The first act opens with a conversation between the civil engineers Kampe and Ravn, and the former's son Hans, who has just returned from a prolonged sojourn abroad. The keynote is struck in the sarcastic remark of Ravn, that in a small society only small truths can be tolerated--of the kind that takes twenty to the inch; but great truths are apt to be explosive and should therefore be avoided, for they might burst the whole society. This is _a propos_ of a book which Hans Kampe has written, exposing the wastefulness and antiquated condition of the so-called "new system" of railway management introduced, or supposed to have been introduced, by Kampe's and Ravn's brother-in-law, the supervisor-general Riis. The way for Hans to make a career, declares the worldly wise Ravn, is not to oppose the source of promotion and power, but to be silent and marry the supervisor-general's daughter. Ravn has learned this lesson by bitter experience, and hopes that his nephew will profit by it. All talk about duty to the state and society he pretends to regard as pure moonshine, and he professes not to see the connection between the elder Kampe's drunkenness and the artificial bottling up to which he has been subjected, the curbing and jailing of Titanic powers which once sought outlet in significant action. The same mighty force which in its repression drives the men to the brandy-bottle makes the women intoxicate themselves with fictitious narratives of high courage, daring rescues, and all kinds of melodramatic heroism. Extremely amusing is the scene in which Karen Riis (who loves Hans and is beloved by him) goes rowing with her friends Nora and Lisa, taking with her a stock of high-strung novels, and when a drowning man cries to them for help they row away posthaste, because the man is naked.