The scene changes back to the set of Scene III. A landscape with palm trees. Adam, as a young man again, is seen leaving the hut, heavy with sleep. He looks around him in amazement. Eve is still asleep inside. Lucifer is standing in the middle of the stage. Bright sunshine.

ADAM
Terrible sight, what has become of you?
The world is happy and alive again
as I left it before my heart was broken.

LUCIFER
Conceited man! You’d see a cataclysm,
nature put out of order altogether,
a comet tear across the midnight sky
and the earth quake - because a worm is dying?

ADAM
Was it a dream or am I dreaming now?
If life is only a dream which for a moment
visits some lifeless matter and dissolves
together with its host the moment after,
why must awareness spoil the brief encounter
and taint it with the fear of non-existence?

LUCIFER
You’re sorry for yourself. It takes a coward
to knuckle under and give up the fight
while there’s a chance to take preventive action.
The strong look at the writing on the wall
dispassionately and without a murmur
against misfortune, still considering
what measures they might take against the odds.
History’s written on that wall already:
your role’s to turn those letters into action.

ADAM
No! No! That is untrue. My will is free.
Have I not more than paid the price for it?
Have I not given up the joys of Eden?
I’ve learned a bitter lesson from my dreams,
I’ve been much disillusioned, but I know:
I have the choice to take another road.

LUCIFER
Ah, but forgetfulness and stubborn hope
are part and parcel of that destiny:
one touches up the bruises of the past,
the other spreads a flowery carpet for you -
right to the precipice, and tells you: “Jump!
Others have fallen, but you’re sure to make it.”
You must have studied while you were a scholar
among some oddities a certain worm
which grows inside the guts of cats and hawks,
but at an earlier stage of its existence,
for a certain period it lives in mice.
No single mouse is destined to become
assuredly a prey to claws or talons,
indeed the prudent ones may well escape them
to die in peace among their kith and kin,
and yet by nature’s laws it’s so provided
that predators will always kill sufficient
to assure throughout the distant years to come
survival of that puny, little worm.
While men are free to choose as individuals,
mankind must shoulder its collective burden.
Fanaticism will flood and ebb in turn:
this cause today, a different cause tomorrow;
and you’ll have those who die the martyr’s death,
and those who sneer and scoff at everything.
Whoever keeps the books will be amazed
how even-handedly will destiny
have checked the balance by the close of day:
deaths, births with marriages, and vice with virtue,
enthusiasm, despair with suicide…

ADAM
That’s it! A sudden thought has come to me.
Almighty God, I can defy you yet!
Let you declare: “This is your span of life.”
I laugh at you: I can choose not to live.
Am I not still the only man on earth?
There is the precipice. The chasm beyond it.
One jump, as if it were the final act,
and I can say: the comedy has ended!
Adam makes for the cliff. Eve appears in the door of the hut.

LUCIFER
“The comedy has ended!” Stuff and nonsense!
Each moment is an ending and beginning.
You haven’t learned from your experience.

EVE
Adam, why did you steal away from me?
You seemed remote. Your kisses made me shiver.
I read despair or anger in your face.
You frighten me…

ADAM
[still facing in the direction of the cliffs.]
      And you are checking on me,
insist on following me everywhere?
The master of the world can surely have
some interests - apart from making love.
You won’t see that of course, but make a fuss…
[with sudden tenderness turning towards Eve]
I wish you’d gone on resting for a while.
The sacrifice I think I owe the future
will be much harder with you standing by.

EVE
Perhaps you’ll find it easier if you hear me.
You needn’t go on worrying about it.
I tell you this: the future is assured.

ADAM
How?

EVE
I am sure you’ll love to hear the news.
I’ll whisper it to you. Come closer! Closer!
Adam, I think I’m going to be a mother.
[Adam falls on his knees. A long pause.]

ADAM
Lord, I surrender. Look, I’m in the dust.
I’m lost without you. How could I oppose you?
Bless or punish: I lift my heart to you.

LUCIFER
Get up, you worm! Where is your dignity,
the dignity that I have nurtured in you?

ADAM
Useless. It was illusion. This is peace.

LUCIFER
Wretched woman! What’s there to boast about?
That son of yours, conceived in sin - in Eden?
He’ll bring nothing but sin and misery.

EVE
Please God, we’ll have another one conceived
in misery then. Let him make amends.
Let him unite the world in brotherhood.

LUCIFER
You spineless slave! You dare rebel against me?
Up from the dust, you beast!
He kicks Adam. At this point the Lord appears in radiant light, but very plainly dressed in leotard and cape, wearing a mask. He is accompanied by a number of marionette-like figures, with expressionless, faces, masks over the eyes only, dressed in leotards. They kneel, on one knee, very formally, at a respectful distance.

THE LORD
      To heel, spirit!
I’ll have none of this braggart grandeur!

LUCIFER
[bending forward as if in pain]
Curses!

THE LORD
Rise, Adam! Rise! Do not give way to grief
I have restored you to a state of grace.

LUCIFER
[to the audience]
I see, the family’s about to meet.
Reunion. A very touching scene:
but to my intellect - a frightful bore.
I think I’d better go…
[He is about to leave.]

THE LORD
      Wait, Lucifer!
You shall not go before I give you leave!
And you, my son, tell me: what is your trouble?

ADAM
Lord, I’ve been troubled by appalling visions:
I cannot tell how true, how false they are.
Tell me: what is my purpose in this world?
Is this brief span of life my full allowance
to cultivate my soul with toil and trouble
until it’s drawn, a clear and sparkling wine?
What is it for? To drench the dust with it?
Or to be kept, a liquor for the feast?
And then, my race. Is it to have a future,
growing, the nearer to your throne the stronger,
or wasting like a beast turning the mill,
compelled to move within its narrow circle?
Is there requital for the rich in spirit
whose mental agony is less than paid for
by jeering masses? Grant me understanding,
and I shall bear my lot with gratitude.
Knowledge is gain, however hard its burden;
no hell is worse than ignorance and doubt.

THE LORD
Ask no more questions. These are mysteries
which providential hands hid from your eyes.
For if you saw your transient, earthly life
set in dimensions of eternity,
there wouldn’t be any virtue in endurance.
Or if you saw your spirit drench the dust,
where could you find incentive for your efforts?
You’d seek the moment’s pleasure in the moment.
But as it is, through misty glimmerings
of future years the infinite can touch you
to ease the burden of your brief existence;
and should you rashly reach out for the sky,
your span of life will check your aspirations.
It’s human virtues I want, human greatness.

LUCIFER
[with a laugh]
I see, you’re being launched on your career
the grand way - what with guidelines, virtues, greatness!
Before you can achieve them, if at all,
you pay the price in human superstition,
in human ignorance and prejudice.
I shouldn’t have thought you worthy of the challenge,
you composite of dust and solar power,
with a dwarfish mind and huge stupidity.

ADAM
Don’t mock me, Lucifer! I’ve seen the school,
that edifice of your pure intellect,
and I must say it left me very cold.
[to the Lord]
Where can I turn for guidance, Lord, to help me,
to keep me on the straight and narrow path?
I’ve been denied your heavenly inspiration
since I had taste of that forbidden fruit.

THE LORD
You have a strong arm and a noble heart
with endless scope and chance to make your way.
But listen also for a voice within you,
ceaselessly calling, warning, heartening you,
and follow it! Yet should you fail to hear it,
engrossed in daily business of the world,
this woman, with her soul the more receptive,
farther removed from self asserting strife,
she shall hear it, and through her inspiration
you’ll find that voice in song and poetry.
With these two gifts, and many more besides,
she’ll stand by you in grief and happiness,
a comforting and loving guardian angel.
Now, Lucifer! You’re part of my creation.
Keep up the fight: I have allowed for it.
Your stout negation and cold intellect
shall be the leaven to ferment the mind.
It will, in time, cause man to stray from me.
So be it. In the end he shall return.
But you must pay eternal retribution
and see in every seed you seek to spoil
the very source of great and noble things.

THE CHOIR OF ANGELS
How amazing is the wisdom:
freedom of choice: sin or virtue;
more amazing is the mercy:
God, your Father, still forgives you.
Do your best and don’t be troubled
by the jeers the rabble raises:
man of calling, you are working
for their good and not their praises,
out of choice and out of duty,
in your quest for high endeavour,
which would baffle lesser people
playing in the dust for ever.
As you meet your hour of triumph,
don’t, however, be complacent:
when you render God some service,
He does it through you, His agent,
but His acts are providential,
and He doesn’t need your labour.
When He deigns to call upon you,
take it as a special favour.

EVE
Thank God, I hear that voice and understand it!

ADAM
I hear it too. Let it remain my guide.
But that last dream… I wish I could forget.

THE LORD
I’ve told you, Man: have faith and do your best!