ants at home would have made huge
fires in the stoves.

HILDA.

For, of course, it was to be bitterly cold that day?

SOLNESS.

Rather biting, yes--and they would want Aline to find it thoroughly snug
and warm when she came home.

HILDA.

I suppose she is very chilly by nature?

SOLNESS.

She is. And as we drove home, we were to see the smoke.

HILDA.

Only the smoke?

SOLNESS.

The smoke first. But when we came up to the garden gate, the whole of
the old timber-box was to be a rolling mass of flames.--That is how I
wanted it to be, you see.

HILDA.

Oh, why, why could it not have happened so!

SOLNESS.

You may well say that, Hilda.

HILDA.

Well, but now listen, Mr. Solness. Are you perfectly certain that the
fire was caused by that little crack in the chimney!

SOLNESS.

No, on the contrary--I am perfectly certain that the crack in the
chimney had nothing whatever to do with the fire.

HILDA.

What!

SOLNESS.

It has been clearly ascertained that the fire broke out in a
clothes-cupboard--in a totally different part of the house.

HILDA.

Then what is all this nonsense you are talking about the crack in the
chimney!

SOLNESS.

May I go on talking to you a little, Hilda?

HILDA.

Yes, if you'll only talk sensibly--

SOLNESS.

I will try to. [He moves his chair nearer.

HILDA.

Out with it, then, Mr. Solness.

SOLNESS.

[Confidentially.] Don't you agree with me, Hilda, that there exist
special, chosen people who have been endowed with the power and
faculty if desiring a thing, craving for a thing, willing a thing--so
persistently and so--so inexorably--that at last it has to happen? Don't
you believe that?

HILDA.

[With an indefinable expression in her eyes.] If that is so, we shall
see, one of these days, whether _I_ am one of the chosen.

SOLNESS.

It is not one's self alone that can do such great things. Oh, no--the
helpers and the servers--they must do their part too, if it is to be of
any good. But they never come of themselves. One has to call upon them
very persistently--inwardly, you understand.

HILDA.

What are these helpers and servers?

SOLNESS.

Oh, we can talk about that some other time. For the present, let us keep
to this business of the fire.

HILDA.

Don't you think that fire would have happened all the same--even without
your wishing for it?

SOLNESS.

If the house had been old