Part 8 (1/2)

STRANGER. Won't you come with me?

LADY. Yes. But then I must go first. (She turns and blows a kiss towards the verandah.) My poor werewolf!

SCENE III

ROOM IN AN HOTEL

[The STRANGER enters followed by the LADY. A WAITER.]

STRANGER (who is carrying a suitcase). Is no other room free?

WAITER. No.

STRANGER. I don't want this one.

LADY. But it's the only one: the other hotels are all full.

STRANGER (to the WAITER). You can go. (The LADY sinks on to a chair without taking off her hat and coat.) What is it you want?

LADY. I wish you'd kill me.

STRANGER. I don't wonder! Thrown out of hotels, because we're not married, and pestered by the police, we're forced to come to this place, the last I'd have wished. To this very room, number eight.... Someone must be against me!

LADY. Is this eight?

STRANGER. What? Have you been here before?

LADY. Have you?

STRANGER. Yes.

LADY. Then let's get away. Onto the road, into the woods. It doesn't matter where.

STRANGER. I should like to. But after this terrible time I'm as tired as you are. I felt this was to be our journey's end. I resisted, I tried to go in the opposite direction, but trains were late, or we missed them, and we had to come here. To this room! The devil's in it--at least what I call the devil. But I'll be even with him yet.

LADY. It seems we'll never find peace on earth again.

STRANGER. Nothing's been changed. The dying Christmas roses. (Looking at two pictures.) There he is again. And that's the Hotel Breuer in Montreux. I've stayed there, too.

LADY. Did you go to the post office?

STRANGER. I thought you'd ask me that. I did. And as an answer to five letters and three telegrams I found a telegram saying that my publisher had gone away for a fortnight.

LADY. Then we're lost.

STRANGER. Very nearly.

LADY. The waiter will be back in five minutes and ask for our pa.s.sports.

Then the landlord will come up and tell us to go.