Gregers. How so?
Hjalmar. Why, good heavens! What do you really want me to invent? Other men have invented pretty well everything already. It is becoming more difficult every day——
Gregers. And you, who have worked so hard at it——
Hjalmar. It was that debauchee Relling, who made me take it up.
Gregers. Relling?
Hjalmar. Yes, it was he who first called my attention to my aptitude for making some remarkable discovery in photography.
Gregers. Aha! it was Relling!
Hjalmar. Ah! I have been so intensely happy over this. Not so much for the invention or for myself, but because Hedvig believed in it—with all the strength and might of a child’s mind. That is to say I was fool enough to persuade myself she believed in it.
Gregers. Can you really believe that Hedvig would be false to you?
Hjalmar. Now I know what it all means. It is Hedvig who stands in my way. She will blot out the sun from my whole life.