Source Text: FATHER2.2Captain: How terrible. Here's the doctor. Good evening doctor. How's my mother-in-law?
Doctor: Oh, nothing serious -- only a slight sprain in the left ankle.
Captain: I thought Margret said it was a cold. There seems to be quite a difference of opinion about the case. Go to bed, Margret. Do sit down, doctor.
Doctor: Thanks.
Captain: Is it true that you get striped foals if you cross a zebra with a mare?
Doctor: Perfectly true.
Captain: Is it true that further foals may also be striped, even if the next sire is a stallion?
Doctor: Yes, that's true, too.
Captain: So that, under certain conditions, a stallion can sire striped foals -- and vice versa?
Doctor: So it seems, yes.
Captain: Therefore a child's likeness to the father means nothing?
Doctor: Well --
Captain: That is to say, paternity cannot be proved.
Doctor: Hm -- well --
Captain: You are a widower? And you've had children?
Doctor: Ye-es.
Captain: Didn't being a father sometimes make you feel ridiculous? I know of nothing more absurd than seeing a father lead his child through the street, or hearing a father talk about "my children". He ought to say "my wife's children"! Didn't you ever realize what a false position you were in? Weren't you ever afflicted with doubts . . . I won't say suspicions, for, as a gentleman, I assume your wife was above suspicion.
Doctor: No, as a matter of fact, I never was. And anyhow, Captain, wasn't it Goethe who said "A man must take his children on trust"?
Captain: On trust when it concerns a woman? That's dangerous!
Doctor: Ah, there's more than one kind of woman, you know.
Captain: The latest researches have established that there is only one kind. When I was young, I was strong and -- if I may say so -- good-looking. I can call to mind just two brief incidents that, when I came to think of them, roused my suspicions. I was once on board a steamer, sitting with some friends in the saloon, when in came the young stewardess, in tears. She sat down and told us that her sweetheart had been drowned. We sympathized with her, and I ordered champagne. After the second glass, I touched her foot; after the fourth, her knee, and before morning, I had consoled her.
Doctor: One swallow doesn't make a summer.
Captain: Now for the other -- and that was a real summer swallow. I was at Lysenkil. There was a young married woman staying there with her children, but her husband was in town. She was a woman of the strictest principles, and very devout; she preached morality to me, and was completely virtuous -- or so I thought. I lent her one or two books, and when she went away, surprisingly enough, she returned them. Three months later, in one of those very books, I came across a visiting card, bearing a pretty obvious hint. Oh, it was perfectly innocent -- as innocent, that is, as an indication of love can be, from a married woman to a strange man who has never made any advances to her. So the moral is this: don't trust them too much!
Doctor: Nor too little either!
Captain: No, enough and no more. But listen to this, doctor; unconsciously that woman was so despicable that she went and told her husband that she was in love with me. That's what's so dangerous -- that their innate dishonesty is quite unconscious. That's an extenuating circumstance, but it doesn't alter my judgement, even if it mitigates it.
Doctor: Captain, you should be careful not to let your thoughts take an unhealthy turn.
Captain: You shouldn't use the word "unhealthy". Remember all boilers burst when their pressure-gauge reaches 100, but that hundred mark varies with different boilers, if you see what I mean. However, you're here to watch me. If I weren't a man, I should have the right to make accusations -- or complaints, as they're so cleverly called, and perhaps I should be able to give you the full diagnosis and, what is more, the case history. But since I have the misfortune to be a man, I can only do like the Romans, and fold my arms over my chest and hold my breath till I die. Good night.
Doctor: Captain, if you are ill, it wouldn't stain your honour as a man to tell me the whole story. In fact I ought to hear the other side.
Captain: I should have thought that, having heard one side, you've had quite enough of it.
Doctor: Not at all, Captain. You know, when I heard Mrs Alving eulogizing her dead husband, I thought to myself "what a confounded shame the fellow's dead".
Captain: Do you think he would have spoken if he'd been alive? And do you suppose that if any dead husband were to come to life, he'd be believed? Good night, doctor. As you see, I'm quite calm, so you can safely go to bed!
Doctor: Good night, then, Captain. There's nothing more that I can do in this case.
Captain: Are we enemies?
Doctor: Far from it. The pity is that we can't be friends. Good night.