Michael and His Lost Angel: A Play in Five Acts

by Henry Arthur Jones

AUDR. (leaning a little more in at the window, in a much lower and subtler tone). Don’t you find it an exquisite pleasure to feel your sense of power over your people, especially over us poor women?

MICH. When you come to me you are neither man nor woman—you are only a soul in sin and distress.

AUDR. Oh, no! I won’t be an “it.” I insist on being a woman, though I don’t mind having a soul—and in sin and distress, too. And I would save it—only I always think it’s such a selfish piece of business, saving one’s soul,—don’t you?—so unkind to all one’s neighbours? (He stands half-bored, half-angry. A little pause.) Do you know what I was thinking in church this morning?

MICH. No.

AUDR. I was comparing the delights of three different professions,—the soldier’s, the doctor’s, and the priest’s. What a glorious joy it must be to ride to meet a man who is riding to kill you—and to kill him! But I’d rather be a doctor, and play with life and death. To have a man in your power, to see him lying tossing on his bed, and to think, “This may cure him, or it may kill him. Shall I risk it? At any rate, if he dies, I shall have learnt so much. I will risk it! And—he dies—No, he lives! I’ve saved him.” Wouldn’t you like to be a doctor?

MICH. No.

AUDR. That’s because you know what far greater joy it is to be a priest. (He turns very angrily.) To play with people’s souls——

MICH. Play!

AUDR. You do play with our souls, don’t you? They’re in your hands. To think, “This man, or, say, this woman, has an immortal soul. She is vain, silly, deceitful, foolish, perhaps wicked, perhaps horribly wicked. She’ll lose her soul and be eternally lost. But if I were to struggle with her for it, rebuke her, teach her, plead with her, entreat her, guide her—who knows—she’s not wholly bad—I might save her? Is she worth saving? The worse she is, the greater will be my reward and honour for having saved her. Shall I do it? This woman’s soul is in my keeping! I can choose for her eternal life or eternal death. What shall I do? Shall I save her, or let her be lost?”