Mr. Faust Part 3

OLDHAM

Congratulations!--tempered with surprise At finding you, beneath your lion's skin, So sweet an optimist--whose faith can find All's for the best; and the best, this great year Nineteen Thirteen.

FAUST

Hardly so strong as that.

OLDHAM

Yes, tell me that the golden age has come!

FAUST

I quarrel not with ages--but with man; Whose life such play and folly seems--for all Its sweat and agony--that laughter lies The sole escape from madness. I peruse The present and the past, only to find Mountains of human effort piled aloft Like the Egyptian Pyramids, and toward No end save folly....

All is foolishness!

In Argolis, a woman, somewhat vain, Preferred a fop to her own rightful lord And ran away; and then for ten long years The might of h.e.l.las on the Trojan plain Grappled in conflict such as had been mete To guard Olympus, and Scamander ran Red with heroic blood-drops. And they got The woman. And it all was foolishness!...

That was your Golden Age. I hope you like it.

Foolishness!... Once a mariner set forth, With all the fires of heaven lit in his breast And G.o.dlike courage on his brow, to find New worlds beyond the unknown wastes of sea.

He sailed; he found; he died in rusty chains: So that, to-day, the vermin of all climes May thither flock, and there renew the old Familiar toil toward utter foolishness....

Why all this labor unto vanity?

Why all this straining toward an empty end?

OLDHAM

Ah, you forget what Beauty was to them!

We are quite lost to that high touch to-day.

Beauty hung over them, a star to draw Men's aspiration. That divides them quite From our debased modernity.

FAUST

Dear Oldham!

My dear delightful visionary Oldham!

What an adorer of the past you are!

OLDHAM

Yes, I adore it sacredly, and loathe To-day's whole content--except you! I loathe it So much that, if I had the dynamite, I'd blow it all--and you and me ourselves-- Into a nebula of dust.... Ah, well, We hardly can decide these things to-night, Can we? I must be off, little as I like, To end our midnight talking.

FAUST

Oh, not yet!

OLDHAM

I must; this is not good for me: I fear To let myself dwell on these restless thoughts Which with a perilous longing sometimes make My actual days so bitter that despair Grips me in horror. And besides, I'm due To pick my brother up. I have, you see, The limousine to-night, and that entails Its obligations. Dear modernity!

Whose Saviour is the limousine!... Good night!

FAUST

Good night. May all the Furies and the Gorgons Of Greece and Florence leave you in repose To dream to-night of white-limbed G.o.ddesses And painters like archangels!

OLDHAM

I deserve it!

And yet I fear they will not be so kind....

Sleep is no friend to me these many nights.

I do not know what wrong I can have done That so offends her she will none of me.

One of these days, she will carry it too far....

[_Oldham goes out. Faust turns out all but two of the lights; then seats himself wearily before the fire.

The room is dark around his lighted figure._

FAUST

The play drags, and the players would begone, Out of this theatre of tinsel days And lights and tawdry glamour, out to face Even the blank of night, the icy stars, The vast abysses. What the gallery-G.o.ds Could give, they well have given; but deities Inscrutabler than they annul all gifts With one gift more--the restless mind that peers Past fame, friends, learning, fortune, to enquire: Whither? Whither? Whither? And no answer comes To the cold player's lips....

I see too much To make my peace with any ordered role And play it heartily. To-day's thin coin Pays not my labors; and to-morrow's hope Has never been authenticated to me By a fulfilling hour when I might say: "Lo, this is what I hoped!" The vision flies As I advance; while always far ahead Its glow makes dim the color of my days; And I loathe life because my hope is fairer, And know my hope a lie. Thus, Faust, my friend, You d.a.m.n yourself ingeniously to h.e.l.ls Of rich variety....

The eyes of men Envy me as I pa.s.s them in the street-- Me, whom sufficient fortune, moderate fame, Have made completely happy in their sight.

Well, I am no barbarian: let them have The bliss of envying.... But I am sick With the hour's emptiness; and great desire Fills me for those high beauties which my dreams Yearn ever toward. I am weary; I would go Out to some golden sunset-lighted land Of silence.

I have been athirst of dreams!

And all earth's common goals and gifts have been But fuel to flame. O strange and piteous heart!

O credulous and visionary heart!

Desirous of the infinite--from defeat Arising still to grope again for light And the high word of vision! And in vain!

Till, not having found, its bitterness corrodes Inward--like one betrayed by his last G.o.d....

Strange, that my father was a worthy man!

Perhaps 'tis his blood in me that withholds Unreasoning my hand from washing clear This scribbled slate with one quick tide of peace.

Would more of him were in me! that like him I might spend eagerly a useful life In medicining miserable men Who were better dead--employ my force To aid a world within whose marrow dwells An evil none can cure, an agony Beyond our dearest aiding.

Ah, well, well!

Such are the great men of this busy world, Whose ardor for the game is anodyne Against its buffets, and intoxicant To lend it reveller's meaning. Ardor given, All things are possible....

You, old marble-face, Who front me from the corner with that grave Virtuous Father-of-your-Country look, I pay you my respects; you are a light Of leading, as I see you now. Your soul Was never shaken by convulsive doubts Of life or man or liberty; you built Unsceptical of bricks, but such as lay To hand you took, nor did your purpose shake At prescient thought of how your edifice Might be turned pest-house some day. Undismayed By doubt, you rose, and in heroic mould Led--dauntless, patient, incorruptible-- A riot over taxes. Not a star In all the vaults of heaven could trouble you With whisperings of more transcendent goals.

O despicable, admirable man!

How much I envy you--the devil take you!

[_The bust of Washington and its pedestal move slightly; gradually they change and shape themselves into the figure of a well-dressed man, rather short and stocky, with a sociable, commonplace face. His head, however, is very peculiarly modelled; it reminds one, indescribably and faintly, of the fact that men sprang from beasts. The high position of the ears help this impression, as does also the astonishing animal brilliance of the eyes. Faust, pa.s.sing his hand over his forehead, turns away._

FAUST

This is what comes of smoking far too much.

SATAN