[Involuntarily.] I knew it!

LOVBORG.

You can be of no more service to me, Thea.

MRS. ELVSTED.

How can you stand there and say that! No more service to you! Am I not
to help you now, as before? Are we not to go on working together?

LOVBORG.

Henceforward I shall do no work.

MRS. ELVSTED.

[Despairingly.] Then what am I to do with my life?

LOVBORG.

You must try to live your life as if you had never know me.

MRS. ELVSTED.

But you know I cannot do that!

LOVBORG.

Try if you cannot, Thea. You must go home again--

MRS. ELVSTED.

[In vehement protest.] Never in this world! Where you are, there will I
be also! I will not let myself be driven away like this! I will remain
here! I will be with you when the book appears.

HEDDA.

[Half aloud, in suspense.] Ah yes--the book!

LOVBORG.

[Looks at her.] My book and Thea's; for that is what it is.

MRS. ELVSTED.

Yes, I feel that it is. And that is why I have a right to be with you
when it appears! I will see with my own eyes how respect and honour pour
in upon you afresh. And the happiness--the happiness--oh, I must share
it with you!

LOVBORG.

Thea--our book will never appear.

HEDDA.

Ah!

MRS. ELVSTED.

Never appear!

LOVBORG.

Can never appear.

MRS. ELVSTED.

[In agonised foreboding.] Lovborg--what have you done with the
manuscript?

HEDDA.

[Looks anxiously at him.] Yes, the manuscript--?

MRS. ELVSTED.

Where is it?

LOVBORG.

The manuscript--. Well then--I have torn the manuscript into a thousand
pieces.

MRS. ELVSTED.

[Shrieks.] Oh no, no--!

HEDDA.

[Involuntarily.] But that's not--

LOVBORG.

[Looks at her.] Not true, you think?

HEDDA.

[Collecting herself.] Oh well, of course--since you say so. But it
sounded so improbable--

LOVBORG.

It is true, all the same.

MRS. ELVSTED.

[Wringing her hands.] Oh God--oh God, Hedda--torn his own work to
pieces!

LOVBORG.

I have torn my own life to pieces. So why should I not tear my
life-work too--?

MRS. ELVSTED.

And you did this last night?

LOVBORG.

Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces--and scattered them on
the fiord--far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate--let them
drift upon it--drift with the current and the wind. And then presently
they will sink--deeper and deeper--as I shall, Thea.

MRS. ELVSTED.

Do you know, Lovborg, that what you h