Well, that depends on how you look at it. HIALMAR. Yes, indeed, it takes courage. But I am glad I was firm: for now I shall soon perfect my invention; and Dr. Relling thinks, as I do myself, that father may be allowed to wear his uniform again. I will demand that as my sole reward. GREGERS. So _that_ is what he meant about his uniform——? HIALMAR. Yes, that is what he most yearns for. You can’t think how my heart bleeds for him. Every time we celebrate any little family festival—Gina’s and my wedding-day, or whatever it may be—in comes the old man in the lieutenant’s uniform of happier days. But if he only hears a knock at the door—for he daren’t show himself to strangers, you know—he hurries back to his room again as fast as his old legs can carry him. Oh, it’s heartrending for a son to see such things! GREGERS. How long do you think it will take you to finish your invention? HIALMAR. Come now, you mustn’t expect me to enter into particulars like that. An invention is not a thing completely under one’s own control. It depends largely on inspiration—on intuition—and it is almost impossible to predict when the inspiration may come. GREGERS. But it’s advancing? HIALMAR. Yes, certainly, it is advancing. I turn it over in my mind every day; I am full of it. Every afternoon, when I have had my dinner, I shut myself up in the parlour, where I can ponder undisturbed. But I can’t be goaded to it; it’s not a bit of good; Relling says so too. GREGERS. And you don’t think that all that business in the garret draws you off and distracts you too much? HIALMAR. No no no; quite the contrary. You mustn’t say that. I cannot be everlastingly absorbed in the same laborious train of thought. I must have something alongside of it to fill up the time of waiting. The inspiration, the intuition, you see—when it comes, it comes, and there’s an end of it. GREGERS. My dear Hialmar, I almost think you have something of the wild duck in you. HIALMAR. Something of the wild duck? How do you mean? GREGERS. You have dived down and bitten yourself fast in the undergrowth. HIALMAR. Are you alluding to the well-nigh fatal shot that has broken my father’s wing—and mine too? GREGERS. Not exactly to _that_. I don’t say that your wing has been broken; but you have strayed into a poisonous marsh, Hialmar; an insidious disease has taken hold of you, and you have sunk down to die in the dark. HIALMAR.