LADY KIRSTEN. Hush, hush, it is Olaf!
HEMMING. There are two; a woman is with him—
LADY KIRSTEN. Heavenly saints!
HEMMING. He is pointing out the village as if—there
they go!
LADY KIRSTEN. Call Lord Arne and our people!
We will meet again here; I bring Olaf with me!
HEMMING. But dare you then—?
LADY KIRSTEN. Do as I say; but say nothing of
what you have heard and seen. You can say that
Olaf came up here to hunt deer and bear, and that
he went astray in the mountain.
HEMMING. You can rely on me, Lady Kirsten!
[Goes out to the left.]
LADY KIRSTEN. Is it true, then? Have evil
sprites gained control over him? Yes, so I can
pretend to Arne of Guldvik, but little I believe it
myself;—and yet it is said it happened often
enough in the days gone by. But it is elfen maids
no doubt of flesh and blood that—. There
he goes down to the river,—I must hasten!
[Goes out to the right in the background.]
CHORUS. [From the forest to the left.]
With ringing of bells we hurry along,
We wander in field and in dell!
O Christian, come, give heed to our song,
Wake up from your magic spell!
* * *
* *
[OLAF and ALFHILD come in from the right in the background.
Later LADY KIRSTEN.]
ALFHILD. O, you must tell me still more of the
world!
Your words to my soul are refreshing indeed;
It seems as if here in the wonders you tell
My innermost longings you read!....
Did you ne’er on a summer night sit by a tarn,
So deep that no one could fathom it quite,
And see in the water the stars so bright,
Those knowing eyes that express with their flickering
light
Much more than a thousand tongues could possibly say?
* * *
* *
I often sat thus; I sought with my hands to capture
The sparkling riddles below in the deep—
I snatched after them, I would see them close,
Then they grew blurred like eyes that weep,—
It is idle to search and to seek—
* * *
* *
So too in my soul there was many a riddle
I yearned to solve in the days that are gone!
They tricked me as did all the stars in the deep,
Grew stranger and stranger the more I brooded thereon!
OLAF. Am I not to myself a mysterious riddle?
Am I Olaf Liljekrans, the nobly born,
The knight so proud, who vaunted his race,
Who laughed the singing of birds to scorn!
And yet, from my heart I tear what I was!
Happy I am,—and that can I understand—
Your prophecy failed,—I should happiness
find,
When the fairest of flowers I had found in the land.
Ah! happiness here I have found!
ALFHILD. I prophesied nothing.
But—tell me more of the life that is yonder!
