Transcriber’s Note:

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After the momentous four years of his first visit to Italy, to which we owe Brand and Peer Gynt, Ibsen left Rome in May 1868, visited Florence, and then spent the summer at Berchtesgaden in Southern Bavaria. There he was busy “mentally wrestling” with the new play which was to take shape as De Unges Forbund (The League of Youth); but he did not begin to put it on paper until, after a short stay at Munich, he settled down in Dresden, in the early autumn. Thence he wrote to his publisher, Hegel, on October 31: “My new work is making rapid progress.... The whole outline is finished and written down. The first act is completed, the second will be in the course of a week, and by the end of the year I hope to have the play ready. It will be in prose, and in every way adapted for the stage. The title is The League of Youth; or, The Almighty & Co., a comedy, in five acts.” At Hegel’s suggestion he omitted the second title, “though,” he wrote, “it could have given offence to no one who had read the play.”

Apparently the polishing of the dialogue took viiilonger than Ibsen anticipated. It was his first play in modern prose, and the medium did not come easy to him. Six or seven years earlier, he wrote the opening scenes of Love’s Comedy in prose, but was dissatisfied with the effect, and recast the dialogue in rhymed verse. Having now outgrown his youthful romanticism, and laid down, in Brand and Peer Gynt, the fundamental positions of his criticism of life, he felt that to carry that criticism into detail he must come to close quarters with reality; and to that end he required a suppler instrument than verse. He must cultivate, as he afterwards^[1] put it, “the very much more difficult art of writing the genuine, plain language spoken in real life.” Probably the mastery of this new art cost him more effort than he anticipated, for, instead of having the play finished by the end of 1868, he did not despatch the manuscript to Copenhagen until March 1869. It was published on September 30 of that year.

While the comedy was still in process of conception, Ibsen had written to his publisher: “This new, peaceable work is giving me great pleasure.” It thus appears that he considered it less polemical in its character than the poems which had immediately preceded it. If his intentions were pacific, they were entirely frustrated. The play was regarded as a violent and wanton attack on the Norwegian Liberal party, while Stensgård was taken for a personal lampoon on Björnson. Its first performance at the Christiania Theatre (October 18, 1869) passed quietly enough; but at the second and third performances an organised opposition took the field, and disturbances amounting almost to a riot occurred. ixPublic feeling soon calmed down, and the play (the first prose comedy of any importance in Norwegian literature) became one of the most popular pieces in the repertory of the theatre. But it led to an estrangement from Björnson and the Liberal party, which was not healed for many a day—not, indeed, until Ghosts had shown the Norwegian public the folly of attempting to make party capital out of the works of a poet who stood far above party.

The estrangement from Björnson had begun some time before the play appeared. A certain misunderstanding had followed the appearance of Peer Gynt,^[2] and had been deepened by political differences. Björnson had become an ardent National Liberal, with leanings towards Republicanism; Ibsen was not at all a Republican (he deeply offended Björnson by accepting orders and decorations), and his political sympathies, while not of a partisan nature, were mainly “Scandinavian”—that is to say, directed towards a closer union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Distance, and the evil offices of gossiping friends, played their part in begetting dissension. Ibsen’s last friendly letter to Björnson (of these years) was written in the last days of 1867; in the first days of 1869, while he was actually busied with The League of Youth, we find him declining to contribute to a Danish magazine for the reason (among others) that Björnson was to be one of its joint editors.

The news of the stormy reception of his comedy reached Ibsen in Egypt, where, as the guest of the Khedive, he was attending the opening of the Suez Canal. He has recorded the incident in a poem, At Port Said. On his return to Dresden he wrote to xHegel (December 14, 1869): “The reception of The League of Youth pleases me very much; for the disapprobation I was prepared, and it would have been a disappointment to me if there had been none. But what I was not prepared for was that Björnson should feel himself attacked by the play, as rumour says he does. Is this really the case? He must surely see that it is not himself I have had in mind, but his pernicious and ‘lie-steeped’ clique who have served me as models. However, I will write to him to-day or to-morrow, and I hope that the affair, in spite of all differences, will end in a reconciliation.” The intended letter does not appear to have been written; nor would it, probably, have produced the desired effect, for Björnson’s resentment was very deep. He had already (in November) written a poem to Johan Sverdrup, the leader of the Liberal party, in which he deplored the fact that “the sacred grove of poetry no longer afforded sanctuary against assassination,” or as the Norwegian word vigorously expresses it, “sneak-murder.” Long afterwards, in 1881, he explained what he meant by this term: “It was not the portrayal of contemporary life and known personages that I called assassination. It was the fact that The League of Youth sought to represent our young Liberal party as a gang of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism was as empty as their phraseology; and particularly that prominent men were first made clearly recognisable, and then had false hearts and shady characters foisted upon them.” It is difficult to see, indeed, how Ibsen can have expected Björnson to distinguish very clearly between an attack on his “lie-steeped clique” and a lampoon on himself. Even Stensgård’s religious phraseology, the confidence xiwith which he claims God as a member of his party, was at that time characteristic of Björnson. The case, in fact, seems to have been very like that of the portraiture of Leigh Hunt in Harold Skimpole. Both Dickens and Ibsen had unconsciously taken more from their respective models than they intended. They imagined, perhaps, that the features which did not belong to the original would conceal the likeness; whereas their actual effect was only to render the portraits libellous.

Eleven years passed before Björnson and Ibsen were reconciled. In 1880 (after the appearance of A Doll’s House and before that of Ghosts), Björnson wrote in an American magazine: “I think I have a pretty thorough acquaintance with the dramatic literature of the world, and I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen possesses more dramatic power than any other playwriter of our day. The fact that I am not always partial to the style of his work makes me all the more certain that I am right in my judgment of him.”

The League of Youth soon became very popular in Norway, and it had considerable success in Sweden and Denmark. It was acted with notable excellence at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. Outside of Scandinavia it has never taken any hold of the stage. At the date of its appearance, Ibsen was still quite unknown, even in Germany; and when he became known, its technique was already antiquated. It has been acted once or twice both in Germany and England, and has proved very amusing on the stage; but it is essentially an experimental, transitional work. The poet is trying his tools.

The technical influence of Scribe and his school is xiiapparent in every scene. Ibsen’s determination not to rest content with the conventions of that school may already be discerned, indeed, in his disuse of the soliloquy and the aside; but, apart from these flagrant absurdities, he permits himself to employ almost all the devices of the Scribe method. Note, for example, how much of the action arises from sheer misunderstanding. The whole second act turns upon the Chamberlain’s misunderstanding of the bent of Stensgård’s diatribe in the first act. As the Chamberlain is deliberately misled by his daughter and Fieldbo, the misunderstanding is not, perhaps, technically inadmissible. Yet it has to be maintained by very artificial means. Why, one may ask, does not Fieldbo, in his long conversation with Stensgård, in the second act,act, warn him of the thin ice on which he is skating? There is no sufficient reason, except that the great situation at the end of the act would thus be rendered impossible. It is in the fourth act, however, that the methods of the vaudevillist are most apparent. It is one string of blunders of the particular type which the French significantly call “quiproquos.” Some arise through the quite diabolical genius for malicious wire-pulling developed by old Lundestad; but most of them are based upon that deliberate and elaborate vagueness of expression on the part of the characters which is the favourite artifice of the professor of theatrical sleight-of-hand. We are not even spared the classic quiproquo of the proposal by proxy mistaken for a proposal direct—Stensgård’s overtures to Madam Rundholmen on behalf of Bastian being accepted by her as an offer on his own behalf. We are irresistibly reminded of Mrs. Bardell’s fatal misunderstanding of Mr. Pickwick’s intentions. All xiiithis, to be sure, is excellent farce, but there is no originality in the expedients by which it is carried on. Equally conventional, and equally redolent of Scribe, is the conduct of the fifth act. The last drop of effect is wrung out of the quiproquos with an almost mathematical accuracy. We are reminded of a game at puss-in-the-four-corners, in which Stensgård tries every corner in turn, only to find himself at last left out in the cold. Then, as the time approaches to ring down the curtain, every one is seized with a fever of amiability, the Chamberlain abandons all his principles and prejudices, even to the point of subscribing for twenty copies of Aslaksen’s newspaper, and the whole thing becomes scarcely less unreal than one of the old-comedy endings, in which the characters stand in a semicircle while each delivers a couplet of the epilogue. It is difficult to believe that the facile optimism of this conclusion could at any time have satisfied the mind which, only twelve years later, conceived the picture of Oswald Alving shrinking together in his chair and babbling, “Mother—give me the sun.”

But, while we realise with what extraordinary rapidity and completeness Ibsen outgrew this phase of his art, we must not overlook the genuine merits of this brilliant comedy. With all its faults, it was an advance on the technique of its day, and was hailed as such by a critic so penetrating as George Brandes. Placing ourselves at the point of view of the time, we may perhaps say that its chief defect is its marked inequality of style. The first act is purely preparatory; the fifth act, as we have noted, is a rather perfunctory winding-up. The real play lies in the intervening acts; and each of these belongs to a different order of art. The second act is a piece of xivhigh comedy, quite admirable in its kind; the third act, both in tone and substance, verges upon melodrama; while the fourth act is nothing but rattling farce. Even from the Scribe point of view, this jumping from key to key is a fault. Another objection which Scribe would probably have urged is that several of Fieldbo’s speeches, and the attitude of the Chamberlain towards him, are, on the face of them, incomprehensible, and are only retrospectively explained. The poetics of that school forbid all reliance on retrospect; perhaps because they do not contemplate the production of any play about which any human being would care to think twice.

The third act, though superficially a rather tame interlude between the vigorous second act and the bustling fourth, is in reality the most characteristic of the five. The second act might be signed Augier, and the fourth Labiche; but in the third the coming Ibsen is manifest. The scene between the Chamberlain and Monsen is, in its disentangling of the past, a preliminary study for much of his later work—a premonition, in fact, of his characteristic method. Here, too, in the character of Selma and her outburst of revolt, we have by far the most original feature of the play. In Selma there is no trace of French influence, spiritual or technical. With admirable perspicacity, Dr. Brandes realised from the outset the significance of this figure. “Selma,” he wrote, “is a new creation, and her relation to the family might form the subject of a whole drama. But in the play as it stands she has scarcely room to move.” The drama which Brandes here foresaw, Ibsen wrote ten year’s later in A Doll’s House.

xvWith reference to the phrase “De lokale forhold,” here lamely represented by “the local situation,” Ibsen has a curious remark in a letter to Markus Grönvold, dated Stockholm, September 3, 1877. His German translator, he says, has rendered the phrase literally “lokale Verhältnisse”—“which is wrong, because no suggestion of comicality or narrow-mindedness is conveyed by this German expression. The rendering ought to be ‘unsere berechtigten Eigenthümlichkeiten,’ an expression which conveys the same meaning to Germans as the Norwegian one does to us Scandinavians.” This suggestion is, unfortunately, of no help to the English translator, especially when it is remembered in what context Aslaksen uses the phrase “de lokale forhold” in the fifth act of An Enemy of the People.

In the eight years that intervened between The League of Youth and Pillars of Society—his second prose play of modern life—Ibsen published a small collectioncollection of his poems (1871), and his “World-Historic Drama,” Emperor and Galilean (1873). After he had thus dismissed from his mind the figure of Julian the Apostate, which had haunted it ever since his earliest days in Rome, he deliberately abandoned, once for all, what may be called masquerade romanticism—that external stimulus to the imagination which lies in remoteness of time and unfamiliarity of scene and costume. It may be that, for the moment, he also intended to abandon, not merely romanticism, but romance—to deal solely with the literal and commonplace facts of life, studied in the dry light of everyday experience. If that was his purpose, it was very soon to break down; but in Pillars of Society he more nearly achieved it than in any other work.

Many causes contributed to the unusuallyunusually long pause between Emperor and Galilean and Pillars of Society. The summer of 1874 was occupied with a visit to xviiNorway—the first he had paid since the Hegira of ten years earlier. A good deal of time was devoted to the revision of some of his earlier works, which were republished in Copenhagen; while the increasing vogue of his plays on the stage involved a considerable amount of business correspondence. The Vikings and The Pretenders were acted in these years, not only throughout Scandinavia, but at many of the leading theatres of Germany; and in 1876, after much discussion and negotiation, Peer Gynt was for the first time placed on the stage, in Christiania.

The first mention of Pillars of Society occurs in a letter from Ibsen to his publisher, Hegel, of October 23, 1875, in which he mentions that the first act, “always to me the most difficult part of a play,” is ready, and states that it will be “a drama in five acts.” Unless this be a mere slip of the pen, it is curious as showing that, even when the first act was finished, Ibsen did not foresee in detail the remainder of the action. In the course of further development an act dropped out of his scheme. On November 25, 1875, he reports to Hegel: “The first act of my new drama is ready—the fair copy written; I am now working at Act Second”; but it was not until the summer of 1877 that the completed manuscript was sent to Copenhagen. The book was published in the early autumn.

The theatrical success of Pillars of Society was immediate and striking. First performed in Copenhagen, November 18, 1877, it soon found its way to all the leading stages of Scandinavia. In Berlin, in the early spring of 1878, it was produced at five different theatres within a single fortnight; and it has ever since maintained its hold on the German xviiistage. Before the end of the century, it had been acted more than 1200 times in Germany and Austria. An adaptation of the play, by the present writer, was produced at the old Gaiety Theatre, London, for a single performance, on the afternoon of December 15, 1880—this being the first time that Ibsen’s name had appeared on an English playbill. Again, in 1889, a single performance of it was given at the Opera Comique Theatre; and yet again in May 1901 the Stage Society gave two performances of it at the Strand Theatre. In the United States it has been acted frequently in German, but very rarely in English. The first performance took place in New York in 1891. The play did not reach the French stage until 1896, when it was performed by M. Lugné-Poë's organisation, L'Œuvre. In other countries one hears of a single performance of it, here and there; but, except in Scandinavia and Germany, it has nowhere taken a permanent hold upon the theatre.

Nor is the reason far to seek. By the time the English, American, and French public had fully awakened to the existence of Ibsen, he himself had so far outgrown the phase of his development marked by Pillars of Society, that the play already seemed commonplace and old-fashioned. It exactly suited the German public of the 'eighties; it was exactly on a level with their theatrical intelligence. But it was above the theatrical intelligence of the Anglo-American public, and—I had almost said—below that of the French public. This is, of course, an exaggeration. What I mean is that there was no possible reason why the countrymen of Augier and Dumas should take any special interest in Pillars of Society. It was not obviously in advance of these masters in xixtechnical skill, and the vein of Teutonic sentiment running through it could not greatly appeal to the Parisian public of that period. Thus it is not in the least surprising that, outside of Germany and Scandinavia, Pillars of Society had everywhere to follow in the wake of A Doll’s House and Ghosts, and was everywhere found something of an anti-climax. Possibly its time may be yet to come in England and America. A thoroughly well-mounted and well-acted revival might now appeal to that large class of play-goers which stands on very much the same intellectual level on which the German public stood in the eighteen-eighties.

But it is of all Ibsen’s works the least characteristic, because, acting on a transitory phase of theory; he has been almost successful in divesting it of poetic charm. There is not even a Selma in it. Of his later plays, only An Enemy of the People is equally prosaic in substance; and it is raised far above the level of the commonplace by the genial humour, the magnificent creative energy, displayed in the character of Stockmann. In Pillars of Society there is nothing that rises above the commonplace. Compared with Stockmann, Bernick seems almost a lay-figure, and even Lona Hessel is an intellectual construction—formed of a blend of new theory with old sentiment—rather than an absolute creation, a living and breathing woman, like Nora, or Mrs. Alving, or Rebecca, or Hedda. This is, in brief, the only play of Ibsen’s in which plot can be said to preponderate over character. The plot is extraordinarily ingenious and deftly pieced together. Several of the scenes are extremely effective from the theatrical point of view, and in a good many individual touches we may recognise the xxincomparable master-hand. One of these touches is the scene between Bernick and Rörlund in the third act, in which Bernick’s craving for casuistical consolation meets with so painful a rebuff. Only a great dramatist could have devised this scene; but to compare it with a somewhat similar passage in The Pretenders—the scene in the fourth act between King Skule and Jatgeir Skald—is to realise what is meant by the difference between dramatic poetry and dramatic prose.

I have called Lona Hessel a composite character, because she embodies in a concentrated form the two different strains of feeling that run through the whole play. Beyond the general attack on social pharisaism announced in the very title, we have a clear assertion of the claim of women to moral and economical individuality and independence. Dina, with her insistence on “becoming something for herself” before she will marry Johan, unmistakably foreshadows Nora and Petra. But at the same time the poet is far from having cleared his mind of the old ideal of the infinitely self-sacrificing, dumbly devoted woman, whose life has no meaning save in relation to some more or less unworthy male—the Ingeborg-Agnes-Solveig ideal we may call it. In the original edition of The Pretenders, Ingeborg said to Skule: “To love, to sacrifice all, and be forgotten, that is woman’s saga;” and out of that conception arose the very tenderly touched figure of Martha in this play. If Martha, then, stands for the old ideal—the ideal of the older generation—and Dina for the ideal of the younger generation, Lona Hessel hovers between the two. At first sight she seems like an embodiment of the “strong-minded female,” the champion of xxiWoman’s Rights, and despiser of all feminine graces and foibles. But in the end it appears that her devotion to Bernick has been no less deep and enduring than Martha’s devotion to Johan. Her “old friendship does not rust” is a delightful speech; but it points back to the Ibsen of the past, not forward to the Ibsen of the future. Yet this is not wholly true: for the strain of sentiment which inspired it never became extinct in the poet. He believed to the end in the possibility and the beauty of great self-forgetful human emotions; and there his philosophy went very much deeper than that of some of his disciples.

In consistency of style, and in architectural symmetry of construction, the play marks a great advance upon The League of Youth. From the end of the first act to the middle of the last, it is a model of skilful plot-development. The exposition, which occupies so much of the first act, is carried out by means of a somewhat cumbrous mechanism. No doubt the “Kaffee-Klatsch” is in great measure justified as a picture of the tattling society of the little town. It does not altogether ignore the principle of economy. But it is curious to note the rapid shrinkage in the poet’s expositions. Here we have the necessary information conveyed by a whole party of subsidiary characters. In the next play, A Doll’s House,—we have still a set exposition, but two characters suffice for it, and one the heroine. In the next play again—that is to say, in Ghosts—the poet has arrived at his own peculiar formula, and the exposition is indistinguishably merged in the action. Still greater is the contrast between the conclusion of Pillars of Society and that of A Doll’s House. It would be too much to call xxiiBernick’s conversion and promise to turn over a new leaf as conventional as the Chamberlain’s right-about-face in The League of Youth. Bernick has passed through a terrible period of mental agony which may well have brought home to him a conviction of sin. Still, the way in which everything suddenly comes right, Olaf is recovered, the Indian Girl is stopped, Aune is reconciled to the use of the new machines, and even the weather improves, so as to promise Johan and Dina a prosperous voyage to America—all this is a manifest concession to popular optimism. We are not to conceive, of course, that the poet deliberately compromised with an artistic ideal for the sake of popularity, but rather that he had not yet arrived at the ideal of logical and moral consistency which he was soon afterwards to attain. To use his own metaphor, the ghost of the excellent Eugène Scribe still walked in him. He still instinctively thought of a play as a storm in a tea-cup, which must naturally blow over in the allotted two hours and a half. Even in his next play—so gradual is the process of evolution—he still makes the external storm, so to speak, blow over at the appointed time. But, instead of the general reconciliation and serenity upon which the curtain falls in The League of Youth and Pillars of Society—instead of the “happy ending” which Helmer so confidently expects—he gives us that famous scene of Nora’s revolt and departure, in which he himself may be said to have made his exit from the school of Scribe, banging the door behind him.

xxiiiThe Norwegian title, Samfundets Stötter, means literally Society’s Pillars. In the text, the word “Samfund” has sometimes been translated “society,” sometimes “community.” The noun “stötte,” a pillar, has for its correlative the verb, “at stötte,” to support; so that where the English phrase, “to support society,” occurs, there is, in the original, a direct allusion to the title of the play. The leading merchants in Norwegian seaports often serve as consuls for one or other foreign Power—whence the title by which Bernick is addressed. Rörlund, in the original is called “Adjunkt”—that is to say, he is an assistant master in a school, subordinate to the headmaster or rector.

• Chamberlain Bratsberg,^[3] owner of iron-works.
• Erik Bratsberg, his son, a merchant.
• Thora, his daughter.
• Selma, Erik’s wife.
• Doctor Fieldbo, physician at the Chamberlain’s works.
• Stensgård,^[4] a lawyer.
• Mons Monsen, of Stonelee.^[5]
• Bastian Monsen, his son.
• Ragna, his daughter.
• Helle,^[6] student of theology, tutor at Stonelee.
• Ringdal, manager of the iron-works.
• Anders Lundestad, landowner.
• Daniel Heire.^[7]
• Madam^[8] Rundholmen, widow of a storekeeper and publican.
• Aslaksen, a printer.
• A Maid-servant at the Chamberlain’s.
• A Waiter.
• A Waitress at Madam Rundholmen’s.
• Townspeople, Guests at the Chamberlain’s, etc. etc.

ACT FIRST.

The Seventeenth of May.^[9] A popular fête in the Chamberlain’s grounds. Music and dancing in the background. Coloured lights among the trees. In the middle, somewhat towards the back, a rostrum. To the right, the entrance to a large refreshment-tent; before it, a table with benches. In the foreground, on the left, another table, decorated with flowers and surrounded with lounging-chairs.

A Crowd of People. Lundestad, with a committee-badge at his button-hole, stands on the rostrum. Ringdal, also with a committee-badge, at the table on the left.

... Therefore, friends and fellow citizens, I drink to our freedom! As we have inherited it from our fathers, so will we preserve it for ourselves and for our children! Three cheers for the day! Three cheers for the Seventeenth of May!

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

[As Lundestad descends from the rostrum.] And one cheer more for old Lundestad!

[Hissing.] Ss! Ss!

[Drowning the others.] Hurrah for Lundestad! Long live old Lundestad! Hurrah!

'Pon my soul, it’s time he was laid on the shelf!

It was the local situation^[10] he was talking about! Ho-ho!

He has made the same speech year after year as long as I can remember. Come over here.

No, no, not that way, Mr. Monsen. We are quite deserting your daughter.

Monsen.

Oh, Ragna will find us again.

She’s all right; young Helle is with her.

Helle?

Yes, Helle. But [Nudging Stensgård familiarly] you have me here, you see, and the rest of us. Come on! Here we shall be out of the crowd, and can discuss more fully what——

[Approaching.] Excuse me, Mr. Monsen—that table is reserved——

Reserved? For whom?

For the Chamberlain’s party.

Oh, confound the Chamberlain’s party! There’s none of them here.

No, but we expect them every minute.

Then let them sit somewhere else.

[Laying his hand on the chair.] No, the table is reserved, and there’s an end of it.

[Rising.] Come, Mr. Stensgård; there are just as good seats over there. [Crosses to the right.] Waiter! Ha, no waiters either. The Committee should have seen to that in time. Oh, Aslaksen, just go in and get us four bottles of champagne. Order the dearest; tell them to put it down to Monsen!

[Goes quietly over to them and addresses Stensgård.] I hope you won’t take it ill——

Take it ill! Good gracious, no! Not in the least.

[Still to Stensgård.] It’s not my doing; it’s the Committee that decided——

Of course. The Committee orders, and we must obey.

[As before.] You see, we are on the Chamberlain’s own ground here. He has been so kind as to throw open his park and garden for this evening; so we thought——

We’re extremely comfortable here, Mr. Lundestad—if only people would leave us in peace—the crowd, I mean.

[Unruffled.] Very well; then it’s all right.

[Entering from the tent.] The waiter is just coming with the wine.

A table apart, under special care of the Committee! And on our Independence Day of all others! There you have a specimen of the way things go.

But why on earth do you put up with all this, you good people?

The habit of generations, you see.

You’re new to the district, Mr. Stensgård. If only you knew a little of the local situation——

[Brings champagne.] Was it you that ordered—?

Yes, certainly; open the bottle.

[Pouring out the wine.] It goes to your account, Mr. Monsen?

The whole thing; don’t be afraid.

[Clinks glasses with Stensgård.] Here’s welcome among us, Mr. Stensgård! It gives me great pleasure to have made your acquaintance; I cannot but call it an honour to the district that such a man should settle here. The newspapers have made us familiar with your name, on all sorts of public occasions. You have great gifts of oratory, Mr. Stensgård, and a warm heart for the public weal. I trust you will enter with life and vigour into the—h’m, into the——

The local situation.

Oh yes, the local situation. I drink to that.

Whatever I do, I shall certainly put life and vigour into it.

Bravo! Hear, hear! Another glass in honour of that promise.

No, stop; I’ve already——

Oh, nonsense! Another glass, I say—to seal the bond!

However—since we have got upon the subject—I must tell you that it’s not the Chamberlain himself that keeps everything under his thumb. No, sir—old Lundestad is the man that stands behind and drives the sledge.

So I am told, in many quarters. I can’t understand how a Liberal like him——

Lundestad? Do you call Anders Lundestad a Liberal? To be sure, he professed Liberalism in his young days, when he was still at the foot of the ladder. And then he inherited his seat in Parliament from his father. Good Lord! everything runs in families here.

But there must be some means of putting a stop to all these abuses.

Yes, damn it all, Mr. Stensgård—see if you can’t put a stop to them!

I don’t say that I——

Yes, you! You are just the man. You have the gift of the gab, as the saying goes; and what’s more: you have the pen of a ready writer. My paper’s at your disposal, you know.

If anything is to be done, it must be done quickly. The preliminary election^[11] comes on in three days now.

And if you were elected, your private affairs would not prevent your accepting the charge?

My private affairs would suffer, of course; but if it appeared that the good of the community demanded the sacrifice, I should have to put aside all personal considerations.

Good; that’s good. And you have a party already: that I can see clearly.

I flatter myself the majority of the younger, go-ahead generation——

H’m, h’m! 'ware spies!

May I beg for the loan of a spare seat; I want to sit over there.

The benches are fastened here, you see; but won’t you take a place at this table?

Here? At this table? Oh yes, with pleasure.pleasure. [Sits.] Dear, dear! Champagne, I believe.

Yes; won’t you join us in a glass?

No, thank you! Madam Rundholmen’s champagne——Well, well, just half a glass to keep you company. If only one had a glass, now.

Bastian, go and get one.

Oh, Aslaksen, just go and fetch a glass.

Don’t let me interrupt you, gentlemen. I wouldn’t for the world——! Thanks, Aslaksen. [Bows to Stensgård.] A strange face—a recent arrival! Have I the pleasure of addressing our new legal luminary, Mr. Stensgård?

Quite right. [Introducing them.] Mr. Stensgård, Mr. Daniel Heire——

Capitalist.

Ex-capitalist, you should rather say. It’s all gone now; slipped through my fingers, so to speak. Not that I’m bankrupt—for goodness' sake don’t think that.

Drink, drink, while the froth is on it.

But rascality, you understand—sharp practice and so forth——I say no more. Well, well, I am confident it is only temporary. When I get my outstanding law-suits and some other little matters off my hands, I shall soon be on the track of our aristocratic old Reynard the Fox. Let us drink to that! You won’t, eh?

I should like to know first who your aristocratic old Reynard the Fox may be.

Hee-hee; you needn’t look so uncomfortable, man. You don’t suppose I’m alluding to Mr. Monsen. No one can accuse Mr. Monsen of being aristocratic. No; it’s Chamberlain Bratsberg, my dear young friend.

What!What! In money matters the Chamberlain is surely above reproach.

You think so, young man? H’m; I say no more. [Draws nearer.] Twenty years ago I was worth no end of money. My father left me a great fortune. You’ve heard of my father, I daresay? No? Old Hans Heire? They called him Gold Hans. He was a shipowner: made heaps of money in the blockade time; had his window-frames and door-posts gilded; he could afford it——I say no more; so they called him Gold Hans.

Didn’t he gild his chimney-pots too?

No; that was only a penny-a-liner’s lie; invented long before your time, however. But he made the money fly; and so did I in my time. My visit to London, for instance—haven’t you heard of my visit to London? I took a prince’s retinue with me. Have you really not heard of it, eh? And the sums I have lavished on art and science! And on bringing rising talent to the front!

[Rises.] Well, good-bye, gentlemen.

What? Are you leaving us?

Yes; I want to stretch my legs a bit. [Goes.

[Speaking low.] He was one of them—just as grateful as the rest, hee-hee! Do you know, I kept him a whole year at college?

Indeed? Has Aslaksen been to college?

Like young Monsen. He made nothing of it; also like——I say no more. Had to give him up, you see; he had already developed his unhappy taste for spirits——

But you’ve forgotten what you were going to tell Mr. Stensgård about the Chamberlain.

Oh, it’s a complicated business. When my father was in his glory, things were going downhill with the old Chamberlain—this one’s father, you understand; he was a Chamberlain too.

Of course; everything runs in families here.

Including the social graces——I say no more. The conversion of the currency, rash speculations, extravagances he launched out into, in the year 151816 or thereabouts, forced him to sell some of his land.

And your father bought it?

Bought and paid for it. Well, what then? I come into my property; I make improvements by the thousand——

Of course.

Your health, my young friend!—Improvements by the thousand, I say—thinning the woods, and so forth. Years pass; and then comes Master Reynard—the present one, I mean—and repudiates the bargain!

But, my dear Mr. Heire, you could surely have snapped your fingers at him.

Not so easily! Some small formalities had been overlooked, he declared. Besides, I happened then to be in temporary difficulties, which afterwards became permanent. And what can a man do nowadays without capital?

You’re right there, by God! And in many ways you can’t do very much with capital either. That I know to my cost. Why, even my innocent children——

[Thumps the table.] Ugh, father! if I only had certain people here!

Your children, you say?

Yes; take Bastian, for example. Perhaps I haven’t given him a good education?

A threefold education! First for the University; then for painting; and then for—what is it?—it’s a civil engineer he is now, isn’t it?

Yes, that I am, by the Lord!

Yes, that he is; I can produce his bills and his certificates to prove it! But who gets the town business? Who has got the local road-making—especially these last two years? Foreigners, or at any rate strangers—in short, people no one knows anything about!

Yes; it’s shameful the way things go on. Only last New Year, when the managership of the Savings Bank fell vacant, what must they do but give Monsen the go-by, and choose an individual that knew—[Coughs]—that knew how to keep his purse-strings drawn—which our princely 17host obviously does not. Whenever there’s a post of confidence going, it’s always the same! Never Monsen—always some one that enjoys the confidence—of the people in power. Well, well; commune suffragium, as the Roman Law puts it; that means shipwreck in the Common Council, sir.^[12] It’s a shame! Your health!

Thanks! But, to change the subject—how are all your law-suits getting on?

They are still pending; I can say no more for the present. What endless annoyance they do give me! Next week I shall have to summon the whole Town Council before the Arbitration Commission.^[13]

Is it true that you once summoned yourself before the Arbitration Commission?

Myself? Yes; but I didn’t put in an appearance.

Ha, ha! You didn’t, eh?

I had a sufficient excuse: had to cross the river, and it was unfortunately the very year of Bastian’s bridge—plump! down it went, you know——

Why, confound it all——!

Take it coolly, young man! You are not the first that has bent the bow till it breaks. Everything runs in families, you know——I say no more.

Ho ho ho! You say no more, eh? Well, drink, then, and say no more! [To Stensgård.] You see, Mr. Heire’s tongue is licensed to wag as it pleases.

Yes, freedom of speech is the only civic right I really value.

What a pity the law should restrict it.

Hee-hee! Our legal friend’s mouth is watering for a nice action for slander, eh? Make your mind easy, my dear sir! I’m an old hand, let me tell you!

Especially at slander?

Your pardon, young man! That outburst of indignation does honour to your heart. I beg you to forget an old man’s untimely frankness about your absent friends.

Absent friends?

I have nothing to say against the son, of course—nor against the daughter. And if I happened to cast a passing slur upon the Chamberlain’s character——

The Chamberlain’s? Is it the Chamberlain’s family you call my friends?

Well, you don’t pay visits to your enemies, I presume?

Visits?

What?

Ow, ow, ow! Here am I letting cats out of bags——!

Have you been paying visits at the Chamberlain’s?

Nonsense! A misunderstanding——

A most unhappy slip on my part. But how was I to know it was a secret? [To Monsen.] Besides, you musn’t take my expressions too literally. When I say a visit, I mean only a sort of formal call; a frock-coat and yellow gloves affair——

I tell you I haven’t exchanged a single word with any of that family!

Is it possible? Were you not received the second time either? I know they were “not at home” the first time.

[To Monsen.] I had a letter to deliver from a friend in Christiania—that was all.

[Rising.] I’ll be hanged if it isn’t positively revolting! Here is a young man at the outset of his career; full of simple-minded confidence, he seeks out the experienced man-of-the-world and knocks at his door; turns to him, who has brought his ship to port, to beg for——I say no more! The man-of-the-world shuts the door in his face; is not at home; never is at home when it’s his duty to be——I say no more! [With indignation.] Was there ever such shameful insolence!

Oh, never mind that stupid business.

Not at home! He, who goes about professing that he is always at home to reputable people!

Does he say that?

A mere empty phrase. He’s not at home to Mr. Monsen either. But I can’t think what has made him hate you so much. Yes, hate you, I say; for what do you think I heard yesterday?

I don’t want to know what you heard yesterday.

Then I say no more. Besides, the expressions didn’t surprise me—coming from the Chamberlain, I mean. Only I can’t understand why he should have added “demagogue.”

Demagogue!

Well, since you insist upon it, I must confess that the Chamberlain called you an adventurer and demagogue.

[Jumps up.] What!

Adventurer and demagoguedemagogue—or demagogue and adventurer; I won’t answer for the order.

And you heard that?

I? If I had been present, Mr. Stensgård, you may be sure I should have stood up for you as you deserve.

There, you see what comes of——

How dare the old scoundrel——?

Come, come, come! Keep your temper. Very likely it was a mere figure of speech—a harmless little joke, I have no doubt. You can demand an explanation to-morrow; for I suppose you are going to the great dinner-party, eh?

I am not going to any dinner-party.

Two calls and no invitation——!

Demagogue and adventurer! What can he be thinking of?

Look there! Talk of the devil——! Come, Bastian.

What did he mean by it, Mr. Heire?

Haven’t the ghost of an idea.—It pains you? Your hand, young man! Pardon me if my frankness has wounded you. Believe me, you have yet many bitter lessons to learn in this life. You are young; you are confiding; you are trustful. It is beautiful; it is even touching; but—but—trustfulness is silver, experience is gold: that’s a proverb of my own invention, sir! God bless you!

[Strikes the bell on the rostrum.] Silence for Mr. Ringdal’s speech!

[Shouts.] Mr. Lundestad, I demand to be heard!

Afterwards.

No, now! at once!

You can’t speak just now. Silence for Mr. Ringdal!

[On the rostrum.] Ladies and gentlemen! We have at this moment the honour of seeing in our midst the man with the warm heart and the open hand—the man we have all looked up to for many a year, as to a father—the man who is always ready to help us, both in word and deed—the man whose door is never closed to any reputable citizen—the 24man who—who—ladies and gentlemen, our honoured guest is no lover of long speeches; so, without more words, I call for three cheers for Chamberlain Bratsberg and his family! Long life to them! Hurrah!

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

Now may I speak?

By all means. The platform is at your service.

[Jumps upon the table.] I shall choose my own platform!

[Crowding around him.] Hurrah!

[To the Doctor.] Who is this obstreperous personage?

Mr. Stensgård.

Oh, it’s he, is it?

Listen to me, my glad-hearted brothers and sisters! Hear me, all you who have in your souls—though it may not reach your lips—the exultant song of the day, the day of our freedom! I am a stranger among you——

No!

Thanks for that “No!” I take it as the utterance of a longing, an aspiration. A stranger I am, however; but this I swear, that I come among you with a great and open-hearted sympathy for your sorrows and your joys, your victories and defeats. If it lay in my power——

It does, it does!

No interruptions! You have no right to speak.

You still less! I abolish the Committee! Freedom on the day of freedom, boys!

Hurrah for freedom!

They deny you the right of speech! You hear it—they want to gag you! Away with this tyranny! I won’t stand here declaiming to a flock of dumb animals. I will talk; but you shall talk too. We will talk to each other, from the heart!

[With growing enthusiasm.] Hurrah!

We will have no more of these barren, white-chokered festivities! A golden harvest of deeds shall hereafter shoot up from each Seventeenth of May. May! Is it not the season of bud and blossom, the blushing maiden-month of the year? On the first of June I shall have been just two months among you; and in that time what greatness and littleness, what beauty and deformity, have I not seen?

What on earth is he talking about, Doctor?

Aslaksen says it’s the local situation.

I have seen great and brilliant possibilities among the masses; but I have seen, too, a spirit of corruption brooding over the germs of promise and bringing them to nought. I have seen ardent and trustful youth rush yearning forth—and I have seen the door shut in its face.

Oh, Heaven!

What does he mean by that?

Yes, my brothers and sisters in rejoicing! There hovers in the air an Influence, a Spectre 27from the dead and rotten past, which spreads darkness and oppression where there should be nothing but buoyancy and light. We must lay that Spectre; down with it!

Hurrah! Hurrah for the Seventeenth of May!

Come away, father——!

What the deuce does he mean by a spectre? Who is he talking about, Doctor?

[Quickly.] Oh, it’s about——

Aha! So that’s it!

[Softly to Fieldbo.] Thanks!

If no one else will crush the dragon, I will! But we must hold together, boys!

Yes! yes!

We are young! The time belongs to us; but we also belong to the time. Our right is our duty! Elbow-room for faculty, for will, for power! Listen to me! We must form a League. The money-bag has ceased to rule among us!

Bravo! [To the Doctor.] He said the money-bag; so no doubt you’re right——

Yes, boys; we, we are the wealth of the country, if only there’s metal in us. Our will is the ringing gold that shall pass from man to man. War to the knife against whoever shall deny its currency!

Hurrah!

A scornful “bravo” has been flung in my teeth——

No, no!

What care I! Thanks and threats alike are powerless over the perfect will. And now, God be with us! For we are going about His work, with youth and faith to help us. Come, then, into the refreshment-tent—our League shall be baptized this very hour.

Hurrah! Carry him! Shoulder high with him!

Speak on! More! More!

Let us hold together, I say! Providence is on the side of the League of Youth. It lies with us to rule the world—here in the district!

[Wiping her eyes.] Oh, Lord, how beautifully he does speak! Don’t you feel as if you could kiss him, Mr. Heire?

Thank you, I’d rather not.

Oh, you! I daresay not.

Perhaps you would like to kiss him, Madam Rundholmen.

Ugh, how horrid you are!

Spectre—and dragon—and money-bag! It was horribly rude—but well deserved!

[Approaching.] I’m heartily sorry, Chamberlain——

Yes, where was your knowledge of character, Lundestad? Well, well; we are none of us 30infallible. Good-night, and thanks for a pleasant evening. [Turns to Thora and the Doctor.] But bless me, I’ve been positively rude to that fine young fellow!

How so?

His call, you mean——?

He called twice. It’s really Lundestad’s fault. He told me he was an adventurer and—and I forget what else. Fortunately I can make up for it.

How?

Come, Thora; let us see to it at once——

Oh, do you think it’s worth while, Chamberlain——?

[Softly.] Hush!

When one has done an injustice one should lose no time in undoing it; that’s a plain matter of duty. Good-night, Doctor. After all, I’ve spent an amusing hour; and that’s more than I have to thank you for to-day.

Me,Me, Chamberlain?

Yes, yes, yes—you and others.

May I ask what I——?

Don’t be curious, Doctor. I am never curious. Come, come—-no offence—good-night!

[From the tent.] Hei, waiter! Pen and ink! Things are getting lively, Doctor!

What things?

He’s founding the League. It’s nearly founded.

[Who has quietly drawn near.] Are many putting down their names?

We’ve enrolled about seven-and-thirty, not counting widows and so forth. Pen and ink, I say! No waiters to be found!—that’s the fault of the local situation.

Puh! It has been hot to-day.

I’m afraid we have hotter days to come.

Do you think the Chamberlain was very angry?

Oh, not in the least; you could see that, couldn’t you? But what do you say to the new League?

H’m; I say nothing. What is there to be said?

It’s the beginning of a struggle for power here in the district.

Well, well; no harm in a fight. He has great gifts, that Stensgård.

He is determined to make his way.

Youth is always determined to make its way. I was, when I was young; no one can object to that. But mightn’t we look in and see——

[From the tent.] Well, Mr. Lundestad, are you going to move the previous question, eh? To head the opposition? Hee-hee! You must make haste!

Oh, I daresay I shall be in time.

Too late, sir! Unless you want to stand godfather. [Cheering from the tent.] There, they’re chanting Amen; the baptism is over.

I suppose one may be permitted to listen; I shall keep quiet.

There goes one of the falling trees! There will be a rare uprooting, I can tell you! The place will soon look like a wood after a tornado. Won’t I chuckle over it!

Tell me, Mr. Heire, what interest have you in the matter?

Interest? I am entirely disinterested, Doctor! If I chuckle, it is on behalf of my fellow citizens. There will be life, spirit, go, in things. For my own part—good Lord, it’s all the same to me; I say, as the Grand Turk said of the Emperor of Austria and the King of France—I don’t care whether the pig eats the dog or the dog the pig.

[In the tent.] Long live Stensgård! Hurrah! Hurrah for the League of Youth! Wine! Punch! Hei, hei! Beer! Hurrah!

[Comes from the tent.] God bless you and every one! [With tears in his voice.] Oh, Doctor, I feel so strong this evening; I must do something.

Don’t mind me. What would you like to do?

I think I’ll go down to the dancing-room and fight one or two fellows.

[Comes from the tent without his hat, and greatly excited.] My dear Fieldbo, is that you?

At your service, Tribune of the People! For I suppose you’ve been elected——?

Of course; but——

And what is to come of it all? What nice little post are you to have? The management of the Bank? Or perhaps——

Oh, don’t talk to me like that! I know you don’t mean it. You are not so empty and wooden as you like to appear.

Empty and wooden, eh?

Fieldbo! Be my friend as you used to be! We have not understood each other of late. You have wounded and repelled me with your ridicule and irony. Believe me, it was wrong of you. [Embraces him.] Oh, my great God! how happy I am!

You too? So am I, so am I!

Yes, I should be the meanest hound on earth if all heaven’s bounty didn’t make me good and true. How have I deserved it, Fieldbo? What have I, sinner that I am, done to be so richly blessed?

There is my hand! This evening I am your friend indeed!

Thanks! Be faithful and true, as I shall be!—Oh, isn’t it an unspeakable joy to carry all that multitude away and along with you? How can you help becoming good from mere thankfulness? And how it makes you love all your fellow creatures! I feel as if I could clasp them all in one embrace, and weep, and beg their forgiveness because God has been so partial as to give me more than them.

[Quietly.] Yes, treasures without price may fall to one man’s lot. This evening I would not crush an insect, not a green leaf upon my path.

You?

Never mind. That’s apart from the question. I only mean that I understand you.

What a lovely night! Listen to the music and merriment floating out over the meadows. And 36how still it is in the valley! I tell you the man whose life is not reconsecrated in such an hour, does not deserve to live on God’s earth!

Yes; but tell me now: what do you mean to build up out of it—to-morrow, and through the working-days to come?

To build up? We have to tear down first.— Fieldbo, I had once a dream—or did I see it? No; it was a dream, but such a vivid one! I thought the Day of Judgment was come upon the world. I could see the whole curve of the hemisphere. There was no sun, only a livid storm-light. A tempest arose; it came rushing from the west and swept everything before it: first withered leaves, then men; but they kept on their feet all the time, and their garments clung fast to them, so that they seemed to be hurried along sitting. At first they looked like townspeople running after their hats in a wind; but when they came nearer they were emperors and kings; and it was their crowns and orbs they were chasing and catching at, and seemed always on the point of grasping, but never grasped. Oh, there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and none of them understood in the least what was happening; but many bewailed themselves, and asked: “Whence can it come, this terrible storm?”storm?” Then there came the answer: “One Voice spoke, and the storm is the echo of that one Voice.”

When did you dream that?

Oh, I don’t remember when; several years ago.ago.

There were probably disturbances somewhere in Europe, and you had been reading the newspapers after a heavy supper.

The same shiver, the same thrill, that then ran down my back, I felt again to-night. Yes, I will give my whole soul utterance. I will be the Voice——

Come, my dear Stensgård, pause and reflect. You will be the Voice, you say. Good! But where will you be the Voice? Here in the parish? Or at most here in the county! And who will echo you and raise the storm? Why, people like Monsen and Aslaksen, and that fat-headed genius, Mr. Bastian. And instead of the flying emperors and kings, we shall see old Lundestad rushing about after his lost seat in Parliament. Then what will it all amount to? Just what you at first saw in your dreamf—townsfolk in a wind.

In the beginning, yes. But who knows how far the storm may sweep?

Fiddlesticks with you and your storm: And the first thing you go and do, hoodwinked and blinded and gulled as you are, is to turn your weapons precisely against all that is worthy and capable among us——

That is not true.

It is true! Monsen and the Stonelee gang got hold of you the moment you came here; and if you don’t shake him off it will be your ruin. Chamberlain Bratsberg is a man of honour; that you may rely on. Do you know why the great Monsen hates him? Why, because——

Not a word more! I won’t hear a word against my friends!

Look into yourself, Stensgård! Is Mr. Mons Monsen really your friend?

Mr. Monsen has most kindly opened his doors to me——

To people of the better sort he opens his doors in vain.

Oh, whom do you call the better sort? A few stuck-up officials! I know all about it. As for me, I have been received at Stonelee with so much cordiality and appreciation——

Appreciation? Yes, unfortunately—there we are at the root of the matter.

Not at all! I can see with unprejudiced eyes. Mr. Monsen has abilities, he has reading, he has a keen sense for public affairs.

Abilities? Oh, yes, in a way. Reading too: he takes in the papers, and has read your speeches and articles. And his sense for public affairs he has of course proved by applauding the said articles and speeches.

Now, Fieldbo, up come the dregs of your nature again. Can you never shake off that polluting habit of thought? Why must you always assume mean or ridiculous motives for everything? Oh, you are not serious! Now you look good and true again. I’ll tell you the real root of the matter. Do you know Ragna?

Ragna Monsen? Oh, after a fashion—at second hand.

Yes, I know she is sometimes at the Chamberlain’s.

In a quiet way, yes. She and Miss Bratsberg are old schoolfellows.

And what do you think of her?

Why, from all I have heard she seems to be a very good girl.

Oh, you should see her in her home! She thinks of nothing but her two little sisters. And how devotedly she must have nursed her mother! You know the mother was out of her mind for some years before she died.

Yes; I was their doctor at one time. But surely, my dear fellow, you don’t mean that——

Yes, Fieldbo, I love her truly; to you I can confess it. Oh, I know what you are surprised at. You think it strange that so soon after—of course you know that I was engaged in Christiania?

Yes, so I was told.

The whole thing was a disappointment. I had to break it off; it was best for all parties. Oh, how I suffered in that affair! The torture, the sense of oppression I endured——! Now, thank heaven, I am out of it all. That was my reason for leaving town.

And with regard to Ragna Monsen, are you quite sure of yourself?

Yes, I am indeed. There’s no mistake possible in this case.

Well, then, in heaven’s name, go in and win! It means your life’s happiness! Oh, there’s so much I could say to you——

Really? Has she said anything? Has she confided in Miss Bratsberg?

No; that’s not what I mean. But how can you, in the midst of your happiness, go and fuddle yourself in these political orgies? How can town tattle take any hold upon a mind that is——

Why not? Man is a complex machine—I am, at any rate. Besides, my way to her lies through these very party turmoils.

A terribly prosaic way.

Fieldbo, I am ambitious; you know I am. I must make my way in the world. When I remember that I’m thirty, and am still on the first round of the ladder, I feel my conscience gnawing at me.

Not with its wisdom teeth.

It’s of no use talking to you. You have never felt the spur of ambition. You have dawdled and drifted all your days—first at college, then abroad, now here.

Perhaps; but at least it has been delightful.delightful. And no reaction follows, like what you feel when you get down from the table after——

Stop that! I can bear anything but that. You are doing a bad action—you are damping my ardour.

Oh, come! If your ardour is so easily damped——

Stop, I say! What right have you to break in upon my happiness? Do you think I am not sincere?

Yes, I am sure you are.

Well, then, why go and make me feel empty, and disgusted, and suspicious of myself? [Shouts and cheers from the tent.] There—listen! They are drinking my health. An idea that can take such hold upon people—by God, it must have truth in it!

Look, Miss Bratsberg; there is Mr. Stensgård.

Then I won’t go any further. Good-night, Ragna dear.

Good-night, good-night.

[Advancing.] I am Miss Bratsberg. I have a letter for you, from my father.

For me?

Yes; here it is. [Going.

May I not see you home?

No, thank you. I can go alone. Good-night.

[Reading the letter by a Chinese lantern.] What is this!

Well—what has the Chamberlain to say to you?

[Bursts into loud laughter.] I must say I didn’t expect this!

Tell me——?

Chamberlain Bratsberg is a pitiful creature.

You dare to——

Pitiful! Pitiful. Tell any one you please that I said so. Or rather, say nothing about it——[Puts the letter in his pocket.] Don’t mention this to any one!

Mr. President! Where is Mr. Stensgård?

There he is! Hurrah!

Mr. President has forgotten his hat.

Here; have some punch! Here’s a whole bowlful!

Thanks, no more.

And the members of the League will recollect that we meet to-morrow at Stonelee——

To-morrow? It wasn’t to-morrow, was it——?

Yes, certainly; to draw up the manifesto——

No, I really can’t to-morrow—I shall see about it the day after to-morrow, or the day after that. 45Well, good-night, gentlemen; hearty thanks all round, and hurrah for the future!

Hurrah! Let’s take him home in triumph!

Thanks, thanks! But you really mustn’t——

We’ll all go with you.

Very well, come along. Good-night, Fieldbo; you’re not coming with us?

No; but let me tell you, what you said about Chamberlain Bratsberg——

Hush, hush! It was an exaggeration—I withdraw it! Well, my friends, if you’re coming, come; I’ll take the lead.

Your arm, Stensgård!

A song! Strike up! Something thoroughly patriotic!

A song! A song! Music!

[To Lundestad, who remains behind.] A gallant procession.

Yes—and with a gallant leader.

And where are you going, Mr. Lundestad?

I? I’m going home to bed.

A garden-room at the Chamberlains, elegantly furnished, with a piano, flowers, and rare plants. Entrance door at the back. On the left, a door leading to the dining-room; on the right, several glass doors lead out to the garden.

Aslaksen stands at the entrance door. A Maidservant is carrying some dishes of fruit into the dining-room.

Yes, but I tell you they’re still at table; you must call again.

I’d rather wait, if I may.

Oh yes, if you like. You can sit there for the present.

Ah, good evening, Aslaksen: are you here?

[Returning.] You’re late this evening, sir.

I was called to see a patient.

The Chamberlain and Miss Bratsberg have both been inquiring about you.

Indeed?

Yes. Won’t you go in at once, sir; or shall I say that——?

No, no; never mind. I can have a snack afterwards; I shall wait here in the meantime.

Dinner will soon be over.

[After a pause.] How can you resist such a dinner, Doctor—with dessert, and fine wines, and all sorts of good things?

Why, man, it seems to me we get too many good things hereabouts, rather than too few.

There I can’t agree with you.

H’m. I suppose you are waiting for someone.

Yes, I am.am.

And are things going tolerably at home? Your wife——?

In bed, as usual; coughing and wasting away.

And your second child?

Oh, he’s a cripple for the rest of his days; you know that. That’s our luck, you see; what the devil’s the use of talking about it?

Let me look at you, Aslaksen!

Well; what do you want to see?

You’ve been drinking to-day.

Yes, and yesterday too.

Well, yesterday there was some excuse for it; but to-day——

What about your friends in there, then? Aren’t they drinking too?

Yes, my dear Aslaksen; that’s a fair retort; but circumstances differ so in this world.

I didn’t choose my circumstances.

No; God chose them for you.

No, he didn’t—men chose them. Daniel Heire chose, when he took me from the printing-house and sent me to college. And Chamberlain Bratsberg chose, when he ruined Daniel Heire and sent me back to the printing-house.

Now you know that’s not true. The Chamberlain did not ruin Daniel Heire; Daniel Heire ruined himself.

Perhaps! But how dared Daniel Heire ruin himself, in the face of his responsibilities towards me? God’s partly to blame too, of course. Why should he give me talent and ability? Well, of course I could have turned them to account as a respectable handicraftsman; but then comes that tattling old fool——

It’s base of you to say that. Daniel Heire acted with the best intentions.

What good do his “best intentions” do me? You hear them in there, clinking glasses and drinking healths? Well, I too have sat at that table in my day, dressed in purple and fine linen, like the best of them——! That was just the thing for me, that was—for me, that had read so much 51and had thirsted so long to have my share in all the good things of life. Well, well; how long was Jeppe in Paradise?^[14] Smash, crash! down you go—and my fine fortunes fell to pie, as we printers say.

But, after all, you were not so badly off; you had your trade to fall back upon.

That’s easily said. After getting out of your class you can’t get into it again. They took the ground from under my feet, and shoved me out on the slippery ice—and then they abuse me because I stumble.

Well, far be it from me to judge you harshly——

No; you have no right to.—What a queer jumble it is! Daniel Heire, and Providence, and the Chamberlain, and Destiny, and Circumstance—and I myself in the middle of it! I’ve often thought of unravelling it all and writing a book about it; but it’s so cursedly entangled that——[Glances towards the door on the left.] Ah! They’re rising from table.

I don’t know my way here yet; you must tell me where I am to take you, ladies.

Out into the air; you must see the garden.

Oh, that will be delightful.

Why, by all that’s wonderful, there’s Stensgård!

It’s him I want to speak to. I’ve had a fine chase after him; fortunately I met Daniel Heire——

Hee-hee! Excellent sherry, upon my word. I’ve tasted nothing like it since I was in London.

Yes, it’s good, isn’t it? It puts life into you.

Well, well—it’s a real pleasure to see one’s money so well spent.

How so? [Laughing.] Oh, yes; I see, I see.

You want to speak to Stensgård, you say?

Yes.

On business?

Of course; the report of the fête——

Well, then, you must wait out there in the meantime.

In the passage?

In the anteroom. This is scarcely the time or place—but the moment I see Stensgård alone, I’ll tell him——

Very well; I’ll bide my time.

[Conversing with Lundestad.] Violent, you say? Well, perhaps the form wasn’t all that could be desired; but there were real gems in the speech, I can assure you.

Well, if you are satisfied, Chamberlain, I have no right to complain.

Why should you? Ah, here’s the Doctor! Starving, I’ll be bound.

It doesn’t matter, Chamberlain. The servants will attend to me. I feel myself almost at home here, you know.

Oh, you do, do you? I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry.

What? Am I taking too great a liberty? You yourself permitted me to——

What I permitted, I permitted. Well, well, make yourself at home, and forage for something to eat. [Slaps him lightly on the shoulder and turns to Lundestad.] Now, here’s one you may call an adventurer and—and the other thing I can’t remember.

Why, Chamberlain——!

No, I assure you——

No arguments after dinner; it’s bad for the digestion. They’ll serve the coffee outside presently.

[To Fieldbo.] Did you ever see the Chamberlain so strange as he is to-day?

I noticed it yesterday evening.

He will have it that I called Mr. Stensgård an adventurer and something else of that sort.

Oh, well, Mr. Lundestad, what if you did? Excuse me; I must go and talk to the ladies.

[To Ringdal, who is arranging a card table.] How do you account for Mr. Stensgård’s appearance here to-day?

Yes, how? He wasn’t on the original list.

An afterthought, then? After his attack on the Chamberlain yesterday——?

Yes, can you understand it?

Understand it? Oh yes, I suppose I can.

[More softly.] You think the Chamberlain is afraid of him?

I think he is prudent—that’s what I think.

Yes, just look—over the tops of the trees you can see the church tower and all the upper part of the town.

So you can; I shouldn’t have thought so.

Don’t you think it’s a beautiful view?

Everything is beautiful here: the garden, and the view, and the sunshine, and the people! Great heaven, how beautiful it all is! And you live here all the summer?

No, not my husband and I; we come and go. We have a big, showy house in town, much finer than this; you’ll see it soon.

Perhaps your family live in town?

My family? Who are my family?

Oh, I didn’t know——

We fairy princesses have no family.

Fairy princesses?

At most we have a wicked stepmother——

A witch, yes! So you are a princess!

Princess of all the sunken palaces, whence you hear the soft music on midsummer nights. Doctor Fieldbo thinks it must be pleasant to be a princess; but I must tell you——

[Coming from the garden.] Ah, at last I find the little lady!

The little lady is telling Mr. Stensgård the story of her life.

Oh, indeed. And what part does the husband play in the little lady’s story?

The Prince, of course. [To Stensgård.] You know the prince always comes and breaks the spell, and then all ends happily, and every one calls and congratulates, and the fairy-tale is over.

Oh, it’s too short.

Perhaps—in a way.

[Putting his arm round her waist.] But a new fairy-tale grows out of the old one, and in it the Princess becomes a Queen!

On the same condition as real Princesses?

What condition?

They must go into exile—to a foreign kingdom.

A cigar, Mr. Stensgård?

Thank you, not just now.

[Going towards them.] Is that you, Thora dear? I hope you’re not ill?

I? No.

Oh, but I’m sure you must be; you seem to be always consulting the doctor of late.

No, I assure you——

Nonsense; let me feel your pulse! You are burning. My dear Doctor, don’t you think the fever will pass over?

Everything has its time.

Would you rather have me freezing——?

No, a medium temperature is the best—ask my husband.

[Enters from the garden.] The whole family gathered in secret conclave? That’s not very polite to the guests.

I am just going, father dear——

Aha, it is you the ladies are paying court to, Mr. Stensgård! I must look to this.

[Softly to Fieldbo.] Remain here!

[Offers Selma his arm.] Has Madame any objection——?

Come! [They go out to the right.

[Looking after them.] It’s impossible to get these two separated.

It would be sinful to try.

Fools that we are! How Providence blesses us in spite of ourselves. [Calls out.] Thora, Thora, do look after Selma! Get a shawl for her, and don’t let her run about so: she’ll catch cold! How short-sighted we mortals are, Doctor! Do you know any cure for that disease?

The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time.

You don’t say so! Thanks for the advice. But since you feel yourself at home here, you must really pay a little attention to your guests.

Certainly; come, Stensgård, shall we——?

Oh, no, no—there’s my old friend Heire out there——

He thinks himself at home here too.

Ha ha ha! So he does.

Well, we two will join forces, and do our best.

You were speaking of Daniel Heire, Chamberlain. I must say I was rather surprised to see him here.

Were you? Mr. Heire and I are old school and college friends. Besides, we have had a good deal to do with each other in many ways since——

Yes, Mr. Heire was good enough to give his own account of some of these transactions, yesterday evening.

H’m!

Had it not been for him, I certainly should not have let myself boil over as I did. But he has a way of speaking of people and things, that—in short, he has a vile tongue in his head.

My dear young friend—Mr. Heire is my guest; you must not forget that. My house is liberty hall, with only one reservation: my guests must not be discussed to their disadvantage.

I beg your pardon, I’m sure——!

Oh, never mind; you belong to the younger generation, that’s not so punctilious. As for Mr. Heire, I don’t think you really know him. I, at any rate, owe Mr. Heire a great deal.

Yes, so he gave one to understand; but I didn’t think——

I owe him the best part of our domestic happiness, Mr. Stensgård! I owe him my daughter-in-law. Yes, that is really so. Daniel Heire was kind to her in her childhood. She was a youthful prodigy; she gave concerts when she was only ten years old. I daresay you have heard her spoken of—Selma Sjöblom.^[15]

Sjöblom? Yes, of course; her father was Swedish?

Yes, a music-teacher. He came here many years ago. Musicians, you know, are seldom millionaires; and their habits are not always calculated to——; in short, Mr. Heire has always had an eye for talent; he was struck with the child, and had her sent to Berlin; and then, when her father was dead and Heire’s fortunes were on the wane, she returned to Christiania, where she was of course taken up by the best people. That was how my son happened to fall in with her.

Then in that way old Daniel Heire has indeed been an instrument for good——

That is how one thing leads to another in this life, you see. We are all instruments, Mr. Stensgård; you, like the rest of us; an instrument of wrath, I suppose——

Oh, don’t speak of it, Chamberlain. I am utterly ashamed——

Ashamed?

It was most unbecoming——

The form was perhaps open to criticism, but the intention was excellent. And now I want to ask you, in future, when you are contemplating any move of the sort, just to come to me and tell me of it openly, and without reserve. You know we all want to act for the best; and it is my duty——

You will permit me to speak frankly to you?

Of course I will. Do you think I haven’t long realised that matters here have in some ways taken a most undesirable turn? But what was I to do? In the late King’s time I lived for the most part in Stockholm. I am old now; and besides, it is not in my nature to take the lead in reforms, or to 64throw myself personally into the turmoil of public affairs. You, on the other hand, Mr. Stensgård, have every qualification for them; so let us hold together.

Thanks, Chamberlain; many, many thanks!

And I tell you it must be a misunderstanding.

Indeed? I like that! How should I misunderstand my own ears?

Anything new, Heire?

Only that Anders Lundestad is going over to the Stonelee party.

Oh, you’re joking!

I beg your pardon, my dear sir; I have it from his own lips. Mr. Lundestad intends, on account of failing health, to retire from political life; you can draw your own conclusions from that.

He told you so himself?

Of course he did. He made the momentous announcement to an awe-struck circle down in the garden; hee-hee!

Why, my dear Ringdal, what can be the meaning of this?

Oh, it’s not difficult to guess.

Indeed it is though. This is a most important affair for the district. Come along, Ringdal; we must find the man himself.

[Entering by the furthest back garden-door.] Has the Chamberlain gone out?

Sh! The sages are deliberating! Great news, Doctor! Lundestad is going to resign.

Oh, impossible!

Can you understand it?

Ah, now we may look out for real sport. It’s the League of Youth that’s beginning to work, Mr. Stensgård. Do you know what you should call your League? I’ll tell you some other time.

Do you think it’s really our League——?

Not the least doubt about it. So we’re to have the pleasure of sending our respected friend Mr. Mons Monsen to Parliament! I wish he were off already;—I’d give him a lift with pleasure——I say no more; hee-hee!

Tell me, Fieldbo—how do you explain all this?

There are other things still more difficult to explain. How come you to be here?

I? Like the rest, of course—by invitation.

I hear you were invited yesterday evening—after your speech——

What then?

How could you accept the invitation?

What the deuce was I to do? I couldn’t insult these good people.

Indeed! You couldn’t? What about your speech then?

Nonsense! It was principles I attacked in my speech, not persons.

And how do you account for the Chamberlain’s invitation?

Why, my dear friend, there can only be one way of accounting for it.

Namely, that the Chamberlain is afraid of you?

By heaven, he shall have no reason to be! He is a gentleman.

That he is.

Isn’t it touching the way the old man has taken this affair? And how lovely Miss Bratsberg looked when she brought me the letter!

But look here—they haven’t mentioned the scene of yesterday, have they?

Not a word; they have far too much tact for that. But I am filled with remorse; I must find an opportunity of apologising——

I strongly advise you not to! You don’t know the Chamberlain——

Very well; then my acts shall speak for me.

You won’t break with the Stonelee party?

I shall bring about a reconciliation. I have my League; it’s a power already, you see.

By-the-bye, while I remember—we were speaking of Miss Monsen—I advised you to go in and win——

Oh, there’s no hurry——

But listen; I have been thinking it over: you had better put all that out of your head.

I believe you are right. If you marry into an underbred family, you marry the whole tribe of them.

Yes, and there are other reasons——

Monsen is an underbred fellow; I see that now.

Well, polish is not his strong point.

No, indeed it’s not! He goes and speaks ill of his guests; that’s ungentlemanly. His rooms all reek of stale tobacco——

My dear fellow, how is it you haven’t noticed the stale tobacco before?

It’s the contrast that does it. I made a false start when I settled here. I fell into the clutches of a clique, and they bewildered me with their clamour. But there shall be an end to that! I won’t go and wear my life out as a tool in the hands of self-interest or coarse stupidity.

But what will you do with your League?

The League shall remain as it is; it’s founded on a pretty broad basis. Its purpose is to counteract noxious influences; and I am just beginning to realise what side the noxious influences come from.

But do you think the “Youth” will see it in the same light?

They shall! I have surely a right to expect fellows like that to bow before my superior insight.

But if they won’t?

Then they can go their own way. I have done with them. You don’t suppose I am going to let my life slip into a wrong groove, and never reach the goal, for the sake of mere blind, pig-headed consistency!

What do you call the goal?

A career that gives scope for my talents, and fulfils my aspirations.

No vague phrases! What do you mean by your goal?

Well, to you I can make a clean breast of it. My goal is this: in the course of time to get into Parliament, perhaps into the Ministry, and to marry happily into a family of means and position.

Oh, indeed! And by help of the Chamberlain’s social connections you intend to——?

I intend to reach the goal by my own exertions! I must and will reach it; and without help from any one. It will take time, I daresay; but never mind! Meanwhile I shall enjoy life here, drinking in beauty and sunshine——

Here?

Yes, here! Here there are fine manners; life moves gracefully here; the very floors seem laid to be trodden only by lacquered shoes. Here the arm-chairs are deep and the ladies sink exquisitely into them. Here conversation moves lightly and elegantly, like a game at battledore; here no blunders come plumping in to make an awkward silence. Oh, Fieldbo—here I feel for the first time what distinction means! Yes, we have indeed an aristocracy of our own; a little circle; an aristocracy of culture; and to it I will belong. Don’t you yourself feel the refining influence of this place? Don’t you feel that wealth here loses its grossness? When I think of Monsen’s money, I seem to see piles of fetid bank-notes and greasy mortgages—but here! here it is shimmering silver! And the people are the same. Look at the Chamberlain—what a fine high-bred old fellow!

He is indeed.

And the son—alert, straightforward, capable!

Certainly.

And then the daughter-in-law! Isn’t she a pearl? Good God, what a rich, what a fascinating nature!

Thora—Miss Bratsberg has that too.

Oh yes; but she is less remarkable.

Oh, you don’t know her. You don’t know how deep, and steadfast, and true her nature is.

But oh, the daughter-in-law! So frank, almost reckless; and yet so appreciative, so irresistible——

Why, I really believe you’re in love with her.

With a married woman? Are you crazy? What good would that do me? No, but I am falling in love—I can feel that plainly. Yes, she is indeed deep, and steadfast, and true.

Who?

Miss Bratsberg, of course.

What? You’re never thinking of——?

Yes, by heaven I am!

I assure you it’s quite out of the question.

Ho-ho! Will rules the world, my dear fellow! We shall see if it doesn’t.

Why, this is the merest extravagance! Yesterday it was Miss Monsen——

Oh, I was too hasty about that; besides, you yourself advised me not to——

I advise you most emphatically to dismiss all thought of either of them.

Indeed! Perhaps you yourself think of throwing the handkerchief to one of them?

I? No, I assure you——

Well, it wouldn’t have mattered if you had. If people stand in my way and want to balk me of my future, why, I stick at nothing.

Take care I don’t say the same!

You! What right have you to pose as guardian and protector to Chamberlain Bratsberg’s family?

I have at least the right of a friend.

Pooh! that sort of talk won’t do with me. Your motive is mere self-interest! It gratifies your petty vanity to imagine yourself cock-of-the-walk in this house; and so I am to be kept outside the pale.

That is the best thing that could happen to you. Here you are standing on hollow ground.

Am I indeed? Many thanks! I shall manage to prop it up.

Try; but I warn you, it will fall through with you first.

Ho-ho! So you are intriguing against me, are you? I’m glad I have found it out. I know you now; you are my enemy, the only one I have here.

Indeed I am not.

Indeed you are! You have always been so, ever since our school-days. Just look around here and see how every one appreciates me, stranger as I am. You, on the other hand, you who know me, have never appreciated me. That is the radical weakness of your character—you can never appreciate any one. What did you do in Christiania but go about from tea-party to tea-party, spreading yourself out in little witticisms? That sort of thing brings its own punishment! You dull your sense for all that makes life worth living, for all 75that is ennobling and inspiring; and presently you get left behind, fit for nothing.

Am I fit for nothing?

Have you ever been fit to appreciate me?

What was I to appreciate in you?

My will, if nothing else. Every one else appreciates it—the crowd at the fête yesterday—Chamberlain Bratsberg and his family——

Mr. Mons Monsen and his ditto——! And by-the-bye, that reminds me—there’s some one out here waiting for you——

Who?

[Going towards the back.] One who appreciates you. [Opens the door and calls.] Aslaksen, come in!

Aslaksen?

[Entering.] Ah, at last!

Good-bye for the present; I won’t intrude upon friends in council.

What in the devil’s name do you want here?

I must speak to you. You promised me yesterday an account of the founding of the League, and——

I can’t give it you; it must wait till another time.

Impossible, Mr. Stensgård; the paper appears to-morrow morning.

Nonsense! It has all to be altered. The matter has entered on a new phase; new forces have come into play. What I said about Chamberlain Bratsberg must be entirely recast before it can appear.

Oh, that about the Chamberlain, that’s in type already.

Then it must come out of type again.

Not go in?

I won’t have it published in that form. Why do you stare at me? Do you think I don’t know how to manage the affairs of the League?

Oh, certainly; but you must let me tell you——

No arguing, Aslaksen; that I can’t and won’t stand!

Do you know, Mr. Stensgård, that you are doing your best to take the bread out of my mouth? Do you know that?

No; I know nothing of the sort.

But you are. Last winter, before you came here, my paper was looking up. I edited it myself, I must tell you, and I edited it on a principle.

You?

Yes, I!—I said to myself: it’s the great public that supports a paper; now the great public is the bad public—that comes of the local situation; and the bad public will have a bad paper. So you see I edited it——

Badly! Yes, that’s undeniable.

Well, and I prospered by it. But then you came and brought ideas into the district. The paper took on a colour, and then Lundestad’s supporters all fell away. The subscribers that are left won’t pay their subscriptions——

Ah, but the paper has become a good one.

I can’t live on a good paper. You were to make things lively; you were to grapple with abuses, as you promised yesterday. The bigwigs were to be pilloried; the paper was to be filled with things people were bound to read—and now, you leave me in the lurch——

Ho-ho! You think I am going to keep you supplied with libels! No, thank you, my good sir!

Mr. Stensgård, you musn’t drive me to desperation, or you’ll repent it.

What do you mean?

I mean that I must make the paper pay in another way. Heaven knows I should be sorry to do it. Before you came I made an honest living out of accidents and suicides and other harmless things, that often hadn’t even happened. But now you have turned everything topsy-turvy; people now want very different fare——

Just let me tell you this: if you break loose in any way, if you go a single step beyond my orders, and try to exploit the movement in your own dirty interests, I’ll go to the opposition printer and start a new paper. We have money, you must know! We can bring your rag to ruin in a fortnight.

[Pale.] You wouldn’t do that!

Yes, I would; and you’ll see I can edit a paper so as to appeal to the great public.

Then I’ll go this instant to Chamberlain Bratsberg——

You? What have you to do with him?

What have you to do with him? Do you think I don’t know why you are invited here? It’s because he is afraid of you, and of what you may do; and you are making capital of that. But if he’s afraid of what you may do, he’ll be no less afraid of what I may print; and I will make capital of that!

Would you dare to? A wretched creature like you——!

I’ll soon show you. If your speech is to be kept out of the paper, the Chamberlain shall pay me for keeping it out.

Try it; just try it! You’re drunk, fellow——!

Only in moderation. But I’ll fight like a lion if you try to take my poor crust out of my mouth. 80Little you know what sort of a home mine is: a bedridden wife, a crippled child——

Off with you! Do you think I want to be soiled with your squalor? What are your bedridden wives and deformed brats to me? If you stand in my way, if you dare so much as to obstruct a single one of my prospects, you shall be on the parish before the year’s out!

I’ll wait one day——

Ah, you’re coming to your senses.

I shall announce to the subscribers in a handbill that in consequence of an indisposition contracted at the fête, the editor——

Yes, do so; I daresay, later on, we shall come to an understanding.

I trust we may.—Remember this, Mr. Stensgård: that paper is my one ewe lamb.

[At the foremost garden door.] Ah, Mr. Stensgård!

Ah, Mr. Lundestad!

You here alone? If you have no objection, I should like to have a little talk with you.

With pleasure.

In the first place, let me say that if any one has told you that I have said anything to your disadvantage, you musn’t believe it.

To my disadvantage? What do you mean?

Oh, nothing; nothing, I assure you. You see, there are so many busybodies here, that go about doing nothing but setting people by the ears.

Well, on the whole—I’m afraid our relations are a little strained.

They are quite natural relations, Mr. Stensgård: the relation of the old to the new; it is always so.

Oh, come, Mr. Lundestad, you are not so old as all that.

Yes indeed, I’m getting old. I have held my seat ever since 1839. It’s time I should be relieved.

Relieved?

Times change, you see. New problems arise, and for their solution we want new forces.

Now, frankly, Mr. Lundestad—are you really going to give up your seat to Monsen?

To Monsen? No, certainly not to Monsen.

Then I don’t understand——

Suppose, now, I did retire in Monsen’s favour: do you think he would be elected?

It’s hard to say. As the preliminary election comes on the day after to-morrow, there may scarcely be time to prepare the public mind; but——

I don’t believe he would manage it. The Chamberlain’s party, my party, would not vote for him. Of course “my party” is a figure of speech; I mean the men of property, the old families, who are settled on their own land and belong to it. They won’t have anything to do with Monsen. Monsen is a newcomer; no one really knows anything about Monsen and his affairs. And then he has had to cut down so much to clear a place for himself—to fell both trees and men, you may say.

Well then, if you think he has no chance——

H’m! You are a man of rare gifts, Mr. Stensgård. Providence has dealt lavishly with you. But it has made one little oversight: it ought to have given you one thing more.

And what may that be?

Tell me—why do you never think of yourself? Why have you no ambition?

Ambition? I?

Why do you waste all your strength on other people? In one word—why not go into Parliament yourself?

I? You are not serious?

Why not? You have qualified, I hear. And if you don’t seize this opportunity, then some one else will come in; and when once he is firm in the saddle, it may not be so easy to unseat him.

Great heavens, Mr. Lundestad! do you really mean what you say?

Oh, I don’t want to commit you; if you don’t care about it——

Not care about it! Well, I must confess I’m not so utterly devoid of ambition as you suppose. But do you really think it possible?

Oh, there’s nothing impossible about it. I should do my best, and so, no doubt, would the Chamberlain; he knows your oratorical gifts. You have the young men on your side——

Mr. Lundestad, by heaven, you are my true friend!

Oh, you don’t mean much by that. If you really looked upon me as a friend, you would relieve me of this burden. You have young shoulders; you could bear it so easily.

I place myself entirely at your disposal; I will not fail you.

Then you are really not disinclined to——

Here’s my hand on it!

Thanks! Believe me, Mr. Stensgård, you will not regret it. But now we must go warily to work. 85We must both of us take care to be on the electoral college—I to propose you as my successor, and put you through your facings before the rest; and you to give an account of your views——

If we once get so far, we are safe. In the electoral college you are omnipotent.

There is a limit to omnipotence. You must of course bring your oratory into play; you must take care to explain away anything that might seem really awkward or objectionable——

You don’t mean that I am to break with my party?

Now just look at the thing reasonably. What do we mean when we talk of two parties? We have, on the one hand, certain men or families who are in possession of the common civic advantages—I mean property, independence, and power. That is the party I belong to. On the other hand, we have the mass of our younger fellow citizens who want to share in these advantages. That is your party. But that party you will quite naturally and properly pass out of when you get into power—to say nothing of taking up a solid position as a man of property—for of course that is essential, Mr. Stensgård.

Yes, I believe it is. But the time is short; and such a position is not to be attained in a day.

That’s true; but perhaps the prospect of such a position would be enough——

The prospect——?

Have you any rooted objection to a good marriage, Mr. Stensgård? There are heiresses in the country-side. A man like you, with a future before him—a man who can reckon on attaining the highest offices—believe me, you needn’t fear a repulse if you play your cards neatly.

Then, for heaven’s sake, help me in the game! You open wide vistas to me—great visions! All that I have hoped and longed for, and that seemed so dreamlike and far away, stands suddenly before me in living reality—to lead the people forward towards emancipation, to——

Yes, we must keep our eyes open, Mr. Stensgård. I see your ambition is already on the alert. That’s well. The rest will come of itself.—In the meantime, thanks! I shall never forget your readiness to take the burden of office from my old shoulders.

[Goes towards the piano at the back, left.] Mr. Stensgård, you must join us; we are going to have a game of forfeits.

With pleasure; I am just in the mood.

[In an undertone.] What the deuce is this my father is saying, Mr. Heire? What speech has Mr. Stensgård been making yesterday?

Hee-hee! Don’t you know about it?

No; we townspeople had our dinner and ball at the Club. My father declares Mr. Stensgård has entirely broken with the Stonelee gang—that he was frightfully rude to Monsen——

To Monsen! No, you must have misunderstood him, my dear sir.

Well, there were a whole lot of people about, so that I couldn’t quite follow what he said; but I certainly heard——

Wait till to-morrow—— I say no more. You’ll have the whole story with your coffee, in Aslaksen’s paper.

Well, my dear Lundestad, are you sticking to those crotchets of yours?

They are no crotchets, Chamberlain; rather than be ousted, one should give way gracefully.

Nonsense; who is dreaming of ousting you?

H’m; I’m an old weather-prophet. There has been a change in the wind. Besides, I have my successor ready. Mr. Stensgård is willing——

Mr. Stensgård?

Wasn’t that what you meant? I took it for a hint when you said he was a man we must make friends with and support.

I meant in his onslaught upon all the corruption and swindling that goes on at Stonelee.

But how could you count so confidently upon his breaking with that crew?

He did it openly enough last evening, my dear fellow.

Last evening?

Yes, when he spoke of Monsen’s deplorable influence in the district.

[Open-mouthed.] Of Monsen’s——?

Of course; that time on the table——

On the table? Yes?

He was frightfully rude; called him a money-bag, and a griffin or a basilisk, or something. Ha-ha!—it was great sport to hear him.

Great sport, was it?

Yes, I own I’m not sorry to see these people a little roughly handled. But now we must back him up; for after such a savage attack——

As that of yesterday, you mean?

Of course.

Upon the table?

Yes, upon the table.

Against Monsen?

Yes, against Monsen and his set. Of course they’ll try to have their revenge; you can’t blame them——

[Decidedly.] Mr. Stensgård must be supported—that is clear!

Father dear, you must join in the game.

Oh, nonsense, child——

Yes, indeed you must; Selma insists upon it.

Very well, I suppose I must give in. [In an undertone as they go towards the back.] I’m quite distressed about Lundestad; he is really failing; fancy, he didn’t in the least understand what Stensgård——

Oh, come, come; they’ve begun the game.

[Calls from his place.] Mr. Heire, you are appointed forfeit-judge.

Hee-hee! It’s the first appointment I ever had.

[Also in the circle.] On account of your legal experience, Mr. Heire.

Oh, my amiable young friends, I should be delighted to sentence you all—— I say no more!

[Slips up to Lundestad, who stands in front on the left.] You were speaking to the Chamberlain. What about? Was it about me?

Unfortunately it was—about that affair of yesterday evening——

[Writhing.] Oh, confound it all!

He said you had been frightfully rude.

Do you think it isn’t a torture to me?

Now is your chance to atone for it.

[Calls.] Mr. Stensgård, it’s your turn.

Coming! [Quickly to Lundestad.] What do you mean?

Find an opportunity and apologise to the Chamberlain.

By heaven, I will!

Make haste, make haste!

I’m coming! Here I am!

That whelp twits me with my legal experience, does he?

He’s rather free with his tongue, that’s certain.

And so the whole family goes and fawns upon him. Hee-hee! They’re pitifully afraid of him.

No, there you are wrong, Mr. Heire; the Chamberlain is not afraid of him.

Not afraid? Do you think I’m blind, my good sir?

No, but—I can trust you to keep the secret? Well, I’ll tell you all about it. The Chamberlain thinks it was Monsen he was attacking.

Monsen? Oh, absurd!

Fact, Mr. Heire! Ringdal or Miss Thora must have got him persuaded that——

And so he goes and asks him to a state dinner-party! Deuce take me, if that isn’t the best thing I’ve heard for long! No, really now, I can’t keep that bottled up.

Sh, sh! Remember your promise. The Chamberlain’s your old school-fellow: and even if he has been a little hard upon you——

Hee-hee! I’ll pay him back with interest!

Take care! The Chamberlain is powerful. Don’t play tricks in the lion’s den!

Bratsberg a lion? Pooh, he’s a blockhead, sir, and I am not. Oh, won’t I get a rare crop of taunts, and jibes, and innuendoes out of this, when once our great suit comes on!

[Calls from the circle.] Learned judge, what shall the owner of this forfeit do?

[Unnoticed, to Heire.] It’s Stensgård’s! Think of something amusing.

That forfeit? Hee-hee, let me see; he might, for example—yes—he shall make a speech!

It’s Mr. Stensgård’s forfeit.

Mr. Stensgård is to make a speech.

Oh no, spare me that; I came off badly enough last night.

Excellently, Mr. Stensgård; I know something of public speaking.

[To Heire.] If only he doesn’t put his foot in it now.

Put his foot in it? Hee-hee! You’re a sharp one! That’s an inspiration! [In an undertone to Stensgård.] If you came off badly last night, why not put yourself right again to-night?

[Seized with a sudden idea.] Lundestad, here is the opportunity!

[Evasively.] Play your cards neatly.

Yes, I will make a speech!

Bravo! Bravo!

Fill your glasses, ladies and gentlemen! I am going to make a speech which shall begin with a fable; for here I seem to breathe the finer air of fable-land.

[To the Ladies.] Hush! Listen!

It was in the spring time. There came a young cuckoo flying over the uplands. Now the cuckoo is an adventurer. There was a great Bird-Parliament on the meadow beneath him, and both wild and tame fowl flocked to it. They came tripping out of the hen-yards; they waddled up from the goose-ponds; down, from Stonelee hulked a fat capercailzie, flying low and noisily; he settled down, and ruffled his feathers and flapped his wings, and made himself even broader than he was; and every now and then he crowed: “Krak, krak, 96krak!” as much as to say: I’m the game-cock from Stonelee, I am!

Capital! Hear, hear!

And then there was an old woodpecker. He bustled up and down the tree-trunks, pecking with his pointed beak, and gorging himself with grubs and everything that turns to gall. To right and left you heard him going: prik, prik, prik! And that was the woodpecker.

Excuse me, wasn’t it a stork, or a——?^[16]

Say no more!

That was the old woodpecker. But now there came life into the crew; for they found something to cackle evil about. And they flustered together, and cackled in chorus, until at last the young cuckoo began to join in the cackling——

[Unnoticed.] For God’s sake, man, be quiet!

Now it was an eagle they cackled about—an eagle who dwelt in lonely dignity upon a beetling 97cliff.^[17] They were all agreed about him. “He’s a bugbear to the neighbourhood,” croaked a hoarse raven. But the eagle swooped down into their midst, seized the cuckoo, and bore him aloft to his eyrie.—Heart conquered heart! From that clear summit the adventurer-cuckoo looked far and wide over the lowlands; there he found sunshine and peace; and there he learned to judge aright the swarm from the hen-yards and the clearings——

[Loudly.] Bravo, bravo! And now some music.

Hush! Don’t interrupt him.

Chamberlain Bratsberg—here my fable ends; and here I stand before you, in the presence of every one, to beg your forgiveness for last night.

[Falls a step backwards.] Mine——?

I thank you for the magnanimous vengeance you have taken for my senseless words. In me you have henceforth a faithful champion. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I drink the health of the eagle on the mountain-top—the health of Chamberlain Bratsberg.

[Clutching at the table.] Thank you, Mr.—Mr. Stensgård.

[For the most part in painful embarrassment.] The Chamberlain! Chamberlain Bratsberg!

Ladies! Gentlemen! [Softly.] Thora!

Father!

Oh, Doctor, Doctor, what have you done?done?

[With his glass in his hand, radiant with self-satisfaction.] Now to our places again! Hullo, Fieldbo! Come, join in—join in the League of Youth! The game’s going merrily!

[In front, on the left.] Yes, on my soul, the game’s going merrily!

An elegant morning-room, with entrance-door in the back. On the left, the door of the Chamberlain’s study; further back, a door leading to the drawing-room. On the right, a door leading to Ringdal’s offices; further forward, a window.

Thora is seated on the sofa, left, weeping. The Chamberlain paces angrily up and down.

Yes, now we have the epilogue—tears and lamentations——

Oh, that we had never seen that man!

What man?

That wretched Mr. Stensgård, of course.

You should rather say: Oh, that we had never seen that wretched Doctor.

Doctor Fieldbo?

Yes, Fieldbo, Fieldbo! Wasn’t it he that palmed off a parcel of lies upon me——?

No, my dear father, it was I.

You? Well, then, both of you! You were his accomplice—behind my back. A nice state of affairs!

Oh, father, if you only knew——

Oh, I know enough; more than enough; much more!

Good morning, Chamberlain! Good morning, Miss Bratsberg!

[Still pacing the room.] So you are there, are you—bird of evil omen!

Yes, it was a very unpleasant affair.

[Looking out at the window.] Oh, you think so?

You must have noticed how I kept my eye upon Stensgård all the evening. Unfortunately, 101when I heard there was to be a game of forfeits, I thought there was no danger——

[Stamping on the floor.] To be made a laughing-stock by such a windbag! What must my guests have thought of me? That I was mean enough to want to buy this creature, this—this——as Lundestad calls him!

Yes, but——

[Unnoticed by her father.] Don’t speak!

[After a short pause, turns to Fieldbo.] Tell me frankly, Doctor:—Am I really denser than the general run of people?

How can you ask such a question. Chamberlain?

Then how did it happen that I was probably the only person there who didn’t understand that that confounded speech was meant for me?

Shall I tell you why?

Certainly.

It is because you yourself regard your position in the district differently from other people.

I regard my position as my father before me regarded his. No one would ever have ventured to treat him so.

Your father died about the year 1830.

Oh, yes; many a barrier has broken down since that time. But, after all, it’s my own fault. I have mixed myself up too much with these good people. So now I must be content to have my name coupled with Anders Lundestad’s!

Well, frankly, I see no disgrace in that.

Oh, you know quite well what I mean. Of course I don’t plume myself on rank, or titles, or anything of that sort. But what I hold in honour, and expect others to hold in honour, is the integrity handed down in our family from generation to generation. What I mean is that when a man like Lundestad goes into public life, he cannot keep his character and his conduct entirely free from stain. In the general mud-throwing, he is sure to find himself bespattered. But they might leave me in peace; I stand outside their parties.

Not so entirely, Chamberlain; at least you were delighted so long as you thought it was Monsen that was attacked.

Don’t mention that fellow!—It is he that has relaxed the moral sense of the district. And now he has gone and turned my son’s head, confound him!

Erik’s?

Your son’s?

Yes; what tempted him to go and set up in business? It leads to nothing.

Why, my dear Chamberlain, he must live and——

Oh, with economy he could quite well live on the money that came to him from his mother.

He might perhaps live on it; but what could he live for?

For? Well, if he absolutely must have something to live for, hasn’t he qualified as a lawyer? He might live for his profession.

No, that he couldn’t do; it is against his nature. Then there was no official appointment he could well hope for; you have kept the management of your property in your own hands; and your son has no children to educate. Under these circumstances, when he sees tempting examples around 104him—people who have started from nothing and are worth their half million——

Their half million! Oh, come now, let us keep to the hundred thousands. But neither the half million nor the hundred thousands can be scraped together with perfectly clean hands;—I don’t mean in the eyes of the world; Heaven knows it is easy enough to keep within the law; but in respect to one’s own conscience. Of course my son cannot descend to anything questionable; so you may be quite sure Mr. Erik Bratsberg’s financial operations won’t bring in any half millions.

Good-morning! Is Erik not here?

Good-morning, child! Are you looking for your husband?

Yes, he said he was coming here. Mr. Monsen called upon him early this morning, and then——

Monsen? Does Monsen come to your house?

Now and then; generally on business. Why, my dear Thora, what’s the matter? Have you been crying?

Oh, it’s nothing.

No, it’s not nothing! At home Erik was out of humour, and here——I can see it in your looks: there is something wrong. What is it?

Nothing you need trouble about, at any rate. You are too dainty to carry burdens, my little Selma. Go into the drawing-room for the present. If Erik said he was coming, he will be here soon, no doubt.

Come, Thora—and be sure you don’t let me sit in a draught! [Embracing her.] Oh, I could hug the life out of you, my sweet Thora!

So they are hand in glove, are they, the two speculators! They should go into partnership. Monsen and Bratsberg—how nice it would sound! [A knock at the door in the back.] Come in!

[Recoiling a step.] What is this?

Yes, here I am again, Chamberlain!

So I see.

Are you mad, Stensgård?

You retired early yesterday evening. When Fieldbo had explained to me how matters stood, you had already——

Excuse me—all explanations are superfluous——

I understand that; therefore I have not come to make any.

Oh, indeed?

I know I have insulted you.

I know that too; and before I have you turned out, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me why you are here.

Because I love your daughter, Chamberlain!

What——!

What does he say, Doctor?

Ah, you can’t grasp the idea, Chamberlain. You are an old man; you have nothing to fight for——

And you presume to——?

I am here to ask for your daughter’s hand, Chamberlain.

You——you——? Won’t you sit down?

Thanks, I prefer to stand.

What do you say to this. Doctor?

Oh, Fieldbo is on my side; he is my friend; the only true friend I have.

No, no, man! Never in this world, if you——

Perhaps it was with this view that Doctor Fieldbo secured his friend’s introduction into my house?

You know me only by my exploits of yesterday and the day before. That is not enough. Besides, I am not the same man to-day that I was then. My intercourse with you and yours has fallen like spring showers upon my spirit, making it put forth new blossoms in a single night! You must not hurl me back into my sordid past. Till now, I have never been at home with the beautiful in life; it has always been beyond my reach——

But my daughter——?

Oh, I shall win her.

Indeed? H’m!

Yes, for I have will on my side. Remember what you told me yesterday. You were opposed to your son’s marriage—and see how it has turned out! You must put on the glasses of experience, as Fieldbo said——

Ah, that was what you meant?

Not in the least! My dear Chamberlain, let me speak to him alone——

Nonsense; I have nothing to speak to you about. Now, pray be reasonable, Chamberlain! A family like yours needs new alliances, or its brains stagnate——

Oh, this is too much!

Now, now, don’t get angry! These high-and-mighty airs are unworthy of you—of course you know they are all nonsense at bottom. You shall see how much you’ll value me when you come to know me. Yes, yes; you shall value me—both you and your daughter! I will make her——

What do you think of this, Doctor?

I think it’s madness.

Yes, it would be in you; but I, you see—I have a mission to fulfil on God’s beautiful earth;—I am not to be deterred by nonsensical prejudices.prejudices.

Mr. Stensgård, there is the door.

You show me——?

The door!

Don’t do that!

Out with you! You are an adventurer,adventurer, an a—a—confound my memory! You’re a——

What am I?

You are—that other thing—it’s on the tip of my tongue——

Beware how you block my career!

Beware? Of what?

I will attack you in the papers, persecute you, libel you, do all I can to undermine your reputation. You shall shriek under the lash. You shall seem to see spirits in the air raining blows upon you. You shall huddle together in dread, and crouch with your arms bent over your head to ward off the strokes—you shall try to creep into shelter——

Creep into shelter yourself—in a madhouse; that is the proper place for you!

Ha-ha; that is a cheap retort; but you know no better, Mr. Bratsberg! I tell you the wrath of the Lord is in me. It is His will you are opposing. He has destined me for the light—beware how you cast a shadow!—Well, I see I shall make no way with you to-day; but that matters nothing. I only ask you to speak to your daughter—to prepare her—to give her the opportunity of choosing! Reflect, and look around you. Where can you expect to find a son-in-law among these plodding dunces? Fieldbo says she is deep and steadfast and true. So now you know just how matters stand. Good-bye, Chamberlain—I leave you to choose between my friendship and my enmity. Good-bye!

So it has come to this! This is how they dare to treat me in my own house!

Stensgård dares; no one else would.

He to-day; others to-morrow.

Let them come; I shall keep them off; I would go through fire and water for you——!

Yes, you who have caused all the mischief!—H’m; that Stensgård is the most impudent scoundrel I have ever known! And yet, after all—deuce take me if there isn’t something I like about him.

He has possibilities——

He has openness, Dr Fieldbo! He doesn’t go playing his own game behind one’s back, like so many other people; he—he——!

It’s not worth disputing about. Only be firm, Chamberlain; no, and no again, to Stensgård——!

Oh, keep your advice to yourself! You may rely upon it that neither he nor any one else——

[Enters by the door on the right.] Excuse me, Chamberlain; one word——

What? In your room?

He came in by the back way, and begs you to see him.

H’m.—Oh, Doctor, just go into the drawing-room for a moment; there’s some one here who——But don’t say a word to Selma of Mr. Stensgård and his visit. She must be kept outside all this business. As for my daughter, I should prefer that you should say nothing to her either; but——Oh, what’s the use——? Please go now.

[At the door.] I beg ten thousand pardons, sir——

Oh, come in, come in!

I trust your family is in good health?

Thank you. Is there anything you want?

I can’t quite put it that way. Thank heaven, I’m one of those that have got pretty nearly all they can want.

Oh, indeed? That is a good deal to say.

But I’ve had to work for it, Chamberlain. Oh, I know you regard my work with no very friendly eye.

I cannot suppose that your work is in any way affected by my way of regarding it.

Who knows? At any rate, I’m thinking of gradually withdrawing from business.

Really?

The luck has been on my side, I may tell you. I’ve gone ahead as far as I care to; so now I think it’s about time to slack off a little——

Well, I congratulate both you—and other people.

And if I could at the same time do you a service, Chamberlain——

Me?

When the Langerud woods were put up to auction five years ago, you made a bid for them——

Yes, but you outbade me, and they were knocked down to you.

You can have them now, with the saw-mills and all appurtenances——

After all your sinful cutting and hacking——!

Oh, they’re worth a good deal still; and with your method of working, in a few years——

Thank you; unfortunately I must decline the proposal.

There’s a great deal of money in it, Chamberlain. As for me,—I may tell you I have a great speculation on hand; the stakes are large; I mean there’s a big haul to be made—a hundred thousand or so——

A hundred thousand? That is certainly no trifle.

Ha ha ha! A nice round sum to add to the pile. But when you’re going into a great battle you need reserve forces, as the saying goes. There’s not much ready money about; the names that are worth anything are rather used up——

Yes, certain people have taken care of that.

It’s a case of you scratch me, I scratch you. Well, Chamberlain, is it to be a bargain? You shall have the woods at your own figure——

I will not have them at any figure, Mr. Monsen.

Well, one good offer deserves another. Will you help me, sir?

What do you mean?

Of course I’ll give good security. I have plenty of property. Look here—these papers—just let me explain my position to you.

[Waving the papers aside.] Is it pecuniary aid you want?

Not ready money; oh, no! But your support, Chamberlain. Of course I’ll pay for it—and give security, and——

And you come to me with such a proposal as this?

Yes, precisely to you. I know you’ve often let bygones be bygones when a man was in real straits.

Well, in a way, I must thank you for your good opinion—especially at a time like this; but nevertheless——

Won’t you tell me, Chamberlain, what sets you against me?

Oh, what would be the use?

It might lead to a better understanding between us. I’ve never stood in your way that I know of.

You think not? Then let me tell you of one case in which you have stood in my way. I founded the Iron-works Savings Bank for the benefit of my employees and others. But then you must needs set up as a banker; people take their savings to you——

Naturally, sir, for I give higher interest.

Yes, but you charge higher interest on loans.loans.

But I don’t make so many difficulties about security and so forth.

That is just the mischief of it; for now we have people making bargains to the tune of ten or 117twenty thousand dollars,^[18] though neither of the parties has so much as a brass farthing. That is what sets me against you, Mr. Monsen. And there is another thing too that touches me still more nearly. Do you think it was with my good will that my son flung himself into all these wild speculations?

But how can I help that?

It was your example that infected him, as it did the others. Why could you not stick to your last?

Remain a lumberman, like my father?

Was it a disgrace to be in my employment? Your father made his bread honourably, and was respected in his own class.

Yes, until he’d almost worked his life out, and at last went over the waterfall with his raft. Do you know anything of life in that class, Chamberlain? Have you ever realised what the men have to endure who toil for you deep in the forests, and along the river-reaches, while you sit comfortably at home and fatten on the profits? Can you blame such a man for struggling to rise in the world? I had had a little more schooling than my father; perhaps I had rather more brains too——

Very likely. But by what means have you risen in the world? You began by selling brandy. Then you bought up doubtful debts, and enforced them mercilessly;—and so you got on and on. How many people have you not ruined to push yourself forward!

That’s the course of business; one up, another down.

But there are different methods of business. I know of respectable families whom you have brought to the workhouse.

Daniel Heire is not very far from the workhouse.

I understand you; but I can justify my conduct before God and man! When the country was in distress, after the separation from Denmark, my father made sacrifices beyond his means. Thus part of our property came into the hands of the Heire family. What was the result? The people who lived upon the property suffered under Daniel Heire’s incompetent management. He cut down timber to the injury, I may even say to the ruin, of the district. Was it not my obvious duty to put a stop to it if I was able? And it happened that I was able; I had the law on my side; I was well within my rights when I re-entered upon my family property.

I, too, have always had the law on my side.

But what about your sense of right, your conscience, if you have such a thing? And how you have broken down all social order! How you have impaired the respect that should attach to wealth! People never think of asking nowadays how such and such a fortune was made, or how long it has been in such and such a family; they only ask: how much is so-and-so worth?—and they esteem him accordingly. Now I suffer by all this; I find myself regarded as a sort of associate of yours; people speak of us in one breath, because we are the two largest proprietors in the neighbourhood. This state of things I cannot endure! I tell you once for all: that is why I am set against you.

This state of things shall come to an end, sir; I will give up business, and make way for you at every point; but I beg you, I implore you, to help me!

I will not.

I’m willing to pay what you like——

To pay! And you dare to——!

If not for my sake, then for your son’s!

My son’s!

Yes, he’s in it. I reckon he stands to win some twenty thousand dollars.

Stands to win?

Yes.

Then, good God, who stands to lose all this money?

How do you mean?

If my son wins, some one or other must lose!

It’s a good stroke of business; I’m not in a position to say more. But I need a solid name; only just your endorsement——

Endorsement! On a bill——?

Only for ten or fifteen thousand dollars.

Do you suppose for a moment that——? My name! In such an affair! My name? As surety, no doubt?

A mere matter of form——

A matter of swindling! My name! Not upon any consideration. I have never put my name on other men’s paper.

Never? That’s an exaggeration, Chamberlain.

It is the literal truth.

No, not literal; I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

What have you seen?

Your name—on one bill at least.

It is false, I tell you! You have never seen it!

I have! On a bill for two thousand dollars. Think again!

Neither for two thousand nor for ten thousand! On my sacred word of honour, never!

Then it’s a forgery.

Forgery?

Yes, a forgery—for I have seen it.

Forgery? Forgery! Where did you see it? In whose hands?

That I won’t tell you.

Ha-ha! We shall soon find that out.out.

Listen to me——!

Silence! It has come to this then! Forgery. They must mix me up in their abominations! No wonder, then, that people bracket me with the rest of you. But it is my turn now!

Chamberlain—for your own sake and for the sake of others——

Off with you! Out of my sight! It is you that are at the root of it all!—Yes you are! Woe unto him from whom offences come. Your home-life is scandalous. What sort of society do you get about you? Persons from Christiania and elsewhere, who think only of eating and drinking, and do not care in what company they gorge themselves. Silence! I have seen with my own eyes your distinguished guests tearing along the roads at Christmas-time like a pack of howling wolves. And there is worse behind. You have had scandals with your own maid-servants. You drove your 123wife out of her mind by your ill-treatment and debauchery.

Come, this is going too far! You shall pay for these words!

Oh, to the deuce with your threats! What harm can you do to me? Me? You asked what I had to say against you. Well, I have said it. Now you know why I have kept you out of decent society.

Yes, and now I’ll drag your decent society down——

That way!

I know my way, Chamberlain!

[Opens the door on the right and calls.] Ringdal, Ringdal—come here!

What is it, sir?

[Calls into the drawing-room.] Doctor, please come this way!—Now, Ringdal, now you shall see my prophecies fulfilled.

[Entering.] What can I do for you, Chamberlain?

What prophecies, sir?

What do you say to this, Doctor? You have always accused me of exaggerating when I said that Monsen was corrupting the neighbourhood.

Well, what then?

We are getting on, I can tell you! What do you think? There are forgeries going about.

Forgeries?

Yes, forgeries! And whose name do you think they have forged? Why, mine!

Who in the world can have done it?

How can I tell? I don’t know all the scoundrels in the district. But we shall soon find out.—Doctor, do me a service. The papers must have come into the hands either of the Savings Bank or the Iron-works Bank. Drive up to Lundestad; he is the director who knows most about things. Find out whether there is any such paper——

Certainly; at once.

Lundestad is here at the works to-day; there’s a meeting of the school committee.

So much the better. Find him; bring him here.

I’ll go at once.

And you, Ringdal, make inquiries at the Ironworks. As soon as we have got to the bottom of the matter, we’ll lay an information. No mercy to the scoundrels!

Very good, sir. Bless me, who’d have thought of such a thing?

My dear father——!

Oh, are you there?

I want so much to speak to you.

H’m; I’m not much in the humour for speaking to any one. What do you want?

You know I have never mixed you up in my affairs, father.

No; that is an honour I should certainly have declined.

But now I am forced to——

What are you forced to do?

Father, you must help me!

With money! You may be very sure that——

Only this once! I swear I’ll never again——The fact is, I am under certain engagements to Monsen of Stonelee——

I know that. You have a brilliant speculation on hand.

A speculation? We? No! Who told you so?

Monsen himself.

Has Monsen been here?

He has just gone. I showed him the door.

If you don’t help me, father, I am ruined.

You?

Yes. Monsen has advanced me money. I had to pay terribly dear for it; and now the bills have fallen due——

There we have it! What did I tell you——?

Yes, yes; it’s too late now——

Ruined! In two years! But how could you expect anything else? What had you to do among these charlatans that go about dazzling people’s eyes with wealth that never existed! They were no company for you. Among people of that sort you must meet cunning with cunning, or you’ll go to the wall; you have learnt that now.

Father, will you save me or will you not?

No; for the last time, no. I will not.

My honour is at stake——

Oh, let us have no big phrases! There’s no honour involved in commercial success nowadays; quite the opposite, I had almost said. Go home and make up your accounts; pay every man his due, and have done with it, the sooner the better.

Oh, you don’t know——

Is that Erik’s voice?—Good heavens, what is the matter?

Nothing. Go into the drawing-room again.

No, I won’t go. I will know. Erik, what is it? Tell me!

It’s only that I am ruined!

Ruined!

There, you see!

What is ruined?

Everything.

Do you mean you have lost your money?

Money, house, inheritance—everything!

Is that what you call everything?

Come, let us go, Selma. You are all I have left me. We must bear the blow together.

The blow? Bear it together? [With a cry.] Do you think I am fit for that, now?

For heaven’s sake——!

What do you mean?

Oh, Selma, take care!

No, I won’t take care! I cannot go on lying and shamming any longer! I must speak the truth. I will not “bear” anything!

Selma!

Child, what are you saying?

Oh, how cruel you have been to me! Shamefully—all of you! It was my part always to accept—never 130to give. I have been like a pauper among you. You never came and demanded a sacrifice of me; I was not fit to bear anything. I hate you! I loathe you!

What can this mean?

She is ill; she is out of her mind!

How I have thirsted for a single drop of your troubles, your anxieties! But when I begged for it you only laughed me off. You have dressed me up like a doll; you have played with me as you would play with a child. Oh, what a joy it would have been to me to take my share in your burdens! How I longed, how I yearned, for a large, and high, and strenuous part in life! Now you come to me, Erik, now that you have nothing else left. But I will not be treated simply as a last resource. I will have nothing to do with your troubles now. I won’t stay with you! I will rather play and sing in the streets——! Let me be! Let me be!

Thora, was there any meaning in all that, or——

Oh, yes, there was meaning in it; if only I had seen it sooner.

No! All else I can lose, but not her! Selma, Selma!

[Enters from the right.] Chamberlain!

Well, what is it?

I have been to the Bank——

The Bank? Oh, yes, about the bill——

It’s all right; they have never had any bill endorsed by you——

False alarm, Chamberlain!

Indeed? Not at the Savings Bank either?

Certainly not. During all the years I’ve been a director I have never once seen your name; except, of course, on your son’s bill.

My son’s bill?

Yes, the bill you accepted for him early this spring.

My son? My son? Do you dare to tell me——?

Why, bless me, just think a moment; the bill for two thousand dollars drawn by your son——

[Groping for a chair.] Oh, my God——!

For heaven’s sake——!

It’s not possible that——!

[Who has sunk down on a chair.] Quietly, quietly! Drawn by my son, you say? Accepted by me? For two thousand dollars?

[To Lundestad.] And this bill is in the Savings Bank?

Not now; it was redeemed last week by Monsen——

By Monsen——?

Monsen may still be at the works; I’ll go——

Stop here!

Good-morning, gentlemen! Good-morning, Chamberlain! Thank you so much for the delightful evening we spent yesterday. What do you think I’ve just heard——?

Excuse me; we are busy——

So are other people, I can tell you; our friend from Stonelee, for example——

Monsen?

Hee-hee; it’s a pretty story! The electioneering intrigues are in full swing. And what do you think is the last idea? They are going to bribe you, Chamberlain!

To bribe——?

They judge the tree by its fruit.

Deuce take me if it isn’t the most impudent thing I ever heard of! I just looked in at Madam Rundholmen’s to have a glass of bitters. There 134sat Messrs. Monsen and Stensgård drinking port—filthy stuff! I wouldn’t touch it; but they might have had the decency to offer me a glass, all the same. However, Monsen turned to me and said, “What do you bet that Chamberlain Bratsberg won’t go with our party at the preliminary election to-morrow?” “Indeed,” said I, “how’s that to be managed?” “Oh,” he said, “this bill will persuade him——”

Bill——?

At the election——?

Well? What then?

Oh, I know no more. They said something about two thousand dollars. That’s the figure they rate a gentleman’s conscience at! Oh, it’s abominable, I say!

A bill for two thousand dollars?

And Monsen has it?

No, he handed it over to Stensgård.

Indeed!

To Stensgård?

Are you sure of that?

Quite certain. “You can make what use you please of it,” he said. But I don’t understand——

I want to speak to you, Mr. Heire—and you too, Ringdal.

Chamberlain!

Well?

Your son’s bill is genuine, of course——?

One would suppose so.so.

Of course. But now if the forged bill were to turn up——?

I will lay no information.

Naturally not;—but you must do more.

[Rising.] I can do no more.

Yes, for heaven’s sake, you can and must. You must save the poor fellow——

In what way?

Quite simply: by acknowledging the signature.

Then you think, Doctor, that we stick at nothing in our family?

I am trying to think for the best, Chamberlain.

And do you believe for a moment that I can tell a lie?—that I can play into the hands of forgers?

And do you realise what will be the consequences if you do not?

The offender must settle that with the law.

A public room in Madam Rundholmen’s hotel. Entrance door in the back; a smaller door on either side. A window on the right; before it, a table with writing materials; further back, in the middle of the room, another table.

[Within, on the left, heard talking loudly.] Oh, let them go about their business! Tell them they’ve come here to vote and not to drink. If they won’t wait, they can do the other thing.

[Enters by the back.] Good-morning! H’m, h’m, Madam Rundholmen! [Goes to the door on the left and knocks.] Good-morning, Madam Rundholmen!

[Within.] Oh! Who’s there?

It is I—Stensgård. May I come in?

No, indeed you mustn’t! No! I’m not dress’d.

What? Are you so late to-day?

Oh, I can tell you I’ve been up since all hours; but one must look a little decent, you know. [Peeps out, with a kerchief over her head.] Well, what is it? No, you really mustn’t look at me, Mr. Stensgård.—Oh, there’s some one else!

[Enters from the back with a bundle of papers.] Good morning, Mr. Stensgård.

Well, is it in?

Yes, here it is. Look—“The Independence Day Celebrations—From our Special Correspondent.” Here’s the founding of the League on the other side, and your speech up here. I’ve leaded all the abuse.

It seems to me it’s all leaded.

Pretty nearly.

And the extra number was of course distributed yesterday?

Of course; all over the district, both to subscribers and others. Would you like to see it?

[Running his eye over the paper.] “Our respected member, Mr. Lundestad, proposes to resign ... long and faithful service ... in the words of the poet: 'Rest, patriot, it is thy due!'” H’m! “The association founded on Independence Day: the League of Youth ... Mr. Stensgård, the guiding intelligence of the League ... timely reforms, credit on easier terms.” Ah, that’s very good. Has the polling begun?

It’s in full swing. The whole League is on the spot—both voters and others.

Oh, deuce take the others—between ourselves, of course. Well, you go down and talk to the waverers.

All right.

You can tell them that I am pretty much at one with Lundestad——

Trust to me; I know the local situation.

One thing more; just to oblige me, Aslaksen, don’t drink to-day.

Oh, what do you mean——!

We’ll have a jolly evening when it’s all over; but remember what you, as well as I, have at stake; your paper——Come, now, my good fellow, let me see that you can——

There, that’s enough now; I’m old enough to look after myself.

[Enters from the left, elaborately dressed.] Now, Mr. Stensgård, I’m at your service. Is it anything of importance——?

No, only that I want you to be good enough to let me know when Mr. Monsen comes.

He won’t be here to-day.

Not to-day?

No; he drove past here at four this morning; he’s always driving about nowadays. What’s more, he came in and roused me out of bed—he wanted to borrow money, you must know.

Monsen did?

Yes. He’s a tremendous man to get through money is Monsen. I hope things may turn out 141all right for him. And I say the same to you; for I hear you’re going into Parliament.

I? Nonsense. Who told you so?

Oh, some of Mr. Lundestad’s people.

[Enters from the back.] Hee-hee! Good-morning! I’m not in the way, am I?

Gracious, no!

Good God, how resplendent! Can it be for me that you’ve got yourself up like this?

Of course. It’s for you bachelors we get ourselves up, isn’t it?

For marrying men, Madam Rundholmen; for marrying men! Unfortunately, my law-suits take up all my time——

Oh, nonsense; you’ve always plenty of time to get married.

No; deuce take me if I have! Marriage is a thing you’ve got to give your whole mind to. Well, well—if you can’t have me, you must put up with somebody else. For you ought to marry again.

Now, do you know, I’m sometimes of the same opinion.

Naturally; when once one has tasted the joys of matrimony——Of course, poor Rundholmen was one in a thousand——

Well, I won’t go so far as that; he was a bit rough, and rather too fond of his glass; but a husband’s always a husband.

Very true, Madam Rundholmen; a husband’s a husband, and a widow’s a widow——

And business is business. Oh, when I think of all I’ve got to attend to, I don’t know whether I’m on my heels or my head. Every one wants to buy; but when it comes to paying, I’ve got to go in for summonses and executions, and Lord knows what. Upon my word, I’ll soon have to engage a lawyer all to myself.

I’ll tell you what, Madam Rundholmen, you should retain Mr. Stensgård; he’s a bachelor.

Oh, how you do talk! I won’t listen to a word more.

A substantial woman, sir! Comfortable and well-preserved; no children up to date; money well invested. Education too; she’s widely read, sir.

Widely read, eh?

Hee-hee; she ought to be; she had charge of Alm’s circulating library for a couple of years. But your head’s full of other things to-day, I daresay.

Not at all; I don’t even know that I shall vote. Who are you going to vote for, Mr. Heire?

Haven’t got a vote, sir. There was only one kennel that would qualify in the market, and that you bought.

If you’re at a loss for a lodging, I’ll give it up to you.

Hee-hee, you’re joking. Ah, youth, youth! What a pleasant humour it has! But now I must be off and have a look at the menagerie. I’m told your whole League is afoot. [Sees Fieldbo, who enters from the back.] Here’s the Doctor too! I suppose you have come on a scientific mission?

A scientific mission?

Yes, to study the epidemic; you’ve heard of the virulent rabies agitatoria that has broken out? God be with you, my dear young friends?

Tell me quickly—have you seen the Chamberlain to-day?

Yes.

And what did he say?

What did he say?

Yes; you know I have written to him.

Have you? What did you write?

That I am still of the same mind about his daughter; that I want to talk the matter over with him; and that I propose to call on him to-morrow.

If I were you, I should at least defer my visit. It is the Chamberlain’s birthday to-morrow; a crowd of people will be there——

That’s all right; the more the better. I hold big cards in my hand, let me tell you.

And perhaps you have bluffed a little with your big cards?

How do you mean?

I mean you have perhaps embellished your declaration of love with a few little threats or so?

Fieldbo, you have seen the letter!

No, I assure you——

Well then, frankly—I have threatened him.

Ah! Then I have, in a way, an answer to your letter.

An answer? Out with it, man!

[Shows him a sealed paper.] Look here—the Chamberlain’s proxy.

And who does he vote for?

Not for you, at any rate.

For whom then? For whom?

For the Sheriff and the Provost.^[19]

What! Not even for Lundestad?

No. And do you know why? Because Lundestad is going to propose you as his successor.

He dares to do this!

Yes, he does. And he added: “If you see Stensgård, you can tell him how I am voting; it will show him on what footing we stand.”

Good; since he will have it so!

Take care; it’s dangerous to tug at an old tower—it may come down on your head.

Oh, I have learnt wisdom in these two days.

Indeed? You’re not so wise but that you let old Lundestad lead you by the nose.

Do you think I haven’t seen through Lundestad? Do you think I don’t understand that he took me up because he thought I had won over the Chamberlain, and because he wanted to break up our League and keep Monsen out?

But now that he knows you haven’t won over the Chamberlain——

He has gone too far to draw back; and I’ve made good use of the time, and scattered announcements broadcast. Most of his supporters will abstain from voting; mine are all here——

It’s a big stride from the preliminary election to the final election.

Lundestad knows very well that if he fails me in the College of Electors, I’ll soon agitate him out of the Town Council.

Not a bad calculation. And to succeed in all this, you feel that you must strike root here more firmly than you have as yet done?

Yes, these people always demand material guarantees, community of interests——

Just so; and therefore Miss Bratsberg is to be sacrificed?

Sacrificed? If that were so, I should be no better than a scoundrel. But it will be for her happiness, that I’m convinced. What now? Fieldbo, why do you look like that? You have some underhand scheme of your own——

I?

Yes, you have! You are intriguing against me, behind my back. Why do you do that? Be open with me—will you?

Frankly, I won’t. You are so dangerous, so unscrupulous—well, so reckless at any rate, that one dare not be open with you. Whatever you know, you make use of without hesitation. But this I say to you as a friend: put Miss Bratsberg out of your head.

I cannot. I must extricate myself from these sordid surroundings. I can’t go on living in this hugger-mugger way. Here have I got to be hail-fellow-well-met with Dick, Tom, and Harry; to whisper in corners with them, to hob-nob with them, to laugh at their beery witticisms; to be hand in glove with hobbledehoys and unlicked cubs. How can I keep my love of the People untarnished in the midst of all this? I feel as if all the electricity went out of my words. I have no 149elbow-room, no fresh air to breathe. Oh, a longing comes over me at times for exquisite women! I want something that brings beauty with it! I lie here in a sort of turbid eddy, while out there the clear blue current sweeps past me——But what can you understand of all this!

[Enters from the back.] Ah, here we are. Good-morning, gentlemen.

I have news for you, Mr. Lundestad! Do you know who the Chamberlain is voting for?

Silence! It’s dishonourable of you.

What do I care? He is voting for the Sheriff and the Provost.

Oh, that was to be expected. You went and ruined your chances with him—though I implored you to play your cards neatly.

I shall play them neatly enough—in future.

Take care—two can play at that game.

That fellow has something up his sleeve. Have you any idea what it can be?

No, I haven’t. But, by-the-bye, I see you are flourishing in the paper to-day.

I?

Yes, with a nice little epitaph on me.

Oh, that’s that beast Aslaksen, of course——

Your attack on the Chamberlain is in too.

I don’t know anything about that. If it’s to be war between the Chamberlain and me, I have sharper weapons.

Indeed!

Have you ever seen this bill? Look at it. Is it good?

Good, you say? This bill here?

Yes,Yes, look closely at it.

[Enters from the right.] Why, what the deuce can be the meaning of——Ah, how interesting! Do remain as you are, gentlemen, I beg! Do you 151know what you irresistibly remind me of? Of a summer night in the Far North.

That’s a curious simile.

A very obvious one—the setting and the rising sun together. Delightful, delightful! But, talking of that, what the deuce is the matter outside there? Your fellow citizens are scuttling about like frightened fowls, cackling and crowing and not knowing what perch to settle on.

Well, it’s an occasion of great importance.

Oh, you and your importance! No, it’s something quite different, my dear friends. There are whispers of a great failure; a bankruptcy—oh, not political, Mr. Lundestad; I don’t mean that!

A bankruptcy?

Hee-hee! That puts life into our legal friend. Yes, a bankruptcy; some one is on his last legs; the axe is laid to the root of the tree——I say no more! Two strange gentlemen have been seen driving past; but where to? To whose address? Do you know anything, Mr. Lundestad?

I know how to hold my tongue, Mr. Heire.

Of course; you are a statesman, a diplomatist. But I must be off and find out all I can about it. It’s such sport with these heroes of finance: they are like beads on a string—when one slips off, all the rest follow.

Is there any truth in all this gossip?

You showed me a bill; I thought I saw young Mr. Bratsberg’s name upon it?

The Chamberlain’s too.

And you asked me if it was good?

Yes; just look at it.

It’s perhaps not so good as it might be.

You see it then?

What?

That it is a forgery.

A forgery? Forged bills are often the safest; people redeem them first.

But what do you think? Isn’t it a forgery?

I don’t much like the look of it.

How so?

I’m afraid there are too many of these about, Mr. Stensgård.

What! It’s not possible that——?

If young Mr. Bratsberg slips off the string, those nearest him are only too likely to follow.

[Seizes his arm.] What do you mean by those nearest him?

Who can be nearer than father and son?

Why, good God——!

Remember, I say nothing! It was Daniel Heire that was talking of failure and bankruptcy and——

This is a thunderbolt to me.

Oh, many a man that seemed solid enough has gone to the wall before now. Perhaps he’s too good-natured; goes and backs bills; ready money isn’t always to be had; property has to be sold for an old song——

And of course this falls on—falls on the children as well.

Yes, I’m heartily grieved for Miss Bratsberg. She didn’t get much from her mother; and heaven knows if even the little she has is secured.

Oh, now I understand Fieldbo’s advice! He’s a true friend, after all.

What did Doctor Fieldbo say?

He was too loyal to say anything, but I understand him all the same. And now I understand you too, Mr. Lundestad.

Have you not understood me before?

Not thoroughly. I forgot the proverb about the rats and the sinking ship.

That’s not a very nice way to put it. But what’s the matter with you? You look quite ill. Good God, I haven’t gone and blasted your hopes, have I?

How do you mean?

Yes, yes—I see it all. Old fool that I am! My dear Mr. Stensgård, if you really love the girl, what does it matter whether she is rich or poor?

Matter? No, of course——

Good Lord, we all know happiness isn’t a matter of money.

Of course not.

And with industry and determination you’ll soon be on your feet again. Don’t let poverty frighten you. I know what love is; I went into all that in my young days. A happy home; a faithful woman——! My dear young friend, beware how you take any step that may involve you in life-long self-reproach.

But what will become of your plans?

Oh, they must go as best they can. I couldn’t think of demanding the sacrifice of your heart!

But I will make the sacrifice. Yes, I will show you that I have the strength for it. Think of the longing multitude out there: they claim me with a sort of voiceless pathos. I cannot, I dare not, fail them!

Yes, but the stake in the district——?

I shall take measures to fulfil the demands of my fellow citizens in that respect, Mr. Lundestad. I see a way, a new way; and I will follow it up. I renounce the happiness of toiling in obscurity for the woman I love. I say to my fellow countrymen: “Here I am—take me!”

[Looks at him in quiet admiration and presses his hand.] You are indeed a man of rare gifts, Mr. Stensgård.

Here I am, my dear friend.^[20]

Where have you come from?

From the Nation.

The Nation? What does that mean?

Don’t you know what the Nation means? It means the People; the common people; those who have nothing, and are nothing; those who lie chained——

What monkey-tricks are these, I should like to know?

Monkey-tricks?

I have noticed lately that you go about mimicking me; you imitate even my clothes and my handwriting. Be kind enough to stop that.

What do you mean? Don’t we belong to the same party?

Yes, but I won’t put up with this—you make yourself ridiculous——

By being like you?

By aping me. Be sensible now, Monsen, and give it up. It’s quite disgusting. But look here—can you tell me when your father is coming back?

I have no idea. I believe he’s gone to Christiania; he may not be back for a week or so.

Indeed? I’m sorry for that. He has a big stroke of business on hand, I hear.

I have a big stroke of business on hand too. Look here, Stensgård, you must do me a service.

Willingly. What is it?

I feel so full of energy. I have to thank you for that; you have stimulated me. I feel I must do something, Stensgård:—I want to get married.

To get married? To whom?

Sh! Some one in this house.

Madam Rundholmen?

Sh! Yes, it’s her. Put in a good word for me, do! This sort of thing is just the thing for me. She’s in the swim, you know; she’s on the best of terms with the Chamberlain’s people, ever since her sister was housekeeper there. If I get her, perhaps I shall get the town-contracts too. So that on the whole—damn it, I love her!

Oh, love, love! Have done with that sickening hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy!

Yes; you are lying to yourself, at any rate. You talk in one breath of town-contracts and of love. Why not call a spade a spade? There’s something sordid about all this; I will have nothing to do with it.

But listen——!

Do your dirty work yourself, I say! [To Fieldbo, who enters from the right.] Well, how goes the election?

Excellently for you, it appears. I saw Lundestad just now; he said you were getting all the votes.

Am I indeed?

But what good will they do you? Since you’re not a man of property——

[Between his teeth.] Isn’t it confounded!

Well, you can’t do two things at once. If you win on the one side, you must be content to lose on the other. Good-bye!

What did he mean by winning and losing?

I’ll tell you afterwards. But now, my dear Monsen—to return to what we were talking about—I promised to put in a good word for you——

You promised? On the contrary, I thought you said——?

Oh, nonsense; you didn’t let me explain myself fully. What I meant was that there is something sordid in mixing up your love with town-contracts and so forth; it is an offence against all that is noblest in your nature. So, my dear friend, if you really love the girl——

The widow——

Yes, yes; it’s all the same. I mean when one really loves a woman, that in itself should be a conclusive reason——

Yes, that’s just what I think. So you’ll speak for me, will you?

Yes, with great pleasure—but on one condition.

What’s that?

Tit for tat, my dear Bastian—you must put in a word for me too.

I? With whom?

Have you really not noticed anything? Yet it’s before your very nose.

You surely don’t mean——?