That was why I drew back.--I was eighteen, you were twenty; you
were graduated and went abroad. And poor, proud little Hadda Padda
was left alone.

INGOLF. Poor proud little Hadda Padda. [They laugh.]

HADDA PADDA. Then when you came back the next spring, it was
Kristrun's turn to go to the country. And since then, you have not
been home during the summer.

INGOLF. And when you went to Copenhagen the following winter, it
just happened to be the only year I stayed home.

HADDA PADDA. Then I thought it surely was the will of fate to
separate us. But I loved you even more. I could not give up hope.
Not even when you wrote home, the year before last, that you had
decided to live abroad. I got that news on the shortest day of the
year. I watched the twilight darken into night until the very
blackness swam before my eyes in blood-red spots. It was then I
made up my mind to go.

INGOLF. Yes, you came in the autumn.

HADDA PADDA. And it was not before December, at a meeting of the
Icelandic Society--we sat alone, in an outer room. Then I placed
my fate in your hand.

INGOLF. Then you placed your hand in mine.

HADDA PADDA. Then I placed my life in your hand. I willed all my