on the right.)

Mrs. Alving. My poor boy!

Manders. You may well say so. This is what it has brought him to! (MRS.
ALVING looks at him, but does not speak.) He called himself the
prodigal son. It's only too true, alas--only too true! (MRS. ALVING
looks steadily at him.) And what do you say to all this?

Mrs. Alving. I say that Oswald was right in every single word he said.

Manders. Right? Right? To hold such principles as that?

Mrs. Alving. In my loneliness here I have come to just the same
opinions as he, Mr. Manders. But I have never presumed to venture upon
such topics in conversation. Now there is no need; my boy shall speak
for me.

Manders. You deserve the deepest pity, Mrs. Alving. It is my duty to
say an earnest word to you. It is no longer your businessman and
adviser, no longer your old friend and your dead husband's old friend,
that stands before you now. It is your priest that stands before you,
just as he did once at the most critical moment of your life.

Mrs. Alving. And what is it that my priest has to say to me?

Manders. First of all I must stir your memory. The moment is well
chosen. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of your husband's death;
tomorrow the memorial to the departed will be unveiled; tomorrow I
shall speak to the whole assembly that will be met together, But today
I want to speak to you alone.

Mrs. Alving, Very well, Mr. Manders, speak!

Manders. Have you forgotten that after barely a year of married life
you were standing at the very edge of a precipice?--that you forsook
your house and home? that you ran away from your husband--yes, Mrs.
Alving, ran away, ran away-=and refused to return to him in spite of
his requests and entreaties?

Mrs. Alving. Have you forgotten how unspeakably unhappy I was 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 bound