Dialogue following No. 3

ERLING. Then, Miss Nanna, you’ve heard of our good fortune?

NANNA. Indeed I have! I’m quite uncomfortable in the presence of such grandees!

THORA. We’re so unaccustomed to aristocratic circles that really we hardly know how we ought to address you!

TORTENSSEN. Oh, we haven’t been ennobled yet.

THORA. Haven’t you really? Come, that makes conversation easier. Still, a Personal Physician to the King —

NANNA. And a Sculptor Extraordinary to the Royal Family —

THORA. And we’re only the daughters of an obscure provincial Governor! Oh, really I think we’d better go. It’s so much wiser to keep to one’s own rank in life!

ERLING. Miss Nanna, pray be reassured; we have no desire to presume on our promotion. Indeed, you overrate our importance.

THORA. It seems impossible. I really think we’d better go.

TORTENSSEN. No, don’t do that. Be quite unembarrassed — entirely at your ease, and try to imagine that we are nobody in particular.

THORA. Oh, but that demands a tremendous effort of the imagination. Still, I’ll try. (Tries.)

TORTENSSEN. Have you got it?

THORA. Not yet, but I won’t be beaten. I’ll try again. (Tries again.)

NANNA (trying). Oh, I shall never do it! Did you say nobody in particular?

ERLING. Just a couple of mere everyday, commonplace professional men.

NANNA. Well, it can’t be done — that’s all! It’s ridiculous to expect it.

ERLING (aside). Now’s my time, I think! (Aloud.) Miss Nanna, as you know, we have both loved you and your sister — and we’ve often told you so, and you snubbed us, and we deserved it. But now that we are well off, and Court personages, and going to be ennobled, we venture to — to —

NANNA. Not to offer us your hands. No — don’t say that — don’t turn our heads and give us ideas above our station!

THORA. Oh! (crying out). Oh, I’ve got an idea above my station! Oh, it’s all the way up there, ever so high! (Pointing up.)

THE OTHERS (looking up). Where? Where?

THORA. Bal-loon! Ha! ha! ha!

ERLING. I do believe you are laughing at us!

THORA (to NANNA). Oh, aren’t the nobility shrewd?

NANNA. And isn’t the aristocracy quick at grasping a situation?

THORA. But come, we’ll be serious. Are you really in earnest when you make us this intoxicating offer?

TORTENSSEN. Absolutely.

ERLING. More serious than we ever were in our lives.

NANNA. Very good, that’s business, and I’ll tell you what we’ll do.