Shale:
Ay, so?
The End of the World's been here? You look as though
You'd startled lately. And there's the virtuous man!
How would End of the World suit our good Huff,
Our old crab-verjuice Huff?
HUFF (seizing the DOWSER and bringing him up in front of SHALE):
Look at him there!
This is the man I told you of when you
Were talking small of sin. You made it out,
Did you, a fool's mere nasty game, like dogs
That snuggle in muck, and grin and roll themselves
With snorting pleasure? Ah, but you are wrong.
'Tis something that goes thrusting dreadfully
Its wilful bravery of evil against
The worth and right of goodness in the world:
Ay, do you see how his face still brags at me?
And long it has been, the time he's had to walk
Lording about me with his wickedness.
Do you know what he dared? I had a wife,
A flighty pretty linnet-headed girl,
But mine: he practised on her with his eyes;
He knew of luring glances, and she went
After his calling lust: and all since then
They've lived together, fleering in my face,
Pleased in sight of the windows of my house
With doing wrong, and making my disgrace.
O but wait here with me; wait till your news
Is not to be mistaken, for the way
The earth buckles and singes like hot boards:
You'll surely see how dreadful sin can be
Then, when you mark these two running about,
With raging fear for what they did against me
Buzzing close to their souls, stinging their hearts,
And they like scampering beasts when clegs are fierce,
Or flinging themselves low as the ground to writhe,
Their arms hugging their desperate heads. And then
You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man,
Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs
Thinking of judgment coming--you will see that
When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches,
And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish.
O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air
Judges their wickedness; you watch me then
Looking delighted, like a nobleman
Who sees his horse winning an easy race.
Merrick:
You fool, Huff, you believe it now!
Huff:
You fool,
Merrick, how should I not believe a thing
That calls aloud on my mind and spirit, and they
Answer to it like starving conquering soldiers
Told to break out and loot?
Shale:
You vile old wasp!
Sollers:
We've talkt enough: let's all go home and sleep;
There might be a fiend in the air about us, one
Who pours his will into our minds to see
How we can frighten one another.
Huff:
A fiend!
Shale will soon have the flapping wings of a fiend,
And flaming wings, beating about his head.
There'll be no air for Shale, very soon now,
But the breathing of a fiend: the star's coming!
The star that breathes a horrible fury of fire
Like glaring fog into the empty night;
And in the gust of its wrath the world will soon
Shrivel and spin like paper in a furnace.
I knew they both would have to pay me at last
With sight of their damned souls for all my wrong!
Shale:
Somebody stop his gab.
Merrick (seizing the DOWSER and shaking him):
Is it the truth?
Is it the truth we're in the way of the star?
Sollers:
O let us go home; let us go home and sleep!
[A crowd, of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.]
1. Look out for the star!
2. 'Tis moving, moving.
3. Grows as you stare at it.
4. Bigger than ever.
1. Down it comes with a diving pounce,
As though it had lookt for us and at last found us.
2. O so near and coming so quick!
3. And how the burning hairs of its tail
Do seem surely to quiver for speed.
4. We saw its great tail twitch behind it.
'Tis come so near, so gleaming near.
1. The tail is wagging!
2. Come out and see!
3. The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us--
4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird.
Merrick:
Out of my way and let me see for myself.
[They all begin to hustle out: HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.]
Huff:
Ay, now begins the just man's reward;
And hatred of the evil thing
Now is to be satisfied.
Wrong ventured out against me and braved:
And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure
Burn as foolishly to naught
As a moth in candle flame,
If I but have my will to watch over those
Who injured me bawling hoarse heartless fear.
[They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.]
Shale:
As for you, let you and the women make
Your howling scare of this; I'll stand and laugh.
But if it truly were the End of the World,
I'ld be the man to face it out, not you:
I who have let life go delighted through me,
Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life
In mumping about being paid for goodness.
[Going.]
Huff (after him):
You wait, you wait!
[He follows the rest.]
Dowser (alone):
Naught but a plague of flies!
I cannot do with noises, and light fools
Terrified round me; I must go out and think
Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think!
Life that has done such wonders with its thinking,
And never daunted in imagining;
That has put on the sun and the shining night,
The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea,
And irresistible rage of fate itself,
All these as garments for its spirit's journey--
O now this life, in the brute chance of things,
Murder'd, uselessly murder'd! And naught else
For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion
That cannot glory in itself. O no!
I will not think of that; I'll blind my brain
With fancying the splendours of destruction;
When like a burr in the star's fiery mane
The crackling earth is caught and rusht along,
The forests on the mountains blazing so,
That from the rocks of ore beneath them come
White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring
Across the plains to roar into the sea ...
[The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.]