YOUNG LADY. Don't tell, or I'll die!
STUDENT. I must, lest I die!
YOUNG LADY. It is only in the asylum you say all that you think....
STUDENT. Exactly! My father died in a madhouse....
YOUNG LADY. Was he sick?
STUDENT. No, perfectly well, and yet mad. It broke out at last, and these were the circumstances. Like all of us, he was surrounded by a circle of acquaintances whom he called friends for the sake of convenience, and they were a lot of scoundrels, of course, as most people are. He had to have some society, however, as he couldn't sit all alone. As you know, no one tells people what he thinks of them under ordinary circumstances, and my father didn't do so either. He knew that they were false, and he knew the full extent of their perfidy, but, being a wise man and well brought up, he remained always polite. One day he gave a big party.... It was in the evening, naturally, and he was tired out by a hard day's work. Then the strain of keeping his thoughts to himself while talking a lot of damned rot to his guests.... [The YOUNG LADY is visibly shocked] Well, while they were still at the table, he rapped for silence, raised his glass, and began to speak.... Then something loosed the trigger, and in a long speech he stripped the whole company naked, one by one, telling them all he knew about their treacheries. At last, when utterly tired out, he sat down on the table itself and told them all to go to hell!
YOUNG LADY. Oh!
STUDENT. I was present, and I shall never forget what happened after that. My parents had a fight, the guests rushed for the doors—and my father was taken to a madhouse, where he died! [Pause] To keep silent too long is like letting water stagnate so that it rots. That is what has happened in this house. There is something rotten here. And yet I thought it paradise itself when I saw you enter here the first time.... It was a Sunday morning, and I stood gazing into these rooms. Here I saw a Colonel who was no colonel. I had a generous benefactor who was a robber and had to hang himself. I saw a Mummy who was not a mummy, and a maiden—how about the maidenhood, by the by?... Where is beauty to be found? In nature, and in my own mind when it has donned its Sunday clothes. Where do we find honour and faith? In fairy-tales and childish fancies. Where can I find anything that keeps its promise? Only in my own imagination!... Your flowers have poisoned me and now I am squirting their poison back at you.... I asked you to become my wife in a home full of poetry, and song, and music; and then the Cook appeared.... Sursum corda! Try once more to strike fire and purple out of the golden harp.... Try, I ask you, I implore you on my knees.... [As she does not move] Then I must do it myself! [He picks up the harp, but is unable to make its strings sound] It has grown deaf and dumb! Only think that the most beautiful flower of all can be so poisonous—that it can be more poisonous than any other one.... There must be a curse on all creation and on life itself.... Why did you not want to become my bride? Because the very well-spring of life within you has been sickened.... Now I can feel how that vampire in the kitchen is sucking my life juices.... She must be a Lamia, one of those that suck the blood of children. It is always in the servants' quarters that the seed-leaves of the children are nipped, if it has not already happened in the bedroom.... There are poisons that blind you, and others that open your eyes more widely. I must have been born with that second kind of poison, I fear, for I cannot regard what is ugly as beautiful, or call evil good—I cannot! They say that Jesus Christ descended into hell. It refers merely to his wanderings on this earth—his descent into that madhouse, that jail, that morgue, the earth. The madmen killed him when he wished to liberate them, but the robber was set free. It is always the robber who gets sympathy! Woe! Woe is all of us! Saviour of the World, save us—we are perishing!
Toward the end of the STUDENT'S speech, the YOUNG LADY has drooped more and more. She seems to be dying. At last she manages to reach a bell and rings for BENGTSSON, who enters shortly afterward.
YOUNG LADY. Bring the screen! Quick! I am dying!