Festus · Scene 12

XII

Scene⁠—A metropolis⁠—Public place.
Festus* and Lucifer*.
Festus What can be done here?
Lucifer Oh! a thousand things, As well as elsewhere.
Festus True; it is a place Where passion, occupation, or reflection, May find fit food or field; but suits not me. My burden is the spirit, and my life Is henceforth solely spiritual.
Lucifer Well;⁠— At the occurrent season, too, it shall Be satisfied. It might be even now, From things about us. But look, here comes a man Thou knowest well.
Festus I do. Stop friend! of late I have not seen thee. Whither goest thou now?
Friend I am upon my business, and in haste.
Festus Business! I thought thou wast a simple schemer.
Friend Mayhap I am.
Festus There is a visionary Business, as well as visionary faith.
Friend I have been, all life, living in a mine, Lancing the world for gold. I have not yet Fingered the right vein. Oh! I often wish The time would come again, which science prates of, When earth’s bright veins ran ruddy, virgin gold.
Festus When the world’s gold melts, all the poorer metals, All things less pure, less precious, all beside, Will vanish; nought be left but gems and gold. If all were rich, gold would be penniless.
Lucifer I have a secret I would fain impart To one who would make right use of it. Now, mark! Chemists say there are fifty elements, And more;⁠—wouldst know a ready recipe For riches?⁠—
Friend That indeed I would good sir.
Lucifer Get then these fifty earths, or elements, Or what not. Mix them up together. Put All to the question. Tease them well with fire, Vapour and trituration⁠—every way; Add the right quantity of lunar rays; Boil them, and let them cool, and watch what comes.
Friend Thrice greatest Hermes! but it must be; yes! I’ll go and get them; good day⁠—instantly. Goes.
Lucifer He’ll be astonished, probably.
Festus He will, In any issue of the experiment. Perhaps the nostrum may explode and blow him Body and soul to atoms and to⁠—
Lucifer Nonsense!
Festus There needs no satire on men’s rage for gold; Their nature is the best one, and excuse. And now what next?
Lucifer Why let us take our ease Beside this feathery fountain. It is cool And pleasant, and the people passing by, Fit subjects for two moralists like us. Here we can speculate on policy, On social manners, fashions, and the news. Now the political aspect of the world, At present, is most cheerful. To begin, Like charity, at home. Out of all wrongs The most atrocious, the most righteous ends Are happiest wrought.
Festus It ofttimes chances so.
Lucifer Take of the blood of martyrs, tears of slaves, The groans of prisoned patriots, and the sweat Wrung from the bones of Famine, like parts. Add Vapour of orphan’s sigh, and wail of all Whom war hath spoiled, or law first fanged, then gorged;⁠— The stifled breath of man’s free natural thonght⁠— The tyrant’s lies; the curses of the proud; The usurpations of the lawful heir, The treasonous rebellions of the wise, The poor man’s patient prayers; and let all these Simmer, some centuries, o’er the slow red fire Of human wrath; and there results at last, A glorious constitution, and a grand Totality of nothings;⁠—as we see.⁠—
Soldiers pass; music, etc.
Man is a military animal, Glories in gunpowder, and loves parade; Prefers them to all things.
Festus Of recipes, Enough! Life’s but a sword’s length, at the best.
Lucifer War, war, still war! from age to age, old Time Hath washed his hands in the heart’s blood of Earth.
Festus Yet fields of death! ye are earth’s purest pride; For what is life to freedom? War must be While men are what they are; while they have bad Passions to be roused up; while ruled by men; While all the powers and treasures of a land Are at the beck of the ambitious crowd; While injuries can be inflicted, or Insults be offered; yea, while rights are worth Maintaining, freedom keeping, or life having, So long the sword shall shine; so long shall war Continue, and the need for war remain.
Lucifer And yet all war shall cease.
Festus It must and shall. Some news seems stirring; what I know not yet.
Lucifer Nor I. I heard that one of Saturn’s moons Had flown upon his face and blinded him. ’Twas also said, in circles I frequent At times, his outer ring was falling off. If I should find, I’ll keep it. It might fit A little finger such as mine, I think. Poor Saturn! much I doubt he is breaking up. But for these news, I know not what they be. Some one perhaps has lit on a new vein Of stars in Heaven: or cracked one with his teeth, To look inside it, or made out at last The circulation of the light; or what Think’st thou?
Festus I know not. Ask!
Lucifer Sir, what’s the news?
Passerby The news are good news, being none at all.
Lucifer Your goodness, Sir, I deem of like extent. We heard the great Bear was confined of twins.
Stranger ’Tis not unlikely stars do propagate.
Festus And so much for civility and news. This city is one of the world’s social poles, Round which events revolve: here, dial-like, Time makes no movement but is registered.
Lucifer You gaudy equipage! hast ever seen A drowning dragon-fly floating down a brook, Topping the sunny ripples as they rise, Till in some ambushed eddy it is sucked down By something underneath. Thus with the rich;⁠— Their gilding makes their death conspicuous.
Festus Some men are nobly rich, some nobly poor, Some the reverse. Rank makes no difference.
Lucifer The poor may die in swarms unheeded. They But swell the mass of columned ciphers. Oh, Ye poor, ye wretched, ye bowed down by woe! Thank God for something, though it were but this, He fire, ye ashes!
Festus Thou art surely mad.
Lucifer I meant to moralize. I cannot see A crowd, and not think on the fate of man⁠— Clinging to error as a dormant bat To a dead bough. Well, ’tis his own affair.
Festus All homilies on the sorts and lot of men Are vain and wearisome. I want to know No more of human nature. As it is, I honour it and hate it. Let that do.
Lucifer Here is a statue to some mighty man Who beat his name on the drum of the world’s ear Till it was stupified, and, I suppose, Not knowing what it was about, reared up This marble mockery of mortality, Which shall outlive the memory of the man And all like him who water earth with blood, And sow with bones, or any good he did, As eagles outlive gnats. But never mind! Why carp at insect sins, or crumb-like crimes? The world, the great imposture, still succeeds; Still, in Titanic immortality, Writhes ’neath the burning mountain of its sins.
Festus There’s an old adage about sin and some one. The world is not exactly what I thought it, But pretty nearly so; and after all, ’Tis not so bad as good men make it out, Nor such a hopeless wretch.
Lucifer For all the world Not I would slander it. Dear world, thou art Of all things under Heaven by me most loved, The most consistent, the least fallible. Believe me ever thine affectionate Lucifer. P.S. Sweet, remember me!
Festus Wilt go to the Cathedral?
Lucifer No, indeed; I have just confessed.
Festus Well, to the concert, then?
Lucifer Some fifteen hundred thousand million years Have passed since last I heard a chorus.
Festus Good!
Lucifer In sooth, I cannot calculate the time. There are no eras in Eternity, No ages. Time is as the body, and Eternity the spirit of existence.
Festus That would I learn and prove.
Lucifer The finite soul Can never learn the Infinite, nor be Informed by it, unaided.
Festus Be it so. What shall we do?
Lucifer I put myself in your hands.
Festus Wilt go on ’Change?
Lucifer I rarely speculate. Steady receipts are mostly to my taste. Besides, I spurn the system. Take my aim.
Festus But something must be done to pass the time.
Lucifer True; let us pass, then, all time.
Festus I shall be Most happy; only show me how.
Lucifer Why, thus. I have the power to make thy spirit free Of its poor frame of flesh, yet not by death⁠— And reünite them afterwards! Wilt thou Entrust thyself to me?
Festus In God I trust, And in His word of safety. Have thy will. Where shall it be effected?
Lucifer Here and now. Recline thou calmly on yon marble slab, As though asleep. The world will miss thee not; Its complement it perfect. I will mind That no impertinent meddler troubles there That tranced frame. The brain shall cease its life⁠— Engrossing business, and the living blood, The wine of life which maketh drunk the soul, Sleep in the sacred vessels of the heart. Three steps the sun hath taken from his throne, Already, downwards, and ere he hath gone, Who calmeth tempests with his mighty light, We will return; and till then the bright rain Of yonder fountain fails not.
Festus Thus be it! Come! we are wasting moments here that now Belong, of right, to immortality, And to another world
Lucifer Prepare!⁠—
Festus And thou?
Lucifer I vanish altogether.
Festus Excellent!
Lucifer Body and spirit part!⁠—