HILDA: Don't you
remember
what happened up at Lysanger?
World's Greatest Books - Volume 17 - Poetry and Drama
DR. HERDAL: But I recognise you, Miss Wangel.
SOLNESS: Wangel? You must be the doctor's daughter
up at Lysanger?
HILDA: Yes. Who else's daughter should I be?
[SOLNESS _calls in his wife, an old friend of_ MISS
WANGEL'S. HILDA _asks leave to stay the night_. MRS.
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.
