HILDA.

Pooh! I won't have anything to do with that stupid kingdom. I have set my heart upon quite a different one!

SOLNESS.

[Has leaned back in the chair, still gazing at her.] Isn't it strange--?

The more I think of it now, the more it seems to me as though I had gone about all these years torturing myself with--h'm--

HILDA.

With what?

SOLNESS.

With the effort to recover something--some experience, which I seemed to have forgotten. But I never had the least inkling of what it could be.

HILDA.

You should have tied a knot in your pocket-handkerchief, Mr. Solness.

SOLNESS.

In that case, I should simply have had to go racking my brains to discover what the knot could mean.

HILDA.

Oh yes, I suppose there are trolls of that kind in the world, too.

SOLNESS.

[Rises slowly.] What a good thing it is that you have come to me now.

HILDA.

[Looks deeply into his eyes.] Is it a good thing!

SOLNESS.

For I have been so lonely here. I have been gazing so helplessly at it all. [In a lower voice.] I must tell you--I have begun to be afraid of the younger generation.

HILDA.

[With a little snort of contempt.] Pooh--is the younger generation something to be afraid of?

SOLNESS.

It is indeed. And that is why I have locked and barred myself in.

[Mysteriously.] I tell you the younger generation will one day come and thunder at my door! They will break in upon me!

HILDA.

Then I should say you ought to go out and open the door to the younger generation.

SOLNESS.

Open the door?

HILDA.

Yes. Let them come in to you on friendly terms, as it were.

SOLNESS.

No, no, no! The younger generation--it means retribution, you see. It comes, as if under a new banner, heralding the turn of fortune.

HILDA.

[Rises, looks at him, and says with a quivering twitch of her lips.] Can _I_ be of any use to you, Mr. Solness?

SOLNESS.

Yes, you can indeed! For you, too, come--under a new banner it seems to me. You marshalled against youth--!

DR. HERDAL comes in by the hall-door.

DR. HERDAL.

What--you and Miss w.a.n.gel here still?