THE ORACLE [with grave pity] Come: look at me. I am my natural size now: what you saw there was only a foolish picture of me thrown on a cloud by a lantern. How can I help you?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. They have gone back to lie about your answer. I cannot go with them. I cannot live among people to whom nothing is real. I have become incapable of it through my stay here. I implore to be allowed to stay.
THE ORACLE. My friend: if you stay with us you will die of discouragement.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. If I go back I shall die of disgust and despair. I take the nobler risk. I beg you, do not cast me out.
He catches her robe and holds her.
THE ORACLE. Take care. I have been here one hundred and seventy years. Your death does not mean to me what it means to you.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is the meaning of life, not of death, that makes banishment so terrible to me.
THE ORACLE. Be it so, then. You may stay.
She offers him her hands. He grasps them and raises himself a little by clinging to her. She looks steadily into his face. He stiffens; a little convulsion shakes him; his grasp relaxes; and he falls dead.
THE ORACLE [looking down at the body] Poor shortlived thing! What else could I do for you?