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Page 90
LADY. No. Thank you.
STRANGER. But you're tired. Sit down. (The LADY sits down at the
table. The STRANGER throws the bottle and glass into the river.)
Well, what are you going to live for now?
LADY (sadly). I don't know.
STRANGER. Where will you go?
LADY (sobbing). I don't know.
STRANGER. So you're in despair? You see no reason for living and no
end to your misery! How like me you are! What a pity there's no
monastery for both sexes, so that we could pair off together. Is
the werewolf still alive?
LADY. You mean ...?
STRANGER. Your first husband.
LADY. He never seems to die.
STRANGER. Like a certain worm! (Pause.) And now that we're so far
from the world and its pettiness, tell me this: why did you leave
him in those days, and come to me?
LADY. Because I loved you.
STRANGER. And how long did that last?
LADY. Until I read your book, and the child was born.
STRANGER. And then?
LADY. I hated you! That is, I wanted to be rid of all the evil
you'd given me, but I couldn't.
STRANGER. So that's how it was! But we'll never really know the
truth.
LADY. Have you noticed how impossible it is to find things out? You
can live with a person and their relations for twenty years, and
yet not know anything about them.
STRANGER. So you've discovered that? As you see so much, tell me
this: how was it you came to love me?
LADY. I don't know; but I'll try to remember. (Pause.) Well, you
had the masculine courage to be rude to a lady. In me you sought
the companionship of a human being and not merely of a woman. That
honoured me; and, I thought, you too.
STRANGER. Tell me also whether you held me to be a misogynist?
LADY. A woman-hater? Every healthy man is one, in the secret places
of his heart; and all perverted men are admirers of women.
STRANGER. You're not trying to flatter me, are you?
LADY. A woman who'd try to flatter a man's not normal.
STRANGER. I see you've thought a great deal!
LADY. Thinking's the least I've done; for when I've thought least
I've understood most. Besides, what I said just how is perhaps only
improvised, as you call it, and not true in the least.
STRANGER. But if it agrees with many of my observations it becomes
most probable. (The LADY weeps into her handkerchief.) You're
weeping again?
LADY. I was thinking of Mizzi. The loveliest thing we ever had is
gone.
STRANGER. No. You were the loveliest thing, when you sat all night
watching over your child, who was lying in your bed, because her
cradle was too cold! (Three loud knocks are heard on the ferryman's
door.) 'Sh!
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