e done so already.

MOTHER. There you go again! You learn nothing from the chastisement of
Providence.

STRANGER. Oh yes. I've learned to hate. Can one love what does evil?

MOTHER. I've little learning, as you know; but I read yesterday in an
encyclopaedia that the Eumenides are not evilly disposed.

STRANGER. That's true; but it's a lie they're friendly. I only know one
friendly fury. My own!

MOTHER. Can you call Ingeborg a fury?

STRANGER. Yes. She is one; and as a fury, she's remarkable. Her talent
for making me suffer excels my most infernal inventions; and if I escape
from her hands with my life, I'll come out of the fire as pure as gold.

MOTHER. You've got what you deserve. You wanted to mould her as you
wished, and you've succeeded.

STRANGER. Completely. But where is this fury?

MOTHER. She went down the road a few minutes ago.

STRANGER. Down there? Then I'll go to meet my own destruction. (He goes
towards the back.)

MOTHER. So you can still joke about it? Wait! (The MOTHER is left alone
for a moment, until the STRANGER has disappeared. The LADY then enters
from the right. She is wearing a summer frock, and is carrying a post
bag and some opened letters in her hand.)

LADY. Are you alone, Mother?

MOTHER. I've just been left alone.

LADY. Here's the post. This is for job.

MOTHER. What? Do you open his letters?

LADY. All of them, because I want to know who it is I've linked my life
to. And I want to suppress everything that might minister to his pride.
In a word, I isolate him, so that he has to keep his own electricity and
run the danger of being broken to pieces.

MOTHER. How learned you've grown?

LADY. Yes. If he's unwise enough to confide almost everything to me,
I'll soon hold his fate in my hand. Now, if you please, he's making
electrical experiments and claims he'll be able to harness the
lightning, so that it'll give him light, warmth and power. Well, let
him do as he likes! From a letter that came to-day I see he's even
corresponding with alchemists.

MOTHER. Does he want to make gold? Is the man sane?

LADY. That's the important question. Whether he's a charlatan doesn't
matter so much.

MOTHER. Do you suspect it?

LADY. I'd believe any evil of him, and any good, on the same day.

MOTHER. Is there any other news?

LADY. The plans my divorced husband made for a new marriage have gone
wrong; he's grown melancholic, abandoned his practice and is tramping
the roads.