al law and order! I often
think that is what does all the mischief in this world of ours.

MANDERS. Mrs. Alving, that is a sinful way of talking.

MRS. ALVING. Well, I can't help it; I must have done with all this
constraint and insincerity. I can endure it no longer. I must work my
way out to freedom.

MANDERS. What do you mean by that?

MRS. ALVING. [Drumming on the window frame.] I ought never to have
concealed the facts of Alving's life. But at that time I dared not
do anything else-I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such a
coward.

MANDERS. A coward?

MRS. ALVING. If people had come to know anything, they would have
said--"Poor man! with a runaway wife, no wonder he kicks over the
traces."

MANDERS. Such remarks might have been made with a certain show of right.

MRS. ALVING. [Looking steadily at him.] If I were what I ought to be, I
should go to Oswald and say, "Listen, my boy: your father led a vicious
life--"

MANDERS. Merciful heavens--!

MRS. ALVING.--and then I should tell him all I have told you--every word
of it.

MANDERS. You shock me unspeakably, Mrs. Alving.

MRS. ALVING. Yes; I know that. I know that very well. I myself am
shocked at the idea. [Goes away from the window.] I am such a coward.

MANDERS. You call it "cowardice" to do your plain duty? Have you
forgotten that a son ought to love and honour his father and mother?

MRS. ALVING. Do not let us talk in such general terms. Let us ask: Ought
Oswald to love and honour Chamberlain Alving?

MANDERS. Is there no voice in your mother's heart that forbids you to
destroy your son's ideals?

MRS. ALVING. But what about the truth?

MANDERS. But what about the ideals?

MRS. ALVING. Oh--ideals, ideals! If only I were not such a coward!

MANDERS. Do not despise ideals, Mrs. Alving; they will avenge themselves
cruelly. Take Oswald's case: he, unfortunately, seems to have few enough
ideals as it is; but I can see that his father stands before him as an
ideal.

MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true.

MANDERS. And this habit of mind you have yourself implanted and fostered
by your letters.

MRS. ALVING. Yes; in my superstitious awe for duty and the proprieties,
I lied to my boy, year after year. Oh, what a coward--what a coward I
have been!

MANDERS. You have established a happy illusion in your son's heart, Mrs.
Alving; and assuredly you ought not to undervalue it.

MRS. ALVING. H'm; who knows whether it is so happy after all-