No More Learning

SOLNESS _consents amiably. She and the doctor go
out. _ HILDA and SOLNESS _alone_.

HILDA: Mr. Solness, have you a bad memory?

SOLNESS: Not that I'm aware of.

HILDA: Don't you remember what happened up at Lysanger?

SOLNESS: It was nothing much, was it?

HILDA: How can you say that? Don't you remember
how you climbed the new church tower when it was
finished, and hung a great wreath on the weather-cock; and
how I stood with the other white-frocked schoolgirls and
screamed, "Hurrah for Mr. Solness? " And you sang up
there--like harps in the air! And afterwards you
kissed me, kissed me and said in ten years I'd be _your_
princess, and you'd come back and give me a castle in
Spain--a kingdom--

SOLNESS (_open-mouthed_): _I_ did?

HILDA: Yes, _you_. Well, the ten years are up to-day.
I want my kingdom! Out with my kingdom, Mr. Solness!
On the table!

SOLNESS: But, seriously, what do you want to do here?

HILDA: I don't want that stupid imaginary kingdom--I've
set my heart upon quite a different one.

SOLNESS (_gazing at her_): I seem--it's strange--to
have gone about all these years torturing myself with the
effort to recover something--some experience which I
seem to have forgotten. What a good thing it is that
you have come to me now. I'd begun to be so afraid--so
terribly afraid of the younger generation. One day
they'll thunder at my door.

HILDA: Then I'd go out and open it. Let them come
in to you on friendly terms, as it were.

SOLNESS: No, no, no! The younger generation--it
means retribution.

HILDA (_with quivering lips_): Can _I_ be of any use to
you, Mr. Solness?