[He ponders; Old EKDAL comes out through the green-baize door, bowing, and begging pardon, carrying copying work.  Old WERLE says “Ugh” and “Puh” involuntarily.  HIALMAR shrinks back, and looks another way.  A Chamberlain asks him pleasantly if he knows that old man.

Hialmar.  I—­oh no.  Not in the least.  No relation!

Gregers (shocked).  What, HIALMAR, you, with your great soul, deny your own father!

Hialmar (vehemently).  Of course—­what else can a Photographer do with a disreputable old parent, who has been in a Penitentiary for making a fraudulent map?  I shall leave this splendid banquet.  The Chamberlains are not kind to me, and I feel the crushing hand of fate on my head! [Goes out hastily, feeling it.

Mrs. Soerby (archly).  Any Nobleman here say “Cold Punch”?

    [Every Nobleman says “Cold Punch,” and follows her out in
    search of it with enthusiasm.  GREGERS approaches his father,
    who wishes he would go.

Gregers.  Father, a word with you in private.  I loathe you.  I am nothing if not candid.  Old EKDAL was your partner once, and it’s my firm belief you deserved a prison quite as much as he did.  However, you surely need not have married our GINA to my old friend HIALMAR.  You know very well she was no better than she should have been!

Old Werle.  True—­but then no more is Mrs. SOeRBY.  And I am going to marry her—­if you have no objection, that is.

Gregers.  None in the world!  How can I object to a stepmother who is playing Blind Man’s Buff at the present moment with the Norwegian nobility?  I am not so overstrained as all that.  But really I can_not_ allow my old friend HIALMAR, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, to remain in contented ignorance of GINA’s past.  No, I see my mission in life at last!  I shall take my hat, and inform him that his home is built upon a lie.  He will be so much obliged to me! [Takes his hat, and goes out.

Old Werle.  Ha!—­I am a wealthy merchant, of dubious morals, and I am about to marry my housekeeper, who is on intimate terms with the Norwegian aristocracy.  I have a son who loathes me, and who is either an Ibsenian satire on the Master’s own ideals, or else an utterly impossible prig—­I don’t know or care which.  Altogether, I flatter myself my household affords an accurate and realistic picture of Scandinavian Society!

ACT II.

HIALMAR EKDAL’s Photographic Studio.  Cameras, neck-rests, and other instruments of torture lying about.  GINA EKDAL and HEDWIG, her daughter, aged 14, and wearing spectacles, discovered sitting up for HIALMAR.

Hedvig.  Grandpapa is in his room with a bottle of brandy and a jug of hot water, doing some fresh copying work.  Father is in society, dining out.  He promised he would bring me home something nice!