CAPTAIN. On account of ties of kinship our personal relations will remain unchanged. However--to speak of other things--At my request your son Allan has been transferred to an infantry regiment in Norrland.
CAPTAIN. Your will in this case is subordinate to the mother's wishes--and as the mother has authorised me to decide, I have formed this decision.
CAPTAIN. Is that the only feeling you experience at this moment when you are to part from your son? Have you no other purely human feelings?
CURT. You mean that I ought to be suffering?
CURT. It would please you if I suffered. You wish me to suffer.
CAPTAIN. _You_ suffer?--Once I was taken sick--you were present and I can still remember that your face expressed nothing but undisguised pleasure.
ALICE. That is not true! Curt sat beside your bed all night and calmed you down when your qualms of conscience became too violent--but when you recovered you ceased to be thankful for it----
CAPTAIN. [_Pretending not to hear_ Alice] Consequently Allan will have to leave us.
CAPTAIN. I have done so already--that is to say, we--a syndicate of people interested in the young man's future.
CAPTAIN. Yes--and to make sure that everything is all right you can look over these subscription lists.
CURT. Lists? [_Reading the papers_] These are begging letters?
CURT. Have you gone begging on behalf of my son?
CAPTAIN. Are you ungrateful again? An ungrateful man is the heaviest burden borne by the earth.
CURT. Then I am dead socially! And my candidacy is done for!
CAPTAIN. I hope you never had any such notions--particularly as you might have guessed that I, as an older resident, intended to offer my own services, which you seem to underestimate.
CAPTAIN. It doesn't seem to trouble you very much.
CURT. Now you have taken everything--do you want more?
CAPTAIN. Have you anything more? And have you anything to reproach me with? Consider carefully if you have anything to reproach me with.
CURT. Strictly speaking, no! Everything has been correct and legal as it should be between honest citizens in the course of daily life----
CAPTAIN. You say this with a resignation which I would call cynical. But your entire nature has a cynical bent, my dear Curt, and there are moments when I feel tempted to share Alice's opinion of you--that you are a hypocrite, a hypocrite of the first water.