CAPTAIN. You are not childish enough to believe in a hell?
CURT. Do you not believe in it--you, who are right in it?
CURT. The realism with which you have described yours seems to preclude all thought of metaphors, poetical or otherwise.
CAPTAIN. If you only knew what pangs I suffer!
CURT. Then it must be of the spirit, for no other alternative exists. [_Pause._
CAPTAIN. [_Rising up in bed_] I don't want to die!
CURT. Not long ago you wished for annihilation.
_The same setting, but note the lamp is at the point of going out. Through the windows and the glass panes of the doors a gray morning is visible. The sea is stirring. The sentry is on the battery as before_.
_The_ CAPTAIN _is lying on the couch, asleep_. CURT _sits on a chair beside him, looking pale and wearied from his watch_.
ALICE. [_In from the left_] Is he asleep?
CURT. Yes, since the time when the sun should have risen.
CURT. He slept now and then, but he talked a good deal.
CURT. He argued about religion like a schoolboy, but with a pretension of having solved all the world riddles. Finally, toward morning, he invented the immortality of the soul.
CURT. Exactly! He is actually the most conceited person I have ever met. "I am; consequently God must be."
ALICE. You have become aware of it? Look at those boots. With those he would have trampled the earth flat, had he been allowed to do so. With those he has trampled down other people's fields and gardens. With those he has trampled on some people's toes and other people's heads--Man-eater, you have got your bullet at last!
CURT. He would be comical were he not so tragical; and there are traces of greatness in all his narrow-mindedness--Have you not a single good word to say about him?
ALICE. [_Sitting down_] Yes, if he only does not hear it; for if he hears a single word of praise he develops megalomania on the spot.
CURT. He can hear nothing now, for he has had a dose of morphine.
ALICE. Born in a poor home, with many brothers and sisters, Edgar very early had to support the family by giving lessons, as the father was a ne'er-do-well if nothing worse. It must be hard for a young man to give up all the pleasures of youth in order to slave for a bunch of thankless children whom he has not brought into the world. I was a little girl when I saw him, as a young man, going without an overcoat in the winter while the mercury stood at fifteen below zero--his little sisters wore kersey coats--it was fine, and I admired him, but his ugliness repelled me. Is he not unusually ugly?