CONFESSOR. Good. But don't be either sad or angry.
STRANGER. Certainly not.
CONFESSOR. Here, you see, on this bank, you're a well-known—let's say famous—person; but over there, on the other, you'll be quite unknown to the brothers. Nothing more, in fact, than an ordinary simple man.
STRANGER. Oh! Don't they read in the monastery?
CONFESSOR. Nothing light; only serious books.
STRANGER. They take in papers, I suppose?
CONFESSOR. Not the kind that write about you!
STRANGER. Then on the other side of this river my life-work doesn't exist?
CONFESSOR. What work?
STRANGER. I see. Very well. Can't we cross now?