SCENE FOURTH.
Daybreak. The grove of acacias and palms.
Peer Gynt in his tree with a broken branch in his hand, trying to beat off a swarm of monkeys.
Peer.
Confound it! A most disagreeable night.
[Laying about him.
Are you there again? This is most accursëd!
Now they’re throwing fruit. No, it’s something else.
A loathsome beast is your Barbary ape!
The Scripture says: Thou shalt watch and fight.
But I’m blest if I can; I am heavy and tired,
[Is again attacked; impatiently:
I must put a stopper upon this nuisance!
I must see and get hold of one of these scamps,
Get him hung and skinned, and then dress myself up,
As best I may, in his shaggy hide,
That the others may take me for one of themselves.—
What are we mortals? Motes, no more;
And it’s wisest to follow the fashion a bit.—
Again a rabble! They throng and swarm.
Off with you! Shoo! They go on as though crazy.
If only I had a false tail to put on now,—
Only something to make me a bit like a beast.—
What now? There’s a pattering over my head——!
[Looks up.
It’s the grandfather ape,—with his fists full of filth——!
[Huddles together apprehensively, and keeps still for a while. The ape makes a motion; Peer Gynt begins coaxing and wheedling him, as he might a dog.
Ay,—are you there, my good old Bus!
He’s a good beast, he is! He will listen to reason!
He wouldn’t throw;—I should think not, indeed!
It is me! Pip-pip! We are first-rate friends!
Ai-ai! Don’t you hear, I can talk your language?
Bus and I, we are kinsfolk, you see;—
Bus shall have sugar to-morrow——! The beast!
The whole cargo on top of me! Ugh, how disgusting!—
Or perhaps it was food! ’Twas in taste—indefinable;
And taste’s for the most part a matter of habit.
What thinker is it who somewhere says:
You must spit and trust to the force of habit?—
Now here come the small-fry!
[Hits and slashes around him.
It’s really too bad
That man, who by rights is the lord of creation,
Should find himself forced to——! O murder! murder!
The old one was bad, but the youngsters are worse!