CAPTAIN. Curt is kind! And how he has ch...

CAPTAIN. Curt is kind! And how he has changed.

ALICE. Yes, and for the better. It is too bad, however, that he must be dragged into our misery just now.

CAPTAIN. But good for us—I wonder just how he stands. Did you notice that he wouldn't speak of his own affairs?

ALICE. I did notice it, but then I don't think anybody asked him.

CAPTAIN. Think, what a life! And ours! I wonder if it is the same for all people?

ALICE. Perhaps, although they don't speak of it as we do.

CAPTAIN. At times I have thought that misery draws misery, and that those who are happy shun the unhappy. That is the reason why we see nothing but misery.

ALICE. Have you known anybody who was happy?

CAPTAIN. Let me see! No—Yes—the Ekmarks.

ALICE. You don't mean it! She had to have an operation last year——

CAPTAIN. That's right. Well, then I don't know—yes, the Von Kraffts.

ALICE. Yes, the whole family lived an idyllic life, well off, respected by everybody, nice children, good marriages—right along until they were fifty. Then that cousin of theirs committed a crime that led to a prison term and all sorts of after-effects. And that was the end of their peace. The family name was dragged in the mud by all the newspapers. The Krafft murder case made it impossible for the family to appear anywhere, after having been so much thought of. The children had to be taken out of school. Oh, heavens!

CAPTAIN. I wonder what my trouble is?

ALICE. What do you think?

CAPTAIN. Heart or head. It is as if the soul wanted to fly off and turn into smoke.

ALICE. Have you any appetite?

CAPTAIN. Yes, how about the supper?

ALICE. [Crosses the stage, disturbed] I'll ask Jenny.

CAPTAIN. Why, she's gone!

ALICE. Yes, yes, yes!

CAPTAIN. Ring for Christine so that I can get some fresh water.

ALICE. [Rings] I wonder—[Rings again] She doesn't hear.

CAPTAIN. Go and look—just think, if she should have left also!

ALICE. [Goes over to the door on the left and opens it] What is this? Her trunk is in the hallway—packed.

CAPTAIN. Then she has gone.

ALICE. This is hell!

Begins to cry, falls on her knees, and puts her head on a chair, sobbing.

CAPTAIN. And everything at once! And then Curt had to turn up just in time to get a look into this mess of ours! If there be any further humiliation in store, let it come this moment!

ALICE. Do you know what I suspect? Curt went away and will not come back.

CAPTAIN. I believe it of him.

ALICE. Yes, we are cursed——

CAPTAIN. What are you talking of?

ALICE. Don't you see how everybody shuns us?

CAPTAIN. I don't mind! [The telegraph receiver clicks] There is the answer. Hush, I can hear it—Nobody can spare the time. Evasions! The rabble!

ALICE. That's what you get because you have despised your physicians—and failed to pay them.

CAPTAIN. That is not so!

ALICE. Even when you could, you didn't care to pay their bills because you looked down upon their work, just as you have looked down upon mine and everybody else's. They don't want to come. And the telephone is cut off because you didn't think that good for anything either. Nothing is good for anything but your rifles and guns!

CAPTAIN. Don't stand there and talk nonsense——

ALICE. Everything comes back.

CAPTAIN. What sort of superstition is that? Talk for old women!

ALICE. You will see! Do you know that we owe Christine six months' wages?

CAPTAIN. Well, she has stolen that much.

ALICE. But I have also had to borrow money from her.

CAPTAIN. I think you capable of it.

ALICE. What an ingrate you are! You know I borrowed that money for the children to get into the city.

CAPTAIN. Curt had a fine way of coming back! A rascal, that one, too! And a coward! He didn't dare to say he had had enough, and that he found the doctor's party more pleasant—He's the same rapscallion as ever!

CURT. [Enters quickly from the left] Well, my dear Edgar, this is how the matter stands—the doctor knows everything about your heart——

CAPTAIN. My heart?

CURT. You have long been suffering from calcification of the heart——

CAPTAIN. Stone heart?

CURT. And——

CAPTAIN. Is it serious?

CURT. Well, that is to say——

CAPTAIN. It is serious.

CURT. Yes.

CAPTAIN. Fatal?

CURT. You must be very careful. First of all: the cigar must go. [The CAPTAIN throws away his cigar] And next: no more whiskey! Then, to bed!

CAPTAIN. [Scared] No, I don't want that! Not to bed! That's the end! Then you never get up again. I shall sleep on the couch to-night. What more did he say?

CURT. He was very nice about it and will come at once if you call him.

CAPTAIN. Was he nice, the hypocrite? I don't want to see him! I can at least eat?

CURT. Not to-night. And during the next few days nothing but milk.

CAPTAIN. Milk! I cannot take that stuff into my mouth.

CURT. Better learn how!

CAPTAIN. I am too old to learn. [Puts his hand up to his head] Oh, there it is again now! [He sits perfectly still, staring straight ahead.]

ALICE. [To CURT] What did the doctor tell you?

CURT. That he may die.

ALICE. Thank God!

CURT. Take care, Alice, take care! And now, go and get a pillow and a blanket and I'll put him here on the couch. Then I'll sit on the chair here all night.

ALICE. And I?

CURT. You go to bed. Your presence seems only to make him worse.

ALICE. Command! I shall obey, for you seem to mean well toward both of us. [Goes out to the left.]

CURT. Mark you—toward both of you! And I shall not mix in any partisan squabbles.

August Strindberg, The Dance of Death, Part One, in Plays: First Series, trans. Edwin Björkman, 1912.