comes over her during this speech; her clothing falls
from her and she is seen to have changed into a white-robed woman with
her hair let down and with a full maternal bosom.)

STRANGER. Mother!

LADY. Yes, my child, your mother! In life I could never caress you--the
will of higher powers denied it me. Why that was I don't dare to ask.

STRANGER. But my mother's dead?

LADY. She was; but the dead aren't dead, and maternal love can conquer
death. Didn't you know that? Come, my child, I'll repay where I have
been to blame. I'll rock you to sleep on my knees. I'll wash you clean
from the... (She omits the word she cannot bring herself to utter) of
hate and sin. I'll comb your hair, matted with the sweat of fear; and
air a pure white sheet for you at the fire of a home--a home you've
never had, you who've known no peace, you homeless one, son of Hagar,
the serving woman, born of a slave, against whom every man's hand was
raised. The ploughmen ploughed your back and seared deep furrows there.
Come, I'll heal your wounds, and suffer your sorrows. Come!

STRANGER (who has been weeping so violently that his whole body has been
trembling, now goes to the cliff on the left where the MOTHER stands
with open arms.) I'm coming!

TEMPTER. I can do nothing now. But one day we shall meet again! (He
disappears behind the cliff.)

Curtain.

SCENE II

ROCKY LANDSCAPE ON THE MOUNTAIN

[Higher up the mountain; among the clouds a rocky landscape with a bog
round it. The MOTHER on a rock, climbing until she disappears into the
cloud. The STRANGER stops, bewildered.]

STRANGER. Oh, Mother, Mother! Why are you leaving me? At the very moment
when my loveliest dream was on the point of fulfilment!

TEMPTER (coming forward). What have you been dreaming? Tell me!

STRANGER. My dearest hope, most secret desire and last prayer!
Reconciliation with mankind, through a woman.

TEMPTER. Through a woman who taught you to hate.

STRANGER. Yes, because she bound me to earth--like the round shot a
slave drags on his foot, so that he can't escape.

TEMPTER. You talk of woman. Always woman.

STRANGER. Yes. Woman. The beginning and the end--for us men anyhow. In
relationship to one another they are nothing.

TEMPTER. So that's it; nothing in themselves; but everything for us,
through us! Our honour and our shame; our greatest joy, our deepest
pain; our redemption and our fall; our wages and our punishment; our
strength and our weakness.