In two months I shall be back again.
Bernick. And then you will tell all?
Johan. Then the guilty one must take the guilt upon himself.
Bernick actually makes the confession demanded of him from pure contrition, for at the time he makes it all proofs of his crime are destroyed, and he has nothing more to fear from other persons. His confession is couched in most edifying terms (p. 108):
I must begin by rejecting the panegyric with which you ... have overwhelmed me. I do not deserve it; for until to-day I have not been disinterested in my dealings.... I have no right to this homage; for ... my intention was to retain the whole myself.... My fellow-citizens must know me to the core ... that from this evening we begin a new time. The old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its hollowness, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum open for instruction.... My fellow-citizens, I will come out of the lie; it had almost poisoned every fibre of my being. You shall know all. Fifteen years ago I was the guilty one, etc.
In Rosmersholm there is hardly any other subject treated of than the confession of all before all. In the very first visit of Kroll (p. 15) Rebecca urges Rosmer to confess:
Rebecca (comes up close to Rosmer, and says rapidly and in a low voice, so that the Rector does not hear her). Do it now!
Rosmer (also in a low voice). Not this evening.
Rebecca (as before). Yes, this very evening.
As he does not at once obey she will speak for him (p. 19):