LAURA. Oh, am I really so powerful?
CAPTAIN. Yes, you have a fiendish power of getting your own way;
but so has anyone who does not scruple about, the way it is
accomplished. How did you get Doctor Norling away, for instance,
and how did you get this new doctor here?
LAURA. Yes, how did I manage that?
CAPTAIN. You insulted the other one so much that he left, and made
your brother recommend this fellow.
LAURA. Well, that was quite simple and legitimate. Is Bertha to
leave home now?
CAPTAIN. Yes, she is to start in a fortnight.
LAURA. That is your decision?
CAPTAIN. Yes.
LAURA. Then I must try to prevent it.
CAPTAIN. You cannot.
LAURA. Can't I? Do you really think I would trust my daughter to
wicked people to have her taught that everything her mother has
implanted in her child is mere foolishness? Why, afterward, she
would despise me all the rest of her life!
CAPTAIN. Do you think that a father should allow ignorant and
conceited women to teach his daughter that he is a charlatan?
LAURA. It means less to the father.
CAPTAIN. Why so?
LAURA. Because the mother is closer to the child, as it has been
discovered that no one can tell for a certainty who the father of a
child is.
CAPTAIN. How does that apply to this case?
LAURA. You do not know whether you are Bertha's father or not.
CAPTAIN. I do not know?
LAURA. No; what no one knows, you surely cannot know.
CAPTAIN. Are you joking?
LAURA. No; I am only making use of your own teaching.
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