A CHILD It is the Dawn rising.... This is the hour when the children who are to be born to-day go down to earth....
TYLTYL How will they go down?... Are there ladders?...
THE CHILD You shall see.... Time is drawing the bolts....
TYLTYL Who is Time?...
THE CHILD An old man who comes to call those who are going....
TYLTYL Is he wicked?...
THE CHILD No; but he hears nothing.... Beg as they may, if it's not their turn, he pushes back all those who try to go....
TYLTYL Are they glad to go?...
THE CHILD We are sorry when we are left behind, but we are sad when we go.... There! There!... He is opening the doors!...
(The great opalescent doors turn slowly on their hinges. The sounds of the earth are heard like a distant music. A red and green light penetrates into the hall; TIME, a tall old man with a streaming beard, armed with his scythe and hourglass, appears upon the threshold; and the spectator perceives the extremity of the white and gold sails of a galley moored to a sort of quay, formed by the rosy mists of the Dawn.)