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The Road to Damascus: A Trilogy, a play by August Strindberg |
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Part 3 - Act 4 - Scene 3. Chapel Of The Monastery |
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_ PART III ACT IV SCENE III. CHAPEL OF THE MONASTERY [Choir of the Monastery Chapel. An open coffin with a bier cloth and two burning candles. The CONFESSOR leads in the STRANGER by the hand. The STRANGER is dressed in the white shirt of the novice.] CONFESSOR. Have you carefully considered the step you wish to take? STRANGER. Very carefully. CONFESSOR. Have you no more questions? STRANGER. Questions? No. CONFESSOR. Then stay here, whilst I fetch the Chapter and the Fathers and Brothers, so that the solemn act may begin. STRANGER. Yes. Let it come to pass. (The CONFESSOR goes out. The STRANGER, left alone, is sunk in thought.) TEMPTER (coming forward). Are you ready? STRANGER. So ready, that I've no answer left for you. TEMPTER. On the brink of the grave, I understand! You'll have to lie in your coffin and appear to die; the old Adam will be covered with three shovelfuls of earth, and a De Profundis will be sung. Then you'll rise again from the dead, having laid aside your old name, and be baptized once more like a new-born child! What will you be called? (The STRANGER does not reply.) It is written: Johannes, brother Johannes, because he preached in the wilderness and... STRANGER. Do not trouble me. TEMPTER. Speak to me a little, before you depart into the long silence. For you'll not be allowed to speak for a whole year. STRANGER. All the better. Speaking at last becomes a vice, like drinking. And why speak, if words do not cloak thoughts? TEMPTER. _You_ at the graveside.... Was life so bitter? STRANGER. Yes. My life was. TEMPTER. Did you never know one pleasure? STRANGER. Yes, many pleasures; but they were very brief and seemed only to exist in order to make the pain of their loss the sharper. TEMPTER. Can't it be put the other way round: that pain exists in order to make joy more keen? STRANGER. It can be put in any way. (A woman enters with a child to be baptized.) TEMPTER. Look! A little mortal, who's to be consecrated to suffering. STRANGER. Poor child! TEMPTER. A human history, that's about to begin. (A bridal couple cross the stage.) And there--what's loveliest, and most bitter. Adam and Eve in Paradise, that in a week will be a Hell, and in a fortnight Paradise again. STRANGER. What is loveliest, brightest! The first, the only, the last that ever gave life meaning! I, too, once sat in the sunlight on a verandah, in the spring beneath the first tree to show new green, and a small crown crowned a head, and a white veil lay like thin morning mist over a face... that was not that of a human being. Then came darkness! TEMPTER. Whence? STRANGER. From the light itself. I know no more. TEMPTER. It could only have been a shadow, for light is needed to throw shadows; but for darkness no light is needed. STRANGER. Stop! Or we'll never come to an end. (The CONFESSOR and the CHAPTER appear in procession.) TEMPTER (disappearing). Farewell! CONFESSOR (advancing with a large black bier-cloth). Lord! Grant him eternal peace! CHOIR. May he be illumined with perpetual light! CONFESSOR (wrapping the STRANGER to the bier-cloth). May he rest in peace! CHOIR. Amen! [Curtain.] [THE END] _ |
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