id
of some of them.

Arnholm. You'd better try out there at the fjord.

Lyngstrand. No; the pond is--well--so to say--more mysterious.

Hilde. Yes; it's fascinating here. Have you been in the sea?

Arnholm. Yes; I've come straight from the baths.

Hilde. I suppose you kept in the enclosure?

Arnholm. Yes; I'm not much of a swimmer.

Hilde. Can you swim on your back?

Arnholm. No.

Hilde. I can. (To LYNGSTRAND.) Let's try out there on the other side.
(They go off along the pond.)

Arnholm (coming closer to BOLETTE). Are you sitting all alone here,
Bolette?

Bolette. Yes; I generally do.

Arnholm. Isn't your mother down here in the garden?

Bolette. No--she's sure to be out with father.

Arnholm. How is she this afternoon?

Bolette. I don't quite know. I forgot to ask.

Arnholm. What books have you there?

Bolette. The one's something about botany. And the other's a geography.

Arnholm. Do you care about such things?

Bolette. Yes, if only I had time for it. But, first of all, I've to look
after the housekeeping.

Arnholm. Doesn't your mother help you--your stepmother--doesn't she help
with that?

Bolette. No, that's my business. Why, I saw to that during the two years
father was alone. And so it has been since.

Arnholm. But you're as fond as ever of reading.

Bolette. Yes, I read all the useful books I can get hold of. One wants
to know something about the world. For here we live so completely
outside of all that's going on--or almost.

Arnholm. Now don't say that, dear Bolette.

Bolette. Yes! I think we live very much as the carp down there in the
pond. They have the fjord so near them, where the shoals of wild fishes
pass in and out. But the poor, tame house-fishes know nothing, and they
can take no part in that.

Arnholm. I don't think it would fare very well with them if they could
get out there.

Bolette. Oh! it would be much the same, I expect.

Arnholm. Moreover, you can't say that one is so completely out of the
world here--not in the summer anyhow. Why, nowadays this is quite a
rendezvous for the busy world--almost a terminus for the time being.

Bolette. Ah, yes! you who yourself are only here for the time being--it
is easy for you to make fun of us.

Arnholm. I make fun? How can you think that?

Bolette. Well, all that about this being a rendezvous, and a terminus
for the busy world--that's something you've heard the townsfolk here
saying. Yes--they're in the habit of