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Page 92
STRANGER. You can receive a gift, if you ask for it.
LADY. Oh yes, if you ask; but I've never been able to beg.
STRANGER. I've had to learn to. Why can't you?
LADY. Because one has to demean oneself first.
STRANGER. Life does that for one very well.
LADY. Mizzi, Mizzi, Mizzi! ... (She has taken a shawl she was
carrying over her arm, rolled it up and put it on her knee like a
baby in long clothes.) Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Think of it! I can see
her here! She's smiling at me; but she's dressed in black; she
seems to be in mourning too! How stupid I am! Her mother's in
mourning! She's got two teeth down below, and they're white--milk
teeth; she should never have cut any others. Oh, can't you see her,
when I can? It's no vision. It _is_ her!
CONFESSOR (in the door of the ferryman's hut; sternly to the
STRANGER). Come. Everything's ready!
STRANGER. No. Not yet. I must first set my house in order; and look
after this woman, who was once my wife.
CONFESSOR. Oh, so you want to stay!
STRANGER. No. I don't want to stay; but I can't leave duties behind
me unfulfilled. This woman's on the road, deserted, without a home,
without money!
CONFESSOR. What has that to do with us? Let the dead bury their
dead!
STRANGER. Is that your teaching?
CONFESSOR. No, yours. ... Mine, on the other hand, commands me to
send a Sister of Mercy here, to look after this unhappy one, who ...
who ... The Sister will soon be here!
STRANGER. I shall count on it.
CONFESSOR (taking the STRANGER by the hand and drawing him away.)
Then come!
STRANGER (in despair). Oh, God in heaven! Help us every one!
CONFESSOR. Amen!
(The LADY, who has not been looking at the CONFESSOR and the
STRANGER, now raises her eyes and glances at the STRANGER as if she
wanted to spring up and hold him back; but she is prevented by the
imaginary child she has put to her breast.)
Curtain.
ACT II
CROSS-ROADS IN THE MOUNTAINS
[A cross-roads high up in the mountains. On the right, huts. On the
left a small pool, round which invalids are sitting. Their clothes
are blue and their hands cinnabar-red. From the pond blue vapour
and small blue flames rise now and then. Whenever this happens the
invalids put them hands to their mouths and cough. The background
is formed by a mountain covered with pine-wood, which is obscured
above by a stationary bank of mist.]
[The STRANGER is sitting at a table outside one of the huts. The
CONFESSOR comes forward from the right.]
STRANGER. At last!
CONFESSOR. What do you mean: at last?
STRANGER. You left me here a week ago and told me to wait till you
came back.
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