cause you're still feverish. Or there may be
another reason.

STRANGER. I seem to know them, all of them! I see them as if in a
mirror: they only make as if they were eating.... Is this some drama
they're performing? Those look like my parents, rather like... (Pause.)
Hitherto I've feared nothing, because life was useless to me.... Now I
begin to be afraid.

ABBESS. If you don't believe them real, I'll ask the Confessor to
introduce you. (She signs to the CONFESSOR who approaches.)

CONFESSOR (dressed in a black-and-white habit of Dominicans). Sister!

ABBESS. Tell the patient who are at that table.

CONFESSOR. That's soon done.

STRANGER. Permit a question first. Haven't we met already?

CONFESSOR. Yes. I sat by your bedside, when you were delirious. At your
desire, I heard your confession.

STRANGER. What? My confession?

CONFESSOR. Yes. But I couldn't give you absolution; because it seemed
that what you said was spoken in fever.

STRANGER. Why?

CONFESSOR. There was hardly a sin or vice you didn't take upon
yourself--things so hateful you'd have had to undergo strict penitence
before demanding absolution. Now you're yourself again I can ask whether
there are grounds for your self-accusations.

(The ABBESS leaves them.)

STRANGER. Have you the right?

CONFESSOR. No. In truth, no right. (Pause.) But you want to know in
whose company you are! The very best. There, for instance, is a madman,
Caesar, who lost his wits through reading the works of a certain writer
whose notoriety is greater than his fame. There's a beggar, who won't
admit he's a beggar, because he's learnt Latin and is free. There, a
doctor, called the werewolf, whose history's well known. There, two
parents, who grieved themselves to death over a son who raised his
hand against theirs. He must be responsible for refusing to follow his
father's bier and desecrating his mother's grave. There's his unhappy
sister, whom he drove out into the snow, as he himself recounts, with
the best intentions. Over there's a woman who's been abandoned with her
two children, and there's another doing crochet work.... All are old
acquaintances. Go and greet them!

(The STRANGER has turned his back on the company: he now goes to the
table, left, and sits down with his back to them. He raises his head,
sees the picture of the Archangel Michael and lowers his eyes. The
CONFESSOR stands behind the STRANGER. A Catholic Requiem can be heard
from the chapel. The