Act II
Scene.—The same garden-room. Mrs. Bernick. Aune enters and greets Consul Bernick.
Bernick: I am not at all pleased, Aune, with the way things are going on in the yard. The repairs are slow. The Palm Tree should long since have been at sea. That American ship, the Indian Girl, has been lying here five weeks. You do not know how to use the new machines, or else you will not use them.
Aune: Consul, the Palm Tree can go to sea in two days, but the Indian Girl is as rotten as matchwood in the bottom planking. Now, I am getting on for sixty, and I cannot take to new ways. I am afraid for the many folk whom the machinery will deprive of a livelihood.
Bernick: I did not send for you to argue. Listen now. The Indian Girl must be got ready to sail in two days, at the same time as our own ship. There are reasons for this decision. The carping newspaper critics are pretending that we are giving all our attention to the Palm Tree. If you will not do what I order, I must look for somebody who will.
Aune: You are asking impossibilities, consul. But surely you cannot think of dismissing me, whose father and grandfather worked here all their lives before me. Do you know what is meant by the dismissal of an old workman?
Bernick: You are a stubborn fellow, Aune. You oppose me from perversity. I am sorry indeed if we must part, Aune.
Aune: We will not part, consul. The Indian Girl shall be cleared in two days.
[Aune bows and retires. Hilmar Tönnesen comes through the garden gate.
Hilmar: Good-day, Betty! Good-day, Bernick. Have you heard the new sensation? The two Americans are going about the streets in company with Dina Dorf. The town is all excitement about it.
Bernick (looking out into the street): They are coming here. We must be sure to treat them well. They will soon be away again.
[Johan and Lona enter. Presently all disperse into the garden, and Bernick goes up to Johan.
Bernick: Now we are alone, Johan, I must thank you. For to you I owe home, happiness, position, and all that I have and am. Not one in ten thousand would have done all that you then did for me. I was the guilty one. On the night when that drunken wretch came home it was for Betty's sake that I broke off the entanglement with Madame Dorf; but still, that you should act in such a noble spirit of self-sacrifice as to turn appearances against yourself, and go away, can never be forgotten by me.
Johan: Oh, well, we were both young and thoughtless. I was an orphan, alone and free, and was glad to get away from office drudgery. You had your old mother alive, and you had just engaged yourself to Betty, who was very fond of you. We agreed that you must be saved, and I was proud to be your friend. You had come back like a prince from abroad, and chose me for your closest friend. Now I know why. You were making love to Betty. But I was proud of it.
Bernick: Are you going back to your American farm? Not soon, I hope.
Johan: As soon as possible. I only came over to please Lona. She felt homesick. You can never think what she has been to me. You never could tolerate her, but to me she has been a mother, singing, lecturing, writing to support me when I was ill and could not work. And I may as well tell you frankly that I have told her all. But do not fear her. She will say nothing. But who would have dreamt of your taking into your house that little creature who played angels in the theatre, and scampered about here? What became of her parents?
Bernick: I wrote you all that happened. The drunken scoundrel, after leaving his wife, was killed in a drinking bout. After the wife died it was through Martha that we took little Dina in charge.
To the amazement of the Bernicks and some others, Johan makes it known that he has asked Dina to be his wife, and that she has consented. To their further astonishment and annoyance, Lona declares her profound approval of this engagement. Moreover, Lona now challenges Bernick to clear his soul of the lie on which he has stood for these fifteen years. It is a three-fold lie—the lie towards Lona, then the lie towards Betty, then the lie towards Johan. But Bernick shrinks from the terrible shame that would come on him as one of the "pillars of society."