u.

STRANGER. That's true, now you remind me. But can you explain it?

LADY. Explain it? You're always asking for explanations of the
inexplicable. 'When I applied my heart to know wisdom... I beheld all
the work of God, that a man cannot find out that is done under the sun.
Because, though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it;
yea, further, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be
able to find it!'

STRANGER. Who says that?

LADY. The Prophet Ecclesiastes. (She takes a doll out of her pocket.)
This is Mizzi's doll. You see she longs for her little mistress! How
pale she's grown... and she seems to know where Mizzi is, for she's
always gazing up to heaven, whichever way I hold her. Look! Her eyes
follow the stars as the compass the pole. She is my compass and always
shows me where heaven is. She should, of course, be dressed in black,
because she's in mourning; but we're so poor.... Do you know why we
never had money? Because God was angry with us for our sins. 'The
righteous suffer no dearth.'

STRANGER. Where did you learn that?

LADY. In a book in which everything's written. Everything! (She wraps
the doll up in her cloak.) See, she's beginning to get cold--that's
because of the cloud up there....

STRANGER. How can you dare to wander up here in the mountains?

LADY. God is with me; so what have I to fear from human beings?

STRANGER. Aren't you tormented by those people at the pool?

LADY (turning towards them). I can't see them. I can't see anything
horrible now.

STRANGER. Ingeborg! I have made you evil, yet you're on the way to make
me good! It was my dream, you know, to seek redemption through a woman.
You don't believe it! But it's true. In the old days nothing was of
value to me if I couldn't lay it at a woman's feet. Not as a tribute
to an overbearing mistress,... but as a sacrifice to the beautiful
and good. It was my pleasure to give; but she wanted to take and not
receive: that's why she hated me! When I was helpless and thought the
end was near, a desire grew in me to fall asleep on a mother's knee, on
a tremendous breast where I could bury my tired head and drink in the
tenderness I'd been deprived of.

LADY. You had no mother?

STRANGER. Hardly! And I've never felt any bond between myself and my
father or my brothers and sisters.... Ingeborg, I was the son of a
servant of whom it is written. 'Drive forth the handmaid with her son,
for this son shall not i