STRANGER. I haven't forgotten, but I have forgiven.—From here, where I am sitting, I can see that very tree, and that's what brought it into my mind. It's over there, you see, and it bears golden pippins.—If you look, you'll see that one of its biggest branches has been sawed off. For it so happened that I didn't get angry with you on account of my unjust punishment, but my anger turned against the tree. And two years later that big branch was all dried up and had to be sawed off. It made me think of the fig-tree that was cursed by the Saviour, but I was not led into any presumptuous conclusions.—However, I still know all those trees by heart, and once, when I had the yellow fever in Jamaica, I counted them over, every one. Most of them are still there, I see. There's the snow-apple which has red-striped fruit—a chaffinch used to nest in it. There's the melon-apple, standing right in front of the garret where I used to study for technological examinations; there's the spitzenburg, and the late astrachan; and the pear-tree that used to look like a poplar in miniature; and the one with pears that could only be used for preserves—they never ripened, and we despised them, but mother treasured them above all the rest; and in that tree there used to be a wryneck that was always twisting its head around and making a nasty cry—That was fifty years ago!
RUDOLPH. [Irately] What are you driving at?
STRANGER. Just as touchy and ill-tempered as ever! It's interesting.—There was no special purpose back of my chatter—my memories insist on pushing forward—I remember that the garden was rented to somebody else once, but we had the right to play in it. To me it seemed as if we had been driven out of paradise—and the tempter was standing behind every tree. In the fall, when the ground was strewn with ripe apples, I fell under a temptation that had become irresistible——
RUDOLPH. You stole, too?
STRANGER. Of course I did, but I didn't put it off on you!—When I was forty I leased a lemon grove in one of the Southern States, and—well, there were thieves after the trees every night. I couldn't sleep, I lost flesh, I got sick. And then I thought of—poor Gustafson here!
RUDOLPH. He's still living.
STRANGER. Perhaps he, too, stole apples in his childhood?
RUDOLPH. Probably.
STRANGER. Why are your hands so black?
RUDOLPH. Because I handle dyed stuffs all the time.—Did you have anything else in mind?