WOMAN. [Coming to.] Alfred! all have forsaken you; but I shall
remain with you.
PEHR. Yes, but why should you? I'm as poor as the poorest; soon the
tax collector will be coming around for the taxes, and he'll seize
everything.
WOMAN. [Snuggles up to him.] Then I want to be at your side to
support you--[seizes his hand and steals ring during following
speeches] and extend to you the hand--
PEHR. [Duped.] You! Can this be true?
WOMAN. True? Look at me!
PEHR. Ah, I have been told that woman is more faithless than man--
WOMAN. She is wiser than man [puts ring on], therefore she is
called faithless. Oh, let me sit, I'm so unstrung! [Pehr leads her
to a chair by the wall.]
PEHR. Compose yourself, my friend; I have only frightened you.
WOMAN. Give me a glass of wine; I feel so faint after all this
commotion.
[Pehr goes over to table; wall back of the chair opens and woman
and chair disappear. Only the hand with ring is seen as she is
heard speaking.]
Ha, ha--schoolboy! Learn from this not to trust a woman whom you
have tricked!
[Alone, Pehr runs to window and looks out, as he draws back his
head, he has the ears of an ass.]
PEHR. Curses on gold, friendship and women! Now I stand alone--
poor, deserted--with a pair of long ears and without my magic ring!
Had I known that life was so utterly ignoble, I should have stayed
at home with the witch. Where shall I turn to now--without friends,
without money, without house and home? Trouble awaits me at the
door.
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