ave done with the book--I shall
think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child.

LOVBORG.

Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder.

MRS. ELVSTED.

How could you, then--! Did not the child belong to me too?

HEDDA.

[Almost inaudibly.] Ah, the child--

MRS. ELVSTED.

[Breathing heavily.] It is all over then. Well well, now I will go,
Hedda.

HEDDA.

But you are not going away from town?

MRS. ELVSTED.

Oh, I don't know what I shall do. I see nothing but darkness before me.
[She goes out by the hall door.

HEDDA.

[Stands waiting for a moment.] So you are not going to see her home, Mr.
Lovborg?

LOVBORG.

I? Through the streets? Would you have people see her walking with me?

HEDDA.

Of course I don't know what else may have happened last night. But is it
so utterly irretrievable?

LOVBORG.

It will not end with last night--I know that perfectly well. And the
thing is that now I have no taste for that sort of life either. I won't
begin it anew. She has broken my courage and my power of braving life
out.

HEDDA.

[Looking straight before her.] So that pretty little fool has had her
fingers in a man's destiny. [Looks at him.] But all the same, how could
you treat her so heartlessly.

LOVBORG.

Oh, don't say that I was heartless!

HEDDA.

To go and destroy what has filled her whole soul for months and years!
You do not call that heartless!

LOVBORG.

To you I can tell the truth, Hedda.

HEDDA.

The truth?

LOVBORG.

First promise me--give me your word--that what I now confide in you Thea
shall never know.

HEDDA.

I give you my word.

LOVBORG.

Good. Then let me tell you that what I said just now was untrue.

HEDDA.

About the manuscript?

LOVBORG.

Yes. I have not torn it to pieces--nor thrown it into the fiord.

HEDDA.

No, no--. But--where is it then?

LOVBORG.

I have destroyed it none the less--utterly destroyed it, Hedda!

HEDDA.

I don't understand.

LOVBORG.

Thea said that what I had done seemed to her like a child-murder.

HEDDA.

Yes, so she said.

LOVBORG.

But to kill his child--that is not the worst thing a father can do to
it.

HEDDA.

Not the worst?

LOVBORG.

Suppose now, Hedda, that a man--in the small hours of the morning--came
home to his child's mother after a night of riot and debauchery, and
said: "Listen--I have been here and t