Free Copenhagen by Michael Frayn Page B

two more. And as you frankly admit, you’re going to go back and continue doing precisely what you were doing before, whatever Niels tells you.
    Heisenberg   Yes.
    Margrethe   Because you wouldn’t dream of giving up such a wonderful opportunity for research.
    Heisenberg   Not if I can possibly help it.
    Margrethe   Also you want to demonstrate to the Nazis how useful theoretical physics can be. You want to save the honour of German science. You want to be there to reestablish it in all its glory as soon as the war’s over.
    Heisenberg   All the same, I don’t tell Speer that the reactor …
    Margrethe    … will produce plutonium, no, because you’re afraid of what will happen if the Nazis commit huge resources, and you fail to deliver the bombs. Please don’t try to tell us that you’re a hero of the resistance.
    Heisenberg   I’ve never claimed to be a hero.
    Margrethe   Your talent is for skiing too fast for anyone to see where you are. For always being in more than one position at a time, like one of your particles.
    Heisenberg   I can only say that it worked. Unlike most of the gestures made by heroes of the resistance. It worked! I know what you think. You think I should have joined the plot against Hitler, and got myself hanged like the others.
    Bohr   Of course not.
    Heisenberg   You don’t say it, because there are some things that can’t be said. But you think it.
    Bohr   No.
    Heisenberg   What would it have achieved? What would it have achieved if you’d dived in after Christian, and drowned as well? But that’s another thing that can’t be said.
    Bohr   Only thought.
    Heisenberg   Yes. I’m sorry.
    Bohr   And rethought. Every day.
    Heisenberg   You had to be held back, I know.
    Margrethe   Whereas you held yourself back.
    Heisenberg   Better to stay on the boat, though, and fetch it about. Better to remain alive, and throw the lifebuoy. Surely!
    Bohr   Perhaps. Perhaps not.
    Heisenberg   Better. Better.
    Margrethe   Really it is ridiculous. You reasoned your way, both of you, with such astonishing delicacy and precision into the tiny world of the atom. Now it turns out that everything depends upon these really rather large objects on our shoulders. And what’s going on in there is …
    Heisenberg   Elsinore.
    Margrethe   Elsinore, yes.
    Heisenberg   And you may be right. I
was
afraid of what would happen. I
was
conscious of being on the winning side … So many explanations for everything I did! So many of them sitting round the lunch-table! Somewhere at the head of the table, I think, is the real reason I cameto Copenhagen. Again I turn to look .… And for a moment I almost see its face. Then next time I look the chair at the head of the table is completely empty. There’s no reason at all. I didn’t tell Speer simply because I didn’t think of it. I came to Copenhagen simply because I did think of it. A million things we might do or might not do every day. A million decisions that make themselves. Why didn’t you kill me?
    Bohr   Why didn’t I …?
    Heisenberg   Kill me. Murder me. That evening in 1941. Here we are, walking back towards the house, and you’ve just leapt to the conclusion that I’m going to arm Hitler with nuclear weapons. You’ll surely take any reasonable steps to prevent it happening.
    Bohr   By murdering you?
    Heisenberg   We’re in the middle of a war. I’m an enemy. There’s nothing odd or immoral about killing enemies.
    Bohr   I should fetch out my cap-pistol?
    Heisenberg   You won’t need your cap-pistol. You won’t even need a mine. You can do it without any loud bangs, without any blood, without any spectacle of suffering. As cleanly as a bomb-aimer pressing his release three thousand metres above the earth. You simply wait till I’ve gone. Then you sit quietly down in your favourite armchair here and repeat aloud to Margrethe, in front of our unseen audience, what I’ve just told you. I shall