ll.]

PEHR. Compose yourself, my friend; I have only frightened you.

WOMAN. Give me a glass of wine; I feel so faint after all this
commotion.

[Pehr goes over to table; wall back of the chair opens and woman
and chair disappear. Only the hand with ring is seen as she is heard
speaking.]

Ha, ha--schoolboy! Learn from this not to trust a woman whom you have
tricked!

[Alone, Pehr runs to window and looks out, as he draws back his head, he
has the ears of an ass.]

PEHR. Curses on gold, friendship and women! Now I stand alone--poor,
deserted--with a pair of long ears and without my magic ring! Had I
known that life was so utterly ignoble, I should have stayed at home
with the witch. Where shall I turn to now--without friends, without
money, without house and home? Trouble awaits me at the door. Must I
now, in all seriousness, go out in the world and work for the attainment
of my every wish? If only I were not so alone! Yet, why not as well be
alone, since there is no such thing as friendship, and everything is so
false and empty? Damnation!

[Enter Lisa.]

LISA. Don't curse, Pehr!

PEHR. Lisa! You do not forsake me, although I forgot you in my
prosperous days.

LISA. It is in our need that we find our friends.

PEHR. Friends? A curse on friendship!

LISA. Don't, Pehr! There are real friendships in life as well as false
friends.

PEHR. I have now tried the good things of life, and I found only
emptiness and vanity!

LISA. You have tried in your way--meantime you have made the first
plunge of youth, and now you shall be a man! You have looked for
happiness in the wrong direction. Don't you want to go out and do good,
enlighten your fellow-men, and be useful? For your clear vision can
penetrate the perversion and crookedness which one finds in life.

PEHR. And be a great man!

LISA. Great or obscure, it is all one. You shall be useful--you shall be
a reformer who leads humanity onward and upward.

PEHR. Yes, a reformer who will be honored and idolized by the people,
and whose name will be on everyone's lips.

LISA. Oh, how far you are from the truth, Pehr! You seek greatness
only for personal honor; you shall have it and you shall have a new
experience.

PEHR. But how? My ring is gone!

LISA. The qualities inherent in that ring are such that it can never be
away from its owner.

PEHR. [Looks at his hand.] Ah! See, there it is! Well, then, I want to
be a great man--a reformer; but you, Lisa, m