quiringly at MRS. ALVING.]

MRS. ALVING. Sit down. [REGINA sits on a chair by the dining room door,
still holding the empty glass in her hand.] Oswald--what were you saying
about the joy of life?

OSWALD. Ah, the joy of life, mother--that's a thing you don't know much
about in these parts. I have never felt it here.

MRS. ALVING. Not when you are with me?

OSWALD. Not when I'm at home. But you don't understand that.

MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes; I think I almost understand it--now.

OSWALD. And then, too, the joy of work! At bottom, it's the same thing.
But that, too, you know nothing about.

MRS. ALVING. Perhaps you are right. Tell me more about it, Oswald.

OSWALD. I only mean that here people are brought up to believe that
work is a curse and a punishment for sin, and that life is something
miserable, something; it would be best to have done with, the sooner the
better.

MRS. ALVING. "A vale of tears," yes; and we certainly do our best to
make it one.

OSWALD. But in the great world people won't hear of such things. There,
nobody really believes such doctrines any longer. There, you feel it a
positive bliss and ecstasy merely to draw the breath of life. Mother,
have you noticed that everything I have painted has turned upon the joy
of life?--always, always upon the joy of life?--light and sunshine and
glorious air-and faces radiant with happiness. That is why I'm afraid of
remaining at home with you.

MRS. ALVING. Afraid? What are you afraid of here, with me?

OSWALD. I'm afraid lest all my instincts should be warped into ugliness.

MRS. ALVING. [Looks steadily at him.] Do you think that is what would
happen?

OSWALD. I know it. You may live the same life here as there, and yet it
won't be the same life.

MRS. ALVING. [Who has been listening eagerly, rises, her eyes big with
thought, and says:] Now I see the sequence of things.

OSWALD. What is it you see?

MRS. ALVING. I see it now for the first time. And now I can speak.

OSWALD. [Rising.] Mother, I don't understand you.

REGINA. [Who has also risen.] Perhaps I ought to go?

MRS. ALVING. No. Stay here. Now I can speak. Now, my boy, you shall know
the whole truth. And then you can choose. Oswald! Regina!

OSWALD. Hush! The Pastor--

MANDERS. [Enters by the hall door.] There! We have had a most edifying
time down there.

OSWALD. So have we.

MANDERS. We must stand by Engstrand and his Sailors' Home. Regina must
go to him and help him--

REG