Part 36 (1/2)

MRS. SOLNESS.

[Feels blindly for a chair and sits down.] Halvard--for G.o.d's sake--

SOLNESS.

But you are wrong, both you and the doctor. I am not in the state that you imagine.

[He walks up and down the room. MRS. SOLNESS follows him anxiously with her eyes. Finally he goes up to her.

SOLNESS.

[Calmly.] In reality there is nothing whatever the matter with me.

MRS. SOLNESS.

No, there isn't, is there? But then what is it that troubles you so?

SOLNESS.

Why this, that I often feel ready to sink under this terrible burden of debt--

MRS. SOLNESS.

Debt, do you say? But you owe no one anything, Halvard!

SOLNESS.

[Softly, with emotion.] I owe a boundless debt to you--to you--to you, Aline.

MRS. SOLNESS.

[Rises slowly.] What is behind all this? You may just as well tell me at once.

SOLNESS.

But there is nothing behind it! I have never done you any wrong--not wittingly and willfully, at any rate. And yet--and yet it seems as though a crus.h.i.+ng debt rested upon me and weighed me down.

MRS. SOLNESS.

A debt to me?