THORDIS For this: To be yourself, and free of that nurse-bondage.
EGIL Free! but alone, adrift! Oh, take me back Into the bosom of your care. Once more Nestle me there, the wild thing!
THORDIS That once more So you might struggle for your freedom? Nay, The wild thing now is dead.
WULDOR I cannot speak With him. When I approached, he fled from me, Silent. I called, but both his hands he pressed Over his ears, and silently among The trees eluded me.
EGIL [_Seizing Wuldor’s wrists, speaks huskily._] I have not willed this; They cannot lay this crime on me—these gods, For I have annulled it, I have cancelled it. Come here, look in my heart; is it not clean? Woe thou mayest see there, yearning, pain, but not— Say, canst thou see there—murder? Answer not, But go! What will come _will_ come; what have I To do with it? Go, go, I say. [_Exit Wuldor, right, looking darkly._]
THORDIS You are ill, Your gestures—they are wild.
EGIL Why should they not be? The wild thing is not dead, but is exalted. Gods, why should we, your hinds, coin and devise Dreams of emancipation! We are quibblers And hypocrites, damned, every slave of us, To hug our chains in secret. Rather than Acknowledge what we are, the mind outwits The heart, the heart hoodwinks the mind, the tongue Cajoles and counterplots them both, while truth— [_Breaks into laughter._]
EGIL Again? Another version? Why, listen then: I love you; not in the awful, Serene idea of self-sacrifice, But passion, which of right demands return Of passion, nature’s just and ancient barter. I want you; I demand you—all yourself. I offer all myself.
EGIL I ask you nothing which he does not ask. He offers nothing which I do not offer. There was a difference between us once, Not now.
THORDIS Hath he not made you what you are?
THORDIS And in requital now You would seduce his bride?
EGIL No, not seduce; Demand. Yes, though I seem to rave, I speak Love and conviction. Judge me, dear my lady. You chose between us brothers when we were Contrasted in our souls as some meek bard Of pity, with a beast. Look on us now Again, before it be too late, and choose Between us now.
EGIL But have you chosen blindly? [_Points into the wood._] Do you see, By yonder pine, that wild crab-apple tree?