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| And this hauntingly beautiful scene | |
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rockfenris2005 11:03 am UTC 12/11/07 |
| In reply to: | AND THIS - rockfenris2005 11:01 am UTC 12/11/07 |
| KROLOCK How do you like my library, Professor? ABRONSIUS Mein Gott! It's a bibliophilical paradise! "BOOKS, BOOKS!" ABRONSIUS HERACLITUS AND EMPEDOCLES NIKOMACHOS, DIOGENES, CALLIMACHUS, DEMOSTHENES, ANTIOCHUS, MAIMONIDES THEY'RE SAGES LIVING BETWEEN ALL THESE PAGES AURELIUS AND AUGUSTINE AND TACITUS AND PLATO PEREGRINUS AND AQUINAS CAESAR, CICERO AND CATO ONLY BROWSING IS STIMULATING AND AROUSING KROLOCK SPINOZA AND COPERNICUS THE HUMANISTS AND TEACHERS PARACELSUS, LEIBNIZ, CRUSIUS THE KABBALISTS AND PREACHERS, HUME AND LOCKE AND HOBBES AND MENDELSSOHN, THE WARNERS AND BESEECHERS AND DEFOE, DESCARTES, AND JEFFERSON AND ALL THE OTHER AUTHORS OF GREAT FAME ABRONSIUS ERASMUS, CAVALCANTI, AND THE SORDID MACCHIAVELLI, AND ANONYMOUS AND DANTE AND THE MORBID MARY SHELLEY AND THE SCIENCES OF PLINY AND THE LAWS OF GUICCIARDINI AND THE LIFE OF BEN CELLINI MISSING OUT A SINGLE LINE WOULD BE A SHAME BOOKS ON DREAMS AND MATHEMATICS PROVOCATIONS AND ASSERTIONS REVOLUTION AND DOGMATICS ALL THE SEXUAL PERVERSIONS ON APATHY, ATHLETICS AND RELIGIONS AND REVERSIONS THIS IS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE KROLOCK & ABRONSIUS A BOOK ON EVERYTHING WE THINK OR DO KROLOCK I'll lend you my library, if you like. ABRONSIUS When would I ever have time to read it all? KROLOCK Very simple. In eternity. My gift to you - if you'll accept it. ABRONSIUS (realizing what KROLOCK is proposing) Eternity...? A gift....? No -- no, never that. KROLOCK The nice thing about being one of us, is that it's never later than you think. And all this would be yours -- forever. You're not a well man, Professor. How much time do you have left? ABRONSIUS Six months, they say. (Looks at his POCKET WATCH.) My watch is stopped... KROLOCK Well, I can give you endless time. And what about that dream you have? ABRONSIUS Dream....? KROLOCK That nightly dream you can't escape from. You're lost. Lost and wandering... KROLOCK & ABRONSIUS (together) .... far and wide. Finally... ABRONSIUS (recalling it in a sort of trance) ... finally I came to a beach at the edge of the ocean. It seems as if the bright sun-white sky has shed the black ocean like a winter skin. Everything is so clear. I lie down on the sand and try to remember what it felt like to be young. I try to reassemble my youth in my mind, my brilliant mind. But it won't come back to my mind -- because, after all, that's not where it happened. It happened in my body, in my flesh and my guts and my blood. And now all I can feel is the sands of the beach running out beneath me. KROLOCK I taught at Heidelberg in 1606. I was you. Now look at us. I, a thriving Mephistopheles. You, a dying Faust. With your chance for true immortality. Why do you think you came here? ABRONSIUS And if I accept your offer, I victimize the poor and defenseless. I live off the living and suck them dry, like you. KROLOCK There's always a price. ABRONSIUS And you think that I, Abronsius of Heidelberg, would twist my principles to pay it? So that I too could rip open the throat of - say - a poor preacher's daughter? (Seeing KROLOCK's surprise.) Oh yes, I've done my research. There were journals. Diaries. Books. Did that innocent child remind you of something you would never have? KROLOCK How dare you... ABRONSIUS What about the blinded soldier who befriended you? Did he see something you could not, is that why you took him? That elegant lady who made lace -- did she have a purpose in life you had lost? KROLOCK How dare you! ABRONSIUS You want me to be like this? Like you? Killing the things you pretend to love? Destroying what you can never be? KROLOCK And what is that, pray? ABRONSIUS Alive. Truly alive - because I am mortal. A creature who knows beauty because he will die. A being with a purpose because time is running out. An animal enjoying the light because he faces endless dark. You have nothing but darkness. KROLOCK Get out of my sight! ABRONSIUS You pollute the earth! You are a crime against nature! KROLOCK (sings, erupting) THIS IS OUR TIME THIS IS OUR NIGHT AND SOON IT WILL BE OUR DAY! NATURE IS THE LADDER WE HAVE CLIMBED UP BY AND NOW WE KICK HER AWAY (ALFRED ENTERS, breathless from his chase.) ALFRED Professor -- here you are. ABRONSIUS I consecrate myself to the quest of my good friend, Alfred: to preserve one drop of purity in the filth of this world. And eradicate you! KROLOCK But what of the hundreds in the castle graveyard? Will you eradicate all of them? ABRONSIUS & ALFRED Hundreds....? KROLOCK Of my fellow creatures. -- Rest in peace, Professor. (Sings, furiously) ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE THE PIOUS BE GONE THE DAMNED WILL STAY NATURE IS THE LADDER WE HAVE CLIMBED UP BY AND NOW WE KICK HER AWAY! (KROLOCK EXITS, and ABRONSIUS and ALFRED watch open-mouthed as AN ENORMOUS BANK OF GRAVES SWOOPS DOWN and swings into place. ABRONSIUS and ALFRED stand and watch until the end of KROLOCK'S SOLILOQUY.) | |
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