ered all,
and my heart will not break!

WISE MAN. You are young, and do not know the human heart. In here I have
lately been pondering the causes of mankind's misery. Would you like to
see how the little object called the human heart looks? [Steps into hut
and returns presently with a casket and a lantern, which he hangs on a
tree.]

You see the little three-cornered muscle, which now has ceased to
beat--Once it throbbed with rage, thumped with joy, cramped with sorrow,
swelled with hope. You see that it is divided into two large chambers:
In one lives the good, in the other the evil--or, with a word, there
sits an angel on one side of the wall and a devil on the other.
When they chance to be at odds with each other--which happens quite
often--there is unrest in the person and he fancies the heart will
burst--but it doesn't, for the walls are thick. Oh, yes, look at this
one! Do you see thousands of little scars from needle thrusts? They did
not go through, but the pricks remain nevertheless.

PEHR. Who has borne this heart, Wise Man?

WISE MAN. The unhappiest of humans.

PEHR. And who was that?

WISE MAN. It was a man. Do you see the marks of a heel; do you see the
nail-prints? It was a woman that trampled on this heart for twenty-six
years.

PEHR. And he did not tire?

WISE MAN. Yes, he grew weary one Christmas Eve and freed himself from
her. As a punishment, he came under the ban of the Powers; he cannot
die, although his heart has been taken from him.

PEHR. Can he never be released from the spell?

WISE MAN. When his son shall have found a faithful woman and brought
her home a bride, then the spell will be broken. But that can never be
because his son is gone forever.

PEHR. What has become of him?

WISE MAN. He went out in the world.

PEHR. Then why can he never get any bride, poor boy!

WISE MAN. Because one who loves only himself can never love anyone else.

PEHR. He means the old man, my father. [Wise Man sinks through floor;
but vanishes. It begins to dawn.]

PEHR. "He who loves only himself "--So said Lisa also--But I hate
myself, I loathe myself after the cowardly things I have done, and I
love Lisa! Yes, I love her, I love her! [Sun shines on waves and lights
up pine woods to right; clouds disperse. A boat is seen out at sea, it
comes nearer and nearer and Lisa is seen at the rudder. She beckons to
Pehr as the boat recedes.]

Sea-gulls in the air, tell her! Sunbeams, carry my words on