No!
Leonard.
If you kill yourself, you kill your child, too.
Clara.
Rather both than kill my father! I know you can’t amend sin with sin. But what I do now, comes on my head alone. If I put the knife in his hand, it affects him as well as me. I get it in any case. That gives me courage and strength in all my anguish. It’ll go well with you on this earth. (Goes out.)
Scene 5
Leonard (alone).
I must marry her! Yet why must I? She’s going to do a mad trick to keep her father from doing a mad trick. What need is there for me to stop her by doing a madder trick still? I can’t agree to it, not until I see the man before me who’ll anticipate me by doing the maddest trick of all, and if he thinks as I do, there’ll be no end to the business. That sounds quite clear,—and yet—I must go after her! There’s some one at the door. Thank God! Nothing’s worse than quarrelling with your own thoughts. A rebellion in your head, when you beget snake after snake and each one devours the other or bites off its tail, is the worst kind of all.
Scene 6
Secretary (enters).