Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 9).djvu/53

 impossible to stand idly looking on any longer. Now that the Radicals have unhappily come into power, it is high time something should be done,—so I have got our little group of friends in the town to close up their ranks. I tell you it is high time!

Rebecca.

[With a faint smile.] Don't you think it may even be a little late?

Kroll.

Unquestionably it would have been better if we had checked the stream at an earlier point in its course. But who could foresee what was going to happen? Certainly not I. [Rises and walks up and down.] But now I have had my eyes opened once for all; for now the spirit of revolt has crept into the school itself.

Rosmer.

Into the school? Surely not into your school?

Kroll.

I tell you it has—into my own school. What do you think? It has come to my knowledge that the sixth-form boys—a number of them at any rate—have been keeping up a secret society for over six months; and they take in Mortensgård's paper!

Rebecca.

The "Beacon"?

Kroll.

Yes; nice mental sustenance for future government officials, is it not? But the worst of it is that it's all the cleverest boys in the form that have banded together in this conspiracy against