d listen, how you settle the matter alone with
that accursed woman. Don't forget your stick! (The LADY, who is hurrying
towards the house, trips in front of the steps. The STRANGER stays where
he is in embarrassment.) The stick! The stick!

STRANGER. I don't ask mercy for the woman's sake, but for the child's.

DOCTOR (wildly). So there's a child, too. Our house, our roses, our
clothes, the bed-clothes not forgotten, and now our child! I'm within
your doors, I sit at your table, I lie in your bed; I exist in your
blood; in your lungs, in your brain; I am everywhere and yet you can't
get hold of me. When the pendulum strikes the hour of midnight, I'll
blow cold, on your heart, so that it stops like a clock that's run down.
When you sit at your work, I shall come with a poppy, invisible to you,
that will put your thoughts to sleep, and confuse your mind, so that
you'll see visions you can't distinguish from reality. I shall lie like
a stone in your path, so that you stumble; I shall be the thorn that
pricks your hand when you go to pluck the rose. My soul shall spin
itself about you like a spider's web; and I shall guide you like an ox
by means of the woman you stole from me. Your child shall be mine and
I shall speak through its mouth; you shall see my look in its eyes,
so that you'll thrust it from you like a foe. And now, beloved house,
farewell; farewell, 'rose' room--where no happiness shall dwell that I
could envy. (He goes out. The STRANGER has been sitting on the seat all
this time, without being able to answer, and has been listening as if he
were the accused.)

Curtain.

ACT II

SCENE I

LABORATORY

[A Garden Pavilion in rococo style with high windows. In the middle of
the room there is a large writing desk on which are various pieces of
chemical and physical apparatus. Two copper wires are suspended from the
ceiling to an electroscope that is standing on the middle of the table
and which is provided with a number of bells, intended to record the
tension of atmospheric electricity.]

[On the table to the left a large old-fashioned frictional electric
generating machine, with glass plates, brass conductors, and Leyden
battery. The stands are lacquered red and white. On the right a large
old-fashioned open fireplace with tripods, crucibles, pincers, bellows,
etc.]

[In the background a door with a view of the country beyond; it is dark
and cloudy weather, but the red rays of the sun occasionally