Bernick: That is a little too cool--
Martha (exclaims involuntarily): Ah--!
Mrs.Bernick: What is it, Martha?
Martha: Nothing, nothing. I thought for a moment--
Olaf (shrieking with delight): Look, look, there are the rest of
them, with the horses and animals! And there are the Americans,
too! All the sailors from the "Indian Girl"! (The strains of
"Yankee Doodle," played on a clarinet and a drum, are heard.)
Hilmar (stopping his ears): Ugh, ugh, ugh!
Rorlund: I think we ought to withdraw ourselves from sight a
little, ladies; we have nothing to do with such goings on. Let us
go to our work again.
Mrs.Bernick: Do you think we had better draw the curtains?
Rorlund: Yes, that was exactly what I meant.
(The ladies resume their places at the work-table; RORLUND shuts
the verandah door, and draws the curtains over it and over the
windows, so that the room becomes half dark.)
Olaf (peeping out through the curtains): Mother, the manager's
wife is standing by the fountain now, washing her face.
Mrs.Bernick: What? In the middle of the marketplace?
Mrs.Rummel: And in broad daylight, too!
Hilmar: Well, I must say if I were travelling across a desert
waste and found myself beside a well, I am sure I should not stop
to think whether--.
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