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--? But, at any rate, I will not have any tampering with Regina. He shall not go and wreck the poor girl's life.
MANDERS. No; good God--that would be terrible!
MRS. ALVING. If I knew he was in earnest, and that it would be for his happiness--
MRS. ALVING. But it couldn't be; for unfortunately Regina is not the right sort of woman.
MANDERS. Well, what then? What do you mean?
MRS. ALVING. If I weren't such a pitiful coward, I should say to him, "Marry her, or make what arrangement you please, only let us have nothing underhand about it."
MANDERS. Merciful heavens, would you let them marry! Anything so dreadful--! so unheard of--
MRS. ALVING. Do you really mean "unheard of"? Frankly, Pastor Manders, do you suppose that throughout the country there are not plenty of married couples as closely akin as they?
MANDERS. I don't in the least understand you.
MANDERS. Ah, you are thinking of the possibility that--Alas! yes, family life is certainly not always so pure as it ought to be. But in such a case as you point to, one can never know--at least with any certainty. Here, on the other hand--that you, a mother, can think of letting your son--
MRS. ALVING. But I cannot--I wouldn't for anything in the world; that is precisely what I am saying.
MANDERS. No, because you are a "coward," as you put it. But if you were not a "coward," then--? Good God! a connection so shocking!
MRS. ALVING. So far as that goes, they say we are all sprung from connections of that sort. And who is it that arranged the world so, Pastor Manders?
MANDERS. Questions of that kind I must decline to discuss with you, Mrs. Alving; you are far from being in the right frame of mind for them. But that you dare to call your scruples "cowardly"--!
MRS. ALVING. Let me tell you what I mean. I am timid and faint-hearted because of the ghosts that hang about me, and that I can never quite shake off.