THE OTHER ONE _enters from behind the Lady Chapel. He is extremely thin and moth-eaten. His thin, snuff-coloured hair is parted in the middle. His straggly beard looks as if it were made out of tow. His clothes are shabby and outgrown, and he seems to wear no linen. A red woollen muffler is wound around his neck. He wears spectacles and carries a piece of rattan under his arm_.
THE OTHER ONE. [_In a low voice_] I am the Other One!
JUDGE. [_To his wife_] Make the sign of the cross! I can't!
THE OTHER ONE. The sign of the cross does not frighten me, for I am undergoing my ordeal merely that I may wear it.
THE OTHER ONE. I became the Other One because I wanted to be the First One. I was a man of evil, and my punishment is to serve the good.
THE OTHER ONE. I am. And it is my task to torment you into finding the cross, before which we are to meet some time.
OLD LADY. [_To_ JUDGE] Don't listen to him! Tell him to go!
THE OTHER ONE. It won't help. You have called me, and you'll have to bear with me.
_The_ JUDGE _and the_ OLD LADY _go out to the left_.
_A huge room with whitewashed walls and a ceiling of darkened beams. The windows are small and deeply set, with bars on the outside. The room is crowded with furniture of every kind: wardrobes, chiffoniers, dressers, chests, tables. On the furniture are placed silver services, candelabra, candlesticks, pitchers, table ware, vases, statues, etc.
There is a door in the rear. Portraits of the_ JUDGE _and the_ OLD LADY _hang on the rear wall, one on either side of the door.
A harp stands beside a small sewing-table with an easy chair near it_.
AMELIA _is standing before a table at the right, trying to clean a coffee-set of silver_.
_The sun is shining in through the windows in the background_.
NEIGHBOUR. [_Enters_] Well, child, how is your patience?
AMELIA. Thank you, neighbour, it might be worse. But I never had a worse job than this silver service here. I have worked at it for half an hour and cannot get it clean.
NEIGHBOUR. That's strange, but I suppose there are reasons for it, as the Judge says. Could you sleep last night?
AMELIA. Thank you, I slept very well. But do you know that father spent the whole night in the vineyard with his rattle----?