The Best Intentions by Ingmar Bergman Page A

trumpet?
    Beda: Supposing this is about money again. Do we have to be so impossible?
    Blenda: Certainly, Beda dearest. Times are hard, and people have to learn to live according to their means.
    Beda: They don’t appear to be living off the fat of the land.
    Blenda: Alma’s never been able to manage money. Do you remember when we sent her fifty kronor when Henrik’s father passed away? Do you know what Alma bought? A pair of very elegant shoes to go with her mourning clothes. She told me herself! Is that a way to be economical? I’m only asking.
    Ebba: They’re on their way back from the bathing hut now. Heavens, what a lovely way he looks at his mother. What a nice boy he is.
    The living room and dining room meet at an angle to the big window facing the sunset. Everything here is light: airy summer curtains, white handmade furniture à la Carl Larsson, yellow wallpaper, large basket chairs, a piano, a lime-green sideboard, brightly colored rag rugs on the wide, well-scrubbed floorboards. Modern art of a kind on the walls — women as flowers and flowers as women, comely young girls in white, vaguely gazing into a delightful future.
    The sisters march in in single file: Ebba, Beda, and Blenda. Alma and Henrik are already in place, the mother in a much too tight purple silk dress, tortured by her tightly laced corset, Henrik in a neat but shiny suit and stiff collar and necktie. Blenda at once says dinner is served, and when they have taken their places, she presses a concealedelectric bell. Immediately, two young serving girls appear with a steaming tureen and warm plates. Nettle soup with egg-halves.
    After dinner, they have coffee on the veranda. Alma and Henrik are put on the rattan sofa; Blenda takes the rocking chair, strategically placed outside the horizontal sunlight. Beda has sat down on the steps to the terrace. She is smoking a cigarette in an elegant holder. Ebba is sitting with her back to the view with her ear trumpet at the ready.
    So the time has come. Alma is wheezing slightly, whether from the tension or the good food and excellent wine is hard to say. Henrik is pale and keeps tying his fingers into knots.
    Blenda: We assume that Alma and Henrik have not come this long way out of family affection. I seem to remember it is three years since we last saw you. The reason for your journey at the time was the loan that would cover the costs of Henrik’s studies.
    Blenda rocks cautiously in her chair and gazes at Alma with cool benevolence. Beda closes her eyes and allows herself to be exposed to the last rays of the sun. Ebba has her ear trumpet at the ready and is sucking at her false teeth.
    Alma: The money’s come to an end. It’s as simple as that.
    Blenda: Oh, so the money’s gone. It was supposed to last for four years, and not even three have gone by.
    Alma: Everything’s got more expensive.
    Blenda: You decided on the size of the loan yourself, Alma. I don’t remember haggling.
    Alma: No, no, Blenda, you were very generous.
    Blenda: And now the money’s all gone?
    Alma: I reckoned on Henrik’s grandfather helping us, because after all, Henrik was to keep up the family tradition and become a priest.
    Blenda: But Henrik’s grandfather didn’t help?
    Alma: No. We begged for a whole day. We got nothing but twelve kronor for our railway tickets. So that we could get back to Söderhamn. Plus a pittance of a monthly allowance.
    Blenda: That was generous.
    Alma: Times are hard, Blenda. I have piano pupils, but that doesn’ t bring in much, and some of them have stopped taking lessons.
    Blenda: And now you want another loan, Alma?
    Alma: Henrik and I have thoroughly discussed whether he should interrupt his studies and apply for a job with the Telegraph Office in Söderhamn. That was our only way out. But then something happened.
    Ebba: What?
    Alma: Then something happened.
    Beda: That sounds plausible!
    Alma: Something pleasant.
    Ebba: What is