MOTHER. I will.
STRANGER. When I woke I was in a red iron bedstead. Three men were pulling a cord that ran through two blocks. Every time they pulled I felt I grew two feet taller....
MOTHER. They were putting in your hip.
STRANGER. I hadn't thought of that. Then... I lay watching my past life unroll before me like a panorama, through childhood, youth.... And when the roll was finished it began again. All the time I heard a mill grinding.... I can hear it still. Yes, here too!
MOTHER. Those were not pleasant visions.
STRANGER. No. At last I came to the conclusion... that I was a thoroughgoing scamp.
MOTHER. Why call yourself that?
STRANGER. I know you'd like to hear me say I was a scoundrel. But that would seem to me like boasting. It would imply a certainty about myself to which I've not attained.
MOTHER. You're still in doubt?
STRANGER. Of a great deal. But I've begun to have an inkling.