What was
he in reality?

STRANGER. Both!

MELCHER. Yes, both. He had the two halves that made a whole--a whole
man. Number eleven. Bismarck. A paradox. The honest diplomat, who
maintained he'd discovered that to tell the truth was the greatest of
ruses. And so was compelled--by the Powers, I suppose?--to spend the
last six years of his life unmasking himself as a conscious liar. You're
tired. Then we'll stop now.

STRANGER. Yes, if one clings to the same ideas all one's life, and holds
the same opinions, one grows old according to nature's laws, and gets
called conservative, old-fashioned, out of date. But if one goes on
developing, keeping pace with one's own age, renewing oneself with the
perennially youthful impulses of contemporary thought, one's called a
waverer and a renegade.

MELCHER. That's as old as the world! But does an intelligent, man heed
what he's called? One is, what one's becoming.

STRANGER. But who revises the periodically changing views of
contemporary opinion?

MELCHER. You ought to answer that yourself, and indeed in this way. It
is the Powers themselves who promulgate contemporary opinion, as they
develop in _apparent_ circles. Hegel, the philosopher of the present,
himself dimorphous, for both a 'left'-minded and a 'right'-minded Hegel
can always be quoted, has best explained the contradictions of life,
of history and of the spirit, with his own magic formula. Thesis:
affirmation; Antithesis: negation; Synthesis: comprehension! Young
man, or rather, comparatively young man! You began life by accepting
everything, then went on to denying everything on principle. Now end
your life by comprehending everything. Be exclusive no longer. Do
not say: either--or, but: not only--but also! In a word, or two words
rather, Humanity and Resignation!

Curtain.

SCENE III

CHAPEL OF THE MONASTERY

[Choir of the Monastery Chapel. An open coffin with a bier cloth and two
burning candles. The CONFESSOR leads in the STRANGER by the hand. The
STRANGER is dressed in the white shirt of the novice.]

CONFESSOR. Have you carefully considered the step you wish to take?

STRANGER. Very carefully.

CONFESSOR. Have you no more questions?

STRANGER. Questions? No.

CONFESSOR. Then stay here, whilst I fetch the Chapter and the Fathers
and Brothers, so that the solemn act may begin.

STRANGER. Yes. Let it come to pass.

(The CONFESSOR goes out. The STRANGER, left alone, is sunk in thought.)

TEMPTE