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Page 106
STRANGER. You mean Satan's greatest illusion! For the woman who
seems most beautiful to me, can seem horrible to others! Even for
me, when she's angry, she can be uglier than any other woman. Then
what is beauty?
TEMPTER. A semblance, a reflection of your own goodness! (He puts
his hand over his mouth.) Curses on it! I let it out that time. And
now the devil's loose. ...
STRANGER. Devil? Yes. But if she's a devil, how can a devil make me
desire virtue and goodness? For that's what happened to me when I
first saw her beauty; I was seized with a longing to be like her,
and so to be worthy of her. To begin with I tried to be by taking
exercise, having baths, using cosmetics and wearing good clothes;
but I only made myself ridiculous. Then I began from within; I
accustomed myself to thinking good thoughts, speaking well of
people and acting nobly! And one day, when my outward form had
moulded itself on the soul within, I became her likeness, as she
said. And it was she who first uttered those wonderful words: I
love you! How can a devil ennoble us; how can a spirit of hell fill
us with goodness; how ...? No, she was an angel! A fallen angel, of
course, and her love a broken ray of that great light--that great
eternal light--that warms and loves. ... That loves. ...
TEMPTER. What, old friend, must we stand here like two youths and
spell out the riddles of love?
CONFESSOR (coming in). What's this chatterer saying? He's talked
away his whole life; and never done anything.
TEMPTER. I wanted to be a priest, but had no vocation.
CONFESSOR. Whilst you're waiting for it, help me to find a drunkard
who's drowned himself in the bog. It must be near here, because
I've been following his tracks till now.
TEMPTER. Then it's the man lying beneath that brushwood there.
CONFESSOR (picking up some twigs, and disclosing a fully clothed
corpse, with a white, young face.) Yes, it is! (He grows pensive as
he looks at the dead man.)
TEMPTER. Who was he?
CONFESSOR. It's extraordinary!
TEMPTER. He must have been a good-looking man. And quite young.
CONFESSOR. Oh no. He was fifty-four. And when I saw him a week ago,
he looked like sixty-four. His eyes were as yellow as the slime of
a garden snail and bloodshot from drunkenness; but also because
he'd shed tears of blood over his vices and misery. His face was
brown and swollen like a piece of liver on a butcher's table, and
he hid himself from men's eyes out of shame--up to the end he seems
to have been ashamed of the broken mirror of his soul, for he
covered his face with brushwood. I saw him fighting his vices; I
saw him praying to God on his knees for deliverance, after he'd
been dismissed from his post as a teacher. ... But ... Well, now
he's been delivered. And look, now the evil's been taken from him,
the good and beautiful that was in him has again become apparent;
that's what he looked like when he was nineteen! (Pause.) This is
sin--imposed as a punishment. Why? That we don't know. 'He who
hateth the righteous, shall himself be guilty!' So it is written,
as an indication. I knew him when he was young! And now I remember ...
he was always very angry with those who never drank. He criticised
and condemned, and always set his cult of the grape on the altar of
earthly joys! Now he's been set free. Free from sin, from shame,
from ugliness. Yes, in death he looks beautiful. Death is the
deliverer! (To the STRANGER.) Do you hear that, Deliverer, you who
couldn't even free a drunkard from his evil passions!
TEMPTER. Crime as punishment? That's not so bad. Most penetrating!
CONFESSOR. So I think. You'll have new matter for argument.
TEMPTER. Now I'll leave you gentlemen for a while. But soon we'll
meet again. (He goes out.)
CONFESSOR. I saw you just now with a woman! So there are still
temptations?
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