STRANGER. Well, go on!
TEMPTER. What all-powerful love, that is the marriage of souls, has to do with the propagation of the species!
STRANGER and WOMAN. Now he's come to the point!
TEMPTER. I've never been able to understand how a kiss, that's an unborn word, a soundless speech, a quiet language of the soul, can be exchanged, by means of a hallowed procedure, for a surgical operation, that always ends in tears and the chattering of teeth. I've never understood how that holy night, the first in which two souls embrace each other in love, can end in the shedding of blood, in quarrelling, hate, mutual contempt—and lint! (He holds his mouth shut.)
STRANGER. Suppose the story of the fall were true? In pain shalt thou bring forth children.
TEMPTER. In that case one could understand.
WOMAN. Who is the man who says these things?
TEMPTER. Only a wanderer on the quicksands of this life. (The WOMAN rises.) So you're ready to go. Who will go first?
STRANGER. I shall.
TEMPTER. Where?