CLARA.

Oh, Carl!

ANTONY.

I wonder what I shall do when I see him again before me, when he comes home some evening before candlelight with his hair shaved off—­for hair-dressing is not allowed in the penitentiary—­and stammers out a good evening, keeping his hand on the door-knob?  I shall do something, that is certain—­but what?

[Gnashes his teeth.]

And if they keep him locked up for ten years, he shall find me, for I shall live until then—­that much I know!  Mark you, Death, what I say:  From now on I am a stone in front of your scythe!  It shall fly to pieces before it shall budge me!

CLARA (grasps his hand).

Father, you ought to lie down and rest for half an hour!

ANTONY.

To dream that you are about to be confined?  And then to fly into a passion and seize you, and afterward bethink myself too late and say:  “Dear daughter, I did not know what I was doing!” Thank you!  My sleep has dismissed the magician and employed a prophet, who points out loathsome things to me with his bloody finger!  I don’t know how it is—­everything seems possible to me now.  Ugh!  I shudder at the future as at a glass of water seen under the microscope—­is that the right word, Mr. Precentor?  You have spelled it out for me often enough!  I looked through one once in Nuremburg at the fair, and couldn’t drink any more water all day long.  Last night I saw my dear Carl with a pistol in his hand; when I looked closer into his eyes he pulled the trigger.  I heard a cry, but could see nothing on account of the smoke.  When it cleared away, I saw no shattered skull—­but my fine son had in the mean time come to be a rich man; he was standing and counting gold pieces from one hand into the other.  His face—­the Devil take me!—­a man could have no calmer one after working all day and closing the door of his workshop behind him at night!  Well, that’s a thing one might prevent!  One might take the law into one’s own hands, and afterward present one’s self before the supreme Judge!

CLARA.

Calm yourself!

ANTONY.

Get well again you mean to say!  Why am I sick?  Yes, doctor, hand me the drink that shall make me well!  Your brother is the worst of sons; be you the best of daughters!  Like a worthless bankrupt I stand before the eyes of the world!  I owed it a fine man to take the place of this weak invalid, and I cheated it with a scoundrel!  Be you such a woman as your mother was, and then people will say:  It does not come from his parents that the boy went wrong, for the daughter treads the path of righteousness and excels all others.

[With terrible coldness.]

And I will do my part in the matter; I will make it easier for you than it is for others.  The moment I see anybody point his fingers at you, I shall [with a motion toward his neck_] shave myself, and then, I swear to you, I shall shave off head and all.  Then you may say I did it from fright, because a horse ran away in the street, or because the cat overturned a chair on the floor, or because a mouse ran up my legs.  Anybody that knows me, to be sure, will shake his head at that, for I am not easily frightened—­but what difference does that make?  I could not endure to live in a world where the people would refrain from spitting at me simply out of pity.