this has come upon me just the same--this awful misfortune!
MRS. ALVING. Oh, but it will pass over, my dear, blessed boy. It's nothing but over-work. Trust me, I am right.
OSWALD. [Sadly.] I thought so too, at first; but it isn't so.
MRS. ALVING. Tell me everything, from beginning to end.
OSWALD. Yes, I will.
MRS. ALVING. When did you first notice it?
OSWALD. It was directly after I had been home last time, and had got back to Paris again. I began to feel the most violent pains in my head--chiefly in the back of my head, they seemed to come. It was as though a tight iron ring was being screwed round my neck and upwards.
MRS. ALVING. Well, and then?
OSWALD. At first I thought it was nothing but the ordinary headache I had been so plagued with while I was growing up--
MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes--
OSWALD. But it wasn't that. I soon found that out. I couldn't work any more. I wanted to begin upon a big new picture, but my powers seemed to fail me; all my strength was crippled; I could form no definite images; everything swam before me--whirling round and round. Oh, it was an awful state! At last I sent for a doctor--and from him I learned the truth.
MRS. ALVING. How do you mean?
OSWALD. He was one of the first doctors in Paris. I told him my symptoms; and then he set to work asking me a string of questions which I thought had nothing to do with the matter. I couldn't imagine what the man was after--
MRS. ALVING. Well?
OSWALD. At last he said: "There has been something worm-eaten in you from your birth." He used that very word--vermoulu.
MRS. ALVING. [Breathlessly.] What did he mean by that?
OSWALD. I didn't understand either, and begged him to explain himself more clearly. And then the old cynic said--[Clenching his fist] Oh--!
MRS. ALVING. What did he say?
OSWALD. He said, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
MRS. ALVING. [Rising slowly.] The sins of the fathers--!
OSWALD. I very nearly struck him in the face--
MRS. ALVING. [Walks away across the room.] The sins of the fathers--
OSWALD. [Smiles sadly.] Yes; what do you think of that? Of course I assured him that such a thing was out of the question. But do you think he gave in? No, he stuck to it; and it was only when I produced your letters and translated the passages relating to father--
MRS. ALVING. But then--?
OSWALD. Then of course he had to admit that he was on the wrong track; and so I learned the truth--the incomprehensible truth! I ought not to have taken part with my comrades in that lighthearted, glorious life of theirs. It had been too much for my strength. So I had brought it upon myself!
MRS. ALVING. Oswald! No, no; do not believe it!
OSWALD. No other explanation was possible, he said. That's the awful 

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