Hedvig! Is it Hedvig you are talking of? How should she blot out your sunlight?
Hialmar.
[Without answering.] How unutterably I have loved that child! How unutterably happy I have felt every time I came home to my humble room, and she flew to meet me, with her sweet little blinking eyes. Oh, confiding fool that I have been! I loved her unutterably;—and I yielded myself up to the dream, the delusion, that she loved me unutterably in return.
Gregers.
Do you call that a delusion?
Hialmar.
How should I know? I can get nothing out of Gina; and besides, she is totally blind to the ideal side of these complications. But to you I feel impelled to open my mind, Gregers. I cannot shake off this frightful doubt—perhaps Hedvig has never really and honestly loved me.
Gregers.
What would you say if she were to give you a proof of her love? [Listens.] What’s that? I thought I heard the wild duck——?
Hialmar.