Nor of course can he ever logically be released, for, as he points out, in a mad scene echoing Lear and Dostoyevskeyan tableaux, what father can ever be certain of his child, what father can ever be other than putative, a lament that, horrible as it may suddenly seem, is only of the nature of things (short of chastity belts): as well lament the unrelenting pull of gravity.