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Page 88
STRANGER. But a fact may be true, even if you don't believe it.
DAUGHTER. You dreamed it.
STRANGER. Who knows if I haven't dreamed everything, and am not
even dreaming now. How I wish it were so!
DAUGHTER. I must be going, father.
STRANGER. Then good-bye!
DAUGHTER. May I write to you?
STRANGER. What? One of the dead write to another? Letters won't
reach me in future. And I mayn't receive visitors. But I'm glad
we've met, for now there's nothing else on earth I cling to. (Going
to the left.) Good-bye, girl or woman, whatever I should call you.
There's no need to weep!
DAUGHTER. I wasn't thinking of weeping, though I dare say good
breeding would demand I should. Well, good-bye! (She goes out
right.)
STRANGER (to the CONFESSOR). I think I came out of that well! It's
a mercy to part with content on both sides. Mankind, after all,
makes rapid progress, and self-control increases as the flow of the
tear-ducts lessens. I've seen so many tears shed in my lifetime,
that I'm almost taken aback at this dryness. She was a strong
child, just the kind I once wished to be. The most beautiful thing
that life can offer! She lay, like an angel, wrapped in the white
veils of her cradle, with a blue coverlet when she slept. Blue and
arched like the sky. That was the best: what will the worst look
like?
CONFESSOR. Don't excite yourself, but be of good cheer. First throw
away that foolish guide-book, for this is your last journey.
STRANGER. You mean this? Very well. (He opens the book, kisses one
of the pages and then throws it into the river.) Anything else?
CONFESSOR. If you've any gold or silver, you must give it to the
poor.
STRANGER. I've a silver watch. I never got as far as a gold one.
CONFESSOR. Give that to the ferryman; and then you'll get a glass
of wine.
STRANGER. The last! It's like an execution! Perhaps I'll have to
have my hair cut, too?
CONFESSOR. Yes. Later. (He takes the watch and goes to the door of
the ferryman's hut, speaking a few whispered words to someone
within. He receives a bottle of wine and a glass in exchange, which
he puts on the table.)
STRANGER (filling his glass, but not drinking it.) Shall I never
get wine up there?
CONFESSOR. No wine; and you'll see no women. You may hear singing;
but not the kind of songs that go with women and wine.
STRANGER. I've had enough of women; they can't tempt me any more.
CONFESSOR. Are you sure?
STRANGER. Quite sure. ... But tell me this: what do you think of
women, who mayn't even set their feet within your consecrated
walls?
CONFESSOR. So you're still asking questions?
STRANGER. And why may an abbess never hear confession, never read
mass, and never preach?
CONFESSOR. I can't answer that.
STRANGER. Because the answer would accord with my thoughts on that
theme.
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