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Page 10
LADY. No.
STRANGER. You must be the only one. But I'm all the more grateful.
LADY (rising). I must leave you now.
STRANGER. You, too?
LADY. And you mustn't stay here.
STRANGER. Where should I go?
LADY. Home. To your work.
STRANGER. But I'm no worker. I'm a writer.
LADY. I know. But I didn't want to hurt you. Creative power is
something given you, that can also taken away. See you don't
forfeit yours.
STRANGER. Where are you going?
LADY. Only to a shop.
STRANGER (after a pause). Tell me, are you a believer?
LADY. I am nothing.
STRANGER. All the better: you have a future. How I wish I were your
old blind father, whom you could lead to the market place to sing
for his bread. My tragedy is I cannot grow old that's what happens
to children of the elves, they have big heads and never only cry. I
wish I were someone's dog. I could follow him and never be alone
again. I'd get a meal sometimes, a kick now and then, a pat
perhaps, a blow often. ...
LADY. Now I must go. Good-bye. (She goes out.)
STRANGER (absent-mindedly). Good-bye. (He remains on the seat. He
takes off his hat and wipes his forehead. Then he draws on the
ground with his stick. A BEGGAR enters. He has a strange look and
is collecting objects from the gutter.) White are you picking up,
beggar?
BEGGAR. Why call me that? I'm no beggar. Have I asked you for
anything?
STRANGER. I beg your pardon. It's so hard to judge men from
appearances.
BEGGAR. That's true. For instance, can you guess who I am?
STRANGER. I don't intend to try. It doesn't interest me.
BEGGAR. No one can know that in advance. Interest commonly comes
afterwards--when it's too late. Virtus post nummos!
STRANGER. What? Do beggars know Latin?
BEGGAR. You see, you're interested already. Omne tulit punctum qui
miscuit utile dulci. I have always succeeded in everything I've
undertaken, because I've never attempted anything. I should like to
call myself Polycrates, who found the gold ring in the fish's
stomach. Life has given me all I asked of it. But I never asked
anything; I grew tired of success and threw the ring away. Yet, now
I've grown old I regret it. I search for it in the gutters; but as
the search takes time, in default of my gold ring I don't disdain a
few cigar stumps. ...
STRANGER. I don't know whether this beggar's cynical or mad.
BEGGAR. I don't know either.
STRANGER. Do you know who I am?
BEGGAR. No. And it doesn't interest me.
STRANGER. Well, interest commonly comes afterwards. ... You see you
tempt me to take the words out of your mouth. And that's the same
thing as picking up other people's cigars.
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