FALK [observing her].
What then? Ah, well, remember now!
[Pointing to the garden.

SVANHILD [gently].
Yes, I remember you can drive a stone.

FALK [with a scornful laugh].
This is your vaunted soul of freedom therefore!
All daring, if it had an end to dare for!
[Vehemently.
I've shown you one; now, once for all, your yea
Or nay.

SVANHILD.
You know the answer I must make you:
I never can accept you in your way.

FALK [coldly, breaking off].
Then there's an end of it; the world may take you!

[SVANHILD has silently turned away. She supports
her hands upon the verandah railing, and rests
her head upon them.

FALK [Walks several times up and down, takes a cigar,
stops near her and says, after a pause:
You think the topic of my talk to-night
Extremely ludicrous, I should not wonder?
[Pauses for an answer. SVANHILD is silent.
I'm very conscious that it was a blunder;
Sister's and daughter's love alone possess you;
Henceforth I'll wear kid gloves when I address you,
Sure, so, of being understood aright.

[Pauses, but as SVANHILD remains motionless, he
turns and goes towards the right.

SVANHILD [lifting her head after a brief silence,
looking at him and drawing near.
Now I will recompense your kind intent
To save me, with an earnest admonition.
That falcon-image gave me sudden vision
What your "emancipation" really meant.
You said you were the falcon, that must fight
Athwart the wind if it would reach the sky,
I was the breeze you must be breasted by,
Else vain were all your faculty of flight;
How pitifully mean! How paltry! Nay
How ludicrous, as you yourself divined!
That seed, however, fell not by the way,
But bred another fancy in my mind
Of a far more illuminating kind.
You, as I saw it, were no falcon, but
A tuneful dragon, out of paper cut,
Whose Ego holds a secondary station,
Dependent on the string for animation;
Its breast was scrawled with promises to pay
In cash poetic,--at some future day;
The wings were stiff with barbs and shafts of wit
That wildly beat the air, but never hit;
The tail was a satiric rod in pickle
To castigate the town's infirmities,
But all it compass'd was to lightly tickle
The casual doer of some small amiss.
So you lay helpless at my feet imploring:
"O raise me, how and where is all the same!
Give me the power of singing and of soaring,
No