Bernick: And you will not demand it--out of consideration for
her.

Lona: Oh, no--I shall manage to put up with their gibes well
enough; I have broad shoulders.

Bernick: And Johan will not demand it either; he has promised me
that.

Lona: But you yourself, Karsten? Do you feel within yourself no
impulse urging you to shake yourself free of this lie?

Bernick: Do you suppose that of my own free will I would
sacrifice my family happiness and my position in the world?

Lona: What right have you to the position you hold?

Bernick: Every day during these fifteen years I have earned some
little right to it--by my conduct, and by what I have achieved by
my work.

Lona: True, you have achieved a great deal by your work, for
yourself as well as for others. You are the richest and most
influential man in the town; nobody in it dares do otherwise than
defer to your will, because you are looked upon as a man without
spot or blemish; your home is regarded as a model home, and your
conduct as a model of conduct. But all this grandeur, and you
with it, is founded on a treacherous morass. A moment may come
and a word may be spoken, when you and all your grandeur will be
engulfed in the morass, if you do not save yourself in time.