believe that
death's the end, nothing remains but to bear everything--to fight, and
to suffer!

LADY. For how long must we suffer?

STRANGER. As long as he suffers and our consciences plague us.

LADY. Then we must try and justify ourselves to our consciences; find
excuses for our frivolous actions, and discover his weaknesses.

STRANGER. Well, you can try!

LADY. You say that! Since I've known he's unhappy I can see nothing but
his qualities, and you lose when I compare you with him.

STRANGER. See how well it's arranged! His sufferings sanctify him, but
mine make me abhorrent and laughable! We must face the immutable. We've
destroyed a soul, so we are murderers.

LADY. Who is to blame?

STRANGER. He who's so mismanaged the fate of men.

(There is a flash of lightning; the electric bells begin to ring.)

LADY. O God! What's that?

STRANGER. The answer.

LADY. Is there a lightning conductor here?

STRANGER. The priest of Baal wishes to coax the lightning from
heaven....

LADY. Now I'm frightened, frightened of you. You're terrifying.

STRANGER. You see!

LADY. Who are you to defy Heaven, and to dare to play with the destinies
of men?

STRANGER. Get up and collect your thoughts. Listen to me, believe me,
and pay me the respect that's my due; and I'll lift both of us high
above this frog pond, to which we've both descended. I'll breathe on
your sick conscience so that it heals like a wound. Who am I? A man who
has done what no one else has ever done; who will overthrow the Golden
Calf and upset the tables of the money-changers. I hold the fate of the
world in my crucible; and in a week I can make the richest of the rich
a poor man. Gold, the most false of all standards, has ceased to rule;
every man will now be as poor as his neighbour, and the children of men
will hurry about like ants whose heap has been disturbed.

LADY. What good will that be to us?

STRANGER. Do you think I'll make gold in order to enrich ourselves and
others? No. I'll do it to paralyse the present order, to disrupt it, as
you'll see! I am the destroyer, the dissolver, the world incendiary;
and when all lies in ashes, I shall wander hungrily through the heaps
of ruins, rejoicing at the thought that it is all my work: that I have
written the last page of world history, which can then be held to be
ended.

(The face of the DOMINICAN appears at the open window, without being
seen by those on the stage.)

LADY. Then that was