quote that saying of Nietzsche's: "To hunger after knowledge as the
lion for his food!"

MRS. MASTERSON. Oh, you read Nietzsche, do you? How could you get such
books?

OCEANA. We had a government steamer from New Zealand three times a
year, you know. That brought our mail.

MRS. MASTERSON. And your father permitted you to read these improper
things?

OCEANA. My father taught me to face the facts of my being. My father
was a fighter, you know.

MRS. MASTERSON. [Grimly.] Yes, I knew that.

OCEANA. Life had hurt him. Some day you must tell me about it . . .
what it was that happened to him here in Boston. He never would talk
about it, but I've often wondered. It must have been my mother. What
did she do to him before she died? [She pauses, expecting an answer.]
Was it that she was just conventional like you? [She pauses again.] It
must have been something dreadful . . . he felt so keenly about it. He
burned it into my very soul . . . his fear of civilization. And here I
am . . . right in the midst of it . . . I'm letting it get its claws
into me! I'm wearing its clothes . . . [She tears at them.] I'm
breathing its air! I don't believe I can stand it! [She paces the room
restlessly.] My soul is suffocating, as well as my body. I must have
something to remind me of the sky, and the open sea, and the great
spaces. I must go back again to my home, to my island! [Stretches out