(Cheers are heard without.)

Bernick: Silence, gentlemen. I have no right to this homage you offer me; because the decision I have just come to does not represent what was my first intention. My intention was to keep the whole thing for myself; and, even now, I am of opinion that these properties would be worked to best advantage if they remained in one man's hands. But you are at liberty to choose. If you wish it, I am willing to administer them to the best of my abilities.

Voices: Yes, yes, yes!

Bernick: But, first of all, my fellow townsmen must know me thoroughly.

And let each man seek to know himself thoroughly, too; and so let it really come to pass that tonight we begin a new era. The old era--with its affectation, its hypocrisy and its emptiness, its pretence of virtue and its miserable fear of public opinion--shall be for us like a museum, open for purposes of instruction; and to that museum we will present--shall we not, gentlemen?--the coffee service, and the goblet, and the album, and the Family Devotions printed on vellum, and handsomely bound.

Rummel: Oh, of course.

Vigeland (muttering): If you have taken everything else, then--

Sandstad: By all means.

Bernick: And now for the principal reckoning I have to make with the community. Mr. Rorlund said that certain pernicious elements had left us this evening. I can add what you do not yet know. The man referred to did not go away alone; with him, to become his wife, went--

Lona (loudly): Dina Dorf!

Rorlund: What?

Mrs. Bernick: What? (Great commotion.)

Rorlund: Fled? Run away--with him! Impossible!

Bernick: To become his wife, Mr. Rorlund. And I will add more. (In a low voice, to his wife.) Betty, be strong to bear what is coming.

(Aloud.) This is what I have to say: hats off to that man, for he has nobly taken another's guilt upon his shoulders. My friends, I want to have done with falsehood; it has very nearly poisoned every fibre of my being. You shall know all. Fifteen years ago, I was the guilty man.

Mrs. Bernick (softly and tremblingly): Karsten!

Martha (similarly): Ah, Johan--!

Lona: Now at last you have found yourself!

(Speechless consternation among the audience.)

Bernick: Yes, friends, I was the guilty one, and he went away. The vile and lying rumours that were spread abroad afterwards, it is beyond human power to refute now; but I have no right to complain of that. For fifteen years I have climbed up the ladder of success by the help of those rumours; whether now they are to cast me down again, or not, each of you must decide in his own mind.

Rorlund: What a thunderbolt! Our leading citizen--! (In a low voice, to BETTY.) How sorry I am for you, Mrs. Bernick!

Hilmar: What a confession! Well, I must say--!

Bernick: But come to no decision tonight. I entreat every one to go home--to collect his thoughts--to look into his own heart. When once more you can think calmly, then it will be seen whether I have lost or won by speaking out. Goodbye! I have still much--very much--to repent of; but that concerns my own conscience only. Good night! Take away all these signs of rejoicing. We must all feel that they are out of place here.

Rorlund: That they certainly are. (In an undertone to MRS. BERNICK.) Run away! So then she was completely unworthy of me. (Louder, to the Committee.) Yes, gentlemen, after this I think we had better disperse as quietly as possible.

Hilmar: How, after this, any one is to manage to hold the Ideal's banner high--Ugh!

(Meantime the news has been whispered from mouth to mouth. The crowd gradually disperses from the garden. RUMMEL, SANDSTAD and VIGELAND go out, arguing eagerly but in a low voice. HILMAR slinks away to the right. When silence is restored, there only remain in the room BERNICK, MRS. BERNICK, MARTHA, LONA and KRAP.)

Bernick: Betty, can you forgive me?

Mrs. Bernick (looking at him with a smile): Do you know, Karsten, that you have opened out for me the happiest prospect I have had for many a year?

Bernick: How?

Mrs. Bernick: For many years, I have felt that once you were mine and that I had lost you. Now I know that you never have been mine yet; but I shall win you.

Bernick (folding her in his arms): Oh, Betty, you have won me. It was through Lona that I first learned really to know you. But now let Olaf come to me.

Mrs. Bernick: Yes, you shall have him now. Mr. Krap--! (Talks softly to KRAP in the background. He goes out by the garden door. During what follows, the illuminations and lights in the houses are gradually extinguished.)

Bernick (in a low voice): Thank you, Lona--you have saved what was best in me--and for me.

Lona: Do you suppose I wanted to do anything else?

Bernick: Yes, was that so--or not? I cannot quite make you out.

Lona: Hm--

Bernick: Then it was not hatred? Not revenge? Why did you come back, then?

Lona: Old friendship does not rust.

Bernick: Lona!

Lona: When Johan told me about the lie, I swore to myself that the hero of my youth should stand free and true.

Bernick: What a wretch I am!--and how little I have deserved it of you!

Lona. Oh, if we women always looked for what we deserve, Karsten--!

(AUNE comes in with OLAF from the garden.)

Bernick (going to meet them): Olaf!

Olaf: Father, I promise I will never do it again--

Bernick: Never run away?

Olaf: Yes, yes, I promise you, father.

Bernick: And I promise you, you shall never have reason to. For the future you shall be allowed to grow up, not as the heir to my life's work, but as one who has his own life's work before him.

Olaf: And shall I be allowed to be what I like, when I grow up?

Bernick: Yes.

Olaf. Oh, thank you! Then I won't be a pillar of society.

Bernick: No? Why not?