The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy Part 12

OLD MAN.... et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. Yes. I do feel sad.... Deus, Deus meus: quare tristis es anima mea, et quare conturbas me.

MOTHER. Spera in Deo....

(The Maid comes in, and signs to the MOTHER, who goes over to her. They whisper together and the maid goes out again.)

OLD MAN. I heard what you said. O G.o.d! Must I bear that too!

MOTHER. You needn't see them. You can go up to your room.

OLD MAN. No. It shall be a penance. But why come like this: as vagabonds?

MOTHER. Perhaps they lost their way and have had much to endure.

OLD MAN. But to bring her husband! Is she lost to shame?

MOTHER. You know Ingeborg's queer nature. She thinks all she does is fitting, if not right. Have you ever seen her ashamed, or suffer from a rebuff? I never have. Yet she's not without shame; on the contrary. And everything she does, however questionable, seems natural when she does it.

OLD MAN. I've always wondered why one could never be angry with her. She doesn't feel herself responsible, or think an insult's directed at her.

She seems impersonal; or rather two persons, one who does nothing but ill whilst the other gives absolution.... But this man! There's no one I've hated from afar so much as he. He sees evil everywhere; and of no one have I heard so much ill.

MOTHER. That's true. But it may be Ingeborg's found some mission in this man's life; and he in hers. Perhaps they're meant to torture each other into atonement.

OLD MAN. Perhaps. But I'll have nothing to do with at seems to me shameful. This man, under my roof! Yet I must accept it, like everything else. For I've deserved no less.

MOTHER. Very well then. (The LADY and the STRANGER come in.) You're welcome.

LADY. Thank you, Mother. (She looks over to the OLD MAN, who rises and looks at the STRANGER.) Peace, Grandfather. This is my husband. Give him your hand.

OLD MAN. First let me look at him. (He goes to the STRANGER, puts his hands on his shoulders and looks him in the eyes.) What motives brought you here?

STRANGER (simply). None, but to keep my wife company, at her earnest desire.

OLD MAN. If that's true, you're welcome! I've a long and stormy life behind me, and at last I've found a certain peace in solitude. I beg you not 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 s.e.x!

STRANGER (looking at the MOTHER in surprise). Those were d.a.m.nable 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 where I am. Can you support two families?

STRANGER. If all goes well.

MOTHER. All doesn't--in this life. Money can be lost.

STRANGER. But my talent's capital I can never lose.