OSWALD. Don't scream. I can't bear it. Yes, mother, it is seated here waiting. And it may break out any day—at any moment. MRS. ALVING. Oh, what horror—! OSWALD. Now, quiet, quiet. That is how it stands with me— MRS. ALVING. [Springs up.] It's not true, Oswald! It's impossible! It cannot be so! OSWALD. I have had one attack down there already. It was soon over. But when I came to know the state I had been in, then the dread descended upon me, raging and ravening; and so I set off home to you as fast as I could. MRS. ALVING. Then this is the dread—! OSWALD. Yes—it's so indescribably loathsome, you know. Oh, if it had only been an ordinary mortal disease—! For I'm not so afraid of death—though I should like to live as long as I can. MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes, Oswald, you must! OSWALD. But this is so unutterably loathsome. To become a little baby again! To have to be fed! To have to—Oh, it's not to be spoken of! MRS. ALVING. The child has his mother to nurse him. OSWALD. [Springs up.] No, never that! That is just what I will not have. I can't endure to think that perhaps I should lie in that state for many years—and get old and grey. And in the meantime you might die and leave me. [Sits in MRS. ALVING'S chair.] For the doctor said it wouldn't necessarily prove fatal at once. He called it a sort of softening of the brain—or something like that. [Smiles sadly.] I think that expression sounds so nice. It always sets me thinking of cherry-coloured velvet—something soft and delicate to stroke. MRS. ALVING. [Shrieks.] Oswald! OSWALD. [Springs up and paces the room.] And now you have taken Regina from me. If I could only have had her! She would have come to the rescue, I know. MRS. ALVING. [Goes to him.] What do you mean by that, my darling boy? Is there any help in the world that I would not give you? OSWALD. When I got over my attack in Paris, the doctor told me that when it comes again—and it will come—there will be no more hope. MRS. ALVING. He was heartless enough to—OSWALD. I demanded it of him. I told
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