Of course I can pity him, as I would anybody else; but——

Mrs. Alving.

Nothing more! Your own father!

Oswald.

[Impatiently.] Oh, “father,”—“father”! I never knew anything of father. I remember nothing about him, except that he once made me sick.

Mrs. Alving.

This is terrible to think of! Ought not a son to love his father, whatever happens?

Oswald.

When a son has nothing to thank his father for? has never known him? Do you really cling to that old superstition?—you who are so enlightened in other ways?

Mrs. Alving.