hard, and lacking
in feeling, as you really are! (The LADY tries to put her arm round his
neck. The STRANGER taps her gently on the fingers.) You mustn't touch
me. When your words and glances weren't enough, you always wanted to
touch me. You'll excuse a rather trivial question: are you hungry?

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