repeat that it is not I that am responsible for your
bankruptcy; it is yourself.

Tjaelde. And I must repeat that my bankruptcy only exists in your
imagination! Much may happen in a month; and I have shown that I can
find a way out of difficulties before now!

Berent. That is to say, by involving yourself deeper and deeper in
falsehood.

Tjaelde. Only a man of business can understand such things. But, if you
really understand them, I would say to you: "Give me L20,000 and I will
save the situation entirely." That would be doing something worthy of
your great powers; that would give you a reputation for penetration
in discerning the real state of affairs; because by so doing you would
safeguard the welfare of more than a thousand people, and ensure a
prosperous future for the whole district!

Berent. I don't rise to that bait.

Tjaelde (after a moment's reflection). Do you want me to explain to you
how L20,000 would be sufficient to set the whole complicated situation
straight? Within three months remittances would be coming in. I can make
it its clear as daylight to you--

Berent.--that you would be falling from one disillusionment to another!
That is what you have been doing for the last three years, from month to
month.

Tjaelde. Because the last three years have been bad years--horrible
years! But we have reached the crisis; things must begin to improve now!

Berent. That is what every defaulter thinks.

Tjaelde. Do not drive me to despair! Have you any idea what I have gone
through in these three years? Have you any idea what I am capable of?

Berent. Of still further falsehood.

Tjaelde. Take care!--It is quite true that I am standing on the edge of
a precipice. It is true that for three years I have done everything
in mortal power to save the situation! I maintain that there has been
something heroic in the fight I have made. And that deserves some
reward. You have unrestricted powers; every one trusts you. Realise
for yourself what your mission is; do not let it be necessary for me to
teach it you! Let me tell you this, emphatically: it will be a dreadful
thing for _you_ if hundreds of people are to be ruined unnecessarily
now!

Berent. Let us make an end of this.

Tjaelde. No, devil take me if I give up a fight like this with a
senseless surrender!

Berent. How do you propose to end it, then?

Tjaelde. There is no issue to it that I have not turned over in my
thoughts--thousands of times. _I_