11:20 a.m. - 2005-09-01
August Strindberg - \"The Father\"
"We -- all of us -- lived our little lives, unconscious as children, full of ideals, illusions, delusions. And then we woke up. Right enough, but we woke up all turned round, with our feet on the pillow, and he who woke us was himself walking in his sleep. When women grow old and cease to be women, they grow beards; I wonder what happens to men when they grow old and cease to be men? Those emanipators who crowed to make the sun rise were no longer cocks but capons, and those who answered the cockcrow were sexless hens, so that when the sun was to rise we fouind it was nothing but moonshine, and we were still sitting among ruins, just as in the good old days. It had all been nothing but a little morning nap, a crazy dream, and no waking up at all." (Captain)

"I grafted my right arm, half my brain, half my spinal cord on another stem. I thought they would grow together, entwine to form a single, more nearly perfect tree. And then someone comes with a a knife and cuts just under the graft, leaving me as a mere half-tree. But the other shoots up with my right arm and half my brain, while I wither and die, for those were the best parts of me that I gave away." (Captain)

Captain: "You have two souls, and you love me with the one and hate me with the other. You must love only me! You must have only one soul, otherwise you will never have peace, nor shall I. You must have only one mind, the child of my mind; you must have only one will, which is my will."
Bertha: "No, I don't want that! I want to be myself."
Captain: "That you may not be!"

"Why did you not let me kill the child? Life on earth is hell and death is the kingdom of heaven, and the children belong to heaven." (Captain)

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