Now we might begin again--planing, sawing, and hammering, and then eating, drinking, and sleeping between-whiles to be able to go on planing and sawing and hammering. And a-bending of the knee on Sundays into the bargain: O God, I thank Thee for letting me plane and saw and hammer! (_Drinks._) Long live every dog that doesn’t bite on the chain! (_Drinks again._) Here’s to him again! CLARA. Karl, don’t drink so much. Father says there’s the devil in wine. KARL. And the parson says there’s God in it. (_Drinks._) We’ll see who’s right. The bailiff came here. How did he behave? CLARA. He behaved as if he were in a thieves’ den. Mother fell down and died the moment he opened his mouth. KARL. Good! If you hear in the morning that he’s been found dead, don’t curse the murderer. CLARA. But, Karl, you won’t---- KARL. I’m not the only enemy he’s got. He’s been attacked many a time. It would be no easy matter to spot the right man, unless he leaves his hat or his stick lying. (_Drinks._) Whoever he is, I wish him luck. CLARA. You’re talking---- KARL. Don’t you like the idea? Leave it alone, then. You won’t see me for a long time again. CLARA (_shuddering_). No. KARL. No! Do you know already that I’m going to sea? Do my thoughts crawl on my forehead for you to read them? Or has the old man been raving in his usual fashion and threatening to lock me out? Bah! That would be much the same as if the warder had said to me--“You can’t stay in prison any longer; I’ll throw you out where you’ll be free.” CLARA. You don’t understand me. KARL (_sings_). “The good ship puffs its sails, oh, And merrily blows the breeze.” Yes, truly, I’m not bound to the joiner’s bench any longer. Mother’s dead. There’s nobody now who would stop eating fish after every storm. Besides, I’ve wanted it ever since I was a boy. Out into the world! I shall never get on here, or not until I have it proved to me that Fortune no longer favours the man that boldly risks his life, the man that throws away the copper he gets from the great treasury, to see whether she’ll take it from him, or give it back to him gilded. CLARA. And will you leave father alone? He’s sixty now. KARL. Alone? Aren’t you staying with him? CLARA. I? KARL. Yes, you, his favourite! What nonsense have you got in your head that you ask such questions? I don’t begrudge him his pleasure. He’ll be freed from his eternal worry, when I go. So why shouldn’t I? We simply don’t suit each other. Things can’t be too narrow for him. He’d like to clench his fist and creep inside of it. I’d like to burst my skin like baby’s clothes, if I could! (_Sings._) “The anchor’s lightly lifted, The rudder’s quickly shifted, Away she flies with ease.”