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OSWALD'S and sits down beside him.) That's it! Now I will sit
beside you--

Oswald. Yes, do. And Regina must stay in here too; Regina must
always be near me. You must give me a helping hand, you know,
Regina. Won't you do that?

Regina. I don't understand--

Mrs. Alving. A helping hand?

Oswald. Yes--when there is need for it.

Mrs: Alving. Oswald, have you not your mother to give you a
helping hand?

Oswald. You? (Smiles.) No, mother, you will never give me the
kind of helping hand I mean. (Laughs grimly.) You! Ha, ha! (Looks
gravely at her.) After all, you have the best right.
(Impetuously.) Why don't you call me by my Christian name,
Regina? Why don't you say Oswald?

Regina (in a low voice). I did not think Mrs. Alving would like
it.

Mrs. Alving. It will not be long before you have the right to do
it. Sit down here now beside us, too. (REGINA sits down quietly
and hesitatingly at the other side of the table.) And now, my
poor tortured boy, I am going to take the burden off your mind--

Oswald. You, mother?

Mrs. Alving. --all that you call remorse and regret and self-
reproach.

Oswald. And you think you can do that?

Mrs. Alving. Yes, now I can, Oswald. A little while ago you were
talking about the joy of life, and what you said seemed to shed a
new light upon everything in my whole life.

Oswald (shaking his head). I don't in the least understand what
you mean.

Mrs. Alving. You should have known your father in his young days
in the army. He was full of the joy of life, I can tell you.

Oswald. Yes, I know.

Mrs. Alving. It gave me a holiday feeling only to look at him,
full of irrepressible energy and exuberant spirits.

Oswald. What then?

Mrs. Alving, Well, then this boy, full of the joy of life--for he
was just like a boy, then--had to make his home in a second-rate
town which had none of the joy of life to offer him, but only
dissipations. He had to come out here and live an aimless life;
he had only an official post. He had no work worth devoting his
whole mind to; he had nothing more than official routine to
attend to. He had not a single companion capable of appreciating
what the joy of life meant; nothing but idlers and tipplers...

Oswald. Mother--!

Mrs. Alving. And so the inevitable happened!

Oswald. What was the inevitable?

Mrs. Alving. You said yourself this evening what would happen in
your case if you stayed at home.

Oswald. Do you mean by that, that father--?

Mrs. Alving. Your poor father never found any outlet for the
overmastering joy of life that was in him. And I brought no
holiday spirit into his home, either.

Oswald. You didn't, either?

Mrs. Alving. I had been taught about duty, and the sort of thing
that I believed in so long here. Everything seemed to turn upon
duty--my duty, or his duty--and I am afraid I made your poor
father's home unbearable to him, Oswald.

Oswald. Why didn't you ever say anything about it to me in your
letters?

Mrs. Alving. I never looked at it as a thing I could speak of to
you, who were his son.

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