STRANGER (pointing to the monastery). Up there!
LADY. In the monastery? No, don't leave me. Bear me company. I'm so alone in the world and so poor, so poor! When the child died, my mother turned me out, and ever since I've been living in an attic with a dressmaker. At first she was kind and pleasant, but then the lonely evenings got too long for her, and she went out in search of company—so we parted. Now I'm on the road, and I've nothing but the clothes I'm wearing; nothing but my grief. I eat it and drink it; it nourishes me and sends me to sleep. I'd rather lose anything in the world than that! (The STRANGER weeps.) You're weeping. You! Let me kiss your eyelids.
STRANGER. You've suffered all that for my sake!
LADY. Not for your sake! You never did me an ill turn; but I plagued you till you left your fireside and your child!
STRANGER. I'd forgotten that; but if you say so.... So you still love me?
LADY. Probably. I don't know.
STRANGER. And you'd like to begin all over again?
LADY. All over again? The quarrels? No, we won't do that.
STRANGER. You're right. The quarrels would only begin all over again. And yet it's difficult to part.
LADY. To part. The word alone's terrible enough.