e no hypocrites. No, no, we can't
pretend.

STRANGER. Ingeborg, now we're on the other side of the river, and have
life beneath us, behind us... how different everything seems. Now, now,
I can see your soul; the ideal, the angel, who was imprisoned in the
flesh because of sin. So there is an Above, and an Earlier Age. When
we began it wasn't the beginning, and it won't be the end when we are
ended. Life is a fragment, without beginning or end! That's why it's so
difficult to make head or tail of it.

LADY (kindly). So difficult. So difficult. Tell me, for instance--now
we're beyond guilt or innocence--how was it you came to hate women?

STRANGER. Let me think! To hate women? Hate them? I never hated them. On
the contrary! Ever since I was eight years old I've always had some love
affair, preferably an innocent one. And I've loved like a volcano three
times! But wait--I've always felt that women hated me... and they've
always tortured me.

LADY. How strange!

STRANGER. Let me think about it a little.... Perhaps I've been jealous
of my own personality; and been afraid of being influenced too much. My
first love made herself into a sort of governess and nurse to me. But,
of course, there _are_ men who detest children; who detest women too, if
they're superior to them, that is!

LADY (amiably). But you've called women the enemies of mankind. Did you
mean it?

STRANGER. Of course I meant it, if I wrote it! For I wrote out of
experience, not theory.... In woman I sought an angel, who could lend
me wings, and I fell into the arms of an earth-spirit, who suffocated me
under mattresses stuffed with the feathers of wings! I sought an Ariel
and I found a Caliban; when I wanted to rise she dragged me down; and
continually reminded me of the fall....

LADY (kindly). Solomon knew much of women; do you know what he said? 'I
find more bitter than death a woman, whose heart is snares and nets and
her hands as bands; whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the
sinner shall be taken by her.'

STRANGER. I was never acceptable in God's sight. Was that a punishment?
Perhaps. But I was never acceptable to anyone, and I've never had a good
word addressed to me! Have I never done a good action? Is it possible
for a man never to have done anything good? (Pause.) It's terrible never
to hear any good words about oneself!

LADY. You've heard them. But when people have spoken well of you, you've
refused to listen, as if it hurt yo