Ghosts

Excerpt: ...you. Mrs. Alving. Indeed you do. Manders. I suppose you are thinking of cases where possibly-. It is only too true, unfortunately, that family life is not always as stainless as it should be. But as for the sort of thing you hint at-well, it's impossible to tell, at all events, with any certainty. Here on the other hand-for you, a mother, to be willing to allow your- Mrs. Alving. But I am not willing to allow it; I would not allow it for anything in the world; that is just what I was saying. Manders. No, because you are a coward, as you put it. But, supposing you were not a coward-! Great heavens-such a revolting union! Mrs. Alving. Well, for the matter of that, we are all descended from a union of that description, so we are told. And who was it that was responsible for this state of things, Mr. Manders? Manders. I can't discuss such questions with you, Mrs. Alving; you are by no means in the right frame of mind for that. But for you to dare to say that it is cowardly of you-! Mrs. Alving. I will tell you what I mean by that. I am frightened and timid, because I am obsessed by the presence of ghosts that I never can get rid of, Manders. The presence of what? Mrs. Alving. Ghosts. When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was just like seeing ghosts before my eyes. I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us. Manders. Ah!-there we have the outcome of your reading. Fine fruit...