Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Part 60

You have guessed you would gain nothing racking my body--you keep your torments for my heart.

HIGH PRIEST. Have I said other than what is true? The conversions that your preaching made were followed by disorders--was it not then that your father was wounded? I knew him. He was a man, simple and good. You are the cause of his death, as you will be the cause of Yaouma's.

SATNI. Peace! You would have my sorrows crush my will!

HIGH PRIEST. I shall speak of them no more. But think of the people of Egypt, what evils you would bring on them! If you take away their religion, what will keep them virtuous?

SATNI. What you call their virtue, is only their submission.

HIGH PRIEST. You let loose their vilest instincts, if you remove the fear of the G.o.ds.

SATNI. The fear of the G.o.ds has prevented fewer crimes than were needed to create it.

HIGH PRIEST. Be it so. But it exists.

SATNI. It is your interest to spread the belief, that the fear of the G.o.ds is a restraint. And you know that it is not. You do not leave the punishment of crime to the G.o.ds. You have the lash, hard labor in the mines; you have scaffolds, you have executioners. No one believes sincerely in the happy life beyond the grave. If we believed, we should kill ourselves, the sooner to reach the Island of the Souls, the fields of Yalou.

HIGH PRIEST. By what then are the appet.i.tes restrained?

SATNI. By the laws, by the need of the esteem of others--

HIGH PRIEST. We have just seen that, in sooth. So then it was virtue that the people showed yesterday, after you made them break their G.o.ds?

They seemed to care little for the esteem of others, for they stole, they pillaged, they killed. Do you approve of that? Have they gained your esteem, those who have done what they have done?

SATNI. Oh, I know! I know! That is your strongest argument. Creatures degraded by centuries of slavery, drunk with the first hours of freedom, commit crimes. You argue from this, that they were meant for slaves.

Yes, it is true that if you take a child from the leading strings that upheld it, the child falls down. But you who watch over it, you rejoice at the fall, for then you can a.s.sert that the child must go back to its leading strings--and be kept in them till death.

HIGH PRIEST. Then you declare that all supports must be suppressed? [_A pause_] Religion is a prop. It soothes--consoles. He does evil who disturbs it.

SATNI. Many religions died before ours. The pa.s.sing of each caused the sorrows you foresee. Should we then have kept the first, to prevent some suffering?

HIGH PRIEST. Ours is yet young, though so old; look in the halls of our temples, behold the countless thank-offerings brought there for prayers that were granted.

SATNI. Your temples could not hold the offerings, unthinkable in number, that those whose prayers were not granted might have made, and who none the less prayed as well as the others.

HIGH PRIEST. Even unanswered their prayers were recompensed. They had hope, and it is likewise a boon to the poor to promise them welfare in the world to come.

SATNI. You promise them welfare in the world to come, to make them forget that all the welfare in this world is yours.

HIGH PRIEST. Can you give happiness to all who are on earth? We are more generous than you; at least we give them consolation.

SATNI. You make them pay dear for it.

HIGH PRIEST. In truth the granaries of our temples are full to overflowing. Left to themselves, the people would not think of the lean years, in the years of abundance. We think for them, and they bring us, gladly, what they would refuse did they not believe they gave to the G.o.ds. We proclaim the Nile sacred; it is forbidden to sully its waters.

Is that to honor it as a G.o.d? Not so, it is to avoid the plague. And all the animals we deified are those man has need of. You did not learn all things on your travels--

SATNI. You would have the peasant remain a child, because you fear the reckoning he would demand of you, if you let him grow up. You know you could not stay him then by showing him the G.o.d-jackal, the G.o.d-ram, the G.o.d-bull, and the rest that do not exist.

HIGH PRIEST. Are you certain they do not exist?

SATNI. Yes.

HIGH PRIEST. Know you where you are?

SATNI. In the temple.

HIGH PRIEST. In the temple; where you were brought up. There was a time when you dared not have crossed the first sacred enclosure. You are in the third. Look round! There is the holy of holies. At my will the stones that mask the entrance will roll back, and the G.o.ddess will be unveiled. Except the High Priest and the Pharaoh, no mortal, if he be not priest himself, may look on her and live--save at the hour of the annual Festival of Prodigies, which is upon us now. Do you believe that you can endure to be alone in her presence?

SATNI. I do believe it.

HIGH PRIEST. We shall see. If you be afraid, call and prostrate yourself. Afterwards you shall go and tell what you have seen, to those whom you deceived.

_The High Priest makes a sign. Total darkness. A peal of thunder._

SATNI. Ah! [_Terrified, he leaps forward. A faint light returns slowly, the temple is empty_] I am alone! [_He is terrified, standing erect against a pillar facing the audience_] Alone in the temple, within sight of the G.o.ddess almost. I know 'tis but an image--yet am I steeped in terror, even to the marrow of my bones. [_He utters an agonized cry_]

Ah!--I thought I beheld in the darkness--No--I know that there is nothing--Oh! coward nature! Because I was cradled amid tales of religion, because I grew up in the fear of the G.o.ds, because my father and my father's father, and all those from whom I come, were crushed by this terror even from the blackest night of time, I tremble, and my reason totters. All this is false, I know--the G.o.d obeys the priest.

Yet, from these towering columns, horror and mystery descend upon me--[_A thunder clap brings him to his knees. The stones that mask the entrance to the sanctuary roll slowly back. He tries to look_] The holy of holies opens--I am afraid--I am afraid--[_He mutters words, wipes the sweat from his brow with his hand. He trembles and falls sobbing to the ground. A long pause_] 'Tis the beast in me that is afraid--Ah! coward fles.h.!.+ [_Biting his hands_] I shall conquer thee--I would chastise my weakness. I am shamed--I am shamed--In spite of all I will look her in the face. I have the will! but I must fight against so many memories, against all the dead whose spirits stir in mine. I shall conquer the dead. My life, and my will--courage!

_With great effort and after many struggles he gains the mastery of himself, goes to the shrine and looks upon the G.o.ddess. The High Priest reappears touching him on the shoulder._

HIGH PRIEST. Terror does not move you. Let us see if you be proof against pity. Come--[_He leads him to the side of the shrine, presses a spring and a door opens, revealing in the interior of the shrine the machinery of the miracle, a lever and cordage_] Look! 'Tis by pressing this lever that one of ours, in a little while, will bring about the miracle. I leave you in his place. At my signal the doors of the sacred enclosure will open, and the people draw near the sanctuary. Listen to them. And if you are moved to pity by their prayers, you--_you_ shall give them the consoling lie for which they pray.

SATNI. There will be no miracle.

HIGH PRIEST. Watch and hear. [_He leaves Satni, who remains visible to the audience. The stones roll back over the shrine. The High Priest makes a sign, other priests appear_] All is ready?

A PRIEST. All.

HIGH PRIEST [_to another_] Listen.

_He whispers to him. The Priest bows and goes out. While the crowd comes in later, this priest is seen to enter the hiding-place right, where he stands watching Satni, dagger in hand._

HIGH PRIEST. Now, let them come in.

_He makes a gesture and all disappear. A pitiable crowd bursts into the temple, bustling, running, filling all the empty s.p.a.ces. Four men carry a litter on which is a beautiful young woman clothed in precious stuffs. Mieris, Yaouma, and all the characters of the play come on._

YOUNG WOMAN. Nearer, lay me nearer the G.o.ddess! She will drive forth the evil spirit that will not let me move my legs.

_Cripples, people on crutches, creatures with hands or feet wrapped in bandages crowd past her._

A BLIND GIRL [_to him who leads her_] When the stone rolls back and the G.o.ddess appears, watch well her face, to tell me if she will not give me back my sight.

_A paralytic drags himself in on his hands._

THE PARALYTIC. I would be quite near, quite near! In a little while I shall walk.

_Two sons lead in their mother, who is mad, striving to calm her. A mother, with her child in her arms, begs the crowd to let her get near. A man, whose head is bandaged, and whose eyes and mouth are mere holes, hustles his neighbors. Many blind, and people borne on chairs._

A WOMAN. She will speak, she will say "yes." She will reveal herself again as protectress of Egypt.