Traveller
I don’t know anything about that. Let them go their way, and you go yours.
Peasant
They are long-maned devils!
Traveller
It’s not right to judge others like that! We must each remember our own faults.
Peasant
Yes, that’s right enough. What it comes to is this: that if we all were to tackle it at once, the land would be ours at one go, and there would be no more taxes.
Long pause. The Peasant shakes his head, and smiles.
Traveller
No, friend, that’s not what I mean. I don’t mean that if we live according to God’s will, the land will be ours, and there will be no more taxes. I mean that our life is evil, only because we ourselves do evil. If one lived according to God’s will, life would not be evil. What our life would be like if we lived according to God’s will, God alone knows; but certainly life would not be evil. We drink, scold, fight, go to law, envy, and hate men; we do not accept God’s Law; we judge others; call one fat-paunched and another long-maned; but if anyone offers us money, we are ready to do anything for it: go as watchmen, policemen, or soldiers, to help ruin others, and to kill our own brothers. We ourselves live like devils, and yet we complain of others!
Peasant
That’s so! But it is hard, oh, how hard! Sometimes it’s more than one can bear.