Mother, 't was our own reflection
in the glass-smooth mountain tarn,
shooting up towards the surface
with the same wild rush of speed
wherewith we were shooting downwards.

ÅSE

(gasping for breath).

Peer! God help me! Quickly, tell!

PEER.

Buck from over, buck from under,

in a moment clashed together,

scattering foam-flecks all around.

There we lay then, floating, plashing, —

But at last we made our way

somehow to the northern shore;

buck, he swam, I clung behind him:

I ran homewards

ÅSE.

But the buck, dear?

PEER.

He's there still, for aught I know;

(Snaps his fingers, turns on his heel, and adds:)

catch him, and you're welcome to him!

ÅSE.

And your neck you haven't broken?
Haven't broken both your thighs?

and your backbone, too, is whole?

Oh, dear Lord what thanks, what praise, should be thine who helped my boy! There's a rent, though, in your breeches; but it's scarce worth talking of

when one thinks what dreadful things

might have come of such a leap!

(Stops suddenly, looks at him open-mouthed and wideeyed; cannot find words for some time, but at last bursts out:)

Oh, you devil's story-teller,

All this screed you foist upon me,

I remember now, I knew it

when I was a girl of twenty.

Gudbrand Glesne it befell,

never you, you

PEER.

Me as well.

Such a thing can happen twice.

End of scene.

HENRIK IBSEN.

Extract from "The Ring and the Book". Robert Browning