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Page 107
STRANGER. Not the kind you mean.
CONFESSOR. Then what kind?
STRANGER. I could still imagine a reconciliation between mankind
and woman--through woman herself! And indeed, through that woman
who was my wife and has now become what I once held her to be
having been purified and lifted up by sorrow and need. But ...
CONFESSOR. But what?
STRANGER. Experience teaches; the nearer, the further off: the
further from one another, the nearer one can be.
CONFESSOR. I've always known that--it was known by Dante, who all
his life possessed the soul of Beatrice; and Beethoven, who was
united from afar with Therese von Brunswick, knew it, though she
was the wife of another!
STRANGER. And yet! Happiness is only to be found in her company.
CONFESSOR. Then stay with her.
STRANGER. You're forgetting one thing: we're divorced.
CONFESSOR. Good! Then you can begin a new marriage. And it'll
promise all the more, because both of you are new people.
STRANGER. Do you think anyone would marry us?
CONFESSOR. I, for instance? That's asking too much.
STRANGER. Yes. I'd forgotten! But I daresay someone could be found.
It's another thing to get a home together. ...
CONFESSOR. You're sometimes lucky, even if you won't see it.
There's a small house down there by the river; it's quite new and
the owner's never even seen it. He was an Englishman who wanted to
marry; but at the last moment _she_ broke off the engagement. It
was built by his secretary, and neither of the engaged couple ever
set eyes on it. It's quite intact, you see!
STRANGER. IS it to let?
CONFESSOR. Yes.
STRANGER. Then I'll risk it. And I'll try to begin life all over
again.
CONFESSOR. Then you'll go down?
STRANGER. Out of the clouds. Below the sun's shining, and up here
the air's a little thin.
CONFESSOR. Good! Then we must part--for a time.
STRANGER. Where are you going?
CONFESSOR. Up.
STRANGER. And I down; to the earth, the mother with the soft bosom
and warm lap. ...
CONFESSOR. Until you long once more for what's hard as stone, as
cold and as white ... Farewell! Greetings to those below!
(Each of them goes of in the direction he has chosen.)
Curtain.
SCENE III
A SMALL HOUSE ON THE MOUNTAIN
[A pleasant, panelled dining-room, with a tiled stove of majolica.
On the dining-table, which is in the middle of the room, stand
vases filled with flowers; also two candelabra with many lighted
candles. A large carved sideboard on the left. On the right, two
windows. At the back, two doors; that on the left is open and gives
a view of the drawing-room, belonging to the lady of the house,
which is furnished in light green and mahogany, and has a standard
lamp of brass with a large, lemon-coloured lampshade, which is lit.
The door on the right is closed. On the left behind the sideboard
the entrance from the hall.]
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