Jeppe.  Hey, hey!  Help, help!  What is that?  Where am I?  Who am I?  Who is beating me? and why?  Hey!

Nille.  I’ll teach you what it is soon enough. [Beats him and pulls his hair.]

Jeppe.  Oh, dear Nille, don’t beat me any more; you don’t know all that has happened to me.

Nille.  Where have you been all this time, you guzzler?  Where is the soap you were to buy?

Jeppe.  I couldn’t get to town, Nille.

Nille.  Why not?

Jeppe.  I was taken up to paradise on the way.

Nille.  To paradise! [Hits him.] To paradise. [Hits him again.] Are you going to make sport of me into the bargain?

Jeppe.  O—­o—­o—!  As true as I’m an honest man, it’s so!

Nille.  What’s so?

Jeppe.  That I have been in paradise. [Nille repeats “in paradise,” hitting him each time.] Oh, Nille, dear, don’t beat me!

Nille.  Quick, confess where you’ve been, or I’ll trounce the life out of you.

Jeppe.  Oh, I’ll confess, if you won’t beat me any more.

Nille.  Go on, confess.

Jeppe.  Swear not to beat me?

Nille.  No.

Jeppe.  As true as I’m an honest man called Jeppe of the Hill, as sure as that’s true, I have been in paradise and have seen things that it will stun you to hear of.

[Nille beats him again and drags him into the house by the hair.]

SCENE 3

[Enter Nille.]

Nille.  Now, then, you drunken hound!  Sleep off your liquor first; then we shall have more to say about it.  Such swine as you don’t go to paradise!  Think of it, the beast has drunk himself clean out of his wits.  But if he did it at my expense, then he’ll do heavy penance for it; he shan’t get a thing to eat or drink for two whole days.  By that time he’ll get over his notions about paradise.

SCENE 4

(Enter three armed men.)

First man.  Does a man named Jeppe live here?

Nille.  Yes, he does.

First man.  Are you his wife?

Nille.  Yes, God help me, so much the worse for me.

First man.  We must go in and talk with him.

Nille.  He’s dead drunk.

First man.  That makes no difference; fetch him out or the whole household will suffer.

[Nille goes in, and pushes Jeppe out so hard that he knocks over one of the men and rolls on the ground with him.]

SCENE 5

Jeppe.  Now, good friends, you see what a wife I have to put up with.

First man.  You deserve no better, for you’re a malefactor.