Domin. (As she speaks his portable PHONE lights up and he answers) Well—Hello!—Yes—no, I’m in conference. Don’t disturb me.
Helena. Well?
Domin. (Smile) Now, the thing was how to get the life out of the test tubes, and hasten development and form organs, bones and nerves, and so on, and find such substances as catalytics, enzymes, hormones in short—you understand?
Helena. Not much, I’m afraid.
Domin. Never mind. (Leans over couch and fixes cushion for her back) There! You see with the help of his tinctures he could make whatever he wanted. He could have produced a Medusa with the brain of Socrates or a worm fifty yards long— (She laughs. He does also; leans closer on couch, then straightens up again) —but being without a grain of humor, he took into his head to make a vertebrate or perhaps a man. This artificial living matter of his had a raging thirst for life. It didn’t mind being sown or mixed together. That couldn’t be done with natural albumen. And that’s how he set about it.
Helena. About what?
Domin. About imitating Nature. First of all he tried making an artificial dog. That took him several years and resulted in a sort of stunted calf which died in a few days. I’ll show it to you in the museum. And then old Rossum started on the manufacture of man.
Helena. And I’m to divulge this to nobody?
Domin. To nobody in the world.
Helena. What a pity that it’s to be discovered in all the school books of both Europe and America. (Both laugh.)