TEMPTER. Look! A little mortal, who's to be consecrated to suffering.
STRANGER. Poor child!
TEMPTER. A human history, that's about to begin. (A bridal couple cross the stage.) And there—what's loveliest, and most bitter. Adam and Eve in Paradise, that in a week will be a Hell, and in a fortnight Paradise again.
STRANGER. What is loveliest, brightest! The first, the only, the last that ever gave life meaning! I, too, once sat in the sunlight on a verandah, in the spring beneath the first tree to show new green, and a small crown crowned a head, and a white veil lay like thin morning mist over a face... that was not that of a human being. Then came darkness!
TEMPTER. Whence?
STRANGER. From the light itself. I know no more.
TEMPTER. It could only have been a shadow, for light is needed to throw shadows; but for darkness no light is needed.
STRANGER. Stop! Or we'll never come to an end.
(The CONFESSOR and the CHAPTER appear in procession.)
TEMPTER (disappearing). Farewell!