REGINA. I don't understand--

MRS. ALVING. To the rescue?

OSWALD. Yes--when the need comes.

MRS. ALVING. Oswald, have you not your mother to come to the rescue?

OSWALD. You? [Smiles.] No, mother; that rescue you will never bring me. [Laughs sadly.] You! ha ha! [Looks earnestly at her.] Though, after all, who ought to do it if not you? [Impetuously.] Why can't you say "thou" to me, Regina? [Note: "Sige du" = Fr. _tutoyer_] Why don't you call me "Oswald"?

REGINA. [Softly.] I don't think Mrs. Alving would like it.

MRS. ALVING. You shall have leave to, presently. And meanwhile sit over here beside us.

[REGINA seats herself demurely and hesitatingly at the other side of the table.]

MRS. ALVING. And now, my poor suffering boy, I am going to take the burden off your mind--

OSWALD. You, mother?

MRS. ALVING.--all the gnawing remorse and self-reproach you speak of.

OSWALD. And you think you can do that?

MRS. ALVING. Yes, now I can, Oswald. A little while ago you spoke of the joy of life; and at that word a new light burst for me over my life and everything connected with it.

OSWALD. [Shakes his head.] I don't understand you.

MRS. ALVING. You ought to have known your father when he was a young lieutenant. He was brimming over with the joy of life!

OSWALD. Yes, I know he was.

MRS. ALVING. It was like a breezy day only to look at him. And what exuberant strength and vitality there was in him!

OSWALD. Well--?

MRS. ALVING. Well then, child of joy as he was--for he was like a child in those days--he had to live at home here in a half-grown town, which had no joys to offer him--only dissipations. He had no object in life--only an official position. He had no work into which he could throw himself heart and soul; he had only business. He had not a single comrade that could realise what the joy of 

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