Bernick: Afraid of what?
Mrs. Bernick: Isn't it possible that they may send him to prison for stealing that money from your mother?
Bernick: What rubbish! Who can prove that the money was stolen?
Mrs. Bernick: The whole town knows it, unfortunately; and you know you said yourself.
Bernick: I said nothing. The town knows nothing whatever about the affair; the whole thing was no more than idle rumour.
Mrs. Bernick: How magnanimous you are, Karsten!
Bernick: Do not let us have any more of these reminiscences, please! You don't know how you torture me by raking all that up. (Walks up and down; then flings his stick away from him.) And to think of their coming home now--just now, when it is particularly necessary for me that I should stand well in every respect with the town and with the Press. Our newspaper men will be sending paragraphs to the papers in the other towns about here. Whether I receive them well, or whether I receive them ill, it will all be discussed and talked over. They will rake up all those old stories--as you do. In a community like ours--(Throws his gloves down on the table.) And I have not a soul here to whom I can talk about it and to whom I can go for support.
Mrs. Bernick: No one at all, Karsten?
Bernick: No--who is there? And to have them on my shoulders just at this moment! Without a doubt they will create a scandal in some way or another--she, in particular. It is simply a calamity to be connected with such folk in any way!
Mrs. Bernick: Well, I can't help their--