because they dare not; but they will look at me when I am not
noticing, and think that I must have deserved it. You see, sir,
that is--that is what I cannot bear. I am a mere nobody, I know;
but I have always been accustomed to stand first in my own home.
My humble home is a little community too, Mr. Bernick--a little
community which I have been able to support and maintain because
my wife has believed in me and because my children have believed
in me. And now it is all to fall to pieces.

Bernick: Still, if there is nothing else for it, the lesser must
go down before the greater; the individual must be sacrificed to
the general welfare. I can give you no other answer; and that,
and no other, is the way of the world. You are an obstinate man,
Aune! You are opposing me, not because you cannot do otherwise,
but because you will not exhibit 'the superiority of machinery
over manual labour'.

Aune: And you will not be moved, Mr. Bernick, because you know
that if you drive me away you will at all events have given the
newspapers proof of your good will.

Bernick: And suppose that were so? I have told you what it means
for me--either bringing the Press down on my back, or making them
well-disposed to me at a moment when I am working for an objective
which will mean the advancement of the general welfare. Well,
then, can I do otherwise than as I am doing? The question, let me
tell you, turns upon this--whether your home is to be supported,
as you put it, or whether hundreds of new homes are to be
prevented from existing--hundreds of homes that will never be
built, never have a fire lighted on their hearth, unless I