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Page 96
STRANGER. Where did you learn that?
LADY. In a book in which everything's written. Everything! (She
wraps the doll up in her cloak.) See, she's beginning to get cold--
that's because of the cloud up there. ...
STRANGER. How can you dare to wander up here in the mountains?
LADY. God is with me; so what have I to fear from human beings?
STRANGER. Aren't you tormented by those people at the pool?
LADY (turning towards them). I can't see them. I can't see anything
horrible now.
STRANGER. Ingeborg! I have made you evil, yet you're on the way to
make me good! It was my dream, you know, to seek redemption through
a woman. You don't believe it! But it's true. In the old days
nothing was of value to me if I couldn't lay it at a woman's feet.
Not as a tribute to an overbearing mistress, ... but as a sacrifice
to the beautiful and good. It was my pleasure to give; but she
wanted to take and not receive: that's why she hated me! When I was
helpless and thought the end was near, a desire grew in me to fall
asleep on a mother's knee, on a tremendous breast where I could
bury my tired head and drink in the tenderness I'd been deprived
of.
LADY. You had no mother?
STRANGER. Hardly! And I've never felt any bond between myself and
my father or my brothers and sisters. ... Ingeborg, I was the son
of a servant of whom it is written. 'Drive forth the handmaid with
her son, for this son shall not inherit with the son of peace.'
LADY. Do you know why Ishmael was driven out? It says just before--
that he was a scoffer. And then it goes on: 'He will be a wild man,
his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against
him; and against all his brothers.'
STRANGER. Is that also written?
LADY. Oh yes, my child; it's all there!
STRANGER. All?
LADY. All. There you'll find answers to all your questions even the
most inquisitive!
STRANGER. Call me your child, and then I'll love you. ... And if I
love anyone, I long to serve them, to obey them, to let myself be
ill-treated, to suffer and to bear it.
LADY. You shouldn't love me, but your Creator.
STRANGER. He's unfriendly--like my father!
LADY. He is Love itself; and you are Hate.
STRANGER. You're his daughter; but I'm his cast-out son.
LADY (coaxingly). Quiet! Be still!
STRANGER. If you only knew what I've suffered this last week. I
don't know where I am.
LADY. Where do you think?
STRANGER. There's a woman in that but who looks at me as if I'd
come to rob her of her last mite. She says nothing--that's the
trouble. But I think it's prayers she mutters, when she sees me.
LADY. What sort of prayers?
STRANGER. The sort one whispers behind the backs of those who have
the evil eye or bring misfortune.
LADY. How strange! Don't you realise that one's sight can be
blinded?
STRANGER. Yes, of course. But who can do it?
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