MRS. ALVING. You may rely on that, my dear and only boy! I have nothing in the world to live for but you alone.
OSWALD. Very well, then; now you shall hear--Mother, you have a strong, steadfast mind, I know. Now you're to sit quite still when you hear it.
MRS. ALVING. What dreadful thing can it be--?
OSWALD. You're not to scream out. Do you hear? Do you promise me that? We will sit and talk about it quietly. Do you promise me, mother?
MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes; I promise. Only speak!
OSWALD. Well, you must know that all this fatigue--and my inability to think of work--all that is not the illness itself--
MRS. ALVING. Then what is the illness itself?
OSWALD. The disease I have as my birthright--[He points to his forehead and adds very softly]--is seated here.
MRS. ALVING. [Almost voiceless.] Oswald! No--no!
OSWALD. Don't scream. I can't bear it. Yes, mother, it is seated here waiting. And it may break out any day--at any moment.
OSWALD. Now, quiet, quiet. That is how it stands with me--
MRS. ALVING. [Springs up.] It's not true, Oswald! It's impossible! It cannot be so!
OSWALD. I have had one attack down there already. It was soon over. But when I came to know the state I had been in, then the dread descended upon me, raging and ravening; and so I set off home to you as fast as I could.
OSWALD. Yes--it's so indescribably loathsome, you know. Oh, if it had only been an ordinary mortal disease--! For I'm not so afraid of death--though I should like to live as long as I can.
OSWALD. But this is so unutterably loathsome. To become a little baby again! To have to be fed! To have to--Oh, it's not to be spoken of!
MRS. ALVING. The child has his mother to nurse him.
OSWALD. [Springs up.] No, never that! That is just what I will not have. I can't endure to think that perhaps I should lie in that state for many years--and get old and grey. And in the meantime you might die and leave me. [Sits in MRS. ALVING'S chair.] For the doctor said it wouldn't necessarily prove fatal at once. He called it a sort of softening of the brain--or something like that. [Smiles sadly.] I think that expression sounds so nice. It always sets me thinking of cherry-coloured velvet--something soft and delicate to stroke.