Zozim motions them to the threshold with a wave of his staff. The Envoy and the Elderly Gentleman take off their hats and go into the temple on tiptoe, Zoo leading the way. The Wife and Daughter, frightened as they are, raise their heads uppishly and follow flatfooted, sustained by a sense of their Sunday clothes and social consequence. Zozim remains in the portico, alone.
ZOZIM [taking off his wig, beard, and robe, and bundling them under his arm] Ouf! [He goes home].
ACT III
Inside the temple. A gallery overhanging an abyss. Dead silence. The gallery is brightly lighted; but beyond is a vast gloom, continually changing in intensity. A shaft of violet light shoots upward; and a very harmonious and silvery carillon chimes. When it ceases the violet ray vanishes.
Zoo comes along the gallery, followed by the Envoy's daughter, his wife, the Envoy himself, and the Elderly Gentleman. The two men are holding their hats with the brims near their noses, as if prepared to pray into them at a moment's notice. Zoo halts: they all follow her example. They contemplate the void with awe. Organ music of the kind called sacred in the nineteenth century begins. Their awe deepens. The violet ray, now a diffused mist, rises again from the abyss.
THE WIFE [to Zoo, in a reverent whisper] Shall we kneel?
ZOO [loudly] Yes, if you want to. You can stand on your head if you like. [She sits down carelessly on the gallery railing, with her back to the abyss].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [jarred by her callousness] We desire to behave in a becoming manner.