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

"Who is this gentleman!"
"It is her fiancé; she loves him passionately!"
The ball is ended. Oh, nobody is as happy as I in this moment; I am bewildered by
ecstasy, every longing must be fulfilled; because I hope no more. I shall go home; I shall
complete the last page in my diary with reminiscences from the ball. That is my life's
sunrise! My life's sunrise on my diary's last page! Strange; one speaks about eternity,
should there follow an eternal day from this sunrise?
Yes, I shall go home, I shall once more live through my life, my love, and then out into
the dark night to dream and--
THE MILLER BOY
Where the waterfall roars on a summer night across the river-bottom's stones, while the
mist glides by river and thicket, there sits the miller boy alone; among alder foliage a
snowpale dawn of moonlight peeps in, spreading its pleasant gleam across the night's
silent scene.
It is late one Thursday evening; from the mountain echoes the hulder's air, and in the
stream's torrent the fossegrim plucks the golden harpstrings, and the miller boy listens to
its playing. Hush, listen! Then, like a gentle echo, the hulder's song trembles, and the
waterfall-harp's sound is lightly carried away on wings of night.
It is Thorgjerd who calls forth his fiddle's marvellous lay, because he has sacrificed the
black lamb to the fossegrim there below, and therefore too he has learned the magical
playing, and therefore strangely from his bow are heard the forest-top's sighs, the
mountain-brook's roar, with the call of the hulder and the song of the flute.
But life at home seems to him cold and weak and joyless now, since what he heard and
saw last night he can never forget, and therefore from his strings pours what his yearning
sang for him; a sorrowful song; the tones' stream interprets the dream that the midsummer
night let him perceive!
IT IS FINISHED!
Hope is quenched! Yes, forever quenched in my bosom where just now it blazed
brightly; the enchanted castle's flowered gate is shut. Lovely dream! why fled you so
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