“You will play the host.
You will provide drink
Without being thanked. Besides this
You will hear rude words. ‘Come here!
Stranger!
Prepare the table! Let me eat
What you have there!
Be off!
Stranger!
An honored guest is here!
My brother has come
For a visit!
I need the guest–room!’ It is hard
For a sensible person
To bear.
There is the scolding
About lodging.
There is the reproach
Of the moneylender.”
If you are a stranger in someone else’s house, you will have to play the part of a host and bartender without being thanked. People will speak rude words about you, since you are the stranger. This is somewhat reminiscent of Albert Camus and his 1942 work about the “Stranger.” You will be accepted for what you do, but at the same time you will not be really truly accepted for who you are. You will not fully fit in. You, the stranger, will be asked to be a waiter, almost like a servant. You will be moved around, depending on who is coming to the house. You many actually lose your room because a relative might come for a visit. These are some of the difficulties for the lodger staying in a strange house. You will be scolded about your renting as well as receive the criticism of the moneylenders.