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Page 25
STRANGER. Birds sang all the year for you then! Now they only sing
in the spring--and autumn's not far off. But in those days you used
to dance along this endless way of Calvaries, plucking flowers at
the feet of the crosses. (A horn in the distance.) What's that?
LADY. My grandfather coming back from shooting. A good old man.
Let's go on and reach the house by dark.
STRANGER. Is it still far?
LADY. No. Only across the hills and over the river.
STRANGER. Is that the river I hear?
LADY. The river by which I was born and brought up. I was eighteen
before I crossed over to this bank, to see what was in the blue of
the distance. ... Now I've seen.
STRANGER. You're weeping!
LADY. Poor old man! When I got into the boat, he said: My child,
beyond lies the world. When you've seen enough, come back to your
mountains, and they will hide you. Now I've seen enough. Enough!
STRANGER. Let's go. It's beginning to grow dusk already. (They pick
up their travelling capes and go on.)
SCENE VI
IN A RAVINE
[Entrance to a ravine between steep cliffs covered with pines. In
the foreground a wooden shanty, a broom by the door with a ramshorn
hanging from its handle. Left, a smithy, a red glow showing through
its open door. Right, a flourmill. In the background the road
through the ravine with mill-stream and footbridge. The rock
formations look like giant profiles.]
[On the rise of the curtain the SMITH is at the smithy door and the
MILLER'S WIFE at the door of the mill. When the LADY enters they
sign to one another and disappear. The clothing of both the LADY
and the STRANGER is torn and shabby.]
STRANGER. They're hiding, from us, probably.
LADY. I don't think so.
STRANGER. What a strange place! Everything seems conspire to arouse
disquiet. What's that broom there? And the horn with ointment?
Probably because it's their usual place, but it makes me think of
witchcraft. Why is the smithy black and the mill white? Because
one's sooty and the other covered with flour; yet when I saw the
blacksmith by the light of his forge and the white miller's wife,
it reminded me of an old poem. Look at those giant faces. ...
There's your werewolf from whom I saved you. There he is, in
profile, see!
LADY. Yes, but it's only the rock.
STRANGER. Only the rock, and yet it's he.
LADY. Shall I tell you why we can see him?
STRANGER. You mean--it's our conscience? Which pricks us when we're
hungry and tired, and is silent when we've eaten and rested. It's
horrible to arrive in rags. Our clothes are torn from climbing
through the brambles. Someone's fighting against me.
LADY. Why did you challenge him?
STRANGER. Because I want to fight in the open; not battle with
unpaid bills and empty purses. Anyhow: here's my last copper. The
devil take it, if there is one! (He throws it into the brook.)
LADY. Oh! We could have paid the ferry with it. Now we'll have to
talk of money when we reach home.
STRANGER. When can we talk of anything else?
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