Hjalmar. No, no, no; quite the contrary. You mustn’t say that. Surely, I can’t always go about brooding over the same exhausting ideas. I must have something to fill up the time spent in expectancy. Inspiration, ideas, you see—if they’re coming they’ll come anyhow.
Gregers. My dear Hjalmar, I almost think there’s something of the wild duck in you.
Hjalmar. Of the wild duck? What do you mean?
Gregers. You have dived under and got caught fast in the weeds at the bottom.
Hjalmar. Are you alluding to the well-nigh deadly shot that winged father and me too?
Gregers. Not so much to that. I don’t mean to say that you are wounded, but you have fallen into a poisonous swamp; you have within you an insidious disease, and you have sunk to the bottom to die in the dark.
Hjalmar. I? Die in the dark? Now, I tell you what, Gregers, you really should drop such talk.
Gregers. Do not fear; for I will bring you up to the surface again. For I, too, have a mission in life now, you see; I found it, yesterday.
Hjalmar. Well, that may be; but you should leave me alone. I assure you that—of course, with the exception of a very natural melancholy—I am as happy as a man could desire to be.
Gregers. That you are so, is also a result of the poison.