The grey figure relates the varying stages, the changing vicissitudes of which the life of Man is composed. He tells of the death of Man, his return to nothingness, and he relates how he himself, the mysterious figure, shall ever be with Man, unseen and near, in his hours of joy and of sorrow; when he watches and when he sleeps, when he prays and curses, in his hours of gladness, when his free and brave spirit leaps high, in his hours of down-heartedness and anguish, when the spirit is darkened with a mortal weariness and the blood freezes in the heart; in his hours of triumph and defeat, in his hours of mighty wrestling with the inevitable, he will be with him. The prologue ends thus: “And you who have come hither for mirth, you who are allotted to death, look on and listen; here with its far-off and illusive echo shall pass before you, with its sorrows and with its joys, the short-spanned life of Man.” The first scene is called the birth of the Man. The curtain rises on a dark room. A group of old crones--you cannot see them distinctly--like grey mice, are chattering in the obscurity. They are talking of the child that is to be born. Here are the first words of their conversation-- “I should like to know what will come to our friend: a son or a daughter?” “Is it not all the same to us?” “I like little boys.” “And I like little girls. They always sit at home and wait, when you go to them.” “And you like visiting?” [_The old women laugh low._ “He knows.” “He knows.” (_A pause._) “Our friend would like to have a little girl. She says that boys are too boisterous and enterprising, they run after danger when they are little, and climb up high trees and bathe in deep water. They often fall into the water and get drowned. And when they grow up they go to war and kill one another.” “She thinks little girls don’t get drowned. But I have seen many drowned maidens, and they were like all drowned people--wet and green.” “She thinks that little girls don’t kill with stones!” “Poor thing, it is going so hardly with her, it is the sixteenth hour that we have been here, and she has screamed the whole time. At first she screamed loudly, so that her cry made our ears sore, and then more gently, and now she only moans.” “The doctor says she will die.” “No, the doctor says that the child will be born dead, and that she will live.” “Why are they born? it is so painful.” “And why do they die? that is still more painful!” [_The old women laugh low._ “Yes, they are born and they die.” “And again they are born.” [_They laugh. The low cry of the suffering woman is heard._ “It has begun once more.” “She has found her voice again, that is good.” “That is good.”