LISBED. I dreamed that I slept with him last night.

MAGEDELONE. There is something in dreams, I tell you. Dreams are not to be despised.

JERONIMUS. That's true enough, but if you girls didn't think so much about the menfolk in the daytime, you wouldn't have so many dreams about them at night. I suppose you used to dream just as much about me in the days when we were engaged, Magdelone?

MAGEDELONE. I did, indeed, but upon my word I haven't dreamed about you for some years now.

JERONIMUS. That's because your love isn't as hot now as it used to be.

LISBED. But is it possible that Rasmus Berg is coming home to-morrow?

JERONIMUS. Come, daughter, you shouldn't show that you are so much in love.

LISBED. Oh, but is it sure that he is coming home to-morrow?

JERONIMUS. Yes, yes; you hear, don't you, that's when he is coming?

LISBED. How long is it till to-morrow, father dear?

JERONIMUS. What confounded nonsense! These people in love act as if they were crazy.

LISBED. I tell you, I shall count every hour.

JERONIMUS. You should ask how long an hour is, so that people would think that you were completely mad. Stop this twaddle and let us elders talk together.--Listen, my dear Jeppe Berg! Do you think it is wise for these two young people to marry before he gets a position?

JEPPE. That is as you think best. I can support them well enough, but it would be better that he should get a position first.

JERONIMUS. I don't think it would be wise for them to marry until then. (Lisbed weeps and wails.) Fie, shame on you! It's a disgrace for a girl to carry on so!

LISBED (sobbing). Can't he get a position soon, then?

JEPPE. There's no doubt about it; he'll get a position soon enough, for from what I hear he is so learned he can read any book there is.

He wrote me a Latin letter just lately.

NILLE. And, marry, it's one that can stand alone, as the deacon can tell you.

LISBED. Was it so well written?

PEER. Yes, well written for one so young. He may amount to something, Mamsell! But there's a lot left to learn. I thought I was learned, myself, at his age, but--

JEPPE. Yes, you learned folk never praise one another--

PEER. Nonsense! Do you think I am jealous of him? Before he was born I had been up for a flogging before the school three times, and when he was in the fourth form I had been eight years a deacon.

JEPPE. One man may have a better head than another; one may learn as much in a year as others in ten.

PEER. For that matter, the deacon dares set his head against any one's.

JERONIMUS. Yes, yes, you may both be right. Let us go home, children. Good-bye, Jeppe! I happened to be pa.s.sing, and I thought I might as well talk to you on the way.

LISBED. Be sure to let me know as soon as he comes!

[Exeunt Jeronimus, Magdelone, and Lisbed.

SCENE 6

(Enter Jacob.)

JEPPE. What do you want, Jacob?

JACOB. Father! Have you heard the news? Rasmus Berg is back.

JEPPE. Heavens, is it possible! How does he look?

JACOB. Oh, he looks mighty learned. Rasmus Nielsen, who drove him, swears that he did nothing all the way but dispute with himself in Greek and Elamite; and sometimes with so much zeal that he struck Rasmus Nielsen in the back of the neck three or four times, with his clenched fist, shouting all the while, "Probe the Major! Probe the Major!" I suppose he must have had a dispute with a major before he started out. Part of the way he sat still and stared at the moon and the stars with such a rapt expression that he fell off the wagon three times and nearly broke his neck from sheer learning. Rasmus Nielsen laughed at that, and said to himself, "Rasmus Berg may be a wise man in the heavens, but he is a fool on earth."

JEPPE. Let us go and meet him. Come with us, dear Peer. It may be that he has forgotten his Danish and won't be able to talk anything but Latin. In that case you can be interpreter.

PEER (aside). Not if I know it! (Aloud.) I have other things to attend to.

ACT II

SCENE I

[A room in Jeppe's house. Monta.n.u.s (whose stockings are falling down around his ankles).]

MONTa.n.u.s. I have been away from Copenhagen only a day, and I miss it already. If I didn't have my good books with me, I couldn't exist in the country. Studia secundas res ornant, adversis solatium praebent.

I feel as if I had lost something, after going three days without a disputation. I don't know whether there are any learned folk in the village, but if there are, I shall set them to work, for I can't live without disputation. I can't talk much to my poor parents, for they are simple folk and know hardly anything beyond their catechism; so I can't find much comfort in their conversation. The deacon and the schoolmaster are said to have studied, but I don't know how much that has amounted to; still, I shall see what they are good for. My parents were astonished to see me so early, for they had not expected me to travel by night from Copenhagen. (He strikes a match, lights his pipe, and puts the bowl of his pipe through a hole he has made in his hat.) That's what they call smoking studentikos--it's a pretty good invention for any one who wants to write and smoke at the same time. (Sits down and begins to read.)

SCENE 2

(Enter Jacob. He kisses his own hand and extends it to his brother.)

JACOB. Welcome home again, my Latin brother!

MONTa.n.u.s. I am glad to see you, Jacob. But as for being your brother, that was well enough in the old days, but it will hardly do any more.

JACOB. How so? Aren't you my brother?