MRS. ALVING. To the rescue?
OSWALD. Yes--when the need comes.
MRS. ALVING. Oswald, have you not your mother to come to the rescue?
OSWALD. You? [Smiles.] No, mother; that rescue you will never bring me.
[Laughs sadly.] You! ha ha! [Looks earnestly at her.] Though, after all,
who ought to do it if not you? [Impetuously.] Why can't you say "thou"
to me, Regina? [Note: "Sige du" = Fr. _tutoyer_] Why don't you call me
"Oswald"?
REGINA. [Softly.] I don't think Mrs. Alving would like it.
MRS. ALVING. You shall have leave to, presently. And meanwhile sit over
here beside us.
[REGINA seats herself demurely and hesitatingly at the other side of the
table.]
MRS. ALVING. And now, my poor suffering boy, I am going to take the
burden off your mind--
OSWALD. You, mother?
MRS. ALVING.--all the gnawing remorse and self-reproach you speak of.
OSWALD. And you think you can do that?
MRS. ALVING. Yes, now I can, Oswald. A little while ago you spoke of the
joy of life; and at that word a new light burst for me over my life and
everything connected with it.
OSWALD. [Shakes his head.] I don't understand you.
MRS. ALVING. You ought to have known your father when he was a young
lieutenant. He was brimming over with the joy of life!
OSWALD. Yes, I know he was.
MRS. ALVING. It was like a breezy day only to look at him. And what
exuberant strength and vitality there was in him!
OSWALD. Well--?
MRS. ALVING. Well then, child of joy as he was--for he was like a child
in those days--he had to live at home here in a half-grown town,
which had no joys to offer him--only dissipations. He had no object
in life--only an official position. He had no work into which he could
throw himself heart and soul; he had only business. He had not a single
comrade that could realise what the joy of life meant--only loungers and
boon-companions--
OSWALD. Mother--!
MRS. ALVING. So the inevitable happened.
OSWALD. The inevitable?
MRS. ALVING. You told me yourself, this evening, what would become of
you if you stayed at home.
OSWALD. Do you mean to say that father--?
MRS. ALVING. Your poor father found no outlet for the overpowering joy
of life that was in him. And I brought no brightness into his home.
OSWALD. Not even you?
MRS. ALVING. They had taught me a great deal about duties and so forth,
which I went on obstinately believing in. Everything was marked out into
duties--into my duties, and his duties, and--I am afraid I made his home
intolerable for your poor father, Oswald.
OSWALD. Why have you never spoken of this in writing to me?
MRS. ALVING. I have never before seen it in such a light that I could
speak of it to you, his son.
OSWALD. In what light did you see it, then?
MRS. ALVING. [Slowly.] I saw only this one thing: that your father was a
broken-down man before you were born.