DOCTOR. Never.
(The LADY has sat down at the table and is crocheting.)
STRANGER. Are you sure?
DOCTOR. Perfectly. I've followed your literary career from the first with great interest; as I know my wife has told you. So that if we had met I'd certainly have remembered your name. (Pause.) Well, now you can see how a country doctor lives!
STRANGER. If you could guess what the life of a so-called liberator's like, you wouldn't envy him.
DOCTOR. I can imagine it; for I've seen how men love their chains. Perhaps that's as it should be.
STRANGER (listening). Strange. Who's playing in the village?
DOCTOR. I don't know. Do you, Ingeborg?
LADY. No.
STRANGER. Mendelssohn's Funeral March! It pursues me. I never know whether I've heard it or not.