[_At this moment the piano strikes up a dance, and champagne corks explode in the background. The gentlemen hurry to and fro with their ladies on their arms._ GULDSTAD _approaches_ SVANHILD _and bows: she starts momentarily, then collects herself and gives him her hand._ MRS. HALM _and her family, who have watched the scene in suspense, throng about them with expressions of rapture, which are overpowered by the music and the merriment of the dancers in the garden._ [_But from the country the following chorus rings loud and defiant through the dance music:_ CHORUS OF FALK AND THE STUDENTS. And what if I shattered my roaming bark, It was passing sweet to be roaming! MOST OF THE COMPANY. Hurrah! [_Dance and merriment; the curtain falls._ NOTES P. 18. “_William Russel._” An original historic tragedy, founded upon the career of the ill-fated Lord William Russell, by Andreas Munch, cousin of the historian P. A. Munch. It was produced at Christiania in 1857, the year of Ibsen’s return from Bergen, and reviewed by him in the _Illustreret Nyhedsblad_ for that year, Nos. 51 and 52. Professor Johan Storm of Christiania, to whose kindness I owe these particulars, adds that “it is rather a fine play and created a certain sensation in its time; but Munch is forgotten.” P. 20. _A grey old stager._ Ibsen’s friend P. Botten-Hansen, author of the play _Hyldrebryllupet_. P. 59. _A Svanhild like the old._ In the tale of the Völsungs Svanhild was the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun,—the Siegfried and Kriemhild of the _Nibelungenlied_. The fierce king Jormunrek, hearing of her matchless beauty, sends his son Randwer to woo her in his name. Randwer is, however, induced to woo her in his own, and the girl approves. Jormunrek thereupon causes Randwer to be arrested and hanged, and meeting with Svanhild, as he and his men ride home from the hunt, tramples her to death under their horses’ hoofs. Gudrun incites her sons Sorli and Hamdir to avenge their sister; they boldly enter Jormunrek’s hall, and succeed in cutting off his hands and feet, but are themselves slain by his men. This last dramatic episode is told in the Eddic _Hamthismol_.