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Well, I can at any rate laugh at that danger;
- for here on all fours I am firmly planted.
- [Scratches his head.]
- A queer enough business, the whole concern!
- Life, as they say, plays with cards up its sleeve;
- but when one snatches at them, they've disappeared,
- and one grips something else,-or else nothing at all.
- [He has come near to the hut; he catches sight of it and starts.]
- This hut? On the heath-! Ha!
- [Rubs his eyes.]
- It seems exactly
- as though I had known this same building before.-
- The reindeer-horns jutting above the gable!-
- A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel!-
- Lies! there's no mermaid! But nails-and planks,-
- bars too, to shut out hobgoblin thoughts!-
SOLVEIG [singing in the hut].
- Now all is ready for Whitsun Eve.
- Dearest boy of mine, far away,
- comest thou soon?
- Is thy burden heavy,
- take time, take time;-
- I will await thee;
- I promised of old.
PEER [rises,
