A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin) Page 9

  MRS BERNICK: Yes, but I can’t help it if –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: What can’t you help? That you’re related to them? No, never a truer word.

  MRS BERNICK: I didn’t ask them to come home.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh, yes, here we go! I didn’t ask them to come home; I didn’t write and invite them; I didn’t drag them home by the hair! Oh, I know the whole litany by heart.

  MRS BERNICK [breaks down in tears]: You really are so unkind sometimes –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, that’s right; turn on the tears, so the town has that to talk about too. Leave off this foolishness, Betty. Go and sit outside; somebody might come. Should they perhaps see madam with red eyes? Oh yes, it would be lovely if it got out among people that –. There, I can hear somebody in the hallway. [There is a knock.] Come in!

  MRS BERNICK walks out on to the garden steps with her sewing.

  AUNE the shipwright enters from the right.

  AUNE: Good morning, Mr Consul, sir.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Good morning. Well, you can probably guess what I want with you?

  AUNE: The chief clerk mentioned yesterday that you weren’t pleased with –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: I am displeased with the entire running of the shipyard, Aune. You’re getting nowhere with the ships that are in for repairs. The Palm Tree should have been under sail long ago. Mr Vigeland comes here every day pestering me; he’s a difficult man to have as co-shipowner.27

  AUNE: The Palm Tree can sail the day after tomorrow.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: At last. But the American ship, the Indian Girl, that’s been docked here for five weeks now –

  AUNE: The American? I understood we were to put all our efforts into your own ship first and foremost.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: I’ve given you no cause to think that. Everything was to be done to push on as fast as possible with the American vessel too; but it’s not happening.

  AUNE: The bottom of the ship’s completely rotten, Mr Consul, sir; the more we patch it up, the worse it gets.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: That’s not the real reason. Mr Krap has told me the whole truth. You don’t know how to work with the new machines I’ve procured – or more precisely, you don’t want to work with them.

  AUNE: Mr Consul, sir, I’m in my fifties now,28 and I’ve been accustomed to the old working methods since I was a boy –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: We can’t use those nowadays. You mustn’t believe it’s for the sake of profit, Aune; fortunately I have no need of that; but I must consider the community in which I live, and the business of which I am the head. It’s from me progress must come, or it’ll never come.

  AUNE: I want progress too, Mr Consul, sir.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, for your own narrow circle, for the working class. Oh, I’m well aware of your political agitations; you hold speeches, you whip the people up, but when tangible progress offers itself, as now with our machines, then you want no part of it; you get scared.

  AUNE: Yes, I do indeed get scared, Mr Consul, sir; I get scared on behalf of the many who are robbed of their bread by these machines. The consul29 talks so often about taking the community into consideration; but I think the greater community has its duties too. How can science and capital employ these new inventions in the workplace before the community has trained a generation who can use them?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: You read and brood over things too much, Aune; it does you no good; that’s what makes you dissatisfied with your position.

  AUNE: It is not, Mr Consul, sir; but I can’t bear to see one good worker after another dismissed and losing their daily bread because of these machines.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Hm; when the printing press was invented many a scribe lost his bread.

  AUNE: Would the consul have been so fond of that art if he’d been a scribe back then?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: I didn’t send for you to have a debate. I called you in to tell you that the Indian Girl must be ready to sail the day after tomorrow.

  AUNE: But, Mr Consul –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: The day after tomorrow, you hear; at the same time as our own ship, not an hour later. I’ve got my reasons for pressing on with this. Have you read this morning’s paper? Well, then you’ll know the Americans have been causing havoc again. That dissolute mob is turning the whole town upside down; not a night goes by without fighting in the taverns and streets; their more vile excesses I shan’t even mention.

  AUNE: Yes, they’re wicked folk, that’s for sure.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: And who gets the blame for this uncouth behaviour? Me! Yes, I’m the one who bears the brunt of it. These newspapermen are making snide insinuations, embroidering on the fact that we’ve been putting all our resources into the Palm Tree. I, whose task it is to lead my fellow citizens by the power of example, have to have that thrown at me! I won’t tolerate it. It doesn’t serve my interests to have my name tarnished like that.

  AUNE: Ah, the consul has such a good name, it can withstand that and more.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Not now; at this precise moment I need all the respect and goodwill my fellow citizens can afford me. I’ve a big enterprise in the offing, as you’ve probably heard; but if these ill-meaning people are successful in shaking the unconditional faith in my person, it could cause me the greatest difficulties. That’s why I want to avoid these malicious, insinuating newspaper scribblings at any price, and why I have set the deadline for the day after tomorrow.

  AUNE: Mr Consul, you might just as well set the deadline for this afternoon.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: You mean I’m demanding the impossible?

  AUNE: Yes, with the workforce we have now –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Very well; then we’ll have to look elsewhere.

  AUNE: You really want to dismiss even more of the old workers?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: No, that isn’t what I’m considering.

  AUNE: Because I reckon it would cause bad blood in both the town and the newspapers if you did that.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Quite possibly; so we shan’t do that. But if the Indian Girl isn’t signed off the day after tomorrow, I shall dismiss you.

  AUNE [with a jolt]: Me! [He laughs.] You’re joking, Mr Consul, sir.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: I wouldn’t count on it.

  AUNE: You could think of dismissing me? A man whose father and grandfather served in the shipyard their entire lives, just as I have –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Who’s forcing me to it?

  AUNE: You’re demanding the impossible, sir.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh, with a little goodwill nothing’s impossible. Yes or no; give me a decisive answer, or you’re dismissed here and now.

  AUNE [a step closer]: Mr Consul, sir, have you really thought about what it means to give an old worker his notice? You think perhaps he’ll just go and look for something else? Yes, he may well do; but is that all there is to it? You should be there, just once, in a dismissed worker’s house the night he comes home and puts his toolbox down inside the door.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Do you think I’m dismissing you with a light heart? Haven’t I always been a fair employer?

  AUNE: So much the worse, sir. That’s exactly why they won’t lay the blame on you, back at home. They won’t say anything to me, because they wouldn’t dare, but they’ll look at me when I’m not watching and think: he must have brought it on himself. You must see, sir, that’s – that’s something I couldn’t bear. However lowly a man I may be, I’ve always been used to being counted as the first among my own. My humble home is a little community too, Mr Consul, sir. I’ve been able to support and hold up this little community because my wife has believed in me, and because my children have believed in me. And now all this is going to fall apart.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, if there’s no other solution the lesser must fall to the greater; the individual must in God’s name be sacrificed to the common good. I don’t know what other answer to give you, things don’t work any other way in this world. But you’re a stubborn man, Aune! You’re opposing me, not because
you can’t do otherwise, but because you won’t acknowledge the superiority of machines over manual labour.

  AUNE: And you’re holding to this so hard, Mr Consul, sir, because you know that by getting rid of me, you’ll convince the press at least of your goodwill.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: And if that was so? I’ve told you what’s at stake for me – to get the press at my throat or have it sympathetically disposed towards me, just when I’m working on a big project for the advancement of the common good. Well? Can I really act in any other way? The question here, let me tell you, is whether to hold up your home, as you put it, or to perhaps hold down hundreds of new homes, hundreds of homes that’ll never come into existence, that’ll never have a smoking chimney, if I don’t succeed in implementing what I am now working towards. That’s why I’ve given you the choice.

  AUNE: Well, if that’s the case, I’ve no more to say.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Hm – my dear Aune, it pains me deeply that we must part ways.

  AUNE: We’ll not part ways, Mr Consul, sir.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh?

  AUNE: Even an ordinary man has something to defend here in this world.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, quite – so you do really believe you can promise –?

  AUNE: The Indian Girl can be signed off the day after tomorrow.

  He nods and exits to the right.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Hah, I got the better of that stiff-neck. I take that as a good omen –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN, cigar in mouth, comes through the garden gate.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN [on the garden steps]: Good morning, Betty! Good morning, Bernick!

  MRS BERNICK: Good morning.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oh, you’ve been crying I see. You know then?

  MRS BERNICK: I know what?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: That the scandal’s in full swing? Oof!

  KARSTEN BERNICK: What do you mean?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN [comes inside]: Well, the two Americans are walking about the streets displaying themselves in the company of Dina Dorf.

  MRS BERNICK [following him]: But, Hilmar, surely not –?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oh yes, it’s the absolute truth, unfortunately. Lona was even tactless enough to call out after me; but naturally I pretended not to hear.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: And that won’t have gone unnoticed.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Quite, you can be sure of it. People stopped and stared after them. It seemed to go like wildfire across town – much like a blaze on the Western Prairies. In all the houses people stood there at their windows waiting for the parade to pass by; cheek by jowl behind the curtains – oof! Well, you’ll excuse me, Betty, I’m saying oof because this is making me nervous – if it carries on I shall be forced to consider taking a rather long trip.

  MRS BERNICK: But you should have talked to him and made it clear –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: In the middle of the street? No, really, excuse me. But how that man dares to show himself here in town at all! Well, we’ll see if the press can’t put a stopper on him; yes, I’m sorry Betty; but –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: The press, you say? Have you heard any suggestion of that sort?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Well, yes, you might say that. When I left here yesterday afternoon, I drifted up to the club on account of my illness. It was clear from the silence that descended that the two Americans had been under discussion. Then in comes that impertinent editor, Hammer, and congratulates me rather loudly on the homecoming of my wealthy cousin.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Wealthy –?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Yes, that’s how he put it. Naturally, I looked him up and down with a well-deserved glare and let him know I knew nothing of Johan Tønnesen’s wealth. ‘Oh’, he says, ‘that’s very peculiar; people generally make it big in America when they have something to start out with, and your cousin didn’t exactly go over empty-handed.’

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh, spare me –

  MRS BERNICK [anxious]: There you see, Karsten –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Well, I for one have had a sleepless night on account of that man. And yet he goes about the streets looking as though there was nothing in the least wrong with him. Why didn’t he just stay gone, once and for all? It really is intolerable the way some people cling on to life.

  MRS BERNICK: Goodness, Hilmar, what are you saying?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oh, I’m not saying anything. But there he goes escaping railway accidents and attacks by Californian bears and Blackfoot Indians without a scratch; not so much as scalped. – Oof, there they are.

  KARSTEN BERNICK [looks up the street]: Olaf’s with them too!

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Well, naturally, they want to remind everybody that they belong to the town’s first family. Look, look, there are all the layabouts drifting out from the pharmacy, gawping at them and passing commentary. This really isn’t good for my nerves; how a man’s supposed to hold the flag of ideas aloft under such circumstances, is quite –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: They’re coming this way. Now listen, Betty, it’s my firm wish that you show them every possible kindness.

  MRS BERNICK: You’d allow that, Karsten?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Absolutely, absolutely; and you too, Hilmar. With luck they won’t be here too long; and even when we’re among ourselves – no insinuations; we mustn’t offend them in any way.

  MRS BERNICK: Oh Karsten, how noble you are.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, yes, just leave it now.

  MRS BERNICK: No, let me thank you; and forgive me for getting so worked up earlier. You had good reason to –

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Leave it, leave it, I say.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oof!

  JOHAN TØNNESEN and DINA, followed by MISS HESSEL and OLAF, arrive through the garden.

  MISS HESSEL: Morning, morning, dear people.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: We’ve been out taking a look at some of the old haunts, Karsten.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Yes, so I hear. A lot of changes, don’t you think?

  MISS HESSEL: Yes, Consul Bernick’s great and good works30 everywhere. We’ve been up in the public gardens that you donated to the town.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh there?

  MISS HESSEL: ‘Karsten Bernick’s Gift’ as it says over the entrance. Well, you’re certainly the man around here.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: And you’ve got some grand ships too. I met the captain of the Palm Tree, my old school friend –

  MISS HESSEL: And you’ve built a new schoolhouse too; and you were responsible for the gas pipe31 and water mains, so I hear.

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Well, one must serve the community one lives in, after all.

  MISS HESSEL: Yes, that’s lovely, brother-in-law; but it’s also pleasing to see what high esteem you’re held in. I don’t think I’m vain, but I couldn’t resist reminding one or two people we spoke to that we belonged to the family.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oof –!

  MISS HESSEL: Are you saying oof to that?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: No, I said hm –

  MISS HESSEL: Well, we’ll allow you that, poor thing. So, Betty, you’ve not got any visitors today?

  MRS BERNICK: No, we’re alone today.

  MISS HESSEL: Yes, we met a couple of those moral ladies up in the market square; they did seem awfully busy. But we still haven’t had the chance to talk properly ourselves, have we; yesterday those three pioneers were here, and then we had that pastor –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Schoolmaster.

  MISS HESSEL: I call him the pastor. But what do you all reckon to my great work of these fifteen years? Hasn’t he grown into a good, solid lad? Who’d recognize the madcap who ran away from home?

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Hm –!

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: Oh, Lona, don’t brag too much now.

  MISS HESSEL: Yes, but I’m mighty proud of it. Good Lord, it’s my only achievement here in this world; but it gives me some kind of right to exist at least. Yes, Johan, when I think how the two of us started out over there, with just our bare mitts –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Hands you me
an.

  MISS HESSEL: I say mitts; because they were so grubby –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oof!

  MISS HESSEL: – and empty too.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Empty? Well, I must say –!

  MISS HESSEL: What must you say?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Hm!

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Well, I must say – oof!

  He walks down the garden steps.

  MISS HESSEL: What is the matter with that man?

  KARSTEN BERNICK: Oh, pay no attention to him; he’s a bit nervous these days. But wouldn’t you like to take a little look around the garden? You’ve not been there yet, and I happen to have an hour spare.

  MISS HESSEL: Yes, I’d love that; I’ve often visited your garden in my thoughts, believe me.

  MRS BERNICK: There have been some big changes there too, you’ll see.

  The CONSUL, his WIFE and MISS HESSEL walk down to the garden, where they can be glimpsed now and then during the following.

  OLAF [in the doorway to the garden]: Uncle Hilmar, d’you know what Uncle Johan asked me? He asked if I wanted to go with him to America.

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: A clothead like you, who goes around here clinging to his mother’s skirts –

  OLAF: But I don’t want to do that any more. You’ll see when I’m big –

  HILMAR TØNNESEN: Oh, piffle, you’ve no real urge for the steeling effect that comes from –

  They walk down into the garden together.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN [to DINA, who has taken her hat off and now stands in the doorway to the right, shaking the dust off her dress]: You worked up quite a heat with that walk.

  DINA: Yes, it was a lovely walk; I’ve never had such a lovely walk.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: You don’t often go for morning walks perhaps?

  DINA: Yes, but only with Olaf.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: Well, now. – Perhaps you’d prefer to go down into the garden rather than staying here?

  DINA: No, I’d prefer to stay here.

  JOHAN TØNNESEN: Me too. So it’s agreed then, that we’ll take a walk together every morning.