Rörlund: I do not understand what you mean by great things.
Mrs. Rummel: Last year we narrowly escaped the introduction of a railroad.
Mrs. Bernick: My husband managed to block the scheme, but the papers, in consequence, said shameful things about him. But we are forgetting, dear rector, that we have to thank you for devoting so much time to us.
Rörlund: Do you not all make sacrifices in a good cause to save the lapsed and lost?
Hilmar Tönnesen (coming in with a cigar in his mouth): I have only looked in in passing. Good-morning, ladies! Well, you know Bernick has called a cabinet council about this railway nonsense again. When it is a question of money, then everything here ends in paltry material calculations.
Mrs. Bernick: But at any rate things are better than formerly, when everything ended in dissipation. Mrs. Rummel: Only think of fifteen years ago. What a life, with the dancing club and music club! I well remember the noisy gaiety among families.
Mrs. Lynge: There was a company of strolling players, who, I was told, played many pranks. What was the truth of the matter?
Mrs. Rummel, when Dina is out of the room, explains to the ladies that the girl is the daughter of a strolling player who years before had come to perform for a season in the town. Dorf, the actor, had deserted both wife and child, and the wife had to take to work to which she was unaccustomed, was seized with a pulmonary malady, and died. Then Dina had been adopted by the Bernicks.
Mrs. Rummel goes on to explain that at that season also Johan, Mrs. Bernick's brother, had run away to America. After his departure it was discovered that he had been playing tricks with the cash-box of the firm, of which his widowed mother had become the head. Karsten, now Consul, Bernick had just come home from Paris. He became engaged to Betty Tönnesen, now his wife, but when he entered her aunt's room, with the girl on his arm, to announce his betrothal, Lona Hessel rose from her chair and violently boxed his ear. Then she packed her box, and went off to America. Little had been heard of Lona, except that she had in America sung in taverns, and had given lectures, and had written a most sensational book.
Act II
Scene.—The same garden-room. Mrs. Bernick. Aune enters and greets Consul Bernick.