Professor Charles Rankin You're not much changed. Put you back in your old uniform, you'd look very much the same.
KM Konrad Meinike
Franz, I am a different man than before.
Professor Charles Rankin I, too. I, too, am different, Konrad. You know how I gathered and destroyed every single item in Germany and Poland that might have served as a clue to my identity. Well, guess what I'll be doing at 6:00 tonight. Standing before a minister of the gospel with a woman's hand in mine, the daughter of a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a famous liberal. The girl's even good to look at. Yes, the camouflage is perfect. Who would think to look for the notorious Franz Kindler in the sacred precincts of the Harper School, surrounded by the sons of America's first families? And I'll stay hidden... till the day when we strike again.
KM Konrad Meinike
Franz! There will be another war?
Professor Charles Rankin Well, of course.
Do you know Germany, Mr. Rankin?
Professor Charles Rankin I'm sorry, I...I have a way of making enemies when I'm on that subject. I get pretty unpopular.
Well, we shall consider it the objective opinion of an objective historian.
Professor Charles Rankin Historian? A psychiatrist could explain it better. The German sees himself as the innocent victim of world envy and hatred, conspired against, set upon by inferior peoples, inferior nations. He cannot admit to error, much less to wrongdoing, not the German. We chose to ignore Ethiopia and Spain, but we learned from our own casualty list the price of looking the other way. Men of truth everywhere have come to know for whom the bell tolled, but not the German. No! He still follows his warrior gods marching to Wagnerian strains, his eyes still fixed upon the fiery sword of Siegfried. And in those subterranean meeting places that you don't believe in, the German's dream world comes alive when he takes his place in shining armor beneath the banners of the Teutonic Knights. Mankind is waiting for the Messiah, but for the German, the Messiah is not the Prince of Peace. No, he's... another Barbarossa... another Hitler.
Well, then you have no faith in the reforms that are being effected in Germany.
Professor Charles Rankin I don't know, Mr. Wilson. I can't believe that people can be reformed except from within. The basic principles of equality and freedom never have and never will take root in Germany. The will to freedom has been voiced in every other tongue. "All men are created equal", liberte, egalite, fraternite - but in German...
NL Noah Longstreet
There's Marx. "Proletarians, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains."
Professor Charles Rankin But Marx wasn't a German, Marx was a Jew.
JL Judge Longstreet
But, my dear Charles, if we concede your argument, there is no solution.
Professor Charles Rankin Well, sir, once again, I differ.
JL Judge Longstreet
Well, what is it, then?
Professor Charles Rankin Annihilation. Down to the last babe in arms.
Oh, Charles, I can't imagine you're advocating a Carthaginian peace.
Professor Charles Rankin Well, as an historian, I must remind you that the world hasn't had much trouble from Carthage in the past 2,000 years.
Why are you packing? Are we going somewhere?
Professor Charles Rankin We aren't, dearest. I am.
What are you talking about?
Professor Charles Rankin As a rule, men leave their wives because they don't love them, but...I must leave you because I do. Oh, you won't object once you know the kind of man you've married.
But you are the man I've married, and that's all that matters. Darling, I meant it when I said for better or for worse. Even to...
Professor Charles Rankin To killing Red?
You couldn't have. It was an accident.
Professor Charles Rankin No, I meant to kill him. Murder can be a chain, Mary, one link leading to another until it circles your neck. Red was digging at the grave of the man I killed. Yes, your little man.
Professor Charles Rankin With these hands. The same hands that have held you close to me. Now are you satisfied to let me go?
Professor Charles Rankin Yes, if he goes to the church and climbs up that ladder!
It was I you intended to kill, wasn't it?
Professor Charles Rankin No.
Why wasn't it I? Franz Kindler! Kill me. Kill me, I want you to. I couldn't face life knowing what I've been to you and what I've done to Noah. But when you kill me, don't put your hands on me! [hands Charles a gun] Here!
Professor Charles Rankin No, no, Mary, it's you that's going to die. You were meant to fall through that ladder.
You're going to fall. I don't mind if I take you with me.
Professor Charles Rankin You are a fool. They've searched the woods. I watched them. Here, like God, looking at little ants. I'll hide in the woods. They won't search there again. In a day or two, they'll be sure I got out of town.
When they find me, they'll know you're still here.
Professor Charles Rankin But, darling, you're on the verge of a breakdown. Now you've cracked. Why else would you leave your bed, climb to an empty church tower in the dead of night? Any child could see you'd wind up killing yourself. Killing is what led you here. It won't help you now.
Look out the window. Look!
Professor Charles Rankin Well, that's... that's an old trick, Mr. Wilson, a very poor trick.
Tricks. That's all you know is tricks. I don't need any tricks! And no matter what happens to me, tricks won't do you any good. You're finished, Herr Franz Kindler.
[noise of a crowd begins to build outside the church]
The citizens of Harper, they've come after you. The plain, little, ordinary people, the ones you've been laughing at, Herr Franz Kindler! Well, you can't fool them anymore. Oh, sure, you can kill me, Mary, half the people down there, but there's no escape. You had a world and it closed in on you till there was only Harper. That closed in on you and there was only this room! And this room, too, is closing in on you! It's not true, the things they say I did. It was all their idea.
Professor Charles Rankin I followed orders.
Professor Charles Rankin I only did my duty. Don't send me back to them. I can't face them. I'm not a criminal.
