MOTHER. You think I'm speaking ill of her? I couldn't do that of my
own child. I only draw the comparison, because you know her.

STRANGER. But I've noticed what you speak of in Eve.

MOTHER. Why do you call Ingeborg Eve?

STRANGER. By inventing a name for her I made her mine. I wanted to
change her. ...

MOTHER. And remake her in your image? (Laughing.) I've been told
that country wizards carve images of their victims, and give them
the names of those they'd bewitch. That was your plan: by means of
this Eve, that you yourself had made, you intended to destroy the
whole Sex!

STRANGER (looking at the MOTHER in surprise). Those were damnable
words! Forgive me. But you have religious beliefs: how can you
think such things?

MOTHER. The thoughts were yours.

STRANGER. This begins to be interesting. I imagined an idyll in the
forest, but this is a witches' cauldron.

MOTHER. Not quite. You've forgotten, or never knew, that a man
deserted me shamefully, and that you're a man who also shamefully
deserted a woman.