Hilmar: Hm! It's a nice breed we are educating up now-a-days, isn't it! We talk a great deal about manly sports, goodness knows--but we only play with the question, all the same; there is never any serious inclination for the bracing discipline that lies in facing danger manfully. Don't stand pointing your crossbow at me, blockhead--it might go off!
Olaf: No, uncle, there is no arrow in it.
Hilmar: You don't know that there isn't--there may be, all the same.
Take it away, I tell you !--Why on earth have you never gone over to America on one of your father's ships? You might have seen a buffalo hunt then, or a fight with Red Indians.
Mrs.Bernick: Oh, Hilmar--!
Olaf: I should like that awfully, uncle; and then perhaps I might meet Uncle Johan and Aunt Lona.
Hilmar: Hm!--Rubbish.
Mrs.Bernick: You can go down into the garden again now, Olaf.
Olaf: Mother, may I go out into the street too?
Mrs.Bernick: Yes, but not too far, mind.
(OLAF runs down into the garden and out through the gate in the fence.)
Rorlund: You ought not to put such fancies into the child's head, Mr.
Tonnesen.
Hilmar: No, of course he is destined to be a miserable stay-at-home, like so many others.
Rorlund: But why do you not take a trip over there yourself?
Hilmar: I? With my wretched health? Of course I get no consideration on that account. But putting that out of the question, you forget that one has certain obligations to perform towards the community of which one forms a part. There must be some one here to hold aloft the banner of the Ideal.--Ugh, there he is shouting again !
The Ladies: Who is shouting?
Hilmar: I am sure I don't know. They are raising their voices so loud in there that it gets on my nerves.
Mrs.Bernick: I expect it is my husband, Mr. Tonnesen. But you must remember he is so accustomed to addressing large audiences.
Rorlund: I should not call the others low-voiced, either.
Hilmar: Good Lord, no!--not on any question that touches their pockets. Everything here ends in these petty material considerations.
Ugh!
Mrs.Bernick: Anyway, that is a better state of things than it used to be when everything ended in mere frivolity.
Mrs.Lynge: Things really used to be as bad as that here?
Mrs.Rummel: Indeed they were, Mrs. Lynge. You may think yourself lucky that you did not live here then.
Mrs.Holt: Yes, times have changed, and no mistake, when I look back to the days when I was a girl.
Mrs. Rummel: Oh, you need not look back more than fourteen or fifteen years. God forgive us, what a life we led! There used to be a Dancing Society and a Musical Society--Mrs.Bernick: And the Dramatic Club. I remember it very well.
Mrs.Rummel: Yes, that was where your play was performed, Mr. Tonnesen.
Hilmar (from the back of the room): What, what?
Rorlund: A play by Mr. Tonnesen?
Mrs.Rummel: Yes, it was long before you came here, Mr. Rorlund. And it was only performed once.
Mrs.Lynge: Was that not the play in which you told me you took the part of a young man's sweetheart, Mrs. Rummel?
Mrs.Rummel (glancing towards RORLUND): I? I really cannot remember, Mrs.Lynge. But I remember well all the riotous gaiety that used to go on.
Mrs.Holt: Yes, there were houses I could name in which two large dinner-parties were given in one week.
Mrs.Lynge: And surely I have heard that a touring theatrical company came here, too?
Mrs.Rummel: Yes, that was the worst thing of the lot.
Mrs.Holt (uneasily): Ahem!
Mrs.Rummel: Did you say a theatrical company? No, I don't remember that at all.
Mrs.Lynge: Oh yes, and I have been told they played all sorts of mad pranks. What is really the truth of those stories?
Mrs.Rummel: There is practically no truth in them, Mrs. Lynge.
Mrs.Holt: Dina, my love, will you give me that linen?
Mrs.Bernick (at the same time): Dina, dear, will you go and ask Katrine to bring us our coffee?
Martha: I will go with you, Dina.
(DINA and MARTHA go out by the farther door on, the left.)
Mrs. Bernick (getting up): Will you excuse me for a few minutes?
I think we will have our coffee outside. (She goes out to the verandah and sets to work to lay a table. RORLUND stands in the doorway talking to her. HILMAR sits outside, smoking.)
Mrs. Rummel (in a low voice): My goodness, Mrs. Lynge, how you frightened me!
Mrs.Lynge: I?
Mrs.Holt: Yes, but you know it was you that began it, Mrs.
Rummel.
Mrs.Rummel: I? How can you say such a thing, Mrs. Holt? Not a syllable passed my lips!
Mrs.Lynge: But what does it all mean?
Mrs.Rummel: What made you begin to talk about--? Think--did you not see that Dina was in the room?
Mrs.Lynge: Dina? Good gracious, is there anything wrong with--?
Mrs.Holt: And in this house, too! Did you not know it was Mrs.
Bernick's brother--?
Mrs.Lynge: What about him? I know nothing about it at all; I am quite new to the place, you know.
Mrs.Rummel: Have you not heard that--? Ahem!
(To her daughter) Hilda, dear, you can go for a little stroll in the garden?
Mrs.Holt: You go too, Netta. And be very kind to poor Dina when she comes back. (HILDA and NETTA go out into the garden.)
Mrs.Lynge: Well, what about Mrs. Bernick's brother?
Mrs.Rummel: Don't you know the dreadful scandal about him?
Mrs.Lynge: A dreadful scandal about Mr. Tonnesen?
Mrs.Rummel: Good Heavens, no. Mr. Tonnesen is her cousin, of course, Mrs. Lynge. I am speaking of her brother--Mrs.Holt: The wicked Mr. Tonnesen--Mrs.Rummel: His name was Johan. He ran away to America.
Mrs.Holt: Had to run away, you must understand.
Mrs.Lynge: Then it is he the scandal is about?
Mrs.Rummel: Yes; there was something--how shall I put it?--there was something of some kind between him and Dina's mother. I remember it all as if it were yesterday. Johan Tonnesen was in old Mrs. Bernick's office then; Karsten Bernick had just come back from Paris--he had not yet become engaged--Mrs.Lynge: Yes, but what was the scandal?
Mrs.Rummel: Well, you must know that Moller's company were acting in the town that winter--Mrs.Holt: And Dorf, the actor, and his wife were in the company.
All the young men in the town were infatuated with her.