Bernick: My dear Betty, how can it interest you? (To the three men.)
We must get out lists of subscribers, and the sooner the better.
Obviously our four names must head the list. The positions we occupy in
the community makes it our duty to make ourselves as prominent as
possible in the affair.
Sandstad: Obviously, Mr. Bernick.
Rummel: The thing shall go through, Bernick; I swear it shall!
Bernick: Oh, I have not the least anticipation of failure. We must see
that we work, each one among the circle of his own acquaintances; and
if we can point to the fact that the scheme is exciting a lively
interest in all ranks of society, then it stands to reason that our
Municipal Corporation will have to contribute its share.
Mrs. Bernick: Karsten, you really must come out here and tell us--
Bernick: My dear Betty, it is an affair that does not concern ladies at
all.
Hilmar: Then you are really going to support this railway scheme after
all?
Bernick: Yes, naturally.
Rorlund: But last year, Mr. Bernick--
Bernick: Last year it was quite another thing. At that time it was a
question of a line along the coast--
Vigeland: Which would have been quite superfluous, Mr. Rorlund;
because, of course, we have our steamboat service--
Sandstad: And would have been quite unreasonably costly--
Rummel: Yes, and would have absolutely ruined certain important
interests in the town.
Bernick: The main point was that it would not have been to the
advantage of the community as a whole. That is why I opposed it, with
the result that the inland line was resolved upon.
Hilmar: Yes, but surely that will not touch the towns about here.
Bernick: It will eventually touch our town, my dear Hilmar, because we
are going to build a branch line here.
Hilmar: Aha--a new scheme, then?
Rummel: Yes, isn't it a capital scheme? What?
Rorlund: Hm!--
Vigeland: There is no denying that it looks as though Providence had
just planned the configuration of the country to suit a branch line.
Rorlund: Do you really mean it, Mr. Vigeland?
Bernick: Yes, I must confess it seems to me as if it had been the hand
of Providence that caused me to take a journey on business this spring,
in the course of which I happened to traverse a valley through which I
had never been before. It came across my mind like a flash of lightning
that this was where we could carry a branch line down to our town. I
got an engineer to survey the neighbourhood, and have here the
provisional calculations and estimate; so there is nothing to hinder us.
Mrs. Bernick (who is still with the other ladies at the verandah door):
But, my dear Karsten, to think that you should have kept it all a
secret from us!
Bernick: Ah, my dear Betty, I knew you would not have been able to
grasp the exact situation. Besides, I have not mentioned it to a living
soul until today. But now the decisive moment has come, and we must
work openly and with all our might. Yes, even if I have to risk all I
have for its sake, I mean to push the matter through.
Rummel: And we will back you up, Bernick; you may rely upon that.
Rorlund: Do you really promise us so much, then, from this undertaking,
gentlemen?
Bernick: Yes, undoubtedly. Think what a lever it will be to raise the
status of our whole community. Just think of the immense tracts of
forest-land that it will make accessible; think of all the rich
deposits of minerals we shall be able to work; think of the river with
one waterfall above another! Think of the possibilities that open out
in the way of manufactories!
Rorlund: And are you not afraid that an easier intercourse with the
depravity of the outer world--?
Bernick: No, you may make your mind quite easy on that score, Mr.
Rorlund. Our little hive of industry rests now-a-days, God be thanked,
on such a sound moral basis; we have all of us helped to drain it, if I
may use the expression; and that we will continue to do, each in his
degree. You, Mr. Rorlund, will continue your richly blessed activity in
our schools and our homes. We, the practical men of business, will be
the support of the community by extending its welfare within as wide a
radius as possible; and our women--yes, come nearer ladies--you will
like to hear it--our women, I say, our wives and daughters--you,
ladies--will work on undisturbed in the service of charity, and
moreover will be a help and a comfort to your nearest and dearest, as
my dear Betty and Martha are to me and Olaf.(Looks around him.) Where
is Olaf today?
Mrs. Bernick: Oh, in the holidays it is impossible to keep him at home.
Bernick: I have no doubt he is down at the shore again. You will see he
will end by coming to some harm there.
Hilmar: Bah! A little sport with the forces of nature
Mrs. Rummel: Your family affection is beautiful, Mr. Bernick!
Bernick: Well, the family is the kernel of society. A good home,
honoured and trusty friends, a little snug family circle where no
disturbing elements can cast their shadow-- (KRAP comes in from the
right, bringing letters and papers.)
Krap: The foreign mail, Mr. Bernick--and a telegram from New York.
Bernick (taking the telegram): Ah--from the owners of the "Indian Girl".
Rummel: Is the mail in? Oh, then you must excuse me.
Vigeland: And me too.
Sandstad: Good day, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: Good day, good day, gentlemen. And remember, we have a meeting
this afternoon at five o'clock.
The Three Men: Yes--quite so--of course. (They go out to the right.)
Bernick (who has read the telegram): This is thoroughly American!
Absolutely shocking!
Mrs. Bernick: Good gracious, Karsten, what is it?
Bernick: Look at this, Krap! Read it!
Krap (reading): "Do the least repairs possible. Send over 'Indian
Girl' as soon as she is ready to sail; good time of year; at a pinch
her cargo will keep her afloat." Well, I must say--
Rorlund: You see the state of things in these vaunted great communities!
Bernick: You are quite right; not a moment's consideration for human
life, when it is a question of making a profit. (To KRAP:) Can the
"Indian Girl" go to sea in four--or five--days?
Krap: Yes, if Mr. Vigeland will agree to our stopping work on the "Palm
Tree" meanwhile.
Bernick: Hm--he won't. Well, be so good as to look through the letters.
And look here, did you see Olaf down at the quay?
Krap: No, Mr. Bernick. (Goes into BERNICK'S room.)
Bernick (looking at the telegram again): These gentlemen think nothing
of risking eight men's lives--
Hilmar: Well, it is a sailor's calling to brave the elements; it must
be a fine tonic to the nerves to be like that, with only a thin plank
between one and the abyss--
Bernick: I should like to see the ship-owner amongst us who would
condescend to such a thing! There is not one that would do it--not a
single one! (Sees OLAF coming up to the house.) Ah, thank Heaven, here
he is, safe and sound. (OLAF, with a fishing-line in his hand, comes
running up the garden and in through the verandah.)
Olaf: Uncle Hilmar, I have been down and seen the steamer.
Bernick: Have you been down to the quay again?
Olaf: No, I have only been out in a boat. But just think, Uncle Hilmar,
a whole circus company has come on shore, with horses and animals; and
there were such lots of passengers.
Mrs. Rummel: No, are we really to have a circus?
Rorlund: We? I certainly have no desire to see it.
Mrs. Rummel: No, of course I don't mean we, but--
Dina: I should like to see a circus very much.
Olaf: So should I.
Hilmar: You are a duffer. Is that anything to see? Mere tricks. No, it
would be something quite different to see the Gaucho careering over the
Pampas on his snorting mustang. But, Heaven help us, in these wretched
little towns of ours.
Olaf (pulling at MARTHA'S dress): Look, Aunt Martha! Look, there they
come!
Mrs. Holt: Good Lord, yes--here they come.
Mrs. Lynge: Ugh, what horrid people!
(A number of passengers and a whole crowd of townsfolk, are seen coming
up the street.)
Mrs. Rummel: They are a set of mountebanks, certainly. Just look at
that woman in the grey dress, Mrs. Holt--the one with a knapsack over
her shoulder.
Mrs. Holt: Yes--look--she has slung it on the handle of her parasol.
The manager's wife, I expect.
Mrs. Rummel: And there is the manager himself, no doubt. He looks a
regular pirate. Don't look at him, Hilda!
Mrs. Holt: Nor you, Netta!
Olaf: Mother, the manager is bowing to us.
Bernick: What?
Mrs. Bernick: What are you saying, child?
Mrs. Rummel: Yes, and--good Heavens--the woman is bowing to us too.
Bernick: That is a little too cool--
Martha (exclaims involuntarily): Ah--!
Mrs. Bernick: What is it, Martha?
Martha: Nothing, nothing. I thought for a moment--
Olaf (shrieking with delight): Look, look, there are the rest of them,
with the horses and animals! And there are the Americans, too! All the
sailors from the "Indian Girl"! (The strains of "Yankee Doodle," played
on a clarinet and a drum, are heard.)
Hilmar (stopping his ears): Ugh, ugh, ugh!
Rorlund: I think we ought to withdraw ourselves from sight a little,
ladies; we have nothing to do with such goings on. Let us go to our
work again.
Mrs. Bernick: Do you think we had better draw the curtains?
Rorlund: Yes, that was exactly what I meant.
(The ladies resume their places at the work-table; RORLUND shuts the
verandah door, and draws the curtains over it and over the windows, so
that the room becomes half dark.)
Olaf (peeping out through the curtains): Mother, the manager's wife is
standing by the fountain now, washing her face.
Mrs. Bernick: What? In the middle of the marketplace?
Mrs. Rummel: And in broad daylight, too!
Hilmar: Well, I must say if I were travelling across a desert waste and
found myself beside a well, I am sure I should not stop to think
whether--. Ugh, that frightful clarinet!
Rorlund: It is really high time the police interfered.
Bernick: Oh no; we must not be too hard on foreigners. Of course these
folk have none of the deep-seated instincts of decency which restrain
us within proper bounds. Suppose they do behave outrageously, what does
it concern us? Fortunately this spirit of disorder, that flies in the
face of all that is customary and right, is absolutely a stranger to
our community, if I may say so--. What is this! (LONA HESSEL walks
briskly in from the door on the right.)
The Ladies (in low, frightened tones): The circus woman! The manager's
wife!
Mrs. Bernick: Heavens, what does this mean?
Martha (jumping up): Ah--!
Lona: How do you do, Betty dear! How do you do, Martha! How do you do,
brother-in-law!
Mrs. Bernick (with a cry): Lona--!
Bernick (stumbling backwards): As sure as I am alive--!
Mrs. Holt: Mercy on us--!
Mrs. Rummel: It cannot possibly be--!
Hilmar: Well! Ugh!
Mrs. Bernick: Lona--! Is it really--?
Lona: Really me? Yes, indeed it is; you may fall on my neck if you
like.
Hilmar: Ugh, ugh!
Mrs. Bernick: And coming back here as--?
Mrs. Bernick: And actually mean to appear in--?
Lona: Appear? Appear in what?
Bernick: Well, I mean--in the circus--
Lona: Ha, ha, ha! Are you mad, brother-in-law? Do you think I belong to
the circus troupe? No, certainly I have turned my hand to a good many
things and made a fool of myself in a good many ways--
Mrs. Rummel: Hm!
Lona: But I have never tried circus riding.
Bernick: Then you are not--?
Mrs. Bernick: Thank Heaven!
Lona: No, we travelled like other respectable folk, second-class,
certainly, but we are accustomed to that.
Mrs. Bernick: We, did you say?
Bernick (taking a step for-ward): Whom do you mean by "we"?
Lona: I and the child, of course.
The Ladies (with a cry): The child!
Hilmar: What?
Rorlund: I really must say--!
Mrs. Bernick: But what do you mean, Lona?
Lona: I mean John, of course; I have no other child, as far as I know,
but John, or Johan as you used to call him.
Mrs. Bernick: Johan--
Mrs. Rummel (in an undertone to MRS. LYNGE): The scapegrace brother!
Bernick (hesitatingly): Is Johan with you?
Lona: Of course he is; I certainly would not come without him. Why do
you look so tragical? And why are you sitting here in the gloom, sewing
white things? There has not been a death in the family, has there?
Rorlund: Madam, you find yourself in the Society for Fallen Women.
Lona (half to herself): What? Can these nice, quiet-looking ladies
possibly be--?
Mrs. Rummel: Well, really--!
Lona: Oh, I understand! But, bless my soul, that is surely Mrs. Rummel?
And Mrs. Holt sitting there too! Well, we three have not grown younger
since the last time we met. But listen now, good people; let the Fallen
Women wait for a day--they will be none the worse for that. A joyful
occasion like this--
Rorlund: A home-coming is not always a joyful occasion.
Lona: Indeed? How do you read your Bible, Mr. Parson?
Rorlund: I am not a parson.
Lona: Oh, you will grow into one, then. But--faugh!--this moral linen
of yours smells tainted, just like a winding-sheet. I am accustomed to
the air of the prairies, let me tell you.
Bernick (wiping his forehead): Yes, it certainly is rather close in
here.
Lona: Wait a moment; we will resurrect ourselves from this vault.
(Pulls the curtains to one side) We must have broad daylight in here
when the boy comes. Ah, you will see a boy then that has washed himself.
Hilmar: Ugh!
Lona (opening the verandah door and window): I should say, when he has
washed himself, up at the hotel--for on the boat he got piggishly dirty.
Hilmar: Ugh, ugh!
Lona: Ugh? Why, surely isn't that--? (Points at HILDAR and asks the
others): Is he still loafing about here saying "Ugh"?
Hilmar: I do not loaf; it is the state of my health that keeps me here.
Rorlund: Ahem! Ladies, I do not think--
Lona (who has noticed OLAF): Is he yours, Betty? Give me a paw, my boy!
Or are you afraid of your ugly old aunt?
Rorlund (putting his book under his arm): Ladies, I do not think any of
us is in the mood for any more work today. I suppose we are to meet
again tomorrow?
Lona (while the others are getting up and taking their leave): Yes, let
us. I shall be on the spot.
Rorlund: You? Pardon me, Miss Hessel, but what do you propose to do in
our Society?
Lona: I will let some fresh air into it, Mr. Parson.
ACT II
(SCENE.--The same room. MRS. BERNICK is sitting alone at the
work-table, sewing. BERNICK comes in from the right, wearing his hat
and gloves and carrying a stick.)
Mrs. Bernick: Home already, Karsten?
Bernick: Yes, I have made an appointment with a man.
Mrs. Bernick (with a sigh): Oh yes, I suppose Johan is coming up here
again.
Bernick: With a man, I said. (Lays down his hat.) What has become of
all the ladies today?
Mrs. Bernick: Mrs. Rummel and Hilda hadn't time to come.
Bernick: Oh!--did they send any excuse?
Mrs. Bernick: Yes, they had so much to do at home.
Bernick: Naturally. And of course the others are not coming either?
Mrs. Bernick: No, something has prevented them today, too.
Bernick: I could have told you that, beforehand. Where is Olaf?
Mrs. Bernick: I let him go out a little with Dina.
Bernick: Hm--she is a giddy little baggage. Did you see how she at once
started making a fuss of Johan yesterday?
Mrs. Bernick: But, my dear Karsten, you know Dina knows nothing
whatever of--
Bernick: No, but in any case Johan ought to have had sufficient tact
not to pay her any attention. I saw quite well, from his face, what
Vigeland thought of it.
Mrs. Bernick (laying her sewing down on her lap): Karsten, can you
imagine what his objective is in coming here?
Bernick: Well--I know he has a farm over there, and I fancy he is not
doing particularly well with it; she called attention yesterday to the
fact that they were obliged to travel second class--
Mrs. Bernick: Yes, I am afraid it must be something of that sort. But
to think of her coming with him! She! After the deadly insult she
offered you!
Bernick: Oh, don't think about that ancient history.
Mrs. Bernick: How can I help thinking of it just now? After all, he is
my brother--still, it is not on his account that I am distressed, but
because of all the unpleasantness it would mean for you. Karsten, I am
so dreadfully afraid!
Bernick: Afraid of what?
Mrs. Bernick: Isn't it possible that they may send him to prison for
stealing that money from your mother?
Bernick: What rubbish! Who can prove that the money was stolen?
Mrs. Bernick: The whole town knows it, unfortunately; and you know you
said yourself.
Bernick: I said nothing. The town knows nothing whatever about the
affair; the whole thing was no more than idle rumour.
Mrs. Bernick: How magnanimous you are, Karsten!
Bernick: Do not let us have any more of these reminiscences, please!
You don't know how you torture me by raking all that up. (Walks up and
down; then flings his stick away from him.) And to think of their
coming home now--just now, when it is particularly necessary for me
that I should stand well in every respect with the town and with the
Press. Our newspaper men will be sending paragraphs to the papers in
the other towns about here. Whether I receive them well, or whether I
receive them ill, it will all be discussed and talked over. They will
rake up all those old stories--as you do. In a community like
ours--(Throws his gloves down on the table.) And I have not a soul here
to whom I can talk about it and to whom I can go for support.
Mrs. Bernick: No one at all, Karsten?
Bernick: No--who is there? And to have them on my shoulders just at
this moment! Without a doubt they will create a scandal in some way or
another--she, in particular. It is simply a calamity to be connected
with such folk in any way!
Mrs. Bernick: Well, I can't help their--
Bernick: What can't you help? Their being your relations? No, that is
quite true.
Mrs. Bernick: And I did not ask them to come home.
Bernick: That's it--go on! "I did not ask them to come home; I did not
write to them; I did not drag them home by the hair of their heads!"
Oh, I know the whole rigmarole by heart.
Mrs. Bernick (bursting into tears): You need not be so unkind--
Bernick: Yes, that's right--begin to cry, so that our neighbours may
have that to gossip about too. Do stop being so foolish, Betty. Go and
sit outside; some one may come in here. I don't suppose you want people
to see the lady of the house with red eyes? It would be a nice thing,
wouldn't it, if the story got out about that--. There, I hear some one
in the passage. (A knock is heard at the door.) Come in! (MRS. BERNICK
takes her sewing and goes out down the garden steps. AUNE comes in from
the right.)
Aune: Good morning, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: Good morning. Well, I suppose you can guess what I want you
for?
Aune: Mr. Krap told me yesterday that you were not pleased with--
Bernick: I am displeased with the whole management of the yard, Aune.
The work does not get on as quickly as it ought. The "Palm Tree" ought
to have been under sail long ago. Mr. Vigeland comes here every day to
complain about it; he is a difficult man to have with one as part owner.
Aune: The "Palm Tree" can go to sea the day after tomorrow.
Bernick: At last. But what about the American ship, the "Indian Girl,"
which has been laid up here for five weeks and--
Aune: The American ship? I understood that, before everything else, we
were to work our hardest to get your own ship ready.
Bernick: I gave you no reason to think so. You ought to have pushed on
as fast as possible with the work on the American ship also; but you
have not.
Aune: Her bottom is completely rotten, Mr. Bernick; the more we patch
it, the worse it gets.
Bernick: That is not the reason. Krap has told me the whole truth. You
do not understand how to work the new machines I have provided--or
rather, you will not try to work them.
Aune: Mr. Bernick, I am well on in the fifties; and ever since I was a
boy I have been accustomed to the old way of working--
Bernick: We cannot work that way now-a-days. You must not imagine,
Aune, that it is for the sake of making profit; I do not need that,
fortunately; but I owe consideration to the community I live in, and to
the business I am at the head of. I must take the lead in progress, or
there would never be any.
Aune: I welcome progress too, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: Yes, for your own limited circle--for the working class. Oh, I
know what a busy agitator you are; you make speeches, you stir people
up; but when some concrete instance of progress presents itself--as
now, in the case of our machines--you do not want to have anything to
do with it; you are afraid.
Aune: Yes, I really am afraid, Mr. Bernick. I am afraid for the number
of men who will have the bread taken out of their mouths by these
machines. You are very fond, sir, of talking about the consideration we
owe to the community; it seems to me, however, that the community has
its duties too. Why should science and capital venture to introduce
these new discoveries into labour, before the community has had time to
educate a generation up to using them?
Bernick: You read and think too much, Aune; it does you no good, and
that is what makes you dissatisfied with your lot.
Aune: It is not, Mr. Bernick; but I cannot bear to see one good workman
dismissed after another, to starve because of these machines.
Bernick: Hm! When the art of printing was discovered, many a
quill-driver was reduced to starvation.
Aune: Would you have admired the art so greatly if you had been a
quill-driver in those days, sir?
Bernick: I did not send for you to argue with you. I sent for you to
tell you that the "Indian Girl" must be ready to put to sea the day
after tomorrow.
Aune: But, Mr. Bernick--
Bernick: The day after tomorrow, do you hear?--at the same time as our
own ship, not an hour later. I have good reasons for hurrying on the
work. Have you seen today's paper? Well, then you know the pranks these
American sailors have been up to again. The rascally pack are turning
the whole town upside down. Not a night passes without some brawling in
the taverns or the streets--not to speak of other abominations.
Aune: Yes, they certainly are a bad lot.
Bernick: And who is it that has to bear the blame for all this
disorder? It is I! Yes, it is I who have to suffer for it. These
newspaper fellows are making all sorts of covert insinuations because
we are devoting all our energies to the "Palm Tree." I, whose task in
life it is to influence my fellow-citizens by the force of example,
have to endure this sort of thing cast in my face. I am not going to
stand that. I have no fancy for having my good name smirched in that
way.
Aune: Your name stands high enough to endure that and a great deal
more, sir.
Bernick: Not just now. At this particular moment I have need of all the
respect and goodwill my fellow-citizens can give me. I have a big
undertaking on, the stocks, as you probably have heard; but, if it
should happen that evil-disposed persons succeeded in shaking the
absolute confidence I enjoy, it might land me in the greatest
difficulties. That is why I want, at any price, to avoid these shameful
innuendoes in the papers, and that is why I name the day after tomorrow
as the limit of the time I can give you.
Aune: Mr. Bernick, you might just as well name this afternoon as the
limit.
Bernick: You mean that I am asking an impossibility?
Aune: Yes, with the hands we have now at the yard.
Bernick: Very good; then we must look about elsewhere.
Aune: Do you really mean, sir, to discharge still more of your old
workmen?
Bernick: No, I am not thinking of that.
Aune: Because I think it would cause bad blood against you both among
the townsfolk and in the papers, if you did that.
Bernick: Very probably; therefore, we will not do it. But, if the
"Indian Girl" is not ready to sail the day after tomorrow, I shall
discharge you.
Aune (with a start): Me! (He laughs.) You are joking, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: I should not be so sure of that, if I were you.
Aune: Do you mean that you can contemplate discharging me?--Me, whose
father and grandfather worked in your yard all their lives, as I have
done myself--?
Bernick: Who is it that is forcing me to do it?
Aune: You are asking what is impossible, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: Oh, where there's a will there's a way. Yes or no; give me a
decisive answer, or consider yourself discharged on the spot.
Aune (coming a step nearer to him): Mr. Bernick, have you ever realised
what discharging an old workman means? You think he can look about for
another job? Oh, yes, he can do that; but does that dispose of the
matter? You should just be there once, in the house of a workman who
has been discharged, the evening he comes home bringing all his tools
with him.
Bernick: Do you think I am discharging you with a light heart? Have I
not always been a good master to you?
Aune: So much the worse, Mr. Bernick. Just for that very reason those
at home will not blame you; they will say nothing to me, because they
dare not; but they will look at me when I am not noticing, and think
that I must have deserved it. You see, sir, that is--that is what I
cannot bear. I am a mere nobody, I know; but I have always been
accustomed to stand first in my own home. My humble home is a little
community too, Mr. Bernick--a little community which I have been able
to support and maintain because my wife has believed in me and because
my children have believed in me. And now it is all to fall to pieces.
Bernick: Still, if there is nothing else for it, the lesser must go
down before the greater; the individual must be sacrificed to the
general welfare. I can give you no other answer; and that, and no
other, is the way of the world. You are an obstinate man, Aune! You are
opposing me, not because you cannot do otherwise, but because you will
not exhibit 'the superiority of machinery over manual labour'.
Aune: And you will not be moved, Mr. Bernick, because you know that if
you drive me away you will at all events have given the newspapers
proof of your good will.
Bernick: And suppose that were so? I have told you what it means for
me--either bringing the Press down on my back, or making them
well-disposed to me at a moment when I am working for an objective
which will mean the advancement of the general welfare. Well, then, can
I do otherwise than as I am doing? The question, let me tell you, turns
upon this--whether your home is to be supported, as you put it, or
whether hundreds of new homes are to be prevented from
existing--hundreds of homes that will never be built, never have a fire
lighted on their hearth, unless I succeed in carrying through the
scheme I am working for now. That is the reason why I have given you
your choice.
Aune: Well, if that is the way things stand, I have nothing more to say.
Bernick: Hm--my dear Aune, I am extremely grieved to think that we are
to part.
Aune: We are not going to part, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: How is that?
Aune: Even a common man like myself has something he is bound to
maintain.
Bernick: Quite so, quite so--then I presume you think you may promise--?
Aune: The "Indian Girl" shall be ready to sail the day after tomorrow.
(Bows and goes out to the right.)
Bernick: Ah, I have got the better of that obstinate fellow! I take it
as a good omen. (HILMAR comes in through the garden door, smoking a
cigar.)
Hilmar (as he comes up the steps to the verandah): Good morning, Betty!
Good morning, Karsten!
Mrs. Bernick: Good morning.
Hilmar: Ah, I see you have been crying, so I suppose you know all about
it too?
Mrs. Bernick: Know all about what?
Hilmar: That the scandal is in full swing. Ugh!
Bernick: What do you mean?
Hilmar (coming into the room): Why, that our two friends from America
are displaying themselves about the streets in the company of Dina Dorf.
Mrs. Bernick (coming in after him): Hilmar, is it possible?
Hilmar: Yes, unfortunately, it is quite true. Lona was even so wanting
in tact as to call after me, but of course I appeared not to have heard
her.
Bernick: And no doubt all this has not been unnoticed.
Hilmar: You may well say that. People stood still and looked at them.
It spread like wildfire through the town--just like a prairie fire out
West. In every house people were at the windows waiting for the
procession to pass, cheek by jowl behind the curtains--ugh! Oh, you
must excuse me, Betty, for saying "ugh"--this has got on my nerves. If
it is going on, I shall be forced to think about getting right away
from here.
Mrs. Bernick: But you should have spoken to him and represented to him
that--
Hilmar: In the open street? No, excuse me, I could not do that. To
think that the fellow should dare to show himself in the town at all!
Well, we shall see if the Press doesn't put a stopper on him;
yes--forgive me, Betty, but--
Bernick: The Press, do you say? Have you heard a hint of anything of
the sort?
Hilmar: There are such things flying about. When I left here yesterday
evening I looked in at the club, because I did not feel well. I saw at
once, from the sudden silence that fell when I went in, that our
American couple had been the subject of conversation. Then that
impudent newspaper fellow, Hammer, came in and congratulated me at the
top of his voice on the return of my rich cousin.
Bernick: Rich?
Hilmar: Those were his words. Naturally I looked him up and down in the
manner he deserved, and gave him to understand that I knew nothing
about Johan Tonnesen's being rich. "Really," he said, "that is very
remarkable. People usually get on in America when they have something
to start with, and I believe your cousin did not go over there quite
empty-handed."
Bernick: Hm--now will you oblige me by--
Mrs. Bernick (distressed): There, you see, Karsten!
Hilmar: Anyhow, I have spent a sleepless night because of them. And
here he is, walking about the streets as if nothing were the matter.
Why couldn't he disappear for good and all? It really is insufferable
how hard some people are to kill.
Mrs. Bernick: My dear Hilmar, what are you saying P
Hilmar: Oh, nothing. But here this fellow escapes with a whole skin
from railway accidents and fights with California grizzlies and
Blackfoot Indians--has not even been scalped--. Ugh, here they come!
Bernick (looking down the street): Olaf is with them too!
Hilmar: Of course! They want to remind everybody that they belong to
the best family in the town. Look there!--look at the crowd of loafers
that have come out of the chemist's to stare at them and make remarks.
My nerves really won't stand it; how a man is to be expected to keep
the banner of the Ideal flying under such circumstances, I--
Bernick: They are coming here. Listen, Betty; it is my particular wish
that you should receive them in the friendliest possible way.
Mrs. Bernick: Oh, may I, Karsten.
Bernick: Certainly, certainly--and you too, Hilmar. It is to be hoped
they will not stay here very long; and when we are quite by
ourselves--no allusions to the past; we must not hurt their feelings in any way. |
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