Source Text: FATHER3.1Laura: Did he give you the keys?
Nurse: Give me them? No. God forgive me. I took them out of his clothes when Nojd brought them out to brush.
Laura: So it's Nojd who's on duty today.
Nurse: Yes, it's Nojd.
Laura: Give me the keys.
Nurse: Very well, but it's as good as stealing. Just listen to him up there, pacing up and down, up and down.
Laura: Is the door safely fastened?
Nurse: Oh yes, it's safe enough.
Laura: You must control yourself Margret. The only hope for all of us is to keep calm. Who is it?
Nojd: It's Nojd.
Laura: Let him come in.
Nojd: There's a note from the Colonel.
Laura: Give it to me. Ah. . . Nojd, have you taken all the cartridges out of the guns and emptied the pouches?
Nojd: I've done all you said, madam.
Laura: Then wait outside while I answer the Colonel's letter.
Nurse: Oh, hark, ma'am! Whatever is he doing up there?
Laura: Be quiet, I'm writing.
Nurse: God have mercy on us! What'll be the end of this?
Laura: There. Give this to Nojd. And my mother's not to know anything about all this, do you understand?
Pastor: Good evening, Laura, I've been out all day, I expect they told you; I've only just got home. Things have taken a serious turn here, then?
Laura: Yes, my dear. I've never been through anything like this last twenty-four hours!
Pastor: I see you're none the worse for it.
Laura: No, thank heaven. But just think what might have happened.
Pastor: Tell me, how did it all begin? I've heard so many different stories.
Laura: It began with those absurd ideas of his about not being Bertha's father, and it ended with his throwing a lighted lamp in my face.
Pastor: But that's appalling. He must be completely mad. What are we to do now?
Laura: We must try to stop any more outbreaks -- the doctor's sent to the hospital for a strait-jacket. In the meanwhile, I've sent a message to the Colonel, and now I'm trying to look into the household accounts, which he's mismanaged so terribly.
Pastor: It's a deplorable business, but I always expected something like this would happen; you can't mix fire and water without an explosion. What all that in the drawer?
Laura: Just look at all the things he kept here!
Pastor: Good heavens! Here's your doll -- and here's your christening cap; and Bertha's rattle -- and your letters and this locket. He must have loved you very much, Laura, all the same. I've never kept things like this.
Laura: I think he did love me once, but time -- time changes so many things.
Pastor: What's that big paper there? A receipt for a grave. Well, better a grave than an asylum. Laura, tell me: is your conscience quite clear in all this?
Laura: Mine? How could I be to blame if a man goes out his mind?
Pastor: Ah well, I won't say anything. After all, blood's thicker than water.
Laura: Just what do you mean by that?
Pastor: Well. . .
Laura: Yes?
Pastor: Well, you can hardly deny that it would suit you very well if you could bring up your child in your own way.
Laura: I don't understand.
Pastor: I really admire you, Laura.
Laura: Do you? Hm.
Pastor: So I'm to become the guardian of that free- thinker. You know, I've always looked on him as a weed in our garden.
Laura: And you dare to say that to me, his wife?
Pastor: How strong you are, Laura -- incredibly strong! You're like a fox in a trap, you'd rather bite off your own leg than let yourself be caught. You're like a master-thief -- you have no accomplice, not even your own conscience. Look at yourself in the glass! You dare not!
Laura: You talk so much, you must have a guilty conscience. Accuse me, if you can!
Pastor: I cannot.
Laura: There you are, then! You cannot, so I am not guilty. And now, you take care of your ward, and I'll look after mine. Here's the Doctor. I'm glad to see you, Doctor; you, at any rate, will help me, won't you? Not that there's much to be done, I'm afraid. Do you hear how he's going on up there? Does that convince you?
Doctor: I'm convinced that he has become violent, but the question is whether the violence must be considered as an outbreak of rage or of madness.
Pastor: Whatever caused the actual outbreak, you'll admit that he suffered from fixed ideas.
Doctor: I believe, Pastor, your own ideas are even more firmly fixed.
Pastor: My firm convictions about higher things --
Doctor: Let us set aside convictions for the moment. Madam, it is for you to decide whether your husband is liable to imprisonment and a fine, or to go to an asylum. What have you to say about the Captain's behaviour?
Laura: How can I answer that now?
Doctor: Then you have no firm convictions about what would be best for your family. What do you say, Pastor?
Pastor: It's hard to say -- there'll be a scandal either way.
Laura: But if he's merely fined for assault, he might become violent again.
Doctor: And if he's sent to prison, he'll soon be out again. Therefore we feel it's in the best interests of all parties that he should be treated as insane at once. Where is the nurse?
Laura: Why?
Doctor: I want her to put the strait-jacket on the patient after I've had a word with him, and when I give the order, but not before. I have the -- garment outside. Would you kindly ask the nurse to come in.
Pastor: Horrible, horrible!
Doctor: Now, pay attention, please. I want you to slip this waistcoat on the Captain from behind, as soon as I consider it necessary, so as to forestall any further outbreaks of violence. As you see, it has unusually long sleeves that can be tied behind the back to restrict his movements. And here we have two straps with buckles which you then make fast to the arms of the chair or sofa, whichever is more convenient. Will you do this?
Nurse: No, doctor, I couldn't, I couldn't!
Laura: Why don't you do it yourself, Doctor?
Doctor: Because the patient mistrusts me. You, madam, should really be the one to do it, but I fear that he mistrusts even you. Perhaps the Pastor. . .
Pastor: No, I must decline.
Laura: Did you deliver the note?
Nojd: Yes, madam.
Doctor: Ah, Nojd. You know the circumstances here. The Captain. is our of his mind, and you must help up to look after our patient.
Nojd: If there's anything I can do for the Captain, he knows I'll do it.
Doctor: You're to put this jacket on him --
Nurse: No! He shan't touch him -- Nojd might hurt him. I'd sooner do it myself, gently -- very gently. But Nojd can wait outside in case I need any help -- yes, he can do that.
Doctor: Here he is! Leave the jacket on that chair, with your shawl over it, and all wait outside, while the Pastor and I receive him. Quickly -- that door won't hold much longer!
Captain: It's all to be found here -- in every one of these books. So I wasn't mad after all. Here it is in the Odyssey -- Book I, line 215; page 6 in the Uppsala translation. Telemachus is speaking to Athene. "My mother indeed declares that he -- meaning Odysseus -- is my father; but I myself cannot be sure; since no man ever yet knew his own begetter." And it was Penelope, the most virtuous of women, whom Telemachus was suspecting. That's a fine thing, eh? And then we have the prophet Ezekiel: "The fool saith: Lo, here is my father, but who can tell whose loins have engendered him?" That's clear enough, isn't it? And what have we here? Merzlyakov's History of Russian Literature: Alexander Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, died in agony caused much more by the rumours going round of his wife's infidelity than by the bullet wound in his chest from a duel. On his death-bed he swore that she was innocent. Ass! Ass! How could he swear to that. You see, by the way, that I can still read my books. Ah, Jonas, are you here? And the doctor, of course. Did I ever tell you what I said to an English lady who complained of the habit Irishmen have of throwing lighted lamps in their wives' faces? "God, what women!" I said. "Women?" she simpered. "Yes, of course," I answered. When things get to such a pitch that a man -- a man who has loved and worshipped a woman -- goes and takes a lighted lamp and flings it in her face . . . well, then you know.
Pastor: What do you know?
Captain: Nothing. One never know anything -- one only believes -- isn't that so, Jonas? One believes, and one is saved. Yes, that's how it is! But I know that a man's belief can destroy him -- that's what I know!
Doctor: Captain --
Captain: Be quiet! I don't wish to speak to you -- you're just a telephone, relaying all their chatter in there. Yes, in there -- you know what I mean. Tell me, Jonas, do you believe that you're the father of your children? I remember you used to have a tutor in the house -- a good- looking fellow that people used to gossip about.
Pastor: Adolf -- mind what you're saying.
Captain: Feel under your wig and see if you can't find two bumps up there. Upon my soul I believe he's turned pale! Oh yes, it's only talk, of course, but heavens, how they do talk. But we're all laughing-stocks anyway, we married men, aren't we, doctor? How was your marriage bed? Wasn't there a young subaltern in your house, eh? Let me guess: his name was -- There, you see, he's turned pale, too! But cheer up, she's dead and buried, and what's done can't be undone. I used to know him, by the way; he's now -- look at me, Doctor . . . no, straight in the face -- he's a major of Dragoons. Bless me if I don't believe you have horns too!
Doctor: Captain, please let us change the subject.
Captain: There you are! Directly I mentioned horns, he wants to change the subject.
Pastor: Adolf, do you realize that you're not in your right senses?
Captain: Of course I realize it. But if I could work on your crowned heads for a little, I'd soon have you shut up, too. Yes, I'm mad; but what sent me mad? That doesn't interest you -- nor anyone else. Do you want to change the subject now? Christ! That's my daughter! Is she mine? We can't be sure. Do you know what we'd have to do to be sure? Marry first, so as to be accepted by society, then separate directly after, and become lover and mistress, and then adopt the children. Then we could at least be sure they were our own adopted children, couldn't we? But how can all that help me now? How can anything help me, now that you've taken my hope of immortality from me? What use are science or philosophy to me, now that I have nothing to live for? What can I do with my life now that my honour's gone? I grafted my right arm, half my brain, and half my marrow, onto another stem, for I thought they would grow together and knit themselves into a more perfect tree; and then someone comes with a knife and cuts them down below the graft, so that now I'm only half a tree; but the other half goes on growing, with my arm and half my brain, while I whither away and die, because it was the best part of myself that I gave away. And now I want to die. Do what you like to me, I no longer exist.
Bertha: Are you ill, papa?
Captain: I?
Bertha: Do you know what you did? Do you know that you threw the lamp at Mama?
Captain: Did I?
Bertha: Yes, you did! Suppose she's been hurt.
Captain: Would it have mattered?
Bertha: You aren't my father if you can say things like that!
Captain: What's that? I'm not your father? How do you know? Who told you so? Who is your father, then? Who is?
Bertha: Well, not you, anyhow.
Captain: Always the same thing -- not I! Who then, who? You seem to be well informed -- who told you? That I should live to have my own child tell me to my face that I'm not her father. But don't you know that that's insulting your mother; don't you understand that, if it's true, it's shameful for her, too?
Bertha: I won't have you saying anything bad about Mama.
Captain: That's right, cling together, all of you, against me. That's what you've done all along.
Bertha: Papa!
Captain: Don't ever call me that again!
Bertha: Papa -- papa!
Captain: Bertha, dear, darling child -- because you are my child -- yes, nothing else would be possible -- you must be. Anything else was just a morbid idea brought on the wind, like pestilence and fever. Look at me, so that I can see my soul in your eyes. But I see her soul, too! You have two souls, and you love me with one, and hate me with the other. But you must love me only. You must have only one soul, or you will never have any peace, and nor shall I. You must have one thought only, the child of my thought; and only one will -- mine!
Bertha: But I don't want that, I want to be myself.
Captain: I won't let you. You see, I'm a cannibal, and I want to eat you. Your mother wanted to eat me, but she couldn't. I am Saturn, who ate his own children because it had been foretold that otherwise they would eat him. To eat or to be eaten -- that is the question. Unless I eat you, you will eat me -- you've already shown me your teeth. But don't be afraid, my darling child, I shan't do you any harm.
Bertha: Help! Mama, help! He's going to murder me!
Nurse: Mr Adolf! What are you doing?
Captain: Did you take out the cartridges?
Nurse: Well, I did tidy them away, but you just sit quietly here, and I'll soon get them again. Now, Mr Adolf, I wonder if you remember when you were my dear little boy and I used to tuck you up at night and read you "Gentle Jesus"? Do you remember how I used to get up in the night and get you a drink, and how I used to light the candle and tell you lovely stories when you had bad dreams and couldn't sleep? Do you remember?
Captain: Go on talking, Margret; it makes my head better. Go on talking.
Nurse: All right, but you must pay attention, then. Do you remember that time you took the big carving-knife to make boats with, and how I came in and had to play a trick on you to get the knife away? You were a silly little boy, and we had to play tricks on you, because you wouldn't believe we knew what was best for you. "Give me that snake," I said, "or it'll bite!" And you let go of it there and then. And the times you wouldn't get dressed when you ought to. I used to have to wheedle you and say you'd have a golden coat and be dressed like a prince. And then I'd take your little jacket and say "In with your arms now -- both of them!" And then I'd say, "Now sit nice and quiet while I button down the back". And then I'd say: "Get up, now, like a good boy, and walk across the room, so that I can see how it fits". And then I'd say "Now you must go to bed".
Captain: What's that? Go to bed when he's just been dressed? Damnation! What have you done to me? Woman! You're as cunning as the devil! Who'd have thought you had the sense? Caught, shorn and outwitted -- they won't even let me die!
Nurse: Forgive me, Mr Adolf, forgive me. I had to stop you from killing your child.
Captain: Why not let me kill the child? Life's a hell, and death is the Kingdom of Heaven; children belong to Heaven.
Nurse: How do you know what happens after death!
Captain: That's the only thing we do know, it's life that we know nothing of. Oh, if only we could have known from the first!
Nurse: Mr Adolf, humble your stubborn heart, and pray to God for mercy -- it's not too late even now. It wasn't too late for the thief on the Cross, when the Saviour said, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise".
Captain: Are you croaking for a corpse already, you old crow? Nojd! Is Nojd there? Throw that woman out. She wants to smother me with her hymn-book. Throw her out of the window -- up the chimney -- anywhere you like!
Nojd: Heaven help you, Captain, really, but I can't do that, honestly I can't. I'd take on half a dozen men -- but not a woman!
Captain: You can't get the better of a woman, eh?
Nojd: Of course I can, but it's a different thing when it comes to laying hands on one.
Captain: What's so different about it? Haven't they been laying their hands on me?
Nojd: Yes, but I can't do it, Captain. It's just as if you were to ask me to hit the pastor. It's something inside me -- like religion. I can't do it.