CAPTAIN. Yes, that's how it was. My father's and my mother's will
was against my coming into the world, and consequently I was born
without a will. I thought I was completing myself when you and I
became one, and therefore you were allowed to rule, and I, the
commander at the barracks and before the troops, became obedient to
you, grew through you, looked up to you as to it more highly-gifted
being, listened to you as if I had been your undeveloped child.
LAURA. Yes, that's the way it was, and therefore I loved you as my
child. But you know, you must have seen, when the nature of your
feelings changed and you appeared as my lover that I blushed, and
your embraces were joy that was followed by a remorseful conscience
as if my blood were ashamed. The mother became the mistress. Ugh!
CAPTAIN. I saw it, but I did not understand. I believed you
despised me for my unmanliness, and I wanted to win you as a woman
by being a man.
LAURA. Yes, but there was the mistake. The mother was your friend,
you see, but the woman was your enemy, and love between the sexes
is strife. Do not think that I gave myself; I did not give, but I
took--what I wanted. But you had one advantage. I felt that, and I
wanted you to feel it.
CAPTAIN. You always had the advantage. You could hypnotize me when
I was wide awake, so that I neither saw nor heard, but merely
obeyed; you could give me a raw potato and make me imagine it was a
peach; you could force me to admire your foolish caprices as though
they were strokes of genius.
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