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 ****** 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 ****** 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.
