Svava. No, there is no "if" about it!
Nordan.—if you should want me, I won't go away till you are "done with it all," as you say. (SVAVA goes up to him and embraces him. He goes out. After a short pause MRS. RIIS comes in.)
Mrs. Riis (going to SVAVA). My child! (Stops.)
Svava. No, mother, I cannot come near you. Besides, I am trembling all over. And you don't understand what it is? It has not dawned upon you that you cannot treat me like this?
Mrs. Riis. Treat you like this, Svava? What do you mean?
Svava. Good heavens, mother!—letting me live here day after day, year after year, without letting me know what I was living with? Allowing me to preach the strictest principles, from a house like ours? What will people say of us, now that everything will be known!
Mrs. Riis. Surely you would not have wished me to tell my child that—
Svava. Not while I was a child. But when I had grown up, yes—under any circumstances! I ought to have been allowed the choice whether I would live at home under such conditions or not! I ought to have been allowed to know what every one else knew—or what they may get to know at any moment.
Mrs. Riis. I have never looked at it in that light.
Svava. Never looked at it in that light? Mother!