Halla (starting up, her voice cold and calm again). If I could only have saved my faith in my own love, but I love you no longer, and it may be that I never have loved you. As a child I used to live more in my dreams than in the life about me. When I fled with you to the hills, I thought it was because I loved you, but perhaps it was only my longing for the strange and unknown. Afterwards, when the days became harder and lonelier, my love for you was a shelter which I would seek when sorrow for what I had done came clutching at my heart.
Kari. Say no more! You are befouling our love—yours and mine. You say it was only a longing for the unknown and the free, unfettered life that made you flee with me to the hills. Shame on you! (His voice is soft and full of sadness.) I know what you have been. No woman was ever greater in her love than you. When the sun strikes the rim of the glacier, it takes on the loveliest hues, though in truth it is nothing but dull, colorless clay. So your love has been the sunlight in my life, and I love you—have always loved you. When I was away from you even for a single day, I would long to see you and hear your voice as eagerly as I would long for the murmur of a brook when nearly dying from thirst. When I went hunting and had good luck, I always thought of you. When I pictured to myself how pleased you would be, I forgot all about my weariness. But you must not ask the impossible of a man.
Halla (rising). I am cold. Will you fetch some wood?
Kari. Yes, indeed. (Goes to the door; leaves it ajar.) You cannot see a hand before you. (Goes out and shuts the door after him.) Halla goes to the door, listens, opens the door. A cloud of snow comes whirling in. Outside the storm sweeps past. She takes a long, lingering look around the hut, goes out into the doorway, throws her head back, and disappears, carried by the storm.
(The stage stands empty for a moment.)
Kari returns, covered with snow, his arms full of faggots.
Kari. Why do you leave the door open? (Sees that Halla is not there, drops the faggots, goes out hurriedly, calls.) Halla! (His call is heard outside the hut. He comes back into the doorway, looks in, cries out.) Almighty God! (Two heart-broken cries are heard outside, the latter farther away and hushed by the storm.) Halla! Halla!
(The snow comes whirling into the empty hut.)