Werle. Whom have you had it from then? Who can have said such a thing?
Gregers. My poor, unhappy mother said so. And that was the last time I saw her.
Werle. Your mother? I might have known it. She and you—you always held together. It was she who from the first turned you against me.
Gregers. No—it was all she had to bear and to suffer, until her heart was broken, and the miserable end came.
Werle. Oh, she hadn’t so much to bear and suffer—not more at any rate, than so many others! But there is no getting on with morbid, overstrained people. As I know to my cost. And so you have gone about nourishing such suspicions, gone poking into all sorts of old rumors and calumnies against your own father. Look here, Gregers. I really think that at your age you might find something better to do.
Gregers. Yes, it is time I did.
Werle. Then perhaps you would take things more easily than you seem to now. What can be the good of your stopping up there at the Works year out, year in, worrying yourself as a mere clerk, and refusing to take a shilling more than the usual monthly salary? It’s simple folly of you.
Gregers. Yes, if I could be quite certain that——
Werle. I understand you well enough. You want to be independent, to owe nothing to me. But now there is an opening for you to become independent, and absolutely your own master.
Gregers. Indeed, how?