HADDA PADDA.  Now you think too highly of both of us.  I am not so good as you would make me, and it is not so difficult to forget you as you imagine.—­You won’t believe that I have succeeded in forgetting you.  Won’t you believe, either, that I have made every effort to do it?  The day before yesterday I locked myself in my room, and took out your letters to see whether I could bear to read them.  I wanted to test myself,—­you know I like to get to the very heart of things.  Well, I read letter after letter.  It is a remarkable power that is given to a trivial matter.  If I had not read the letters, I might still have felt unhappy, but I read and read with ever increasing calmness.  I don’t believe my feelings.  I go walking, searching for all the places where the earth must be scorched with burning pleasures, in order to know whether they enkindle memories so sacred that they can again inflame me.  Everything, everything, is extinguished.  What is the matter, little Hadda?  Does everything leave you cold?  Is this death perhaps?  And a mixed feeling of joy and pain seizes me, for this came so unexpected—­it came so unexpected—­it came so unexpected—­

INGOLF.  What is the matter, Hrafnhild?  Are you ill?  You are so excited.  Why are you so eager to tell me all this?

HADDA PADDA.  Because I don’t want you to think I am making any sacrifice.  You think so, but I am not.

INGOLF.  I understand.

HADDA PADDA.  No, you don’t understand.  There was still one place where I was afraid to go, because it meant more to me than any other.  I grasped my heart with fear, and there I seemed to find the place.  It was the Angelica Gorge,—­where you had put your life in my hands.  I was afraid that if I went there, I would instantly lose the peace of mind I had gained.  But if I could not bear that, then this peace was nothing but an illusion.  I wanted to be sincere with myself—­so I went up there last night.

INGOLF.  We saw you walking up the mountain.

HADDA PADDA.  I lay down on the edge of the cliff and looked down into the depth from which I had seen you come up.  “Little heart,” I said, “try to be calm while I am tormenting you:  Here it was that he raised himself up on the rope I held.  Here it was that he showed me how well he loved me.”  But instead of feeling pain, my whole frame quivered with trembling joy.  Here, too, I had conquered.  Tears of gratitude came into my eyes, I stretched myself farther out on the edge to make my tears of joy fall into the chasm, down to the very bottom.—­Do you see now that I am not going to make a sacrifice.  Now tell all this to Runa, for she should know it too.

INGOLF [very much moved, throws himself at her feet].  When you have risen I will kiss the ground your feet have marked.

HADDA PADDA.  Then I shall never rise. ...  Don’t lie down like that.  Get up, Ingolf, INGOLF.  I will lie down and forget.  Let me dream of death for one moment.