As Ibsen walked to a banquet in Christiania, he looked quite small under
the blaze of crosses, stars and belts which he displayed when he
unbuttoned the long black overcoat which enclosed him tightly. Never was
he seen without his hands behind him, and the poet Holger Drachmann
started a theory that as Ibsen could do nothing in the world but write,
the Muse tied his wrists together at the small of his back whenever they
were not actually engaged in composition. His regularity in all habits,
his mechanical ways, were the subject of much amusement. He must sit day
after day in the same chair, at the same table, in the same corner of
the cafe, and woe to the ignorant intruder who was accidentally
beforehand with him. No word was spoken, but the indignant poet stood at
a distance, glaring, until the stranger should be pierced with
embarrassment, and should rise and flee away.
Ibsen had the reputation of being dangerous and difficult of access. But
the evidence of those who knew him best point to his having been
phlegmatic rather than morose. He was "umbrageous," ready to be
discomposed by the action of others, but, if not vexed or startled, he
was elaborately courteous.
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