[Goes across and fills his pipe, followed by his
wife and children.
GULDSTAD [approaching].
You seem to play the part of serpent in
This paradise of lovers.
FALK.
O, the pips
Upon the tree of knowledge are too green
To be a lure for anybody's lips.
[To LIND, who comes in from the right.
Ha, Lind!
LIND.
In heaven's name, who's been ravaging
Our sanctum? There the lamp lies dashed
To pieces, curtain dragged to floor, pen smashed,
And on the mantelpiece the ink pot splashed—
FALK [clapping him on the shoulder].
This wreck's the first announcement of my spring;
No more behind drawn curtains I will sit,
Making pen poetry with lamp alit;
My dull domestic poetising's done,
I'll walk by day, and glory in the sun:
My spring is come, my soul has broken free,
Action henceforth shall be my poetry.
LIND.
Make poetry of what you please for me;
But how if Mrs. Halm should take amiss
Your breaking of her furniture to pieces?
FALK.
What!—she, who lays her daughters and her nieces
Upon the altar of her boarders' bliss,—
She frown at such a bagatelle as this?
LIND [angrily].
It's utterly outrageous and unfair,
And compromises me as well as you!
But that's her business, settle it with her.
The lamp was mine, tho', shade and burner too—
FALK.
Tut, on that head, I've no account to render;
You have God's summer sunshine in its splendour,—
What would you with the lamp?
LIND.
You are grotesque;
You utterly forget that summer passes;
If I'm to make a figure in my classes
At Christmas I must buckle to my desk.