MRS. ALVING. I had borne a great deal in this house. To keep him at
home in the evenings, and at night, I had to make myself his boon
companion in his secret orgies up in his room. There I have had to
sit alone with him, to clink glasses and drink with him, and to
listen to his ribald, silly talk. I have had to fight with him to
get him dragged to bed--

MANDERS. [Moved.] And you were able to bear all this!

MRS. ALVING. I had to bear it for my little boy's sake. But when the
last insult was added; when my own servant-maid--; then I swore to
myself: This shall come to an end! And so I took the reins into my
own hand--the whole control--over him and everything else. For now I
had a weapon against him, you see; he dared not oppose me. It was
then I sent Oswald away from home. He was nearly seven years old,
and was beginning to observe and ask questions, as children do. That
I could not bear. It seemed to me the child must be poisoned by
merely breathing the air of this polluted home. That was why I sent
him away. And now you can see, too, why he was never allowed to set
foot inside his home so long as his father lived. No one knows what
that cost me.

MANDERS. You have indeed had a life of trial.

MRS. ALVING. I could never have borne it if I had not had my work.
For I may truly say that I have worked! All the additions to the
estate--all the improvements--all the labour-saving appliances, that
Alving was so much praised for having introduced--do you suppose he
had energy for anything of the sort?--he, who lay all day on the