[Higher up the mountain; among the clouds a rocky landscape with a bog round it. The MOTHER on a rock, climbing until she disappears into the cloud. The STRANGER stops, bewildered.]
STRANGER. Oh, Mother, Mother! Why are you leaving me? At the very moment when my loveliest dream was on the point of fulfilment!
TEMPTER (coming forward). What have you been dreaming? Tell me!
STRANGER. My dearest hope, most secret desire and last prayer! Reconciliation with mankind, through a woman.
TEMPTER. Through a woman who taught you to hate.
STRANGER. Yes, because she bound me to earth—like the round shot a slave drags on his foot, so that he can't escape.
TEMPTER. You talk of woman. Always woman.
STRANGER. Yes. Woman. The beginning and the end—for us men anyhow. In relationship to one another they are nothing.
TEMPTER. So that's it; nothing in themselves; but everything for us, through us! Our honour and our shame; our greatest joy, our deepest pain; our redemption and our fall; our wages and our punishment; our strength and our weakness.
STRANGER. Our shame! You've said so. Explain this riddle to me, you who're wise. Whenever I appeared in public arm in arm with a woman, my wife, who was beautiful and whom I adored, I felt ashamed of my own weakness. Explain that riddle to me.