her. I dreamed of her for seven years; and whenever I drank a glass
of wine I blushed at the thought of old Maia, who perhaps was drinking
water in a poorhouse! I tried to give the sum I owed her to the poor;
but it was no use. And now--she's found and lost in the same moment!
(He gets up and goes towards the back as if searching for her.) Explain
this, if you can! I want to pay my debt; I can pay it now, but I'm not
allowed to.

CONFESSOR. Foolishness' Bow to what seems inexplicable; you'll see that
the explanation will come later. Farewell!

STRANGER. Later. Everything comes later.

CONFESSOR. Yes. If it doesn't come at once! (He goes out. The LADY
enters pensively and sits down at the table, opposite the STRANGER.)

STRANGER. What? You back again? The same and not the same? How beautiful
you've grown; as beautiful as you were the first time I ever saw you;
when I asked if I might be your friend, your dog.

LADY. That you can see beauty I don't possess shows that once more
you have a mirror of beauty in your eye. The werewolf never thought me
beautiful, for he'd nothing beautiful with which to see me.

STRANGER. Why did you kiss me that day? What made you do it?

LADY. You've often asked me that, and I've never been able to find the
answer, because I don't know. But just now, when I was away from you,
here in the mountains, where the air's purer and the sun nearer....
Hush! Now I can see that Sunday afternoon, when you sat on that seat
like a lost and helpless child, with a broken look in your eyes, and
stared at your own destiny.... A maternal feeling I'd never known before
welled up in me then, and I was overcome with pity, pity for a human
soul--so that I forgot myself.

STRANGER. I'm ashamed. Now I believe it was so.

LADY. But you took it another way. You thought...

STRANGER. Don't tell me. I'm ashamed.

LADY. Why did you think so badly of me? Didn't you notice that I drew
down my veil; so that it was between us, like the knight's sword in the
bridal bed....

STRANGER. I'm ashamed. I attributed my evil thoughts to you. Ingeborg,
you were made of better stuff than I. I'm ashamed!

LADY. Now you look handsome. How handsome!

STRANGER. Oh no. Not I. You!

LADY (ecstatically). No, you! Yes, now I've seen through the mask
and the false beard. Now I can see the man you hid from me, the man I
thought I'd found in you... the man I was always searching for. I've
often thought you a hypocrite; but we'r