BORKMAN.
A certain Mr. Erhart Borkman.
FOLDAL. [Beaming with joy.] Your son, John Gabriel? Is he going with them?
BORKMAN. Yes; it is he that is to help Mrs. Wilton with little Frida's education.
FOLDAL.
Oh, Heaven be praised! Then the child is in the best of hands.
But is it quite certain that they have started with her already?
BORKMAN.
They took her away in that sledge which ran you over in the road.
FOLDAL. [Clasping his hands.] To think that my little Frida was in that magnificent sledge!
BORKMAN. [Nodding.] Yes, yes, Vilhelm, your daughter has come to drive in her carriage. And Master Erhart, too. Tell me, did you notice the silver bells?
FOLDAL. Yes, indeed. Silver bells did you say? Were they silver? Real, genuine silver bells?
BORKMAN. You may be quite sure of that. Everything was genuine—both outside and in.
FOLDAL. [In quiet emotion.] Isn't it strange how fortune can sometimes befriend one? It is my—my little gift of song that has transmuted itself into music in Frida. So after all, it is not for nothing that I was born a poet. For now she is going forth into the great wide world, that I once yearned so passionately to see. Little Frida sets out in a splendid covered sledge with silver bells on the harness——