LADY. Hasn't life brought you a single pleasure?
STRANGER. Not one! If at any time I thought so, it was merely a trap to tempt me to prolong my miseries. If ripe fruit fell into my hand, it was poisoned or rotten at the core.
LADY. What is your religion—if you'll forgive the question?
STRANGER. Only this: that when I can bear things no longer, I shall go.
LADY. Where?
STRANGER. Into annihilation. If I don't hold life in my hand, at least I hold death.... It gives me an amazing feeling of power.
LADY. You're playing with death!
STRANGER. As I've played with life. (Pause.) I was a writer. But in spite of my melancholy temperament I've never been able to take anything seriously—not even my worst troubles. Sometimes I even doubt whether life itself has had any more reality than my books. (A De Profundis is heard from the funeral procession.) They're coming back. Why must they process up and down these streets?
LADY. Do you fear them?
STRANGER. They annoy me. The place might be bewitched. No, it's not death I fear, but solitude; for then one's not alone. I don't know who's there, I or another, but in solitude one's not alone. The air grows heavy and seems to engender invisible beings, who have life and whose presence can be felt.