Servants, Visitors to the Baths, and Children.


The First Act passes at a bathing establishment on the
coast; the Second and Third Acts in the
neighbourhood of a health resort, high
in the mountains.




ACT FIRST.


[Outside the Bath Hotel. A portion of the main building can be seen
to the right. An open, park-like place with a fountain, groups
of fine old trees, and shrubbery. To the left, a little pavilion
almost covered with ivy and Virginia creeper. A table and chair
outside it. At the back a view over the fjord, right out to sea,
with headlands and small islands in the distance. It is a calm,
warm and sunny summer morning.

[PROFESSOR RUBEK and MRS. MAIA RUBEK are sitting in basket chairs
beside a covered table on the lawn outside the hotel, having just
breakfasted. They have champagne and seltzer water on the table,
and each has a newspaper. PROFESSOR RUBEK is an elderly man of
distinguished appearance, wearing a black velvet jacket, and
otherwise in light summer attire. MAIA is quite young, with
a vivacious expression and lively, mocking eyes, yet with a
suggestion of fatigue. She wears an elegant travelling dress.