Stranger monologue (Act 5) — Plays by August Strindberg, Third Series

I haven't forgotten, but I have forgiven.--From here, where I am sitting, I can see that very tree, and that's what brought it into my mind. It's over there, you see, and it bears golden pippins.--If you look, you'll see that one of its biggest branches has been sawed off. For it so happened that I didn't get angry with you on account of my unjust punishment, but my anger turned against the tree. And two years later that big branch was all dried up and had to be sawed off. It made me think of the fig-tree that was cursed by the Saviour, but I was not led into any presumptuous conclusions.--However, I still know all those trees by heart, and once, when I had the yellow fever in Jamaica, I counted them over, every one. Most of them are still there, I see. There's the snow-apple which has red-striped fruit--a chaffinch used to nest in it. There's the melon-apple, standing right in front of the garret where I used to study for technological examinations; there's the spitzenburg, and the late astrachan; and the pear-tree that used to look like a poplar in miniature; and the one with pears that could only be used for preserves--they never ripened, and we despised them, but mother treasured them above all the rest; and in that tree there used to be a wryneck that was always twisting its head around and making a nasty cry--That was fifty years ago!