His unhappy hero, Oswald Alving, in _Ghosts_, had thrilled the
world by his cry, "Give me the sun, Mother!" and now Ibsen, with glassy
eyes, gazed at the dim windows, murmuring "Keine Sonne, keine Sonne,
keine Sonne!" At the table where all the works of his maturity had been
written the old man sat, persistently learning and forgetting the
alphabet. "Look!" he said to Julius Elias, pointing to his mournful
pothooks, "See what I am doing! I am sitting here and learning my letters
--my _letters_! I who was once a Writer!" Over this shattered image of
what Ibsen had been, over this dying lion, who could not die, Mrs. Ibsen
watched with the devotion of wife, mother and nurse in one, through six
pathetic years. She was rewarded, in his happier moments, by the
affection and tender gratitude of her invalid, whose latest articulate
words were addressed to her--"_min soede, kjaere, snille frue_" (my
sweet, dear, good wife); and she taught to adore their grandfather the
three children of a new generation, Tankred, Irene, Eleonora.
Ibsen preserved the habit of walking about his room, or standing for
hours staring out of window, until the beginning of May, 1906.
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