LADY. You feel all that... already?
STRANGER. Yes. I've got that far. I feel as if I lay hacked in pieces and were being slowly melted in Medea's cauldron. Either I shall be sent to the soap-boilers, or arise renewed from my own dripping! It depends on Medea's skill!
LADY. That sounds like the word of an oracle. We must see if you can't become a child again.
STRANGER. We should have to start with the cradle; and this time with the right child.
LADY. Exactly! Wait here for me whilst I go into the church. If the café were open I'd ask you please not to drink. But luckily it's shut.
(The LADY exits. The STRANGER sits down again and draws in the sand. Enter six funeral attendants in brown with some mourners. One of them carries a banner with the insignia of the Carpenters, draped in brown crêpe; another a large axe decorated with spruce, a third a cushion with a chairman's mallet. They stop outside the café and wait.)
STRANGER. Excuse me, whose funeral have you been attending?
FIRST MOURNER. A house-breaker's. (He imitates the ticking of a clock.)
STRANGER. A real house-breaker? Or the insect sort, that lodges in the woodwork and goes 'tick-tick'?
FIRST MOURNER. Both—but mainly the insect sort. What do they call them?