Halla. We have promised each other not to speak of food.
Kari. And how do you think the heart would taste smoking hot from the fire? I could swallow it in one mouthful. I should feel as if I had eaten, if I could only smell warm meat.
Halla. You will make me sick if you don't stop talking about food. Don't you think I am just as hungry as you are? And I hold my peace.
Kari. Yes, you hold your peace. (Puts down the knife.) If I did not see your eyes, I should think you were dead, and yet you are human and living like myself. Are you not? (Halla is silent.) Or perhaps you are a heathen image? Must I kneel down before you and pray for fine weather? Shall I build a fire before you and stain your feet with blood? What do you want?
Halla. I want to be left in peace.
Kari. You ought to be a tree, then you could wither in peace. Why don't you cry out like every living thing that suffers. You don't know how your calmness racks me. Even the trees cry and moan in the autumn gales—they wail!
Halla. I should wail too, if there was any one that could hear me.
Kari. I don't care whether anybody hears my screams or not. I'll scream; I'll yell. (Yells.)
Halla (stands up). Are you not ashamed of yourself?
Kari (in a weak voice). This cannot last. I should have gone long ago. I ought to have gone at once, the first day the food gave out, but you thought every day that the morrow would bring fine weather. I know you said it to soothe me, but it was not right.