the course of
years, she has learned to model her character on the lines of my own--

Lona: Hm!

Bernick: At first, of course, she had a whole lot of romantic notions
about love; she could not reconcile herself to the idea that, little by
little, it must change into a quiet comradeship.

Lona: But now she is quite reconciled to that?

Bernick: Absolutely. As you can imagine, daily intercourse with me has
had no small share in developing her character. Every one, in their
degree, has to learn to lower their own pretensions, if they are to
live worthily of the community to which they belong. And Betty, in her
turn, has gradually learned to understand this; and that is why our
home is now a model to our fellow citizens.

Lona: But your fellow citizens know nothing about the lie?

Bernick: The lie?

Lona: Yes--the lie you have persisted in for these fifteen years.

Bernick: Do you mean to say that you call that--?

Lona: I call it a lie--a threefold lie: first of all, there is the lie
towards me; then, the lie towards Betty; and then, the lie towards
Johan.

Bernick: Betty has never asked me to speak.

Lona: Because she has known nothing.

Bernick: And you will not demand it--out of consideration for her.

Lona: Oh, no--I shall manage to put up with their gibes well enough; I
have broad shoulders.

Bernick: And Johan will not demand it either; he has promised me that.

Lona: But you yourself, Karsten? Do you feel within yourself no impulse
urging you to shake yourself free of this lie?

Bernick: Do you suppose that of my own free will I would sacrifice my
family happiness and my position in the world?

Lona: What right have you to the position you hold?

Bernick: Every day during these fifteen years I have earned some little
right to it--by my conduct, and by what I have achieved by my work.

Lona: True, you have achieved a great deal by your work, for yourself
as well as for others. You are the richest and most influential man in
the town; nobody in it dares do otherwise than defer to your will,
because you are looked upon as a man without spot or blemish; your home
is regarded as a model home, and your conduct as a model of conduct.
But all this grandeur, and you with it, is founded on a treacherous
morass. A moment may come and a word may be spoken, when you and all
your grandeur will be engulfed in the morass, if you do not save
yourself in time.

Bernick: Lona--what is your object in coming he