Source Text: FATHER2.3Captain: Come in, then we can talk. I heard you out there listening. It's late, but we must thrash things out. Sit down. I've been to the post-office this evening to collect the letters. From them it appears that you've been intercepting both my incoming and outgoing mail. The consequence is that the loss of time has practically ruined the results that I'd expected from my work.
Laura: That was an act of kindness on my part; you were neglecting your duties for this other work.
Captain: It was certainly no act of kindness, since you knew perfectly well that one day this work will bring me far more honour than my military duties; but you particularly don't want me to win any honour, since it would emphasize your insignificance. That's why I've now intercepted some letters addressed to you.
Laura: How noble of you!
Captain: Ah, I see you have a high opinion of me, as they say. From these letters, it appears that for some time now you've been setting my former friends against me by spreading a rumour about my sanity. What's more, your efforts have been successful, since there's hardly anyone, from the Colonel to the cook, who believes me sane. Now, the truth about my illness is this: my reason is unaffected as you know, since I can carry out both my duties as a soldier and my obligations as a father; I have my emotions pretty well under control, so long as my will remains more or less intact -- though you've gnawed and gnawed at it so that soon it will slip its cogs and then the whole works will whirr to a standstill. I shall not appeal to your feelings, because you have none -- I appeal to your own interests.
Laura: Go on.
Captain: Your behaviour has succeeded in arousing my suspicions so much, that soon my reason will be clouded and my mind will begin to wander. That means the onset of the madness that you have been waiting for, and that may come at any time. That brings you to the question of whether it's more to your advantage that I should be sane or insane. Think it over. If I go down, I shall have to leave the Service, and where will you be then? If I die my life insurance will come to you. But if I take my own life, you will get nothing. So it's to your advantage that I should live out my life.
Laura: Is this a trap?
Captain: Certainly. It rests with you whether you avoid it, or put your head in.
Laura: You say that you'll kill yourself. You'll never do that.
Captain: Are you sure? Do you think a man can live when there's nothing and no one to live for?
Laura: Then you surrender?
Captain: No, I offer you peace.
Laura: Under what conditions?
Captain: That I keep my reason. Free me from my suspicions and I'll give up the fight.
Laura: What suspicions?
Captain: About Bertha's parentage.
Laura: Are there any doubts about that?
Captain: There are for me, and it's you who have raised them.
Laura: I?
Captain: Yes, you have poured them into my ears like drops of henbane, and circumstances have made them grow. Free me from the uncertainty -- tell me outright "This is the truth" -- and I will forgive you in advance.
Laura: I can hardly plead guilty to a crime that I've not committed.
Captain: How can it matter to you, when you can be quite sure that I shall never divulge it. Do you think a man would go and trumpet his own shame abroad.
Laura: If I said that it's not true, you wouldn't be convinced, but if I said it is, that would convince you. In fact, you want it to be true?
Captain: Yes, oddly enough -- probably because the former case can't be proved, while the latter can.
Laura: Have you any grounds for your suspicions?
Captain: Yes and no.
Laura: I believe you want to prove me guilty so that you can get rid of me and then have full control over the child. But I'm not falling into that trap.
Captain: If I were convinced that you were guilty, do you imagine I would take on another man's child?
Laura: No, I'm quite sure you wouldn't; that's how I know you were lying just now when you said that I was forgiven in advance.
Captain: Laura, don't destroy me and my reason! You don't understand what I'm saying. If the child is not mine, then I have no control over her, nor do I desire any. That is just what you want, isn't it? But perhaps you want something else as well: you want to have power over the child, yet still have me to support you.
Laura: Yes, power. What has all this life and death struggle been about except power?
Captain: For me, since I don't believe in a life to come, my child was my after-life. She was my idea of immortality -- perhaps the only one that has any foundations in reality. Take that away and you wipe me out.
Laura: Why didn't we separate in time?
Captain: Because the child help us together, but the bond has become a chain. How has that happened? I've never thought about that sort of thing before, but now I begin to remember incidents that render you suspect, and perhaps condemn you. We'd been married for two years, and had no children -- you know why not. I became ill, and was at death's door. Once, when the fever had abated for a while, I heard voices outside in the drawing-room. It was you and the lawyer, and you were talking about the property that I still owned in those days. He explained that you couldn't inherit anything because we had no children, and he asked if you were expecting one. I couldn't hear your answer. I recovered, and we had a child. Who is the father?
Laura: You are!
Captain: No, I am not. There's a crime lying buried here that's beginning to stink -- and what a hellish crime it is! You women pity black slaves and set them free, but you keep white ones. I've worked and slaved for you and your child, your mother, and your servants. I've sacrificed my career and promotion, I've been racked and tortured, I've endured sleepless nights, worrying about your future till my hair has turned grey, and all so that you could enjoy a carefree life, and when you grew old, live it again through your child. I've borne all this without complaining because I imagined that I was the father of that child. It was the lowest kind of theft -- the most brutal slavery. I've served seventeen years' hard labour though I was innocent. What can you give me in return for that?
Laura: Now you're really mad!
Captain: That's what you hope. I've seen how you've struggled to hide your sin. I've sympathized with you, realizing what caused your anxiety; I've often lulled your guilty conscience to rest, thinking that I was chasing away some morbid fancy. I've heard you cry out in your sleep, and I've refused to listen. Now I remember the night before last -- it was Bertha's birthday. It was between two and three in the morning and I was sitting up reading. You screamed "Keep away, keep away!" as if someone were trying to strangle you. I knocked on the wall because -- because I didn't want to hear any more. I'd had my suspicions for a long time, but I dared not hear them confirmed. That's how I've suffered for your sake; what will you do for me?
Laura: What can I do? I swear before God and all that I hold sacred that you are Bertha's father.
Captain: What use is that, when you've already said that a mother can and should commit any crime for her child's sake? I implore you, for the sake of the past -- I implore you, as a wounded man begs for the death-blow -- tell me everything. Don't you see that I'm as helpless as a child? Can't you hear that I'm calling to you as if you were my mother? Won't you forget that I'm a grown man -- a soldier whose word of command both men and beasts obey? I am a sick man, all I ask is pity; I surrender the symbols of my power, and pray for mercy on my life.
Laura: What's this? A man, and crying?
Captain: Yes, I'm crying, although I'm a man. Has not a man eyes? Has not a man hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a woman. If you prick us, do we not bleed; of you tickle us, do we not laugh; if you poison us, do we not die? Why shouldn't a man complain, or a soldier cry? Because it's unmanly. What make it unmanly?
Laura: Cry then, child, and your mother will be with you again. Do you remember that, when I first came into your life, it was as a second mother. Your great strong body had no fibre, you were like an overgrown child, as if you'd come into the world too soon, or perhaps were unwanted.
Captain: Yes, that's how it was. My father and mother never wanted me, so I was born without a will. When you and I became one I thought I was completing myself; that's how you got the upper hand, so that I -- although I was the commander in barracks and on parade -- when I was with you, I was the one to take orders. So I grew used to looking up to you as a superior, gifted being, listening to you as it I were your backward child.
Laura: That's true, and that's why I loved you as if you were my own child. But you must surely have noticed how embarrassed I was whenever your feelings altered, and you presented yourself as my lover. The pleasure of your embraces was always followed by remorse, as if my very blood were ashamed. The mother had become the mistress. Ugh!
Captain: I saw that, but I never understood why. And when I thought you despised me for my unmanliness, I wanted to win you as a woman by being a man.
Laura: Yes, and that's where you were wrong. The mother was your friend, you see, while the woman was your enemy. Love between the sexes is a battle. And don't imagine that I gave myself to you; I didn't give, I took -- just what I wanted. But you had one advantage -- I realized that, and I wanted you to realize it too.
Captain: You always had the advantage. If I was awake, you could hypnotize me so that I could neither see nor hear, but only obey; you could give me a raw potato and convince me that it was a peach; you could compel me to admire your most childish remark as if it were a flash of genius; you could have led me into crime, and even into petty meanness. For you had no understanding, and instead of carrying out my ideas, you did things in your own way. But when I eventually woke up and came to my senses, I realized how my honour was tarnished and I wanted to redeem it by some noble action -- some achievement, some discovery, or an honourable suicide. I should have liked to go to the wars, but there were none. Then I immersed myself in science. And now, when I should be reaching out my hand to gather the fruits of success, you cut off my arm. I am dishonoured now and I can no longer live, for a man cannot live without honour.
Laura: But a woman?
Captain: Yes, for she has her children, while he has not. But we, like the rest of mankind, lived our lives as heedless as babies, full of fancies, ideas, and illusions; till we finally woke. that was all very well, but we woke with our feet on the pillow, and whoever it was who woke us was a sleepwalker himself. When women grow old and cease to be women, they grow hair on their chins; I wonder what becomes of men when they grow old and cease to be men. Those who once crowed were no longer cocks but only capons, and the pullets answered the call, so that when it should have been sunrise, we found ourselves sitting among ruins in bright moonlight, just as in the good old days. It had only been a little morning nap, with bad dreams, and there was no awakening.
Laura: You should have been a poet, you know.
Captain: Perhaps.
Laura: Well, I'm sleepy, so if you've any more fancies, keep them till tomorrow.
Captain: One word first -- about realities: do you hate me?
Laura: Yes, sometimes -- when you act like a man.
Captain: That's like racial prejudice. If it's true that we're descended from apes, it must at least have been from two different species. Certainly there's no resemblance between us.
Laura: What do you mean by all this?
Captain: I realize that one of us must go under in this struggle.
Laura: Which?
Captain: The weaker, of course.
Laura: And the stronger will be in the right?
Captain: Naturally, since he has the power.
Laura: Then I am in the right!
Captain: Have you the power already, then?
Laura: Yes, legal power, too, and tomorrow I shall use it to put you under restraint.
Captain: And who will pay for her education when I'm gone?
Laura: Your pension.
Captain: And how can you have me put under restraint?
Laura: By means of this letter -- of which an attested copy is in the hands of the Board of Guardians.
Captain: What letter?
Laura: This! Your admission to the doctor that you are insane. You've fulfilled your function, now, as the -- unfortunately -- essential father and breadwinner. There's no further need for you, and you must go. You must go because, though you've seen now that my intellect is as formidable as my will, you won't stay and acknowledge it!