MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

IRENE. The resurrection. Risen from death.
RUBEK. Transformed!
IRENE. Just “arisen from death.” No transformation.

RUBEK. (somewhat uncertainly) ​
What I now feel so deeply ... is a need ... to have someone around me who can stand very close to me.
MAJA. (interrupts him out of tension) Don’t I do that, Rubek?
RUBEK. (dismissively) Not in that way. I need some one who can complete me and be as one with me in all my work.
MAJA. (slowly) In so many difficult things, naturally I couldn’t help you.

MAJA
Good God. You look so serious

RUBEK (distrustfully)
Perhaps more solemn than necessary

MAJA
How so?

RUBEK
And it’s well and good that it is over for the both of us

MAJA
Now I’m becoming curious

RUBEK
Merely curious? Not even a little bit worried?

MAJA
(shakes her head) Not at all

RUBEK
Good, then listen.That day we were down at the spa you said that you thought that I had become nervous lately –

MAJA. You, too, are ugly, Rubek.
RUBEK. You only just discovered that?
MAJA. No, I’ve seen that for a long time now.
RUBEK. (shrugs his shoulders) We age. We age, Maja.
MAJA. That’s not what I mean. I see something tired in your eyes. When you grace me with a glance now and then
RUBEK. Do you think – have you noticed that?
MAJA. (nods) Little by little you’ve acquired this evil look in your eyes

“RUBEK. (heavily and seriously) There’s something hiding behind everything you say.

IRENE. How could I help it? Every word I say, you whispered into my ear.

RUBEK. I think I’m the only one who can understand the meaning.

IRENE. You should be the only one.”

RUBEK. I am happy, Maja. Really happy. In a way.​
(short pause)​
For there is a certain pleasure in feeling free and independent in every way. Having control of everything one might desire. Don’t you agree with me, Maja?

MAJA. Oh, yes. That’s all well and good enough. But do you remember what you promised that day we agreed that – on that difficult ––

“MAJA. Just think, before you used to be able to work tirelessly, early and late.

RUBEK. (darkly) Well, before, yes.

MAJA. Ever since you’ve finished your masterpiece!

RUBEK. (nods thoughtfully) “Resurrection Day” –

MAJA. It toured all over the world: made you famous.

RUBEK. Perhaps that was the misfortune, Maja.

MAJA. Why do you say that?”

“I appeal!

To whom? inquired the cruelly cold voice of the superrector

To the Prince

He lies in a Polish dungeon

To the Kaiser, then

He died last week

Then I appeal to God! cried the mother, in her bitter agony

"He's napping!" answered a deep, hollow voice, which seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. It was the headsman who had spoken

“He asked no questions. He let no one speak. He stifled the words on the lips of his mother and his wife with kisses. Then he took his pretty Michal on his knee, and whispered in her ear in the tones of a lover to his lady:

"Come what may or must! Be it weal or woe, our comfort is that we shall share it together!"

And pretty Michal was content that it should be so.”

“GULDSTAD [looking back towards SVANHILD].
Something is shattered in a certain soul;
But what is yet alive in it I'll cure.”

[Seizing her hand.
But if you are to die, live first! Come forth
With me into the glory of God's earth!
Soon, soon the gilded cage will claim its prize.
The Lady thrives there, but the Woman dies,
And I love nothing but the Woman in you.
There, if they will, let others woo and win you,
But here, my spring of life began to shoot,
Here my Song-tree put forth its firstling fruit;
Here I found wings and flight:

“FALK.
Fetter'd by choice, like Burnell's ass, I ponder—
The flesh on this side, and the spirit yonder.
Which were it wiser I should go for first?

GULDSTAD[filling the glasses].
First have some punch—that quenches ire and thirst.”

“Falk
[…]
I need a little spiritual gymnastic;
The dose in that form surely would be drastic.

SVANHILD.
Has during the talk approached; she stands close to the table, and says in a determined but whimsical tone:

I'll pray that such may be your destiny.
But, when it finds you—bear it like a man.”

“STIVER.
Why should the word of hope enrage you thus?

FALK.
Because it darkens God's fair earth for us.”

MISSJAY [to the ladies].
His nature is romantic.

MRS. HALM.
Yes, we know it.

STIVER.
Not now; it's ages since I turned a rhyme.

FALK.
Yes varnish and romance go off with time.
But in the old days—?

STIVER.
Well, you see, 'twas when I was in love.

FALK.
Is that time over, then?
Have you slept off the sweet intoxication?

Now just listen to me. I'm a Lutheran. I don't believe in predestination. But you are a Calvinist. You are bound to believe in it. You know for certain that everything which happens, or may happen to you, is already recorded in a great book which has been written before the beginning of the world. Your will can alter nothing therein...

“I don't like him!" pretty Michal said

The reverend gentleman gave a great start of astonishment. "That is a paradox. To love no one—that is possible; but not to love a particular person—that is absurd. Have you then any idea what love is? 'Amantes sunt dementes'—Lovers are demented. What don't you like about him? His red hair, eh? 'Homo rufus rare bonus, sed si bonus valde bonus'—”

He inaugurated his system at her very baptism, by giving his daughter the name of Michal. At first hearing, everyone, of course, takes this for a man's name, never suspecting that a damsel lurks behind it; perhaps only one among a thousand even knows that it is a girl's name after all. Was not one of the wives of King David called Michal?—she, I mean, who laughed when she saw the great King dancing in the street.

“What’s up?” he inquired. Got a clue?

Pillingshot nodded.

“What is it? Let’s have a look.

“Sh—h—h!” said Pillingshot mysteriously.

Scott’s interest was aroused. When his fag was making tea in the afternoon, he questioned him again.

“Out with it,” he said. “What’s the point of all this silent mystery business?

“Sherlock Holmes never gave anything away.

“Out with it.

Linton was at work in the laboratory. He was an enthusiastic, but unskilful, chemist. The only thing he could do with any real certainty was to make oxygen. But he had ambitions beyond that feat, and was continually experimenting in a reckless way which made the chemistry master look wan and uneasy. He was bending over a complicated mixture of tubes, acids, and Bunsen burners when Dunstable found him…

…a certain rich and misanthropic man was seized with a bright idea for perpetuating his memory after death, and at the same time harassing a certain section of mankind. So in his will he set aside a portion of his income to be spent on an annual prize for the best poem submitted by a member of the Sixth Form of St. Austin’s College, on a subject to be selected by the Headmaster.

The struggle between Prater’s cat & Prater’s cat’s conscience was short,& ended in the hollowest of victories for the former.The conscience had no sort of chance from the beginning.It was weak by nature & flabby from long want of exercise,while the cat was in excellent training,& was,moreover,backed up by a strong temptation.It pocketed the stakes,which consisted of most of the contents of a tin of sardines..

Walkinshaw, it may be remarked at once, to prevent mistakes, was a well-meaning idiot. There was no doubt about his being well-meaning. Also, there was no doubt about his being an idiot. He was continually getting insane ideas into his head, and being unable to get them out again. This matter of Payne was a good example of his customary methods.

“Of my fellow-travellers I can tell you nothing. I had no means of cultivating their acquaintance; they spoke French (and doubtless they had a right to do so) after a manner of their own, but were as unintelligible to me as Kant's metaphysics or Mr Montague's directions for dancing the new galopades.”

One might be led to think, in reading his early novels, that their author had been a wild liver; but it is stated on trustworthy authority that at no period was he otherwise than moderate in the use of stimulants. He is described as being, during his college era, tall, athletic, and mercurial, with wonderfully expressive eyes, sometimes flashing fire, sometimes twinkling with mirth. Notwithstanding his love of fun..

Don’t,Babe.Treat ’em tenderly.You’ll be spoiling the crease in those bags if you heave ’em about like that.I’m very particular about how I look on the football field.I was always taught to dress myself like a little gentleman,so to speak.Well,now you’ve seen them,put ’em away

Put ’em on,said Babe firmly

You are a beast,Babe. I don’t want to go for a run.I’m getting too old for violent exercise

It was one of his peculiarities, that whatever the hour or the state of the weather, he was always equal to consuming an ice. This was probably due to genius. He had an infinite capacity for taking pains. Scarcely was he outside the promised ice when another misfortune came upon him.

The boy was in every detail the father of the man.There was the same genial unscrupulousness,upon which the judge commented so bitterly during the trial,the same readiness to seize an opportunity & make the most of it,the same brilliance of tactics.Only once during those years can I remember an occasion on which Justice scored a point against him.I can remember it,because I was in a sense responsible for his failure

“Scene: a Study

Dramatis Personae: Smith, Conscience, Mephistopheles

Enter Smith down centre.

He seats himself at table and opens a Thucydides.”

People who ought to know better will tell you that Virgil is hard. Such a shallow falsehood needs little comment. A scholar who cannot translate ten lines of The Aeneid between the time he is put on and the time he begins to speak is unworthy of pity or consideration, and if I meet him in the street I shall assuredly cut him.