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Page 50
MOTHER. O God! It must be he!
DOMINICAN. Yes, it is he. Your son-in-law! The ways of Providence
are inscrutable. Was he heavily struck by the curse?
MOTHER. Yes. That night he slept here, and was torn from his sleep
by an unexplained power that, as he told me, turned his heart to
ice. ...
DOMINICAN. Did he have fearful visions?
MOTHER. Yes.
DOMINICAN. And was he harried by those terrible thoughts, of which
Job says, 'When I say, my bed shall comfort me, then Thou scarest
me with dreams and terrifiest me with visions; so that my soul
chooseth strangling, and death rather than life.' That's as it
should be. Did it open his eyes?
MOTHER. Yes. But only so that his sight was blinded. For his
sufferings grew so great that he could no longer find a natural
explanation for them, and as no doctor could cure him, he began to
see that he was fighting higher conscious powers.
DOMINICAN. Powers that meant him ill, and were therefore themselves
evil. That's the usual course of things. And then?
MOTHER. He came upon books that taught him that such evil powers
could be fought.
DOMINICAN. Oh! So he looked for what's hidden, and should remain
so! Did he succeed in exorcising the spirits that chastised him?
MOTHER. He says he did. And it seems now that he can sleep again.
DOMINICAN. Yes, and he believes what he says. Yet, since he hasn't
truly accepted the love of truth, God will trouble him with great
delusion, so that he'll believe what is false.
MOTHER. The fault's his own. But he's changed my daughter: in other
days she was neither hot nor cold; but now she's on the way to
becoming evil.
DOMINICAN. How do the two of them get on?
MOTHER. Half the time, happily; the other half they plague one
another like devils.
DOMINICAN. That's the way they must go. Plague one another till
they come to the Cross.
MOTHER. If they don't part again.
DOMINICAN. What? Have they done so?
MOTHER. They've left one another four times, but have always come
back. It seems as if they're chained together. It would be a good
thing if they were, for a child's on the way.
DOMINICAN. Let the child come. Children bring gifts that are
refreshing to tired souls.
MOTHER. I hope it may be so. But it looks as if this one will be an
apple of discord. They're already quarrelling over its name;
they're quarrelling over its baptism; and the mother's already
jealous of her husband's children by his first wife. He can't
promise to love this child as much as the others, and the mother
absolutely insists that he shall! So there's no end to their
miseries.
DOMINICAN. Oh yes, there is. Wait! He's had dealings with higher
powers, so that we've gained a hold on him; and our prayers will be
more, powerful than his resistance. Their effect is as extraordinary
as it is mysterious. (The STRANGER appears on the terrace. He is
in hunting costume and wears a tropical helmet. In his hand he has
an alpenstock.) Is that him, up there?
MOTHER. Yes. That's my present son-in-law.
DOMINICAN. Singularly like the first! But watch how he's behaving.
He hasn't seen me yet, but he feels I'm here. (He makes the sign of
the cross in the air.) Look how troubled he grows. ... Now he
stiffens like an icicle. See! In a moment he'll cry out.
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