BEGGAR. Yes. It's light there, and dark here.
STRANGER. And who are they? (Three children, dressed is summer clothing, two girls and a boy, come on to the bridge from the right.) Ho! My children! (The children stop to listen, and then look at the STRANGER without seeming to recognise him. The STRANGER calls.) Gerda! Erik! Thyra! It's your father! (The children appear to recognise him; they turn away to the left.) They don't know me. They don't want to know me.
(A man and a woman enter from the right. The children dance of to the left and disappear. The STRANGER falls on his face on the ground.)
BEGGAR. Something like that was to be expected. Such things happen. Get up again!
STRANGER (raising himself up). Where am I? Where have I been? Is it spring, winter or summer? In what century am I living, in what hemisphere? Am I a child or an old man, male or female, a god or a devil? And who are you? Are you, you; or are you me? Are those my own entrails that I see about me? Are those stars or bundles of nerves in my eye; is that water, or is it tears? Wait! Now I'm moving forward in time for a thousand years, and beginning to shrink, to grow heavier and to crystallise! Soon I'll be re-created, and from the dark waters of Chaos the Lotus flower will stretch up her head towards the sun and say: it is I! I must have been sleeping for a few thousand years; and have dreamed I'd exploded and become ether, and could no longer feel, no longer suffer, no longer be joyful; but had entered into peace and equilibrium. But now! Now! I suffer as much as if I were all mankind. I suffer and have no right to complain....
BEGGAR. Then suffer, and the more you suffer the earlier pain will leave you.
STRANGER. No. Mine are eternal sufferings....
BEGGAR. And only a minute's passed.
STRANGER. I can't bear it.
BEGGAR. Then you must look for help.