Mr. Faust Part 2

Well, good night.

FAUST

Good night, Brander, I'm sorry you must go: come in Quite soon again, and I will try to be Less disagreeable than I was to-night.

[_Brander goes out._

OLDHAM

I'll bet he takes an arc-light for a star!

FAUST

He is warm-hearted; I am fond of him.

But Midge!... However, one can say no more....

OLDHAM

He's a good fellow; but he tires me Sometimes.

FAUST

Dear boy, I envy him.

OLDHAM

Of course, And so do I; but I would not exchange Heads for a kingdom.

FAUST

Are you so fond, then, Of what's in yours?

OLDHAM

No, but at least I have A certain faint perception of the gilded And quite preposterous crudeness of our days-- The sordid sickness of his life, and ours; And that is something to be thankful for.

FAUST

Grat.i.tude is a graceful gift.

OLDHAM

Come, come!

What snake has bitten you, that to your lips A poisoned irony so bitter springs To-night?

FAUST

I am revolving in my brain This serious question: whether 'tis not best That one turn humorist. The mind that seeks Holiness, finds it seldom; who pursues Beauty perhaps shall in a lengthened life Find it perfected only once or twice.

But if one's quest were humor--what rich stores, What tropic jungles of it, lie to hand At every moment, everywhere one turns-- What luscious meadows for the humorist!

OLDHAM

No--for the satirist! There is no humor In what you see and I see when we look On this crude world wherein our lives are spent-- This sordid sphere where we are but spectators-- This cra.s.s grim modern spectacle of lives Torn with consuming l.u.s.t of one desire-- Gold, gold, forever gold-- Or do you find Humor in that?

FAUST

It might be found, perhaps: The joke's on someone!

OLDHAM

There's no joke in it!

It is the waste, the pitiful waste of life!

Men--slaves to gather gold--become then slaves Beneath its gathered weight. For this one hope, All finer longings perish at their birth.

Men's eyes to-day envy no sage or seer Or conqueror except his triumphs be In this base sphere of commerce. The stars go out In factory smoke; the spirit wanes and pales In poisoned air of greed. It is an age Of traders and of tricksters; all the high And hounded malefactors of great wealth Differ from the ma.s.ses, in their wealth, indeed; But in their malefaction, not at all.

Your grocer and my butcher have at heart The selfsame aims as he to whom we pay Tribute for every pound of coal we burn.

Their scope is narrower, but their act the same As his--against whose millions all the tongues Of little tricksters in each corner store Babble and rail and shriek!

FAUST

Almost you do Persuade me to turn humorist on the spot!

Was ever, since Gargantua, such a vine Heavy with bursting cl.u.s.ters of the grape Of humor?

OLDHAM

Of corruption! You may laugh; But there's in all your laughter hardly more Mirth than in my upbraidings. Ah, I grow So weary of this low-horizoned scene, Our generation; I am always drawn In thought toward that great noon of human life When in the streets of Florence walked the powers And princes of the earth--Politian, Pico, Angelo, Leonardo, Botticelli-- And a half-hundred more of starry-eyed Sons of the morning, in whose hearts the G.o.d Struggled unceasing. Ah, those lucent brains, Those bright imaginations, those keen souls, Arrowy toward each target where truth's gold Glimmered, or beauty's! Those were days indeed; We shall not look upon their like again.

FAUST

I am not sure.

OLDHAM

Then take my word for it!

FAUST

I am not sure; the lamentable fact To me seems otherwise. For I believe That this vile age of commerce and corruption Which you describe in very eloquent terms, Is still, upon the whole, the best that yet Has graced our earth. I think not more than you Am I in love with it; but, looking back, I fail to see a better, though I peer Into remote arboreal history.

OLDHAM

When I was six, my teachers taught me that.

Why, one would think that you had never heard Of Greece or Italy!

FAUST

And what were they?

Your Renaissance, despite its few bright gleams, Lies like a swamp of darkness, soaked in blood And agony: such tortures as we scarce Dream of to-day writhe through it; and the stench Of slaughtered cities and corrupted thrones-- Yes, even the Papal throne--draw me not back With longing toward it. Rich that time might be If one were Michael Angelo; but how If one were peasant, or meek householder, When the Free Captains ravaged to and fro, And peoples were the merest p.a.w.ns of kings Enslaved by mistresses? The more I look, The more evaporates that golden haze Which cloaks the past; the more I doubt if men Had ever in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s more lofty souls Than those we know. And I am glad to be A citizen of this material age.