No More Learning

KRAP: That is enough. You know the consul's wishes.
Pardon, ladies!

[KRAP _bows to ladies, and he and_ AUNE _go into the
street_. RECTOR RORLUND _has been reading aloud,
and now shuts the book and begins to converse with
the ladies_.

RORLUND: This book forms a welcome contrast to the
hollowness and rottenness we see every day in the papers
and magazines, which reflect the condition of the whited
sepulchres, the great communities to-day. Doubt, restlessness,
and insecurity are undermining society.

DINA: But are not many great things being accomplished?

RORLUND: 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.

RORLUND: Do you not all make sacrifices in a good
cause to save the lapsed and lost?
HILMAR TONNESEN (_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.