ABBOT--Accursed bondage harder than the Nile!
LOUIS--That prophesy that Oswald brings, may it
Not mean this very thing, that by his fall
And this bright rumor that the angels saved him,
A summer cloud that seems to rain down gold,
May it not be that by this very gold
Your tower of light shall rise upon this rock
And save the North from darkness? May it not?
ABBOT--But who will save us from our policy,
From playing hide and seek with God's bright son,
From the necessity of withholding truth
From those to whom the vital thing belongs,
Who do not even hunger for it more,
Who live and die about a taper's flame,
Calling it star, and sun, salvation, God--
And here all round us--Louis, look, the dawn!
LOUIS--The quality of all light is the same.
ABBOT--Quality, Louis, is not quantity.
The myriad spheres of dew leave the fields dark.
The midnight luster on the swamp is light,
Enough to guide the wild thing paddling there.
The willow leaves give light unto the moth.
The stars that fill us with the life to come
Leave darkness in the prowling tiger's eye,
And rise and set upon its curve of ball.
God made the day for higher things than these.
Some light is not enough for something more
Than moth and water-rat and prowling maws
That find their food in flesh. With what design
Lit God the radiant pages? For what purpose
Hung he the planet Plato in the sky
With kindred constellations of pure thought,
If I, a mortal man, can lift my hand
And leave a shadow in the valley there?
It fills my life with meaning to know this,
That God hath ordered so our spiritual world
That every bright thing needs my will to shine,
As it needs His to reach the shining state.
Think of such confidence of God in man!
And I betray it. (He walks about thoughtfully.)
LOUIS-- You betray it? How?
By holding back the truth about the dwarf?
ABBOT--I hide the light.
LOUIS-- You hide it as a seed
Which, if the people eat, the famine spreads,
But which, if planted, wide the harvest waves.
Your own heart tells you you are right in this.
ABBOT--But when, when is the feeding to begin?
If I to-day withhold the seed, who knows
That I will not to-morrow withhold the yield,
And so continue, building larger barns?
Meanwhile the people in the valley die.
LOUIS--But God, who sees your purpose in it all,
Sees the day coming when this rock shall be
A beacon, and this region full of light.
ABBOT--'Twill never be while Benedict is here.
LOUIS--Oh, but look yonder, Father! Three hours ago
Black clouds besieged the east, and lo, now Day
Stands on the mountain tops and sees them not.
Where Night has gone there's room for Benedict.
ABBOT--I know that, Louis; but the years go by.
And oh, to use the little breath I have
In doing what I never did before!
How is it I cannot tell them what is true?
LOUIS--'Twould crush in seed the abbey you would build.
ABBOT--How can an abbey rise upon a lie?
LOUIS--You said it was not a lie.
ABBOT-- It is a lie
Until they know that it is not a lie.
As I do.
LOUIS-- Will you tell them?
ABBOT-- (_Walking about._)
I am bound,
Bound hand and foot by cursed policy.
I cannot be a man.
LOUIS-- Many a church
Has lies like this above the altar place.
ABBOT--My abbey was to be part of the one.
LOUIS-- (_After a pause._)
You said, "Until they know it," Father.
ABBOT-- Yes.
LOUIS--"As I do." (_The Abbot turns._)
Do you doubt it was the dwarf?
ABBOT--I do not doubt the fact in the case, but
I may not limit its significance.
LOUIS-- (_With a smile._)
An angel or a god, then?
ABBOT-- Half so, yes.
LOUIS--To free us from our policy?
ABBOT-- Pray God
It may be, Louis, pray God it may be.
That unknown god should have an altar here.
No, Louis: what I mean is simply this:
This thing that we call evil, may it not
Be the other side of this thing we call good,
The passing of bright planets of the mind,
Dreaming eclipse that is no thing at all,
Simply the passing of the two things, both bright?
God ever wrestles with his shadow, Louis,
And now the bright goes down and now the dark:
And man stands by and watches the great game
With heart divided and with swaying mind
And lifts whichever falls. The game goes on
Forever, and the nations rise and fall
Forever, and fall and rise. And so they strive,
Like light and shade over the mountain slopes,
Each wrestling not for victory but strength.
LOUIS--And you and Benedict?
ABBOT-- I am not his foe.
I come from Florence and he comes from Rome.
LOUIS--And you love painted windows.
ABBOT-- I love God;
He loves the Church. There is the difference.
He iterates with fire in his eyes
That Heathendom shall tumble down to Hell,
But not a word that Ignorance shall fall
Or Passion lose her lightning in the deep.
I wrestle with the bright against the dark.
LOUIS--For the world-soul.
ABBOT-- Neither of us may win.
In fact, I pray God that we may not.
LOUIS-- How?
ABBOT--I hope that some free, some _free_ spirit may win.
Not one wrapped round with ignorance, nor one
Bound hand and foot by cursed policy.
But I am not his foe.
LOUIS-- But he is yours.
ABBOT--Night does not understand.
LOUIS-- I cannot see.
ABBOT--Louis, the greatest man in this great world
Is he who sees all things are going right.
Yet fights as though all things were going wrong.
(_Louis shakes his head._)
I know you don't. But I can do no more
Than show my thought. To see it, must be yours.