The topsy-turvy nature of a this theme made Ibsen as nearly
"rollicking" as he ever became in his life. We can imagine than as he
wrote the third act of _The Wild Duck_, where so horrible a luncheon
party--"we'll all keep a corner"--gloats over the herring salad, he
indulged again and again in those puffs of soundless and formidable
mirth which Mr. Johan Paulsen describes as so surprising an element of
conversation with Ibsen.
To the gossip of that amiable Boswell, too, we must turn for a valuable
impression of the solidification of Ibsen's habits which began about
this time, and which marked then even before he left Munich. He had now
successfully separated himself from all society, and even his family saw
him only at meals. Visitors could not penetrate to him, but, if
sufficiently courageous, must hang about on the staircase, hoping to
catch him for a moment as he hurried out to the cafe. Within his study,
into which the daring Paulsen occasionally ventured, Ibsen, we are to
believe, did nothing at all, but "sat bent over the pacific ocean of his
own mind, which mirrored for him a world far more fascinating, vast and
rich than that which lay spread around him.
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