[In growing impatience.] Yes, I don’t know how else to express it. All this morbid watchfulness and—and idolisation, or whatever you like to call it——I can’t endure it any longer!
Mrs. Borkman.
[Looking at him with deep solemnity.] Have you forgotten what you have consecrated your life to, Erhart?
Erhart.
[With an outburst.] Oh, say rather what you have consecrated my life to. You, you have been my will. You have never given me leave to have any of my own. But now I cannot bear this yoke any longer. I am young; remember that, mother. [With a polite, considerate glance towards Borkman.] I cannot consecrate my life to making atonement for another—whoever that other may be.
Mrs. Borkman.
[Seized with a growing anxiety.] Who is it that has transformed you, Erhart?
Erhart.
[Struck.] Who? Can you not conceive that it is I myself?
Mrs. Borkman.