t to trouble it.

STRANGER. I haven't come here to ask favours. I'll take nothing with me
when I go.

OLD MAN. That's not the answer I wanted; for we all need one another. I
perhaps need you. No one can know, young man.

LADY. Grandfather!

OLD MAN. Yes, my child. I shan't wish you happiness, for there's no such
thing; but I wish you strength to bear your destiny. Now I'll leave you
for a little. Your mother will look after you. (He goes out.)

LADY (to her mother). Did you lay that table for us, Mother?

MOTHER. No, it's a mistake, as you can imagine.

LADY. I know we look wretched. We were lost in the mountains, and if
grandfather hadn't blown his horn...

MOTHER. Your grandfather gave up hunting long ago.

LADY. Then it was someone else.... Listen, Mother, I'll go up now to the
'rose' room, and get it straight.

MOTHER. Do. I'll come in a moment.

(The LADY would like to say something, cannot, and goes out.)

STRANGER (to the MOTHER). I've seen this room already.

MOTHER. And I've seen you. I almost expected you.

STRANGER. As one expects a disaster?

MOTHER. Why say that?

STRANGER. Because I sow devastation wherever I go. But as I must go
somewhere, and cannot change my fate, I've lost my scruples.

MOTHER. Then you're like my daughter--she, too, has no scruples and no
conscience.

STRANGER. What?

MOTHER. You think I'm speaking ill of her? I couldn't do that of my own
child. I only draw the comparison, because you know her.

STRANGER. But I've noticed what you speak of in Eve.

MOTHER. Why do you call Ingeborg Eve?

STRANGER. By inventing a name for her I made her mine. I wanted to
change her....

MOTHER. And remake her in your image? (Laughing.) I've been told that
country wizards carve images of their victims, and give them the names
of those they'd bewitch. That was your plan: by means of this Eve, that
you yourself had made, you intended to destroy the whole Sex!

STRANGER (looking at the MOTHER in surprise). Those were damnable words!
Forgive me. But you have religious beliefs: how can you think such
things?

MOTHER. The thoughts were yours.

STRANGER. This begins to be interesting. I imagined an idyll in the
forest, but this is a witches' cauldron.

MOTHER. Not quite. You've forgotten, or never knew, that a man deserted
me shamefully, and that you're a man who also shamefully deserted a
woman.

STRANGER. Frank words. Now I know where I am.

MOTHER. I'd like to know wher