MOTHER. Why say that?
STRANGER. Because I sow devastation wherever I go. But as I must go somewhere, and cannot change my fate, I've lost my scruples.
MOTHER. Then you're like my daughter—she, too, has no scruples and no conscience.
STRANGER. What?
MOTHER. You think I'm speaking ill of her? I couldn't do that of my own child. I only draw the comparison, because you know her.
STRANGER. But I've noticed what you speak of in Eve.
MOTHER. Why do you call Ingeborg Eve?
STRANGER. By inventing a name for her I made her mine. I wanted to change her....
MOTHER. And remake her in your image? (Laughing.) I've been told that country wizards carve images of their victims, and give them the names of those they'd bewitch. That was your plan: by means of this Eve, that you yourself had made, you intended to destroy the whole Sex!
STRANGER (looking at the MOTHER in surprise). Those were damnable words! Forgive me. But you have religious beliefs: how can you think such things?