Relling. Yes, think of it, he, the bear-hunter, goes into that gloomy loft and hunts rabbits! There’s not a sportsman on earth happier than that old man, when he’s bustling about in there with all that rubbish. The four or five withered Christmas trees that he stored up there are to him the same as the whole of the great, fresh Hojdal forest; the cock and the hens are to him game perched on the top of fir trees, and the rabbits hopping about the floor of the loft, they are the bears he grapples with, he, the hardy old hunter.
Gregers. Unfortunate old Lieutenant Ekdal, yes. He certainly has had to modify the ideals of his youth.
Relling. But, by the way, Mr. Werle, junior—don’t use that foreign word “ideals.” We’ve as good a word, “lies.”
Gregers. Do you think the two things are akin, then?
Relling. Yes, much as typhus and putrescent fever are.
Gregers. Doctor Relling, I shall not rest content until I have rescued Hjalmar from your clutches!
Relling. That would be worst for him. If you take away the average man’s life-lie you take away his happiness at the same time. (To Hedvig, who comes in from the sitting-room.) Well, little mother of the wildduck. I’m going down now to see if our father’s still lying there pondering on that wonderful invention.
He goes out at the entrance door.
Gregers (approaching Hedvig). I can see from your face that it’s not yet done.
Hedvig. What? Oh! that about the wild duck. No.