A Doll's House. A Play by Henrik Ibsen. Act 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act 3. The same scene. The table has been placed in the middle of the stage with chairs around it. A lamp is burning on the table. The door into the hall stands open. Dance music is heard in the room above. Mrs. Lind is sitting at the table idly turning over the leaves of a book. She tries to read, but does not seem to be able to collect her thoughts. Every now and then she listens intently for a sound at the outer door, looking at her watch. Not yet. And the time is nearly up. If only he does not- Listen again. Ah, there he is. Goes into the hall and opens the outer door carefully. Light footsteps are heard on the stairs. She whispers. Come in. There is no one here. In the doorway. I found a note from you at home. What does this mean? It is absolutely necessary that I should have a talk with you. Really? And is it absolutely necessary that it should be here? It is impossible where I live. There is no private entrance to my rooms. Come in, we are quite alone. The maid is asleep and the Helmers are at the dance upstairs. Coming into the room. Are the Helmers really at a dance tonight? Yes, why not? Certainly. Why not? Now Niels, let us have a talk. Can we too have anything to talk about? We have a great deal to talk about. I shouldn't have thought so. You never properly understood me. Was there anything else to understand except what was obvious to all the world? A heartless woman jilts a man when a more lucrative chance turns up. Do you believe I am as absolutely heartless as that? And do you believe that I did it with a light heart? Didn't you? Niels, do you really think that? If it were as you say, why did you write to me as you did that time? I could do nothing else. As I had to break with you, it was my duty also to put an end to all that you felt for me. Ringing his hands. So that was it. And all this, only for the sake of money.  We couldn't wait for you, Niels. Your prospect seemed hopeless then. That may be so, but you had no right to throw me over for someone else's sake. Indeed, I don't know. Many a time I did ask myself if I had a right to do it. More gently. When I lost you, it was as if all the solid ground went from under my feet. Look at me now. I am a shipwrecked man clinging to a bit of wreckage. That help may be near. It was near, but you came and stood in my way. Unintentionally, Niels. It was only today that I learned it was your place I was going to take in the bank. I believe you, if you say so. But now that you know it, are you not going to give it up to me? No, because that would not benefit you in the least. Oh, benefit, benefit. I would have done it whether or no. I have learned to act prudently. Life and hard bitter necessity have taught me that. And life has taught me not to believe in fine speeches. Then life has taught you something very reasonable. The deeds you must believe in. What do you mean by that? You said you were like a shipwrecked man clinging to some wreckage. I had good reason to say so. Well, I am like a shipwrecked woman clinging to some wreckage. No one to mourn for, no one to care for. It was your own choice. There was no other choice then. Well, what now? Niels, how would it be if we two shipwrecked people could join forces? What are you saying? Two on the same piece of wreckage would stand a better chance than each on their own. Christine, I— What do you suppose brought me to town? Do you mean that you gave me a thought? I could not endure life without work. All my life as long as I can remember I have worked, and it has been my greatest and only pleasure. But now I am quite alone in the world. My life is so dreadfully empty and I feel so forsaken. There is not the least pleasure in working for oneself. Niels, give me someone and something to work for. I don't trust that.  Have you ever noticed anything of the sort in me? Could you really do it? Tell me, do you know all about my past life? Yes. And do you know what they think of me here? You seem to imply that with me you might have been quite another man. I am certain of it. Is it too late now? Christine, are you saying this deliberately? Yes. I am sure that you are. I see it in your face. Have you really the courage, then?  We too need each other. Niels, I have faith in your real character. I can dare anything together with you. Grasps her hands. Thanks. Thanks, Christine. Now I shall find a way to clear myself in the eyes of the world. Ah, but I forgot... Listening. Hush. The Tarantella. Go, go. Why? What is it? Do you hear them up there? When that is over, we may expect them back. Yes, yes, I will go. But it is all of no use. Of course you are not aware what steps I have taken in the matter of the Helmers. Yes, I know all about that. And in spite of that, you have the courage to... I understand very well to what lengths a man like you might be driven by despair. If only I could undo what I have done. You cannot. Your letter is lying in the letterbox now. Are you sure of that? Quite sure, but... With a searching, look at her. Is that what it all means? That you want to save your friend at any cost? Tell me frankly, is that it? Niels, a woman who has once sold herself for another's sake doesn't do it a second time. I will ask for my letter back. No, no. Yes, of course I will. I will wait here until Helmer comes. I will tell him he must give me my letter back. That it concerns only my dismissal and that he is not to read it. No Niels, you must not recall your letter. But... Tell me, wasn't it for that very purpose that you asked to meet me here? In my first moment of fright it was. But twenty-four hours have elapsed since then and in that time I have witnessed incredible things in this house. Helmer must know all about it. This unhappy secret must be disclosed. They must have a complete understanding between them which is impossible with all this concealment and falsehood going on. Very well, if you will take the responsibility. But there is one thing I can do in any case and I shall do it at once. Listening. You must be quick and go. The dance is over. We are not safe a moment longer. I will wait for you below. Yes, do. You must see me back to my door.  Goes out through the outer door. The door between the room and the hall remains open. Tidying up the room and laying her hat on cloak ready. What a difference. What a difference. Someone to work for and live for. A home to bring comfort into. That I will do indeed. I wish they would be quick and come. Listen. Ah, there they are now. I must put on my things. Takes up her hat and cloak. Helmers and Nora's voices are heard outside. A key is turned and Helmer brings Nora almost by force into the hall. She is in an Italian costume with a large black shawl around her. He is an evening dress and a black domino which is flying open. Hanging back in the doorway and struggling with him. No, no, no, don't take me in. I want to go upstairs again. I don't want to leave so early. But my dearest Nora. Please, Torvaldir, please, please, only an hour more. Not a single minute, my sweet Nora. You know that was our agreement. Come along into the room. You are catching cold standing here. He brings her gently into the room in spite of her resistance. Good evening. Christine. You're here so late, Mrs. Lind. Yes, you must excuse me. I was so anxious to see Nora in her dress. Have you been sitting here waiting for me? Yes, unfortunately I came too late. You had already gone upstairs. And I thought I couldn't go away again without having seen you. Taking off Nora's shawl. Yes, take a good look at her. I think she is worth looking at. Isn't she charming, Mrs. Lind? Yes, indeed she is. Doesn't she look remarkably pretty? Everyone thought so at the dance.  What are we to do with her? You will hardly believe that I almost had to bring her away by force. Torvaldir, you will repent not having let me stay, even if it were only for half an hour. Listen to her, Mrs. Lind. She had danced her tarantella, and it had been a tremendous success as it deserved, although possibly the performance was a trifle too realistic.  But never mind about that. The chief thing is she made a success. She made a tremendous success. Do you think I was going to let her remain there after that and spoil the effect? No, indeed. I took my charming little Capri maiden, my capricious little Capri maiden, I should say, on my arm, took one quick turn round the room, a curtsy on either side, and as they say in novels, the beautiful apparition disappeared. An exit ought always to be effective, Mrs. Lind, but that is what I cannot make Nora understand. Pfft, this room is hot. Throws his domino in a chair and opens the door of his room. Hello, it's all dark in here. Oh, of course. Excuse me. He goes in and lights some candles in a hurried and breathless whisper. Well, in a low voice. I have had a talk with him. Yes, and? Nora, you must tell your husband all about it. In an expressionless voice. I knew it. You have nothing to be afraid of as far as Krolgstad is concerned, but you must tell him. I won't tell him. Then the letter will. Thank you, Christine. Now I know what I must do. Hush! Coming in again. Well, Mrs. Lind, have you admired her? Yes, and now I will say good night. What already? Is this yours, this knitting? Taking it. Yes, thank you, I had very nearly forgotten it. So you knit? Of course. Do you know you ought to embroider? Really? Why? Yes, it's far more becoming. Let me show you. You hold the embroidery thus in your left hand and use the needle with the right, like this, with a long easy sweep. Do you see? Yes, perhaps. But in the case of knitting, that can never be anything but ungraceful. Look here, the arms are close together, the knitting needles going up and down. It has a sort of Chinese effect. That was really excellent champagne they gave us. Well, good night, Nora, and don't be self-willed anymore. That's right, Mrs. Lind. Good night, Mr. Helmer. Accompanying her to the door. Good night, good night. I hope you'll get home all right. I should be very happy to, but you haven't any great distance to go. Good night, good night. She goes out. He shuts the door after her and comes in again. Ah, at last we've got rid of her.  Aren't you very tired, Torvald? No, not in the least. Nor sleepy? Not a bit. On the contrary, I feel extraordinary lively. And you? You really look both tired and sleepy. Yes, I am very tired. I want to go to sleep at once. There, you see, it was quite right of me not to let you stay there any longer. Everything you do is quite right, Torvald. Kissing her on the forehead. Now my little Skylark is speaking reasonably. Did you notice what good spirit's rank was in this evening? Really? Was he? I didn't speak to him at all. And I very little, but I have not for a long time seen him in such good form. Looks for a while at her and then goes nearer to her.  Don't look at me like that, Torvald. Why shouldn't I look at my dearest treasure? All that beauty that is mine, all my very own. Going to the other side of the table.  Following her. You still have got the Tarantella in your blood, I see. And it makes you more captivating than ever. Listen, the guests are beginning to go now. In a lower voice. Nora, soon the whole house will be quiet. Yes, I hope so. Yes, my own darling Nora.  Do you know why I do that? It is because I make-believed myself that we are secretly in love, that you are my secretly promised bride and that no one suspects there is anything between us. Yes. Yes, I know very well your thoughts are with me all the time. And when we are leaving and I put the shawl over your beautiful young shoulders and your lovely neck, then I imagine that you are my young bride and that we have just come from the wedding. And I am bringing you for the first time into our home to be alone with you for the first time, quite alone with my shy little darling. All this evening I have longed for nothing but you. When I have watched the seductive figures of the Tarantella, my blood was on fire. I could endure it no longer and that was why I brought you down so early. Go away, Torvald. You must let me go. I won't. What's that?  You won't? You won't? Am I not your husband? A knock has heard at the outer door. Starting. Did you hear? Going into the hall. Who is it? Outside. It is I. May I come in for a moment? In a fretful whisper. Oh, what does he want now? A loud. Wait a minute. Unlocks the door. Come, that's kind of you not to pass by our door. I thought I heard your voice and felt as if I should like to look in. With a swift glance round. Ah, yes, these dear familiar rooms. You're very happy and cozy in here, you two. It seems to me that you looked after yourself pretty well upstairs, too. Excellent, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't one enjoy everything in this world? At any rate as much as one can and as long as one can. The wine was capital. Especially the champagne. So you notice that, too? It is almost incredible how much I managed to put away. Torvald drank a great deal of champagne tonight, too. Did he? Yes, and he is always in such good spirits afterwards. Well, why should one not enjoy a merry evening after a well-spent day? Well-spent? I'm afraid I can't take any credit for that. Clapping him on the back. But I can, you know. Dr. Rank, you must have been occupied with some scientific investigation today. Exactly. Just listen. Little Nora talking about scientific investigations. And may I congratulate you on the result? Indeed you may. Was it favourable then? The best possible for both doctor and patient. Certainty. Quickly and searchingly. Certainty? Absolute certainty. So wasn't I entitled to make a merry evening of it after that? Yes. You certainly were, Dr. Rank. I think so, too. So long as you don't have to pay for it in the morning. Oh, well, one can't have anything in this life without paying for it. Dr. Rank, are you fond of fancy dress balls? Yes, if there is a fine lot of pretty costumes. Tell me, what shall we two wear at the next? Little featherbrain, are you thinking of the next already? We two? Yes, I can tell you. You shall go as a good fairy. Yes, but what do you suggest as an appropriate costume for that?  That was really very prettily turned. But can't you tell us what you will be? Yes, my dear friend, I have quite made up my mind about that. Well? At the next fancy dress, I shall be invisible. That's a good joke. There's a big black hat. Have you never heard of hats that make you invisible? If you put one on, no one can see you. Suppressing smile. Yes, you were quite right. But I am clean forgetting what I came for. Helma, give me a cigar, one of the Dark Havana's. With the greatest of pleasure. Offers him his case. Takes a cigar and cuts off the end. Thanks. Let me give you a light. Striking a match. Thank you. She holds the match for him to light his cigar. And now, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, dear man. Sleep well, Dr. Rank. Thank you for that wish. You? Well, if you want me to sleep well. And thanks for the light. He nods to them both and goes out. In a subdued voice. He has drunk more than he ought. Absently. Maybe. Helma takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket and goes into the hall. Torvald, what are you going to do there? Emptying the letterbox. It is quite full. There'll be no room for the newspaper in tomorrow morning. Are you going to work tonight? You know quite well I am not. What is this? Someone has been at the lock. At the lock? Yes, someone has. What can it mean? I should never have thought them made. Here is a broken hairpin. Nora, it's one of yours. Quickly. Then it must have been the children. Then you must get them out of those ways. There, at last I've got it open. He takes out the contents of the letterbox and calls to the kitchen. Helen, Helen, put out the light over the front door. Goes back into the room and shuts the door in the hall. He holds at his hands full of letters. Look at that.  Turning them over. What on earth is that? At the window. The letter. No. Torvald, no. Two carts of ranks. Of Dr. Ranks. Booking at them. Dr. Rank, they were on top. He must have put them in as he went out. Is there anything written on them? There is a black cross over the name. Look there, what an uncomfortable idea. It looks as if you are announcing his own death. It is just what he is doing. What? Do you know anything about it? Has he said anything to you? Yes. He told me that when the cards came it would be his leave taking from us.  My poor old friend. Certainly I knew we should not have him very long with us. But so soon. And so he hides himself away like a wounded animal. If it has to happen it is best it should be without a word. Don't you think so, Torvald? Walking up and down. He had so grown into our lives. I can't think of him as having gone out of them. He with his sufferings and his loneliness was like a cloudy background to our sunlit happiness. Well perhaps it is best so, for him anyway. Standing still. And perhaps for us too Nora. We too are thrown quite upon each other now. Puts his arms around her. My darling wife. I don't feel as if I could hold you tight enough. Do you know Nora? I have often wished that you might be threatened with some great danger so that I might risk my own life's blood and everything for your sake. Disengages herself and says firmly and decidedly. Now you must read your letters, Torvald. No, no, not tonight.  With the thought of your friend's death. You are right. It has affected us both.  The thought of the horrors of death. We must try to rid our minds of that. Until then we will each go to our own room. Hanging on his neck. Good night, Torvald. Good night. Kissing her on the forehead. Good night, my little singing bird. Sleep sound, Nora. Now I will read the letters through. He takes his letters and goes into his room shutting the door after him. Gropes distractedly about. Seizes Helmer's domino, throws it round her, while she says in quick, hoarse, phasmodic whispers. Never to see him again. Never. Never. Puts her shawl over her head. Never to see my children again, either. Never again. Never. Never. Ah, the icy black water. The unfathomable depths. If only it were over. He has got it now. Now he is reading it. Goodbye, Torvald, and my children. She's about to rush out through the hall when Helmer opens his door hurriedly and stands with an open letter in his hand. Nora. Ah. What is this? Do you know what is in this letter? Yes, I know. Let me go. Let me get out. Holding her back. Where are you going? Trying to get free. You shan't save me, Torvald. Reeling. True? True? Is this true that I read here? Horrible. No, no. It is impossible that it can be true. It is true. I have loved you above everything else in the world. Oh, don't let us have silly excuses. Taking a step towards him. Torvald. Miserable creature, what have you done? Let me go. You shall not suffer for my sake. You shall not take it upon yourself. No tragic heirs, please. Locks the hall door. Here you shall stay and give me an explanation. Do you understand what you have done? Answer me. Do you understand what you have done? Looks steadily at him and says with a growing look of coldness in her face. Yes. Now I am beginning to understand thoroughly. Walking about the room.  All these eight years she was my pride and joy.  The unutterably ugliness of it all. Shame, shame. Nora is silent and looks steadily at him.  I ought to have suspected that something of this sort would happen. I ought to have foreseen it. All your father's want of principle. Be silent. All your father's want of principle has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty. How I am punished for having winked at what he did. I did it for your sake and this is how you repay me. Yes, that's just it. Now you have destroyed my happiness. You have ruined my future. It is horrible to think of. I am in the power of an unscrupulous man. He can do what he likes with me. Ask anything he likes of me. Give me orders he pleases. I dare not refuse and I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman. When I am out of the way you will be free. No fine speeches please. Your father had always plenty of those ready too. What good would it be to me if you were out of the way, as you say? Not the slightest. He can make the affair known everywhere and if he does I may be falsely suspected of having been party to your criminal action. Very likely people will think I was behind it all. That it was I who prompted you. And I have to thank you for this. You whom I have cherished during the whole of our married life. Do you understand now what it is you have done to me? Coldly and quietly. Yes. It is so incredible I can't take it in. But we must come to some understanding. Take off that shawl.  I must try and appease him some way or another. The matter must be hushed up at any cost.  But naturally only in the eyes of the world. You will still remain in my house. That is a matter of course. But I shall not allow you to bring up the children. I dare not trust them to you. To think I should be obliged to say so to one whom I have loved so dearly and whom I still... No. That is all over. From this moment happiness is not to the question. All that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance. A ring is heard at the front door bell. With a start. What is that? So late. Can the worst? Can he? Hide yourself Nora. Say you are ill. Nora stands motionless. Helmer goes and unlocks the door. Half dressed comes to the door. A letter for the mistress. Give it to me. He takes the letter and shuts the door. Yes, it is from him. You shall not have it. I will read it myself. Yes, read it. Standing by the lamp. I scarcely have the courage to do it. It may mean ruin for both of us. No, I must know. Tears open the letter, runs his eye over a few lines, looks at a paper enclosed and gives a shout of joy. Nora. She looks at him questioningly. Nora, no. I must read it once again. Yes, it is true. I'm saved. Nora, I'm saved. And I? You two, of course, we are both saved.  He says he regrets and repents. There's a happy change in his life. Never mind what he says. We are saved, Nora. No one can do anything to you. Oh, Nora, Nora. No, first I must destroy these hateful things. Let me see. Takes a look at the bond. No, no. I won't look at it. The whole thing shall be nothing but a bad dream to me. Tears up the bond in both letters, throws them all into the stove and watches them burn. There. Now. It doesn't exist any longer. He says that since Christmas Eve, you... These must have been three dreadful days for you, Nora. I have fought a hard fight these three days. And suffered agonies, and seen no way out? No. We won't call any of the horrors to mind. We will only shout with joy and keep saying, It's all over. It's all over. Listen to me, Nora. You don't seem to realise it's all over. What is this? Such a cold, set face?  You don't feel as if you could believe that I've forgiven you. But it is true, Nora. I swear it. I have forgiven everything. I know what you did. You did out of love for me. That is true. You have loved me as a wife or to love her husband. Only you had not sufficient knowledge to judge of the means you used. But do you suppose you're any less dear to me because you don't understand how to act on your own responsibility? No, no. Only lean on me. I will advise and direct you. I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness did not give you a double attractiveness in my eyes. You must not think any more about the hard things I have said in my first moment of consternation when I thought everything was going to overwhelm us. I have forgiven you, Nora.  Thank you for your forgiveness. She goes out through the door to the right. No, don't go. Looks in. What are you doing in there? From within. Taking off my fancy dress. Standing at the open door. Yes, do. Try and calm yourself.  Be at rest and feel secure. I have broad wings to shelter you under. Walks up and down by the door. How warm and cosy our home is, Nora. Here is shelter for you. Here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk's claws.  I will come little by little, Nora, believe me.  So everything will be just as it was before. Very soon you won't need me to assure you that I have forgiven you. You will feel the certainty that I have done so. Can you suppose I should ever think of such a thing as repudiating you or even reproaching you. You have no idea what a true man's heart is like, Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying to a man in the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife, forgiven her freely, with all his heart. It seems as if that has made her, as it were, doubly his own. He has given her a new life, so to speak, and she has in a way become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me after this my scared, helpless darling. Have no anxiety about it, Nora. Only be frank and open with me, and I will serve as will and conscious both to you. What is this? Not gone to bed? Have you changed your things? In everyday dress. Yes, Torvald. I have changed my things now. But what for? So late as this. I shall not sleep tonight. But my dear Nora. Looking at her watch. Not so very late. Sit down here, Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another. She sits down at one side of the table. Nora, what is this? This cold, set face? Sit down. It will take some time. I have a lot to talk over with you. Sit down at the opposite side of the table. You alarm me, Nora. And I don't understand you. No. That is just it. You don't understand me. And I have never understood you either, before tonight. No, you mustn't interrupt me. You must simply listen to what I say. Torvald, this is a settling of accounts. What do you mean by that? After a short silence. Isn't there one thing that strikes you as strange in our sitting here like this? What is it? We have been married now eight years. It did not occur to you that this is the first time we too, you and I, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation. What do you mean by serious? In all these eight years, longer than that, from the very beginning of our acquaintance, we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject. Was it likely I would be continually and forever telling you about worries that you could not help me fare? I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything. But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you? That is just it. You have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald, first by papa and then by you. What? By us two? By us two? Who have loved you better than anyone else in the world? You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. Nora, what do I hear you saying? It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions, and if I differed from him, I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls, and when I came to live with you— What sort of expression is that to use about our malage? Undisturbed. I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as yours, or else I pretended to. I'm really not quite sure which. I think sometimes the one, and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I have been living here like a poor woman, just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me.  How unreasonable and ungrateful you are, Nora. Have you not been happy here? No. I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so. Not? Not happy? No. Only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child, and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald. There is some truth in what you say. Exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and lesson time shall begin. Whose lessons? Mine or the children's?  Alas, Torvald. You are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you. And you can say that? And I. How am I fitted to bring up the children? Nora. Didn't you say so yourself a little while ago, that you dare not trust me to bring them up? In a moment of anger, why do you pay any heed to that? Indeed. You were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself. You are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now. Springing up. What do you say? I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer. Nora. Nora. I am going away from here now, at once. I am sure Christine will take me in for the night.  I won't allow it. I forbid you. It is no use forbidding me anything any longer. I will take with me what belongs to myself. I will take nothing from you, either now or later. What sort of madness is this? Tomorrow I shall go home. I mean to my old home. It will be easiest for me to find something to do there.  I must try and get some sense, Torvald. To desert your home, your husband and children, and you don't consider what people will say? I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary for me. It's shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties. What do you consider my most sacred duties? Do I need to tell you that?  I have other duties just as sacred. That you have not. What duties could those be? Duties to myself.  I don't believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are, or at all events that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books. But I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them. Can you not understand your place is in the home? Have you not a reliable guide as in such matters as that? Have you no religion? I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is. What are you saying? I know nothing but what the clergyman said when I went to be confirmed. He told us that religion was this and that and the other. When I am away from all this, and I am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me. This is unheard of in a girl of your age. But if religion cannot lead you a right, let me try and awaken your conscience. I suppose you have some moral sense? Or answer me. Am I to think you have none? I assure you, Torvald, that is not an easy question to answer. I really don't know. The thing perplexes me altogether. I only know that you and I look at it in quite a different light. I am learning too that the law is quite another thing from what I supposed, but I find it impossible to convince myself that the law is right. According to it a woman has no right to spare her old dying father or to save her husband's life. I can't believe that.  You don't understand the conditions of the world in which you live. No, I don't. But now I am going to try. I am going to see if I can make out who is right, the world or I. You are ill, Nora. You are delirious. I almost think you are out of your mind. I have never felt my mind so clear and certain as tonight.  Yes, it is. Then there is only one possible explanation. What is that? You do not love me any more. No, that is just it. Nora, and you can say that? It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been so kind to me. But I cannot help it. I do not love you any more. Regaining his composure. Is that a clear and certain conviction too? Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I will not stay here any longer. And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love? Yes, indeed I can. It was tonight when the wonderful thing did not happen. Then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were. Explain yourself better. I don't understand you. I have waited so patiently for eight years. For goodness knows I knew very well that wonderful things don't happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me, and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad's letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept this man's conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would say to him, publish the thing to the whole world, and when that was done— Yes, what then, when I had exposed my wife to shame and disgrace?  Nora! You mean that I would never have accepted such a sacrifice on your part? No, of course not. But what would my assurances have been worth against yours? That was the wonderful thing which I hoped for and feared, and it was to prevent that, that I wanted to kill myself. I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora, bear sorrow and want for your sake, but no man will sacrifice his honour for the one he loves. It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done. Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child. Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over, and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you, when the whole thing was passed, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened, exactly as before. I was your little skylock, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald, it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man and had borne him three children. Oh, I can't bear to think of it. I could tear myself into little bits. Sadly. I see. I see. And a bit has opened between us. There is no denying it. But Nora, would it not be possible to fill it up? As I am now, I am no wife for you. I have it in me to become a different man. Perhaps, if your doll is taken away from you. But to part. To part from you? No, no, Nora, I can't understand that idea. Going out to the right. That makes it all the more certain that it must be done.  Nora, Nora, not now. Wait until tomorrow. Putting on her cloak. I cannot spend the night in a strange man's room. But can't we live like brother and sister? Putting on her hat. You know very well that would not last long. Puts the shawl round her. Goodbye, Torvald. I won't see the little ones. I know they are in better hands than mine. As I am now, I can be of no use to them.  How can I tell? I have no idea what is going to become of me. But you are my wife, whatever becomes of you. Listen, Torvald. I have heard that when a wife deserts her husband's house, as I am doing now, he is legally freed from all obligations towards her. In any case, I set you free from all your obligations. You are not to feel yourself bound in the slightest way any more than I shall. There must be perfect freedom on both sides. See, here is your ring back. Give me mine. That too? That too. Here it is. That's right. Now it is all over. I have put the keys here. The maids know all about everything in the house, and better than I do. I know, after I have left her, Christine will come here and pack up my own things that I brought with me from home. I will have them sent after me. All over. All over. Nora, shall you never think of me again? I know I shall often think of you, the children, and this house. May I write to you, Nora? No, never. You must not do that. Let me send you. Nothing. Nothing. Let me help you if you're in want. No. I can receive nothing from a stranger. Nora, can I never be anything more than a stranger to you? Taking her bag. Ah, Torvald. The most wonderful thing of all would have to happen. Tell me what that would be. Both you and I would have to be so changed that... Oh, Torvald, I don't believe any longer in wonderful things happening. But I believe in it. Tell me. So change that? That our life together would be a real wedlock. Goodbye. She goes out through the hall, sinks down on a chair at the door, and buries his face in his hands. Nora. Nora. Looks round and rises. Empty. She's gone. A hope flashes across his mind. The most wonderful thing of all. The sound of a door shutting is heard from below. End of Act 3. End of A Doll's House.


Hi everyone, my name is Sveta Smirnova and I work as MySchool support engineer for more than 12 years. I started in MySchool AB and then this company was acquired and currently I work for Percona. And I'm here to answer your questions and let's see what I have now. First, this question is in your talk, you show it dozens of options which improve MySchool performance. Does this mean DBA position is dead and everyone can perfectly tune MySchool performance? Well, the answer is yes or no. Sorry, I don't see my... I'm sorry, I'm talking with our host Cassandra because for some reason I don't see myself. Anyway, let's back to the question. It's actually answer is yes or no and MySchool DBA position is certainly is not dead because MySchool is complicated software and you need to perfectly tune it, you need to understand how it works. But at the same time in my talk, I showed this options which could solve like kind of 80% of performance issues. And this is actually like the first thing which we in support try to check if our customers report performance issues. But this kind of 80% which could be solved by tuning these options, unfortunately that's not all options which can cause to MySchool slow down. And of course MySchool DBA position is still will be alive. Okay, so I see do not see more questions and do we have other questions? Another question is what are perspectives of the automatic database configuration? For example, configuration by made by the server itself without human intervention. MySchool word it's we have like for I think one sunset started in Percon in 2015 and on Percon Alive I saw many like irregularly I saw Percon Alive as yearly conferences about which my employer provides about databases. And on these conferences we regularly saw talk from various companies or even institutions, universities, who try to perform automatic MySchool configuration. Last year I also saw it's Oracle open world that's conference which Oracle company provides and also has MySchool part of it because Oracle now owns MySchool was product. They presented its own software working in cloud about which allows to configure MySchool automatically. So this is certainly it's growing market for it, but at the same time which methods which such solution use is like learning. So like they take life database or we try to that software tries to change options, tries to change options, it tries to measure how effective is it. And while test shows perfect results like having some benchmarks which run which run the first let's initially started us like default option started to run slow and then it starts to perform very fast. It's still it's not I think it's not something which you want to see on production like for example if you are having trouble, you are having trouble you want to resolve it quickly and this is why knowledge of experienced people come soon. But at the same time, certainly this approach works, and probably since some few iteration that we will have working solution when server can tune itself. At the same time, I can also say that MySchool supports for years automatic configuration like for example in a DB storage engine can use its own algorithms to decide when to flush, flush pages from the buffer pool when it decides that server is idle and it can perform small background work and then server is active it tries to perform less background work. So that's that's happens with growing what's going on but this is not built it's I think it's something which which could be done better in future. Our question is, can you tell how you got involved with working in open source. Well, actually that's I started my it career as a web developer and as a developer I tried to use working working with open source products, just because I like it. And probably that's because that's how it started my it career in the beginning of this beginning of millennium of 2000 years and that's was most democratic options which available for most of my customers. And when I work it on open source projects I got them for free I got a source code I could modify it I could read like I'm having even if I didn't modify I found like it's working thought as I expected I could read the source. I could read use bug databases, and I could implement work around basic on the mic knowledge. And then I once said I started to working about like how can I return how you can return back. And sites like open source projects which is also PHP programming languages, my school and post address build databases. That's it's not that it's written in C and C++ and that's not like my expertise I tried to contribute to PHP documentation I tried to contribute to form to share knowledge and this way it's how I was involved. And my friend then asked me to join my school support team and I joined my school support team and started to work in open source professionally. Thank you. More questions on which platforms my school shows better performance. My school. It's, well, it's a hard question speaking about like how they'll I work it in like in my school and working out in Percona and supporting new platform even if it's Linux. It's a little bit challenging because like different versions of Linux have special like something special libraries like something something which can cannot work cannot cannot work perfectly like on other platforms. And it's like if you go to download page for my school and Percona service, you will see just like a limited number of platforms. And I would say this now platforms where performance teams on this companies they put their effort to to tune my school software software better. Speaking about which exactly platforms which is the best it's I would say go to Percona site because we support like Debian and Red Hat, like Debian Ubuntu and Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora, version of Linux and the test test my school on these platforms Oracle supports more platforms and MariaDB also supports more platforms. But I can say like for the most focus and most user base and most shops to use that's either Red Hat or Debian kind of Linux. For other flavors of Linux my school should work and should work perfectly but you may see some issues when you compile my school on these platforms. Thank you. Okay, now we have more questions or I'm done. Okay, thank you very much I will be around on the on the chat and if you have more questions, you can ask me feel free to ask me feel free to ping me at the end of my presentation I also put link to my Twitter account I also feel free to write me on Twitter and ask any questions you like. It's, I have one more question is what has been the best piece of advice you have ever received. Oh, that's tough questions it's hard to answer without preparing. I will it's actually I would say I would say maybe it's like not the best but it's speaking like about my school performance is the best piece of advice which I heard lately about my school performance is from Dimitris Kravchuk he is a performance architect at my school to rhetorical and he test all new versions of my school for better performance. He uses complicated and standard test sets and finds like when code was wrong, but still he says that's best benchmark is your production. And I believe that's it is actually that's what just I'm telling my customers all the time we hit the performance issue because like it's really deep. It's on the load. What's the consulter your greatest success in your career. Well, it's probably it's the fact which I joined my school support team and I'm still here and why success it's because will I sometimes to try to do something different because I get bored and it's the same time like just like maybe I will need just one hour. Some customer comes in and asks me questions, which I just cannot answer and I have to learn something new. So that's why it's really fun and challenging work. What do you love about working in open source.  It's actually I like the fact that we open source. It's few things. First like we are giving something which like we are doing our work better we are doing something good and giving that's a way for free. It's also I like that we can share knowledge we can learn anything like like we can we can take a source code we can read it we can read find understand why it doesn't work as as we expect or why does it like work so beautifully if you can find that's works perfect and it's again like it's I started my work in open source not as the open source like a developer or support engineer but as open source user and it was very convenient because like when you work with closed source and that's something that's works not as you expect you cannot do anything before open source you can just change it you can understand it you can submit a bug report you can contribute you have many many many options how to make it's software to work better for you. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to talk and open source summit and thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you.


My first impression of Stevenson is that the athletes are excited for change and the athletes are excited to get back on campus and learn more about training and the new coaching staff we have in place. The cross-country schedule was already put in place by the time they hired me, so I know we're we're opening up at Goucher right down the road a little shorter distance than our normal racing distance and then we go the rest of the meets are six k's for the women eight k's for the men and we'll race about once every two weeks we're gonna go up to the pre-national meet to get some really good competition have an opportunity to see the the national cross-country course that will be in November and then we will you know keep keep a lot of things similar as I kind of figure out who the team is obviously every every race will will build on the one before obviously our our goal is to run well at the conference meet and hopefully you know improve on our placing from last year. The team returns soon I'm excited to have them back on campus you know once they get on on campus we're just gonna kind of do a couple workouts to test their fitness see how they they trained over the summertime everything's new form with a change in in the coaching staff training's gonna be a little different the processes will be a little bit different the warm-up will be a little bit different so they're gonna learn a lot of new stuff big thing is we're getting in the weight room I know they haven't been in the weight room in the past so we're gonna get them in there but yeah the the preseason is just to test their fitness get the the team to to know each other to know me set some team goals and set some individual goals for for the team


ngs first. I feel like we're there, we're at the precipice of getting things done that are gonna lead toward an answer, not solve it, but just get toward that sort of increase in our supply. And that's sort of the first, I think low hanging fruit in a way because to do something that's sort of a inclusionary zoning for the whole town for every development, that would take so much juggling or figuring out that it would basically not provide any kind of change. And I feel like, yeah, that housing is something that really should be providing change to allow more of it in town. So I don't know what I'm, I don't think I'm offering any, just for putting it out there. That's just my two cents. Well, I think the whole supply-demand thing is, it's tricky because I think, developer will build a building and they have a cost that they wanna get out of it. And then you see like, people are willing to leave vacant, you know, this is more retail, but, you know, that perhaps, but it's complicated. And I'm not sure I understand it completely, but that's why I was asking about the housing policy, just addressing that. Does that work?  Tom, and then Jenna. Joe, let me see for a brief. I think Chris, your comment was right on in terms of what I was getting at, because my question is, if we wanna get to this place where we can have a significant impact on this problem that we see, and you're saying that there, obviously there's not enough staff to do this, or we need to focus staff to support these kinds of projects, or we need funding to do, my question is still about, okay, well, what do we need to do to make that happen? So what is the mechanism by which we get more bodies in your office to do this work and to support people and to bring stuff to us as possible solutions or opportunities to research this stuff? So I guess that's what I mean in terms of how do we, how does Amherst do this? What are the mechanisms in Amherst to make these things happen? And what do we have to do to promote that, to advocate for that, to make that change happen? So I guess that's what I keep coming back to is, I wanna figure out what those things are that you need and these other groups need to make sure that we're doing that work, as well as the zoning stuff that's gonna bring about new opportunities and address the supply demands. So I guess that's what I'm asking, and that's a longer term question, but that's how we get systemic change in the community by making those kinds of more large scale changes to those mechanisms. That's my thought. Thank you. Janet? So one quick thing, which is, I'm glad to hear that inclusionary zoning requirements are a light lift for the planning department. And so I would encourage us to pass a bylaw that covers any development with 10 or more units. You have to include affordable housing with the big A and that will produce, if it produces 10 or 20 a year, it's, you know, we don't bear the cost of that. And it's not gonna be a pressure on the planning department, but getting to the question of managing demand. So when you read the market study and the housing production plan, they don't see growth in the Valley. So a bunch of, I don't know if it's eight years ago or five or six years ago, the population was gonna stay flat. And Amherst does have housing pressure because people like to live here, but in that, they didn't see how many more students were gonna come to UMass. And UMass hasn't built housing for those students. And so I think, you know, we can forget, forget the horrible situation right now because of the pandemic. There's very little supply, the demand is up, prices are going up. But if, you know, like, I look at like the 4,000 students that UMass had in the past 10 years, and there was like an extra 800 that showed up in 2019, and all these freshmen said, yes. And I thought, what if UMass had built 4,000 dorm beds or, you know, apartments? What would our situation be in Amherst right now? Like, if UMass can manage its demand, it could be, you know, tax paying, you know, high end student housing on campus. They certainly have the space, they have the people. Like if they had done that, wouldn't Amherst housing be more affordable for more people? Like, the pressure that we feel is partly because Amherst is very attractive and, but also because UMass has expanded without providing beds for its students. And so in the master plan, they talk about that and ways to work with the university on that. Strategies for having taxable properties on campus, you know, but it's like, we have to understand that the biggest driver for demand is the largest employer in the region, which is our greatest strength, but it's really makes a lot, we can't, you know, so I think that we have to address demand and the only person really can address it with the university and sit down and, you know, talk to them about it and sort of say, you know, listen to the people in the RG, the impact that it has on them. And we're kind of scrounging everywhere to find, you know, to build, you know, I could build three apartment units in my backyard and consider being a landlord, but what if those students were on campus, you know? I mean, that's what the housing policy doesn't talk about and it's the elephant in the room. And John Hornick mentioned this, Steve, judgment is like, why can't we surface this discussion and have it openly and talk to the university about, you know, if you're adding only students, you're adding to a lot of, you know, problems in Amherst and a lot of positive things, but still it's, you know, the people who can't buy houses are people at the lower and middle and middle income because they're competing with students over the same houses because four students or five or six in a small house can pay more rents than a family. Just a quick comment on that. Just, I don't want to belabor this. I think we could be done talking about it. It is just that when students don't live on or live off campus, they don't use businesses downtown. They go to that amazing dining hall on campus. And so Boino Bob is not gonna have people eating burritos and that's gonna be a problem for the businesses downtown.  So I do think that I agree with you on some level that the university needs to take responsibility, but I think they're part of our community in terms of the economics of it. And to push them onto campuses is gonna let them go get some gorgeous burrito down in the UMass dining hall, which is amazing food and it's killing our community. So I think that it's kind of- That's service. We gotta do it the right way, I guess. Yeah, but I think the conversation has to happen with the university and just, you're adding students by the thousands. Yeah. And we met the housing production plan goals, but it's like we built all the units we were supposed to or it gave the permits, but it didn't go to the right people. All good comments. So we probably should move on and how long is your Pomeroy Village presentation, Chris? I can kind of whiz through the presentation. Okay. The main goal of this is to, eventually the town council is gonna have to decide whether they want to encourage a roundabout or a cross-signalized intersection at Pomeroy Village. The goal right now is to elicit comments from various boards and committees about what is good, what is working in that Pomeroy Village area, what's not working, and what do you think would make it better? So I can kind of quickly run through the presentation that we gave to the town council. I think we gave it to them on January 25th, but have you all read it already? It's kind of long. So if you've all read it, I don't really need to make this presentation. So my question to you and you can do it tonight or you can do it the next time we meet, which would be, let's see, what day is today? Today's the 17th. 17th. The next time we meet would be April 7th. I think TSO was hoping to get some feedback from boards and committees by, sometime in the beginning of April, but that doesn't mean that we have to have a definitive recommendation to them by then. But so if you have thoughts, comments, questions about that project, about that intersection, things that you like, things you don't like, things you think would make it better, you can offer them to me tonight. And there's going to be two more opportunities in the near future for individuals to participate in this outreach. On Thursday, March 25th, the TSO town services and outreach committee is devoting half of its meeting to the Palmer and Lane intersection and they're seeking public input. And the other opportunity is a two hour meeting on Saturday, the 27th of March, that's going to be in the afternoon from two to four. And we're going to be talking to people about the Palmer and Lane intersection and trying to elicit their comments at that time. But if the planning board either individually or as their body wants to offer some recommendations, comments, et cetera, that would be, I would appreciate it. And if you want me to flip through that slide deck, I can do that. Oh, I found that email where you're speaking, where you didn't know you were speaking. It's April 1st, six to eight. Oh, I didn't know I was speaking then, yeah. Yeah, the district five meeting. District five. Yeah, I'll forward this email to you. Well, I don't know the project. I mean, I looked at it, but I think, I guess I'm a little confused that, so they just want, this is not officially coming to the planning board and it's more just a public input process. It's a public input process. This is all in the public right of way. So it's not, it doesn't require planning board approval. But obviously the planning board is a body that is concerned with planning in town. And so you are among many groups. I think the TSO has reached out to the design review board, the disability access advisory committee, the transportation advisory committee, the planning board and possibly others to, illicit comments about what works, what doesn't work in that intersection. I don't know if many of you use it, but do you have any, have any things you wanna share tonight or do you wanna write to me individually? Mr. Marshall has his band based. So Chris, a couple of thoughts. One is, I think I find roundabouts to be a little more of a suburban setting than an actual right angle intersection with corners. And so, I don't know, I haven't thought a lot about that. I mean, certainly there are, there are rotaries that I've bit seen in Britain that are very small and allow the buildings on the corners to be pretty close to the street and kind of define an intersection. But what the town has been building and what UMass has built is pretty large in diameter. And so it really pushes the buildings away from the intersection. And so I find that sort of unsatisfying from an urban point of view. So my knee-jerk reaction to your question is I would probably try to stick with the signalized intersection unless I had a compelling reason to do otherwise. I guess the other thing that and I could be wrong about this, but my impression of that area is that the roadways don't have granite curbs and the sidewalks are kind of haphazard and maybe not very well marked or else they're deteriorated. There's not a very clear median kind of between the sidewalk and the roadway. So I would encourage all of those things are improvements that you typically see in a more developed and more urban area, more clear definition of zones. So just kind of staking your claim to the sidewalk width and the edge of the roadway and that kind of thing, putting in the accessible ramps at the corners, maybe putting in a walk signal at the intersection rather than right now you just look both ways and pray. So the kinds of things that make it a more pedestrian friendly and more definition of the intersection is kind of where I would start, thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Yeah, I'll put some thoughts on paper and send over, Chris. I have sort of an opposite view of roadways, although it's really interesting hearing your perspective because I hadn't considered some of that. I think that they can serve as landmarks and that they can really help define the identity of the location. So I think that there could be some compelling opportunities there depending on how the actual dot and the circles manage. I was curious just a little bit about the scope. So the 1.5 million plus the match, what exactly would that cover, given we've got two scenarios that are at least floated by here and then tied on to that scope. I totally agree with the need for sidewalks. I guess I'm just wondering, is this gonna get a sidewalks like 50 feet in any direction and then it essentially only helps you cross the street or is the intention for using those sidewalks to help actually penetrate into some of the neighboring uses, the residential or some of the commercial? Where would it actually stop? What would we get for the money? May I speak to that? Yes, yeah. So our initial plan that we started developing back in the early 2000s was much bigger than what we're currently proposing. It went all the way to the streams at the north and the south end of the intersection. I think it's muddy brook to the south and I'm not sure what it is to the north. But anyways, it went pretty far in both directions and it went somewhat far in the east west direction as well. That project, when we actually put a cost estimate to it in 2013 was about $2.8 million. So that was seven or eight years ago so obviously that project would have been even more than 2.8. So this time we said, well, let's scale it back. We actually applied for a mass works grant back then and we didn't get it. We had, it was too much money and they had other priorities that year. So this year we really scaled it back and we think we can get sidewalks right where there is already development like by the Mission Cantina area and the place where the hoop business is and across the street at Valley Transporter and up the street to Ron Laverdeer's property across in front of what does he call it? Amherst Office Park. And then there's also across the street, Zhang's Kitchen and the little place that used to be Dancer Computer. We think we can get sidewalks and roadway improvements and turning lanes north, south bound on Route 116 or West Street for this amount of money in either case, either with the roundabout or with the cross intersection. And now the cross intersection is possibly gonna be more expensive because it will have signalized signals, obviously. But the roundabout may have signals as well because we've heard a lot from the disability access community around here that people with visual impairments have a hard time with roundabouts and they really need to have some sort of pedestrian activated signals where they have control to stop traffic. So we may end up with signals even with the roundabout. But I think we all think Planning Department and DPW thinks that we can get a decent project done. It's not gonna be as grand as our original idea but we can certainly make improvements to that intersection for $1.5 million. Does that help? Yeah. So I'm thinking, I live right there basically. And I'm wondering how the traffic flow works cause I know sometimes there just would be a lot of traffic when the light turns green and you're, and it's a whole train. And then so with a rotary, how does that work with the side streets beyond the subject intersection there? And also, do we have a assessment of how the East Pleasant Rays Street rotary is working? It depends on who you talk to about the East Pleasant Triangle Street rotary. Some people think it's very good and they go through it all the time and no problems. Other people think it's really a problem area and particularly for visually impaired people, what I've heard from them is that they avoid it. They'll do anything they can to stay away from it. So again, it's like, who do you talk to? The traffic engineers seem to really think that the roundabout is the way to go because it produces a continuous flow of traffic unless there's somebody who wants to cross the street. You're not gonna have backups and queuing with the roundabout in the morning when you have a lot of traffic northbound trying to get to the university or in the evening when the university is emptying out and people are driving south. It's gonna be a smoother area for traffic but then you have to weigh that against how do pedestrians and bicyclists fit in there. And you get various different conclusions from those two groups. So all of this is gonna be discussed in public. We're talking about it now. We're gonna talk about it on Thursday night and Saturday and then town council. TSO is going to have a meeting where they're bringing all the ideas together and then town council is going to try to make a determination. And then in the summer, so Gilford Mooring who's the superintendent of public works would like to have a direction to go in by June. So he's really asked the town council to give him guidance about which kind of intersection they want developed there by June. And then he's gonna hire a consultant, an engineering consultant. And that's when he'll get the money in July is really when he's gonna get the money. And that's when the project starts. So from July until December they're gonna be doing design and engineering. And then in early 2022, they'll put it out to bid. Hopefully start construction in spring of 2022 and finish, they have to finish by, I think it's June of 2023, whatever we decide to do there. So I forgot the question that I was responding to, but anyway, that's an information. Well, I mean, like there haven't been any accidents there on the East Plus Triangle Street to mention. That is correct. There haven't been any serious accidents. There have been some, but nothing with serious injury and I can get you that information. That came from Gilford from Deans Hills and it's in my email somewhere. Yeah, and then pedestrians haven't been hit. No, only very gently, hit very gently. Right. So, Janet. I, when I was reading through this and I looked at this project, I had this like question, which is always a good question to start anything with, which is what is the problem you're trying to solve? And what are your goals? And so I was wondering, is it to make people move more safely through the village center? Is it to slow cars? Is it to make it safer for people to cross or move? People are gonna be crossing at different parts of the road anyway. Is it to bring more people to the Pomeroy Village to kind of stop and shop and eat at our good restaurants? I know when the District 5 people, people were talking about this, they wanted it to be more of a destination, like the Pomeroy Village, like to create a sense that like a community, like they wanted it to be more attractive and have people feel like, this is a place you'd want to stop. Do you want to get cars through more quickly? Is that the goal? Do you want fewer car accidents? Like to me, the intersection is fairly, functions pretty well. There's a little bit of traffic backing up in the afternoon. So I just wondered like, what's the primary goal? And it seems to me that roundabouts make life much easier for cars. And unless they're very small, they don't really, it's harder to be a pedestrian in a way. So if it's to get cars through more quickly with fewer impediments, that's not the same thing as making it quieter and more walkable or more of a sense of a village center. So I just kind of wondered about the goals of the project. And is that kind of what you're looking for? Or is that what DPW is looking for? Like if your focus is let's build a village center where people can safely cross and it's really attractive. And the signals are working well, but you can press a button and go across and there's some nice benches and sidewalks. And there's another crosswalk, you know, say from the USDA over to the shopping center so people can move, don't always have to go. What are you trying to do in a way? Well, I think you're capturing it really well. I think that, and again, it depends on who you're talking to. There are a lot of opinions in town, but from the planning department standpoint, I think we're trying to create a village center there. We're trying to make it safer for pedestrians. We're trying to make it easier for people to cross the road. There aren't any crosswalks there now. There aren't any curb ramps. There are very meager sidewalks. The sidewalks are in really bad condition. They're very narrow, bumpy, you know, just not well maintained, no fault of the DPW. They've got a lot of other things to deal with, but, and then there's, you know, traffic is backed up north and south bound. So from a planning department standpoint, fixing the signalized intersection would probably address many of the issues that we're concerned about. And we want to make it a place where it's possible to develop property on the four corners. And so that sort of gives away my viewpoint. Let's build the beans, which is that I would like to be able to see development on those four corners. And the property is really undeveloped right now. It's kind of a, you know, there are parking lots that meet the road rather than buildings that meet the road. And we did start to establish some of that streetscape. There's a building down there that's, I think it's just north of R&P liquor and south of Nishantina. And it comes forward to the road. It provides a nice streetscape. The parking is behind. And that's kind of what the planning department would like to see in the Palmer Village Center. And this, you know, there's a lot of people working there. There's a lot of professional offices. There's a lot going on there that, you know, it seems really quiet, but there's a lot of businesses and things. There's a lot going on there. And people on one side of the road, on the west side of the road are all about working. And then people on the other side of the road are all about providing services like haircuts and lunch and gas and, you know, convenience stores. So there's a lot of desire to cross over at lunchtime and other times for pedestrians. And also people, you know, commute by bicycle through there. So, you know, there are a lot of different goals that we have for this project. But if you were to ask the planning department, I think that one of the main goals would be to create more of a village center feel to that intersection instead of just be a place where traffic moves through. That's what the district five people were feeling like. And, you know, I feel like every conversation I have is like me darting across the intersection at night. But, you know, I've gone from Mission Cantina to Mona and Dub and it's just, you're just thinking like, what's wrong with just having a blink, you know, a crosswalk? You know, what's happened here? You know, what I find interesting is the age of the development there. It's not all that old, but it was kind of built during that strip shopping center stage of architecture. And that, you know, it's kind of interesting. So I don't know, I don't know how you improve it. That'd be a long view to kind of, I think, in the immediate area of the intersection to do, you know, much with, but I know there are a couple of old buildings, but I was just shocked to see how new some of the structures are that are in the immediate. Listen, not Amber's office part, but the slow body. Sometimes it just takes one property owner to start something. And there are a lot of properties there that are ripe for development. There's a property behind the slow body building where the valley transporter is, that's a big open field. And that could be developed for housing, mixed use buildings, whatever. The property where there's an old Apple storage barn, which is just north of the Speedway gas station, just north of the Mona and Dub. In fact, Mona and Dub is actually in it, I think. But that building is, you know, many decades old and it's really not necessarily suited to the uses that it's being put to. And that could be redeveloped into a mixed use building. So there are a lot of opportunities for things to happen there that could benefit, I would certainly benefit from improvements to that intersection, whether it's a roundabout or a signalized intersection, but I, you know, as a planning, as a planner, I feel like the signalized intersection gives more opportunity to develop the properties that are available for development. I kind of agree with you and I'm not a planner, but it just seems like the roundabout is more for cars than people, I don't know. And it's just a little less pedestrian friendly. Great, Johanna, please. Thanks. It's really interesting to listen to all this. I, as somebody who regularly cycles through intersections in town, for me, the roundabouts are so much easier to navigate on bicycle than the lighted intersections. Like with the lighted intersections, you're just terrified about people turning right and cutting you off, you know, because we don't have boxes at the top of our intersections for the bikes to kind of jump in line. It's always unclear whether people see you, whereas in the roundabout, because things are kind of moving, it feels way better. So I guess I just wanna kind of challenge that notion that the roundabouts are for cars. But it is true that I have not walked around, I mean, I've walked a little bit in North Amherst around Kendrick Park, but I've spent more time navigating it on bicycle than on foot. But yeah, if we're gonna do lighted intersections, you know, there's a lot to be done for bicycle infrastructure too. Yeah, now, as I think about it, in terms of being able to enter onto the, you know, West Street or Pomeroy Lane, that people are already kind of like paused by a rotary, they're not, you know, gunning it.  But yeah. The other thing is there's less pollution with the roundabout because you don't sit there idling at the stoplight, you just keep going. So. Doug? Yeah, I will say that my earlier comments about the signalized intersection preference, I hadn't taken into consideration the apparent need for adding left turn lanes. And so as the width of the signalized intersection gets greater and the curb to curb distance for pedestrians increases, I feel like my preference becomes a little bit less and maybe a little more balanced with a rotary. I think part of what I don't like about rotaries is it really pushes the pedestrians out and away from the intersection in a way that, you know, doesn't encourage you to see somebody's face as you cross one direction and they're going the other or they're on the other side and, you know, you're so far away, you never even noticed them. So it's that kind of intersection or the interface that I'm feeling like the rotaries just really discourage or, you know, impede.  So that's where I am right now. Great, any other comments? If you all individually have comments that you wanna send to me, I can incorporate them into what we've said tonight. Okay. Well, you know, it's getting late and I think we hit it, you know, adequately. And I did skip over for old business topics not reasonably anticipated. Oh, no, no old business. And then new business not anticipated. Well, we have the possibility of a moratorium that's been suggested. So that's new business, I don't have much to say about it, but I think that the Town Council is going to be, it's going to have that topic on their agenda for Monday night's meeting. And the idea would be that what's being proposed is a six month moratorium on building permits, the new buildings in the downtown area, new residential buildings, new buildings that contain residential use. So it's kind of unclear how that fits in with our zoning amendments, you know, we're moving ahead on what we're doing. And I hope that the CRC and the Town Council are also moving ahead with what is being proposed and not letting that kind of slow down the movement on the zoning amendments. It's unclear how a moratorium would affect new development because, you know, there's a timing issue as far as, you know, when things get published, when things get sent for public hearings, et cetera, et cetera. So anyway, there's a lot more to be said about that, but I just wanted to make you all aware of it. And I think it's been written about in, at least in the Amherst Indy, if not in the Gazette. And tune in. So this would be a temporary bylaw that we'd have to approve or just recommend for approval or how critical are we? Well, it's a temporary zoning bylaw and it would be the Town Council if it decides to move ahead with this. There are different ways that this could be moved ahead. One is that the Council could decide, yes, we're gonna move ahead with it. One is that a group of citizens could propose it. Anyway, it's probably going to be sent to you. If it gets to the Town Council and the Town Council decides to move ahead with it, then it will be referred to the CRC and the Planning Board for a public hearing at some point. And then in the ordinary course of events, the Planning Board and the CRC usually hold their public hearings together as a joint public hearing. So that would most likely happen. I think it also needs to be referred to GOL and somebody else, but I can't remember who the other group is. So anyway, it's something that's on the horizon and it's going to be the topic of conversation. And you should probably pay attention to what's happening. Okay. Does anybody have any on that, Janet? I have a question about like when do we, the next iteration of the zoning by-law? Like are we gonna, are we stop meeting weekly or is what's the next? We're gonna cover that. She's gonna do the, Chris is gonna speak to the CRC report. And, Doug, oh. Doug is down now. Okay. Okay. So, okay, we can move on to the last item, which is what Janet was asking was in the Liaison report. So, Chris, tell us what's going on with the CRC and speak to the zoning. I can't remember. It's 1007. I hope I can remember. The planning department and the planning board made a tremendous effort in late February and during March to put together, maybe it was all of February. Anyway, many, many weeks of meetings to put together a series of zoning amendments and those were presented to the CRC on March 9th. There was a very long meeting. Well, it was two hours, but an hour and 40 minutes of it was really presentation by the planning staff. And what we presented was many of the things that you've seen, plus a couple of additional things. So we presented the proposal for the BL Zoning District, an overlay that would focus development towards the front of properties and have the back of properties be less developed with lower buildings and parking and other things. So that was presented for both the Triangle Street property and the Triangle Street BL District and the North Pleasant Street BL District. We did get some feedback about that. Some people wanted, thought it would be more appropriate to look at it a different way to maybe, how can we say this? Look at the lot area and an additional lot area per dwelling unit rather than having the overlay. I think that was a comment. But in general, it seemed like CRC was interested in this proposal. I think they wanna study it more and that's what they're gonna be doing. So the idea is by presenting these five things to the CRC that those things are now in their ball court. And they are the ones who are going to be proceeding with discussing them and carrying them into the public and doing public outreach about them. So there was the BL District. There was the footnote M where initially it was proposed to eliminate footnote M entirely. And then as a result of studies that we did in the planning department, we can clear that that might produce too much development in the RG zoning district. So we backed off with that and we said, well, maybe we could eliminate footnote M for smaller developments. So that was presented to them. The idea for accessory dwelling units, changing the wording from supplementary to accessory and then changing the way these things would be permitted that was presented. And I think that was probably the most positively received of the things that we presented. And then what else did we present? We presented mixed use building standards where we talked about what types of uses could go on the ground floor of a mixed use building and those uses would include parking and other uses, but we would try to make the streetscape be more people friendly, more streetscape friendly. We talked about design guidelines for mixed use buildings, varying the facade, different things that we could do with entryways and fenestration, et cetera, and the requirement for public space, whether it's courtyards or plazas or whether it's a widened sidewalk area. And then we also presented an idea for inclusionary zoning, which was really the simple idea. And Janet's been talking about this for years, which is to say, any development that has over 10, that proposes over 10 new units will be required to provide affordable housing as part of the development. And I think it's kind of clear cut. We would still have the provision that some of the units could be provided on site and some could be provided off site and we would still have the provision where a payment in lieu could be made for up to 50% of the units. And the payment in lieu is, I think three times the, what is it, three times the average, the median income. So it's around $192,000 or close to $200,000 per unit. So those are the five things that we presented to the CRC and now they're gonna be discussing them on Tuesday, discussing three of them on Tuesday. And then I think they'll move on to discussing the other ones. And at some point they'll decide whether they wanna move those forward to the town council or not. Meanwhile, the planning department hasn't really worked on zoning now for about a week. But we have a list of things that we do plan to get back to like the definition of apartments and several other things. So yeah, so thank you so much for all the hard work that you all did and all the feedback we got from you and also from the public during planning board meetings for those, at least three or four of those. Proposals. I don't think we talked a lot about the inclusionary zoning with you but that was something we presented to CRC. So I think that's all I have to report on that. Yeah, thank you. We'll talk to you with more. Yeah, I think personally I was not clear on that our job was done or that we hadn't really concluded anything but I guess the schedule's changed and we're not meeting, we don't have a charge with the zoning priorities moving forward.  You're gonna be all those priorities that the CRC and the town council gave us. Those are, we're gonna bring those back. Oh, the rest of them. Okay. Yeah, but we're just not ready to do that yet. And when the CRC decides to send the things that we've already developed to town council, they're gonna come back down to you for public hearings. So you'll see them again. But on each of the priorities, we had a discussion, but I thought that we were gonna kind of bring our opinions together, but that's fine. I mean, it's, CRC is the drive-in-the-bus. CRC, that's where the action is gonna happen. Yeah. Good. Any questions for Chris on? On that stuff. All right. Report to the chair. I have none. Or to staff. I have none. And it's a late St. Patrick's Day, but everyone make them. Home and enjoy yourselves. You're right. Have a great time for the rest of your evening. Right. Thank you. The meeting is... Next meeting is April 7th. There are eight people. Okay, so we get a break. You couldn't meet on the 31st of March if you really want to, but I think the 7th would do it. Right. No, that's great. And that's another break. So... All right. Thank you. Good night. All right. Good night.