followed was impossible to foresee. I found that
everyone was against me: rich and poor, men and women, parents and
children. And then came sickness and poverty, beggary and shame,
divorce, law-suits, exile, solitude, and now.... Tell me, do you think
me mad?

LADY. No.

STRANGER. You must be the only one. But I'm all the more grateful.

LADY (rising). I must leave you now.

STRANGER. You, too?

LADY. And you mustn't stay here.

STRANGER. Where should I go?

LADY. Home. To your work.

STRANGER. But I'm no worker. I'm a writer.

LADY. I know. But I didn't want to hurt you. Creative power is something
given you, that can also taken away. See you don't forfeit yours.

STRANGER. Where are you going?

LADY. Only to a shop.

STRANGER (after a pause). Tell me, are you a believer?

LADY. I am nothing.

STRANGER. All the better: you have a future. How I wish I were your old
blind father, whom you could lead to the market place to sing for his
bread. My tragedy is I cannot grow old that's what happens to children
of the elves, they have big heads and never only cry. I wish I were
someone's dog. I could follow him and never be alone again. I'd get a
meal sometimes, a kick now and then, a pat perhaps, a blow often....

LADY. Now I must go. Good-bye. (She goes out.)

STRANGER (absent-mindedly). Good-bye. (He remains on the seat. He takes
off his hat and wipes his forehead. Then he draws on the ground with his
stick. A BEGGAR enters. He has a strange look and is collecting objects
from the gutter.) White are you picking up, beggar?

BEGGAR. Why call me that? I'm no beggar. Have I asked you for anything?

STRANGER. I beg your pardon. It's so hard to judge men from appearances.

BEGGAR. That's true. For instance, can you guess who I am?

STRANGER. I don't intend to try. It doesn't interest me.

BEGGAR. No one can know that in advance. Interest commonly comes
afterwards--when it's too late. Virtus post nummos!

STRANGER. What? Do beggars know Latin?

BEGGAR. You see, you're interested already. Omne tulit punctum qui
miscuit utile dulci. I have always succeeded in everything I've
undertaken, because I've never attempted anything. I should like to call
myself Polycrates, who found the gold ring in the fish's stomach. Life
has given me all I asked of it. But I never asked anything; I grew tired
of success and threw the ring away. Yet, now I've grown old I regret it.
I search for it in the gutters; but as the s