GREGERS. Not at all. Not by any means. WERLE. I was not sure whether your devotion to your mother’s memory—— GREGERS. I am not overstrained. WERLE. Well, whatever you may or may not be, at all events you have lifted a great weight from my mind. I am extremely pleased that I can reckon on your concurrence in this matter. GREGERS. [_Looking intently at him._] Now I see the use you want to put me to. WERLE. Use to put you to? What an expression! GREGERS. Oh, don’t let us be nice in our choice of words—not when we are alone together, at any rate. [_With a short laugh._] Well well! So this is what made it absolutely essential that I should come to town in person. For the sake of Mrs. Sörby, we are to get up a pretence at family life in the house—a tableau of filial affection! That will be something new indeed. WERLE. How dare you speak in that tone! GREGERS. Was there ever any family life here? Never since I can remember. But now, forsooth, your plans demand something of the sort. No doubt it will have an excellent effect when it is reported that the son has hastened home, on the wings of filial piety, to the grey-haired father’s wedding-feast. What will then remain of all the rumours as to the wrongs the poor dead mother had to submit to? Not a vestige. Her son annihilates them at one stroke. WERLE. Gregers—I believe there is no one in the world you detest as you do me. GREGERS. [_Softly._] I have seen you at too close quarters. WERLE. You have seen me with your mother’s eyes. [_Lowers his voice a little._] But you should remember that her eyes were—clouded now and then. GREGERS. [_Quivering._] I see what you are hinting at. But who was to blame for mother’s unfortunate weakness? Why you, and all those——! The last of them was this woman that you palmed off upon Hialmar Ekdal, when you were——Ugh! WERLE. [_Shrugs his shoulders._] Word for word as if it were your mother speaking! GREGERS. [_Without heeding._] And there he is now, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, compassed about with all this treachery—living under the same roof with such a creature, and never dreaming that what he calls his home is built upon a lie! [_Comes a step nearer._] When I look back upon your past, I seem to see a battle-field with shattered lives on every hand. WERLE. I begin to think the chasm that divides us is too wide. GREGERS.