Con. Must I teach
A parent laws were meant to be obeyed?
[To Sc.] Lead on, Sir. (To his Mother with cold courtesy.) Madam,—may I trouble you?
[He thrusts her gently aside and passes out with the Sc.; the door is shut and fastened from without. C.'s M. rushes to door which she attempts to force without success.
C.'s M. In vain I batter at a senseless door,
I'll to the keyhole train my tortured ear.
(Listening.) Dead silence! ... is it over—or, to come?
Hark! was not that the click of meeting shears?...
Again! and followed by the sullen thud
Of thumbs that drop upon linoleum!...
[The door is opened and Conrad appears, pale but erect. N.B. The whole of this scene has been compared to one in "La Tosca"—which, however, it exceeds in horror and intensity.
C.'s M. They send him back to me, bereft of both!
My Conrad! What?—repulse a Mother's Arms!
Con. (with chilling composure). Yes, Madam, for between us ever more,
A barrier invisible is raised,
And should I strive to reach those arms again,
Two spectral thumbs would press me coldly back—
The thumbs I sucked in blissful ignorance,
The thumbs that solaced me in solitude,
The thumbs your County Council took from me,
And your endearments scarcely will replace!
Where, Madam, lay the sin in sucking them?
The dog will lick his foot, the cat her claw,
His paws sustain the hibernating bear—
And you decree no law to punish them!
Yet, in your rage for infantine reform,
You rushed this most ridiculous enactment—
Its earliest victim—your neglected son!
C.'s M. (falling at his feet). Say, Conrad, you will some day pardon me?
Con. (bitterly, as he regards his maimed hands.) Aye—on the day these pollards send forth shoots!
[His Mother turns aside with a heartbroken wail; Conrad standing apart in gloomy estrangement as the Curtain descends.