HADDA PADDA. Then I thought it surely was the will of fate to separate us. But I loved you even more. I could not give up hope. Not even when you wrote home, the year before last, that you had decided to live abroad. I got that news on the shortest day of the year. I watched the twilight darken into night until the very blackness swam before my eyes in blood-red spots. It was then I made up my mind to go.
INGOLF. Yes, you came in the autumn.
HADDA PADDA. And it was not before December, at a meeting of the Icelandic Society—we sat alone, in an outer room. Then I placed my fate in your hand.
INGOLF. Then you placed your hand in mine.
HADDA PADDA. Then I placed my life in your hand. I willed all my power into my hand and placed it in yours. That instant, nothing but my hand lived. Had you thrust it away, I would not now be living.
INGOLF. How silently happiness steals upon us. We sat alone in the room, far from the din of the dance. Then it came. I heard its tread in the quiver of your breath.... Then I felt it in my hand.
HADDA PADDA. And yet you sat there immovable, and made the very seconds fight for my life. When I held your hand, I was afraid lest a single finger tremble—till you closed your hand around my wrist, and drew me to you. [She leans toward him.]
INGOLF. Do you know what attracted me most to you?
HADDA PADDA. You don't know yourself.
INGOLF. Why not...?