Lona: Is that what you mean to do?
Bernick: With Dina? Dina as your wife?--in this town?
Johan: Yes, here and nowhere else. I mean to stay here to defy
all these liars and slanderers. But before I can win her, you must
exonerate me.
Bernick: Have you considered that, if I confess to the one thing,
it will inevitably mean making myself responsible for the other
as well? You will say that I can show by our books that nothing
dishonest happened? But I cannot; our books were not so
accurately kept in those days. And even if I could, what good
would it do? Should I not in any case be pointed at as the man
who had once saved himself by an untruth, and for fifteen years
had allowed that untruth and all its consequences to stand
without having raised a finger to demolish it? You do not know
our community very much, or you would realise that it would ruin
me utterly.
Johan: I can only tell you that I mean to make Mrs. Dorf's
daughter my wife, and live with her in this town.
Bernick (wiping the perspiration from his forehead): Listen to
me, Johan--and you too, Lona. The circumstances I am in just now
are quite exceptional.
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