SCENE 13 In space. A segment of the Earth is seen in the distance, growing ever smaller until it seems as distant as star, indistinguishable from the others. The scene begins in a twilight grey, which slowly darkens to pitch black. ADAM is a very old man. He and Lucifer are flying through space. ADAM How furiously we have flown. Where are we? LUCIFER Did you not wish to rise above the eart To higher spheres, where, if I understood you Quite correctly, you have heard the cries Of fellow spirits? ADAM That is true, but I Never imagined the way to be so barren. This world is all so alien and deserted That to tresspass in it seems a sacrilege, And I am subject to an inner conflict: I feel the meannes of an Earth that bound My aspirations, and long to break its hold, And yet I'm homesick, breaking free is painful.- Ah, Lucifer! Just look back at our planet, The flowers were first to vanish from our sight, And then the trembling branches of the forests; Our well-known haunts, a hundred favourite nooks Have levelled down, become a featureless plain. Whatever thrilled us has beed washed away. Now even the cliffs have shrunk to useless clods, The thunder-bellied cloud which terrifies Peasants below, who take it for a portent Has thinned to a poor drifting shred of vapour. The endless grumbling ocean-where is that? It sits there like a grey patch on the face Of one poor planet lost among the others, And this was once the whole wide world to us. Oh Lucifer! And then there's her, yes her- Must she remain below, so far from us?- LUCIFER Unfortunately, from this eminence First the beautiful, and then the noble And the powerful all fade away, until Nothing's left but a series of cold figures.- ADAM We're leaving the very stars behind us now, I see no end, I feel no obstacle. What's life without the striving and the passion? This deep cold terrifies me Lucifer! LUCIFER If this is the limit of your vaunted courage We should return to playing in the dust. ADAM Who said it was? No, forward, let's go forward: It only hurts until the ties are broken, Each web of rope that holds me to the earth.- But what is this? I find it hard to breathe, I've little strength, my thoughts are all confused. The tale that tells how Antaeus could survive Only until his feet still touched the ground- Was it more than legend? THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH More indeed. You know me well, the Spirit of the Earth, It is only I that breathe in you, remember. Here is the border, the limit of my power, If you return you live-go on, you perish, You squirm and wriggle like a worm in water- That puddle is the whole wide world to you. ADAM Then I defy you, you have failed to scare me.- My body may be yours, my soul is mine, The power of thought and truth is infinite, And came before this material world of yours. THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH Vain man! Attempt it, what a fall awaits you. Did her fragnance anticipate the rose, The form the body, the ray of light the sun? If only you could see your orphaned spirit Circling through the endlessness of space, Seeking vainly for shred of meaning Or expression in an alien universe, But understanding nothing, feeling nothing, You would shudder. And that is because each sense, Each single feeling you possess is only An enamation of this core or matter Which you have called your Earth, which were it different Neither you nor it would have existed. All your ideas of fair or foul, of blessed Or cursed, you have gleaned from me alone, It is my soul that permeates the fabric Of your little world. Oh, what passes here For eternal truth might be incredible Elsewhere and the impossible seem natural. No gravity exist, life does not move, What here is air might very well be thought, What here is light might over there be sound A plant-like growth here, there might be a crystal. ADAM You cannot shake me, my spirit will press on. THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH Adam, Adam, you have but a few minutes: Go back, on Earth, you might achieve true greatness, But once you have forced your spirit through the ring Of all existence, God will not permit you To approach Him-He will shrink you and wreck you. ADAM Would earth not also wreck me in the end?- THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH Oh not the foolish words of that old lie, Do not repeat them here among the spirits.- The whole of nature shrives at the sound.- That is the sacred hidden seal of God, Reserved unto Himself. Not even the Fruit Of The Three of Knowledge could break that seal. ADAM Then I will. (They fly on. ADAM screams and freezes) I have persihed! LUCIFER (cackling) And so the old lie has triumphed.- (He pushes Aam away from himself) This puppet god can now go into orbit Like a planet on which new life might evolve All over again to give me fresh employment.- THE VOICE OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH You laugh too soon. He merely brushed against The alien world. It's not so easy to break The bounds of my realm, Lucifer.-Your home Is calling you; come to yourself, my son. ADAM (regaining consciousness) I live again.- I sense because I suffer, But even suffering is sweet to me, Annihilation is so horrifying.- There where I've fought so many useless battless, I'll fight again and that will make me happy. LUCIFER So after all these trials you still beleive That these new battless may not be so useless? That you will reach your goal? Only humanity Could remain so incorrigibly childish. ADAM I'm quite untempted by that foolish prospect, I know that I will fail and fail again And I don't care. What other goal is there? After all, what is the goal? It is the end of an honourable contest, The goal is death, but life consist of struggle, The struggle in itself must be the goal. LUCIFER Oh what a consolation, if you battle Were fought for some commensurate ideal, But what you prize today you'll mock tomorrow, The cause that fired you then will seem like child's play.- Did you not bleed at Chaeronea once Defending the lost cause of liberty, And later, did you not join Constantine In order to establish his great empire? And where you not a martyr for your faith And later, with the armoury of science, Oppose the very faith that you had died for? ADAM That may be true, and yet however false Ideals they were, they managed to inspire And raise me up: they all were great and sacred. It is all one, whatever form is took, The Cross or science, liberty, ambition, They all advanced the progress of mankind.- Oh back to earth, I want to fight again. LUCIFER Have you so soon forgot the scientist's words; Who calculated that the earth would freeze For thousand years-putting an end to struggle? ADAM If science doesn't challenge that assumption. But science will, I feel it in my bones.- LUCIFER And then?- Will there be battles, greatness, power In that artificial world the human mind Created round its tidy theorems, That world which you observed a while ago? ADAM As long as the earth is saved-then it will pass Like those before, like things that have fullfilled Their purpose, and once again creative thought Will re-emerge and breathe life into it. Take me back now, I am burning to see what New doctrine will inspire me in the world That has been saved. LUCIFER Very well then, back.-