A sudden change back to scene VIII. Dawn is breaking. Adam, again as Kepler, is asleep, his head and arms resting on his writing-desk. Eve and the 3rd Courtier are in the summer-house below. Lucifer, as Kepler’s apprentice, standing behind him taps him on the shoulder.
LUCIFER
There’s no beheading scene on this occasion.
ADAM
[waking up]
Where am I? I’ve been dreaming. What a dream!
LUCIFER
Vanished, Sir, with your alcoholic stupor.
ADAM
Confound the times which make the weary mind
resort to alcohol for inspiration!
It was a splendid vision all the same.
How could one fail to see the heavenly spark,
the genius rise above the blood and mire,
enormous in its vices, virtues, both,
whichever - equally magnificent!
They testified of superhuman powers.
Shall I wake up? as wake I must - to this?
This paltry, decadent society,
where vice can sport a courteous facade,
and mere conventions masquerade as virtue…
LUCIFER
I know the feeling. It’s the old malaise:
comes with the hangover the morning after.
EVE
[coming out of the summer-house]
Leave me alone! I thought you’d come to this.
You dare suggest that I should kill my husband!
You mean that I, your idol, as you called me,
could ever stoop to be a murderess?
3RD COURTIER
Hush, hush, my dear! For Heaven’s sake, be quiet!
Think of the scandal if we’re overheard.
ADAM
Those two women I saw, were they a dream?
I might have said: the one in two disguises.
A quirk of fate would make them change about
and merge, like tumbling waves, now light, now dark.
EVE
I see. A scandal. That concerns you surely.
What of the indiscretion you’ve committed,
your secret guilt, Sir Unimpeachable?
You and your kind would scoff at female virtues
until we come to think that chastity
is old-fashioned and should be - disregarded.
Then with a sneer you come and take advantage
to satisfy your sordid lust with us.
O, go away! Don’t come to me again!
3RD COURTIER
Must you exaggerate and make a great song
out of a trifling matter? This, indeed,
is plain ridiculous. No rhyme or reason.
Why should we shun each other’s company?
What’s done is done. We needn’t mention it.
And so - good morning, madam!
[Exit.]
EVE
O, you scoundrel!
So here I’m left to cope, all guilt and tears.
[Exit.]
ADAM
That was the dream that was. It’s over now.
But nothing’s lost. Ideas are eternal.
They will endure where transient forms of matter
must crumble with the weight of violent forces.
I can foresee my loftiest thoughts refined,
evolving in a slow but stately progress,
and stage by stage fulfilled throughout the world.
LUCIFER
The day rolls on, your class about to start,
the eager scholars clamour at your door
to hear your words of wisdom, learned Sir.
He rings the bell on the tower of the observatory.
ADAM
Don’t mock me with my learning, Lucifer.
I blush to hear you praise the meagre store.
LUCIFER
Then how about those bright young men you teach?
ADAM
I do not teach them: I can only train them.
I feed them words they cannot comprehend,
nor have the wits to act upon the meaning.
Meanwhile the ignorant may stare and wonder
how scholars can command the spirit world
with learned patter - to conceal the truth:
the hocus-pocus of the conjurer.
[A student hurries to the balcony.]
STUDENT
It’s kind of you to let me come alone
to satisfy my thirst for knowledge, Sir.
To delve into the hidden side of things
you haven’t considered fit for others’ eyes.
ADAM
Indeed, you have been very diligent.
Your work has earned you this prerogative.
STUDENT
I’m here. I’m overwhelmed with my desire
to be allowed to see the works of nature,
to understand, to have the satisfaction
of that superior knowledge which commands
the world of matter and the realm of spirits.
ADAM
You aim too high. How could you comprehend,
a mere atom, the boundless universe?
You look for power. You seek delight in knowledge.
If you could live to undertake the burden
of that achievement, you’d become a god.
You ask for less, you may be given it.
STUDENT
Mere fragments from the hidden wealth of learning
you may disclose are precious gain to me.
If truth be told I know nothing that matters.
ADAM
I see. That sounds a likely candidate
to penetrate the deepest walks of learning.
Encounter truth as I’ve encountered it.
Make sure there’s no one listening. It’s appalling
to meet truth face to face, and mortal danger
to let it stray among the populace.
Yet times will come, I’d love to see the day,
when truth is freely canvassed in the streets,
when mankind will have come of age at last.
Well, give your hand and make a solemn promise
never to breathe a word of what you hear.
STUDENT
I do - with all due eagerness and awe.
ADAM
Now, what was it you told me earlier?
STUDENT
That in effect I know nothing that matters.
ADAM
[cautiously looking around]
Neither do I - and no one does, believe me.
Philosophy is only a flight of fancy
elaborating on our ignorance:
a harmless discipline, compared with others,
it plays about with words, aloof, secluded,
surrounded by its world of fantasy.
But there’s another self complacent teaching
which might be scrawled, as it were, in the dust,
describing lines as vortices, and circles
as sacrosanct… It’s quite a comedy
until you grasp the deadly fraud it is.
For many try in fear and trepidation
to get around such “outlines” of the dust,
but there are snares, and he who puts a foot
the wrong way, pays a bloody price for it.
Such nonsense is allowed to hinder progress,
unscrupulously sacred as it is,
for it supports existing social order.
STUDENT
I take your meaning. How about the future?
ADAM
They’ll read our history with due derision.
Proud statesmen and renowned religious leaders
will be regarded by posterity
as comic actors in a roadside show.
They’ll have successors of intrinsic greatness,
of natural, straightforward disposition,
who’ll lead up the proverbial path - in earnest,
and signal “forward” when the way is clear.
Doctrines which seem too intricate today,
as bordering on sheer insanity,
won’t be studied but understood by all.
STUDENT
That might be through the universal language,
the tongues, perhaps, in which the apostles spoke.
You’ve shown up useless things for what they are,
but do not let me lose my faith in art.
Now, there’s a rule which calls for study, surely.
ADAM
The excellence of a great work of art
unfolds when art itself is unobtrusive.
STUDENT
But are we bound by stark realities?
Surely, idealism inspires our work.
ADAM
It animates it, makes the otherwise
inert contrivance live, a new creation,
an object on a par with works of nature.
Idealism can’t hope to go one better
in competition with this living force.
But as for rules and models - let them be.
A man of genius, of creative talent,
will want to speak, write, model, sing, whatever,
in sorrow, though his heart is rent with grief,
or happiness, in his surfeit of pleasure.
He’ll blaze his own path to achieve his goal.
Out of his work a progeny of pygmies
will extricate more rules to bind them faster,
never, never to lend them wings to fly.
STUDENT
And what am I to do? Am I indeed
no better off- than any simpleton?
Burning the midnight oil in search of knowledge
have I laid up nothing but wasted effort?
ADAM
Not wasted. It’s his effort which entitles
the scholar to be rid of his illusions.
The man who hasn’t had his mettle proven
may seem a coward to shun his chance to test it,
but champion fighters may shrug off the brawler
uncensured, courage never called in doubt.
So take your faded parchments and your tomes
which mould consumes already, take them all,
and throw them in the fire! They are crutches:
make you forget to walk, convenient
for those without ideas of their own.
That’s how mistakes of bygone centuries
infect the fresh, new world with prejudice.
Burn them, and walk into the open air!
Would you study a song never to sing it,
or the living world, with life passing you by,
penned up between the walls of dusty rooms?
There’s more to life than books and theory
when life is short and death inevitable.
Come on! Let’s bid farewell to school together.
Let flourishing youth fill your life with pleasure,
with sunshine, merry song and happiness.
[to Lucifer]
Now, enigmatic guardian spirit, lead me
into a world where men may speak their minds.
A great man’s vision rightly apprehended,
that new, free world is certain to evolve
out of the ruins of this accursed age.