Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Henrik Ibsen

Author:Henrik Ibsen [IBSEN, HENRIK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 13 of 29 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

ACT III

(SCENE — The same room. BERNICK, with a cane in his hand and evidently in a great rage, comes out of the farther room on the left, leaving the door half-open behind him.)

Bernick (speaking to his wife, who is in the other room): There! I have given it him in earnest now; I don’t think he will forget that thrashing! What do you say? — And I say that you are an injudicious mother! You make excuses for him, and countenance any sort of rascality on his part — Not rascality? What do you call it, then? Slipping out of the house at night, going out in a fishing boat, staying away till well on in the day, and giving me such a horrible fright when I have so much to worry me! And then the young scamp has the audacity to threaten that he will run away! Just let him try it! — You? No, very likely; you don’t trouble yourself much about what happens to him. I really believe that if he were to get killed — ! Oh, really? Well, I have work to leave behind me in the world; I have no fancy for being left childless — Now, do not raise objections, Betty; it shall be as I say — he is confined to the house. (Listens.) Hush; do not let any one notice anything. (KRAP comes in from the right.)

Krap: Can you spare me a moment, Mr. Bernick?

Bernick (throwing away the cane): Certainly, certainly. Have you come from the yard?

Krap: Yes. Ahem — !

Bernick: Well? Nothing wrong with the “Palm Tree,” I hope?

Krap: The “Palm Tree” can sail tomorrow, but

Bernick: It is the “Indian Girl,” then? I had a suspicion that that obstinate fellow —

Krap: The “Indian Girl” can sail tomorrow, too; but I am sure she will not get very far.

Bernick: What do you mean?

Krap: Excuse me, sir; that door is standing ajar, and I think there is some one in the other room —

Bernick (shutting the door): There, then! But what is this that no one else must hear?

Krap: Just this — that I believe Aune intends to let the “Indian Girl” go to the bottom with every mother’s son on board.

Bernick: Good God! — what makes you think that?

Krap: I cannot account for it any other way, sir.

Bernick: Well, tell me as briefly as you can

Krap: I will. You know yourself how slowly the work has gone on in the yard since we got the new machines and the new inexperienced hands?

Bernick: Yes, yes.

Krap: But this morning, when I went down there, I noticed that the repairs to the American boat had made extraordinary progress; the great hole in the bottom — the rotten patch, you know —

Bernick: Yes, yes — what about it?

Krap: Was completely repaired — to all appearance at any rate, covered up — looked as good as new. I heard that Aune himself had been working at it by lantern light the whole night.

Bernick: Yes, yes

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