in later years the model for the Rat-Wife. There is no inconsistency
between these two accounts of the matter. The idea was doubtless
suggested by his recollection of the rat-catcher of Skien, while
traits of manner and physiognomy might be borrowed from the lady
in question.

The verse quoted on pp. 52 and 53 [Transcriber's Note: "There stood the
champagne," etc., in ACT I] is the last line of a very well-known
poem by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, entitled _Republikanerne_, written
in 1839. An unknown guest in a Paris restaurant has been challenged
by a noisy party of young Frenchmen to join them in drinking a health
to Poland. He refuses; they denounce him as a craven and a slave; he
bares his breast and shows the scars of wounds received in fighting
for the country whose lost cause has become a subject for conventional
enthusiasm and windy rhetoric.

"De saae pas hverandre. Han vandred sin vei.
De havde champagne, men rorte den ei."

"They looked at each other. He went on his way. There stood their
champagne, but they did not touch it." The champagne incident leads
me to wonder whether the relation between Rita and Allmers may not
have been partly suggested to Ibsen by the relation between
Charlotte Stieglitz and her weakling of a husband. Their story must
have been known to him through George Brandes's _Young Germany_, if
not more directly. "From time to time," says Dr. Brandes, "there
came over her what she calls her champagne-mood; she grieves that
this is no longer the case with him." [Note: _Main Currents of
Nineteenth Century Literature_, vol. vi. p. 299] Did the germ of
the incident lie in these words?