30. Level Four
[Phone]
[Veidt sounds tired, bitter.]
Oh, what fun this little game might have been a few months ago.
If I hadn't already spilled my own beans about my activities back home in an attempt at keeping the lot of you from stooping to my wretched level, I'm sure the town would be making me talk all about that right now.
So, what else can I possibly regale and disgust you with? The fact that my father was a member of the Nazi Party? That he oversaw an extermination camp?
[pause]
How about that I killed him myself for that when I was sixteen? Does that satisfy you, Mayfield? Are you pleased that kindly Mr. Veidt is just another abnormal psychological study?
[There is another long silence.]
...the worst of this is, I feel as though I have betrayed my students. I don't think any of you realize how deeply I do care about you, all of you. I had hoped that I might be able to be a sort of father to you here, but I doubt I deserve that sort of happiness now.
I don't think I deserve much good at all.
[Veidt sounds tired, bitter.]
Oh, what fun this little game might have been a few months ago.
If I hadn't already spilled my own beans about my activities back home in an attempt at keeping the lot of you from stooping to my wretched level, I'm sure the town would be making me talk all about that right now.
So, what else can I possibly regale and disgust you with? The fact that my father was a member of the Nazi Party? That he oversaw an extermination camp?
[pause]
How about that I killed him myself for that when I was sixteen? Does that satisfy you, Mayfield? Are you pleased that kindly Mr. Veidt is just another abnormal psychological study?
[There is another long silence.]
...the worst of this is, I feel as though I have betrayed my students. I don't think any of you realize how deeply I do care about you, all of you. I had hoped that I might be able to be a sort of father to you here, but I doubt I deserve that sort of happiness now.
I don't think I deserve much good at all.