ce.

FATHER. You're right, and I can't answer you. But let me sit in the
kitchen, for I'm tired. Very tired.

MOTHER. Where were you last night?

FATHER. At the club. But I wanted to ask you if the husband weren't
here?

MOTHER. Am I to lay bare all this misery? Don't you know your daughter's
tragic fate?

FATHER. Yes... I do. And what a husband!

MOTHER. What men! Go downstairs now and sleep off your liquor.

FATHER. The sins of the fathers....

MOTHER. You're talking nonsense.

FATHER. Of course I don't mean my sins... but those of our parents. And
now they say the lake up there's to be drained, so that the river will
rise....

MOTHER (pushing him out of the door). Silence. Misfortune will overtake
us soon enough, without you calling it up.

MAID (from the bedroom at the back). The lady's asking for the master.

MOTHER. She means her husband.

MAID. Yes. The master of the house, her husband.

MOTHER. He went out a little while ago.

(The STRANGER comes in.)

STRANGER. Has the child been born?

MOTHER. No. Not yet.

STRANGER (putting his hand to his forehead). What? Can it take so long?

MOTHER. Long? What do you mean?

STRANGER (looking about him). I don't know what I mean. How is it with
the mother?

MOTHER. She's just the same.

STRANGER. The same?

MOTHER. Don't you want to get back to your gold making?

STRANGER. I can't make head or tail of it! But there's still hope my
worst dream was nothing but a dream.

MOTHER. You really look as if you were walking in your sleep.

STRANGER. Do I? Oh, I wish I were! The one thing I fear I'd fear no
longer.

MOTHER. He who guides your destiny seems to know your weakest spots.

STRANGER. And when there was only one left, he found that too; happily
for me only in a dream! Blind Powers! Powerless Ones!

MAID (coming in again). The lady asks you to do her a service.

STRANGER. There she lies like an electric eel, giving shocks from a
distance. What kind of service is it to be now?

MAID. There's a letter in the pocket of her green coat.

STRANGER. No good will come of that! (He takes the letter out of the
green coat, which is hanging near the dress by fireplace.) I must
be dead. I dreamed this, and now it's happening. My children have a
stepfather!

MOTHER. Who are you going to blame?

STRANGER. Myself! I'd rather blame no one. I've lost my children.

MOTHER. You'll get a new one here.

STRANGER. He might be cruel to them....

MOT