choice in life, but--

Svava. But quite another thing to put into practice what you teach?

Mrs. Riis. No; I was going to say that life itself is quite another
thing. In daily life, and especially in married life, it is sometimes
advisable to make allowances.

Svava. Yes, on points that do not really matter.

Mrs. Riis. Only on points that do not matter?

Svava. Yes--personal peculiarities, and things like that, which after
all are only excrescences; but not on points that concern one's moral
growth.

Mrs. Riis. Yes, on those points too.

Svava. On those points too?--But isn't it just for the sake of our own
self-development that we marry? What else should we marry for?

Mrs. Riis. Oh, you will see!

Svava. No, indeed I shall not; because I do not intend to marry on such
conditions.

Mrs. Riis. You should have said that sooner. It is too late now.

Svava (sitting upright). Too late? If I had been married twenty years, I
would have done just the same! (Lies down again.)

Mrs. Riis. Heaven help you, then!--You haven't an idea, not the smallest
idea, what a net you are entangled in! But you will find it out, as soon
as you begin to struggle in earnest. Or do you really want your father
and me to throw away all that we have worked for here?--to begin all
over again in a foreign country? Because he has repeatedly said, during
the last day or two, that he will not be mixed up in the scandal that
would be the result of your breaking this off. He would go abroad, and I
should have to go with him. Ah, you wince at the thought of that!--Think
of all your friends, too. It is a serious matter to have been set on
such an eminence as you were at your betrothal party. It is like
being lifted up high on a platform that others are carrying on their
shoulders; take care you do not fall down from it! That is what you will
do, if you offend their principles of right behaviour.

Svava. Is that sort of thing a principle of right behaviour?

Mrs. Riis. I do not say that. But undoubtedly, one their principles of
right behaviour--and perhaps the most important--is that all scandal
must be avoided. No one relishes being disgraced, Svava--particularly
the most influential people in a place. And least of all, by a long way,
do people relish their own child being disgraced.

Svava (half raising herself). Good Lord! is it _I_ that am disgracing
him?

Mrs. Riis. No, of course, it is he himself--

Svava. Very well, then! (Sinks d