feeling, expresses his desire to separate from his wife. She wishes forgetfulness, and hopes to drown her remorse in social dissipations; while to him forgetfulness seems like disloyalty to the dead, and he determines to consecrate the future to his grief, with a dim idea that he may thus atone for his guilt. Being equally miserable alone or together, they turn in their despair to Asta and implore her to remain with them, and take the place of little Eyolf. But Asta, having discovered that Alfred is not her brother, is afraid to assume the dangerous rôle of consoler, and departs with the engineer Borgheim, who has long been in love with her. In that dreary lethargy which follows violent grief, Rita and Allmers stand without the energy to readjust their lives to the changed conditions. The world is disenchanted for them; the very daylight beats upon their eyes with a brazen fierceness, and all things are empty, futile, devoid of meaning. But in the midst of this oppressive stillness new thoughts are born; new sentiments begin to stir. They are bound together, if by nothing else, by their communion in guilt. Their past memories and their common remorse constitute a bond which is scarcely less powerful than love. Very simply and patiently is the new birth of the spiritual life in both of them indicated in the following dialogue:— ALLMERS—Yes, but you—you yourself—have bound me to you by our life together. RITA—Oh, in your eyes I am not—I am not—entrancingly beautiful any more. ALLMERS—The law of change may perhaps keep us together, none the less. RITA (_Nodding slowly_)—There is a change in me now—I feel the anguish of it. ALLMERS—Anguish? RITA—Yes, for change, too, is a sort of birth. ALLMERS—It is—or a resurrection. Transition to a higher life. RITA (_Gazing sadly before her_)—Yes, with the loss of all—all life’s happiness. ALLMERS—That loss is just the gain. RITA—Oh, phrases! Good heavens! we are creatures of earth, after all. ALLMERS—But something akin to the sea and the heavens, too, Rita. RITA—You, perhaps; not I. ALLMERS—Oh, yes—you, too; more than you suspect.