THE MAN IN MOURNING.
You forget that at Hegstad was a storehouse door
THE MAN IN GREY.
Ay, true; but we know you were never dainty.
THE MAN IN MOURNING.
If only she doesn’t give Death the slip——
THE MAN IN GREY.
Come, kinsman! A dram, for our kinship’s sake!
THE MAN IN MOURNING.
To the deuce with your kinship! You’re maundering in drink——
THE MAN IN GREY.
Oh, rubbish; blood’s never so thin as all that;
One cannot but feel one’s akin to Peer Gynt.
[_Goes off with him._
PEER.
[_To himself._]
One meets with acquaintances.
A LAD.
[_Calls after the MAN IN MOURNING._]
Mother that’s dead
Will be after you, Aslak, if you wet your whistle.
PEER.
[_Rises._]
The husbandman’s saying seems scarce to hold here:
The deeper one harrows the better it smells.
A LAD.
[_With a bear’s skin._]
Look, the cat of the Dovrë![119] Well, only his fell.
It was he chased the trolls out on Christmas Eve.
ANOTHER.
[_With a reindeer skull._]
Here is the wonderful reindeer that bore,
At Gendin, Peer Gynt over edge and scree.
A THIRD.
[_With a hammer, calls out to the MAN IN MOURNING._]
Hei, Aslak, this sledge-hammer, say, do you know it?
Was it this that you used when the devil clove the wall?
A FOURTH.
[_Empty-handed._]
Mads Moen, here’s the invisible cloak
Peer Gynt and Ingrid flew off through the air with.
PEER.
Brandy here, boys! I feel I’m grown old;—
I must put up to auction my rubbish and lumber!
A LAD.
What have you to sell, then?
PEER.
A palace I have;—
It lies in the Rondë; it’s solidly built.
THE LAD.
A button is bid!
PEER.
You must run to a dram.
’Twere a sin and a shame to bid anything less.
ANOTHER.
He’s a jolly old boy this!
[_The bystanders crowd around him._
PEER.
[_Shouts._]
Granë,[120] my steed;
Who bids?
ONE OF THE CROWD.
Where’s he running?
PEER.
Why, far in the west!
Near the sunset, my lads! Ah, that courser can fly
As fast, ay, as fast as Peer Gynt could lie.
VOICES.
What more have you got?
PEER.
I’ve both rubbish and gold!
I bought it with ruin; I’ll sell it at a loss.
A LAD.
Put it up!
PEER.
A dream of a silver-clasped book!
That you can have for an old hook and eye.
THE LAD.
To the devil with dreams!
PEER.
Here’s my Kaiserdom!
I throw it in the midst of you; scramble for it!
THE LAD.
Is the crown given in?
PEER.
Of the loveliest straw.
It will fit whoever first puts it on.
Hei, there is more yet! An addled egg!
A madman’s grey hair! And the Prophet’s beard!
All these shall be his that will show on the hillside
A post that has writ on it; Here lies your path!
THE BAILIFF.[121]
[_Who has come up._]
You’re carrying on, my good man, so that almost
I think that your path will lead straight to the lock-up.
PEER.
[_Hat in hand._]
Quite likely. But, tell me, who was Peer Gynt?
THE BAILIFF.
Oh, nonsense——
PEER.
Your pardon! Most humbly I beg——!
THE BAILIFF.
Oh, he’s said to have been an abominable liar——[122]
PEER.
A liar——?
THE BAILIFF.
Yes—all that was strong and great
He made believe always that he had done it.
But, excuse me, friend—I have other duties——
[_Goes._
PEER.
And where is he now, this remarkable man?
AN ELDERLY MAN.
He fared over seas to a foreign land;
It went ill with him there, as one well might foresee;—
It’s many a year now since he was hanged.
PEER.
Hanged! Ay, ay! Why, I thought as much;
Our lamented Peer Gynt was himself to the last.
[_Bows._
Good-bye,—and best thanks for to-day’s merry meeting.
[_Goes a few steps, but stops again._
You joyous youngsters, you comely lasses,—
Shall I pay my shot with a traveller’s tale?
SEVERAL VOICES.
Yes; do you know any?
PEER.
Nothing more easy.—
[_He comes nearer; a look of strangeness comes over
him._
I was gold-digging once in San Francisco.
There were mountebanks swarming all over the town.
One with his toes could perform on the fiddle;
Another could dance a Spanish halling[123] on his knees;
A third, I was told, kept on making verses
While his brain-pan was having a hole bored right through it.
To the mountebank-meeting came also the devil;—
Thought _he_’d try his luck with the rest of them.
His talent was this: in a manner convincing,
He was able to grunt like a flesh-and-blood pig.
He was not recognised, yet his manners[124] attracted.
The house was well filled; expectation ran high.
He stepped forth in a cloak with an ample cape to it;
_Man muss sich drappiren_, as the Germans say.
But under the mantle—what none suspected—
He’d managed to smuggle a real live pig.
And now he opened the representation;
The devil he pinched, and the pig gave voice.
The whole thing purported to be a fantasia
On the porcine existence, both free and in bonds;
And all ended up with a slaughter-house squeal—
Whereupon the performer bowed low and retired.—
The critics discussed and appraised the affair;
The tone of the whole was attacked and defended.
Some fancied the vocal expression too thin,
While some thought the death-shriek too carefully studied;
But all were agreed as to one thing: _qua_ grunt,
The performance was grossly exaggerated.—
Now _that_, you see, came of the devil’s stupidity
In not taking the measure of his public first.
[_He bows and goes off. A puzzled silence comes over the
crowd._
SCENE FIFTH.
_Whitsun Eve.—In the depths of the forest. To the back, in a
clearing, is a hut with a pair of reindeer horns over the
porch-gable._
_PEER GYNT is creeping among the undergrowth, gathering wild
onions._
PEER.
Well, this is one standpoint. Where is the next?
One should try all things and choose the best.
Well, I have done so,—beginning from Cæsar,
And downwards as far as to Nebuchadnezzar.
So I’ve had, after all, to go through Bible history;—
The old boy has come back to his mother again.
After all it is written: Of the earth art thou come.—
The main thing in life is to fill one’s belly.
Fill it with onions? That’s not much good;—
I must take to cunning, and set out snares.
There’s water in the beck here; I shan’t suffer thirst;
And I count as the first ’mong the beasts after all.
When my time comes to die—as most likely it will,—
I shall crawl in under a wind-fallen tree;
Like the bear, I will heap up a leaf-mound above me,
And I’ll scratch in big print on the bark of the tree:
Here rests Peer Gynt, that decent soul
Kaiser o’er all of the other beasts.—
Kaiser?
[_Laughs inwardly._
Why, you old soothsayer’s-dupe!
No Kaiser are you; you are nought but an onion.
I’m going to peel you now, my good Peer!
You won’t escape either by begging or howling.
[_Takes an onion and strips off one coat after another._
There lies the outermost layer, all torn;
That’s the shipwrecked man on the jolly-boat’s keel.
Here’s the passenger layer, scanty and thin;—
And yet in its taste there’s a tang of Peer Gynt.
Next underneath is the gold-digger ego;
The juice is all gone—if it ever had any.
This coarse-grained layer with the hardened skin
Is the peltry hunter by Hudson’s Bay.
The next one looks like a crown;—oh, thanks!
We’ll throw it away without more ado.
Here’s the archæologist, short but sturdy,
And here is the Prophet, juicy and fresh.
He stinks, as the Scripture has it, of lies,
Enough to bring the water to an honest man’s eyes.
This layer that rolls itself softly together
Is the gentleman, living in ease and good cheer.
The next one seems sick. There are black streaks upon it;—
Black symbolises both parsons and niggers.
[_Pulls off several layers at once._
What an enormous number of swathings!
Is not the kernel soon coming to light?
[_Pulls the whole onion to pieces._
I’m blest if it is! To the innermost centre,
It’s nothing but swathings—each smaller and smaller.—
Nature is witty!
[_Throws the fragments away._
The devil take brooding!
If one goes about thinking, one’s apt to stumble.
Well, _I_ can at any rate laugh at that danger;—
For here on all fours I am firmly planted.
[_Scratches his head._
A queer enough business, the whole concern!
Life, as they say, plays with cards up its sleeve;[125]
But when one snatches at them, they’ve disappeared,
And one grips something else,—or else nothing at all.
[_He has come near to the hut; he catches sight of it
and starts._
This hut? On the heath——! Ha!
[_Rubs his eyes._
It seems exactly
As though I had known this same building before.—
The reindeer-horns jutting above the gable!—
A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel!—
Lies! there’s no mermaid! But nails—and planks,—
Bars too, to shut out hobgoblin thoughts!—
SOLVEIG.
[_Singing in the hut._]
Now all is ready for Whitsun Eve.
Dearest boy of mine, far away,
Comest thou soon?
Is thy burden heavy,
Take time, take time;—
I will await thee;
I promised of old.[126]
PEER.
[_Rises, quiet and deadly pale._]
One that’s remembered,—and one that’s forgot.
One that has squandered,—and one that has saved.—
Oh, earnest!—and never can the game be played o’er!
Oh, dread![127]—here was my Kaiserdom!
[_Hurries off-along the wood path._
SCENE SIXTH.
_Night. A heath, with fir-trees. A forest fire has been raging;
charred tree-trunks are seen stretching for miles. White
mists here and there clinging to the earth._
_PEER GYNT comes running over the heath._
PEER.
Ashes, fog-scuds, dust wind-driven,—
Here’s enough for building with!
Stench and rottenness within it;
All a whited sepulchre.
Figments, dreams, and still-born knowledge
Lay the pyramid’s foundation;
O’er them shall the work mount upwards,
With its step on step of falsehood.
Earnest shunned, repentance dreaded,
Flaunt at the apex like a scutcheon,
Fill the trump of judgment with their
“Petrus Gyntus Cæsar fecit!”
[_Listens._
What is this, like children’s weeping?
Weeping, but half-way to song.—
Thread-balls[128] at my feet are rolling!—
[_Kicking at them._
Off with you! You block my path!
THE THREAD-BALLS.
[_On the ground._]
We are thoughts;
Thou shouldst have thought us;—
Feet to run on
Thou shouldst have given us!
PEER.
[_Going round about._]
I have given life to _one_;—
’Twas a bungled, crook-legged thing!
THE THREAD-BALLS.
We should have soared up
Like clangorous voices,——
And here we must trundle
As grey-yarn thread-balls.
PEER.
[_Stumbling._]
Thread-clue! you accursed scamp!
Would you trip your father’s heels?
[_Flees._
WITHERED LEAVES.
[_Flying before the wind._]
We are a watchword;
Thou shouldst have proclaimed us!
See how thy dozing
Has wofully riddled us.
The worm has gnawed us.
In every crevice;
We have never twined us
Like wreaths round fruitage.
PEER.
Not in vain your birth, however;—
but still and serve as manure.
A SIGHING IN THE AIR.
We are songs;
Thou shouldst have sung us!—
A thousand times over
Hast thou cowed us and smothered us.
Down in thy heart’s pit
We have lain and waited;—
We were never called forth.
Thy gorge we poison!
PEER.
Poison thee, thou foolish stave!
Had I time for verse and stuff?
[_Attempts a short cut._
DEWDROPS.
[_Dripping from the branches._]
We are tears
Unshed for ever.
Ice-spears, sharp-wounding,
We could have melted.
Now the barb rankles
In the shaggy bosom;—
The wound is closed over;
Our power is ended.
PEER.
Thanks;—I wept in Rondë-cloisters,—
None the less my tail-part smarted!
BROKEN STRAWS.
We are deeds;
Thou shouldst have achieved us!
Doubt, the throttler,
Has crippled and riven us.
On the Day of Judgment
We’ll come a-flock,
And tell the story,—
Then woe to you!
PEER.
Rascal-tricks! How dare you debit
What is _negative_ against me?
[_Hastens away._
ÅSE’S VOICE.
[_Far away._]
Fie, what a post-boy!
Hu, you’ve upset me
Here in the slush, boy!
Sadly it’s smirched me.—
You’ve driven me the wrong way.
Peer, where’s the castle?
The Fiend has misled you
With the switch from the cupboard.
PEER.
Better haste away, poor fellow!
With the devil’s sins upon you,
Soon you’ll faint upon the hillside;—
Hard enough to bear one’s own sins.
[_Runs off._
SCENE SEVENTH.
_Another part of the heath._
PEER GYNT.
[_Sings._]
A sexton! A sexton! where are you, hounds?
A song from braying precentor-mouths:
Around your hat-brim a mourning band;—
My dead are many; I must follow their biers!
_THE BUTTON-MOULDER, with a box of tools and a large
casting-ladle, comes from a side path._
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Well met, old gaffer!
PEER.
Good evening, friend!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
The man’s in a hurry. Why, where is he going?
PEER.
To a grave-feast.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Indeed? My sight’s not very good;—
Excuse me,—your name doesn’t chance to be Peer?
PEER.
Peer Gynt, as the saying is.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
That I call luck!
It’s precisely Peer Gynt I am sent for to-night.
PEER.
You’re sent for? What do you want?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Why, see here;
I mould buttons; and you must go into my ladle.
PEER.
What to do there?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
To be melted up.
PEER.
To be melted?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Here it is, empty and scoured.
Your grave is dug ready, your coffin bespoke.
The worms in your body will live at their ease;—
But I have orders, without delay,
On Master’s behalf to fetch in your soul.
PEER.
It can’t be! Like this, without any warning——!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
It’s an old tradition at burials and births
To appoint in secret the day of the feast,
With no warning at all to the guest of honour.
PEER.
Ay, ay, that’s true. All my brain’s awhirl.
You are——?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Why, I told you—a button-moulder.
PEER.
I see! A pet child has many nicknames.
So that’s it, Peer; it is there you’re to harbour
But these, my good man, are most unfair proceedings!
I’m sure I deserve better treatment than this;—
I’m not nearly so bad as perhaps you think,—
Indeed I’ve done more or less good in the world;—
At worst you may call me a sort of a bungler,—
But certainly not an exceptional sinner.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Why that is precisely the rub, my man;
You’re no sinner at all in the higher sense;
That’s why you’re excused all the torture-pangs,
And, like others, land in the casting-ladle.
PEER.
Give it what name you please—call it ladle or pool;[129]
Spruce ale and swipes, they are both of them beer.
Avaunt from me, Satan!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
You can’t be so rude
As to take my foot for a horse’s hoof?
PEER.
On horse’s hoof or on fox’s claws[130]—
Be off; and be careful what you’re about!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
My friend, you’re making a great mistake.
We’re both in a hurry, and so, to save time,
I’ll explain the reason of the whole affair.
You are, with your own lips you told me so,
No sinner on the so-called heroic scale,—
Scarce middling even——
PEER.
Ah, now you’re beginning
To talk common sense——
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Just have patience a bit—
But to call you a good man were going too far.—
PEER.
Well, you know I have never laid claim to that.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
You’re nor one thing nor t’other then, only so-so.
A sinner of really grandiose style
Is nowadays not to be met on the highways.
It wants much more than merely to wallow in mire;
For both vigour and earnestness go to a sin.
PEER.
Ay, it’s very true that remark of yours;
One has to lay on, like the old Berserkers.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
You, friend, on the other hand, took your sin lightly.
PEER.
Only outwardly, friend, like a splash of mud.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Ah, we’ll soon be at one now. The sulphur pool
Is no place for you, who but plashed in the mire.
PEER.
And in consequence, friend, I may go as I came?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
No, in consequence, friend, I must melt you up.
PEER.
What tricks are these that you’ve hit upon
At home here, while I’ve been in foreign parts?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
The custom’s as old as the Snake’s creation;
It’s designed to prevent loss of good material.
You’ve worked at the craft—you must know that often
A casting turns out, to speak plainly, mere dross;
The buttons, for instance, have sometimes no loop to them.
What did you do then?
PEER.
Flung the rubbish away.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Ah, yes; Jon Gynt was well known for a waster,
So long as he’d aught left in wallet or purse.
But Master, you see, he is thrifty, he is;
And that is why he’s so well-to-do.
He flings nothing away as entirely worthless
That can be made use of as raw material.
Now, you were designed for a shining button
On the vest of the world; but your loop gave way;
So into the waste-box you needs must go,
And then, as they phrase it, be merged in the mass.
PEER.
You’re surely not meaning to melt me up,
With Dick, Tom, and Hal,[131] into something new?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
That just what I do mean, and nothing else.
We’ve done it already to plenty of folks.
At Kongsberg[132] they do just the same with coin
That’s been current so long that its impress is lost.
PEER.
But this is the wretchedest miserliness!
My dear good friend, let me get off free;—
A loopless button, a worn out farthing,—
What is _that_ to a man in your Master’s position?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Oh, so long as, and seeing, the spirit is in you,
You always have value as so much metal.
PEER.
No, I say! No! With both teeth and claws
I’ll fight against this! Sooner anything else!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
But what else? Come now, be reasonable.
You know you’re not airy enough for heaven——
PEER.
I’m not hard to content; I don’t aim so high;—
But I won’t be deprived of one doit of my Self.
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.
He has set at defiance his life’s design;
Clap him into the ladle with other spoilt goods.
PEER.
What nonsense! They must mean some other person.
Is it really Peer? It’s not Rasmus, or Jon?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
It is many a day since I melted them.
So come quietly now, and don’t waste my time.
PEER.
I’ll be damned if I do! Ay, ’twould be a fine thing
If it turned out to-morrow some one else was meant.
You’d better take care what you’re at, my good man!
Think of the onus you’re taking upon you——
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
I have it in writing——
PEER.
At least give me time!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
What good would that do you?
PEER.
I’ll use it to prove
That I’ve been myself all the days of my life;
And that’s the question that’s in dispute.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
You’ll prove it? And how?
PEER.
Why, by vouchers and witnesses.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
I’m sadly afraid Master will not accept them.
PEER.
Impossible! However, enough for the day[133]—!
My dear man, allow me a loan of myself;
I’ll be back again shortly. One is born only once,
And one’s self, as created, one fain would stick to.
Come, are we agreed?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER.
Very well then, so be it.
But remember, we meet at the next cross-roads.
[_PEER GYNT runs off._
SCENE EIGHTH.
_A further point on the heath._
PEER.
[_Running hard._]
Time is money, as the Scripture says.
If I only knew where the cross-roads are;—
They may be near and they may be far.
The earth burns beneath me like red-hot iron.
A witness! A witness! Oh, where shall I find one?
It’s almost unthinkable here in the forest.
The world is a bungle! A wretched arrangement,
When a right must be proved that is patent as day!
_An OLD MAN, bent with age, with a staff in his hand and
a bag on his back, is trudging in front of him._
THE OLD MAN.
[_Stops._]
Dear, kind sir—a trifle to a houseless soul!
PEER.
Excuse me; I’ve got no small change in my pocket——
THE OLD MAN.
Prince Peer! Oh, to think we should meet again——!
PEER.
Who are you?
THE OLD MAN.
You forget the Old Man in the Rondë?
PEER.
Why, you’re never——?
THE OLD MAN.
The King of the Dovrë, my boy!
PEER.
The Dovrë-King? Really? The Dovrë-King? Speak!
THE OLD MAN.
Oh, I’ve come terribly down in the world——!
PEER.
Ruined?
THE OLD MAN.
Ay, plundered of every stiver.
Here am I tramping it, starved as a wolf.
PEER.
Hurrah! Such a witness doesn’t grow on the trees.
THE OLD MAN.
My Lord Prince, too, has grizzled a bit since we met.
PEER.
My dear father-in-law, the years gnaw and wear one.—
Well well, a truce to all private affairs,—
And pray, above all things, no family jars.
I was then a sad madcap——
THE OLD MAN.
Oh yes; oh yes;—
His Highness was young; and what won’t one do then?
But his Highness was wise in rejecting his bride.
He saved himself thereby both worry and shame,
For since then she’s utterly gone to the bad——
PEER.
Indeed!
THE OLD MAN.
She has led a deplorable life;[134]
And, just think,—she and Trond are now living together.
PEER.
Which Trond?
THE OLD MAN.
Of the Valfjeld.
PEER.
It’s he? Aha;
It was he I cut out with the sæter-girls.
THE OLD MAN.
But my grandson has shot up both stout and tall,
And has flourishing children all over the land——
PEER.
Now, my dear man, spare us this flow of words;—
I’ve something quite different troubling my mind.—
I’ve got into rather a ticklish position,
And am greatly in need of a witness or voucher;—
That’s how you could help me best, father-in-law,
And I’ll find you a trifle to drink my health.
THE OLD MAN.
You don’t say so; can I be of use to his Highness?
You’ll give me a character, then, in return?
PEER.
Most gladly. I’m somewhat hard pressed for cash,
And must cut down expenses in every direction.
Now hear what’s the matter. No doubt you remember
That night when I came to the Rondë a-wooing——
THE OLD MAN.
Why, of course, my Lord Prince!
PEER.
Oh, no more of the Prince!
But no matter. You wanted, by sheer brute force,
To bias my sight, with a slit in the lens,
And to change me about from Peer Gynt to a troll.
What did _I_ do then? I stood out against it,—
Swore I would stand on no feet but my own;
Love, power, and glory at once I renounced,
And all for the sake of remaining myself.
Now this fact, you see, you must swear to in Court——
THE OLD MAN.
No, I’m blest if I can.
PEER.
Why, what nonsense is this?
THE OLD MAN.
You surely don’t want to compel me to lie?
You pulled on the troll-breeches, don’t you remember,
And tasted the mead——
PEER.
Ay, you lured me seductively;—
But I flatly declined the decisive test,
And that is the thing you must judge your man by.
It’s the end of the ditty that all depends on.
THE OLD MAN.
But it ended, Peer, just in the opposite way.
PEER.
What rubbish is this?
THE OLD MAN.
When you left the Rondë,
You inscribed my motto upon your escutcheon.[135]
PEER.
What motto?
THE OLD MAN.
The potent and sundering word.
PEER.
The word?
THE OLD MAN.
That which severs the whole race of men
From the troll-folk: _Troll! To thyself be enough!_
PEER.
[_Recoils a step._]
_Enough!_
THE OLD MAN.
And with every nerve in your body,
You’ve been living up to it ever since.
PEER.
What, I? Peer Gynt?
THE OLD MAN.
[_Weeps._]
It’s ungrateful of you!
You’ve lived as a troll, but have still kept it secret.
The word I taught you has shown you the way
To swing yourself up as a man of substance;—
And now you must needs come and turn up your nose
At me and the word you’ve to thank for it all.
PEER.
_Enough!_ A hill-troll! An egoist!
This must be all rubbish; that’s perfectly certain!
THE OLD MAN.
[_Pulls out a bundle of old newspapers._]
I daresay you think we don’t take in the papers?
Wait; here I’ll show you in red and black[136]
How the “Bloksberg Post” eulogises you;
And the “Heklefjeld Journal” has done the same
Ever since the winter you left the country.—
Do you care to read them? You’re welcome, Peer.
Here’s an article, look you, signed “Stallion-hoof.”
And here too is one: “On Troll-Nationalism.”
The writer points out and lays stress on the truth
That horns and a tail are of little importance,
So long as one has but a strip of the hide.
“Our _enough_,” he concludes, “gives the hallmark of trolldom
To man,”—and proceeds to cite you as an instance.
PEER.
A hill-troll? I?