The Road to Damascus | Page 8

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.
LADY. You've noticed that?
STRANGER. For some time I've noticed a great deal; but not as I used
to. Once I merely saw objects and events, forms and colours, whilst
now I perceive ideas and meanings. Life, that once had no meaning, has
begun to have one. Now I discern intention where I used to see nothing
but chance. (Pause.) When I met you yesterday it struck me you'd been
sent across my path, either to save me, or destroy me.

LADY. Why should I destroy you?
STRANGER. Because it may be your destiny.
LADY. No such idea ever crossed my mind; it was largely sympathy I
felt for you. ... Never, in all my life, have I met anyone like you. I have
only to look at you for the tears to start to my eyes. Tell me, what have
you on your conscience? Have you done something wrong, that's never
been discovered or punished?
STRANGER. You may well ask! No, I've no more sins on my
conscience than other free men. Except this: I determined that life
should never make a fool of me.
LADY. You must let yourself be fooled, more or less, to live at all.
STRANGER. That would seem a kind of duty; but one I wanted to get
out of. (Pause.) I've another secret. It's whispered in the family that I'm
a changeling.
LADY. What's that?
STRANGER. A child substituted by the elves for the baby that was
born.
LADY. Do you believe in such things?
STRANGER. No. But, as a parable, there's something to be said for it.
(Pause.) As a child I was always crying and didn't seem to take to life
in this world. I hated my parents, as they hated me. I brooked no
constraint, no conventions, no laws, and my longing was for the woods
and the sea.
LADY. Did you ever see visions?
STRANGER. Never. But I've often thought that two beings were
guiding my destiny. One offers me all I desire; but the other's ever at
hand to bespatter the gifts with filth, so that they're useless to me and I
can't touch them. It's true that life has given me all I asked of it--but

everything's turned out worthless to me.
LADY. You've had everything and yet are not content?
STRANGER. That is the curse. ...
LADY. Don't say that! But why haven't you desired things that
transcend this life, that can never be sullied?
STRANGER. Because I doubt if there is a beyond.
LADY. But the elves?
STRANGER. Are merely a fairy story. (Pointing to a seat.) Shall we sit
down?
LADY. Yes. Who are you waiting for?
STRANGER. Really, for the post office to open. There's a letter for
me--it's been forwarded on but hasn't reached me. (They sit down.) But
tell me something of yourself now. (The Lady takes up her crochet
work.)
LADY. There's nothing to tell.
STRANGER. Strangely enough, I should prefer to think of you like
that. Impersonal, nameless--I only do know one of your names. I'd like
to christen you myself--let me see, what ought you to be called? I've
got it. Eve! (With a gesture towards the wings.) Trumpets! (The funeral
march is heard again.) There it is again! Now I must invent your age,
for I don't know how old you are. From now on you are thirty-four--so
you were born in sixty-four. (Pause.) Now your character, for I don't
know that either. I shall give you a good character, your voice reminds
me of my mother--I mean the idea of a mother, for my mother never
caressed me, though I can remember her striking me. You see, I was
brought up in hate! An eye for an eye--a tooth for a tooth. You see this
scar on my forehead? That comes from a blow my brother gave me
with an axe, after I'd struck him with a stone. I never went to my

father's funeral, because he turned me out of the house when my sister
married. I was born out of wedlock, when my family were bankrupt
and in