"Henrik Ibsen - Pillars Of Society" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ibsen Henrik)

restless tide of the great outer world, where so many are shipwrecked. Do you
really set such store on the life you hear rushing by outside? Only look out
into the street. There they go, walking about in the heat of the sun, perspiring
and tumbling about over their little affairs. No, we undoubtedly have the best
of it, who are able to sit here in the cool and turn our backs on the quarter
from which disturbance comes.
Martha: Yes,I have no doubt you are perfectly right.
Rorlund: And in a house like this,in a good and pure home, where family life
shows in its fairest coloursЧwhere peace and harmony ruleЧ (To MRS. BERNICK:)
What are you listening to, Mrs. Bernick?
Mrs. Bernick (who has turned towards the door of BERNICK'S room): They are
talking very loud in there.
Rorlund: Is there anything particular going on?
Mrs. Bernick: I don't know. I can hear that there is somebody with my husband.
(HILMAR TONNESEN, smoking a cigar, appears in the doorway on the right, but
stops short at the sight of the company of ladies.)
Hilmar: Oh, excuse meЧ (Turns to go back.)
Mrs. Bernick: No, Hilmar, come along in; you are not disturbing us. Do you want
something?
Hilmar: No, I only wanted to look in hereЧGood morning, ladies. (To MRS. BERNICK
:) Well, what is the result?
Mrs. Bernick: Of what?
Hilmar: Karsten has summoned a meeting, you know.
Mrs. Bernick: Has he? What about?
Hilmar: Oh, it is this railway nonsense over again.
Mrs. Rummel: Is it possible?
Mrs. Bernick: Poor Karsten, is he to have more annoyance over that?
Rorlund: But how do you explain that, Mr. Tonnesen? You know that last year Mr.
Bernick made it perfectly clear that he would not have a railway here.
Hilmar: Yes, that is what I thought, too; but I met Krap, his confidential
clerk, and he told me that the railway project had been taken up again, and that
Mr. Bernick was in consultation with three of our local capitalists.
Mrs. Rummel: Ah, I was right in thinking I heard my husband's voice.
Hilmar: Of course Mr. Rummel is in it, and so are Sandstad and Michael
Vigeland,"Saint Michael", as they call him.
Rorlund: Ahem!
Hilmar: I beg your pardon, Mr. Rorlund?
Mrs. Bernick: Just when everything was so nice and peaceful.
Hilmar: Well, as far as I am concerned, I have not the slightest objection to
their beginning their squabbling again. It will be a little diversion, any way.
Rorlund: I think we can dispense with that sort of diversion.
Hilmar: It depends how you are constituted. Certain natures feel the lust of
battle now and then. But unfortunately life in a country town does not offer
much in that way, and it isn't given to every one to (turns the leaves of the
book RORLUND has been reading) . " Woman as the Handmaid of Society." What sort
of drivel is this?
Mrs. Bernick: My dear Hilmar, you must not say that. You certainly have not read
the book.
Hilmar: No, and I have no intention of reading it, either.
Mrs. Bernick: Surely you are not feeling quite well today.