And she welcomes marriage with the good Doctor Schou in an attitude unpleasantly reactionary:
"... I believe every woman who has reached a certain age--and you know I am twenty-eight--will, without hesitation, prefer a limited but secure existence by the side of an honest man to the most unlimited personal freedom."
And worst of all, she, who throughout the play declares herself unconvinced of guilt or stain, at the close of the first act becomes quite mawkishly sentimental over Heine's pretty line, "May God forever keep you so fair, and sweet, and pure."
Because Karen exhibits these painful inconsistencies, she is no less possible or real or worthwhile. We who know many women emerging in diverse odd shapes from the travail of awakening have discovered just as inconsistent a combination of precipitation and reaction; and thus will it ever be until we have at length worked out our way to the most serviceable harmony. It is for this very reason that Karen is interesting: she is no superwoman, but our own imperfect sister.
Of the other characters there is but one deserving special comment--Karen's mother, who to me is the most remarkable person Bergström has here created. She confesses to her husband that she has known for three years that Karen had been living in Paris with Strandgaard, but had kept the knowledge to herself because it had been too late to interfere, and because she did not regard the calamity as others would have in her place. From a terrible and bitter experience with another daughter, Gertrude, who had gone insane through the abrupt breaking off of a long engagement which had aroused primitive passion and left it unfulfilled, Mrs. Borneman had reached a revolutionary conclusion:
"... from that day I have--after a careful consideration--done what I could to let our children live the life of youth, sexually and otherwise, in as much freedom as possible. The result of your educational method, my dear Kristen, is our poor Gertrude, who is now confined in an insane asylum, as incurable. The result of my method is Karen, I suppose. I don't know if it is very sinful to say so, but I feel much less burdened by guilt than I should if conditions were reversed."