cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

And would it really please you to find it here? Would you like it if your heart's ideal were
incarnated in the ballroom's ideals?
Rational or irrational, all the same; I must! What are will and reason able to do against
that inner, powerfully deadly and yet saving yearning?
"I must"!
Remember these words, you unfeeling! who coldly judge passion's rage in the human
soul, remember them and do not forget that in them you read the justification for so much
of existence, erring, and--destructive!
What moves in all these happy smiling figures? They have come here with the
expectation of pleasure and satisfaction;--have they found what they sought, or does the
scene of the ball express the idea of human life's great drama?
And what is this idea?
To dimly perceive (ahne), to hope and to be disappointed! See, in these three words is
human life told!
What was that! A glance met me among the crowd, a glance, strange and yet so familiar!
No, that is no illusion, I have seen her, I have found my heart's ideal! I dare not dwell
with these memories lest like airy phantoms they fly away and disappear!
I have put my arms around her, I have gazed into those clear eyes; yes, that is she, whom I
know from my waking dreams; if only this is not also a dream!
What is a human life's struggle and disappointment against one half hour like this,--oh,
glorious to be ruined completely, to be annihilated in such a moment
Fate! Take this excess of happiness from me, do not let this moment be profaned by
being prolonged; I have found her, what more then do I want?
Benevolent fate! you have heard me! My life's three-act drama is played to the end;
through two long acts have I perceived and hoped, now also is the third act past;
magnificently! what a conception, what casting!
And the "intrigue" in the piece? Is it not the simplest, the most understandable one can
desire?
A gentleman approaches; she places her arm in his, they go.
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