LINDKVIST. Yes! Yes! And it isn't too late even now.
ELIS [Rises]. My mother—
[Lindkvist takes out another paper, also blue, and places it on the table.]
LINDKVIST. See—now I put down another paper, and it's blue, too, but as yet—no seals.
ELIS. Oh, God,—my mother! "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."
LINDKVIST. Yes, my young lover of justice, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." That's the way it goes. Now, if I should put this question to myself: "You, Joseph Lindkvist, born in poverty and brought up in denial and work, have you the right at your age to deprive yourself and children—mark you, your children—of the support, which you thro' industry, economy and denial,—mark you, denial,—saved penny by penny? What will you do, Joseph Lindkvist, if you want justice? You plundered no one—but if you resent being plundered, then you cannot stay in this town, as no one would speak to the terrible creature who wants his own hard-earned money returned." So you see there exists a grace which is finer than justice, and that is mercy.
ELIS. You are right. Take everything. It belongs to you.
LINDKVIST. I have right on my side, but I dare not use it.
ELIS. I shall think of your children and not complain.
LINDKVIST. Good. Then I'll put the blue paper away again.—And now we'll go a step further.