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during that first year?

Manders. To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be
possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?
No! we must do our duty, Mrs. Alving. And your duty was to cleave
to the man you had chosen and to whom you were bound by a sacred
bond.

Mrs. Alving. You know quite well what sort of a life my husband
was living at that time--what excesses he was guilty of.

Menders. I know only too well what rumour used to say of him; and
I should be the last person to approve of his conduct as a young
man, supposing that rumour spoke the truth. But it is not a
wife's part to be her husband's judge. You should have considered
it your bounden duty humbly to have borne the cross that a higher
will had laid upon you. But, instead of that, you rebelliously
cast off your cross, you deserted the man whose stumbling
footsteps you should have supported, you did what was bound to
imperil your good name and reputation, and came very near to
imperilling the reputation of others into the bargain.

Mrs. Alving. Of others? Of one other, you mean.

Manders. It was the height of imprudence, your seeking refuge
with me.

Mrs. Alving. With our priest? With our intimate friend?

Manders. All the more on that account; you should thank God that
I possessed the necessary strength of mind--that I was able to
turn you from your outrageous intention, and that it was
vouchsafed to me to succeed in leading you back into the path of
duty, and back to your lawful husband.

Mrs. Alving. Yes, Mr. Manders, that certainly was your doing.

Manders. I was but the humble instrument of a higher power. And
is it not true that my having been able to bring you again under
the yoke of duty and obedience sowed the seeds of a rich blessing
on all the rest of your life? Did things not turn out as I
foretold to you? Did not your husband turn from straying in the
wrong path, as a man should? Did he not, after that, live a life
of love and good report with you all his days? Did he not become
a benefactor to the neighbourhood? Did he not so raise you up to
his level, so that by degree you became his fellow-worker in all
his undertakings--and a noble fellow-worker, too. I know, Mrs.
Alving; that praise I will give you. But now I come to the second
serious false step in your life.

Mrs. Alving. What do you mean?

Manders, Just as once you forsook your duty as a wife, so, since
then, you have forsaken your duty as a mother.

Mrs. Alving. Oh--!

Manders. You have been overmastered all your life by a disastrous
spirit of willfulness. All your impulses have led you towards what
is undisciplined and lawless. You have never been willing to
submit to any restraint. Anything in life that has seemed irksome
to you, you have thrown aside recklessly and unscrupulously, as
if it were a burden that you were free to rid yourself of if you
would. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and so you
left your husband. Your duties as a mother were irksome to you,
so you sent your child away among strangers.

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