THE PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITY

CHARACTERS

KARSTEN BERNICK, the head of a shipping firm and a consul

BETTY BERNICK, his wife

OLAF, their son, thirteen years old

MARTA BERNICK, Karsten’s sister

JOHAN TÖNNESEN, Betty Bernick’s younger brother

LONA HESSEL, her elder half-sister

HILMAR TÖNNESEN, her cousin

RÖRLUND, an assistant teacher in the State school; in Orders

RUMMEL, a wholesale merchant

VIGELAND, a merchant

SANDSTAD, a merchant

DINA DORF, a young girl living with the Bernicks

KRAP, Karsten Bernick’s head clerk

AUNE, a shipwright

MRS RUMMEL

MRS HOLT, the postmaster’s wife

MRS LYNGE, the doctor’s wife

HILDA RUMMEL, Mrs Rummel’s daughter

NETTA HOLT, Mrs Holt’s daughter

Townsmen and other residents, foreign sailors, steamship passengers and so form

The action takes place in Bernick’s house in one of the smaller Norwegian coast-towns

ACT ONE

[A large garden room in Bernick’s house. In the foreground, to the left, a door leads into Bernick’s room; farther back in the same wall is a similar door. In the middle of the opposite wall is a larger door leading to the entrance hall. The wall in the background is almost entirely of plate glass; an open door leading to broad steps down to the garden, with an awning spread over them. Below the steps is seen part of the garden, enclosed by a railing with a little entrance-gate. Outside and along the railing runs a street, the opposite side of which consists of small, brightly painted wooden houses. It is summer, and the sunshine is warm. Now and then somebody passes by along the street; people stop and talk, buy something at a little shop on the corner, and so forth.

In the garden room, a group of women are sitting round a table. In the middle, facing the audience, sits Mrs Bernick. On her left sits Mrs Holt with her daughter, then Mrs Rummel and Miss Rummel. On Mrs Bernick’s right sit Mrs Lynge, Miss Bernick and Dina Dorf. The women are all busy with needlework. On the table are large piles of linen, cut out and half made-up, and other articles of clothing. Farther back, at a little table with two potted plants and a glass of sugar-water, sits Rörlund, the schoolmaster, reading aloud from a gilt-edged book, but so that only an occasional word is heard by the audience. Out in the garden Olaf Bernick is running about and shooting at things with a toy gun.

Presently Aune, the shipwright, comes quietly in by the door on the right. There is a moment’s interruption in the reading; Mrs Bernick nods to him and points to the door on the left. Aune goes quietly across and knocks gently on Bernick’s door, once ortwice, pausing between the knocks. Krap, the head clerk, comes out of the room with his hat in his hand and some papers under his arm.]

KRAP. Oh, it’s you knocking?

AUNE. The master sent for me.

KRAP. He did; but he can’t see you. He’s instructed me to –

AUNE. You? I’d really rather –

KRAP. – Instructed me to tell you this: you must stop these talks to the workmen on Saturdays.

AUNE. Must I? I thought I could use my free time –

KRAP. You can’t use your free time to make the men useless in work-time. Last Saturday you were talking about the harm it would do the workers if we introduced the new machines and methods in the shipyard. Why do you do that?

AUNE. I do it in the interests of the community.

KRAP. That’s odd! The chief says it’s disrupting the community.

AUNE. My community is not the master’s, Mr Krap. As head of the Workers’ Association I must –

KRAP. You are first and foremost the head of Mr Bernick’s shipyard. First and foremost comes your duty to the community known as Bernick and Co. For that’s where we all get our living. Well, now you know what the chief had to say to you.

AUNE. The master wouldn’t have said it like that, Mr Krap. But I can guess who’s to thank for this. It’s that damned American wreck. Those people want the work done the way they’re used to over there, and that –

KRAP. Well, well; I can’t go into details. You know now what the chief wants, and that’s enough. So you go down to the shipyard again; you’re probably needed. I’ll be down there myself directly. If you’ll permit me, ladies!

[He bows and goes out through the garden and down the street. Aune goes quietly out to the right. Rörlund, who has gone on reading in lowered tones during this conversation, finishes the book soon after and shuts it up with a snap.]

RÖRLUND. There we are, my dear listeners; that is the end.

MRS RUMMEL. What an instructive story!

MRS HOLT. And such a beautiful moral!

MRS BERNICK. A book like that certainly gives one a lot to think about.

RÖRLUND. Ah yes. It provides a wholesome contrast with what we unfortunately meet every day in our newspapers and periodicals. This gilded and painted façade that the big nations display – what does it actually conceal? Hollowness and rottenness, if I may put it so. No moral foundation to stand on. In short, these big communities of today are whited sepulchres.

MRS HOLT. Yes, that is certainly true.

MRS RUMMEL. We’ve only to look at the crew of the American boat that’s lying here at the moment.

RÖRLUND. Ah, well, I won’t discuss off-scourings of humanity like that. But even in the better classes – how are things with them? Doubt and unrest at work everywhere. No peace in men’s minds and no security in any kind of relationship. The undermining of family life out there! The revolutionary audacity – the defiance of the most solemn truths!

DINA [without looking up]. But there are some great things done, too, aren’t there?

RÖRLUND. Great things? I don’t understand –

MRS HOLT [in astonishment]. But – good gracious, Dina!

MRS RUMMEL [simultaneously]. But, Dina, how can you – ?

RÖRLUND. I don’t think it would be very good for us if things like that gained a footing here. No; we at home should thank God that things here are as they are. Of course, here too tares sometimes grow among the wheat – unfortunately. But we do our best to weed them out, as far as we can. Our business is to keep society pure, ladies; to keep out all these experimental notions that an impatient age wants to force on us.

MRS HOLT. And there are more than enough of them, unfortunately.

MRS RUMMEL. Why, last year the town was only saved by a hair’s breadth from having a railway.

MRS BERNICK. Ah, well, Karsten managed to prevent that.

RÖRLUND. Providence, Mrs Bernick. You may be sure your husband was an instrument in a Higher Hand when he refused to lend himself to that project.

MRS BERNICK. And yet he was so abused by the papers. But we’re quite forgetting to thank you, Mr Rörlund. It is really more than kind of you to give us so much time.

RÖRLUND. Oh no. Now, during the school holidays –

MRS BERNICK. Ah yes, but it’s a sacrifice, all the same, Mr Rörlund.

RÖRLUND [moving his chair nearer]. Don’t mention it, my dear lady. Aren’t you all making a sacrifice in a good cause? And don’t you make it willingly and gladly? These fallen sisters, for whose betterment we’re working, should be thought of as wounded soldiers on a battlefield. You, ladies, are the First Aid Detachment, a Red Cross Unit that prepares the lint for these unhappy victims, lays the bandages gently upon their wounds, cures and heals them –

MRS BERNICK. It must be a great blessing to be able to see everything in such a beautiful light.

RÖRLUND. Much of it comes by nature; but much can also be acquired. The great thing is to look at things by the light of a serious purpose. Now what do you say, Miss Bernick? Don’t you find that you have, as it were, a firmer foundation to stand on since you took on your school-work?

MISS BERNICK. Well, I don’t know what to say. Often when I’m down there in the school-room, I wish I were far out on the stormy sea.

RÖRLUND. Why, yes; we all have our temptations, my dear Miss Bernick. But we must bar the door against such disturbing guests. The stormy sea – of course you don’t mean that literally; you mean the great surging world of humanity where so many are wrecked. And do you really set so much store by the life you hear seething and rushing past out there? Just look down into the street. The people there are going about in the burning sun, sweating and struggling over their petty concerns. Ah no; we’re certainly better off, we who sit in here in the shade and turn our backs on the sources of distraction.

MISS BERNICK. Yes, of course, you’re perfectly right, I’m sure.…

RÖRLUND. And in a house like this, in a good and pure home, where family life is to be seen in its fairest form, where peace and concord rule – [To Mrs Bernick.] What is it you’re listening to, Mrs Bernick?

MRS BERNICK [who has turned towards the farther door on the left]. How loud they’re getting in there!

RÖRLUND. Is anything specially the matter?

MRS BERNICK. I don’t know. I can hear someone in there with my husband.

[Hilmar Tönnesen, with a cigar in his mouth, comes in by the door on the right, but stops at the sight of so many women.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh… er… I beg your pardon. [Retreating.]

MRS BERNICK. It’s all right, Hilmar; come in. You aren’t disturbing us. Did you want anything?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, I just thought I’d look in. Good morning, ladies. [To Mrs Bernick.] Well, what’s going to happen?

MRS BERNICK. Happen? About what?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Why, Karsten has summoned a meeting.

MRS BERNICK. Really? But what for, in particular?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, it’s this silly business about the railway again.

MRS RUMMEL. No! It can’t be that, surely?

MRS BERNICK. Poor Karsten, has he got to have more bother still – ?

RÖRLUND. But this doesn’t make sense, Mr Tönnesen? A year ago Mr Bernick gave it plainly to be understood that he would not have any railway.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, I thought so too. But I met the head clerk, Krap, and he told me that the question of the railway had come up again and that Bernick was holding a meeting with three of our local capitalists.

MRS RUMMEL. Ah, that’s just what I thought – that I heard my husband’s voice?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, Mr Rummel’s there, naturally; and then there’s Sandstad, giving his support, and Michael Vigeland – ’Holy Mike’, as they call him.

RÖRLUND. Hm –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I beg your pardon, Mr Rörlund.

MRS BERNICK. And it was all so nice and peaceful here…

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, for my part, I shouldn’t much mind if they did begin squabbling again. It would be a distraction, at any rate.

RÖRLUND. I think we can dispense with that kind of distraction.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. It depends how people are made. Certain types need a desperate battle every now and then. But small-town life doesn’t offer much of that sort of thing, worse luck, and it’s not given to everyone to – [turning over the pages of Rörlwtd’s book] ‘Woman as the Servant of the Community’. What sort of tosh is this?

MRS BERNICK. Oh, Hilmar, you mustn’t say that. I’m sure you haven’t read the book.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, and I don’t intend to, either.

MRS BERNICK. You can’t be feeling very well today.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, I’m not.

MRS BERNICK. Didn’t you sleep well last night?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, I slept very badly. I went for a walk yesterday evening, because I wasn’t feeling well. I went up to the club and read a report of a polar expedition. There’s something stimulating in following men in their battle with the elements.

MRS RUMMEL. But it doesn’t seem to have been very good for you.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, it was distinctly bad for me. I lay tossing about all night, half awake and half asleep, dreaming I was being chased by a horrible walrus.

OLAF [who has come up on to the veranda]. Have you been chased by a walrus, Uncle?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I dreamt it, you little idiot. Are you still going round playing with that ridiculous toy? Why don’t you get hold of a proper gun?

OLAF. I only wish I could, but –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. There’s some point in having a real gun; there’s always something stimulating about firing a gun.

OLAF. And then I could shoot bears, Uncle. But I can’t get father to let me.

MRS BERNICK. You really mustn’t put things like that into his head, Hilmar.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Hm. What a generation’s growing up nowadays! All this talk about action – and, Lord bless you, it’s nothing but play! No real desire for the discipline that comes of looking danger manfully in the face. Don’t stand there pointing your gun at me, you little fool! It might go off.

OLAF. No, Uncle, it isn’t loaded.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. You don’t know that. It may quite well be. Take it away, I tell you! Why the dickens haven’t you ever gone to America in one of your father’s boats? You might see a buffalo-hunt there or a battle with the redskins.

MRS BERNICK. Oh, but Hilmar –

OLAF. I only wish I could, Uncle. And then perhaps I could meet Uncle Johan and Aunt Lona.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Hm – stuff and nonsense!

MRS BERNICK. You can go out in the garden again now, Olaf.

OLAF. Mother, can I go out in the street, too?

MRS BERNICK. Yes. But you’re to be sure not to go too far.

[Olaf runs out through the gate.]

RÖRLUND. You shouldn’t put ideas like that into the child’s head, Mr Tönnesen.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, of course not. He’s to turn into a stay-at-home, like the rest of them.

RÖRLUND. But why don’t you go across yourself?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I? With my health? But of course, no one takes any notice of that here.… There must be someone here, at any rate, to keep the flag of idealism flying. Ugh! Now he’s shouting again!

THE WOMEN. Who’s shouting?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, I don’t know. They’re talking rather loudly in there and it gets on my nerves.

MRS RUMMEL. It’s probably my husband, Mr Tönnesen.

You see, he’s so accustomed to speaking at large meetings –

RÖRLUND. The others hardly seem to be speaking in a whisper.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, Lord bless us, directly it’s a question of fighting over money, why –! Everything here turns on petty, material considerations. Ugh!

MRS BERNICK. Anyhow, that’s better than it was before, when everything turned on the love of pleasure.

MRS LYNGE. Were things really so bad here before?

MRS RUMMEL. They certainly were, Mrs Lynge. You can count yourself lucky you didn’t live here in those days.

MRS HOLT. Oh yes; there have certainly been changes here. When I look back over my girlhood…

MRS RUMMEL. Well, you only need to look back fourteen or fifteen years. God bless me, what goings on here! In those days there was the Dance Club and the Music Club –

MRS BERNICK. And the Dramatic Club. I well remember that.

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, your play was produced there, Mr Tönnesen.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [in the background]. Tck! Tck!

RÖRLUND. The play Mr Tönnesen wrote as a student?

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, it was long before you came here, Mr Rörlund. Anyway, there was only one performance.

MRS LYNGE. Wasn’t that the play you said you took the heroine’s part in, Mrs Rummel?

MRS RUMMEL [with a glance at Rörlund]. I? I really can’t remember, Mrs Lynge. But I well remember all the gay social life that went on here.

MRS HOLT. Yes, I actually know houses where they had two large dinner-parties a week.

MRS LYNGE. And there was even a theatre company on tour here, I’ve heard.

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, that was the worst of all. Now –

MRS HOLT [uneasily?]. Hm, hm –

MRS RUMMEL. Oh, a theatre company? No, I don’t remember that at all.

MRS LYNGE. Why, I heard they’d done all sorts of awful things. How much truth is there really in those stories?

MRS RUMMEL. Oh, there’s nothing in it really, Mrs Lynge.

MRS HOLT. Dina, dear, pass me that piece of linen there.

MRS BERNICK [simultaneously]. Dina, darling, go out and ask Katrine to bring in the coffee, will you?

MISS BERNICK. I’ll come with you, Dina.

[Dina and Miss Bernick go out by the upper door on the left.]

MRS BERNICK [getting up]. And if you will excuse me a moment, my friends, I think we will have our coffee outside.

[She goes out on the veranda and lays the table; Rörlund stands in the doorway and talks to her. Hilmar Tönnesen is sitting outside smoking.]

MRS RUMMEL [in a low voice]. Good gracious, Mrs Lynge, how you frightened me!

MRS LYNGE. I?

MRS HOLT. Well, you know, you began it yourself, Mrs Rummel.

MRS RUMMEL. Why, how can you say that, Mrs Holt? Not a single word passed my lips.

MRS LYNGE. But what is it all about?

MRS RUMMEL. How could you begin to talk about –! Just think. Didn’t you see Dina was there?

MRS LYNGE. Dina? But, my goodness, is there anything the matter with – ?

MRS HOLT. And in this house, too. Don’t you know that it was Mrs Bernick’s brother – ?

MRS LYNGE. What about him? I don’t know a single thing. I’m an absolute newcomer –

MRS RUMMEL. Haven’t you heard, then, that – ? Hm. [To her daughter.] You can go down into the garden for a little while, Hilda dear.

MRS HOLT. You go too, Netta. And be very nice to poor Dina when she comes back.

[Miss Rummel and Miss Holt go out into the garden.]

MRS LYNGE. Well, what about Mrs Bernick’s brother?

MRS RUMMEL. Don’t you know it was he who caused that shocking scandal?

MRS LYNGE. What! Hilmar Tönnesen cause a shocking scandal?

MRS RUMMEL. Good gracious, no! Our Mr Tönnesen is her cousin, Mrs Lynge. I am talking about the brother –

MRS HOLT. – The ne’er-do-well Tönnesen –

MRS RUMMEL. He was called Johan. He ran away to America.

MRS HOLT. Had to run away, you know.

MRS LYNGE. Then it was he who caused the scandal?

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, it was a kind of… er… what shall I call it? It was to do with Dina’s mother. Ah! I remember it as if it was today. Johan Tönnesen was in the office then in old Mrs Bernick’s business. Karsten Bernick was just back from Paris. He wasn’t engaged yet.

MRS LYNGE. Yes, but what about the scandal?

MRS RUMMEL. Well, you see, that winter Möller’s theatre company was here in town –

MRS HOLT. – And in the company was an actor, Dorf, and his wife. The young men all lost their heads over her.

MRS RUMMEL. Lord knows why they thought her attractive. Well, this actor, Dorf, comes home late one evening –

MRS HOLT. – Quite unexpectedly –

MRS RUMMEL. – And he finds – no; I really can’t tell you…

MRS HOLT. He didn’t find anything, actually, Mrs Rummel, because the door was locked on the inside.

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, that’s just what I’m saying; he found the door locked. And, just imagine, the man who was inside had to jump out of the window.

MRS HOLT. From right up in the attic!

MRS LYNGE. And it was Mrs Bernick’s brother?

MRS RUMMEL. Of course it was.

MRS LYNGE. And that was why he ran away to America?

MRS HOLT. Well, you can quite see that he had to.

MRS RUMMEL. Because afterwards something came to light that was nearly as bad. Just fancy, he had made free with the firm’s money –

MRS HOLT. But we don’t know that for certain, Mrs Rummel; it may have been only a rumour.

MRS RUMMEL. Well now, I must say –! Wasn’t it known all over the town? Didn’t old Mrs Bernick nearly go bankrupt just because of that? I have it from my husband himself. But far be it from me to…

MRS HOLT. Well, at any rate, the money didn’t go to Mrs Dorf, because she –

MRS LYNGE. Yes, how were things between Dina’s parents after that?

MRS RUMMEL. Well, Dorf went off and left his wife and child. But the lady herself was brazen enough to stay on here for a whole year. She didn’t dare show herself in the theatre any more, but she kept herself by washing and sewing –

MRS HOLT. And then she tried to get a dancing-school going.

MRS RUMMEL. Naturally that didn’t succeed. What parents would trust their children to a person like that? But she didn’t hold out very long; our fine lady wasn’t used to work, you see; she developed chest trouble and died.

MRS LYNGE. Well! That really is a dreadful story.

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, you can well believe it’s been very hard on the Bernicks. It’s the dark spot in the sun of their happiness, as my husband once put it. So don’t ever speak of those things in this house, Mrs Lynge.

MRS HOLT. And, for heaven’s sake, not about the half-sister either!

MRS LYNGE. Yes, hasn’t Mrs Bernick a half-sister, too?

MRS RUMMEL. Did have – fortunately. Relations are broken off between them now. Oh yes, she was utterly eccentric! Just imagine, she cut her hair short and went about in men’s boots in wet weather.

MRS HOLT. And when the half-brother – the ne’er-do-well – had run away, and the whole town, naturally, was feeling outraged over him, what do you suppose she does? She goes over and joins him!

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, but the scandal she caused before she went, Mrs Holt!

MRS HOLT. Sh! Don’t talk about it.

MRS LYNGE. Heavens, did she make a scandal, too?

MRS RUMMEL. Yes, indeed. Now, I’ll tell you, Mrs Lynge, Karsten Bernick had just got engaged to Betty Tönnesen and when he came in, arm in arm with her, to see her aunt and announce it –

MRS HOLT. – Because the Tönnesens were orphans, you know –

MRS RUMMEL. – Lona Hessel got up from the chair she was sitting in and gave Karsten Bernick – the charming, exquisite Karsten Bernick – a ringing box on the ear.

MRS LYNGE. Well, I never!

MRS HOLT. Yes, it’s absolutely true.

MRS RUMMEL. And then she packed her trunk and went to America.

MRS LYNGE. Oh, she must have had her eye on him herself.

MRS RUMMEL. Exactly! Just what she had. She fancied they were going to make a match of it when he came home from Paris.

MRS HOLT. Just think of her believing a thing like that! Bernick, a man of the world, young and charming, an exquisite gentleman – all the women adoring him –

MRS RUMMEL. – Yet at the same time so correct, Mrs Holt; so steady in his morals –

MRS LYNGE. But what has become of this Miss Hessel in America?

MRS RUMMEL. Well, you see, over that there hangs, as my husband once put it, a veil which is better not lifted.

MRS LYNGE. What does that mean?

MRS RUMMEL. She has no connexion with the family any longer, as you can imagine; but the whole town knows this much, that she has sung for money in cafés over there –

MRS HOLT. – And that she has given public lectures –

MRS RUMMEL. – And that she has published a preposterous book.

MRS LYNGE. Just think.

MRS RUMMEL. Ah yes; Lona Hessel, too, is undoubtedly one of the dark spots in the Bernicks’ happiness. So now you know all about it, Mrs Lynge. God knows, I only mentioned it to put you on your guard.

MRS LYNGE. Oh, you can trust me absolutely. But that poor Dina Dorf! I’m really sorry for her.

MRS RUMMEL. Oh, for her it was sheer good luck. Supposing she had remained in her parents’ hands? We took charge of her, naturally, and advised her as best we could. Later on Miss Bernick arranged for her to come and live in the house here.

MRS HOLT. But she has always been a difficult child. You can imagine – all those bad examples. A girl like that is not like one of our own; she can be led, but she can’t be driven, Mrs Lynge.

MRS RUMMEL. Sh! Here she comes. [Aloud.] Yes, Dina really is a capable girl. Oh, are you there, Dina? Here we are, sitting and neglecting our sewing!

MRS HOLT. Ah, how good your coffee smells, Dina dear. A cup of coffee like this in the middle of the morning –

MRS BERNICK [out on the steps]. The coffee is all ready.

[Miss Bernick and Dina have, in the meantime, helped the maid to bring out the coffee things. The women all go and sit outside, talking with excessive kindliness to Dina. After a little while she comes into the room and looks for her needlework.]

MRS BERNICK [outside at the coffee-table]. Dina, don’t you want some, too?

DINA. No, thank you; I won’t have any.

[She sits down to her sewing. Mrs Bernick and Rörlund exchange a few words; a moment later he comes into the room.]

RÖRLUND [making an excuse to go across to the table, and speaking in a low voice]. Dina.

DINA. Yes?

RÖRLUND. Why won’t you come outside?

DINA. When I came in with the coffee I could see, from the look of the strange lady, that they’d been talking about me.

RÖRLUND. And didn’t you see, too, how kind she was to you when you came out?

DINA. But that’s what I can’t stand!

RÖRLUND. You have an obstinate temperament, Dina.

DINA. Yes.

RÖRLUND. But why have you?

DINA. It’s the way I’m made.

RÖRLUND. Couldn’t you try to be different?

DINA. No.

RÖRLUND. Why not?

DINA [looking at him]. Because I’m like the ’Fallen Sisters’.

RÖRLUND. Why, Dina!

DINA. Mother was one of them, too.

RÖRLUND. Who has been talking to you about things like that?

DINA. No one; they never talk. Why don’t they? They all handle me so gently – as though I should fall to pieces if – Ah, how I hate all this kindliness!

RÖRLUND. My dear Dina, I quite understand that you feel restricted here, but –

DINA. Yes, if only I could get right away! I could make my way all right, once I was living among people who weren’t… so… so…

RÖRLUND. So what?

DINA. So respectable and moral.

RÖRLUND. Now, Dina, you don’t mean that.

DINA. Oh, you know quite well what I mean. Hilda and Netta come here every day so that I can take them as examples. I can never be perfect like them. And I don’t mean to be. Ah, if only I were right away, I should be good, too!

RÖRLUND. But Dina, my dear, you are good.

DINA. What use it is to me here?

RÖRLUND. Going away.… Are you thinking of it seriously?

DINA. I wouldn’t stay a day longer if it weren’t for you.

RÖRLUND. Tell me, Dina, why do you specially like being with me?

DINA. Because you teach me so much that’s fine.

RÖRLUND. Fine? Do you call what I am able to teach you fine?

DINA. Yes. Or, rather… you don’t teach me anything, but when I hear you talk, it makes me see so much that is fine.

RÖRLUND. What exactly do you understand by a fine thing?

DINA. I’ve never thought about it.

RÖRLUND. Then think about it now. What do you understand by a fine thing?

DINA. A fine thing is something that is great – and far away.

RÖRLUND. Hm. My dear Dina, I am deeply concerned about you.

DINA. Only that?

RÖRLUND. You know quite well how indescribably dear you are to me.

DINA. If I were Hilda or Netta, you wouldn’t be afraid of letting people see it.

RÖRLUND. Ah, Dina, you’ve no idea of the thousand considerations – When it’s one’s function to be a moral pillar of the community one lives in, why – one can’t be too careful. If I were sure that people would put the right interpretation on my motives… But that must take care of itself; you must and you shall be helped to rise. Dina, is it agreed that when I come – when circumstances allow me to come – and say, ‘Here is my hand’, that you will take it and be my wife? Do you promise me that, Dina?

DINA. Yes.

RÖRLUND. Thank you! Thank you. Because, for me, too –… Ah, Dina, I’m so fond of you – sh! There’s someone coming. Dina, for my sake, go out to the others.

[She goes out to the coffee-table. At the same moment, Rummel, Sandstad and Vigeland come out from the farthest room on the left, followed by Bernick, who has a bundle of papers in his hand.]

BERNICK. Well, then, the matter’s settled.

VIGELAND. Yes, the Lord be praised. Let it stand.

RUMMEL. It is settled, Bernick! A Norseman’s word stands fast as the rocks of the Dovrefjeld. You know that.

BEHNICK. And no retreating, no weakening, whatever opposition we meet.

RUMMEL. We stand or go under together, Bernick.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [who has come to the garden door]. Go under? With all due deference, isn’t it the railway scheme that’s going under?

BERNICK. No, on the contrary; that’s to go ahead –

RUMMEL. – Full steam, Mr Tönnesen.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [coming forward]. Really?

RÖRLUND. What?

MRS BERNICK [at the garden door]. But, my dear Karsten, what is all this – ?

BERNICK. My dear Betty! Now, how can that interest you? [To the three men.] But now we must get the lists drawn up. The sooner the better. As a matter of course, we four put our names down first. The position we occupy in the community makes it our duty to do everything we can.

SANDSTAD. That goes without saying, Mr Bernick.

RUMMEL. We’ll bring it off, Bernick. We’re pledged to that.

BERNICK. Oh yes. I’ve no fear about the result. We must get to work, each one in his own circle, and if we can once point to genuine, active sympathy in every section of the community, it follows automatically that the municipality will have to contribute its share.

MRS BERNICK. But, Karsten, you really must come and tell us –

BERNICK. Oh, my dear Betty, women can’t grasp this kind of thing.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. So you are really going to back the railway after all?

BERNICK. Yes, naturally.

RÖRLUND. But last year, sir – ?

BERNICK. Last year it was quite a different matter. Then they were talking of a coast-line –

VIGELAND. – Which would have been quite superfluous, Mr Rörlund, because we already have the steamship –

SANDSTAD. – And would have been disproportionately expensive –

RUMMEL. – Yes, and would have actually damaged vested interests here in town.

BERNICK. The main point was that it would have done no good to our community as a whole. Therefore I opposed it and so the inland route was adopted.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, but that isn’t going to touch the towns around here.

BERNICK. It’s going to touch our town, my dear Hilmar. Because we’re going to run a branch line down here.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Aha! Quite a new idea, then?

RUMMEL. Yes, a first-rate idea, isn’t it?

RÖRLUND. Hm.

VIGELAND. It cannot be denied that Providence seems to have designed the terrain especially for a branch line.

RÖRLUND. Do you really say so, Mr Vigeland?

BERNICK. Yes, I must confess that I too consider I was specially guided. I made a journey up there on business this spring, and so by chance came into a valley where I’d never been before. It struck me like a flash of lightning that this was the place to lay a branch-line to town. I’ve had an engineer to survey the region: I have the preliminary calculations here, and the estimate: there is nothing to prevent it.

MRS BERNICK [still at the garden door with the other women]. But, my dear Karsten, fancy your keeping all this a secret!

BERNICK. Oh, my dear Betty, you wouldn’t have been able to grasp the real nature of the business. Besides, I haven’t spoken about it to a living person till today. But now the decisive moment’s come; we must work openly and with all our strength. Yes, even if I have to risk everything I have, I’ll put this business through.

RUMMEL. The same with us, Bernick; you can count on us.

RÖRLUND. Do you really expect so much, then, gentlemen, from this undertaking?

BERNICK. I should think we do! What a lift it will give to our whole community! Just think of the huge tracts of forest it will open up; think of all the rich deposits of ore that can be worked; think of the river, with one waterfall above another! The possibilities for industrial development there!

RÖRLUND. And you are not afraid that a more frequent intercourse with a corrupt world outside –

BERNICK. Oh no, make your mind easy, Mr Rörlund. Our industrious little town rests nowadays, thank God, on a sound moral foundation; we have all helped to drain it, if I may put it so; and we shall continue to do so, each in his own way. You, Mr Rörlund, continue your beneficent activity in our schools and homes. We, the practical men of affairs, support society by spreading prosperity in as wide a circle as possible. And our women – yes, come in, ladies; you are welcome to hear this – our women, I say, our wives and daughters – you must go on working undisturbed, ladies, at your benevolent tasks, and be, at the same time, a help and comfort to those nearest you, as my dear Betty and Marta are for me and Olaf – [Looking round.] Why, where’s Olaf gone today?

MRS BERNICK. Oh, now it’s the holidays, it’s impossible to keep him at home.

BERNICK. Then he’s sure to be down by the water again. You’ll see; he’ll come to grief before he’s finished.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Pooh! A little sport with the forces of nature –

MRS HUMMEL. How nice of you to be such a real family man, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Ah well, the family, you know, is the kernel of the community. A good home, honourable and faithful friends, a small, close circle where no disturbing elements throw their shadows –

[Krap, the head clerk, comes in from the right with letters and newspapers.]

KRAP. The foreign mail, Mr Bernick. And a telegram from New York.

BERNICK [taking it]. Ah, from the owners of the Indian Girl.

RUMMEL. Ah, the post’s come. Then I must ask you to excuse me.

SANDSTAD. Good-bye, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Good-bye, gentlemen, good-bye. And remember, now, we have a meeting this afternoon at five o’clock.

THE THREE MEN. Yes. Oh yes. Quite all right. [They go out to the right.]

BERNICK [who has read the telegram]. Well, this really is typically American! Absolutely outrageous!

MRS BERNICK. Goodness, Karsten, what is it?

BERNICK. Look here, Krap! Read it!

KRAP [reading]. ‘Least possible repairs. Send Indian Girl soon as floatable. Good season. At worst, cargo keep her afloat.’ Well, I must say –

BERNICK. ‘Cargo keep her afloat’! These gentlemen know perfectly well that, with that cargo, she’ll go to the bottom like a stone if anything happens.

RÖRLUND. Yes, this shows what things are like in these big communities that are praised so highly.

BERNICK. You’re right there. No consideration, even for human life, once profit comes into the story. [To Krap.] Can the Indian Girl put to sea in four or five days?

KRAP. Yes, if Mr Vigeland will agree to our stopping work on the Palm Tree in the meantime.

BERNICK. Hm. He won’t do that. Well, will you go through the mail, please? By the way, did you see Olaf down on the quay?

KRAP. No, Mr Bernick. [He goes to the farthest room on the left.]

BERNICK [looking at the telegram again]. These gentlemen think nothing of risking the lives of eighteen men –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, it’s a seaman’s calling to brave the elements. There must be something stimulating in being there, so to speak, with a slender plank between you and the depths –

BERNICK. I’d like to see the ship-owner here who could bring himself to do a thing like that! Not one. Not a single one. [Catches sight of Olaf.] Ah, thank goodness, there he is, all right.

[Olaf, with a fishing-line in his hand, has come running up the street and in through the garden gate.]

OLAF [still in the garden]. Uncle Hilmar, I’ve been down looking at the steamer.

BERNICK. Have you been on the wharf again?

OLAF. No, I was only out in a boat. Just think, Uncle Hilmar, there’s a whole circus company come ashore with horses and wild animals; and there were such a lot of passengers, too!

MRS RUMMEL. Well! Are we really to see – circus-riders?

RÖRLUND. We? I trust not.

MRS RUMMEL. No, not we, of course, but –

DINA. I should like to see a circus.

OLAF. So should I.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. You are a little idiot! Is that worth looking at? It’s simply a matter of training. Now it’s a different thing to see the gaucho racing over the pampas on his snorting mustang. But, good heavens! Here in these little places –!

OLAF [taking hold of Miss Bernick]. Aunt Marta, look, look! There they come!

MRS HOLT. Yes, good gracious! There they are.

MRS LYNGE. Oh! Dreadful people!

[Several passengers and a crowd of townsfolk come along the street.]

MRS RUMMEL. Oh yes, they’re a regular lot of mountebanks. Do look at that woman in the grey dress, Mrs Holt; she’s got a carpet-bag on her back.

MRS HOLT. Yes, look! She’s carrying it on the handle of her sunshade. That will be the manager’s wife, I suppose.

MRS RUMMEL. And there no doubt we have the manager himself; the man with the beard. Well, he looks exactly like a gangster. Don’t look at him, Hilda.

MRS HOLT. Nor you either, Netta.

OLAF. Mother, the manager’s waving to us.

BERNICK. What?

MRS BERNICK. What do you say, child?

MRS RUMMEL. Good heavens, yes! The woman’s waving, too!

BERNICK. Now, that’s too insolent.

MISS BERNICK [with an involuntary cry]. Ah!

MRS BERNICK. What is it, Marta?

MISS BERNICK. Oh no; nothing… I only thought –

OLAF [shouting with delight]. Look, look! There come the others with the horses and the wild animals! And there are the Americans, too! All the sailors from the Indian Girl.

[‘Yankee Doodle can be heard, accompanied by clarinet and drum.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [stopping his ears]. Ugh! Ugh!

RÖRLUND. I think we should withdraw a little, ladies; this kind of thing is not for us. Let us go back to our work again.

MRS BERNICK. Should we pull the curtains, perhaps?

RÖRLUND. Yes, that was just what I was thinking.

[The women take their places at the table. Rörlund shuts the garden door and pulls the curtains across it and the windows; the room becomes half-dark.]

OLAF [who is peeping out]. Mother, the manager’s wife is standing by the pump, washing her face.

MRS BERNICK. What! In the middle of the market-place?

MRS RUMMEL. And in broad daylight!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, if I happened to be on a desert journey and was standing by a spring, I shouldn’t consider – Ugh! That appalling clarinet!

RÖRLUND. Really, the police would be quite justified in intervening.

BERNICK. Oh, come. One mustn’t be too particular with foreigners; those people haven’t got that deep-rooted sense of decency that keeps us within proper bounds. Let them go their own way. What does it matter to us? All this disorderliness – setting oneself up against tradition and good manners – fortunately for us it’s quite alien to our community, if I may say so. What’s this?

[The strange woman comes briskly in through the door on the right.]

THE WOMEN [in shocked and low voices]. The circus woman! The manager’s wife!

MRS BERNICK. Heavens! What does this mean?

MISS BERNICK [jumping up]. Ah –

THE WOMEN. Good morning, Betty dear! Good morning, Marta! Good morning, my dear brother-in-law!

MRS BERNICK [with a cry]. Lona!

BERNICK [falling back a step]. As sure as I’m alive –!

MRS HOLT. But, goodness gracious –!

MRS RUMMEL. It can’t be possible –!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well! Ugh!

MRS BERNICK. Lona! Is it really – ?

MISS HESSEL. Really me? Why, of course it is! You can fall on my neck, if that’s what you want to know.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh! Ugh!

MRS BERNICK. And now you come here as – ?

BERNICK. – And are you really going to perform – ?

MISS HESSEL. Perform? Perform how?

BERNICK. Well, I mean – in the circus.

MISS HESSEL. Hahaha! My dear man, are you crazy? Do you think I belong to the circus? Well, it’s true I’ve turned my hand to a good many trades and made a fool of myself in a good many ways –

MRS RUMMEL. H’m.

MISS HESSEL. But I never took up trick riding.

BERNICK. Then you’re not –

MRS BERNICK. Ah, thank goodness!

MISS HESSEL. No, no; we came like other respectable people. Second class, it’s true. But we’re used to that.

MRS BERNICK. ‘We’, you say?

BERNICK [a step nearer]. Who are the ‘we’?

MISS HESSEL. My boy and I, of course.

THE WOMEN [with a cry]. Your boy!

HUMAR TÖNNESEN. What!

RÖRLUND. Well, I must say –!

MRS BERNICK. But what do you mean, Lona?

MISS HESSEL. I mean John, of course. I haven’t any other boy but John, so far as I know – or ‘Johan’, as you used to call him.

MRS BERNICK. Johan!

MRS RUMMEL [aside to Mrs Lynge]. The ne’er-do-well brother!

BERNICK [hesitating]. Is Johan with you?

MISS HESSEL. Of course, of course. I don’t travel without him. But you all look so sad. And you’re sitting in this half-light, sewing something white. There hasn’t been a death in the family, has there?

RÖRLUND. My dear lady, you find yourself in the Society for Fallen Sisters.

MISS HESSEL [lowering her voice]. What do you say? Do you mean that these nice, quiet-looking women are –

MRS RUMMEL. Well! Now, I must say –!

MISS HESSEL. Oh, I see, I see! Bless me, if that isn’t Mrs Rummel! And there’s Mrs Holt, too! Well, we three haven’t got younger since we last met. But look here, my good friends; let the Fallen Sisters wait for one day – they won’t be any the worse for it. A happy occasion like this –

RÖRLUND. A home-coming is not always a happy occasion.

MISS HESSEL. Is that so? How do you read your Bible, Parson?

RÖRLUND. I am not a parson.

MISS HESSEL. Oh well, you will be some day. But my, oh my! These charity garments here smell of mortality; just as if they were shrouds. I’m used to the air of the prairies, let me tell you.

BERNICK [mopping his forehead]. Yes, it certainly is a little oppressive in here.

MISS HESSEL. You just wait; we’ll soon get up out of the vault. [Pulling the curtains aside.] We must have broad daylight when my boy comes in. My yes! then you’ll see a boy worth looking at –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh! Ugh!

MISS HESSEL [opening the doors and the windows]. Well, that is to say, when he’s managed to get a wash, up at the hotel. He got as grubby as a pig on the steamer.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh! Ugh!

MISS HESSEL. ‘Ugh’? Why, surely it’s never –! [Pointing to Hilmar and asking the others] Is he still loafing about here, saying ‘Ugh’ all the time?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I don’t ‘loaf’; I’m staying here for the sake of my health.

MISS HESSEL [who has caught sight of Olaf]. Is he yours, Betty? Give us your hand, boy. Or perhaps you’re afraid of your ugly old aunt?

RÖRLUND [as he puts his book under his arm]. Ladies, I don’t think we are in the mood for any more work today. But we meet again tomorrow, do we not?

MISS HESSEL [as the visitors get up to say good-bye]. Yes, let’s do that. I shall be there.

RÖRLUND. You? May I ask. Miss Hessel, what you are going to do in our community?

MISS HESSEL. I am going to let in some fresh air, Mr Parson.

ACT TWO

[The garden room in the Bernicks’ house. Mrs Bernick is sitting alone at the work-table with her sewing. A little later Bernick comes in from the right with his hat on and carrying his gloves and stick.]

MRS BERNICK. You home already, Karsten?

BEBNICK. Yes. I’ve got a man coming.

MRS BERNICK [with a sigh]. Ah yes. Johan will be down here again, I expect.

BERNICK. I tell you, it’s one of my men I’m seeing. [Putting down his hat.] Where are all the ladies gone today?

MRS BERNICK. Mrs Rummel and Hilda hadn’t time to come.

BERNICK. Ah yes. Sent an excuse?

MRS BERNICK. Yes. They had so much to see to at home.

BERNICK. Only to be expected. And the others aren’t coming either, of course?

MRS BERNICK. No; they were prevented, too, today.

BERNICK. I could have told you that beforehand. Where’s Olaf gone?

MRS BERNICK. I let him go out for a little while with Dina.

BERNICK. Hm; Dina. Giddy little minx! Making all that fuss of Johan as soon as she saw him yesterday.

MRS BERNICK. But, Karsten dear, Dina hasn’t the least idea –

BERNICK. Well, Johan, anyway, should have had the tact not to pay special attention to her. I saw the expression on Vigeland’s face.

MRS BERNICK [dropping her sewing in her lap]. Karsten, can you imagine what they’ve come home for?

BERNICK. Hm. Well, he has a farm over there which presumably isn’t going very well. And she mentioned yesterday that they had to travel second class –

MRS BERNICK. Yes. I’m afraid it may well be something of that sort. But her coming with him! She! After the unpardonable way she insulted you!

BERNICK. Oh, don’t think about those old stories.

MRS BERNICK. How can I think of anything else just now? After all, he is my brother. Though it’s not on his account… but all the unpleasantness it will make for you, Karsten, I’m so dreadfully afraid that –

BERNICK. What are you afraid about?

MRS BERNICK. Might they not want to imprison him for that missing money of your mother’s?

BERNICK. What nonsense! How can they prove that there was any money missing?

MRS BERNICK. Good gracious, the whole town knows that, unfortunately! And you yourself said –

BERNICK. I’ve never said anything. The town knows nothing about the business. Those were all unfounded rumours.

MRS BERNICK. Oh, how magnanimous you are, Karsten!

BERNICK. Don’t let’s have any more of these reminiscences, I tell you. You don’t know how you’re tormenting me, raking up all this. [He paces up and down the room and then flings his stick away.] That they should come home just now – now, when I need perfect goodwill both from the town and the Press! There will be letters to the newspapers all over the district. Whether I’m friendly to them or unfriendly, there will be gossip and insinuations.… They’ll rake up all this ancient history – just as you do. In a community like ours – [Throwing his gloves on thetable.] And not a single person here I can talk to, or get any support from.

MRS BERNICK. No one at all, Karsten?

BERNICK. No, who could there be? That they should come down on me just at this moment! There’s no question about it: they’ll make a scandal, one way or another – she especially. It’s a downright calamity to have people like that in one’s family.

MRS BERNICK. Well, I really can’t help –

BERNICK. What can’t you help? Their being relations? No, that’s perfectly true.

MRS BERNICK. And I didn’t ask them to come home, either.

BERNICK. There we are! ‘I didn’t ask them to come home. I didn’t write for them. I didn’t drag them home by the hair of their heads.’ Oh, I know the whole thing off by heart!

MRS BERNICK [bursting into tears]. But you’re so unkind –

BERNICK. Yes, that’s right! Start crying, so that the town can have that to talk about as well. Stop that nonsense, Betty. Go and sit outside; somebody might come in. Do you want them to see Mrs Bernick with red eyes? Yes, that would be fine, if it came out everywhere that – Tsh! I hear somebody in the hall. [There is a knock.] Come in!

[Mrs Bernick goes out to the garden steps with her sewing. Aune comes in from the right.]

AUNE. Good morning, sir.

BERNICK. Good morning. Well, you can guess what I want you for?

AUNE. The head clerk said something yesterday, sir, about your not being satisfied with –

BERNICK. I am dissatisfied with the whole state of affairs at the yard, Aune. You have made no progress with the wreck. The Palm Tree ought to have been under sail long ago. Mr Vigeland comes here bothering me every day. He’s a difficult man to have for a partner.

AUNE. The Palm Tree can go to sea the day after tomorrow.

BERNICK. At last! But the American, the Indian Girl; she’s been lying here five weeks and –

AUNE. The American? I understood that we were to make every effort to finish your own boat first.

BERNICK. I have given you no reason to think that. You should have got on as fast as possible with the American, too. But you haven’t.

AUNE. The hull of the vessel’s absolutely rotten, sir; the more we patch it the worse it gets.

BERNICK. That’s not the real source of the trouble. Krap has told me the whole truth. You don’t understand how to work with the new machines I’ve installed – or rather, you won’t work with them.

AUNE. Mr Bernick, sir, I’m getting on for sixty; right from boyhood, I’ve been used to the old way of working –

BERNICK. We can’t use it nowadays. You mustn’t think, Aune, that it’s for the sake of the profit; I don’t need that, luckily. But I have to consider the community in which I live and the business I direct. Progress must come from me, or it won’t come at all.

AUNE. I want progress too, sir.

BERNICK. Yes. For your own limited circle – for the working class. Oh, I know all about your political agitations. You make speeches, you stir the people up. But when a chance of tangible progress turns up – as now, with our machines – you won’t collaborate; you’re afraid.

AUNE. Yes, I certainly am afraid, Mr Bernick; I am afraid for all the people the machines rob of their bread. You often speak, sir, of considering the community; but I think the community has its duties, too. How dare science and capital set these new inventions to work before the community has educated a generation that can use them?

BERNICK. You read and think too much, Aune. You get no good from it. It’s that that makes you discontented with your position.

AUNE. It isn’t that, sir. But I can’t bear to see one good workman after another discharged and losing his livelihood because of these machines.

BERNICK. Hm. When printing was discovered, a good many scribes lost their livelihood.

AUNE. Would you have been so pleased with that invention, sir, if you’d been a scribe in those days?

BERNICK. I didn’t fetch you here to argue. I sent for you to tell you that the damaged vessel, the Indian Girl, must be ready to sail the day after tomorrow.

AUNE. But, sir –

BERNICK. You hear me: the day after tomorrow. At the same time as our own boat. Not an hour later. I have my own good reasons for pressing the matter. Have you read this morning’s paper? Well, then you know that the Americans have been making trouble again. This rowdy gang is upsetting the whole town; not a night goes by without fighting in the public-houses and in the streets. Their abominable behaviour in other ways I won’t talk about.

AUNE. Yes, it’s true enough; they’re a bad lot.

BERNICK. And who gets the blame for this nuisance? I do! Yes, it all falls on me. These newspaper men are blaming us in their indirect way for using all our resources on the Palm Tree. And I, whose purpose in life is to influence my fellow-citizens by my example, I have to let things like that be cast in my teeth. I can’t stand it. I can’t have my name besmirched like that.

AUNE. Oh, your name is good enough to bear that, sir, and more.

BERNICK. Not at the moment. Just now I need all the respect and goodwill my fellow-citizens can give me. I have a big undertaking on hand, as you will have heard. But if ill-disposed people succeed in shaking the absolute confidence I command, it may involve me in serious difficulties. So I intend to silence these newspaper men and their malicious criticism at all costs. That’s why I have set the limit at the day after tomorrow.

AUNE. You might just as well set the limit at this afternoon, sir.

BERNICK. You mean I’m asking for impossibilities?

AUNE. Yes, with the workmen we have now.

BERNICK. Very well. Then we must look somewhere else.

AUNE. Are you really going to lay off still more of the old hands?

BERNICK. No, I’m not thinking of that.

AUNE. Because I think it would make bad blood, both in the town and in the Press, if you did that.

BERNICK. Quite possibly. So we won’t do that. But if the Indian Girl isn’t cleared the day after tomorrow, I shall discharge you.

AUNE [witha start]. Me? [Laughing.] Now you’re joking, sir.

BERNICK. You had better not rely on that.

AUNE. You couldn’t think of discharging me? Me, whose father and grandfather worked at the shipyard all their lives, and I myself, too –

BERNICK. Who’s forcing me to it?

AUNE. You’re asking impossibilities, sir.

BERNICK. Oh? ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ Yes or no; answer me definitely, or you’re discharged on the spot.

AUNE [a step nearer]. Have you really thought, sir, what it means, to discharge an old workman? You expect him to look for another job? Well, of course, he can do that; but is that all there is to it? You ought to be in the home of a workman discharged like that, the evening he comes back and puts down his tool-chest.

BERNICK. Do you think I am discharging you without regret? Haven’t I always been a considerate employer?

AUNE. So much the worse, sir. For that very reason they won’t blame you, at home. They won’t say anything to me, because they daren’t. But they’ll look at me when I’m not noticing, and sort of think ‘He must have asked for it’. You see, it’s that – it’s that I can’t bear. I may be poor, but I’m looked on as the head of my own family. My little home – it’s a little community too, sir. And I’ve been able to support it and keep it up because my wife believed in me and my children believed in me. Now, that will all go to pieces.

BERNICK. Well, if nothing else can be done, the lesser must give way to the greater; when all is said, the individual must be sacrificed to the majority. That’s the only answer I can give you, and that’s the way things work in this world. But you’re a stiff-necked man, Aune! You’re opposing me, not because you can’t do anything else, but because you don’t want to prove the superiority of machines over hand-work.

AUNE. And you’re insisting on this, sir, because you know that if you turn me off you’ll at least show the Press your good intentions.

BERNICK. Well, what if I am? You hear what it involves for me – on the one hand to have the whole Press attacking me, and on the other to get it well-disposed towards me at the moment when I’m working for a great cause and the public benefit. Well, what can I do? Can I deal with it any way but as I am doing? I tell you the question here is whether I should keep up your home, as you put it, and so perhaps keep down hundreds of new homes – hundreds of homes that will never be set up, will never have a fire lit, if I don’t succeed in putting through what I’m working for now. That’s why I have given you the choice.

AUNE. Well, if that’s how it is, then I’ve nothing more to say.

BERNICK. Hm. My dear Aune, I’m very sorry we have to part.

AUNE. We’re not parting, sir.

BERNICK. What?

AUNE. Even a working man has something to stand up for in this world.

BERNICK. Very true; very true. And you think, then, you can promise – ?

AUNE. The Indian Girl can be cleared the day after tomorrow. [He bows and goes out to the right.]

BERNICK. Aha! I made that stiff-necked fellow give way at last. I take that as a good omen.

[Hilmar Tönnesen, with a cigar in his mouth, comes through the garden gate.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [on the steps]. Good morning, Betty! Good morning, Bernick!

MRS BERNICK. Good morning.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Why, you’ve been crying, I see. You know about it, then?

MRS BERNICK. About what?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. That the scandal is in full swing? Ugh!

BERNICK. What do you mean?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [coming in]. Why, the two Americans are going about the streets, showing themselves off with Dina Dorf.

MRS BERNICK [following him]. But, Hilmar, can they possibly – ?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, unfortunately; it’s perfectly true. Lona was even so tactless as to call after me; but of course I pretended not to hear.

BERNICK. And it certainly won’t have gone unnoticed.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, you may be sure it won’t. People stopped and stared after them. It seemed to spread over the town like wildfire – like a fire on the western prairies. People were standing in the windows of all the houses, waiting for the procession to come by; cheek by jowl behind the Venetian blinds. Ugh! Oh, I beg your pardon, Betty; I say ’Ugh’ because all this gets on my nerves. If it goes on, I shall have to think of going farther afield.

MRS BERNICK. But you should have spoken to him and pointed out –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. In the open street? No, thank you – really! This fellow, on top of everything, daring to show himself here in town! Well, we’ll see if the papers won’t put a stopper on him. Yes, I’m sorry, Betty, but –

BERNICK. The papers, do you say? Have you heard any hint of that?

HUMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, I have.… When I left you yesterday evening I strolled up to the club, because I didn’t feel very well. I saw all right, by the sudden silence, that the two Americans were being discussed. Then in comes that impudent fellow Hammer, the editor, and congratulates me loudly on the return of my rich cousin.

BERNICK. Rich – ?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, that’s how he put it. I looked him up and down, of course, with a well-deserved stare and gave him to understand that I knew nothing about Johan Tönnesen’s wealth. ‘Really,’ says he, ‘that’s odd. In America people generally get on if they’ve something to start with, and, after all, your cousin didn’t go over there with empty hands.’

BERNICK. Well, please don’t –

MRS BERNICK [in distress]. There, you see, Karsten –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, at any rate, I’ve had a sleepless night on account of that fellow. And there he is going about the streets looking as if there was nothing against him. Why on earth didn’t he disappear for good? It’s intolerable, how some people hang on to life.

MRS BERNICK. Good heavens, Hilmar! What are you saying?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, I’m not saying anything. But there he goes and escapes with a whole skin from railway accidents and attacks of Californian bears and Black-foot Indians… Never even scalped! Ugh! Here they are.

BERNICK [looking up the street]. Olaf’s with them, too.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, of course. They want to remind people that they belong to the first family in town. Look, look! There come all the idlers out of the drugstore, staring after them and making remarks. This really is too much for my nerves. How on earth a man is to keep the flag of idealism flying under these conditions –!

BERNICK. They’re coming straight here. Listen now, Betty; it’s my specific wish that you should treat them with all possible friendliness.

MRS BERNICK. Will you really let me, Karsten?

BERNICK. Certainly, certainly. And you too, Hilmar. They won’t be here very long, let us hope, and when we are alone with them – no hints. We mustn’t do anything to hurt their feelings.

MRS BERNICK. Oh, Karsten, how magnanimous you are!

BERNICK. Oh, well; never mind that.

MRS BERNICK. No, let me thank you. And forgive me for being so cross before. You had every reason for –

BERNICK. Now, that’s enough, I tell you!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh!

[John Tönnesen and Dina, and after them Miss Hessel and Olaf, come in through the garden.]

MISS HESSEL. Good morning, good morning, my dear people.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. We’ve been out looking at all the old places, Karsten.

BERNICK. Yes, so I hear. A good many changes, aren’t there?

MISS HESSEL. The great and good works of Mr Karsten Bernick everywhere. We have been up in the public gardens you presented to the town –

BERNICK. Oh, there?

MISS HESSEL. ‘The gift of Karsten Bernick’, as it says over the entrance. Oh, yes, you’re the man who does everything here.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And you’ve got some fine ships, too. I met my old school-fellow, the captain of the Palm Tree.

MISS HESSEL. Oh yes, and you’ve built a new school-house, too; and I hear it’s you who’ve laid on the town’s gas and water.

BERNICK. Oh well, one must work for the community one lives in.

MISS HESSEL. Very decent of you. But it’s a pleasure, too, to see how people value you. I don’t think I’m vain, but I couldn’t help reminding one or two people we talked to that we belonged to the family.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh!

MISS HESSEL. Are you saying ‘ugh’ to that?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, I said ‘hm’.

MISS HESSEL. Oh well; do, if you want to, poor fellow. But you’re quite alone today?

MRS BERNICK. Yes, we’re alone today.

MISS HESSEL. Oh, by the way, we met one or two of the Virtuous Sisters up at the market-place; they seemed to be very busy. But we haven’t managed to have a proper talk yet. Yesterday, those three railway pioneers were here, and then we had that parson –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. – Schoolmaster –

MISS HESSEL. I call him the parson. But what do you think of my work now, these fifteen years? Hasn’t he grown a fine fellow? Who would recognize the madcap who ran away from home?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Hm –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Ah, Lona, don’t boast too much.

MISS HESSEL. No, I’m really proud of it. Heaven knows, it’s the only thing I have done in the world, but it gives me a kind of right to be here. Yes, Johan, when I think how we two started over there, with only our four paws –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Hands.

MISS HESSEL. I say paws. They were grubby enough –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh!

MISS HESSEL. – And empty, at that.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Empty! Well, I must say –!

MISS HESSEL. What must you say?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I must say – ugh!

[He goes out on the garden steps.]

MISS HESSEL. What’s the matter with the man?

BERNICK. Oh, don’t worry about him; he is rather nervous nowadays. But wouldn’t you like to see round the garden a little? You haven’t been down there yet and I have an hour free just now.

MISS HESSEL. Oh yes, I should. You can well believe I’ve been here in this garden with you often enough in my thoughts.

MRS BERNICK. You’ll find that there have been great changes there, too.

[Bernick, his wife and Miss Hessel go down into the garden, where they can be seen, off and on, during the following dialogue.]

OLAF [at the garden door]. Uncle Hilmar, do you know what Uncle Johan asked me? He asked if I’d like to go to America with him.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. You, you little idiot – you who go about tied to your mother’s apron-strings!

OLAF. Yes, but I won’t any longer. You’ll see, when I’m grown up –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, stuff and nonsense! You’ve no real craving for the stimulating effects of –

[They go down together into the garden.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [to Dina, who has taken off her hat and stands in the doorway on the right, shaking the dust off her dress]. You’ve got really warm with your walk.

DINA. Yes, it was a lovely walk. I’ve never had such a lovely walk before.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Perhaps you don’t often go for walks in the morning?

DINA. Oh yes; but only with Olaf.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I see. Perhaps you’d rather go down the garden than stay here?

DINA. No, I’d rather stay here.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. So would I. And so it’s agreed, that we go for a walk like that every morning.

DINA. No, Mr Tönnesen, you mustn’t do that.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. What mustn’t I do? You promised, you know.

DINA. Yes, but now I think it over, I – You can’t go out with me.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. But why not?

DINA. Of course, you’re a stranger; you can’t understand it. But I’ll tell you –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well?

DINA. No, I’d rather not talk about it.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Oh yes, do. You can talk to me about anything.

DINA. Well, I must explain.… I am not like the other girls. There is something – something about me. That’s why you can’t.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. But I can’t make head or tail of all this. You haven’t done anything wrong?

DINA. No, I haven’t myself, but – no, now I won’t talk about it any more. You’ll get to know it all right from the others.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hm.

DINA. But there was something else I wanted to ask you about.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And what was that?

DINA. Is it really so easy to – get to be something worth while over there in America?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, it isn’t always exactly easy. One often has to suffer a good deal and work hard at first.

DINA. Yes, I’d willingly do that.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. You?

DINA. I can work all right. I am strong and healthy and Aunt Marta has taught me a lot.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, why the dickens don’t you come along with us, then?

DINA. Ah, now you’re only joking; you said that to Olaf, too. But this was what I wanted to know, whether the people over there are very… very sort of virtuous?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Virtuous?

DINA. Yes. I mean, are they sort of… proper and respectable, as they are here?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, at any rate they’re not so bad as people here think they are. There’s no need for you to be afraid of that.

DINA. You don’t understand me. What I want is that they shouldn’t be so proper and virtuous.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. No? What do you want them to be then?

DINA. I should like them to be natural.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Why, yes; that’s maybe just what they are.

DINA. Why, then, it would be a grand thing for me if I could get over there.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, it surely would. So you must come with us.

DINA. No, I wouldn’t go with you; I’d have to go alone. Oh, I should make something of it; I should soon be all right.

BERNICK [standing at the bottom of the garden steps with the two women]. Stay there, stay there; I’ll get it, Betty dear. You might easily catch cold. [He comes into the room and looks for his wife’s shawl.]

MRS BERNICK [outside in the garden]. You must come too, Johan; we’re just going down to the grotto.

BERNICK. No, Johan must stay here for the moment. Here, Dina; take my wife’s shawl and go with them. Johan’s going to stay here with me, Betty dear. I want to hear how things are going over there.

MRS BERNICK. Very well. You come and join us, then. You know where to find us.

[Mrs Bernick, Miss Hessel and Dina go down through the garden to the left. Bernick watches them for a moment, goes across and shuts the farther door on the left, then goes up to Johan and seizes both his hands, clasping and shaking them.]

BERNICK. Johan, now we are alone; you must let me thank you.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Oh, nonsense!

BERNICK. My house and home, the happiness of my family life, my whole position as a citizen of this community – I owe it all to you.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, I’m glad of it, my dear Karsten. So some good came of that silly business, after all.

BERNICK [grasping his hands again]. Thank you, thank you, all the same! Not one man in ten thousand would have done what you did for me then.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. It’s not worth talking about! Weren’t we both young and irresponsible? After all, one of us had to take the blame.

BERNICK. But whose business was that, if not the guilty one’s?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Ah, no! On that occasion it was the business of the innocent one. I was free and independent and had no relations; it was an absolute blessing to me to get away from that grind in the office. You, on the other hand, had your old mother still alive; and, besides, you’d just become secretly engaged to Betty, and she was so fond of you. What would have become of her if she had come to know – ?

BERNICK. True; true. But –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And wasn’t it purely for Betty’s sake that you broke off that affair with Madame Dorf? After all, it was simply in order to make a clean break that you were up at her place that evening –

BERNICK. Yes, that accursed evening when that drunken fellow came home! Yes, Johan, it was for Betty’s sake; but still… to think that you could be so magnanimous, turn appearances against yourself and go away –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Don’t be so full of scruples, my dear Karsten! We agreed it should be that way. You had to be saved and you were my friend. Oh, I was mighty proud of that friendship! Here was I, drudging along like a poor stay-at-home; and there were you, coming back from your grand foreign tour, a distinguished gentleman. You’d been in London and Paris. And then you chose me for your friend, although I was four years younger than you. Oh yes, it was because you were making love to Betty; I realize that now, all right. But how proud I was of it! And who wouldn’t have been? Who wouldn’t have willingly sacrificed himself for you? Especially as it only meant a month’s gossip – and with it a chance to escape into the wide world.

BERNICK. Hm. My dear Johan, I will tell you frankly that the episode isn’t quite forgotten yet.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Isn’t it? Well, what does it matter to me, once I’m settled over there again on my farm –

BERNICK. You’re going back, then?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Of Course.

BERNICK. But not too soon, I hope?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. As soon as possible. It was only to please Lona that I came over with her.

BERNICK. Oh? How was that?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, you see, Lona isn’t young any longer, and a kind of homesickness has come over her lately – only she wouldn’t ever admit it. [Smiling.] How could she dare leave an irresponsible creature like me alone behind her? – me, who at only nineteen had been mixed up in –

BERNICK. And then?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, Karsten, now I’m going to make a confession I’m ashamed of.

BERNICK. You haven’t told her the real story, have you?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, I have. It was wrong of me, but I couldn’t do anything else. You’ve no idea what Lona has been to me. You’ve never been able to stand her, but to me she’s been like a mother. In those first years, when we had such a tough time over there – my, how she worked! And when I was ill for a long time and couldn’t earn anything, and couldn’t prevent her, she took to singing in the cafés; she gave a course of lectures that people made fun of, and wrote a book that she laughed and cried over afterwards – all to keep my body and soul together. Could I watch her, last winter, going about pining for home, when she had struggled so for me? No, I couldn’t do that, Karsten. And so I said, ‘You go, Lona. You needn’t be anxious about me; I’m not so irresponsible as you think.’ And so – she came to know.

BERNICK. And how did she take it?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, she took the view (and quite true, too) that since I knew I was innocent, I needn’t mind making a trip over here myself. But make your mind easy; Lona won’t give anything away and I’ll keep a better hold on my tongue another time.

BERNICK. Yes, yes. I’ll count on that.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Here is my hand. And now don’t let’s talk about that old business any more. Fortunately, it’s the only piece of folly either of us has been mixed up in, I fancy. Now I’m really going to enjoy the few days I shall have here. You can’t think what a jolly walk we had this morning. Who would have thought that little monkey who ran around and played angels in the theatre –! But, tell me, old man, what happened to her parents afterwards?

BERNICK. Why, my dear Johan, I don’t know anything to tell you, except what I wrote you directly after you’d gone. You got the two letters all right?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Oh yes, I did. I’ve got them both. That drunken swine ran away from her, didn’t he?

BERNICK. And broke his neck later on when he was drunk.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And she died soon after, too? But of course you did all you could for her, without attracting attention?

BERNICK. She was proud. She didn’t betray anything and she wouldn’t accept anything.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, in any case, you did the right thing in taking Dina into your house.

BERNICK. Yes, that’s true. But, as a matter of fact, it was really Marta who was responsible for that.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. So it was Marta? Yes, that reminds me – where’s Marta today?

BERNICK. Oh, she? When she hasn’t her school to go to, she has her sick people.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. It was Marta, then, who looked after her?

BERNICK. Marta has always had a certain weakness for education. That’s why she took a post in the Council School. It was very silly of her.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, she looked fagged out yesterday. I’m rather afraid her health isn’t good enough for it.

BERNICK. Oh, as far as her health goes, I expect she could manage it. But it is awkward for me. It looks as though I – her brother – wasn’t willing to support her.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Support her? I thought she had enough to live on of her own –

BERNICK. Not a penny. You remember what a difficult time that was for my mother when you went away. She carried on for a time with my help. But naturally I couldn’t go on like that indefinitely, so I had myself taken into the firm. But it didn’t work very well that way either, so I had to take control of the whole concern. And when we made up our balance-sheet it came out that there was practically nothing left of mother’s share. And as mother died soon afterwards, of course Marta was left with nothing.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Poor Marta!

BERNICK. Poor? Why? Surely you don’t think I let her want for anything? Oh no; that I can say – I’m a good brother. She lives with us, of course, and eats at our table. She can easily clothe herself on her teacher’s salary, and a single woman – what more does she need?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hm. We don’t think that way in America.

BERNICK. No, I can well believe it, in a revolutionary society like America. But here in our little world, where, thank God, corruption has made no inroads – not so far, at any rate – here, women are content to take a seemly even if retiring, position. Beside, it’s Marta’s own fault. She might have been provided for long ago if she had chosen.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. You mean she could have married?

BERNICK. Yes. She could have been very comfortably settled indeed. She’s had several good offers, oddly enough. A woman with no private means, no longer young and quite undistinguished.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Undistinguished?

BERNICK. Oh I don’t hold that against her. I don’t in the least want her to be any different. You know, in a big house like ours, it is always convenient to have an ordinary sort of person like that who can be turned on to anything that comes along.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, but she herself?

BERNICK. She? How do you mean? Why, of course, she has plenty to interest herself in; she has me and Betty and Olaf and – and me. People shouldn’t think primarily of themselves, especially not women. We all have a community, greater or smaller, to support and work for. I certainly have, at any rate. [Indicating Krap, who has come in from the right.] There you have an instance on the spot. Do you think it is my own affairs that take up my time? Not a bit of it. [Quickly, to Krap.] Well?

KRAP [softly, showing him a pile of papers]. All the purchase contracts in order.

BERNICK. Excellent! Capital! Now, my dear fellow, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me for the moment. [Quietly and with a shake of the hand.] Thank you, thank you, Johan. And be sure that anything I can do to be of service to you – well, you understand. Come along, Mr Krap. [They go into Bernick’s room.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [looking after him for a time]. Hm.

[He is about to go into the garden. At that moment Miss Bernick comes in from the right with a little basket on her arm.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Ah, hullo, Marta!

MISS BERNICK. Oh, Johan! Is it you?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. You out so early, too?

MISS BERNICK. Yes. If you wait a moment, the others will be here quite soon.

[About to go out on the left.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Look here, Marta, are you always in such a hurry?

MISS BERNICK. I?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yesterday you kept out of the way, so that I couldn’t get a word with you, and today –

MISS BERNICK. Yes, but –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. We were always together before, we two old playfellows.

MISS BERNICK. Ah, Johan, that is a great many years ago.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Oh, well, it’s fifteen years ago; neither more nor less. Do you think I’ve changed so much, then?

MISS BERNICK. You? Why yes, you too, though –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. What do you mean?

MISS BERNICK. Oh, nothing.…

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. It doesn’t exactly seem to have cheered you up to see me again!

MISS BERNICK. I have waited so long, Johan – too long.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Waited? For me to come?

MISS BERNICK. Yes.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And why did you think I would come?

MISS BERNICK. To put right the injury you had done.

JOHAN TÖNNESBN. I?

MISS BERNICK. Have you forgotten that a woman died in need and shame on your account? Have you forgotten that on your account the best years of a growing child’s life were embittered?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And must I hear this from you? Marta, hasn’t your brother ever –

MISS BERNICK. Hasn’t he what?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hasn’t he ever – well, I mean, hasn’t he ever said a word to excuse me?

MISS BERNICK. Oh, well, Johan, you know Karsten’s strict principles.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hm. Oh, quite so. I know my old friend Karsten’s strict principles. But this is really – ! Oh, well. I’ve just been talking to him. I think he has altered rather.

MISS BERNICK. How can you say that? Karsten has always been an exceptional man.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, I didn’t mean it quite like that. But never mind. Hm. Now I realize the light you’ve seen me in. It’s the ne’er-do-well’s homecoming you have been waiting for.

MISS BERNICK. Listen, Johan. I will tell you what light I’ve seen you in. [Pointing down into the garden.] Do you see the girl playing down there in the grass with Olaf? That’s Dina. You remember the confused letter you wrote me when you went away? You wrote that I was to believe in you. I have believed in you, Johan. All the wicked things we heard of after you’d gone – they must have been the wildness of youth, done without thought, on the impulse of the moment.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. What do you mean?

MISS BERNICK. Oh, you understand well enough. Don’t let’s talk about it any more. But of course you had to go away and begin again, a new life. Do you see, Johan, I have been your deputy here at home – I, your old playfellow. The duties you forgot to discharge here, or could not – I have discharged them for you. I am telling you thus so that you shall not have that too to reproach yourself with. The child that was wronged, I have been a mother to, have brought her up as best I could –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And wasted the whole of your life in doing it –

MISS BERNICK. It’s not been wasted. But you’re late in coming, Johan.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Marta – if only I could tell you.… Well, let me at any rate thank you for your faithful friendship.

MISS BERNICK [smiling sadly]. Hm. Well, so now we have talked it out, Johan. Hush; someone’s coming. Good-bye. I can’t… now –

[She goes out through the farthest door at the left back. Miss Hessel comes in from the garden, followed by Mrs Bernick.]

MRS BERNICK [still in the garden]. But, good heavens, Lona, what are you thinking of?

MISS HESSEL. Leave me alone, I tell you. I must talk to him and I’m going to.

MRS BERNICK. But there would be the most dreadful scandal! Ah, Johan, are you still here?

MISS HESSEL. Out you go, my boy. Don’t hang about indoors in the stuffy air. Go down the garden and talk to Dina.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, that’s what I was just going to do.

MRS BERNICK. But –

MISS HESSEL. Look here, John, have you looked at Dina properly?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, I think I have.

MISS HESSEL. Well, you should look at her to some purpose, my boy. She would be the very thing for you.

MRS BERNICK. But, Lona!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. For me?

MISS HESSEL. Yes; to look at, I mean. Go along!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. All right. I’m only too pleased to. [He goes down into the garden.]

MRS BERNICK. Lona, you absolutely astound me. You can’t mean this seriously?

MISS HESSEL. Yes. Upon my soul! Isn’t she sound and healthy and honest? That’s just the wife for John. It’s someone like that he needs over there; it’ll be rather different from an old half-sister.

MRS BERNICK. Dina! Dina Dorf! But think –

MISS HESSEL. I’m thinking first and foremost of the boy’s happiness. I must give him a hand, that’s certain; he’s not very good at this sort of thing himself. He’s never really taken much interest in women.

MRS BERNICK. He? Johan? Well, it seems to me we’ve had some unfortunate proofs that –

MISS HESSEL. Oh, bother that stupid story! Where’s Karsten gone? I want to speak to him.

MRS BERNICK. You’re not to, Lona, I tell you!

MISS HESSEL. I’m going to. If the boy takes to her – and she to him – then they shall have each other. Karsten’s such a shrewd man; he must find a way out –

MRS BERNICK. And do you imagine that this unseemly American behaviour will be tolerated here?

MISS HESSEL. Nonsense, Betty!

MRS BERNICK. – That a man like Karsten, with his strict, moral views –

MISS HESSEL. Oh, come! They’re not so excessively strict, are they?

MRS BERNICK. What are you daring to say?

MISS HESSEL. I’m daring to say that I don’t think Karsten is much more moral than other men.

MRS BERNICK. So your hate for him is still as deep as that! But what are you doing here, if you’ve never been able to forget? I can’t understand how you could dare to look him in the face, after offending him as you did then.

MISS HESSEL. Yes, Betty, I lost control of myself pretty badly that time.

MRS BERNICK. And how magnanimously he’s forgiven you – he, who had never done anything wrong! Because he couldn’t help your going about building up hopes. But since that time you’ve hated me, too. [Bursting into tears.] You’ve always begrudged me my happiness. And now you’ve come here to bring all this down on me – to show the town what kind of family I’ve brought Karsten into. Oh yes, it’s me it comes back on, and that’s what you want. Oh, it’s wicked of you! [She goes out crying, through the farthest door on the left.]

MISS HESSEL [looking after her]. Poor Betty!

[Bernick comes in from his room.]

BERNICK [still at the door]. Yes, yes, that’s right, Krap; that’s excellent. Send twenty pounds for the famine relief. [Turning.] Lona! [Coming nearer.] Are you alone? Isn’t Betty coming?

MISS HESSEL. No. Shall I fetch her?

BERNICK. Oh no, no. Let it be! Oh Lona, you don’t know how I’ve longed to talk freely to you – to be able to beg your forgiveness.

MISS HESSEL. Now look here, Karsten. Don’t let’s be sentimental. It doesn’t suit us.

BERNICK. You must listen to me, Lona. I know how much appearances are against me, now you’ve heard all this about Dina’s mother. But I swear to you it was only a passing infatuation. I did really love you once; truly and honestly.

MISS HESSEL. Why do you think I’ve come home?

BERNICK. Whatever you have in mind, I beseech you not to do anything before I’ve cleared myself. I can do that, Lona; at any rate, I can explain myself.

MISS HESSEL. Now you’re frightened. You used to love me once, you say. Yes, you assured me of that, often enough, in your letters. And perhaps it was true, too, in a way – so long as you were living out there in a great, free world that gave you courage to think freely and greatly yourself. Maybe you found more character and will and independence in me than in most people at home here. And then, of course, it was a secret between us two; there was no one who could make merry over your bad taste.

BERNICK. But, Lona, how can you think –

MISS HESSEL. But when you came back, when you heard the scorn that poured down on me, met the laughter at what were called my eccentricities –

BERNICK. You were indiscreet in those days.

MISS HESSEL. Mostly to annoy those prudes of both sexes who infested the town. And then when you met that fascinating young actress –

BERNICK. That was just a piece of showing off; nothing more. I swear to you, not a tithe of the rumours and slanders that circulated were true.

MISS HESSEL. Maybe. But then when Betty came home, blooming and lovely and worshipped by everybody, and when it became known that she’d get all Aunt’s money and I shouldn’t get anything –

BERNICK. Now, there we have it, Lona. And now you shall hear the plain truth. I didn’t love Betty at that time; I didn’t break with you because of any new attachment. It was simply for the sake of the money. I was driven to it. I had to make sure of the money.

MISS HESSEL. And you tell me that to my face?

BERNICK. Yes, I do. Listen to me, Lona –

MISS HESSEL. And yet you wrote to me that you had been overcome by an irresistible love for Betty, appealed to my generosity, implored me for Betty’s sake to say nothing about what had been between us –

BERNICK. I had to, I tell you.

MISS HESSEL. Then, by God, I’m not sorry I lost control of myself as I did that day!

BERNICK. Let me explain, coolly and quietly, what the position was at that moment. My mother, as you remember, was the head of the firm. But she had absolutely no business-sense. I was fetched back from Paris in a hurry. The times were critical. I was expected to pull things straight. What did I find? I found – what had to be kept absolutely secret – a business practically ruined. Yes, practically ruined, that old, respected house, that had stood for three generations. What could I do, the son, the only son, but look about me for some way of saving it?

MISS HESSEL. So you saved the House of Bernick at a woman’s expense.

BERNICK. You know quite well that Betty loved me.

MISS HESSEL. But what about me?

BERNICK. Believe me, Lona – you would never have been happy with me.

MISS HESSEL. Was it out of consideration for my happiness that you threw me over?

BERNICK. Do you think I acted as I did from selfish motives? If I had been alone at that time, I would have begun over again cheerfully and fearlessly. But you have no idea how the head of a big business grows, under the pressure of his immense responsibilities, to be himself a part of that heritage. Do you know that the welfare or misery of hundreds, even of thousands, depends on him? Don’t you realize that the whole of that community – what you and I regard as our home – would have been heavily involved if the House of Bernick had fallen?

MISS HESSEL. Is it also for the sake of the community that, for fifteen years, you have been living on a lie?

BERNICK. On a lie?

MISS HESSEL. What does Betty know of all this that’s behind her marriage with you – that happened before it?

BERNICK. Can you imagine that I would wound her to no purpose by laying those things bare?

MISS HESSEL. To no purpose, you say? Ah well; you’re a business man; of course you should understand what is to your purpose. But now listen, Karsten. Now I too am going to speak coolly and quietly. Tell me, are you really happy after all?

BERNICK. In my family, do you mean?

MISS HESSEL. Yes, of course.

BERNICK. Yes, I am, Lona. Ah, it has not been in vain, your self-sacrificing friendship for me. I can truly say that I have become happier year by year. Betty is so good and docile. And the way she has learnt, with the passage of years, to adapt her personality to what is characteristic in mine…

MISS HESSEL. Hm.

BERNICK. At the beginning she had a lot of high-flown notions about love; she couldn’t reconcile herself to the idea that bit by bit it must turn into the mild warmth of friendship.

MISS HESSEL. But now she quite accepts that?

BERNICK. Absolutely. You can realize that daily contact with me has not been without its mellowing influence upon her. People must learn to reduce their mutual claims, if they are to give a good account of themselves in the community in which they are placed. Betty has gradually learnt to see that, so that our household is now an example to our fellow-citizens.

MISS HESSEL. But these fellow-citizens know nothing about the lie?

BERNICK. About the lie?

MISS HESSEL. Yes, the lie that you’ve been living on these fifteen years.

BERNICK. You call that – ?

MISS HESSEL. I call it the lie. The threefold lie. First the lie to me, then the lie to Betty and then the lie to Johan.

BERNICK. Betty has never asked me to speak.

MISS HESSEL. Because she hasn’t known anything.

BERNICK. And you won’t ask it – out of consideration for her, you won’t ask it?

MISS HESSEL. Oh no. I dare say I shall know how to bear the peals of laughter; I have a broad back.

BERNICK. And Johan won’t ask me either; he has promised me that.

MISS HESSEL. But you yourself, Karsten? Isn’t there anything in yourself that wants to be free of the lie?

BERNICK. You suggest that I should sacrifice, of my own accord, my family happiness and my position in the community?

MISS HESSEL. What right have you to stand where you stand?

BERNICK. In fifteen years, day by day, I have purchased some small right – by the conduct of my life and by what I have worked for and achieved.

MISS HESSEL. Yes, you have worked and achieved a great deal, both for yourself and for others. You are the richest and most powerful man in the town. They daren’t do anything but bow to your will, any of them, because you pass for a man without a spot or flaw. Your home passes for a model home, your life for a model life. But all this magnificence, and you yourself with it, stands on a quaking bog. A moment may come, a word may be spoken, and you and all your glory will go to the bottom, unless you save yourself in time.

BERNICK. Lona, what did you come here for?

MISS HESSEL. To help you get solid ground under your feet, Karsten.

BERNICK. Revenge! You want to revenge yourself? I guessed as much. But you won’t succeed. There is only one person who can speak with authority, and he is silent.

MISS HESSEL. Johan?

BERNICK. Yes, Johan. If anyone else accuses me, I shall deny the whole thing. If they try to break me, I shall fight for my life. But you will never succeed, I tell you. He, who could destroy me, is silent – and he is going away again.

[Rummel and Vigeland come in from the right.]

RUMMEL. Good morning, good morning, my dear Bernick. You must come up to the Chamber of Commerce with us. We have a meeting about the railway business, you know.

BERNICK. I can’t It’s impossible at the moment.

VIGELAND. You really must, Mr Bernick.

RUMMEL. You must, Bernick. There are people working against us. Hammer, the newspaper man, and the others who backed the coast line insist that there are private interests behind this new proposal.

BERNICK. Well, explain to them, then –

VIGELAND. It’s no use our explaining to them, Mr Bernick.

RUMMEL. No, no, you must come yourself; of course nobody will dare to suspect you of that sort of thing.

MISS HESSEL. No, I should think not.

BERNICK. I can’t, I tell you. I’m not well. Or, anyway, wait – let me collect myself.

[Rörlund comes in from the right.]

RÖRLUND. You must excuse me, Mr Bernick. I am very greatly perturbed –

BERNICK. Well, what’s the matter with you?

RÖRLUND. Allow me to ask you a question, Mr Bernick. Is it with your consent that the young girl who has found shelter under your roof shows herself in the open street with a man who –

MISS HESSEL. What man, Mr Parson?

RÖRLUND. With the man from whom, of all men on earth, she should be kept farthest away.

MISS HESSEL. Oh, indeed?

RÖRLUND. Is it with your consent, Mr Bernick?

BERNICK [who is looking for his hat and his gloves]. I know nothing about it. Excuse me, I am in a hurry. I’m off to the Chamber of Commerce.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [coming from the garden and going across to the farthest door at the left]. Betty, Betty! Listen! Here!

MRS BERNICK [at the door]. What is it?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. You must go down the garden and put an end to the flirtation that a certain friend of ours is carrying on with Miss Dina Dorf. It has quite upset my nerves to hear it.

MISS HESSEL. Really! Why, what did this friend of ours say?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, only that he wants her to go to America with him. Ugh!

MISS HESSEL. But that would be a grand idea!

BERNICK. Impossible! You can’t have heard right.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ask him himself, then. There come the two of them. Only leave me out of it.

BERNICK [to Rummel and Vigeland], I’ll follow you – in a moment –

[Rummel and Vigeland go out to the right. Johan Tönnesen and Dina come in from the garden.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hurrah, Lona, she’s coming with us!

MRS BERNICK. But, Johan – what an irresponsible –!

RÖRLUND. Is this true? What a shocking scandal! What arts of seduction have you – ?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Come, come, man! What are you talking about?

RÖRLUND. Answer me, Dina. Is this your intention? Is it your full and free decision?

DINA. I must get away from here.

RÖRLUND. But with him – with him!

DINA. Show me anyone else who would have had the courage to take me.

RÖRLUND. Well then, you shall know who he is.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Be quiet!

BERNICK. Not another word!

RÖRLUND. That would be an ill service to the community of whose morals I am appointed guardian. And I should behave unpardonably to this young girl in whose upbringing I too have had a considerable share, and who is for me –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Be careful what you are doing!

RÖRLUND. She shall know it! Dina, it is this man who caused all your mother’s unhappiness and shame.

BERNICK. Mr Rörlund!

DINA. He! [To Johan.] Is this true?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Karsten, you answer.

BERNICK. Not another word. Let that be enough for today.

DINA. Then it’s true.

RÖRLUND. True, true. And more than that. This man you put your trust in did not run away from home empty-handed. The widow Bernick’s money – Mr Bernick can bear witness –

MISS HESSEL. Liar!

BERNICK. Ah!

MRS BERNICK. Oh, my God!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [going towards Rörlund with his arm uplifted]. You dare to –!

MISS HESSEL [checking him]. Don’t hit him, Johan.

RÖRLUND. Oh yes, you can assault me if you want to. But the truth shall out; and that is the truth. Mr Bernick has said so himself and the whole town knows it. Now, Dina, now you know him.

[A short pause.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [in a low voice, seizing Bernick’s arm]. Karsten. Karsten, what have you done?

MRS BERNICK [softly and in tears]. Oh, Karsten, to think that I should bring all this shame on you!

SANDSTAD [coming quickly in from the right and calling, with his hand on the door-handle]. You simply must come now, Mr Bernick. The whole railway’s hanging by a thread.

BERNICK [beside himself]. What is it? What must I – ?

MISS HESSEL [seriously and with emphasis]. You must come to the rescue of the community, Karsten.

SANDSTAD. Yes, come, come. We need all the weight of your moral credit.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [close to him]. Bernick, we two will have a talk tomorrow.

[He goes out through the garden. Bernick goes out to the right with Sandstad, like an automaton.]

ACT THREE

[The garden room in the Bernicks’ house. Bernick, with a cane in his hand, comes in very angry, from the farthest room to the left back, and leaves the door half open behind him.]

BERNICK. That’s right. At last the thing’s been taken seriously. I don’t think he’ll forget that thrashing. [To some one inside the room.] What do you say? And I say you’re a foolish mother! You make excuses for him and encourage him in all his naughtiness. Not naughtiness? What do you call it, then? To slip out of the house in the night and go to sea in a fishing smack! Stay away till far on in the day and give me all that terrible anxiety – I’ve quite enough already without that. And now the young devil dares to threaten he’ll run away. Well, let him try it. You? No, I quite believe it; you don’t worry yourself much whether he comes to grief or not. I believe if he were to get killed –! Really? Yes, but I have work to be carried on after me in this world; I can’t afford to lose my child. No arguing, Betty. It’s to be as I say; he’s to stay in the house. [Listening.] Hush! Don’t let anyone notice anything.

[Krap comes in from the right.]

KRAP. Have you a moment to spare, Mr Bernick?

BERNICK [throwing down the cane]. Certainly, certainly. Have you come from the shipyard?

KRAP. Just this moment. Hm.…

BERNICK. Well? There isn’t anything wrong with the Palm Tree, is there?

KRAP. The Palm Tree can sail tomorrow, but –

BERNICK. The Indian Girl, then? Didn’t I guess that that stiff-necked –

KRAP. The Indian Girl can sail tomorrow, too. But I don’t think she’ll get very far.

BERNICK. What do you mean?

KRAP. Excuse me, Mr Bernick, but that door’s ajar and I think there’s someone in there.

BERNICK [shutting the door]. There we are. But what is this business that nobody must hear?

KRAP. It’s this, that your foreman Aune has made up his mind to let the Indian Girl go to the bottom with all hands.

BERNICK. But, goodness gracious, how can you think – ?

KRAP. I can’t explain it to myself any other way, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Well, tell me men, in as few words as –

KRAP. I will. You know yourself how slowly things have gone at me yard since we got the new machines and these new, inexperienced men.

BERNICK. Yes, yes.

KRAP. But this morning when I got down there I noticed that the repairs on the American ship had gone ahead at an extraordinary rate. The large patch in the hull – you know, the rotten part –

BERNICK. Yes, yes; what about it?

KRAP. Completely repaired – to all appearances. Sheathed over. Looked like new. Heard that Aune himself had been working mere by lamp-light all night.

BERNICK. Yes, yes – and then?

KRAP. I went and examined it. The men had just laid off for breakfast. So I took the opportunity of looking round, both outside and on board, without anybody noticing. Rather difficult, getting down into that boat with her cargo shipped, but I got what I wanted. There are underhand goings-on, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. I can’t believe you, Krap. I can’t-I won’t believe a thing like that of Aune.

KRAP. I’m sorry about it, but it’s the plain truth. There are underhand doings, I tell you. No new timber put in, so far as I could tell. Only plugged and caulked and patched over the plating and tarpaulin and that sort of thing. Fair scamped! The Indian Girl will never get to New York; she’ll go to the bottom like a cracked pot.

BERNICK. This is terrible! But what do you think he means by it?

KRAP. Obviously wants to discredit the machines. Wants to revenge himself. Wants to get the old work-people taken back again.

BERNICK. And so he’s sacrificing all those lives.…

KRAP. He said the other day there weren’t any men aboard the Indian Girl – only beasts.

BERNICK. Yes, yes, may be – but doesn’t he consider the huge capital mat will be lost?

KRAP. Aune doesn’t look on huge capital with a very kindly eye, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. True enough. He is a mischief-maker, always stirring up trouble. But such unprincipled behaviour! Listen, Krap; we must think twice about this. Not a word about it to anyone. Our yard will be thought badly of, if people get to know a thing like this.

KRAP. Of course, but –

BERNICK. You must manage to get down there again in the dinner-hour; I must have absolute certainty.

KRAP. You shall, Mr Bernick. But, excuse me asking, what are you going to do then?

BERNICK. Report the case, naturally. We can’t make ourselves parties to a crime. I can’t have anything on my conscience. Besides, it will make a good impression on the Press, and the general public too, when they see that I put all personal considerations aside and let justice take its course.

KRAP. Very true, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. But first and foremost, complete certainty. And until then, silence –

KRAP. Not a word, Mr Bernick. And you shall have your certainty.

[He goes out through the garden and down the street.]

BERNICK [half aloud]. Shocking! But no. It’s impossible. Unthinkable!

[As he is about to go into his room, Hilmar Tönnesen comes in from the right.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Good morning, Bernick. Well, I congratulate you on your victory in the Chamber of Commerce yesterday.

BERNICK. Oh, thanks.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. It was a glorious victory, I hear. The victory of intelligent public spirit over self-interest and prejudice. Almost like a punitive raid. Wonderful that you could do it – after that disagreeable scene here –

BERNICK. Oh, well, never mind that.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. But the main battle hasn’t been fought yet.

BERNICK. In the matter of the railway, you mean?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes. You know, of course, what Hammer, the editor, is hatching?

BERNICK [anxiously]. No! What’s that?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. He’s got hold of the rumour that’s going round and is going to make an article of it.

BERNICK. What rumour?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Why, about the big purchase of property along the branch line, of course.

BERNICK. What do you mean? Is there a rumour of that?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, it’s all over the town. I heard it in the club when I dropped in. They say one of our lawyers has been secretly commissioned to buy up all the forests, all the ore deposits, all the water power –

BERNICK. And isn’t it known for whom?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. At the club they thought it must be for an outside company that had got news of your plans and cut in before the prices rose. Isn’t it a mean trick? Ugh!

BERNICK. Mean?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes; outsiders poaching on our preserves like that. And that one of our own lawyers should lend himself to such a thing! Now it’ll be outsiders who’ll take all the profits.

BERNICK. But surely this is only an empty rumour?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. It’s believed, anyhow. And tomorrow or the day after, Hammer, of course, will nail it down as a fact. Already there was a general feeling of indignation up there. I heard several people saying that if this rumour’s confirmed, they’ll take their names off the list

BERNICK. Impossible!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Is it? Why do you suppose these creatures, with their shopkeepers’ souls, are so ready to join in your undertaking? Don’t you think they’ve smelt out something themselves?

BERNICK. Impossible, I tell you. There’s that much public spirit in our little community, at any rate –

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Here? Oh well, you’re an optimist and you judge others by yourself. But I, who am a fairly shrewd observer.… There’s not one here – of course, with the exception of ourselves – not one, I tell you, who keeps the flag of idealism flying. [Going towards the background.] Ugh! There they are!

BERNICK. Who?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. The two Americans. [Looking out towards the right.] And who is it they’re with? Why, good Lord, if it isn’t the captain of the Indian Girl!

BERNICK. What can they want with him?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Oh, it’s very suitable company. They say he’s been a slave-trader or a pirate; and who knows what those two have been up to all these years.

BERNICK. It isn’t right, I tell you, to think like that of them.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, but you’re an optimist. Well, here they are, of course, on top of us again, so I’ll get away while I can. [Going up towards the door on the left.]

[Miss Hessel comes in from the right.]

MISS HESSEL. Hello, Hilmar! Is it I who’s driving you away?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Not at all. I was in a hurry. I was going to have a word with Betty. [Going in to the farthest room on the left.]

BERNICK [after a short silence]. Well, Lona?

MISS HESSEL. Well?

BERNICK. How do I stand with you today?

MISS HESSEL. As you did yesterday. One he more or less –

BERNICK. I must explain this. Where has Johan gone?

MISS HESSEL. He’s coming. He had to speak to somebody about something.

BERNICK. After what you heard yesterday, you will realize that my whole position is ruined if the truth comes to light.

MISS HESSEL. I realize that.

BERNICK. It’s obvious, of course, that I had nothing to do with the crime there was all that talk about.

MISS HESSEL. That can be taken for granted. But who was the thief?

BERNICK. There was no thief. No money was stolen; not a shilling was missing.

MISS HESSEL. What?

BERNICK. Not a shilling, I said.

MISS HESSEL. But the rumour? How did that shameful rumour get about, that Johan – ?

BERNICK. Lona, I seem to be able to talk to you in a way I can’t with anyone else. I won’t hide anything from you. I had my share in the spreading of the rumour.

MISS HESSEL. You? And you could do that to him, when, for your sake, he’d –

BERNICK. You mustn’t condemn me without remembering how things stood at that time. I explained it to you yesterday. I came home and found my mother involved in a whole lot of rash undertakings; failures of various kinds added to the trouble and it seemed as though misfortune of every sort rained down on us; our house was on the brink of ruin. I was half heedless and half desperate. You know, Lona, I think it was mostly to take the edge off my thoughts that I drifted into mat entanglement that led to Johan’s going away.

MISS HESSEL. I see.

BERNICK. You can well imagine all kinds of rumours got about when you and he were gone. This wasn’t his first piece of giddiness, they said. Some said Dorf had had a large sum of money from him for holding his tongue and going away. Others insisted that she had had it. At the same time, it was no secret that our house had difficulty in meeting its commitments. What was more natural than that the tattlers should find a connexion between these two rumours? When she stayed on here, living in poverty, then they declared that he had taken the money with him to America, and rumours made the sum bigger and bigger every day.

MISS HESSEL. And you, Karsten?

BERNICK. I seized upon that rumour as a drowning man on a plank.

MISS HESSEL. You helped it to spread?

BERNICK. I did not contradict it. Our creditors had begun to threaten us; I had to pacify them. It was essential that no one should suspect the solidarity of our business. A temporary misfortune had hit us – all that was needed was that they should not press us, only give us time, and everyone would get his due.

MISS HESSEL. And everyone did get it, then?

BERNICK. Yes, Lona, that rumour saved our house and made me the man I am now.

MISS HESSEL. A lie, then, has made you the man you are now.

BERNICK. Whom did it hurt – then? Johan intended never to come back.

MISS HESSEL. You ask whom it hurt. Look into yourself and tell me whether you have not been hurt.

BERNICK. Look into any man you choose, and you will find, in every single man, at least one black spot that he has to cover.

MISS HESSEL. And you call yourselves the pillars of the community.

BERNICK. The community has nothing better to support it.

MISS HESSEL. Then what does it matter whether such a community is supported or not? What is it that counts here? The sham and the He, nothing else. Here are you, the first man in the town, living in splendour and happiness, in power and honour – you, who have branded an innocent man a criminal.

BERNICK. Don’t you think I feel the injury I have done him deeply enough? And don’t you think I am prepared to make it good again?

MISS HESSEL. How? By speaking out?

BERNICK. Can you ask that?

MISS HESSEL. What else can make good an injury like this?

BERNICK. I am rich, Lona. Johan can ask what he likes –

MISS HESSEL. Yes! You offer him money, and hear what he’ll answer!

BERNICK. Do you know what his plans are?

MISS HESSEL. No. He has turned silent since yesterday. It’s as though this business had suddenly made him a full-grown man.

BERNICK. I must speak to him.

MISS HESSEL. Here he is.

[Johan Tönnesen comes in from the right.]

BERNICK [going towards him]. Johan!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [avoiding him]. No. Let me-! Yesterday morning I gave you my word not to speak.

BERNICK. You did.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. But I didn’t know then –

BERNICK. Johan, just let me have two words, to explain the situation –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. No need; I can grasp the situation quite all right. The business was in a tight place and so, as I was away, and you had my unprotected name and reputation in your hands… Well, I don’t blame you overmuch; we were young and irresponsible in those days. But now I need the truth and now you must speak.

BERNICK. And just now I need all my moral credit and so I cannot speak.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I don’t mind much about the fictions you have set going about me; it is the other thing you must take the blame for. Dina shall be my wife, and here, here in this town, I mean to live and build up a life with her.

MISS HESSEL. You mean to do that?

BERNICK. With Dina? As your wife? Here, in town!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, right here. I shall stay here to defy all those liars and back-biters. But for me to win her, you must set me free.

BERNICK. Have you considered that, if I admit the one thing, it will mean admitting the other too? You will say that I can prove, from our books, that there never was any dishonesty? But I can’t. Our books were not kept very accurately at that time. And even if I could, what would be gained by it? Shouldn’t I, in any case, be exposed as the man who had once saved himself by an untruth, and who, for fifteen years, had let that untruth and all that followed establish itself without lifting a finger to stop it? You don’t know our society any longer, or you’d know that this would smash me to pieces.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I can only say that I will take Mrs Dorf’s daughter as my wife and live with her here in this town.

BERNICK [wiping the sweat off his forehead]. Listen to me, Johan – and you too, Lona. It’s no ordinary position I am in just at the moment. I am so situated that if you strike this blow you will ruin me, and not only me, but also a great and happy future for the community – which, after all, is your childhood’s home.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. And if I don’t strike, I shall ruin my own future happiness.

MISS HESSEL. Go on, Karsten.

BERNICK. Well now, listen. It’s all connected with the business of the railway; and that business isn’t quite so simple as you think. You’ve heard, of course, that last year there was a question of a coast line. It had a good deal of powerful support here in the town and in the neighbourhood, and especially in the newspapers. But I prevented it because it would have damaged our steamboat trade along the coast.

MISS HESSEL. Have you interests in the steam-boat trade yourself?

BERNICK. Yes. But no one dared to suspect me on that account; I had my good name to cover and safeguard me. In any case, I could have stood the loss. But the town could not have stood it. Then the inland line was decided on. When that was done, I unobtrusively assured myself that a branch line could be run down here to the town.

MISS HESSEL. Why ‘unobtrusively’, Karsten?

BERNICK. Have you heard of the extensive buying-up of forests, mines and water-power?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, it’s presumably an outside company –

BERNICK. As these properties lie now, they are practically worthless to their scattered occupants; they have therefore been sold comparatively cheap. If one had waited till the branch line had been discussed, the owners would have demanded extortionate prices.

MISS HESSEL. Quite. But what about it?

BERNICK. Now comes something that can be interpreted in different ways; a thing that, in our community, a man can only attempt if he can rely upon a spotless and honourable name.

MISS HESSEL. Well?

BERNICK. It is I who have bought it all.

MISS HESSEL. You?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. On your own account?

BERNICK. On my own account. If the branch line comes off, I am a millionaire; if it doesn’t, I am ruined.

MISS HESSEL. That’s risky, Karsten.

BERNICK. I’ve staked everything I have on it.

MISS HESSEL. I’m not thinking of your money; but when it comes out that –

BERNICK. Yes, that’s the crux. With the unsullied name I have borne up till now, I can take the whole transaction on myself, carry it through and say to my fellow-citizens, ‘See, I have risked this for the good of the community.’

MISS HESSEL. Of the community?

BERNICK. Yes. And not one of them will doubt my intention.

MISS HESSEL. Nevertheless, there are men here who have acted more openly than you; without ulterior motives, without reservations.

BERNICK. Who?

MISS HESSEL. Why, Rummel and Sandstad and Vigeland, of course.

BERNICK. To win them over, I had to let them in on the business.

MISS HESSEL. And then?

BERNICK. They have stipulated for a fifth part of the profits between them.

MISS HESSEL. Oh, these pillars of the community!

BERNICK. And isn’t it the community itself that forces us into crooked ways? What would have happened here if I hadn’t dealt secretly? They would all have thrown themselves into the concern, divided it, scattered it, mismanaged and bungled the whole thing. There isn’t a single man in this town, except me, who understands how to conduct an undertaking on such a big scale as this will be. In this country it’s only we men of foreign stock who have any capacity for big business. That’s why my conscience absolves me in this particular case. It’s only in my hands that these properties can become of permanent benefit to the many people they will provide with a living.

MISS HESSEL. I believe you’re right there, Karsten.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. But I don’t know these ‘many people’, and my life’s happiness is at stake.

BERNICK. The welfare of the place where you were born is also at stake. If anything comes out which casts a shadow on my former conduct, then all my opponents will join forces and fall upon me. A youthful indiscretion is never wiped out in our community. People will go over the whole of my subsequent life, bring up a thousand little incidents, read and interpret them in the light of what has been discovered; they will crush me under a load of rumours and slanders. I shall have to withdraw from the railway affair. If I take my hand off it, it will go to pieces. And there I lose, at one stroke, my fortune and my standing as a citizen.

MISS HESSEL. Johan, after what you have just heard, you must go away and say nothing.

BERNICK. Yes, yes, Johan, you must!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Very well, I will go away and I will say nothing. But I shall come back and then I shall speak.

BERNICK. Stay over there, Johan. Don’t say anything, and I will gladly share with you –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Keep your money and give me back my name and reputation!

BERNICK. And sacrifice my own!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. That’s for you and your community to settle. I must and shall and will win Dina for myself. So I shall leave tomorrow on the Indian Girl.

BERNICK. On the Indian Girl?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, the captain has promised to take me. I’m crossing, I tell you, selling my farm and putting my affairs in order. In two months I shall be back again.

BERNICK. And then you will speak?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Then the man who is to blame shall take the blame.

BERNICK. Are you forgetting that then I shall have to take the blame for something I am not to blame for?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Who was it, fifteen years ago, who got the benefit of that shameful rumour?

BERNICK. You’re making me desperate! But if you speak, I shall deny it all! I shall say it’s a plot against me. Revenge. That you’ve come over here to get money out of me!

MISS HESSEL. For shame, Karsten!

BERNICK. I’m desperate, I tell you. And it’s my life I’m fighting for. I shall deny it all, all!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I have your two letters. I found them in my box among my other papers. I read them through this morning. They are plain enough.

BERNICK. And you will make them public?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. If necessary.

BERNICK. And in two months you will be here again?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I hope so. The wind is good. In three weeks I shall be in New York – if the Indian Girl doesn’t go down.

BERNICK [starting]. Go down? Why should the Indian Girl go down?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I don’t see why either.

BERNICK [almost inaudibly]. Go down?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Well, Bernick, now you know what to expect; you must think it over in the meantime. Good-bye! Say good-bye to Betty for me, though she hasn’t treated me very like a sister. But I’ll see Marta myself. She must tell Dina – she must promise me – [He goes out by the farthest door on the left.]

BERNICK [looking in front of him]. The Indian Girl – ? [Quickly.] Lona, you must prevent this.

MISS HESSEL. You see yourself, Karsten: I’ve no power over him any longer. [She goes after Johan into the room on the left.]

BERNICK. [perturbed]. Go down – ?

[Aune comes in from the right.]

AUNE. Beg pardon, sir, have you a minute?

BERNICK [turning angrily]. What do you want?

AUNE. If you’ll allow me, sir, to ask you a question?

BERNICK. Very well, hurry up. What do you want to ask about?

AUNE. I wanted to ask if it’s settled, finally settled, that I shall be discharged from the yard if the Indian Girl can’t sail tomorrow?

BERNICK. What’s the matter now? The boat will be ready to sail.

AUNE. Yes, she will. But suppose she wasn’t, should I be discharged then?

BERNICK. What is the point of this senseless question?

AUNE. I very much wanted to know, sir. Please answer me: should I be discharged?

BERNICK. Do I usually keep my word or not?

AUNE. Then tomorrow I should have lost the position I hold in my home and with the people who belong to me – lost my influence among the workmen – lost all chance of doing good among the poor and lowly in this community.

BERNICK. Aune, we’ve settled that point.

AUNE. Yes. Then the Indian Girl must sail. [Short silence.]

BERNICK. Listen to me. I can’t have my eye on everything – can’t be answerable for everything. You are prepared to assure me that the repairs are satisfactorily carried out?

AUNE. You gave me very short time, sir.

BERNICK. But the repairs are all right, you say?

AUNE. The weather is good, and it is summer. [Another silence.]

BERNICK. Have you anything more to say to me?

AUNE: I don’t know of anything else, sir.

BERNICK. Well, then – the Indian Girl sails –

AUNE. Tomorrow?

BERNICK. Yes.

AUNE. Very good. [He bows and goes out.]

[Bernick stands a moment in doubt; then he goes quickly over towards the door as if to call Aune back, but stops uncertainly with his hand on the door-knob. At that moment the door is opened from outside and Krap comes in.]

KRAP [softly]. Ah, he was here. Has he confessed?

BERNICK. Hm. Have you discovered anything?

KRAP. Is there any need to? Didn’t you see his bad conscience looking out of his eyes, Mr Bernick?

BERNICK. Oh, nonsense. Those things don’t show. I’m asking you whether you have discovered anything?

KRAP. Couldn’t get there. It was too late. They were already hauling the ship out of the dock. But this hurry itself shows plainly that –

BERNICK. It doesn’t show anything. The inspection has taken place, then?

KRAP. Of course it has, but –

BERNICK. There you are, then. And naturally they’ve found nothing to complain of.

KRAP. Mr Bernick, you know well enough how that kind of inspection is conducted, especially in a yard that has such a good name as ours.

BERNICK. All the same, we’re covered.

KRAP. Mr Bernick, couldn’t you really see by Aune’s look – ?

BERNICK. Aune has completely reassured me, I tell you.

KRAP. And I tell you that I am morally certain that –

BERNICK. What’s all this about, Krap? I know you’ve got a grudge against the man, but if you want to pick a quarrel with him you should find another opportunity. You know how important it is for me – or rather for the company – that the Indian Girl should be under sail tomorrow.

KRAP. Very good, then. Let it go at that. But when we hear from that ship next – hm!

[Vigeland comes in from the right.]

VIGELAND. Good morning to you, Consul. Have you a moment to spare?

BERNICK. At your service, Mr Vigeland.

VIGELAND. Well, I only wanted to know whether you don’t agree that the Palm Tree should sail tomorrow.

BERNICK. Why, yes; it’s a settled thing.

VIGELAND. But the captain’s just come to me and told me the storm signals are up.

KRAP. The barometer has fallen a good deal since this morning.

BERNICK. Has it? Is there a storm coming?

VIGELAND. A stiff breeze at any rate. But it isn’t a headwind. On the contrary –

BERNICK. Hm. Well, what do you say?

VIGELAND. I say, as I said to the captain, that the Palm Tree is in the hands of Providence. And besides, she’s only crossing the Norm Sea to begin with. And freights are standing tolerably high just now in England, so that –

BERNICK. Yes. It would probably mean a loss for us if we waited.

VIGELAND. The vessel’s sound enough; and besides, she’s fully insured. But it’s a much more risky business with the Indian Girl.

BERNICK. What do you mean?

VIGELAND. Well, she’s sailing tomorrow, too.

BERNICK. Yes, the owners hurried things on – and besides –

VIGELAND. Well, if that old hulk can venture out – and with such a crew into the bargain – it would be a disgrace if we didn’t –

BERNICK. Very well, men. You’ve got her ship’s papers with you, I suppose?

VIGELAND. Yes, here they are.

BERNICK. Good. Then go in with Mr Krap will you?

KRAP. If you’ll just come this way. That’s soon dealt with.

VIGELAND. Thank you. And we leave the issue in the hands of the Almighty, Mr Bernick.

[He goes with Krap into the nearest room on the left. Rörlund comes in through the garden.]

RÖRLUND. Ah, do I really find you at home at this time of day, Mr Bernick?

BERNICK [absently]. As you see.

RÖRLUND. Well, I really came in to see your wife. I rather thought she might need a word of consolation.

BERNICK. I dare say she does. But I would like to speak to you for a moment, too.

RÖRLUND. With pleasure, Mr Bernick. But what is the matter? You look quite pale and disturbed.

BERNICK. Really? Do I? Well, what else can one expect?

All the things that are piling up round me at the moment!

All my business concerns – and this railway project.

Listen, Mr Rörlund; tell me something – let me ask you a question.

RÖRLUND. Most willingly, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. There’s an idea that has struck me. When one is on the threshold of a far-reaching enterprise, which promises to further the welfare of thousands… if it should demand the sacrifice of an individual – ?

RÖRLUND. How do you mean?

BERNICK. Take, for example, a man who is thinking of setting up a large factory. He knows for certain because all his experience has taught him that – that sooner or later, in the running of that factory, there will be loss of life.

RÖRLUND. Yes, that is only too probable.

BEENICK. Or a man undertakes mining operations. He takes on fathers of families and young men in the flower of their youth. Can’t it be said with certainty that some of these will not come through alive?

RÖRLUND. Yes, unfortunately, that’s probably so.

BERNICK. Very well, then. A man like that knows beforehand that the enterprise he is starting will undoubtedly at some point cost human life. But that enterprise is for the general good; for every life it costs it will just as certainly further the welfare of many hundreds.

RÖRLUND. Ah, you’re thinking of the railway, of all these dangerous excavations and the blasting and that.

BERNICK. Yes. You’re right. I’m thinking of the railway. And besides… the railway will lead to both factories and mines. But don’t you think, all the same – ?

RÖRLUND. My dear Consul, you are almost too conscientious. I think if you put the matter into the hands of Providence –

BERNICK. Yes. Yes, of course. Providence…

RÖRLUND. – Then you need have no compunction. You can build your railway with an easy mind.

BERNICK. Yes, but now I will put you a special case. Suppose there’s a charge to be fired in a dangerous place, and unless it is fired the railway can’t be built. Suppose the engineer knows it will cost the life of any workman who lights the fuse, and yet it must be fired and it is the engineer’s duty to send a workman to do it…

RÖRLUND. Hm –

BERNICK. I know what you’re going to say. It would be heroic for the engineer to take the match and go and light the charge himself. But people don’t do that kind of thing. And so he must sacrifice a workman.

RÖRLUND. That’s a thing none of our engineers would ever do.

BERNICK. No engineer in the big countries would hesitate to do it.

RÖRLUND. In the big countries? No, that I can believe. In those corrupt and unprincipled communities –

BERNICK. Oh, there’s something to be said for those communities.

RÖRLUND. Can you say that? You, who yourself –?

BERNICK. In the big communities they have plenty of elbow-room, they can forge ahead with a useful project; they have the courage to sacrifice something for a great object. But here they are tied down by all kinds of petty scruples and considerations.

RÖRLUND. Is human life a petty consideration?

BERNICK. When that life constitutes a threat to the welfare of thousands.…

RÖRLUND. But you’re putting up quite impossible cases, my dear Mr Bernick. I don’t understand you at all today. And then you point to the big communities. Yes, out there – what is a human life worth there? They don’t reckon in terms of life, but in terms of capital. But I think we look at things from a rather different moral standpoint. Look at all our fine ship-owners. Name me a single one of them who, for mere gain, would sacrifice a human life. And then think of those scoundrels in the big countries who, just to make money, send out one unseaworthy ship after another.

BERNICK. I’m not talking about unseaworthy ships.

RÖRLUND. No. But I am, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Yes, but what’s the point of it? It doesn’t touch the case. Ah, these petty, timid considerations. If one of our generals were to lead his men under fire and get them shot down, he would have sleepless nights after it. It isn’t like that in other places. You should hear what that fellow in there has to say –

RÖRLUND. That fellow? Who? The American?

BERNICK. Yes, of course. You should hear how people in America –

RÖRLUND. Is he in there? And you didn’t tell me? I shall go at once –

BERNICK. It won’t be any use; you won’t get anywhere with him.

RÖRLUND. We shall see about that. Oh, here he is.

[Johan Tönnesen comes in from the room on the left.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN [speaking back through the open door]. All right, Dina; we’ll leave it at that. But I’m not going to let you go, all the same. I shall come back, and things will come right between us then.

RÖRLUND. With your permission, sir, what are you referring to? What do you want?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I want that girl to be my wife. The girl to whom you blackened my character yesterday.

RÖRLUND. You – ? You can imagine that – ?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I mean to have her for my wife.

RÖRLUND. Well, in that case, you shall hear – [Goes across to the half-open door.] Mrs Bernick, will you be so good as to be a witness.… And you too, Miss Marta. And let Dina come in. [Sees Miss Hessel.] Ah, are you here too?

MISS HESSEL [at the door]. Shall I come too?

RÖRLUND. As many of you as like: the more the better.

BERNICK. What are you going to do?

[Miss Hessel, Mrs Bernick, Miss Bernick, Dina and Hilmar Tönnesen come out from the room.]

MRS BERNICK. Mr Rörlund, with the best will in the world I can’t prevent him –

RÖRLUND. I shall prevent him, Mrs Bernick. Dina, you are a thoughtless girl. But I don’t blame you too much. You have been here too long without the moral support that you needed to steady you. I blame myself for not having given you this support sooner.

DINA. You mustn’t say anything now!

MRS BERNICK. But what is it?

RÖRLUND. It is precisely now that I must speak, Dina, although your behaviour today and yesterday has made it ten times more difficult for me. But to save you, all other considerations must give way. You remember the word I gave you. You remember what you promised to answer, when I found the time had come. Now I must not hesitate any longer, and therefore – [To Johan Tönnesen.] This young girl that you are pursuing, is my promised wife.

MRS BERNICK. What do you say?

BERNICK. Dina!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. She! Your – ?

MISS BERNICK. No, no, Dina!

MISS HESSEL. It’s a lie!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Dina, is this man speaking the truth?

DINA [after a short pause]. Yes.

RÖRLUND. This, we may hope, has defeated all your arts of seduction. The step I have decided on for Dina’s good can be revealed to the whole of our community. I cherish the hope – I am sure – that it will not be misinterpreted. But now, Mrs Bernick, I think we had better take her away from here and try to restore her mind to peace and equilibrium.

MRS BERNICK. Yes, come along. Oh, Dina, what a wonderful thing for you!

[She takes Dina out to the left; Rörlund goes with them.]

MISS BERNICK. Good-bye, Johan. [She goes out.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN [at the garden door]. Hm – I really must say –

MISS HESSEL [who has followed Dina with her eyes]. Don’t lose heart, my boy! I shall be here keeping an eye on the parson. [She goes out to the right.]

BERNICK. Now you won’t sail on the Indian Girl, Johan.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. More than ever.

BERNICK. But aren’t you coming back, then?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I’m coming back.

BERNICK. After this? What do you propose to do after this?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Revenge myself on the whole pack of you. Crush as many of you as I can.

[He goes out to the right. Vigeland and Krap come in from Bernick’s room.]

VIGELAND. There you are. The papers are in order now, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Good. Good.

KRAP [in a low voice]. It’s settled, then, that the Indian Girl’s to sail tomorrow?

BERNICK. She’s to sail.

[He goes into his room. Vigeland and Krap go out to the right. Hilmar Tönnesen is going to follow them, but at that moment Olaf puts his head cautiously out round the door on the left.]

OLAF. Uncle! Uncle Hilmar!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Ugh! Is that you? Why aren’t you staying upstairs? You’re supposed to be in your room.

OLAF [a few steps nearer]. Hush! Uncle Hilmar, do you know the news?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, I know you got a thrashing today.

OLAF [looking threateningly towards his father’s room]. He shan’t hit me again. But do you know that Uncle Johan is sailing tomorrow with the Americans?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. What’s that got to do with you? Get along upstairs again.

OLAF. I may go on a buffalo hunt yet, Uncle.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Rot! A coward like you –

OLAF. Well, you just wait; you’ll find out something in the morning.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Little idiot!

[He goes out through the garden. Olaf runs back into the room and shuts the door when he sees Krap, who comes in from the right.]

KRAP [going across to Bernick’s door and half opening it]. Excuse me coming again, Mr Bernick, but it’s blowing up for a regular storm. [Waits a moment; there is no answer.] Is the Indian Girl to sail just the same?

[After a short pause, Bernick answers from inside the room.]

BERNICK. The Indian Girl is to sail just the same.

[Krap closes the door and goes out again to the right.]

ACT FOUR

[The garden room at the Bemicks’. The work-table has been moved away. It is a stormy afternoon and already dark. The darkness increases during the following scene.

A servant lights the chandelier; two maids bring in pots of flowers, lamps and lights, which they put on the table and on stands along the walls. Rummel, in evening dress, with gloves and a white tie, is standing in the room giving instructions.]

RUMMEL [to the servant]. Only every other light, Jacob. It mustn’t look too festive; it’s to come as a surprise. And all these flowers? Oh well, let them stay. It will just look as though they had them there every day.

[Bernick comes out from his room.]

BERNICK [at the door]. What does all this mean?

RUMMEL. Dear me, are you there? [To the servants.] Yes, you can go now, for the moment.

[The footman and the maids go out by the farthest door on the left.]

BERNICK [coming farther in]. But, Rummel, what does all this mean?

RUMMEL. It means that your proudest moment is at hand. This evening the town is coming in procession to honour its leading citizen.

BERNICK. What do you say?

RUMMEL. A procession, banners and music! We should have had torches, too, but we didn’t like to risk it in this stormy weather. Of course, there will be illuminations. And that will look rather well, too, when it gets into the papers.

BERNICK. Listen, Rummel; I won’t have any of this!

RUMMEL. Oh, it’s too late now. We shall have them here in half an hour.

BERNICK. But why didn’t you tell me about it before?

RUMMEL. Just because I was afraid you’d raise objections. But I consulted your wife. She allowed me to make a few arrangements, and she’s going to see about refreshments.

BERNICK [listening]. What’s that? Are they coming already? I think I hear singing.

RUMMEL [at the garden door]. Singing? Oh, that’s only the Americans. It’s the Indian Girl that’s hauling out to the buoy.

BERNICK. Hauling out! Yes… No! I can’t this evening, Rummel; I’m not well.

RUMMEL. Why yes, you do look pretty bad. But you must pull yourself together. Gracious heavens! You simply must pull yourself together. Sandstad and Vigeland and I all attach the greatest importance to carrying out this scheme. Our opponents must be crushed under the weight of as strong an expression of opinion as possible. There are rumours getting about the town. A statement about the purchase of those properties can’t be put off any longer. It is imperative that you should tell them, this very evening, amid the songs and speeches and the ringing of glasses – when, in fact, they are in an expansive and festive mood – the risk you have taken for the good of the community. In that expansive and festive mood, as I just expressed it, one can do a surprising amount with our people.

BERNICK. Yes, yes, yes –

RUMMEL. And especially when such a ticklish and delicate matter is to be brought up. Well, thank heavens, you have a name that can carry it off, Bernick. But listen now, we must arrange things a little. Hilmar Tönnesen has written a song to you. It begins most charmingly with the words, ‘Hoist the Ideal’s flag on high’. And Rörlund has been deputed to make the Festival Oration. Naturally, you must reply to that.

BERNICK. I can’t do it this evening, Rummel. Couldn’t you –?

RUMMEL. Impossible – however much I might like to. The speech, you realize, will be mainly addressed to you. There may, of course, be a few words directed to the rest of us. I have spoken to Vigeland and Sandstad about it. We thought you could answer with a toast to the prosperity of the community, Sandstad speak a few words about concord between the different classes of the community, Vigeland express the hope that the new enterprise will not disturb the moral foundation on which we now stand, while I think of saying a few well-chosen words in recognition of woman, whose humbler activities are by no means without significance. But you’re not listening –

BERNICK. Yes – yes, I am. But tell me, do you think there’s a very heavy sea outside?

RUMMEL. Ah, you’re worried about the Palm Tree? But she’s well enough insured.

BERNICK. Yes, insured… but –

RUMMEL. And in good repair. And that’s the main thing.

BERNICK. Hm. And if anything does happen to a ship, it doesn’t necessarily follow that there is loss of life. The ship and the cargo may be lost – and people may lose baggage and papers –

RUMMEL. What the devil – ? Baggage and papers don’t matter much.

BERNICK. Don’t they? No, no, I only meant – Hush! They’re singing again.

RUMMEL. That’s aboard the Palm Tree.

[Vigeland cornes in from the right.]

VIGELAND. Well, the Palm Tree’s hauling out. Good evening, Consul.

BERNICK. And you, as a man who knows the sea, still hold fast to – ?

VIGELAND. I hold fast to Providence, for my part, Mr Bernick. Besides I have been aboard and distributed some little tracts that will, I hope, work to good effect.

[Sandstad and Krap come in from the right.]

SANDSTAD [still in the doorway]. Well, if they bring that off, they can bring off anything. Ah, there we are! Good evening, good evening.

BERNICK. Anything the matter, Krap?

KRAP. I’ve nothing to report, Mr Bernick.

SANDSTAD. The whole crew of the Indian Girl’s drunk. If those brutes get over alive, I’ll be –!

[Miss Hessel comes in from the right.]

MISS HESSEL [to Bernick]. Well, he asked me to say goodbye to you.

BERNICK. On board already?

MISS HESSEL. Soon, at any rate. We parted outside the hotel.

BERNICK. And he still holds to his purpose?

MISS HESSEL. Firm as a rock.

RUMMEL [up by the window]. The deuce take these newfangled contrivances! I can’t get the blinds down.

MISS HESSEL. Are they to be down? I rather thought –

RUMMEL. Down at first, Miss Hessel. Of course you know what’s afoot?

MISS HESSEL. Oh yes. Let me help. [She takes hold of the cord.] I’ll let the blind down on my brother-in-law, though I’d much rather pull it up.

RUMMEL. You can do that later on. When the garden is filled with the singing throng, men the blinds go up and the people look in on a surprised and happy family. A citizen’s home should be as transparent as glass.

[Bernick seems as if he is going to say something, but turns quickly and goes into his room.]

RUMMEL. Well, let us hold our last council. You come too, Mr Krap? We want you to help us get one or two facts clear.

[The men all go into Bernick’s room. Miss Hessel has pulled down the window blinds and is just going to do the same with those before the open glass door when Olaf jumps down on to the garden step from above. He has a travelling rug over his shoulder and a bundle in his hand.]

MISS HESSEL. God forgive you, boy, what a fright you gave me!

OLAF [hiding the bundle]. Hush, Aunt Lona!

MISS HESSEL. Why are you jumping out of the window? Where are you going?

OLAF. Hush! Don’t say any thing. I am going to Uncle Johan. Only down to the quay, you know. Just to say good-bye to him. Good night, Aunt Lona! [He runs out through the garden.]

MISS HESSEL. No, stay here. Olaf! Olaf!

[Johan Tönnesen, dressed for a journey, with a haversack on his shoulders, comes cautiously through the door on the right.]

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Lona!

MISS HESSEL [turning]. What! Have you come back?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. There are still a few minutes to spare.

I must see her once more. We can’t part like this.

[Miss Bernick and Dina, both with outdoor coats on, and the latter with a small carpet bag in her hand, come in from the farther door on the left.]

DINA. I must go to him! I must!

MISS BERNICK. Yes, you shall go to him, Dina.

DINA. There he is!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Dina!

DINA. Take me with you!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. What!

MISS HESSEL. You want to?

DINA. Yes, take me with you! He has written to me and said that this evening it’s to be made public to everyone –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Dina, you don’t love him?

DINA. I’ve never loved the man. I shall throw myself into the fjord if I have to be engaged to him! Didn’t he force me down on my knees last night with his patronizing words! Didn’t he make me feel he was raising something inferior up to himself! I won’t be despised any longer. I’ll go away. May I come with you?

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, yes – a thousand times yes!

DINA. I shan’t be a burden to you for long. Just help me across. Help me to get on my feet just at first –

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Hurrah! That’ll be all right, Dina!

MISS HESSEL [pointing towards Bernick’s door]. Hush! Quietly, quietly!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. I’ll take good care of you, Dina.

DINA. I won’t let you do that. I want to make my own way and I can do it all right over there. Once I get away from here. Oh, these women – you don’t know what it is! They’ve written to me today. They’ve exhorted me to think of my good fortune, pointed out to me how generously he has behaved. Tomorrow and every day they’ll be watching me to see whether I am making myself worthy of it all. I’ve a horror of all this respectability!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Tell me, Dina, is that the only reason why you are going? Am I nothing to you?

DINA. Oh yes, Johan. You are more to me than everybody else.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Oh, Dina –!

DINA. They all say here that I must hate and detest you.

That it’s my duty. But I don’t understand all this about duty. I never can understand it.

MISS HESSEL. And you shan’t either, my child!

MISS BERNICK. No, you shan’t. And that’s why you shall go with him as his wife.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, yes!

MISS HESSEL. What? Now I must kiss you, Marta! I never expected that of you.

MISS BERNICK. No, I can well believe it; I didn’t expect it of myself. But it was bound to come to the breaking-point some time. Oh, what we suffer here under the tyranny of custom and convention! Rebel against it, Dina. Be his wife. Let there be something to defy all this tradition and habit!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. What is your answer, Dina?

DINA. Yes, I will be your wife.

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Dina!

DINA. But I will work first and become something myself, just as you are. I won’t be just a thing that is taken.

MISS HESSEL. Quite right. That’s the spirit!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Good. I shall wait and hope –

MISS HESSEL. – And win, my boy! But now, on board!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, on board! Ah, Lona, my dear sister, just a word. Listen –

[He leads her up to the background and talks rapidly to her.]

MISS BERNICK. Dina, you lucky girl – let me look at you and kiss you once more – for the last time.

DINA. Not the last time. No, my dear Aunt Marta; we shall see each other again.

MISS BERNICK. Never! Promise me that, Dina: Don’t ever come back. [Taking both her hands and looking at her.] Now go to your happiness, my precious child – over the sea. Oh, how often have I sat in the school-room and longed to be over there! It must be beautiful there; the skies are wider; the clouds move higher than here; a freer wind blows overhead –

DINA. Oh, Aunt Marta, you’ll follow us some day.

MISS BERNICK. I? Never. Never. I have my little work in life here, and now I think I can be fully and wholly what I am to be.

DINA. I don’t know how I’m to part with you.

MISS BERNICK. Ah! One can part with a great deal, Dina. [Kissing her.] But you will never experience that, my precious child. Promise to make him happy.

DINA. I won’t promise anything. I hate this promising. Things must take their course.

MISS BERNICK. Yes, yes. They must. You must just be what you are, honest and true to yourself.

DINA. I will be that, Aunt Marta.

MISS HESSEL [putting into her pocket some papers that Johan has given her]. Good, good, my dear boy. But off with you now!

JOHAN TÖNNESEN. Yes, there’s no time to lose now. Good-bye, Lona. Thanks for all your love. Good-bye, Marta, and thank you, too, for your faithful friendship.

MISS BERNICK. Good-bye, Johan! Good-bye, Dina! And happiness to you all your days!

[She and Miss Hessel hurry them towards the door at the back. Johan Tönnesen and Dina go quickly down through the garden. Miss Hessel shuts the door and draws the blind down.]

MISS HESSEL. Now we’re alone, Marta. You have lost her and I him.

MISS BERNICK. You-him?

MISS HESSEL. Oh, I had half lost him already over there.

The boy was longing to stand on his own feet. That’s why I made him think I wanted to come home.

MISS BERNICK. Was that it? Now I understand why you came. But he’ll want you back, Lona.

MISS HESSEL. An old half-sister – what will he want with her now? Men tear their way through a great many ties to get to their happiness.

MISS BERNICK. Yes. That does happen, sometimes.…

MISS HESSEL. But we will hold together, Marta.

MISS BERNICK. Can I be anything to you?

MISS HESSEL. Who more so? We two foster-mothers, haven’t we both lost our children? Now we’re alone.

MISS BERNICK. Yes, alone. And so, I will tell you… I loved him more than anything in the world.

MISS HESSEL. Marta! [Seizing her arm.] Is this the truth?

MISS BERNICK. My whole life is in those words. I loved him and waited for him. Every summer I expected him to come. And then he came… but he did not see me.

MISS HESSEL. Loved him! Yet it was you who put his happiness into his hands…

MISS BERNICK. Shouldn’t I give him happiness, since I loved him? Yes, I have loved him. My life has been lived for him, ever since he went. What grounds had I for hope, you wonder? Well, I think I had some grounds. But when he came back again… then it seemed as if everything was wiped out of his memory. He didn’t see me.

MISS HESSEL. It was Dina who overshadowed you, Marta.

MISS BERNICK. It was right that she did. When he went away we were the same age. When I saw him again – oh, that terrible moment! – I felt that I was ten years older than he. He had lived out there in the pure, radiant sunshine and drawn in youth and health with every breath, while I was sitting indoors here, spinning and spinning –

MISS HESSEL. – The thread of his happiness, Marta.

MISS BERNICK. Yes, it was gold I spun. No bitterness! It’s true, Lona, isn’t it, we have been two good sisters to him?

MISS HESSEL [throwing her arms around her]. Marta!

[Bernick comes out from his room.]

BERNICK [to the men inside]. Yes, yes. Manage the whole thing as you like. When the time comes, I will – [Shuts the door.] Oh, is anyone there? Listen, Marta, you must change your dress. And tell Betty to do the same. I don’t want anything elaborate, of course. Just a quiet, indoor dress. But you must be quick.

MISS HESSEL. And a happy, contented look, Marta. Put on a cheerful expression.

BERNICK. Olaf must come down too; I will have him beside me.

MISS HESSEL. Hm. Olaf –

MISS BERNICK. I’ll tell Betty. [She goes out by the farthest door to the left.]

MISS HESSEL. Well, so now the great and solemn hour has come.

BERNICK [pacing uneasily to and fro]. Yes, it has.

MISS HESSEL. A man must feel proud and happy, I should think, at a moment like this.

BERNICK [looking at her]. Hm!

MISS HESSEL. The whole town will be illuminated, I hear.

BERNICK. Yes, they’ve got some such plan.

MISS HESSEL. All the Leagues and Societies are going to turn out with their banners. Your name will shine in letters of fire. Tonight telegrams will go to all parts of the country: ‘Surrounded by his happy family, Mr Karsten Bernick received the homage of his fellow-citizens as one of the pillars of the community.’

BERNICK. They will. And they will shout ‘Hurrah!’ outside and the crowd will call me out by that door and I shall have to bow and thank them.

MISS HESSEL. Why ‘have’ to…?

BERNICK. Do you think I feel happy at this moment?

MISS HESSEL. No, I don’t think you can feel entirely happy.

BERNICK. Lona, you despise me.

MISS HESSEL. Not yet.

BERNICK. And you have no right to. Not to despise me. Lona, you have no idea how indescribably lonely I am here, in this narrow, stunted community; how each year I have had to relinquish more and more of my right to a full and satisfying life. What have I achieved, however much it may seem? Scraps and futile patchwork! But nothing else, nothing greater, is tolerated here. If I tried to go one step ahead of the temper and outlook of the moment, it would be all up with my authority. Do you know what we are, we who are counted the pillars of a community? We are the tools of that community, neither more nor less.

MISS HESSEL. Why are you seeing this now for the first time?

BERNICK Because I have been thinking a good deal lately – since you came back – and especially this evening. Ah, Lona, why didn’t I know you, your real self, then – in the old days.

MISS HESSEL. And what if you had?

BERNICK. I would never have given you up. And if I had had you, I should never have stood where I stand now.

MISS HESSEL. And do you never think what she might have been to you… she, whom you chose instead?

BERNICK. I know at any rate that she has been nothing to me – nothing that I needed.

MISS HESSEL. Because you have never shared your life-work with her. Because you have never let her be on a free and honest footing with you. Because you have left her to be weighed down by the disgrace and shame you fastened on those nearest to her.

BERNICK. Yes, yes, yes. The whole thing comes from the lies and pretences.

MISS HESSEL. Then why don’t you break with all these pretences and lies?

BERNICK. Now? It’s too late now, Lona.

MISS HESSEL. Karsten, tell me – what satisfaction does this pretence and imposture give you?

BERNICK. It gives me none. I must go under like all the rest of this social system, rotten and wrecked as it is. But a generation is growing up after us. It is my son I am working for; it is for him that I am building up a life’s work. There will come a time when truth becomes a settled habit in the life of the people, and on that he shall base a happier life than his father’s.

MISS HESSEL. With a lie as the groundwork? Think what it is you are giving your son as a heritage.

BERNICK [repressing his despair]. I am giving him a thousand times worse heritage than you know of. But some day the curse must be lifted. And yet – and yet – [Breaking out.] How could you bring all this down on me! But it’s done now. Now, I must go on. You shan’t have the satisfaction of breaking me!

[Hilmar Tönnesen, with an open letter in his hand, comes in from the right, hurried and distracted.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. But this is really – Betty, Betty!

BERNICK. What is it? Are they coming already?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, no. But I absolutely must speak to somebody – [He goes out by the farthest door to the left.]

MISS HESSEL. Karsten, you talk of us coming here to break you. So now let me tell you what stuff he’s made of, this prodigal son that your moral community shuns as if he had the plague. He can do without you. for he’s gone now.

BERNICK. But he’ll come back –

MISS HESSEL. Johan will never come back. He’s gone for good, and Dina has gone with him.

BERNICK. Not coming back? And Dina gone with him?

MISS HESSEL. Yes, to be his wife. That’s how those two have slapped the face of your virtuous society, just as I did once.… Well!

BERNICK. Gone. She too. On the Indian Girl…

MISS HESSEL. No. He didn’t dare trust such a precious cargo to that abandoned lot. Johan and Dina have sailed on the Palm Tree.

BERNICK. Ah! So… to no purpose… [Goes quickly across, tears open the door of his room and calls in.] Krap, stop the Indian Girl. She mustn’t sail tonight.

KRAP [from inside]. The Indian Girl’s already standing out to sea, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK [shuts the door and says dully]. Too late… and to no purpose.…

MISS HESSEL. What do you mean?

BERNICK. Nothing. Nothing. Go away!

MISS HESSEL. Hm. Look here, Karsten. Johan told me to tell you that he leaves in my hands the name and reputation he once lent you, and likewise the one you stole from him while he was gone. Johan will say nothing and I can act or not, as I like, in the matter. Look, here I have your two letters in my hand.

BERNICK. You have them! And now, now you’re going to – this very evening – perhaps when the procession –

MISS HESSEL. I did not come here to expose you, but to rouse you to speak of your own free will. I haven’t succeeded. So stay rooted in the lie. Look here: I am tearing your two letters to pieces.… Take the pieces: there they are. Now there is nothing to bear witness against you, Karsten. You are safe now. Be happy too – if you can.

BERNICK [deeply moved]. Lona, why didn’t you do this before? Now it is too late. Life is ruined for me now.

I can’t go on with my life after today.

MISS HESSEL. What has happened?

BERNICK. Don’t ask me. But yet I must live. I will live, for Olaf’s sake. He shall put everything right, atone for everything –

MISS HESSEL. Karsten! [Hilmar Tönnesen comes hurriedly in again.]

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No one to be found. All out. Not even Betty.

BERNICK. What’s the matter with you?

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. I daren’t tell you.

BERNICK. What is it? You must tell me, you shall!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Well, then, Olaf has run away on the Indian Girl.

BERNICK [staggering back]. Olaf – on the Indian Girl! No, no!

MISS HESSEL. He has, has he? Now I understand. I saw him jump out of the window.

BERNICK [at the door of his room, calling in despair]. Krap, stop the Indian Girl at any price!

KRAP [coming out]. Impossible, Mr Bernick. How can you think –?

BERNICK. We must stop her. Olaf is on board!

KRAP. What do you say?

RUMMEL [coming out]. Olaf run away? It’s not possible!

SANDSTAD [entering]. He’ll be sent back with the pilot, of course.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. No, no; he has written to me. [Showing the letter.] He says he’s going to hide in the cargo till they are in the open sea.

BERNICK. I shall never see him again!

RUMMEL. Oh, nonsense. A good, strong ship, newly repaired –

VIGELAND [who has also come out]. – Out of your own yard, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. I shall never see him again, I tell you. I have lost him, Lona, and – I see it now – he has never really belonged to me. [Listening.] What is that?

RUMMEL. Music. The procession is coming.

BERNICK. I can’t, I won’t meet anyone.

RUMMEL. What are you thinking of? This will never do.

SANDSTAD. Impossible. Mr Bernick. Think what you have at stake.

BERNICK. What does all that matter to me now? Whom have I now to work for?

RUMMEL. Can you ask such a question? You have us and the community.

VIGELAND. Yes; that’s a true word.

SANDSTAD. And surely you’re not forgetting, Consul, that we –

[Miss Bernick comes in by the farthest door at the left hack. Music is heard, softly, far away down the street.]

MISS BERNICK. The procession’s coming now. But Betty isn’t at home. I can’t understand where she –

BERNICK. Not at home! There, you see, Lona. No support either in joy or in sorrow.

RUMMEL. Up with the blinds! Come and help me, Mr Krap. You too, Sandstad. A dreadful pity the family should be so scattered, just at this moment! Dead against the programme.

[The blinds are pulled up from the windows and the door. The whole street is seen to be illuminated. On the opposite house is a large transparency with the inscription, ‘Long live Karsten Bernick, the Pillar of our Community’.]

BERNICK [shrinking back]. Take away all that! I don’t want to see it! Put it out! Put it out!

RUMMEL. With all due respect, are you out of your mind?

MISS BERNICK. What’s the matter with him, Lona?

MISS HESSEL. Hush! [Speaks to her in a low voice.]

BERNICK. Take away that inscription! It’s a mockery, I tell you! Don’t you see that all these lights – they’re flames, putting out their tongues at us.

RUMMEL. Well, I must admit –

BERNICK. Ah, what do you know about it! But I, I –! These lights are funeral tapers!

KRAP. Hm –

RUMMEL. Now look here, old man, you’re taking all this too hard.

SANDSTAD. The lad will get a trip across the Atlantic and then you’ll have him back again.

VIGELAND. Only trust to the hand of the Almighty, Mr Bernick.

RUMMEL. And to the ship, Bernick. It’s not going to sink, that I know.

KRAP. Hm.

RUMMEL. Now, if it was one of these floating coffins one hears of in the big countries –

BERNICK. I feel my hair turning grey in this hour.

[Mrs Bernick, with a large shawl over her head, comes in by the garden door.]

MRS BERNICK. Karsten, Karsten, do you know – ?

BERNICK. Yes, I know. But you, who see nothing, you who can’t keep a mother’s eye on him –!

MRS BERNICK. But listen –!

BERNICK. Why didn’t you watch him? Now I’ve lost him. Give him back to me, if you can!

MRS BERNICK. But I can. I’ve got him!

BERNICK. You’ve got him!

THE MEN. Ah!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, I thought as much.

MISS BERNICK. You’ve got him back, Karsten!

MISS HESSEL. Yes. And now win him, too.

BERNICK. You’ve got him! Is that true, what you’re saying? Where is he?

MRS BERNICK. You’re not to know that till you’ve forgiven him.

BERNICK. Forgiven! Good Lord! But how did you find out –?

MRS BERNICK. Do you think a mother doesn’t notice? I was desperately afraid you’d find out something. A word or two that he let slip yesterday. – And his room was empty and his rucksack and his clothes were gone.–

BERNICK. Yes, well – ?

MRS BERNICK. I ran and got hold of Aune, and we went out in his sailing-boat. The American ship was just getting under way. But, thank God, we got there in time. We went aboard, had the hold searched and found him. Oh, Karsten, you mustn’t punish him!

BERNICK. Betty!

MRS BERNICK. Nor Aune.

BERNICK. Aune? What do you know about him? Is the Indian Girl under sail again?

MRS BERNICK. No, that’s just it –

BERNICK. Tell me! Go on!

MRS BERNICK. Aune was just as upset as I was. The search took some time, it was getting dark and the pilot made difficulties. And so Aune ventured – in your name –

BERNICK. Well?

MRS BERNICK. To stop the ship till tomorrow.

KRAP. Hm –

BERNICK. Oh, what an unspeakable mercy!

MRS BERNICK. You’re not angry?

BERNICK. Oh, what a supreme mercy, Betty!

RUMMEL. You really are too conscientious.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Yes, directly there’s a prospect of a little battle with the elements, then – ugh!

KRAP [up by the window]. The procession is just coming through the garden gate, Mr Bernick.

BERNICK. Yes, they can come now.

RUMMEL. The whole garden is filling with people.

SANDSTAD. The whole street is crammed.

RUMMEL. The whole town is out, Bernick. This is a really inspiring moment.

VIGELAND. Let us take it in a humble spirit, Mr Rummel.

RUMMEL. All the banners are out. What a procession! There’s our committee with Mr Rörlund at its head.

BERNICK. All right. Let them come.

RUMMEL. But, look here, the state of mind you’re in –

BERNICK. Well, what about it?

RUMMEL. I should be quite willing to speak on your behalf.

BERNICK. No, thanks. Tonight I will speak for myself.

RUMMEL. But do you know what you’re to say?

BERNICK. Make your mind easy, Rummel; I know what I’m to say – now.

[The music has ceased in the meantime. The garden door is thrown open. Rörlund enters at the head of the committee, accompanied by a couple of servants who carry a covered basket. After them come townsfolk of all classes, as many as the room can hold. An immense crowd, with banners and flags, can just be seen outside in the garden and along the street.]

RÖRLUND. Our congratulations to you, sir! I see, by the astonishment depicted on your face, that we are forcing ourselves upon you as unexpected guests, here in your happy family circle, by your peaceful hearth, surrounded by distinguished and public-spirited friends and fellow-citizens. But in response to the impulse of our hearts, we bring you our salutation. It is not the first time such a thing has happened, but it is the first time it has happened on so vast a scale. Many times we have rendered thanks to you for the broad moral foundation on which, so to speak, you have built up our community. This time we hail in you, above all, the clear-sighted, tireless, selfless, nay, self-sacrificing fellow-citizen, who has taken the initiative in an enterprise which, in the opinion of all who know, will give a tremendous impulse to the temporal prosperity and well-being of this community.

VOICES IN THE CROWD. Bravo! Bravo!

RÖRLUND. You, sir, have led our town for many years by your shining example. I am not speaking now of your exemplary domestic life, nor yet of the untarnished virtue of your conduct. Let such things be reserved for private speech. They are not for public celebration. No, I speak of your public service, done openly in the sight of all men. Well-found ships go out from your yards and fly our flag in the farthest seas. A large and happy body of workmen look up to you as to a father. By calling into being new industrial developments you have laid the foundations of prosperity for hundreds of families. In other words, you are, in a special sense, the chief pillar of this community.

VOICES. Hear! Hear! Bravo!

RÖRLUND. And it is precisely this selflessness, shedding its radiance upon all your doings, whose influence is so beneficent, particularly in these times. You are now about to procure for us a – yes, I will not hesitate to call it by its prosaic, everyday name – a railway.

MANY VOICES. Bravo! Bravo!

RÖRLUND. But it would appear that this undertaking is meeting with difficulties, largely set up by narrow, selfish interests.

VOICES. Hear! Hear!

RÖRLUND. It is no longer a secret that certain individuals who do not belong to our community, have forestalled the hard-working and thrifty citizens of this place and got possession of certain advantages that should by rights have accrued to our own township.

VOICES. Yes, yes! Hear hear!

RÖRLUND. This deplorable fact naturally came to your notice, Mr Bernick. But, nevertheless, you pursued your purpose unswervingly, well knowing that a patriotic citizen must not keep before him only the interests of his own parish.

VARIOUS VOICES. What? No! No! Yes! Yes!

RÖRLUND. It is such a man, loyal to both town and State – such as a man must be and ought to be – that we salute tonight, in your person. May your undertaking be a source of real and enduring prosperity to this community. The railway can, admittedly, be a means of laying us open to corrupting influences from the outer world, but it can also be a means of rapidly ridding us of them. And even as it is, we cannot altogether avoid evil elements from without. But the fact is that, on this festive night itself, we have, as I hear, happily (and more rapidly than we expected), got rid of certain elements of that very kind –

VOICES. Hush! Hush!

RÖRLUND. – That I regard as a happy omen for the enterprise. The fact that I touch upon this matter here shows that we are in a house where the claims of morality are honoured above the bonds of kinship.

VOICES. Hear! Hear! Bravo!

BERNICK [simultaneously]. Permit me –

RÖRLUND. Only a few words more, sir. What you have done for this community you certainly have not done with the idea of any tangible reward for yourself. But you must not refuse a slight token of the appreciation of your grateful fellow-citizens, least of all in this momentous hour, when, as we are assured by men of practical experience, we stand on the threshold of a new era.

MANY VOICES. Bravo! Hear! Hear!

[He makes a sign to the servants, who bring forward the basket. Members of the committee take out and present, during the following speech, the articles to which he refers.]

RÖRLUND. Consul Bernick, sir, we have now to present to you a silver coffee-service. Let it grace your board when, in the future as so often in the past, we have the pleasure of meeting together in this hospitable house. And you too, gentlemen, who have so staunchly supported the leader of our community, we beg you each to accept a little souvenir. This silver goblet is for you, Mr Rummel. You have often, to the ring of glasses, championed in eloquent words the civic interests of this community; may you often find worthy occasions to raise and drain this goblet. To you, Mr Sandstad, I present this album with photographs of your fellow-citizens. Your known and acknowledged liberality has placed you in the happy position of possessing friends in all sections of the community. And to you, Mr Vigeland, I have to offer, as an ornament for your study, this volume of family devotions, printed upon vellum and sumptuously bound. Under the mellowing influence of years, you have attained to a view of life that is earnest and grave. Your diligence in your daily duty has, for many years, been sanctified and ennobled by thoughts of higher and holier things. [Turning to the crowd.] And now, my friends, long live Consul Bernick and his fellow-workers! Hurrah for the Pillars of our Community!

THE WHOLE CROWD. Long live Consul Bernick! Long live the Pillars of the Community! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

MISS HESSEL. Congratulations, Karsten!

[An expectant silence.]

BERNICK [beginning to speak, seriously and slowly]. Fellow-citizens – your spokesman has said that we stand tonight on the threshold of a new era, and I hope that will turn out to be so. But if it is to, we must lay to heart the truth – truth which, until tonight, has been utterly and in every way alien to our community.

[Surprise among the bystanders.]

BERNICK. I must begin by rejecting the eulogy with which, as is customary on these occasions, you, Mr Rörlund, have overwhelmed me. I do not deserve it; for, until today, I have not been a disinterested man. Even if I have not always striven for money, nevertheless, as I am well aware now, a craving for power and influence and reputation has been the driving force behind most of my actions.

RUMMEL [half-aloud]. What the devil – ?

BERNICK. In the presence of my fellow-citizens I do not reproach myself for this. For I still think I can count myself one of our leading business men.

VOICES. Yes, yes, yes!

BERNICK. But what I do charge myself with is this, that I have often been weak enough to descend to crooked practices because I knew and feared the tendency of our community to suspect dishonest motives behind everything a man undertakes. And now I come to a case in point.

RUMMEL [uneasily], Hm – hm!

BERNICK. There are rumours going about of large purchases of property up inland. This property I have bought – all of it. I alone.

LOW MURMURS. What does he say? Bernick? Consul Bernick?

BERNICK. It is at the moment in my hands. Naturally I have confided in my colleagues, Mr Rummel, Mr Vigeland and Mr Sandstad, and we agree to –

RUMMEL. That’s not true! Proof! Proof!

VIGELAND. We agreed to nothing!

SANDSTAD. Well, now I really must say –

BERNICK. That is quite right. We have not yet agreed on the matter I was about to mention. But I am quite sure these three gentlemen will endorse me when I say that I came this evening to an agreement with myself that these properties shall be thrown open to general subscription. Whoever will may take shares in them.

MANY VOICES. Hurrah! Long live Consul Bernick!

RUMMEL [to Bernick in a low voice]. What a vile piece of treachery!

SANDSTAD [similarly]. Fooled us, then!

VIGELAND. Now, may the devil take-! Good heavens, what am I saying?

THE CROWD [from outside]. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

BERNICK. Silence, gentlemen. I have no right to this acclamation, for what I have now decided was not my first intention. My intention was to keep the whole myself, and I am still of the opinion that this property can be best administered if it remains entire in one man’s hands. But you can choose. If that is what you want, then I am willing to administer it to the best of my ability,

VOICES. Yes, yes, yes!

BERNICK. But first, my fellow-citizens must know me to the core. Then let everyone look into himself, and let it be true, that from tonight we do begin a new era. The old one, with its false colouring, its hypocrisy and its shams, with its pretended respectability and its pitiful calculations, shall remain as a museum, open for instruction. And to this museum we will hand over – will we not, gentlemen? – the coffee-service and the goblet and the album and the volume of family devotions printed upon vellum and sumptuously bound.

RUMMEL. Oh yes, of course.

VIGBLAND [mumbling]. Since you’ve taken all the rest, why –

SANDSTAD. Pray do…

BERNICK. And now, to the main item in my settlement with the community. We have been told that certain ‘evil elements’ have left us tonight. I can add, what is not known, that the man who was referred to has not gone alone. With him went, to become his wife –

MISS HESSEL [loudly], – Dina Dorf!

RÖRLUND. What!

MRS BERNICK. What do you say?

[Great excitement.]

RÖRLUND. Gone! Run away-with him! Impossible!

BERNICK. To become his wife, Mr Rörlund. And I have more to add. [Softly.] Betty, be prepared to hear what’s coming. [Aloud.] I say ‘All honour to that man’, for he generously took another man’s sin upon him. Fellow-citizens, I will have done with lying; it has come near to poisoning every fibre of me. You shall know everything. Fifteen years ago, I was the guilty man.

MRS BERNICK [in a low and trembling voice]. Karsten!

MISS BERNICK [in the same voice]. Ah, Johan!

[Speechless amazement among the bystanders.]

BERNICK. Yes, my fellow-citizens – I was the guilty one and he went away. The false and wicked rumours which were spread about afterwards, it is now beyond human power to refute. But I cannot pity myself for that. Fifteen years ago I raised myself by those rumours; whether I am to fall by them now, each of you must decide for himself.

RÖRLUND. What a thunderbolt! The leading man in the town! [In a low voice to Mrs Bernick.] Oh, my dear lady, how I grieve for you!

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. Such a confession! Well, I must say –!

BERNICK. But we will make no decision tonight. I ask each one of you to go to his home; to collect himself; to look into himself. When your minds are calm again, it will be seen whether I have lost or gained by speaking. Goodbye. I have still much, very much, to repent of; but that concerns my own conscience alone. Good night. Take away these decorations. We all feel they are out of place here.

RÖRLUND. They certainly are. [In a low voice, to Mrs Bernick.] Run away! Then she was completely unworthy of me, after all. [Half-aloud, to the committee.] Well, gentlemen, after this I think we had better withdraw in silence.

HILMAR TÖNNESEN. How one is to keep the flag of idealism flying after this – Ugh!

[The information has in the meantime been whispered from mouth to mouth. All those who were taking part in the procession go away through the garden. Rummel, Sandstad and Vigelandgo out in angry but subdued altercation. Hilmar Tönne sen slips out to the right. Bernick, Mrs Bernick, Miss Bernick, Miss Hessel and Krap remain behind in the room in silence.]

BERNICK. Betty, can you forgive me?

MRS BERNICK [looking at him and smiling]. Do you know, Karsten, you have just shown me the happiest prospect I have seen for many a year?

BERNICK. How?

MRS BERNICK. For many years I believed that I had had you once and lost you again. Now I know that I have never had you; but I shall win you.

BERNICK [putting his arms round her]. Oh, Betty, you have won me! I first learnt to know you properly through Lona. But let Olaf come in now.

MRS BERNICK. Yes, you shall have him now. Mr Krap!

[She talks quietly to him in the background. He goes out through the garden door. During the following dialogue the illuminations and the lights in the houses gradually go out.]

BERNICK [softly]. Thank you, Lona, you have saved the best in me – and for me.

MISS HESSEL. What else was I trying to do?

BERNICK. Well, was it that? Or wasn’t it? I can’t quite make you out.

MISS HESSEL. Hm.

BERNICK. It wasn’t hatred, then? Nor revenge? Then why did you come over?

MISS HESSEL. Old friendship doesn’t rust.

BERNICK. Lona!

MISS HESSEL. When Johan told me all this, about the he, I swore to myself: The hero of my youth shall stand free and clear.

BERNICK. Oh, how little have I deserved this of you – a wretched creature like me!

MISS HESSEL. Well, if we women asked for our deserts, Karsten –

[Aune comes in from the garden with Olaf]

BERNICK [going to him]. Olaf!

OLAF. Father, I promise I won’t ever do it again.

BERNICK. Run away?

OLAF. Yes, yes. I promise you, Father.

BERNICK. And I promise you you shan’t ever have reason to. In future you shall be allowed to grow up, not as the inheritor of my life-work, but as someone who has a life-work of his own to look forward to.

OLAF. And will you let me be whatever I want to?

BERNICK. Yes, you shall.

OLAF. Thank you. Then I won’t be a pillar of the community.

BEHNICK. No? Why not?

OLAF. Because I think that must be so dull.

BERNICK. You shall be yourself, Olaf. And the rest must take its course. And you, Aune –

AUNE. I know, sir. I’m discharged.

BERNICK. We’re not separating, Aune. And forgive me –

AUNE. What do you mean? The boat isn’t sailing tonight.

BERNICK. She’s not sailing tomorrow, either. I gave you too little time. The job must be done thoroughly.

AUNE. It shall be, sir. And with the new machines, too!

BERNICK. So it shall. But thoroughly and honestly. There’s a good deal here that needs a thorough, honest overhaul. Well, good night, Aune.

AUNE. Good night, sir. And thanks, thanks! [Goes out to the right.]

MISS BERNICK. They are all gone now.

BERNICK. And we are alone. My name is not shining in letters of fire any more. All the lights in the windows are out.

MISS HESSEL. Would you want them lit again?

BERNICK. Not for anything in the world. Where have I been? You will be shocked when you know. Now I feel as if I had come to my senses after being poisoned. But what I do feel is that I can be young and strong again. Oh, come nearer, closer round me. Come, Betty! Come, Olaf, my boy! And you, Marta – I don’t seem to have seen you all these years.

MISS HESSEL. No, that I well believe. Yours is a community of old bachelors: you don’t see women.

BERNICK. True. True. And for that very reason-yes, that’s settled, Lona – you are not going to leave Betty and me.

MRS BERNICK. No, Lona, you mustn’t!

MISS HESSEL. Why, how could I have the conscience to leave you young people who are just beginning to set up house? I’m a foster-mother, you know. You and I, Marta, we two old aunts – What are you looking at?

MISS BERNICK. How the sky is clearing. It’s getting light over the sea. The Palm Tree has good luck with her.

MISS HESSEL. And good luck on board.

BERNICK. And we – we have a long, hard day’s work ahead of us; I most of all. But let it come. So long as you stand close about me, you faithful, truthful women. I have learnt that, too, these last days; it is women who are the pillars of the community.

MISS HESSEL. Then you have learnt a poor kind of wisdom, my dear man. [Laying her hands firmly on his shoulders.] No, my dear: the spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom, they are the pillars of the community.