EIM.
[Softly and appealingly.] Oh, can you say that so confidently,
Borkman?

BORKMAN.
[Nodding.] Acquitted myself on that score. But then comes the
great, crushing self-accusation.

MRS. BORKMAN.
What is that?

BORKMAN.
I have skulked up there and wasted eight precious years of my
life! The very day I was set free, I should have gone forth into
the world--out into the steel-hard, dreamless world of reality!
I should have begun at the bottom and swung myself up to the
heights anew--higher than ever before--in spite of all that
lay between.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Oh, it would have been the same thing over again; take my word
for that.

BORKMAN.
[Shakes his head, and looks at her with a sententious air.] It
is true that nothing new happens; but what has happened does not
repeat itself either. It is the eye that transforms the action.
The eye, born anew, transforms the old action. [Breaking off.]
But you do not understand this.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Curtly.] No, I do not understand it.

BORKMAN.
Ah, that is just the curse--I have never found one single soul
to understand me.

ELLA RENTHEIM.
[Looking at him.] Never, Borkman?

BORKMAN.
Except one--perhaps. Long, long ago. In the days when I did
not think I needed understanding. Since then, at any rate, no
one has understood me! There has been no one alive enough to
my needs to be afoot and rouse me--to ring the morning bell for
me--to call me up to manful work anew. And to impress upon me
that I had done nothing inexpiable.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With a scornful laugh.] So, after all, you require to have
that impressed on you from without?

BORKMAN.
[With increasing indignation.] Yes, when the whole world hisses
in chorus that I have sunk never to rise again, there come moments
when I almost believe it myself. [Raising his head.] But then my
inmost assurance rises again triumphant; and that acquits me.

MRS. BORKMAN.
[Looking harshly at him.] Why have you never come and asked me
for what you call understanding?

BORKMAN.
What use would it have been to come to you?

MRS. BORKMAN.
[With a gesture of repulsion.] You have never loved anything
outside yourself; that is the secret of the whole matter.

BORKMAN.
[Proudly.] I have loved power.

MRS. BORKMAN.
Yes, power!

BORKMAN.
The power to create human happiness in wide, wide circles around
me!

MRS. BORKMAN.
You had once the power to make me happy.