And tonight
I thought I was writing beautifully, but then grandmother said it
was all from Stagnelius, and that I had deceived her, and then she
got terribly angry.
CAPTAIN. Do you believe that there are spirits?
BERTHA. I don't know.
CAPTAIN. But I know that there are none.
BERTHA. But Grandmother says that you don't understand, Father, and
that you do much worse things--you who can see to other planets.
CAPTAIN. Does she say that! Does she say that? What else does she
say?
BERTHA. She says that you can't work witchery.
CAPTAIN. I never said that I could. You know what meteoric stones
are,--stones that fall from other heavenly bodies. I can examine
them and learn whether they contain the same elements as our world.
That is all I can tell.
BERTHA. But Grandmother says that there are things that she can see
which you cannot see.
CAPTAIN. Then she lies.
BERTHA. Grandmother doesn't tell lies.
CAPTAIN. Why doesn't she?
BERTHA. Then Mother tells lies too.
CAPTAIN. H'm!
BERTHA. And if you say that Mother lies, I can never believe in you
again.
CAPTAIN. I have not said so; and so you must believe in me when I
tell you that it is for your future good that you should leave
home. Will you? Will you go to town and learn something useful?
BERTHA. Oh, yes, I should love to go to town, away from here,
anywhere. If I can only see you sometimes--often. Oh, it is so
gloomy and awful in there all the time, like a winter night, but
when you come home Father, it is like a morning in spring when they
take off the double windows.
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