rhaps it is true, Mariet--I don't remember."

Mariet laughs.

"Do you hear? He has forgotten. Go on, Gart. You may say that it was
your own idea? That's the way you men are--you forget everything. Will
you say perhaps that I--"

"Mariet!" Haggart interrupts her threateningly.

Mariet, turning pale, looking sorrowfully at his terrible eyes which are
now steadfastly fixed upon her, continues, still smiling:

"Go on, Gart! Will you say perhaps that I--Will you say perhaps that I
dissuaded you? That would be funny--"

HAGGART--No, I will not say that. You lie, Mariet! Even I, Haggart--just
think of it, people--even I believed her, so cleverly does this woman
lie.

MARIET--Go--on--Haggart.

HAGGART--You are laughing? Abbot, I don't want to be the husband of your
daughter--she lies.

ABBOT--You are worse than the devil, Gart! That's what I say--You are
worse than the devil, Gart!

HAGGART--You are all foolish people! I don't understand you; I don't
know now what to do with you. Shall I laugh? Shall I be angry? Shall
I cry? You want to let me go--why, then, don't you let me go? You are
sorry for Philipp. Well, then, kill me--I have told you that it was I
who killed the boy. Am I disputing? But you are making grimaces like
monkeys that have found bananas--or have you such a game in your land?
Then I don't want to play it. And you, abbot, you are like a juggler in
the marketplace. In one hand you have truth and in the other hand
you have truth, and you are forever performing tricks. And now she is
lying--she lies so well that my heart contracts with belief. Oh, she is
doing it well!

And he laughs bitterly.

MARIET--Forgive me, Gart.

HAGGART--When I wanted to kill him, she hung on my hand like a rock, and
now she says that she killed him. She steals from me this murder; she
does not know that one has to earn that, too! Oh, there are queer people
in your land!

"I wanted to deceive them, not you, Gart. I wanted to save you," says
Mariet.

Haggart replies:

"My father taught me: 'Eh, Noni, beware! There is one truth and one law
for all--for the sun, for the wind, for the waves, for the beasts--and
only for man there is another truth. Beware of this truth of man, Noni!'
so said my father. Perhaps this is your truth? Then I am not afraid of
it, but I feel very sad and very embittered. Mariet, if you sharpened my
knife and said: 'Go and kill that man'--it may be that I would not have
cared to kill him. 'What i