STRANGER. I am. [Pause] Don't I look as I have been described—or painted?
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Frankly, no!
STRANGER. No, that is generally the case. And I must admit that the information I received about you a while ago does not tally with the original.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. Oh, people do each other so much wrong, and they paint each other in accordance with some image within themselves.
STRANGER. And they go about like theatrical managers, distributing parts to each other. Some accept their parts; others hand them back and prefer to improvise.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. And what has been the part assigned to you?
STRANGER. That of a seducer. Not that I have ever been one! I have never seduced anybody, be she wife or maid, but once in my youth I was seduced, and that's why the part was given to me. Strange to say, it was forced on me so long that at last I accepted it. And for twenty years I carried the bad conscience of a seducer around with me.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. You were innocent then?
STRANGER. I was.
MRS. WALSTRÖM. How curious! And to this day my husband is still talking of the Nemesis that has pursued you because you seduced another man's wife.