MRS. ALVING. Then this is the dread—!
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.
MRS. ALVING. Yes, yes, Oswald, you must!
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.
MRS. ALVING. [Shrieks.] Oswald!
OSWALD. [Springs up and paces the room.] And now you have taken Regina from me. If I could only have had her! She would have come to the rescue, I know.
MRS. ALVING. [Goes to him.] What do you mean by that, my darling boy? Is there any help in the world that I would not give you?
OSWALD. When I got over my attack in Paris, the doctor told me that when it comes again—and it will come—there will be no more hope.