CAPTAIN. Stop now!
LAURA. Just suppose this. In that case your power would be at an end.
CAPTAIN. When you had proved that I was not the father.
LAURA. That would not be difficult! Would you like me to do so?
CAPTAIN. Stop!
LAURA. Of course I should only need to declare the name of the real father, give all details of place and time. For instance--when was Bertha born? In the third year of our marriage.
CAPTAIN. Stop now, or else--
LAURA. Or else, what? Shall we stop now? Think carefully about all you do and decide, and whatever you do, don"t make yourself ridiculous.
CAPTAIN. I consider all this most lamentable.
LAURA. Which makes you all the more ridiculous.
CAPTAIN. And you?
LAURA. Oh, we women are really too clever.
CAPTAIN. That"s why one cannot contend with you.
LAURA. Then why provoke contests with a superior enemy?
CAPTAIN. Superior?
LAURA. Yes, it"s queer, but I have never looked at a man without knowing myself to be his superior.
CAPTAIN. Then you shall be made to see your superior for once, so that you shall never forget it.
LAURA. That will be interesting.
NURSE [comes in]. Supper is served. Will you come in?
LAURA. Very well.
[Captain lingers; sits down with a magazine in an arm chair near table.]
LAURA. Aren"t you coming in to supper?
CAPTAIN. No, thanks. I don"t want anything.
LAURA. What, are you annoyed?
CAPTAIN. No, but I am not hungry.
LAURA. Come, or they will ask unnecessary questions--be good now. You won"t? Stay there then. [Goes.]
NURSE. Mr. Adolf! What is this all about?
CAPTAIN. I don"t know what it is. Can you explain to me why you women treat an old man as if he were a child?
NURSE. I don"t understand it, but it must be because all you men, great and small, are women"s children, every man of you.
CAPTAIN. But no women are born of men. Yes, but I am Bertha"s father.
Tell me, Margret, don"t you believe it? Don"t you?
NURSE. Lord, how silly you are. Of course you are your own child"s father. Come and eat now, and don"t sit there and sulk. There, there, come now.
CAPTAIN. Get out, woman. To h.e.l.l with the hags. [Goes to private door.]
Svard, Svard!
[Orderly comes in.]
ORDERLY. Yes, Captain.
CAPTAIN. Hitch into the covered sleigh at once.
NURSE. Captain, listen to me.
CAPTAIN. Out, woman! At once!
[Orderly goes.]
NURSE. Good Lord, what"s going to happen now.
[Captain puts on his cap and coat and prepares to go out.]
CAPTAIN. Don"t expect me home before midnight. [Goes.]
NURSE. Lord preserve us, whatever will be the end of this!
ACT II.
[The same scene as in previous act. A lighted lamp is on the table; it is night. The Doctor and Laura are discovered at rise of curtain.]
DOCTOR. From what I gathered during my conversation with him the case is not fully proved to me. In the first place you made a mistake in saying that he had arrived at these astonishing results about other heavenly bodies by means of a microscope. Now that I have learned that it was a spectroscope, he is not only cleared of any suspicion of insanity, but has rendered a great service to science.
LAURA. Yes, but I never said that.
DOCTOR. Madam, I made careful notes of our conversation, and I remember that I asked about this very point because I thought I had misunderstood you. One must be very careful in making such accusations when a certificate in lunacy is in question.