(Smiles.) How could she venture to risk leaving such a
flighty fellow as me alone, who before I was nineteen had been
mixed up in...
Bernick: Well, what then?
Johan: Well, Karsten, now I am coming to a confession that I am
ashamed to make.
Bernick: You surely haven't confided the truth to her?
Johan: Yes. It was wrong of me, but I could not do otherwise. You
can have no conception what Lona has been to me. You never could
put up with her; but she has been like a mother to me. The first
year we were out there, when things went so badly with us, you
have no idea how she worked! And when I was ill for a long time,
and could earn nothing and could not prevent her, she took to
singing ballads in taverns, and gave lectures that people laughed
at; and then she wrote a book that she has both laughed and cried
over since then--all to keep the life in me. Could I look on when
in the winter she, who had toiled and drudged for me, began to
pine away? No, Karsten, I couldn't. And so I said, "You go home
for a trip, Lona; don't be afraid for me, I am not so flighty as
you think." And so--the end of it was that she had to know.
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