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Page 119
STRANGER. One thing only.
PRIOR. Speak.
STRANGER. If Father Uriel had held to his first faith in 1810, men
would have called him conservative or old-fashioned; but now, as
he's followed the developments of his time and has therefore
discarded his youthful faith, men will call him a renegade--that's
to say: whatever he does mankind will blame him.
PRIOR. Do you heed what men say? Father Clemens, may I tell him how
you heeded what men said? (PATER CLEMENS rises and makes a gesture
of assent.) Father Clemens is our greatest figure painter. In the
world outside he's known by another name, a very famous one. Father
Clemens was a young man in 1830. He felt he had a talent for
painting and gave himself up to it with his whole soul. When he was
twenty he was exhibiting. The public, the critics, his teachers,
and his parents were all of the opinion that he'd made a mistake in
the choice of his profession. Young Clemens heeded what men were
saying, so he laid down his brush and turned bookseller. When he
was fifty years of age, and had his life behind him, the paintings
of his early years were discovered by some stranger; and were then
recognised as masterpieces by the public, the critics, his teachers
and relations! But it was too late. And when Father Clemens
complained of the wickedness of the world, the world answered with
a heartless grin: 'Why did you let yourself be taken in?' Father
Clemens grieved so much at this, that he came to us. But he doesn't
grieve any longer now. Or do you, Father Clemens?
CLEMENS. No! But that isn't the end of the story. The paintings I'd
done in 1830 were admired and hung in a museum till 1880. Taste
then changed very quickly, and one day an important newspaper
announced that their presence there was an outrage. So they were
banished to the attic.
PRIOR (to the STRANGER). That's a good story!
CLEMENS. But it's still not finished. By 1890 taste had so changed
again that a professor of the History of Art wrote that it was a
national scandal that my works should be hanging in an attic. So
the pictures were brought down again, and, for the time being, are
classical. But for how long? From that you can see, young man, in
what worldly fame consists? Vanitas vanitatum vanitas!
STRANGER. Then is life worth living?
PRIOR. Ask Pater Melcher, who is experienced not only in the world
of deception and error, but also in that of lies and contradictions.
Follow him: he'll show you the picture gallery and tell you stories.
STRANGER. I'll gladly follow anyone who can teach me something.
(PATER MELCHER takes the STRANGER by the hand and leads him out of
the Chapter House.)
Curtain.
SCENE II
PICTURE GALLERY OF THE MONASTERY
[Picture Gallery of the Monastery. There are mostly portraits of
people with two heads.]
MELCHER. Well, first we have here a small landscape, by an unknown
master, called 'The Two Towers.' Perhaps you've been in Switzerland
and know the originals.
STRANGER. I've been in Switzerland!
MELCHER. Exactly. Then near the station of Amsteg on the Gotthard
railway you've seen a tower, called Zwing-Uri, sung of by Schiller
in his _Wilhelm Tell_. It stands there as a monument to the cruel
oppression which the inhabitants of Uri suffered at the hands of
the German Emperors. Good! On the Italian side of the Gotthard lies
Bellinzona, as you know. There are many towers to be seen there,
but the most curious is called Castel d'Uri. That's the monument
recalling the cruel oppression which the Italian cantons suffered
at the hands of the inhabitants of Uri! Now do you understand?
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