piece!

FOLDAL.
That is my fate too.

BORKMAN.
[Not noticing him.] Only to think of it; so near to the goal
as I was! If I had only had another week to look about me! All
the deposits would have been covered. All the securities I had
dealt with so daringly should have been in their places again as
before. Vast companies were within a hair's-breadth of being
floated. Not a soul should have lost a half-penny.

FOLDAL.
Yes, yes; you were on the very verge of success.

BORKMAN.
[With suppressed fury.] And then treachery overtook me! Just
at the critical moment! [Looking at him.] Do you know what I
hold to be the most infamous crime a man can be guilty of?

FOLDAL.
No, tell me.

BORKMAN.
It is not murder. It is not robbery or house-breaking. It is
not even perjury. For all these things people do to those they
hate, or who are indifferent to them, and do not matter.

FOLDAL.
What is the worst of all then, John Gabriel?

BORKMAN.
[With emphasis.] The most infamous of crimes is a friend's
betrayal of his friend's confidence.

FOLDAL.
[Somewhat doubtfully.] Yes, but you know----

BORKMAN.
[Firing up.] What are you going to say? I see it in your face.
But it is of no use. The people who had their securities in the
bank should have got them all back again--every farthing. No; I
tell you the most infamous crime a man can commit is to misuse a
friend's letters; to publish to all the world what has been
confided to him alone, in the closest secrecy, like a whisper
in an empty, dark, double-locked room. The man who can do such
things is infected and poisoned in every fibre with the morals
of the higher rascality. And such a friend was mine--and it
was he who crushed me.

FOLDAL.
I can guess whom you mean.

BORKMAN.
There was not a nook or cranny of my life that I hesitated
to lay open to him. And then, when the moment came, he turned
against me the weapons I myself had placed in his hands.

FOLDAL.
I have never been able to understand why he---- Of course,
there were whispers of all sorts at the time.

BORKMAN.
What were the whispers? Tell me. You see I know nothing.
For I had to go straight into--into isolation. What did people
whisper, Vilhelm?

FOLDAL.
You were to have gone into the Cabinet, they said.

BORKMAN.
I was offered a portfolio, but I refused it.

FOLDAL.
Then it wasn't there you stood in his way?

BORKMAN.
Oh, no; that