第9章 ACT II(2)

Oh, I know what a busy agitator you are; you make speeches, you stir people up; but when some concrete instance of progress presents itself--as now, in the case of our machines--you do not want to have anything to do with it; you are afraid.

Aune: Yes, I really am afraid, Mr. Bernick. I am afraid for the number of men who will have the bread taken out of their mouths by these machines. You are very fond, sir, of talking about the consideration we owe to the community; it seems to me, however, that the community has its duties too. Why should science and capital venture to introduce these new discoveries into labour, before the community has had time to educate a generation up to using them?

Bernick: You read and think too much, Aune; it does you no good, and that is what makes you dissatisfied with your lot.

Aune: It is not, Mr. Bernick; but I cannot bear to see one good workman dismissed after another, to starve because of these machines.

Bernick: Hm! When the art of printing was discovered, many a quill-driver was reduced to starvation.

Aune: Would you have admired the art so greatly if you had been a quill-driver in those days, sir?

Bernick: I did not send for you to argue with you. I sent for you to tell you that the "Indian Girl" must be ready to put to sea the day after tomorrow.

Aune: But, Mr. Bernick--Bernick: The day after tomorrow, do you hear?--at the same time as our own ship, not an hour later. I have good reasons for hurrying on the work. Have you seen today's paper? Well, then you know the pranks these American sailors have been up to again.

The rascally pack are turning the whole town upside down. Not a night passes without some brawling in the taverns or the streets--not to speak of other abominations.

Aune: Yes, they certainly are a bad lot.

Bernick: And who is it that has to bear the blame for all this disorder? It is I! Yes, it is I who have to suffer for it. These newspaper fellows are making all sorts of covert insinuations because we are devoting all our energies to the "Palm Tree." I, whose task in life it is to influence my fellow-citizens by the force of example, have to endure this sort of thing cast in my face. I am not going to stand that. I have no fancy for having my good name smirched in that way.

Aune: Your name stands high enough to endure that and a great deal more, sir.

Bernick: Not just now. At this particular moment I have need of all the respect and goodwill my fellow-citizens can give me. I have a big undertaking on, the stocks, as you probably have heard; but, if it should happen that evil-disposed persons succeeded in shaking the absolute confidence I enjoy, it might land me in the greatest difficulties. That is why I want, at any price, to avoid these shameful innuendoes in the papers, and that is why I name the day after tomorrow as the limit of the time I can give you.

Aune: Mr. Bernick, you might just as well name this afternoon as the limit.

Bernick: You mean that I am asking an impossibility?

Aune: Yes, with the hands we have now at the yard.

Bernick: Very good; then we must look about elsewhere.

Aune: Do you really mean, sir, to discharge still more of your old workmen?

Bernick: No, I am not thinking of that.

Aune: Because I think it would cause bad blood against you both among the townsfolk and in the papers, if you did that.

Bernick: Very probably; therefore, we will not do it. But, if the "Indian Girl" is not ready to sail the day after tomorrow, I shall discharge you.

Aune (with a start): Me! (He laughs.) You are joking, Mr.

Bernick.

Bernick: I should not be so sure of that, if I were you.

Aune: Do you mean that you can contemplate discharging me?--Me, whose father and grandfather worked in your yard all their lives, as I have done myself--?

Bernick: Who is it that is forcing me to do it?

Aune: You are asking what is impossible, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: Oh, where there's a will there's a way. Yes or no; give me a decisive answer, or consider yourself discharged on the spot.

Aune (coming a step nearer to him): Mr. Bernick, have you ever realised what discharging an old workman means? You think he can look about for another job? Oh, yes, he can do that; but does that dispose of the matter? You should just be there once, in the house of a workman who has been discharged, the evening he comes home bringing all his tools with him.

Bernick: Do you think I am discharging you with a light heart?

Have I not always been a good master to you?

Aune: So much the worse, Mr. Bernick. Just for that very reason those at home will not blame you; they will say nothing to me, 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.