And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all
of us.
Manders. Ah!--there we have the outcome of your reading. Fine
fruit it has borne--this abominable, subversive, free-thinking
literature!
Mrs. Alving. You are wrong there, my friend. You are the one who
made me begin to think; and I owe you my best thanks for it.
Menders. I!
Mrs. Alving. Yes, by forcing me to submit to what you called my
duty and my obligations; by praising as right and lust what my
whole soul revolted against, as it would against something
abominable. That was what led me to examine your teachings
critically. I only wanted to unravel one point in them; but as
soon as I had got that unravelled, the whole fabric came to
pieces. And then I realised that it was only machine-made.
Manders (softly, and with emotion). Is that all I accomplished by
the hardest struggle of my life?
Mrs. Alving. Call it rather the most ignominious defeat of your
life.
Manders. It was the greatest victory of my life, Helen; victory
over myself.
Mrs.
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