BORKMAN. [Vehemently.] Yes, I did, Ella! For the love of power is uncontrollable in me, you see! So I struck the bargain; I had to. And he helped me half-way up towards the beckoning heights that I was bent on reaching. And I mounted and mounted; year by year I mounted——
ELLA RENTHEIM.
And I was as though wiped out of your life.
BORKMAN. And after all he hurled me into the abyss again. On account of you, Ella.
ELLA RENTHEIM. [After a short thoughtful silence.] Borkman, does it not seem to you as if there had been a sort of curse on our whole relation?
BORKMAN.
[Looking at her.] A curse?
ELLA RENTHEIM.
Yes. Don't you think so?
BORKMAN.
[Uneasily.] Yes. But why is it? [With an outburst.] Oh Ella,
I begin to wonder which is in the right—you or I!
ELLA RENTHEIM. It is you who have sinned. You have done to death all the gladness of my life in me.
BORKMAN.
[Anxiously.] Do not say that, Ella!
ELLA RENTHEIM. All a woman's gladness at any rate. From the day when your image began to dwindle in my mind, I have lived my life as though under an eclipse. During all these years it has grown harder and harder for me—and at last utterly impossible—to love any living creature. Human beings, animals, plants: I shrank from all—from all but one——