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.