Nordan. Oh, I quite believe your son had every honourable intention when he gave his promise. And very likely he would have kept it, too; I cannot say for certain, because I have learnt to doubt. I am a doctor—I have seen too much—and he did not appear to great advantage yesterday. You really must forgive my saying so—but after the liveliness of his young days, coupled with the tendencies he has inherited, do you think he really had any right to be surprised if people doubted him?—if his fiancée doubted him? Had he really any right to feel insulted, or to demand apologies? Apologies for what? For having doubted his virtue?—Just consider that!
Christensen. Why, what—?
Nordan. One moment! I was only half done. You said something about a reconciliation, you know; of course by that you meant a marriage. If your son is willing to marry a woman who distrusts him, then I shall despise him.
Christensen. Really—!
Nordan. Yes, indeed I shall. Our opinions are as different as all that. To my way of thinking, your son's only course is to submit—and wait; to keep silence, and wait—always supposing, of course, that he still loves her. That is my view of it.
Christensen. Well, I imagine that there are very few candidates for matrimony who have not been guilty of what my son has been guilty of; indeed, I am sure of it. And I imagine, too, that they have the same unfortunate "hereditary tendencies"—an expression on which you laid stress out of special friendship for me. But is that any reason why girls who are betrothed should behave as Miss Riis has been doing?—scream, and run away, and create a scandal? We should not be able to hear ourselves speak! It would be the queerest sort of anarchy the world has ever seen! Why, such doctrines as that are contrary to the very nature and order of things! They are mad! And when, into the bargain, they are thrown at our heads as if they were decisions of a High Court of Morality—well, then I strike! Good-bye! (Starts to go, but turns back.) And who is it that these High Court of Morality's decisions would for the most part affect, do you suppose? Just the ablest and most vigorous of our young men. Are we going to turn them out and make a separate despised caste of them? And what things would be affected, do you suppose? A great part of the world's literature and art; a great part of all that is loveliest and most captivating in the life of to-day; the world's greatest cities, most particularly—those wonders of the world—teeming with their millions of people! Let me tell you this: the life that disregards marriage or loosens the bonds of marriage, or transforms the whole institution—you know very well what I mean—the life that is accused of using the "weapons of seduction" in its fashions, its luxury, its entertainments, its art, its theatre—that life is one of the most potent factors in these teeming cities, one of the most fruitful sources of their existence! No one who has seen it can have any doubt about it, however ingenuous he may pretend to be. Are we to wish to play havoc with all that too?—to disown the flower of the world's youth, and ruin the world's finest cities? It seems to me that people wish to do so much in the name of morality, that they end by wishing to do what would be subversive of all morality.
Nordan. You are certainly embarking on your little war in the true statesmanlike spirit!
Christensen. It is nothing but sound common-sense, my dear sir; that is all that is necessary, I am sure. I shill have the whole town on my side, you may be certain of that!
Thomas (appearing at the house door). Doctor!
Nordan (turning round). Is it possible! (Hurries to the doorway, in which MRS. RIIS appears.)