think, from hell. But where's my wife?

MOTHER. Which of them do you mean?

STRANGER. The question's justified. Everything is, except to me.

MOTHER. There may be a reason: I'm glad you've seen it. Where have you
been?

STRANGER. Whether in a poorhouse, a madhouse or a hospital, I don't
know. I should like to think it all a feverish dream. I've been ill: I
lost my memory and can't believe three months have passed. But where's
my wife?

MOTHER. I ought to ask you that. When you deserted her, she went
away--to look for you. Whether she's tired of looking, I can't say.

STRANGER. Something's amiss here. Where's the Old Man?

MOTHER. Where there's no more suffering.

STRANGER. You mean he's dead?

MOTHER. Yes. He's dead.

STRANGER. You say it as if you wanted to add him to my victims.

MOTHER. Perhaps I'm right to do so.

STRANGER. He didn't look sensitive: he was capable of steady hatred.

MOTHER. No. He hated only what was evil, in himself and others.

STRANGER. So I'm wrong there, too! (Pause.)

MOTHER. What do you want here?

STRANGER. Charity!

MOTHER. At last! How was it at the hospital! Sit down and tell me.

STRANGER (sitting). I don't want to think of it. I don't even know if it
_was_ a hospital.

MOTHER. Strange. Tell me what happened after you left here.

STRANGER. I fell in the mountains, hurt my hip and lost consciousness.
If you'll speak kindly to me you shall know more.

MOTHER. I will.

STRANGER. When I woke I was in a red iron bedstead. Three men were
pulling a cord that ran through two blocks. Every time they pulled I
felt I grew two feet taller....

MOTHER. They were putting in your hip.

STRANGER. I hadn't thought of that. Then... I lay watching my past life
unroll before me like a panorama, through childhood, youth.... And
when the roll was finished it began again. All the time I heard a mill
grinding.... I can hear it still. Yes, here too!

MOTHER. Those were not pleasant visions.

STRANGER. No. At last I came to the conclusion... that I was a
thoroughgoing scamp.

MOTHER. Why call yourself that?

STRANGER. I know you'd like to hear me say I was a scoundrel. But that
would seem to me like boasting. It would imply a certainty about myself
to which I've not attained.

MOTHER. You're still in doubt?

STRANGER. Of a great deal. But I've begun to have an inkling.

MOTHER. That....?

STRANGER. That there are forces which, till now, I've not believed in.

MOTHER. Y