Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 6).djvu/176

 Fieldbo.

Just so; and therefore Miss Bratsberg is to be sacrificed?

Stensgård.

Sacrificed? If that were so, I should be no better than a scoundrel. But it will be for her happiness, that I'm convinced. What now? Fieldbo, why do you look like that? You have some underhand scheme of your own

Fieldbo.

I?

Stensgård.

Yes, you have! You are intriguing against me, behind my back. Why do you do that? Be open with me—will you?

Fieldbo.

Frankly, I won't. You are so dangerous, so unscrupulous—well, so reckless at any rate, that one dare not be open with you. Whatever you know, you make use of without hesitation. But this I say to you as a friend: put Miss Bratsberg out of your head.

Stensgård.

I cannot. I must extricate myself from these sordid surroundings. I can't go on living in this hugger-mugger way. Here have I got to be hail-fellow-well-met with Dick, Tom, and Harry; to whisper in corners with them, to hob-nob with them, to laugh at their beery witticisms; to be hand in glove with hobbledehoys and unlicked cubs. How can I keep my love of the People untarnished in the midst of all this? I feel as if all the electricity went out of my words. I have no