There's my card. You'll be paid to-morrow.

WAITRESS (putting the card in the dust-bin). Hm! I don't know the name;
and I've put a lot of such cards into the dust-bin. I want the money.

BEGGAR. Listen, madam, I'll guarantee this man will pay.

WAITRESS. So you'd like to play tricks on me too! Officer! One moment,
please.

POLICEMAN. What's all this about? Payment, I suppose. Come to the
station; we'll arrange things there. (He writes something in his
note-book.)

STRANGER. I'd rather do that than stay here and quarrel.... (To the
BEGGAR.) I don't mind a joke, but I never expected such cruel reality as
this.

BEGGAR. Anything's to be expected, once you challenge persons as
powerful as you have! Let me tell you this in confidence. You'd better
be prepared for worse, for the very worst!

STRANGER. To think I've been so duped... so...

BEGGAR. Feasts of Belshazzar always end in one way a hand's stretched
out--and writes a bill. And another hand's laid on the guest's shoulder
and leads him to the police station! But it must be done royally!

POLICEMAN (laying his hand on the STRANGER). Have you talked enough?

THE WOMEN and RAGGED ONES. The alchemist can't pay. Hurrah! He's going
to gaol. He's going to gaol!

SECOND WOMAN. Yes, but it's a shame.

STRANGER. You're sorry for me? I thank you for that, even if I don't
quite deserve it! _You_ felt pity for me!

SECOND WOMAN. Yes. That's also something I learnt from you.

(The scene is changed without lowering the curtain. The stage is
darkened, and a medley of scenes, representing landscapes, palaces,
rooms, is lowered and brought forward; so that characters and furniture
are no longer seen, but the STRANGER alone remains visible and seems to
be standing stiffly as though unconscious. At last even he disappears,
and from the confusion a prison cell emerges.)

SCENE II

PRISON CELL

[On the right a door; and above it a barred opening, through which a ray
of sunlight is shining, throwing a patch of light on the left-hand wall,
where a large crucifix hangs.]

[The STRANGER, dressed in a brown cloak and wearing a hat, is sitting at
the table looking at the patch of sunlight. The door is opened and the
BEGGAR is let in.]

BEGGAR. What are you brooding over?

STRANGER. I'm asking myself why I'm here; and then: where I was
yesterday?

BEGGAR. Where do you think?

STRANGER. It seems in hell; unless I dreamed everything.

BEGGAR. Then wake up now, for thi