and you know you
said yourself.

Bernick: I said nothing. The town knows nothing whatever about the
affair; the whole thing was no more than idle rumour.

Mrs. Bernick: How magnanimous you are, Karsten!

Bernick: Do not let us have any more of these reminiscences, please!
You don't know how you torture me by raking all that up. (Walks up and
down; then flings his stick away from him.) And to think of their
coming home now--just now, when it is particularly necessary for me
that I should stand well in every respect with the town and with the
Press. Our newspaper men will be sending paragraphs to the papers in
the other towns about here. Whether I receive them well, or whether I
receive them ill, it will all be discussed and talked over. They will
rake up all those old stories--as you do. In a community like
ours--(Throws his gloves down on the table.) And I have not a soul here
to whom I can talk about it and to whom I can go for support.

Mrs. Bernick: No one at all, Karsten?

Bernick: No--who is there? And to have them on my shoulders just at
this moment! Without a doubt they will create a scandal in some way or
another--she, in particular. It is simply a calamity to be connected
with such folk in any way!

Mrs. Bernick: Well, I can't help their--

Bernick: What can't you help? Their being your relations? No, that is
quite true.

Mrs. Bernick: And I did not ask them to come home.

Bernick: That's it--go on! "I did not ask them to come home; I did not
write to them; I did not drag them home by the hair of their heads!"
Oh, I know the whole rigmarole by heart.

Mrs. Bernick (bursting into tears): You need not be so unkind--

Bernick: Yes, that's right--begin to cry, so that our neighbours may
have that to gossip about too. Do stop being so foolish, Betty. Go and
sit outside; some one may come in here. I don't suppose you want people
to see the lady of the house with red eyes? It would be a nice thing,
wouldn't it, if the story got out about that--. There, I hear some one
in the passage. (A knock is heard at the door.) Come in! (MRS. BERNICK
takes her sewing and goes out down the garden steps. AUNE comes in from
the right.)

Aune: Good morning, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: Good morning. Well, I suppose you can guess what I want you
for?

Aune: Mr. Krap told me yesterday that you were not pleased with--

Bernick: I am displeased with the whole management of the yard, Aune.
The work does not get on as quickly