STRANGER (confused). Caesar? That was my nickname at school.
LADY. Yes. But it's also the name of the madman whom my... first husband used to look after. Forgive me speaking of him like that.
STRANGER. Has this madman got away?
LADY. It looks like it, doesn't it?
(CAESAR comes in from the back; he wears a black frock coat and is without a collar; he has a laurel crown on his head and his feet are bare. His general appearance is bizarre.)
CAESAR. Why don't you greet me? You ought to say: Ave, Caesar! For now I'm the master. The werewolf, you must know, has gone out of his mind since the Great Man went off with his wife, whom he himself snatched from her first lover, or bridegroom, or whatever you call him.
STRANGER (to the LADY). That was strychnine for two adults! (To CAESAR) Where's your master now—or your slave, or doctor, or warder?
CAESAR. He'll be here soon. But you needn't be frightened of him. He won't use daggers or poison. He only has to show himself, for all living things to fly from him; for trees to drop their leaves, and the very dust of the highway to run before him in a whirlwind like the pillar of cloud before the Children of Israel....
STRANGER. Listen....
CAESAR. Quiet, whilst I'm speaking.... Sometimes he believes himself to be a werewolf, and says he'd like to eat a little child that's not yet born, and that's really his according to the right of priority.... (He goes on his way.)