Hjalmar. I vowed that if I did devote my powers to this manual labor I would at least raise it so high that it should be both an art and a science. And so I made up my mind to make this remarkable invention.
Gregers. And in what does the invention consist? What is it to do?
Hjalmar. Why, my dear fellow, you mustn’t ask for such details yet. It takes time, you see. And you mustn’t believe that I am inspired by vanity. Truly, I’m not working for my own sake. Oh, no! It is my life—a mission that I see before me night and day.
Gregers. What life-mission is that?
Hjalmar. Have you forgotten the old man with the silver hair?
Gregers. Your poor father; but what can you really do for him?
Hjalmar. I can invoke his self-respect from the dead, by raising up the name of Ekdal to honor and respect again.
Gregers. So that is your life-mission.
Hjalmar. Yes. I will save the shipwrecked man. For he did suffer shipwreck when the storm burst forth over him. Even while those terrible investigations were going on he was no longer himself. That pistol there—that we used to shoot rabbits with—it has played a part in the tragedy of the house of Ekdal.
Gregers. The pistol! Indeed?