the day you have felt my soul streaming out to you, yet you choose the most common terms to describe my feelings, and pretend not to recognize them. I have been inventing new pet-names for you all the time, so that no one should have as pretty a name as you, so that you should have a prettier name to-day than you had yesterday. You pretend not to hear them. I have shown you every tenderness, but by your pretence you keep it at sword's length from you. You have been torturing me in this way now for three days. ... Look kindly at you! Why, every time I look at you, you see my eyes shine through a tearfilled dimness ...
KRISTRUN. Have you seen it in the glass?
INGOLF [keeps silent for a while, bites his lips, turns away from her]. Some women should not be allowed to be pretty.
KRISTRUN [laughs, dangling her foot]. Quite right. But men in turn, ought to be obliged to be handsome--otherwise they are disgusting.
INGOLF. Kristrun! Is it quite impossible to talk seriously with you? Is there nothing so sacred to you that you wouldn't ridicule it?
KRISTRUN. Well--?
INGOLF. No, I suppose there is not.
KRISTRUN. ... Perhaps more than you think.
INGOLF. Why do you let me suffer, then? Haven't I confessed my love to you?
KRISTRUN. No, you haven't.
INGOLF [sits down at her side. While he speaks she sits erect in the chair, her hands folded in her lap, her head raised. A bright smile plays on her half-open lips. It is as if she were listening to a beautiful tale]. Are you waiting for me to say just the words: I love you! Weren't there moments when I made a greater confession, when one sigh, one glance, told you more than these words? But you are not satisfied with hearing a love like the fluttering of wings in the dead of night, you want to hear it sound like a clarion call in your ears: I love you, I love you! ... To-day I saw you standing at the piano, there; each feature in your face was in repose, each move blended softly into fine lines. I saw you as one of those works of art of an ancient master, which could lure the infidel to believe in the resurrection of the body. What was my surprise, when I saw you move, and walk across the floor! ... Even your dress, altering its folds with