CHARACTERS

EVAS, mathematician, Radian's colleague and former Ph.D. student

HANNA, Radian's wife

ANDREI, biology professor

IVAN, a sculptor

THOMAS, friend and ex-schoolmate to Andrei, Hanna and Ivan

GREG, art critic and scholar

DANIEL

FIRST MAN

SECOND MAN

The action takes place close to the turn of the millennium, somewhere on the western coast of Europe.

PROLOGUE

FIRST MAN and SECOND MAN are sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling idly. They look bored and tired. Both are wearing non-descript dress - grayish, chalk-covered rags, impossible to attribute to a particular style or time.

FIRST MAN - Do you think they liked it?

SECOND MAN - Hard to say, there's always so much commotion at the end.

FIRST MAN - It's puzzling, isn't it? Half of them looking stunned, glued to their places as if a train were about to hit them; the other half, already rushing out before the curtain hits the floor - making ride arrangements, stepping on each other in the dark, dragging their coats and bags and blurting out a torrent of excuses...

SECOND MAN - It always sounds to me as if the final line of the play is "A thousand apologies, didn't mean to crush your toe..."

FIRST MAN - ...yet in all this time I've never seen one of them just stand up and applaud, when all is said and done. Have you?

SECOND MAN - No, I can't say I remember such a character.

FIRST MAN (with a shade of sadness) - But then, who knows? When those bloody lights come up at the end, it's hard to see anything at all past your own shoes. (After a pause, hesitantly) Suddenly, it all seems so small... The space disappears, the audience... it's as if they never existed, and we've been acting all along like madmen, within these walls of light... Do you know what I mean?

SECOND MAN - I think so.

FIRST MAN (visibly encouraged now) - It sounds crazy, I know - but you feel it too, don't you? A restlessness - panic, almost...

SECOND MAN - A touch of claustrophobia, perhaps?...

FIRST MAN - No, no - I thought so too, at first, but it never hits me during the show - only after, you see? ...No, I don't think it's me at all: there's something wrong with those lights!

SECOND MAN - There's nothing wrong with the lights. You just forget about them every night, so they always startle you.

FIRST MAN (whining) - They're too strong!... I wish there was something left to see behind them, that's all, I just wish some of that space was left to us at the end!

SECOND MAN (smiling wistfully) - Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it?...

FIRST MAN - It's just so comforting - looking into that darkness from time to time: no walls, no ceiling, no measure of any kind... only a great, silent presence that you feel heaving behind the veil - pure attention, completely focused on the magic space of this ritual...

SECOND MAN - It's a ritual because they eventually get to go home. The magic dissolves.

FIRST MAN (jumping on his feet, exasperated) - Right! And how about us?! When do we get to go home?

SECOND MAN (after a pause, quietly fixing a point on the floor) - This is our home.

FIRST MAN (gradually becoming hysterical) - Of course, I keep forgetting! I wonder why - should've gotten used to it by now, we've only run this show twenty-five thousand times or thereabouts... A bare stage, no one in sight, the nauseating combination of hunger and fatigue - should feel pretty cozy by now, don't you think?

SECOND MAN - There's no point in getting angry, you know...

FIRST MAN (fired up) - Ha! as opposed to the rest of it, to which there is a point...? Look, enough is enough! I don't give a damn about it anymore, I'm getting too old for this! At my age people get themselves into a big stuffed armchair and remain in it for the next thirty years or until someone thinks of changing the furniture... Me? I'm having my seat pulled from under my ass twice a day, in the name of "art"! ...The only time I feel someone's touch is during the play, the only time I can smell freshly baked apple pie is during the play... - what the hell's the sense in reminding us it's a play, then? Why can't they keep the music rolling and the apple pies coming for one hour longer, in between the shows - just for our sake?... It's because they couldn't care less, that's why! This management sucks! Right, I've always said it: it sucks! And I for one don't care if I don't hear from them ever again!... There are better places out there - I know it! There must be better things to do with one's old bones than dragging them up and down this empty, worn-out stage! (He hesitates for a moment, then starts walking toward the back exit. Almost in the doorway now, he turns for one last time, with a grand gesture.) I'm leaving, my friend!... I really mean it this time... Farewell!

SECOND MAN (rushes after him and grabs him by the arm, then slowly guides him back; as he speaks, First Man's resistance gradually subsides, until he ends up following the other like a sleepwalker) - Don't be foolish! What are you gonna do out there?! Acting is all we know - there is no outside for the likes of us... No one will know you! You're gonna starve, or worse... You think others haven't thought of it? But it's insanity... Besides, I think it's raining out there anyway. I looked out the window during the second act and there were children in yellow rubber coats crossing the street. Better wait a while... Look, they're bringing us the sea!

FIRST MAN - And the sand... Soon everything will be the same again... I don't think I can bear it any more!

SECOND MAN - Here, here, just lie down for a while. This corner is good, they won't bother you here. Try to get some sleep, I'll make sure I wake you up in half an hour.

FIRST MAN - Sure, just in time for make-up! Why do you always do this to me? ... I wish I could just go on dreaming... never wake up again. (Dropping with fatigue, but still struggling to speak) Just tell them not to turn on those damn lights anymore!

SECOND MAN - Ssh, ssh, let me just pull this rag over you... and try to ignore the noise. (He covers him up and then walks, lost in thought, toward the edge of the stage, while the decor is slowly changing: there is now a faint gray light suffusing everything, as well as intermittent noise and sounds like those of disassembled scenery, deep rumblings like the sliding of tectonic plates and muffled explosions; large, indistinct objects are being pushed back and forth behind the translucent, veil-like curtains that are now visible. Second Man walks absently amidst all this, hands in his pockets. When he finally speaks, it is as if to the space itself, or to a hidden presence that he's long been familiar with:) - There is nothing left to say on this cold winter night - and yet I'll say it. As if in another life, of those who haven't yet died through words to be reborn as pure blue sky - phantoms, shadows of a soulless Narcissus, empty forms snowing over the world like the debris of an atomic blast. Still. Still. For so many aeons... Waiting for the day after... what will it be like?

I close my eyes without remembering, I open my eyes without understanding, but it is with the sense of the blind that I know - we are on the edge of a new desert here. Although you see, all that was sand and pyres and night is already behind us ... What's left? I look without seeing, I listen without hearing - but even the blind can feel the breeze blowing against their skin when they turn to face the sea. ... When they are born - facing the sea. (A brief pause, then suddenly addressing the audience now) I shall call you Ivan, you who were born on this winter night, born without hope of one day becoming stone or sea, although your likeness is that of the gods and your voice heaves with the ageless sorrow of all mortals.

I shall teach you how to bend over the water's edge and how to look, in such a way that neither tears nor frivolous laughter will stain your lips, but rather a subtle and wondrous smile - I'll teach you how to look without clouding the mirror.

(A golden light, somewhat ageless and nostalgic, appears now behind the last veil. He watches it for a few moments, seemingly lost in its spell, then suddenly turns toward the audience with a fiercely mocking exaltation on his face) I shall walk into the sea with you, up to my knees, and the golden waves will break gently against us as we watch the red sun sinking behind the horizon. I shall walk with you into the sea, up to my chest, and I'll teach you to swim, until that time when the first star will have appeared above us - then I shall leave you to float away on your back, enraptured, as the whole universe slowly fills with light - until the current will have carried you to that place of no return... And only then will I walk back to the land - to lie down on the shore, and wait for the waves to change the Sphinx into sand.

(As he speaks the last words, everything sinks into darkness except for his face, which appears for a moment flooded by light, like a mask whose features have been wiped out - then this, too, disappears.)

ACT  I

5 o'clock atmosphere. A tasteful, lightly furnished living room in what appears to be a beach house. There is a black piano near the sliding glass door leading to a large stone terrace at the back. The terrace opens unto the ocean, whose light and sound will filter in as a constant background throughout the play. To the right and left are hallways leading to the rest of the house. To the left, a few steps above the ground floor, part of the kitchen will be visible in later scenes - this area is now hidden by a silk screen. Underneath the stair there is a tall, narrow mirror mounted against the wall and facing the length of the stage. There are books, magazines and drinks scattered everywhere, and intimations of vocal jazz playing in the background . A few people in their early 30's are spread across the room, drinking or carrying low-tone conversations, obviously bored. At this hour, the sun shines directly into the room, casting long, reddish shadows on the light wood floor.

GREG - I bet he's not coming.

HANNA - It's not even six yet, there's no need to jump to conclusions. And besides, you remember Daniel - when was he ever on time?

IVAN (browsing through a magazine) - Greg, since you're there, will you pass me the biscuits, please? I'm starving. Thanks.

GREG - Let's at least call him, see if he's still at the hotel.

EVAS - He is, I guarantee it.

GREG (mocking) - "I guarantee it". You wouldn't happen to know exactly what he's doing right now, would you?

EVAS - Sure - he's suffering the gravitational pull of the Crab nebula and wondering whether three aspirins will be enough.

HANNA - Come on, guys, as far as I know he hasn't touched the stuff in at least a month! This kind of comment could really hurt him.

THOMAS (his interest suddenly awakened) - Have you actually seen him recently? I thought...

HANNA (backing off from the implication) - Well, no, what I mean is - he told me he'd stopped drinking when I spoke to him last week. He said he was OK, that we needed not worry about him. But seen - no, I haven't seen him in... oh God, it must be since the wedding.

THOMAS - Right, that was my last time, too.

HANNA (shaking her head with disbelief) - Seven years... It's hard to believe they're already gone.

THOMAS - They don't seem to have passed for you.

HANNA (recovering with an ironic little laugh) - Thank you, I needed that. Do you want to dance?

THOMAS - You know there's always only one answer to that. (She pulls him closer to the record player)

IVAN (who has been flipping through a photo album he picked up off the book shelf)

- Here, I found them! One from the ski camp and three from graduation! He's with us in all of them!

HANNA (dancing) - Ivan, I don't know who is in your pictures, but I bet my life that Nick was in the parallel class from the 9th grade till graduation!

IVAN - Fine, fine... Then who does this manic, mischievous smile belong to - Saint Theresa? No, I'd rather say it has to be our man - what else could confer such glow upon a human countenance but the knowledge that you've just locked half the didactic body in the privy, under bomb threat?

GREG - Wasn't Nick shorter than you? Neah, I don't think it's him.

IVAN - You're unbelievable! Then who is he? Andrei , what do you say?

ANDREI (bending over the pictures and studying them with fake concentration) - I think I'll go with Saint Theresa... - but (he whistles appreciatively) listen, who's this brunette in glasses, sitting near Hanna?

HANNA (continuing to dance, but looking over their heads) - That is your red-head wife, you silly! And stop tormenting the poor girl, she's really much better off in a warm color.

ANREI (mockingly hurt) - Sure, what else could I expect? Why should she listen to me - I'm only her husband... You know, she slammed the door in my face when I asked her whether it was a temporary condition.

IVAN (puts the album back, laughing) - What can I say, my friend, you've always known how to soften injury with insult! You're just lucky she's smart enough to realize you never do it on purpose.

EVAS (pulling a chair beside Andrei ) - How is Olga? Is she still working for that construction firm?

ANDREI - Yeah, she's been awfully busy lately. They had promised they would hire another architect, but so far nothing has been done.

EVAS - She could force them, couldn't she?

ANDREI - I guess so, but I don't think she will. Sometimes I think she rather likes it this way - feeling indispensable. It's reassuring to her.

EVAS (with a fine smile) - The way it is to any human sacrifice? "Send me your best, your purest..."

ANDREI (buying into the irony; they will both maintain this tone of amused self-detachment until the end of the exchange) - Yes, yes, that way. Only I suppose our generation has been taught to fight for the privilege with resumes printed on parchment paper, rather than by walking through fire. And besides, it's a much more profitable form of sacrifice, don't you think?

EVAS - But unlike the old one, this only serves the high priests. The tribe as a whole gets poorer when the work of three is done by one.

ANDREI - I suppose it forces us to become more competitive - it's the same evolutionary pressure under a different guise.

EVAS - With the minor difference that this is a man-made pressure, my friend. That's where you could say the game becomes interesting: nature is self-regulating, greed is not.

ANDREI (gets up to get a drink, shaking his head) - Oh boy, you're in quite a mood tonight! What's wrong?

EVAS (lying back in the chair with a tired expression) - Oh nothing... Just the piled-up idealism of the academic world that runneth over my cup...

ANDREI - Trouble at work? Is everything OK with Radian?

EVAS - Yeah, I suppose... He's presenting one of our papers at Princeton this week, and next month we're both flying to Geneva to meet this physics group that's interested in possible applications... It's just...

ANDREI - What? What is it?

EVAS - I don't know... The lecture schedule has been really hectic for the last two semesters... Bubka keeps calling these meetings and shifting everybody's assignments around, putting pressure on us to take on pet projects of his that nobody is interested in, making not-so-subtle threats... Lately I've been finding myself so caught in this mess that I barely have the energy to get back to my own research at night. Between the teaching, these projects and the sessions with Radian there's so little time left... and I find myself almost unable to use it. I'm daunted, defeated, even before I sit down at my desk.

ANDREI - Come on, Ev, you know it's just a phase... Things will change, maybe you can even ask Radian to put in a word with Bubka - he wouldn't dare refuse him...

EVAS (stubbornly, quietly) - You don't understand - I... I'm afraid I might be using this as an excuse... Things were always hard - it didn't seem to matter then - but now...

ANDREI (with an encouraging pat on his shoulder) - You're just exhausted, that's all. Don't drive yourself into the ground because of it - it will pass. By the way, is it true what I heard about Bubka? There's an anecdote circulating around the campus about him and Hofstadter...

EVAS - There are several - which one have you heard?

ANDREI - Well, I went by the computer lab last week to pick up a statistical analysis on our DNA samples, and I overheard these two guys sitting over at the next station...

EVAS (smiling) - Overheard?

ANDREI - They were having quite a blast, really, it was hard to avoid it... Anyway, it seems that Bubka had been pestering Hofstadter for a year to make him chair, until the latter, exasperated, took his shoelace off, threw it on the floor and said: "Describe the equation of this curve and I'll give you the damn chair!" Apparently that had the intended effect - Bubka mumbled something about his sciatic nerve and well-known miopia - and that was the end of his brilliant career climbing.

EVAS (laughing heartily) - No, I've never heard this one before, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were more than a grain of truth behind it! Hm - I'd give a week's wages to know who launched it, though - I don't think anyone in the department is brave enough...

ANDREI - Oh, one of the students, probably - there's always a big puddle of black humor at the base of the totem pole...

HANNA (still dancing, suddenly noticing a scratch along Thomas' collar line)

- What happened here? It looks pretty fresh...

THOMAS (laughing) - Oh, nothing serious - our safety ropes nearly froze at the top of Trango Tower, so it made for a pretty bumpy descent.

HANNA - Not bumpy enough to keep you home for more than a month, though... Your sister says you're going back to Pakistan in October - is that right?

THOMAS - Actually, that's not until next April. Come October, I'll probably be hang gliding off some tepuis in southeast Venezuela, and then it's off to Mexico - Pedro's got a new diving rebreather he wants to try out at Huautla Caves.

HANNA - Isn't that the place you kept having nightmares about a few years back?

THOMAS (grinning sheepishly) - Well, I'll admit our last expedition was a close call - that flash flood wiped out half of our equipment, nearly left us stranded. But we're older and wiser now, we've learnt from our mistakes.

HANNA (laughing out loud) - Oh please, for God's sake, Thomas, don't let me hear you say those words again - I'm afraid my brain will short circuit!

THOMAS - You all still consider me a reckless fool, right?

HANNA - Ummm.... that's a little closer to the mark than "older and wiser". We still love you though, if that's any consolation. And we still pray a little for you every time you go off on your adrenaline binges.

THOMAS - Ha ha! You pray for me, do you?

HANNA - Sure, what's so funny about it?

THOMAS - Do you know what it feels like to jump off Cerro de la Neblina, ninety-eight hundred feet above the sea, with nothing but a pair of canvas wings on your back?

HANNA - Well, I can only guess...

THOMAS - Do you know how it feels - staring down a 36-story deep shaft, lowering yourself like a minuscule fly down that huge, gaping mouth of granite, with nothing but your headlight reminding you that you're alive, nothing but the sound of your heart breaking this billion-year old silence of the Earth's entrails?

HANNA - No, I'm sure that I can only imagine...

THOMAS - Well I don't want to imagine, Hanna! And believe me- if you knew what it's like, you'd find the idea of praying as hilarious as I do!

GREG (browsing through the albums) - Hanna, why don't you give the poor boy a breathing respite and come over here? I want to show you something...

HANNA (leaving Thomas with a smile) - Well, who is it now?

GREG - Not who, but what. Is this in your old house?

HANNA - Yes, it's Radian's old library.

GREG - I thought so - I remember a fascinating conversation I had with Radian about those two Ming vases. But the scrolls? Those weren't there last time I visited you - I'm sure I would have remembered. What are they? They look exquisite even at this scale...

HANNA - Oh, it's only a small collection - Radian started it about three years ago after his stint in Japan - he taught a post-graduate course for a semester, didn't I write you? Anyway, he brought a couple a paper scrolls back and then started hunting some more down through auction houses and private catalogues - mainly 11th through 13th century Chinese...

GREG ( excited) - Does he have anything by Chao Ta-nien?

HANNA (thinking for a moment) - I don't know, I don't think I've run across the name - but why don't we check? He's had the collection moved here about two years ago, soon after we bought this house (with a sudden thought, then a disbelieving laugh) - which, I just realized, you haven't even seen yet! What a terrible hostess I am! I finally get you down here for one of our weekends, and then I instantly forget that it's your first! Just imagine trying to find your way to the restroom in the middle of the night! This is unforgivable of me! So...(she takes his arm and changes her tone to a mockingly ceremonious one) may I be allowed to rectify my faux pas and offer you a grand tour right now?

GREG (smiling, visibly flattered) - That would be greatly appreciated - as long as we don't forget the collection. I'm dying to see it up close. (Both exit through Right. Ivan picks up a glass and comes behind Thomas, who is looking out the window)

IVAN (with a superior smile) - Still trying to scatter your bones on some God-forsaken piece of rock?

THOMAS (laughing) - Still inhaling dust in the chalk lab?

IVAN - At least I have a direction...

THOMAS (amused) - And I don't?

IVAN (mocking) - Of course - pardon me for forgetting - there's always gravity!

THOMAS - How perfectly delightful to see one strike gold and not even know it...

IVAN (vexed) - Don't flatter yourself - of course I know it. You think you're so hard to read? My poor Thomas... - still acting out teenage fantasies most people have the decency to leave behind once they gather the strength for real goals.

THOMAS (unperturbed) - Forgive me for being such an anti-social element. You should turn me in at the next Party meeting.

IVAN (conciliatory) - Don't be absurd, Thomas, you know very well that's not what I'm talking about.

THOMAS - Oh?

IVAN - I just hate seeing someone like you waste his life on... oh, forgive me, but they do seem like cheap thrills - from where I stand, at least.

THOMAS - And where is that? The top of your sandals?

IVAN (irritated) - Look, can't you be serious for at least once in your life?... I know it's none of my business, but between friends things need to be aired out sometimes, or the whole concept becomes a fake - don't you think?

THOMAS (smiling) - Absolutely. By the way, why are you so tense tonight?

IVAN (stunned for an instant) - ... I'm not, what are you talking about?

THOMAS - Not much, except that you've been oscillating all afternoon between lapses of catatonic self-absorption and bursts of overbearing interest like now... Are you preoccupied by something?

IVAN (gets up, exasperated) - You know, Thomas... I think this was a mistake after all. But if you ever decide to wipe that smug smile off your face, drop me a postcard from wherever you are: you might need some help getting off that cliff once the buzz of your own laughter wears off... (with a quick, bitter grin) You might start to feel the vertigo...

THOMAS (after him) - Why should I stop laughing? Will everything suddenly make sense tomorrow?... Or next week?!

ANDREI (putting down the magazine he was reading, getting up and stretching out loudly; in a coarse British accent:) - Hey, where is everybody?

THOMAS (pointing to Evas, who seems to have fallen asleep on the couch, his right arm over his eyes) - This one's in the strawberry fields and the others - I suppose still taking tours through the octopus's garden...

ANDREI (getting closer to the sofa) - Evas? He must have been pulling some really long nights lately, I've never seen him crash like this. And Daniel? Nothing, no phone call? It's almost seven, he should have been here two hours ago. Did anybody call the hotel?

THOMAS - Hanna said she tried a little earlier - there was no answer.

ANDREI - Well, then maybe he's on his way.

THOMAS - Right, the only question is - his way here, or back to the bar he's crawled out of?

ANDREI - Look, Thomas, I don't think you appreciate the state he's in. His mother says that ever since he came back, three months ago, he's been hiding in his room like a hunted beast - refusing to open the door except for his meals and an occasional, much needed shower, refusing to see anyone or go out... She said she noticed a rash on his arm one day and tried to get him to the doctor, but he started howling like a lunatic and throwing chairs at her until she had to run out of the studio for her life... She begged me to come and speak to him, convince him to go back into the world, she was crying on the phone... Of course I said yes, I would be more than happy to see him, we set a date... The next morning she called me at six o'clock, all frantic, panicky, imploring me to stay away, make sure I don't set foot on their street even by mistake... she had gone to Daniel with the news of my visit, and he had immediately threatened to jump out the window if any of his old friends came near the house.

THOMAS - Then what about tonight?

ANDREI - That was, as I say, three months ago. Last week his mother called and said he wanted to come out - would I speak to him if she put him on the phone?

THOMAS - How did he sound?

ANDREI - Scared. Excited... Ready.

THOMAS (incredulous) - So you told him about our meeting - and he wasn't afraid to face us all at once, after all these years?

ANDREI - No, in fact he said he preferred it like this. He only asked...

THOMAS - What?

ANDREI (hesitantly) - He asked me if Ivan would be here, too.

THOMAS - And what did you tell him?

ANDREI - I said yes, as far as I knew. He seemed to... well - he...

THOMAS - He sounded worried about it?! I don't understand - they were best friends after all.

ANDREI - Well, he didn't say anything for a while. I don't know if it was worry or excitement, but there was a long pause. Then he asked me for the address, I offered to drive him here and he said no, he'd rather come alone. He asked me if there was a hotel in town.

THOMAS (chuckling) - One final redoubt?

ANDREI - He checked in last night - Hanna called. Anyway, Thomas, she's right - if we're not able to put our prejudices aside and receive him with open arms, we'll probably never see him again. Besides, no one knows what really happened, and personally I think the booze rumor isn't worth the paper it's written on. He was never a closet alcoholic, as some try to make him. I know a little about the man, and there's something more at work here than this cheap explanation... The drinking may be the end, but it was not the beginning of his problems.

THOMAS - And what says the man who knows a lot about the man?

ANDREI - Ivan? Ivan... He claims they haven't spoken since Daniel's... you know, "little episode" - in fact since the night before, at the party.

THOMAS (with a smile) - The one where they kissed?

ANDREI - Yes, the famous one. He says the next day he went to the gallery, he saw the "Cancelled" sign plastered all over, like the rest of us... then was told by the shell-shocked curator that someone had walked in that night, just before the opening, and smashed everything to pieces. He says he ran to Daniel's place right away, but he was already gone... Then he got the letter, and that was the last he heard from him.

THOMAS (pensively) - "An epileptic fit"... I saw the letter - didn't believe a word of it.

ANDREI - Neither did I. And yet it was his writing, Thomas, there was no doubt about it.

THOMAS (shaking his head) - Why did he do it - that morning, right before the opening... it's as if the fear of failure suddenly became unbearable... as if it darkened his mind...

ANDREI - No, not fear - something else... I know him too well, or at least at that time I knew him enough to realize that this wasn't panic. At first I thought it was a sudden self-disgust - that for the first time that morning he looked at his work with the eyes of a stranger and that the difference was unbearable. The syndrome is quite well-known. ...But in this case he would have started working again, and soon - or he hasn't even come back for his tools, as far as we know. Do you realize - that man who lived, breathed the world in terms of space and volumes, who would suffocate unless he touched stone every single day - that man has ceased to exist in one night, and in his place - this... this human wreck that forces his own mother to buy him a bottle of whiskey a day and watch him slowly rot behind a door he won't even be able to unlock one day soon?...

THOMAS (laughs quietly at something he just recalled) - Do you remember what we used to say - that Daniel and Ivan had an almost telepathic knowledge of each other?

ANDREI (laughs as well, but with sadness) - The dreams they used to share?... Yeah, I remember the stories... Amusing us at parties with tales of romantic escapades... complicitous seductions plotted out in series of lucid dreams... then falling apart a week later, when it was discovered that the object of one's secret desire was a woman, while the other's...

THOMAS - Right.

ANDREI - I always took that particular story with a grain of salt... it just seemed too concocted - although at the time, I'll admit, I laughed as hard as anybody else... (His smile fading away) I don't know, Thomas, I don't think there was ever anything sexual between them - after all Ivan has been married for years and adores his wife...as for Daniel, I've never noticed the slightest sign...

THOMAS - Still, there was always a kind of tension between them...

ANDREI - They were both artists, for God's sake! They shared the same tools, the same studio - the same models, perhaps... How could there not be tension?

THOMAS - I guess you're right... - that kiss was probably never more than an enthusiastic form of congratulations on Ivan's part.

ANDREI - I never considered it anything else - anyway, let's change the subject, I think I hear them coming.

Hanna and Greg enter, arguing loudly, from the Left.

GREG (talking in an overexcited way) - But Kakkei! He's one of the world's greatest landscape masters - certainly considered the best that China ever produced! I don't know that there are even a dozen of his scrolls in private collections - how in Heaven did Radian obtain this one?!

HANNA (laughing) - It was a tip from a friend of his in Japan - I remember him leaving me in Capri during our fifth anniversary celebration, to fly to Tokyo for this very private auction... He called the next day and asked me to come straight home - he had something very special to show me. As he led me into the house, he covered my eyes and whispered in my ear - he said: "this is the most beautiful thing I could ever have hoped to give my wife on our anniversary" - then he asked to have his bed moved to the gallery, in front of the scroll, and slept with it for the next three weeks.

GREG (impatiently, still in awe) - Yes, of course... Did you observe the notan - even in a relatively small painting such as this, the master's touches are all there, striking - the splendor of the wet black gleaming against the luminous, silvery mists, this ferment of the ink that makes his black and white pieces appear polychromatic, the roughness of the wrinkles, the scratchy fringe of the trees atop the ridge - this magically dry yet pliable touch that surpasses anything ever attempted in Western landscape... (Entranced, as if lost in some grand vision) He was indeed the brightest flame of Hangchow - that unique chapter in man's history when scholars, artists and statesmen ruled together, combining functions and interests, spending the better part of the day congregated in the great pavilions scattered along the lakes or on the hills, above the city walls, discussing Wang Wei's Six Principles of Painting, or composing a poetic dedication for a newly submitted painting, or engaging in friendly contests of calligraphy...

HANNA (yawning discreetly) - It's a pity Radian wasn't here tonight, you two would have hit it off splendidly.

GREG (shaken out of his dream, and on a note of poignant regret) - Yes, it would have been an extraordinary evening, wouldn't it? I would have loved to spend all night talking to him - after all, how often does one run into a well rounded mathematician? But what am I saying - for God's sake, the man is a veritable expert, one of the literati in the classical sense of the word - why, judging by what I've seen tonight, he could probably write on the subject as well as I do!

HANNA - Oh, please, let's not exaggerate.

GREG - But I promise you that I am not! I just can't understand - how does he make the time to learn about all this, never mind hunt for the pieces?

HANNA (coyly) - He has many friends... like you...

GREG - Oh, what I wouldn't give to become one! ...Anyway, who is this individual that he's abandoned us for?

HANNA - Some Latvian mathematician. Radian had initially assumed he'd find him at the conference, but then it turned out he wasn't staying, so Radian had to book another flight to get there three days earlier. He asked me to apologize to you all, but said it was critical for the paper he's working on right now that they meet. I would have rescheduled, but Daniel...

GREG - I know, I know. It took so long to convince him to show up - and now it looks like he won't make it after all.

HANNA (trying to tear herself away from Greg) - Thomas, has anybody called yet? No sign from Daniel? This is incredible... Listen, why don't you call the hotel again? The number should be right there, on top of the bar... No? Then I've probably left it in the kitchen - thanks... (Thomas exits through the Left. Hanna opens a drawer, pulls out a small watering can and returns with it to the buffet, above which hang several pots with luxuriant plants.) Greg, would you be a sweetheart and help me out - just pull that chair right over here - that's right... (She climbs on top of the chair and starts watering the plants carefully) ...So when is Vera coming? Andrei 's wife is arriving on the ten thirty train - maybe we can pick them up together at the station tomorrow morning...

GREG - I'm not sure, it depends on the kids: the flute competition should be over by nine thirty, but Carmen's violin preliminaries were still to be scheduled as of yesterday.

HANNA - How old are the girls now?

GREG - Carmen is six and Lorelei eight.

HANNA - You're doing a great job with them, you and Vera...

GREG - Thank you - we're trying. (Smiling) Perhaps in a few years they will be ready to play some trios with you - wouldn't that be nice?

HANNA (slightly tense, spilling a few drops on the buffet, which she quickly wipes off with the hem of her summer dress) - Yeah, sure, we'll talk about that.

IVAN (entering from the Left) - Ah, you're back! Listen, I wanted to ask you - have you seen Mrs. Kaufmann lately? I ran into her the other day in the city, and she didn't mention anything about my piece being sold. Not that I need the money right away, but it's been over a month, and I'd like to know who I'm dealing with before sending any more work to her gallery...

HANNA (still a little inattentive) - Oh yes, I forgot - she wanted you to call her this week-end; I think the buyer was enquiring about the possibility of making a duplicate sculpture and they wanted to negotiate a price... She left me a phone number - if I could just remember where I put it... (She looks puzzled for a few moments, then seems to remember something and goes out through the left)

IVAN (pouring himself a glass of wine) - Is everything alright? She seemed a bit upset.

GREG - Upset? No, it's probably just Daniel - I'm afraid it's been a great disappointment for all of us...

IVAN - Speaking of that - I promised my wife I'd call her as soon as I got here, and it completely slipped my mind! I'd better do it right now, before we sit down for dinner...

(He places the emptied glass on an end table and goes out through the left. Evas, who seemed to be waking up during the last few minutes' commotion, yawns, stretches out - and inadvertently knocks down the glass just as Ivan walks back in.)

IVAN - ...Might have to wait a while, though - someone's on the phone... (Seeing Evas, who started picking up the broken crystal, he rushes over.) Oh, I'm so sorry, that was entirely my fault - I shouldn't have put it there... Let me give you a hand! (He bends down and starts helping Evas - then, suddenly, he stops, with a strange smile on his face.)

EVAS (getting up) - What are you thinking about?

IVAN - Irreversibility... (With a shake of his head, he picks up the last pieces and straightens up as well) I'm sorry, just got carried away for a moment...

EVAS - What do you mean?

IVAN (with a long stare at the fragments in his hand) - Oh, nothing much - just that there's something wonderfully finite about an object such as this... To be able to identify something so completely with its purpose, to know so clearly the moment of its end... there is a sort of perfection in that, don't you think? A sort of self-contained curve, to use your language: no becoming, no resurrection - only the ever more distant memory of what it once aimed to be.

EVAS - Isn't that valid for all of us?

IVAN (walking away with a smile) - Perhaps... By the way, there was an interesting article on Godel in last week's paper - I'll drop it by your office if you want... (He throws the glass in a basket, then turns to Greg) Is Thomas still on the phone?

GREG (taking a look along the hallway) - I'm afraid so... (He wavers for a moment - then, succumbing to temptation:) Listen, there was another phone in Radian's study... I could show you if you like - there's a painting there I wanted to look at again, anyway... (Seeing Ivan's hesitation) Come, I'm sure Hanna won't mind! (Both exit through Right. Evas walks over to Andrei, who had gone back to reading his magazine)

EVAS - Any news?

ANDREI (putting down the paper) - No, we'll probably just have to start dinner without him - it's getting late.

EVAS (taking a seat beside him) - Do you still think he's coming?

ANDREI (sadly) - I doubt it. He probably realized that he wasn't ready for such a grand entry yet and returned home this morning. I can't blame him, I don't think I could have pulled it off either: it's a huge step, considering where he's been - mentally, I mean.

EVAS (after a pause) - By the way, I forgot to ask you: how are your parents?

ANDREI (stumped for an instant, as if reminded of a long-suppressed memory - then tentatively, unconvincingly) - Well... "Well". Wonderful. As well as can be expected... (With a sudden outburst of perplexed helplessness) I don't know! This is the truth, Ev - I don't know what to say - how to describe what they are going through...

EVAS (with pity) - Is it progressing that fast?

ANDREI (staring out blindly, his voice choked with sorrow) - They are... - she is... - she looks at this man, who was the love of her life, the most vibrant and inspiring man she'd ever known - and there are days when he doesn't even recognize her... There are days when he doesn't remember who he is, or that he built great edifices and parks and fountains on this earth. There are times when he is surprised and delighted like a child by some simple game that the nurses bring him, or a show on TV; there are times when he listens to us talk about our work, our plans and worries, and then suddenly he'll get up in the middle of a sentence and insist on showing us the picture menu and all the things they'll bring him for dinner. But the worst... the worst, Ev, is that brief moment of lucidity when suddenly he seems to remember... how much does he remember? What does he understand of what is happening to him? We'll never know, none of us can reach him in that place - but there is such a terrible look in his eyes at those times that I wish he were gone already... I know I shouldn't say this, but there cannot be any worse place of damnation than where he is now...

EVAS - And your mother? How is she taking all this? ...Is she still writing?

ANDREI - She's published a couple more articles this winter, but since then... She doesn't have the strength anymore, Ev... I'm beginning to lose her, even in the conversations that she initiates - for a while she's there, arguing with all that passion and subtlety that she was notorious for and everything is magic, like in the old days - then there comes a moment when I realize that she's not listening to me anymore, but looking above my head to some far-off place, and her whole face glows with a misty, indefinable smile... If you could only see her then, Ev... There's so much beauty... and so much loss in that smile, that sometimes I become afraid. ...For her? For myself? It's a strange question, I know, but believe me - it's as if she steps into another world, from which everything we've done so far, everything we shared looks like children's play - and I'm not supposed to be told that, or understand it yet... And then one day I realized - it's not just her... I've seen that smile before, on other faces, in other eyes... It's not just old people, Ev, not just those that have had a brush with death, or lost everything... I knew that smile, and what it was supposed to mean - but it was easy to forget, easy to dismiss... until I saw it on her face. ...What is it that they see, Ev? It seems so clear to them, so immediate, so certain... why isn't it obvious to all of us, then?... ( He suddenly seems to remember where he is and shakes his head with embarrassment ) Sorry, I'm ranting away when the decent answer should have been a simple "no". No, she stopped writing, and I think this is the end.

EVAS (visibly touched) - You don't need to hide it from me, Andrei . I know how close you were - I know how bad it's hurting...

ANDREI (moving to the window in an attempt to hide his broken composure) - Look, some kid left his bicycle in the middle of the road... and a bunch of yellow leaves - there, on the fence, between the two slabs of limestone...

EVAS ( smiling, but indulging him) - Do you think he's still around, or he forgot about the bike?

ANDREI (looking out in both directions) - I don't see anyone... Maybe we should move it on the sidewalk, in front of the gates - this way it won't get run over if a car comes by.

EVAS ( getting up) - Let's go, then. I wanted to take a short walk before dinner anyway.

Both exit through the Left. The stage is left empty for a moment, then Hanna comes in with a piece of paper in her hand, looking for Ivan. Seeing that everyone is gone, she walks over to the window and leans against it, looking out with a melancholy expression on her face. The evening sun has set the sky on fire and its light comes pouring through the window like a hazy, golden tide, flooding her contours, almost transfiguring her. After a few instants, Thomas enters from the Left, picks up a flower from the vase on the table and comes behind Hanna.

THOMAS (encircling her shoulders with his right arm, which brings the flower right in front of her lips) - Why so sad, bella?

HANNA (wistfully) - You'd say that no one lives on this street - there's always so much silence, even the light seems frozen in place.

THOMAS - You're lonely...

HANNA (protesting, but as if trying to convince herself) - No - no - it's not that. I don't know. Sometimes I get tired of waiting...

THOMAS (quickly) - He may never come, you know?... Why does this mean so much to you?

HANNA - I don't know. Perhaps because he belongs to another time in our lives - he would have helped me reconnect to that, even if just for one night.

THOMAS - Is the past so much better than what you have now?

HANNA - "Better"? (She chuckles with a strange hopelessness on her face) No, not better... Not easier to live in. But a place I wish I knew still existed somewhere deep inside me... - I could've found out tonight, perhaps.

THOMAS - Don't you ever go back to that place when you're alone? When you play your cello, or when you find yourself taking the last step on top of a mountain ridge? Don't you remember all our hikes?

HANNA (coldly) - I play the cello less and less these days - there's just not enough time to practice, between all the faculty dinners I have to organize and the conferences Radian wants me to join him at; as for hiking - I haven't done it in years: Radian is too busy for it, and besides his hip has been nagging him lately.

THOMAS (looking at her closely) - Are you still playing in that amateur quartet?

HANNA (quickly, a little ashamed) - No, I quit a few months ago. (Blushing) Anyway, there won't be any time for that soon - I think Radian and I will have a baby.

THOMAS (heavily, after an unusually long pause) - Why?... Why, Hanna?

HANNA (lifting her eyes to him with a shocked and hurt expression) - I thought such news was usually received with congratulations, not condolences! What's wrong with wanting a baby?! (She's hurt more than she admits to, almost on the verge of tears, because she can read it on his face that he's not at all impressed by her "enthusiasm").

THOMAS (in a low, deadly-serious tone now) - Nothing wrong with wanting a baby, of course. Nothing wrong - as long as you can give me a satisfactory answer to this: why have you given up the cello, Hanna?

HANNA (avoiding him) - I thought I told you already - there wasn't time... It just isn't as important to me as it once was - there are other things...

THOMAS - Like playing secretary and art curator to Radian's collections? Like catering parties to college administrators? Shopping at Bloomingdale's for six hours while Radian delivers another lecture in Princeton?

HANNA (tormented, squirming under his implacable gaze) - Stop - please - please, I've heard enough! (Looking at him through tears, like a bullied child) When have you become so cruel? What gives you - you! - the right to be so judgemental?!

THOMAS - Just answer my question.

HANNA (with revolt) - No! No, no - why should I owe you an answer, when you live your life the way you do - not owing anything to anyone? Ha! Since when is jumping off a cliff more meaningful than having a child?

THOMAS (suddenly with infinite tenderness) - It's not - as long as you're able to love that child even more than you once loved your music... (Lifting her chin up with a gentle, encouraging smile) Just don't make it the equivalent of jumping off a cliff, hm?...

HANNA (looking away, out the window - then after a long pause) - The question should have been "when", not "why"... Then you would know that dropping out of this precious string quartet is the end, not the beginning of self-delusion.

THOMAS (even more gently) - I know "when", Hanna. I've known it all along - what it meant when you called me that night, sounding as if you had vanished and sent your ghost to say good-bye; the desperate confidence I could read on Evas's face the next day; the fact that after all these years you still approach each other with all the cautious tension of two tigers who once fought one another within an inch of death... But Evas still has his work, his passion - why did you give up yours, Hanna?

HANNA (laughs quietly, with a sort of desperate irony) - Oh, Thomas, how many "passions" is a man capable of? How can you compartmentalize yourselves so well that when one part of you dies the rest doesn't begin to smell? (After a moment) ...I had no more strength, no more faith in the value of it - this "passion" you speak so freely of... I once had something more precious than even music, or so I thought - only to wake up and find it desecrated by the man I held dearer to me than God himself. Can't you see - I lost myself once, trusting blindly that what we had was the most important thing on earth - then one day that belief just collapsed, and it dragged my whole world with it into the rubble... When I got up, months later, I wasn't the same any more. I was tired, disillusioned, bitter... Something was taken from me on that day, and I never cared to look for it again... I couldn't bear the thought of ever wanting something so much again, and losing. I craved certainty - the small, predictable rewards of life, the little set-backs you can laugh at... the warmth of simple friendship.

THOMAS (with sadness and a trace of pity) - Is that what Radian gave you?

HANNA (shaking herself as if out of a dream) - That and a lot more. Don't presume to judge our relationship, Thomas, there are things you could never guess or begin to understand... (Taking his arm with a smile that seems to shine from the other side of the world) God is merciful - there are islands for those of us who fall off the great ship and lose their way in the night... Come on, my friend, I think we've waited enough.

THOMAS (with a shrug) - Shall we eat, then?

HANNA (triumphantly) - Yes, we shall eat!

(Lights off, curtain falls)

Act II

Scene 1

Same scene as in Act I. The living room is submerged in darkness, the only identifiable thing being the clock's ticking on the bookshelf. Then, from the hall, come the muffled sounds of someone making his way through unfamiliar territory.

GREG (in his pajamas, with a candle in his hand) - Goddamn house... Here I am again, back in the living room for the third time. Where on earth did she say the downstairs bathroom was?! I shouldn't have drunk so much tonight - but by Jove that steak was drier than a horseshoe lost in the Sahara! Radian's good fortune that he spends so much time on the lecture circuit - one straight year of Hanna's cooking would put him six feet under. I didn't want to tell her, but the tiramisu was also on the prohibitionist side - I almost wept when I thought of Vera's version... And the vegetables! The vegetables! (Shakes his head) I only pray my colitis doesn't wake up again, or I'll be unable to write the whole week - not to mention the book signing: I can already see myself trying to emphasize the subtle difference between xieyi, deyi and huiyi while two hundred monkeys are arguing in my belly!

What's this? (Getting closer to the table) English biscuits! (Bends over to examine them) Even some of the marzipan ones! Thank you, Lord, for showing me a token of your grace in my hour of need! (He looks around, then starts wolfing them down)

THOMAS (walks in quickly from the left; on hearing Greg, he stops and turns with a small chuckle) - Are there any more?

GREG (startled) - Who's there? Evas?... Come into the light, I can't see a thing in there. ...Oh, it was you. God, you really gave me a jolt - why did you sneak in like that?

THOMAS - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.

GREG - Do you want some biscuits?

THOMAS - No thanks, I'm in a bit of a hurry, anyway.

GREG - Listen, do you have any idea what time it is? This clock must be broken, it can't possibly be that late.

THOMAS - No, I'm sorry. If it's so important, there's a clock in the dining room, too. Look, I really must go now - I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast, alright? (Exits through right)

GREG (mockingly) - "If it's so important..." Well, maybe it is - maybe I'd like to know if I'll be able to even make breakfast tomorrow, never mind see you through these angry, swollen eyelids... And where's he off to, anyway? (Sighing) I never understood the man, and never will. He simply drives me crazy with his superior, devil-may-care attitude - I wish the others would finally see through his act and recognize him for the fraud that he is! He's always treated me condescendingly - ever since I started publishing, it seems... I bet it's pure envy. He hides behind his quirky hobbies as if in some otherworldly ivory tower, acts as if he's sorry to see us run the rat race and even sorrier to see the pitiable piece of cheese we're after - but secretly I just know he must be craving a bite now and then... He can't fool me - bloody hypocrite...

ANDREI (holding his head and yawning in the doorway) - Whose wake are you keeping?

GREG (startled) - What's that? ... Oh, it's you. I thought it was Thomas.

ANDREI (coming closer) - Why Thomas? Did you see him around?

GREG - Yeah, he was here a few minutes ago - all in a hurry to God knows where. What's the matter with you - you can't sleep?

ANDREI - Well, I could when I first turned in, but then something woke me up - sounded like shutters hitting against the wall, or maybe something fell on the roof... Anyway, I tried for an hour to get back to sleep, then I gave up. I guess I'll have to walk it off...

GREG - I've pretty much lost my sleep too. Listen, you wouldn't by any chance know where the downstairs bathroom is? I just don't want to burst in and wake somebody up by mistake. Oh, and I meant to ask you - do you happen to have a watch on you? I left mine on the nightstand. I was thinking we could walk to the kitchen and brew some herbal tea later on - I really need to get my eight hours of sleep, or I'll be paying for it all week... (they exit through the right, talking)

Scene 2

The light is now concentrated on the upper platform, revealing a corner of the kitchen where Hanna, gloved up and surrounded by piles of dishes, is cleaning up after tonight's dinner

HANNA - Seven bowls, seven plates, seven saucers! Seven wine glasses, seven cognac tumblers, seven coffee cups! Seven tablespoons, seven forks, seven knives, seven teaspoons! And I have to wash them all... (Sinking into thoughts) Not that I wish it were otherwise. What else have I got left to do? I'm tired of reading, tired of thinking it all through for the millionth time... It almost doesn't matter anymore, my soul is spent. It bleeds, still bleeds each time he looks at me - but every time a little less, a little paler... The wound is closing.

How quiet it is in this house... It always strikes me, at night. It seems as if I haven't heard the wind in such a long time... Years - so many years since I've felt anything like it - that cry of fear piercing through my skin like a wing, that crazy leap, that flight of knowledge and devastation... Sometimes I think it was all a dream, another life, that it couldn't have been me. Is it possible to have once wanted so much? Risked so much? (She seems lost in thought for a while, then shakes her head as if to chase away a spell) No, Thomas is wrong - what he calls passion is an addiction, a disease! He's blinded by it as I was blinded... But how can one live like this, out of control? For how long? (Resuming her washing) ...No, I'll say things have definitely worked out for the best - I'd rather have my freedom, thank you very much.

Scene3

EVAS - There's nobody around. They're all asleep. God, there's just as much silence in here as on the other side... Am I truly awake? (He laughs a bitter, tired laugh) As if it really made a difference. Only one life, one generation is all that separates me from them... (Suddenly he clutches his head between his fists with an agonizing, muted exasperation) But why do they have to remind it to me night after night, why are they chasing me so relentlessly? I'm going to lose my mind if I don't get some sleep soon, I'm just going to snap! (He rushes back on his feet and starts walking around at a febrile pace, spitting out his words with a simulated contempt behind which one can guess an old, poorly mastered fear) The same house... That same, cursed house, those sunlit fragments of stone wall that they want me to recognize, that are surfacing from a memory which isn't even mine - who knows what country house, built centuries ago and seen in passing through the eyes of a crawling child... because this silence, this cursed silence can only come from very long ago - even the yellow light seems ready to crumble into dust...

They are all there: grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, cousins that I never knew - dressed in their stiff Sunday clothes, all gathered in a corner and smiling at me - that awkward, shameful smile, as if trying to hide something monstrous and irreparable. How they avoid looking me in the eyes, oh the disgusting solidarity of this cunning with which they follow my every move once I turn my back to them... and their muted, collective warning, that I feel coagulating into horror like a drop of hot lead at the back of my head, as I step into the house...

It's very hot now, and I've forgotten for how long I've been opening these doors, passing from one room into another. They are all empty and I feel alone, abandoned, then I suddenly know that it's become very late and that all these people are dead now. There is one door left, and I open it. The room is almost empty - two old chairs, covered by the thick dust which keeps falling silently as if through a yellow haze - and, stretching on top of them, a casket - very old, rotten through and through. It is closed. I walk toward it as if under a spell - through the thick light that seems to tear like cobwebs as I push my way across the room. Finally, I open the casket and bend over: and what I see inside are my thesis books, all black and rotten and eaten away - by centuries that I am terrified to count! (He remains frozen for a few moments, staring into the void with an expression of sheer horror on his face. Then, slowly, his hands begin to release the back of the chair, he turns away and walks over to the bar, mumbling and shaking his head like a drunkard). I'm going to lose my mind... It's been a month that I've been having this dream, almost every night... What the hell does it mean? What is it that I'm supposed to understand? I've got to make it stop, I've got to get some sleep tonight! Even if I have to drink myself to death.

A muffled thud from the left, then Andrei appears in the doorway, holding a candle.

ANDREI (to himself, cheerfully) - It's Ev! What luck!

EVAS (startled) - Andrei? Is that you?

ANDREI - Ssht, keep it down or we'll wake everyone up! Have you been here long?

EVAS (gradually pulling himself out of his trance) - I don't know, I might have dozed off for a while.

ANDREI - I ran into Ivan a bit earlier - he seemed quite preoccupied, almost distressed, I'd say.

EVAS - Really? Over what?

ANDREI - I don't know, I didn't dare ask him. He had his clothes on - said he was thinking of taking a walk on the beach. (Chuckling) "By himself", he was very quick to add. I would have liked to join him, it's a beautiful night... but now it might look as if I were chasing him. Maybe I'll just sit on the terrace for a while.

EVAS -What time is it, do you know?

ANDREI (checking his wristwatch) - It's half past twelve.

EVAS - So early? I was thinking I must have slept longer. (Pouring himself a glass of whiskey) Do you want one, too?

ANDREI - Sure, give me a small one.

EVAS - Do you think Thomas is asleep?

ANDREI (chuckling) - Yeah, I walked by his door a few minutes ago and I think I heard him snoring. Thanks. (He takes the glass from Evas' hand and they both sit down facing the terrace; the calm surf is now audible through the half-opened glass doors) He always seems to adjust very quickly to new surroundings, which is almost a pity on a night like this - don't you think?

EVAS (smiling) - Yes, he would have been good company.

ANDREI - ...So? What were you up to? Did I interrupt anything?

EVAS - Oh, nothing. I just have a hard time sleeping lately. How about you?

ANDREI - I guess I'm still excited about being here tonight. It's been a long time since we've all come together like this, and the possibility of seeing Dan again today has started me down a dangerously long memory path... I'm truly sorry he didn't make it.

EVAS - Maybe he's afraid. Seven years is a long time...

ANDREI - But what exactly happened there, Evas? Nobody seems to know- some say he got started on drugs, others- that he was locked up in a sanatorium for a while... I've even heard it said that he joined some monastic order a few years back. All of a sudden no one had his address anymore, all we heard were rumors. Until three months ago.

EVAS (as if daydreaming) - Somebody might have a clue, though...

ANDREI (surprised, quickly) - Who?

EVAS - Ivan.

ANDREI (shaking his head, disappointed) - No, that's what I thought, too, at the beginning, but I've asked him many times over the years, and he's always denied it.

EVAS - That doesn't mean anything.

ANDREI (a little shaken) - What are you implying? Why would he lie?

EVAS - I'm not saying he lied - just that he could have lied. They were best friends, after all. If Dan wanted to disappear for the rest of the world, he could have asked Ivan to keep a secret.

ANDREI (pensive) - Yes, I suppose that makes sense... But why would he want that?! God, what talent this man has wasted!

EVAS - Maybe he found something better... anyway, it's useless to speculate.

ANDREI (laughs quietly, as if remembering something) - ...Do you hear?

EVAS - What?

ANDREI - The waves... I wonder if their sound ever changes - there, at the bottom... Or has it always been the same, for all these billions of years - the same undisturbed pulse, the same inexorable dynamic beneath the glory of the clearest morning and the horror of the blackest storm... It is that sound we think of whenever we think of the ocean, you know? And yet no human ear has ever heard it... Sometimes I'm convinced that this echo we hear in the back of our minds is nothing but projection... nothing but hope. There are other nights, though... Nights like this one, when the sea calls out and all you can do is wonder... wonder why must we be made aware of this sound, what purpose does it serve in a species so poorly equipped to function on that wavelength? Why is it that nothing in our fully mapped world seems as reassuring as that faint, barely perceivable echo?

EVAS (tired) - "Echo"... What am I to do with your echo, Andrei?

ANDREI - Once you were the one that set out for its source - you believed in it, you believed we could find it... Do you remember?

EVAS - Yes, that was a long time ago.

ANDREI - It doesn't matter. That thing never changes.

EVAS - Maybe you are right - that never changes. But people do - I did - is that so hard to accept?

ANDREI - Are you sure? Can we truly change, Ev, do you really think we can one day lose the memory of that promise? I think you're wrong... you have to be wrong... (He turns aside - from his tone it's clear his mind has wandered off to a different place) They need it now, Ev... You don't understand - oh, you're too strong... They're standing there, looking at me, and the darkness just keeps getting thicker around them with every passing moment - I see it in their eyes, their voices fading away into this strange distance which is not one of space, but - "being"... somehow they are becoming "the other", different from us the living, the still-have-plenty-of-time-to-figure-it-out us... they are out there learning to tread a new land, Ev, I swear it - it's like a new world beginning to take substance around them... and they are frightened. They look at us from behind the veil of this invisible world and they know we can't see it, they know we can't reach across it to touch them anymore... They look at us sitting across the bed, and all you can read in their eyes is how hard they're trying to protect us from the knowledge of this gaping distance that now lies between us. But I see it, oh Ev, I can see it all: the unanswered questions, the doubt, the vertigo of unknowing, the glory and the terror of it all... (Turning abruptly to face the other) Oh, Ev, don't tell me one can lose it - not when one needs it most! A lack of focus - yes, that I can see - I know things haven't been easy for you lately... But lack of focus is just that - it doesn't mean lack of belief.

EVAS (grinning) - That's a frightfully optimistic view, my friend. The only problem is - belief is not an inert substance, to be taken out of a jar and polished every couple of weeks - if that's what you mean by "focus". It's a living, stinking, growing and ailing organism - not unlike one of your lichens, if you can bear the thought... The point is - it's as dependent on a substrate as anything breathing on this earth, and just as vulnerable when that substrate becomes eroded.

ANDREI (stubbornly) - Some say belief can get stronger in such circumstances...

EVAS (tense, fixing Andrei with a piercing look) - "Belief"... Is it the same belief they held before, Andrei? How do we know it's the same?

ANDREI (a little puzzled) - Well - yes... What do you mean?

EVAS (gets up dismissively, changing his tone) - Oh, nothing, forget it!... Look, why don't we stop talking about this altogether - it makes no sense anymore, in fact it never did: all we're doing is getting each other drunk with words that signify nothing!

ANDREI (hurt, stunned) - Nothing?! Is it you who says that, Ev? What's happened? You've been acting unrecognizably all day, and now....

EVAS (irritated, pacing faster) - Why do you want so much to know? Do you think it's something one writes abstracts about? Maybe it's just a silly uneasiness, an itch at the back of my head, a fragrance...

ANDREI (with a start) - A fragrance? Is that what you said?

EVAS (unaware of Andrei's expression) - Exactly. Was I supposed to send you a fax?

ANDREI (still disturbed, inattentive) - Yes... Maybe... So you, too...

(Greg enters from the left, a cup of tea in his hand)

GREG (loudly) - Ah, gentlemen, delighted to see you! Is there no one asleep in this house?

ANDREI (a little annoyed) - I imagine some of us are - at any rate Hanna should be, after such an effort.

GREG - Oh no, Hanna's still in the kitchen, that's where I'm coming from. I saw light at the end of the tunnel, so I went in to ask for a herbal tea.

EVAS - What's she doing there?

GREG - Cooking something for tomorrow, I think.

ANDREI (vexed) - Ah, and she told me to go to bed - she insisted that she was done for the day! (Somewhat defensively, by means of explanation:) I had offered to give her a hand...

GREG (regretfully) - Well, there may still be time... She had a souffle in the oven, but by the look on her face I don't think she'll be remembering about it till next week. ...Sorry if I sound skeptical, but after tonight's dinner...

ANDREI (smiling) - I rather enjoyed it.

EVAS - So did I.

GREG - I'm sure, I'm sure, really, I don't mean to complain - it was lovely! It's just my unfortunate constitution, you understand... Anyway, I think I'll try to retire now, if you don't mind. I've got a deadline for an article on Tuesday, and it's already late. By the way - please don't bother to wake me up for breakfast: I've got to get eight hours of sleep, or I'll be muddle-headed all day tomorrow. (Exits Left).

ANDREI (with a long, disbelieving stare) - What's wrong with him? Friday night, on vacation?!... Is he ill?

EVAS (laughing almost unwillingly) - Leave him alone, he seems to know what's best for him.

ANDREI - But it's almost obscene! Can you imagine him in 20 years?

EVAS (with a tired, dismissive shrug) - I don't know, Andrei, I can't imagine anything right now, least of all where any of us will be in 20 years. If I could just close my eyes for a while...

ANDREI (checking his watch) - It's getting late. Shall we go back to bed?

EVAS (suppressing a sudden horror) - Yes, it's probably time... Let me just gather these glasses. (In passing, he bends to pick up the whiskey bottle at the foot of the armchair and stops, dumbfounded) Look at this!

ANDREI - What? What is it?

EVAS - There, on the carpet... Right under your nose... there are traces of mud - footmarks!

ANDREI (looking in more closely) - You're right - that's odd...

EVAS - They're still wet, can't be more than two hours old.

ANDREI - Maybe Ivan came back.

EVAS - But Ivan said he was going to take a walk on the beach - and at any rate, there is nothing but sand and rock for five miles around here.

ANDREI - Are you sure?

EVAS - Absolutely.

ANDREI (peeking out the left exit) - You're right, his jacket is still missing. (Intrigued, a little amused) But then who could it be?

EVAS (thinks for a moment, then shrugs and gets up, overcome by fatigue) - I don't know. Let's just drop it, we'll figure it out tomorrow. ( Both exit Right)

Scene 4

Ivan enters from Left, his jacket still on.

IVAN - There's so much light outside! The moon is shining as if it were its very last night, as if trying to force its way to the bottom of the ocean... (He takes his jacket off and walks absently to the middle of the room) And that creature, that motionless beast... Lord, what a vision! Like a huge black stain on the bright beach, staring at the ocean without a sound... without a blink... How long did I wait? ten? twenty minutes? not a movement... stone still, like the wait of the dead. (He pours himself a glass) I'll look for its prints tomorrow, see where it came from. (He paces around a little more, then sees the empty glasses) Aha, so I'm not the only one in need of soaking tonight... Could they still be around? I'd give anything for some company right now... (He looks to the left, then makes up his mind and exits through the right)

Scene 5

EVAS - I can't go back in there, I can't! There's something sinister about that room! (Trying to calm himself down) Alright, it's nothing, I'll just have to sleep tomorrow on the beach - it's only another white night. (Looks around) Some coffee... that's all I need. I'll just have to go into the kitchen and get some coffee. (Arrested by a sudden thought) But what if Hanna's still there? No, I can't... I can't face her now... (Looking around) The terrace is open... maybe the fresh air will wake me up. (Stopping) And then?... The same thing until tomorrow morning? The same thought, over and over, for another full night? God, for how much longer will I carry this poison inside me?! ...I'll have to speak with her, one of these days, there is no other way... I have to know...

Andrei comes in from the Left, almost running.

ANDREI - Ah, I'm so glad you're still up! Listen, Ivan found a pack of cards in his room and they want to start a game in a few minutes.

EVAS (inattentive) - Who?

ANDREI - Ivan and Greg, didn't you hear me? (With a grin) There was still light under his door, so we just dragged him out! Anyway, Thomas seems to be asleep, so I volunteered you. Is it alright?

EVAS - Yeah, sure.

ANDREI (comes closer and looks at him with some concern) - Are you up for it, though? I don't want to push you... Didn't you say you were going to bed a few minutes ago?

EVAS (with a disgusted wave of the hand) - I tried, but my brain is up to its usual tricks. (Seeing the other's hesitation) It's OK, really - a game of cards beats staring at the ceiling or working on tomorrow's hangover...

ANDREI - Great, I'll go get the others, then! Oh - will you please go to the kitchen and ask Hanna for the new poker chips? (With a grin, as he heads for the door) Last time I played with Radian he added his own twist to the thing - you'll like it, I promise...

Evas turns, ready to protest, but the words seem stuck in his throat. For a moment, he appears to fight himself like a man asked at gunpoint to step over the edge of an abyss - then, suddenly, he calls after Andrei with a tight, desperately brave smile on his pale lips.

EVAS - So be it, then. ...Andrei! (The other turns in the doorway, surprised) Just... Just give me twenty minutes or so, will you?

ANDREI (a little puzzled, but relieved to get his last player) - Alright, we'll be waiting for you right here! (Both exit in opposite directions)

Scene 6

Enter Greg with a pack of cards and starts pacing up and down, irritated.

GREG - The fools! How much lower will this get - ha, poker! - ...like a bunch of drunken sailors on a rainy night when even the hookers are too cold to show up! ...What am I doing here?! What did I come for? Their trivial conversation? A few smiles, a walk down memory lane, followed by mashed potatoes? We've done nothing all day but lie in the sand like dry mollusks and utter inconsequential pleasantries, just to break the silence from time to time! What's happened to them - Jesus, I hardly recognize these people! Oh, I should have known better. Had I stayed home, I could have finished both articles by Monday...

Scene 7

The light now falls on the same mezzanine kitchen scene as at the beginning of the act. Evas is in the doorway, leaning against the wall and following Hanna's movements around the stove - she isn't aware of his presence yet.

EVAS - Good evening, Hanna - or is it morning?

HANNA (freezes for an instant - then, without turning to face him) - It's almost one... Can't sleep?

EVAS (cautiously) - I'm still a bit wired up, I guess. How about you?

HANNA (in a neutral tone) - I'm almost ready - the soup should be done in a minute. Did you want something?

EVAS (struggling to remember for a brief moment) - Ah, yes, Andrei wanted to get the new poker chips - some new rules he says Radian showed him last time.

HANNA (going to the buffet and taking out a cardboard box) - They're all in here - Radian hadn't finished working on them when he left. (Turning off the stove) Well, I'm all done now (she comes to the door and hands him the box) - I guess I'll just switch off the lights if there's nothing else you need from the kitchen. (She makes to go out the door, but Evas suddenly catches her by the wrist.)

EVAS - Hanna, please stay a minute.

HANNA (she turns slowly, and for the first time looks directly at him) - Why?

EVAS (He takes a step inside, letting go of her hand carefully, then fidgets in place, not knowing how to begin. He laughs sadly, quietly, as if to himself) - Hm!... Who could have imagined that things would end up like this? This is how I've had to learn them, my god, like a dyslexic in a language that couldn't be pronounced any other way!

HANNA (quietly, trembling) - What are you saying?

EVAS - I'm... I'm trying to tell you that I'm sorry - I realize how absurd this sounds now...

HANNA - You're seven years late, Ev...

EVAS - ...and that I wish these years had been just a bad dream - only it's the present which feels like it...

HANNA - I'm sorry to hear it. I really am.

EVAS - It's... ha ha (shaking his head with more amazement than anger) - it's ironic, don't you find?

HANNA - What?

EVAS - That it should be on your door I come knocking when I find myself trapped - in this prison of my own design!

HANNA (smiling, as if seeing something through a haze) - Yes, I suppose it is - a bit ironic... You used to be quite fierce about protecting your solitary confinement. (With an old pain, bitter) You used to be quite ruthless...

EVAS - I know - there are so many things I wish I had done differently back then... If I was ruthless, it was because I was afraid - I had no other shield to place between myself and the insecurity that consumed me...

HANNA - You were afraid? You talk of insecurity?

EVAS (pleading) - ...It was my final year, remember? (Pacing up and down, still unable to contain the trepidation of those days) ...The last chance I had to make a breakthrough, to persuade Radian to take me on this team! ...Six years or research - six years of graduate hell during which my only thought had been the day I'd hear Radian commend me on my thesis and ask me to stay on! We were so close, the intuitive leap was tremendous - all we needed was this technicality, this last, missing link in our calculations... Then weeks, months went by with nothing but dead ends, nothing but frustration to show for. Radian kept pressing for results - and I had nothing to offer him! (He stops, almost choking) ...After half a year, we started to question the whole theory... he began mentioning other subjects - at first discreetly, then quite persistently - he said I had to change my thesis, since this was leading nowhere...

HANNA - Why didn't you say anything about it?... I was so afraid of losing you - you closed yourself in, I couldn't reach you any more. Why wouldn't you talk about your worries?

EVAS - I was trying to protect you.

HANNA - Your silence felt hostile, cold - I had become afraid to even ask you how your day was.

EVAS - There was nothing to say, just admit defeat... day after day after day. It was hard enough doing it to myself, never mind to you. There are steps to be made in both progress and failure, and that minute change of perspective, that illusion of movement makes it tolerable to face yourself in the mirror at the end of each day - but you couldn't understand that...

HANNA - What I could understand was that our time was getting shorter. Our love had become a shadow, my concern - an annoyance that you no longer bothered to hide...

EVAS (quietly, as if treading a sacred territory inside himself) - Hanna, there are things that cannot be shared even with she who is your life-breath - for to know those things, one must travel to places where one is barely human anymore. It's a fierce battle against delusions and fatigue, with no room for self-pity, and certainly no room for the pity of others. ...I felt like a pilgrim, circling blindly around the entrance to the magic mountain, over and over - until I knew that something had to change inside me: I wasn't desperate enough, hungry enough (laughs bitterly): I still had you. And the more comfort, the more love you tried to give me, the more distant and unreal the object of my search appeared. I felt it slipping through my fingers as the months passed by without progress, as the excitement of our previous discoveries wore off... I started to lose faith in myself, the relevance of what I was doing - everything became dark.

And so, one day, I made my decision. The very thought of it filled me with despair - I knew the way I had to do it and the kind of pain that would follow - but even through that despair a kind of peaceful certainty began to assert itself, and as the day of our separation drew closer I felt strangely invigorated, purified. It felt as if I had died and been born again - a creature whose path stood clearly before him, with neither the freedom nor the vulnerability to be distracted by wayside beauty. I had become the search - part of the ritual - part of the magic mountain. Win or fail, there was no other place left - I was tied to the mountain.

HANNA - I remember that day... the fall seemed to be endless. I wanted to die, only it seemed there was no need to make another gesture for I was already dead - what else could it be called, that vertigo of mind-numbing pain, that darkness descending over your heart, annihilating in one flash your future, your meaning, your instincts...- until nothing is left but a cool and merciful indifference. ...Yes, I remember that day.

EVAS (very pale, more shaken by her words than he would like to show) - I've prayed for your safety every day in my heart. (Approaching, but still not daring to touch her) I prayed that you find healing and happiness in spite of all that I had done to you.

HANNA (on the verge of tears, moving away and avoiding his eyes) - Why are you telling me all this? Do you want me to say that I understand? I do! Do you want my forgiveness? You have it - I was never able to hate you - not on that day and not all these years later! It would have been so much easier, Ev... To be able to forget, to say that it had all been a mistake, that we were not meant for each other...

EVAS (exasperated, with a question he's waited seven years to ask) - Then why?! Why did you marry Radian?

HANNA (closes her eyes with a painful laughter and turns away from him) - You really don't know?

EVAS - I can guess - I've done nothing but guess all these years. I want you to tell me.

HANNA (after a pause, unconvincingly) - He was kind. He was wise. I felt protected... And he wanted me enough.

EVAS - Is that all?... Look at me, Hanna, and tell me that was all you thought of! (She avoids him) Why Radian?... You knew what he represented for me. You knew I couldn't leave - he was the only one who understood this subject, who had delved into it deeply enough...

HANNA (with a strange smile) - Yes. I knew.

EVAS (after a pause) - Was this your punishment? Tell me. It doesn't matter anymore now.

HANNA (with sadness) - I was afraid you'd think that. No, Evas, this wasn't about punishment. I can only hope one day you'll be able to believe that - perhaps when you stop running away and try to remember what our love was all about... Are you that afraid - that you need to kill the last beautiful thing we have to hang on to?

EVAS (closing his eyes, ashamed) - I just had to hear it from you, Hanna. I could never bring myself to believe it, but it haunted me all these years... until now. I'm sorry... I believe you. I do. I believe you... (Fixing her again with a stare that is nothing but undisguised, perplexed suffering) But then...

HANNA - Is it that hard to understand? ...Ev, can't you see - you were not the only one who had to make a choice, who had to sacrifice something in order to prove themselves... (Shaking her head, bitterly) And if it wasn't the choice that you would have expected from me... if it might have seemed like an absurd, wasteful self-penitence... (she turns to him fiercely, challenging) - it took just as much courage, believe me, just as much defiance! I did not owe anything to your expectations, nor to mine for that matter - to these grand dreams that turn from blessing to nightmare so easily. (Looking back inside herself) ...Everything felt absurd that year... futile... I wanted nothing but the freedom to put on my own silly costume and join the carnival - the freedom to not believe, to not ever again be able to believe that something more meaningful could exist.

EVAS (overwhelmed and astonished) - Can you live like that?

HANNA (tired) - Every time I see you, Ev, I am forced to answer that question. And yes - I can live like that - free of illusions. (With the self-mocking laugh of the damned) It's invigorating. I would recommend it sometimes, if you can afford a vacation.

EVAS (slowly beginning to comprehend, but still fighting to accept what he's just heard)

- I guess... I guess I had hoped for a different answer...

HANNA (with a sad, ironic smile) - Did you expect I would come running back to you?

EVAS (shuddering at her bluntness) - No, no - of course not! I would never dare imagine it - that you could still feel anything for me...

HANNA (her voice on the point of breaking, but fighting to seem in control) - We're not the same people anymore, you realize that.

EVAS - Of course. ...I had only hoped that... - oh, I must have been crazy! (Staring hopelessly into himself) ...I'd hoped that we could somehow cross a bridge tonight, meet like old friends in that place that nobody knows but us - that silent and lonely place where I've heard your defiant, encouraging laughter so many times... You were the only one who ever understood what I was looking for - Radian knew its parameters, but you - you knew its beauty!

...Was it all worth it? I have no choice anymore but to tell myself it must have been. A smile from you tonight, a glimpse of that light in your eyes - and I would have been reassured. But that light is dead: I'm the one who killed it. Was it worth it? ...I've sacrificed both our lives to it - was it worth all your pain and the sense of betrayal I now carry in my heart? ...What have I done?!

HANNA (after looking at his miserable, bent-over figure for a long while - with a dawning sense of compassion) - Maybe it's none of our doing, Ev. Maybe we never had a real choice...

EVAS (laughs strangely and heads for the door, looking at her one more time before he exits) - That's a very generous way of putting it. I hope you have a good night, Hanna.

HANNA (alone now, whispering) - ...How cold it's suddenly become! (She reaches blindly for the wall and leans against it) Why - isn't this the moment I've been dreaming of for all these years? What am I afraid of? ...God, how I've loved this face! ...These lips, this brow, the play of shadows in his eyes... - so close now, I could reach out and they'd be mine again... Is it possible? Do I dare imagine we could go back?... (Her eyes seem to glide down a wistful stream of memories, then suddenly an expression of pain crosses her face) But back to what? I was lost in him, drunk with his passion - the worlds he was treading like a god, yet which to me seemed ephemeral like misty islands in the sea as I watched him sail away every morning ... I've watched him dream of them at night and cry in his sleep, possessed by their beauty and terror, and I cried with him, unseen, so strong was my longing to follow him there... What did he know of it? How could he ever understand what it was like - that fear of losing him to every dream he reached out for, to that creature he yearned to become even as he slept in my arms?!...

(After a pause, recomposed) How strange, that I should live to ask myself now: was that true love, or mad self-immolation? ...Perhaps one cannot be without the other - but then, how I must have chaged! (Shaking her head) ...No, I cannot do it: I can't imagine living with such pain again... such uncertainty... I can't imagine life away from Radian... Does it mean I've grown old? But he has changed, also... Perhaps our desires aren't as pure and simple as they used to be, as unclouded by anxiety... But the truth is the same: it's too late. I love Radian, at least as long as love is something that lets us live. (Lights off)

Scene 8

ANDREI (fired up) - That's how we played it last time!

EVAS - But it's absurd! A command is a command, you shouldn't be able to choose! Radian would have never accepted these rules.

ANDREI (triumphant) - He not only accepted them, he wrote the notes himself! You should be able to recognize the script...

GREG - So who wins?

ANDREI - Ah - nobody, I'm afraid. That's no longer the point. We play until the notes - the chips - have all been exhausted.

GREG - And then?

ANDREI - Then we can start all over.

IVAN - You could deduce from this that we are all losers.

EVAS - Except for he who plays so well that he never receives a command?

ANDREI (surprised) - You mean - who manages to remain on the outside?...

EVAS - Yes.

ANDREI - I haven't thought of that. Do you think it's possible, though? It's a long game...

GREG (pondering) - So the weakest hand has to pick... And what if you can't decide between answering the question and obeying the command? How much time do you have to think it over?

EVAS (contemptuously, taking a seat at the table) - Don't worry, you'll know right away which is the least compromising. You can trust your instincts.

IVAN (with a strange smile) - And what if you want to fulfill both?

ANDREI - Excuse me?

IVAN - You heard what I said. What if you want to accept both challenges?

ANDREI (puzzled) - Well... I suppose you can keep one for your next losing round...

IVAN (under his breath, taking a seat) - That was not what I meant, but it doesn't matter. Alright, let's get started!

They divide the cards and begin playing. After a few moments, the telephone in the hallway starts ringing. All freeze.

GREG - At this hour?! I don't believe it!

ANDREI - What do we do?

IVAN - Hanna will pick it up, let's just keep going.

ANDREI - What if she's asleep?

IVAN - You can be sure there's a phone in her room.

ANDREI - Then why isn't she answering?

GREG - Listen, it's probably Radian - it's five hours earlier in New Jersey, he's most likely feeling lonely, and the last thing he wants right now is to make conversation about your kids' whooping cough.

ANDREI - What if it's not Radian?

GREG - Then who? The Municipal Library?

ANDREI - I don't know- maybe Dan... Maybe he had an accident, maybe he's in trouble... What if he needs help?

GREG - Dan?! Don't you think it's a little too impertinent, even for his standards, to call and say he's running a little late? Be reasonable, who else but Radian...

ANDREI (ready to pick up) - And still, what if...

GREG (trying to stop him) - Andrei, leave it alone, are you crazy?

The ringing stops.

ANDREI (reproachfully) - It might have been important...

They sit back at the table, somewhat vexed with each other. The playing continues in silence for a few moments.

IVAN - How cold it is...

GREG (looking around, half-frozen) - This is incredible, five minutes ago I was ready to take my robe off...

ANDREI - The wind is blowing in from the sea, can you feel it? There's a storm hanging in the air.

GREG - Then we should close the windows. (He gets up and tries to close the doors to the terrace, without success. Furiously) What kind of lock is this?! (Andrei gets up to help him, then Ivan, without better luck. Evas alone is left at the table, staring emptily into space, without even registering the others' efforts)

IVAN (stepping out on the terrace and bending down to have a look at the rail. Suddenly he lets out a surprised whistle, then gets up with a disappointed look:) - Forget it, no point in trying any more!

ANDREI - Why?

IVAN - It won't close.

GREG - Why not?

IVAN - Take a look. There, in the corner. Do you see that vine? That thick, woody one, creeping in from under the stone slab?

ANDREI - That's what's blocking it?

IVAN - Yes (he demonstrates).

ANDREI - How about them - don't they ever shut this door? Autumn's almost here...

IVAN (shrugging) - I'm afraid they'll have to cut it, if they want to close this room off.

GREG (losing his patience) - Look, gentlemen, we can have a fascinating discussion about this tomorrow over breakfast - but what do we do right now? I'm so cold I can barely unclench my teeth, and my fingers are turning a sickly shade of blue as we're speaking...

IVAN - We could go to my room, but the only way we can play is on the bed.

ANDREI - My room is the same... I don't see any solution other than putting on something warmer and coming back here. ...Evas! Evas!

IVAN - Leave him alone, he doesn't hear you. I'll bring him one of my sweaters. (He pulls Andrei by the arm and all three exit through the right)

Act III

Scene 1

IVAN - ...never look in the mirrors at night: their waters are charmed and deep, much deeper than what you think you are seeing, much deeper than you dare to imagine... From these waters you should stay away, for into their darkness many a traveler has lost his trace, and if you ask around, not one is known to have ever returned from that bottom of the world... Some say the path is fastened with stars, growing ever closer and louder as one pushes on - others, that heaven's straps give way under your feet and you fall through the world's transparency as if through a great water that slipped out of its bed; some see multitudes like a dazzling snowfall before them, others are transformed into a scream, deafened as they are by the loneliness of this endless flight - some get dizzy with height, the others become mad with fear as the tumble takes them ever deeper into the bottomless netherworld... (He pours himself a glass of wine and raises it to the image in the mirror, but he stops with a mocking laughter) Humbug! Pure humbug! All there is to see is a pair of breeches: nothing falling, nothing rising. A red sweater on top, (he steps back) and there - the shadow has moved. And fancy, here's the glass: crystal reflected by crystal, even a night such as this too powerless to swallow the light of their difference. There, now it's all clear as day: shoes, belt, watch, hands, shirt collar, not to mention... (He seems to freeze. The hand holding the glass drops, trembling, his voice becoming once again a tense whisper) ... Never look at yourself in the mirror, at night.

The place where he is now plunges into darkness. The living-room seems empty for a few instants - until, from an armchair facing the back of the stage, a powerful sneeze can be heard, followed by a thud and two legs stretching out - the creature getting up now is none other than the mask at the end of Act II. Nothing has changed in his appearance, only his gestures seem clearer now, more decisive. He rubs his arms, trying to warm up, then, reassured that he's alone, he starts to pace around the room with a remarkable self-confidence, as if forgetting where he is. He walks deliberately along the walls, feeling the contours of every piece of furniture, every picture frame, as if moved by some long-suppressed tenderness... Reaching the open door of the terrace, he instinctively looks up to the immense, star-filled sky, and a nervous shiver shakes his entire body, making him turn around. He seems blinded, terrified for a few instants - but then, gradually, he relaxes and, still avoiding to look back, heads toward the mirror. With slow, unreal gestures, he now takes the brown paper bag out of his pocket, opens it and spreads its contents before him on the floor: a brush, a few boxes of cosmetics, a tube of lipstick. He folds the bag neatly and stuffs it back in his trouser pocket, then turns to the mirror and stares down into the space before him, immovable, as if before a life-and-death decision. Then, slowly, his eyes begin to rise along his own reflection until he sees himself staring back - and a short moan of sorrow escapes from his throat. Trembling, he bends forward until the colorless lips of the mask meet their reflection - then he quickly drops to his knees, opens one of the boxes and starts applying eyeshadow to his face. The light fades out rapidly, as with Ivan earlier.

Scene 2

HANNA - How deep the sky is tonight... I don't think I've ever felt so much space stretching out before me (she touches her eye furtively)... Or maybe it's inside me that this void has suddenly opened - in the hour of this new, strange loneliness, like a sad and peerless wonder... (She raises her hand into the beam of moonlight, looking at it as if she's seeing it for the first time) What is happening to me?

A deadly coldness blows all around me, yet deep in my heart I feel the weight of something painfully tender and mysterious - like a burning tear, like the whisper of a muted prayer... (With a shudder, as if shaking off a dream) What strange thoughts!... What prayer? Whose tear? (She has a quiet, tired laugh) This house has no room for mysteries. (She exits through the Right, picking up a fallen book on her way out)

Scene 3

Greg and Andrei enter from the Left

ANDREI (laughing) - Five times!

GREG - Really? I hadn't noticed.

ANDREI - I counted them!

GREG - I wonder where he is - he should have gotten back before us.

ANDREI (looking around) - And Evas? Where did he vanish?... Oh, we'll never get to the end of the game like this! Listen, why don't you wait here, in case they show up, and I'll go look for them upstairs? (He exits through Right)

Greg lies back on the sofa, takes a fountain pen and a notebook from his pocket, opens them and reads slowly, making a few corrections as he does so.

GREG - "... we used to live in a world of peaks, where superiority - be it religious, national, artistic or political - was constantly asserted, where Power endorsed ideas, creeds, values and in the process changed the face of the world by enlisting Art to build its effigies. A stratification of values and potential was deemed intrinsic to the human spirit and as "unjust" as some of its implications may have been, it represented a ladder for man to climb on, it gave scope and ambition to human existence.

Today we live in a world where the very idea of such stratification is equivalent to a crime. Equality is the supreme, the only virtue, giving justification to every act of self-indulgence, every wasted life, every abandonment of moral and intellectual standards - every one, that is, except those which ensure our smooth performance within the Game. We have shed all superfluous knowledge, habits, trains of enquiry - all that became irrelevant to our survival and increasing comfort. We look at each other and shrug - how am I different from you, how is the world I am ready to shape different from yours? The rules of assimilation and efficiency are universal. The world has never before played the Game so homogeneously, nor been more effectively deaf to those who tried to alter its rules. Between the coercive mass movement of communism and the persuasive mass movement of capitalism, the common denominator is the same: man no longer reaches for his highest as an individual, but waits for the great alluvial flow of history to carry him toward a poorly defined goal that is comfortably out of reach, comfortably unchallenging to his present station.

We all want the same, and that sameness has become our new face, our new soul. And while we still have amongst us world conquerors, the Art enlisted by the new elites only reflects the values and language of our modern world - which are as vague, timid and subservient to the God of the Masses as our own individual lives... (He skims over a couple of pages, mumbling, then finds what he was looking for and reads out loudly, clearly satisfied with himself:)

What we don't seem to realize is that the greatest cultural works of the past have always been an expression of one human being's effort to become something greater - be it politically, spiritually or artistically. From a medieval craftsman to a Michelangelo, the mentality of the past was one of extraordinary devotion sustained by belief in one's individual ability to eventually reach that perfection one was striving for: their art was a covenant between one man and his highest potential.

Today - our covenant is with each other, with the great Mass. And while neurotically individualistic, we don't dream as individuals anymore. We don't dare reach for the highest in ourselves, because the truth is that that highest has always lain beyond the sphere of social responsibility, and we are too afraid to be seen as turning our back on the great Mass deity. The crime of heresy has been replaced with that of social independence - for it is, it seems, more commendable to drown with the ship than to point to the means of individual escape.

That is the tradition we need to recover: the lost faith in our legitimacy and reach as individuals, the memory of who we are - otherwise our humanity has no hope for a future."

EVAS (coming in from the terrace) - You're back.

GREG (scribbling furiously) - "...the face of what we are is changing as we speak..." (Looking over his notes with a measure of pride) "The Alzheimer Society: toward a modern Utopia"... What do you think of the title?

EVAS - For what?

GREG - I've been asked to contribute an article to the Journal of the Arts and History Academy.

EVAS (disinterested) - I see. (He rubs his eyes and drops heavily into a chair) Where are the others?

GREG - Coming in a minute. Do you still have the score?

EVAS - I think so. Any idea what time it is? This clock seems to be going backwards now.

GREG (looking out the window) - Close to two, I would say. (Reproachfully) We're all going to pay for it tomorrow, you realize that.

EVAS - What's so important about tomorrow?

GREG (getting up) - Ah, there they are! (Andrei and Ivan come in from the Left, laughing, and they all sit back at the table. Evas takes the score sheet out of his pocket and lays it in the center)

ANDREI (looking over it) - I'm afraid it's your turn, Greg.

GREG (amused) - Already? So what do I have to do - pick two fortune cookies?

ANDREI - One red slip, one white. Read the notes, then choose.

GREG (unfolds the first note and reads it out slowly) - "Shut up! May you never speak again from this moment on until your dying day - not in sound, not in thought, not in gesture. May your eyelids close and the wind rise from your marrow like a howling sorcerer till your breath is wasted, your skin cracks up and your bones are all that's left to the world!" (Perplexed, then bending over with laughter) Well well, but these are genuine curses, not your average dare! If the second one is equally funny, I'll have no choice but to take my leave of you, gentlemen... Let's see (he reads): "What is written on page 78 of the green book?" (Shaking his head, dumbfounded) Dear Lord in Heaven, how should I know?! Really, this goes beyond my wildest expectations: the man is a genuine nut! (Getting up to leave) Hope to see you all in the morning, gentlemen!

ANDREI (timidly) - ...Why don't you read? The book is right there.

GREG (stunned) - I beg your pardon? ...You mean it's that easy?

ANDREI (bringing an old, worn out book from the glass cabinet) - Why not?

GREG (shaking his head) - But this is complete nonsense... (Staring contemptuously at the cover, he shrugs, opens the book and reads mechanically, unconvincingly) "Today...(he coughs, clears his throat) today it's too late to return. My knees are sinking deeper and deeper into this mist, nothing I can do about it now, the smile of death is on my lips: at this hour the dreams metamorphose, the error is made flesh... Blind, blind, resign yourself to the blindness - only remember a day will come when you will see. How long? How far? Will I remember? How is one to cross all this time?... I'm feeling sleepy, again - ha, yes, again - how wonderful and strange this always is... How sweet it is to fall, to tumble down through this mist - everything getting brighter and warmer - the crack of dawn, I think... Everything getting brighter, hotter - whose heat, I wonder?... My knees are burning, I smile - but by virtue of which memory? I can't remember ...Without believing anymore, without hurting anymore, without remembering... - I shall remember. I shall remember." (He stares at them, surprised) I have the feeling I've read this someplace else before.

ANDREI - Is that all?

GREG (turning the page) - I think so - it's followed by something with a different title.

ANDREI - The end seems a little abrupt.

IVAN (grinning) - Didn't you hear what the man said - he couldn't remember anymore! But it's funny, you know - it did sound somewhat familiar to me, too. Take a look, Greg - who wrote it?

GREG (turning the pages with an increasingly perplexed expression) - This is... What the devil...? In what order...? (Exploding) What kind of book is this?!

IVAN (getting up to look at it) - What's the problem?

GREG - Look for yourself: there's no publisher, no index, no authors, the pages seem incomplete or skip from one story to another... although - look, the numbers appear to be in order!

IVAN - Are you sure there are no torn pages?

GREG - No, that's what I thought, too, at first, but they don't seem to be mixed up... Here, look at this - there are paragraphs that seem to extend beyond the margin, phrases that vanish into thin air - and here, here even the syntax seems upside down!

IVAN - Who would print such a thing? Who would be interested by all these odds and ends?

EVAS - Radian might have put it together himself...

GREG - Come on, this is ludicrous! To what end, for God's sake?

EVAS - How should I know? Perhaps to have some laughs at our expense... but then I'm puzzled - why all these annotations on the side of the page?

ANDREI (turning the pages with a feverish, frustrated excitement) - Damn, I can't understand a thing! It's the most impossible handwriting I've ever seen!

EVAS (gently taking the book from his hands and throwing it on a table) - Stop racking your brains over it - it's all so jumbled up you can read anything you want into it. Let's just get back to our game - you're not going to get to the bottom of Radian's excentricities in one night. Come on, (getting them all back to the table) let's just finish the game, it's getting absurdly late.

They all take a seat back at the table, playing for a while without saying a word.

GREG (at last) - I wonder who did the binding on Radian's book - I think I'd like that texture for my next monograph...

ANDREI (his eyes suddenly fixated on a point at the base of the "wall" separating the stage from the audience) - Holy mother of Jesus, that's one hell of a crack!

GREG - Where?

ANDREI - There, can't you see - at the bottom of the wall, right where the moonlight is falling now... How could I have missed it? I must have spent half the afternoon in that chair right next to it...

EVAS - Better keep your eyes on the cards, you've started to make mistakes.

GREG - Where is it? I can't make out anything, this light is in my eyes.

ANDREI - I wonder how it happened, these walls look so solid...

IVAN - It's probably the soil - boggy, no doubt, being so close to the water. (Seeing the opaque expressions on the others' faces, he goes on, overly bored) Well, it's very simple, really - soft soil, the foundation begins to slide, walls begin to crumble. Whoever designed this house should have seen it coming... Now can we get back to our game, please?

GREG ( after a moment of silent play) - Flush!

They lay their cards on the table and Ivan stands up, calmly waiting.

ANDREI (pushing the open box before him) - Good luck!

IVAN (picking up two notes and reading the first) - "Don't come back..."

GREG - "Don't come back"? Back from where? Is this it?

IVAN - This is it. (Shows him the note)

ANDREI - ...Maybe it's incomplete. Come on, take the other one.

IVAN (smiling wistfully) - But there's no need...

GREG (hurrying to unfold the second slip) - ...What is this?

ANDREI (takes a look; dumbfounded) - "Then it's up to you" ?! ...I have no idea what this means. It must have gotten in here by mistake.

GREG - I agree - this is by far the most confusing of all these outlandish riddles we've been given tonight.

ANDREI - I'm sorry, but I don't see any other solution than having you choose one more...

EVAS - Wait - it's really all very clear: one of us must ask the question, that's all. Can't you see?...

GREG - Oh, yeah? And what shall that be?

IVAN - Go on. I don't mind.

GREG (quickly, playfully) - Can you make me a puppet?

EVAS (rushing to stop him) - No, wait! Wait! Please... (a little nervous now, as if suddenly he woke up to the gravity of the moment) I have a question for Ivan! (With anxious, almost begging eyes) Please...

GREG (with a condescending smile) - Go ahead, he's all yours.

EVAS (a little emotional) - Thanks. (Turning to Ivan) If I asked you to make me a puppet, what would you make it out of?

GREG (jumping) - What?! Is that all? Is that your million dollar question?

IVAN (startled, intrigued) - Why are you asking me that?

GREG - Let him at least tell us the reason - the lucky bastard! There's fortune for you - some get their tongue cut out while others trade off their exile for a mere question!

IVAN (laughs out, amused, but decides to get into the game) - OK, I'll tell you. I'll tell you... (He gets up and starts pacing, thoughtfully, seeming to search for his words) Hm... When I was a child, we used to play a game, my friends and I: we'd run around each other, chased by the one kid who had "the curse", or "the illness", as we used to call it, trying to avoid being touched by him - because once you did, you became the sick one. The point, you see, was that he couldn't stop - he was supposed to run until he caught one of us. Now, there was one way to avoid getting the "curse", if you found yourself in imminent danger - and that was to freeze in your spot and yell: "I am a fish!", or "I am a bird!", or any other such thing... The trick was, however, that the only way you could leave your spot and get back into the game was to be touched, in passing, by those kids who had been designated as your "true nature" or "driving force" - anyway, that was the basic idea... So we used to shout these questions, hoping the others would hear and rescue us: "Where do you come from, Beast?... From water and from earth! ...Where do you come from, Bird? From fire and from ashes..."

Anyway - years later, I had a dream: I dreamt about us children, playing that game, running and shouting and pulling each other back into the circle over and over... But the only question that I seemed to remember, the only question that came to my mind was - "where do you come from, Man?"...

It was one of those dreams that leave you with the distinct certainty that you've been given a momentous answer, only to lose it upon your awakening. I knew I had been offered a glimpse - something had changed inside me during the course of that night, I could feel it... but instead of a vision, all I could evoke was an extraordinary sense of longing... Whatever it was, it entered my body like a sudden illness, and from that day on I never again knew what it was like to live free of it.

"Where do you come from, Man?" ...This question - it became my obsession. The answer was there, locked inside me - I could sense its presence turning up like a mocking ghost: on a street corner, behind someone's face, waking me up from the deepest dreams, waiting for me at the bottom of the most complete absolution a man is capable of receiving... No longer a day passed, nor even an hour, without its shadow growing inside me, as a shape grows inside a block of stone - increasingly colder, increasingly whiter while the world was becoming dark around me like a madness - the same cloud of disenchantment dissolving its contours every time I gazed upon it, the same scream tearing up my insides every time I closed my eyes... But what was this vision, then - the Form bathed by the light of this inner sun?

...I searched - for months, years... but none of the objects I found cast such a shadow. Exhausted, disillusioned, at last I gave up. I turned back to the world of superfluous and accidental things, the world I knew... I tried to forget.

And then, one day, unexpectedly, it came back to me - the source of my dreams - more clearly and lucidly than I could ever hope! I closed my eyes, and there it was: the tension of the arm ready to tear itself out of the block of stone, the tension of this movement predestined to never consummate itself - and the fire, that inextinguishable thirst of the blind, empty sockets... (Opening his eyes with a muted and mysterious fever) If we could only arrest it in stone - this tumult that keeps crashing against our breast from the beginnings... if we could freeze at last the unrelenting flight toward infinity, if we could, for one moment, make the wind fall and understand then that the transcendence is found only in our broken, bleeding wings - and, understanding this, if we could pour into marble all that is fire and strain in their soaring...- would this exorcism be able to at last free us from the curse of Beauty, the curse of Creation?... (He pauses, as if caught up in a dream, then looks at them smiling) I knew I had my answer.

EVAS (after a moment of silence) - So, then?

IVAN (shaking his head, laughing) - So... I make puppets.

EVAS - Out of marble?

IVAN - Out of marble.

EVAS (quietly, almost to himself) - You're lying.

IVAN (surprised) - What did you say?

EVAS (same way, through clenched teeth) - ... out of flesh and blood you're making them.

IVAN (very pale) - I'm afraid I don't understand.

ANDREI - What's the matter? Come on, guys, let's get back to the game, we're running out of time...

EVAS (without seeming to hear him, now fixing Ivan with a heavy stare, as if possessed) - What you're waiting for... that kiss... I remember now, Ivan... what you've just told us...

IVAN (trembling, but still managing to keep a smile on his lips) - Now the answer is mine. What was doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? It doesn't exist - it's been paid for!

EVAS - And what if he'll prove you wrong?

Ivan stares at him for a moment, without answering, then takes his place back at the table. They continue to play quietly for a few minutes.

ANDREI (dreamy) - Can you feel it? A scent of jasmine drifting in from outside...

IVAN (same play) - Yes, I can smell it too... It feels like jasmine and something else, a flower I don't think I know. (Attentively) How strange, though...

ANDREI - What?

IVAN (uncertainly) - I had the impression, for an instant...

ANDREI (impatiently) - Well, what impression?

IVAN (same play) - That it wasn't coming from the terrace... the scent... but from behind.

GREG (ironical) - From the wall?

IVAN - I don't know, I told you, it was just an impression.

ANDREI (disturbed) - Perhaps not...

GREG (laughing heartily) - Well, that's just what we were missing - the myth of the human sacrifice walled into our vestibule! Come on, people, I know it's late, but I'm not in the mood for spooky tales - this night has dragged on long enough for my taste.

IVAN ( with a hiddden grin) - You're right. We should try to keep ourselves in check. (Showing his cards) Whose turn is it?

GREG (checking everybody' s hand) - Looks like it's Andrei's. (Pushing the box in front of him) Please dare, my dear, the time is passing and I'm dying of boredom.

ANDREI (picks up the note and reads, on a child-like tone) - "What would you like Santa to bring you?" ...Ha, ha - fancy that, they were right all along: he does exist!

GREG (not believing his ears) - Who?

ANDREI - What do you mean - "who"? Santa, didn't you hear?... (Suddenly his cheerfulness drops; with a start, aside) But maybe this is it...? Is this my chance? Ha - is it possible, could I really ask for it?! Perhaps... - in a wild and improbable moment such as this... when nobody would expect it... when nobody's looking...

IVAN - What are you mumbling?

GREG (ironically) - Will you really ask for something?

ANDREI (decisively, fired up) - Yes, yes! (Passionately, pleading) They say it exists, they say people have come back from there... Is it true? Do we have reason to hope, then? Do we dare hope?... (Quieting down) Is it true they don't die? Is it possible that nothing but a threshold is crossed, that memory and love are not forever lost?... Then maybe - maybe we shall meet again. Maybe it is not the hideous mouth of Oblivion we are stepping into, but a boat, a raft that will carry us across to the other shore, where we become what we have always yearned for... where there is no more fear, no more thirst, no more doubt... (Doubt suddenly creeping into his voice) ... Only - who knows how far the ocean stretches on? How many lifetimes it takes to cross? Do we want to remember? Could we bear the thought?... (With a deep shudder) And do we know... do we know beyond doubt that the other shore exists?... Who told us it did?! What if there's nothing there, and we're condemned to drift forever into this this endless, stormy night, with no hope of revelation, no hope of daybreak?! (He clutches his head, ready to collapse) What do we ask for, oh God, what is the greater mercy? That we forget and are forgotten, stepping off the raft, falling to the bottom of your bottomless ocean, to be swallowed back into the quiet obscurity of matter? Or that we remember? Ha... - "that we remember"... that there is no end to fear... - shall we then fear eternity itself?!

GREG (sarcastically) - May I remind you that the hour is advanced and we're all eager to finish this game? Come on, ask for your toy and let's go home!

EVAS (looking at him attentively) - Maybe he can't make up his mind.

IVAN (consoling him with an ironic tone) - There, there, it happens to other kids, too. Why don't you open your other present? (Seeing that Andrei doesn't make a move, he opens the note himself and reads:) "Go to the kitchen and find yourself a piece of bread. Once you find it, break it in two. You can swallow one piece, but the other one - guard it like the apple of your eye. And by the way, drag a stool under your bottom - it's gonna take a while. Now, take the second piece and break it in half. Swallow one piece. Now the remainder - break it in half, swallow one piece. And what's left - break it in half, swallow one piece. Now the remainder - break it in half, swallow one piece. And what's left - break it in half...

GREG (tearing the note out of his hands and turning it incredulously on both sides) - Fantastic! Someone is making fools out of us all, gentlemen!

IVAN - I'm beginning to develop the same suspicion.

GREG - Then it's time to end this stupid charade, don't you think? (He gets up from the table)

IVAN - Just a minute... Evas, you're the only one who hasn't eaten his fortune cookie. Aren't you a little curious?

EVAS (getting up) - No.

ANDREI - Ivan is right - we should find out what's in the last two notes. Maybe that will explain everything...

GREG (shrugging) - Your loss... Does anyone want some tea? I think I'll go make some more. ...It must be past three, the moon is on the other side of the house now. If I don't find something to knock me out in the next half hour, I may as well stay up and wait for the sunrise... (he goes out mumbling to himself, through the Left)

ANDREI (after a pause) - What's gotten into you, Ev? It's a mere game... And earlier - with Ivan... - what was all that about? I found what he said quite moving - in fact I never thought Ivan capable of such obsessions until tonight... Felt like some kind of poetic testament, don't you think?

EVAS (his eyes still closed, quietly) - It wasn't his testament.

ANDREI (without paying attention) - I mean, sure it sounded a bit grandiose - things like "exorcism" and "curse of creation"...- not the best choice of words, if you ask me, but...

EVAS (interrupting him, impatiently) - He has no choice anymore, Andrei.

ANDREI (stops, confused) - What do you mean?

EVAS ( finally opening his eyes and fixing him with a fierce, ironic stare) - Daniel is here.

ANDREI (stunned) - What?!

EVAS - I saw him earlier, before you came back. And I think Ivan knows - did you notice how badly his hands were shaking when he dealt the cards?

ANDREI - But it's impossible... how come we didn't... and why wouldn't he...

EVAS (jumps on his feet and starts pacing, barely containing his excitement)

- Because Ivan wasn't expecting this, do you understand? Not now, not here - oh, God (he laughs, incredulously) not after all these years!... I think he just wants to give him a little time, let it all sink in...

ANDREI - Time for what? Let what sink in?! You're not making any sense!

EVAS (wavering for a moment) - Maybe... maybe I'm wrong... and then I shouldn't have said anything in front of you... But it all fits so well, and he - he didn't deny it...

ANDREI (exasperated) - What are you talking about, for God's sake?! What's between him and Daniel?

EVAS (quietly, almost afraid to utter it) - I think... I think it's a pact.

ANDREI - A pact?! What sort of pact? Since when?

EVAS (a little tired) - What sort exactly, I can't tell you. But I can tell you a story, and let you draw your own conclusions. (Lying back on the sofa, his hands clasped under his head, he starts, wistfully) ...Have you ever heard of the uncertainty principle?

ANDREI - Of course, it's an equation that everyone learns in the most basic introduction to quantum physics - but what the hell does that have to do with anything?

EVAS (like before, as if adrift in a dream) - It is more than a mere equation, Andrei. If you've heard of it, then you probably know of its physical significance - the fact that it undermines our notions of matter and vacuum. But did you know that it also applies to Godel's metalogical analysis - the very basis on which our scientific edifice is built? What it proves, in short, is that we'll never be able to create a theoretical system which is both self-consistent and complete. Mathematics, the most perfect of human tools, will never be able to create the perfect object... It's strange, isn't it - on one hand, matter and space defying our attempts to quantify them, balancing each other so perfectly that, put together, they're only one of the many possible expressions of Nothingness; on the other hand... the pervasiveness of this indetermination... What's this irreducible uncertainty that the world reveals - matter about its very existence, structure about its own validity - why should just such a principle lie at the foundation of the Manifest?!

ANDREI (lost) - That's very interesting, only I still can't see the connection...

EVAS (triumphantly, almost manic) - But Ivan does! He does, I'm sure of it - why else should he have mentioned Godel to me this afternoon?! Look - how can I explain it to you?...Imagine a pendulum: at any given time, that pendulum will be in motion - unless...

ANDREI (trying) - Unless someone forgot to give it its initial impulse...?

EVAS - Or - unless that impulse is sufficiently large to turn the pendulum 180 degrees - to arrest it in its position of highest potential energy!... I'm afraid your solution is no longer an option, Andrei - the impulse is already there: we're all proof of it... It's what Ivan called "thirst".

ANDREI - Can you not slow it down? Stop it? I thought that's what he hinted at... Isn't that the purpose of creation, to find rest in the completeness of a perfect object? Isn't that what he told you last night, as you both bent over that broken glass? I was right behind you, remember - heard every word of it...

EVAS (with a strange, painful smile) - ...Did you also watch him throw away the pieces? No... He clenched his fist over them as he walked away... He clenched it so hard that I could see drops of blood seeping through his fingers.

ANDREI - Jesus...

EVAS - Do you still think he's found peace, Andrei? Do you still think he believes in that perfect object?

ANDREI (shaking his head, still unconvinced) - But... I don't understand: he just said it - he trusted in nothing but his marble toys, nothing but his creative urge!

EVAS (fiercely, unleashed) - That is where you are all drawing the wrong conclusion - in fact he drew it for you, and you picked it right up - never mind the inconsistencies! (Trying to temper his excitement, to order his thoughts) Alright, try to remember: what did he say just before that? What was the form that revealed itself to him after all those years?

ANDREI (hesitantly) - I don't recall exactly... something about strain... the movement of an arm...

EVAS (impatiently) - "A movement predestined to never consummate itself"; the unquenchable thirst of those empty sockets staring blindly into space...

ANDREI - Well, I think I can imagine it... - in fact I must say he's not even that original when it comes down to it - I must have seen that expression in scores of marble figures by now...

EVAS (slowly, with a barely contained tension) - Very well... Now try to imagine that your marble figure is a live human being.

ANDREI - But that is insane! Why would he do something like this?! Why would Daniel agree to it?

EVAS (shrugging) - I don't think it was Daniel who had to agree - my bet is that this was his idea.

ANDREI (exasperated) - And exactly what idea was that? To pluck out his own eyes? To spend the rest of his life staring blankly into space?

EVAS (carefully choosing his words) - No, not merely "into space", but at something that lies out there... A kind of source, perhaps... - so subtle that only an unbroken concentration can keep it into focus... and yet so precious that one would agree to sacrifice his life, all his creative powers to it... Remember the pendulum, Andrei... What if one were to keep pushing that thirst to its limit? What would happen if one forbade himself the dissipating release of creation, denounced every apparent solution as a trap, an illusion... Where would such a path lead?

ANDREI (after a pause, shaking his head) - Fine, let's agree for a moment that you are right - but why would he need to involve anybody else? Why a pact? What does Ivan have to do with any of this?!

EVAS (hesitantly) - I'm not sure, but I suspect...I think it has something to do with the dreams... I think Ivan may be a kind of outlet...

ANDREI (still skeptical, trying to make sense of it all) - But what exactly are they after, for the love of God? What is the point of such an exercise?!

EVAS (chuckling quietly, as if to himself) - Balance... The tension of unbroken symmetry... the very source of our thirst. (Seeing the other's puzzled expression) Look, there is... there is an abysmal, hypnotic aspect to mathematics, and its effect is not one that can be cured by the mere formulation of a theorem - or, in Daniel's case, the completion of a piece of marble. One would think this enough, isn't it, one would assume that as long as the model fits the experiment, the formula describes the facts, the problem has been solved - the brick is baked and ready to mortar into our great wall of scientific progress. (Laughing) It's solutions we're after, isn't it? You, me, all the other millions like us who get paid to provide the world with functional portraits of itself - with the certainty it needs to go on living! We're its unrecognized, covert army of shrinks, purging it of its nightmares, getting it on its feet each morning and pointing it in the right direction - assigning projects and goals, flattering its ego, convincing it that anything other than its boy-scout curriculum is utterly unhealthy and ultimately self-destructive.

ANDREI - But what is the alternative, Evas? The paralysis of the Dark Ages? The myth-filled dreams of the primitive? There is nothing but madness and regression lying that way. We've got to believe there's something more out there to be found, an underlying principle...

EVAS (laughing strangely) - "A principle"?...

ANDREI - Is that it?... Is that what's happening? You no longer believe we can find it...

EVAS - It's not that simple, Andrei... How can I explain it to you? That grand, unified theory, the recursive formula to which we once hoped to reduce the whole field of differentiation - this immemorial journey upstream to the source of Mandelbrot's spirals - today it seems to me to have been nothing but childishness, a misplaced illusion.

ANDREI (uneasy) - But if evolution is not linear, where do you stop? Where do you start from?... It's not possible, Evas - there can only be one way, one beginning!

EVAS (with a barely contained fanaticism) - "One". And if we were to return to it, Andrei? Oh, can't you see that nothing can save us anymore from the meshes of this story, this veil we have woven around ourselves? Don't you understand that we have long ago become reverberation, that there is no more fulcrum point, but only a distant shore in search of which we have already circled the world a thousand times?

"One"... Do you still believe that this is the shore? Ha! Can't you see how fragile its mornings are, how black the turmoil is underneath the cliff, how menacing the tide grows day and night? Neti, neti! as long as there is the sound of the wave crashing against the stone - this cannot be the Shore! As long as my mind grasps for it, clings to it - this cannot, cannot be the shore!...

ANDREI (weakly) - But if that's so, where shall we look? What's left?

EVAS - I don't know. I'm not sure...

He starts walking slowly, his hands in his pockets, smiling absently as if in a day-dream, or like someone who's just left all their worries behind. At last he stops before the open window, the pitch-black sky shimmering with stars, and he begins softly, entranced:

EVAS - Points... points of light in the dark... from them flows all the geometry of the world. They appear and then die away, flickering for a moment in the boundless void... With them begins and ends the Concept, through them exists all that exists - but there, beneath the limit of the first property, there where the Unimaginable becomes manifest, where Chaos is articulated into Space - what are they?!

We come from one mystery to slip into another: that eternal century promised us lasts no longer than the crossing of a threshold... Is its light so overwhelming, then, that it should flood everything, both behind and ahead of us? The light... - the light of what?... (picking up objects from the table) of such a biscuit, of this scrap of flowery silk?! Ha! So be it, then! (Suddenly frightened) But then - why is it that we have no sleep, on nights like this? What intuition, what secret impulse keeps our eyes wide open, as if it tried, through us, to let some of that primal darkness drip back into the world?

So little time - and yet so much... Which way does the mystery lie? Understanding why it goes on? Or maybe how - the morphogenesis of the world - or maybe... maybe there is only one mystery - this one: of our waiting. Where from the dream that clouds our retina? What is this background resonance we carry in our bones - the history of which cosmic cataclysm? The memory of what face?

ANDREI - I thought you didn't want to look back anymore.

EVAS (laughing) - Indeed. But where are we now? In which direction is this night flowing, Andrei? ...Backward? Who knows? Forward? Until when? All the details of an eternity are contained within this moment - but which of them will one day slow down the momentum of evolution? Which of them contains that divine reflection? "We"? Is there a bridge between the geometry of our consciousness and the life-breath of this endless night from which we are born? Is there a solid shore? Ha! "I don't believe!"... Indeed, I don't see one... I can't see one... It is beyond my power to believe that I will ever reach it - yes, Andrei, for how else could I have defined it, this Absolute of yours? It is beyond reason - the very thought of this journey, carrying me ever further from all that can be expressed, and still never closer to the Unimaginable... And yet it is beyond my power to look away. (As if possessed) I must go on. We all must go on... We all feel it - here, in our guts. But why? Why keep on going? (After a pause) ...Because every step we take into the void awakens unknown, unborn gardens. "Unborn"... Andrei, do you understand how heavy the word is? Possible - all these structures hidden within the flesh of the world like the fossils of as many creatures buried under an eternity of sand! "Possible"... To what extent is this possibility an existence? A necessity?... And the echo of my steps, the thrill of each hesitation - only the inexorable propagation of the wave that was meant to open all these gates?!

...Could it be any other way? Could we survive any other way? Or are we nothing but photons in this powerful torrent of differentiation, condemned to exist only for as long as we remain in motion?

ANDREI (after a pause) - So you think this is what they tried: to freeze that motion...?

EVAS (finally seeming to come out of his trance) - I don't know - I told you, it's all speculation... There's still an awfully good chance that all they did was smuggle moonshine for the last six years... (He laughs quietly, pours himself another glass, then goes to the window and seems to immerse himself in the view)

Scene 4

ANDREI (after a while, grinning strangely as if to himself) - Do you remember what you said yesterday? ...It doesn't matter - but that fragrance, you know, I felt it again - here, tonight. That same impossible feeling, like the touch of some unearthly flower... (He seems to wait for the other's reaction, but as it fails to come he gets up and starts walking slowly along the "wall") There, you can still see it... (Suddenly staring around with the intensity of a madman) In steel... and in wood... and in stone... on these walls the light shall fall tomorrow at dawn and for a whole day the chestnut's shadow shall dance across the white, cold lime... and in the flesh. ...Everything's here, so unbearably close... so unbearably real... (As if trying to wake up) Ha, I must be losing it - look at me, getting dizzy over a crack in the stucco! (He tries to move away, but seems unable to) ...Then I was right - the dream we dreamt of all along becomes a nightmare... What seemed to lie around the corner, even within our reach for some, has fallen past the edge of the mirage and beckons now from across the dark side of eternity... (He laughs quietly, bitterly) To pray that we remember - what foolish thought! That we remember what: the working of clocks and the germination of seeds? The people we lusted after or helped feed their children? The clever things we painted and the crowds who paid to see them? What comfort does that give me now - now as I stand upon this last shore, ready to walk into the sea? What does that have to do with the infinity stretching before me? Is there anything in me worth remembering, anything great enough to help my measure as a man, to be my raft across this boundless ocean?! Is there anything in me that dares match the abyss?... (He seems to gradually come out of his trance - he looks to the bar, but Evas has disappeared someplace, perhaps on the terrace) - Evas? Evas?... You're gone, too... (He comes back into the light, somewhat despondently. In a slow, half-absent tone:) - ...This morning I bought a pound of strawberries from the market. Where did I leave them?... (A low, subterranean sound like the resonance of some deep cosmic plumbing starts welling up from the walls for a minute - followed by tin-like noises, voices, cries of anguish - but all impossible to localize, erratic, like sounds carried by the wind through the fog.) I remember they cost me exactly 38 francs and the woman put them in a brown paper bag and when I got home Olga was boiling the green walnuts for the preserves - but when was this? Was it ten in the morning? No, it must have been later... half past twelve? Hm... it's strange that I can't recall... but I remember the bag had started to get wet - I saw this big red stain on the bottom, and when I took the strawberries out the bag just tore under... (A tremendous crash, like a thunderbolt, shakes the walls; the light flickers a few times, then dies out. After a few moments, the stage is flooded with a new light - blue-grayish, misty, without depth, like that of early dawn) Huh, how warm it is all of a sudden... Or maybe it's the humidity outside that makes it so hard to breathe... And this light... I seem to remember it from somewhere... but what was that place? How long ago? (He turns around, looking for something) I wish I could find the clock, it must be awfully late. (He freezes, seeming to remember something) "...the light of the sunless dawns and eternal twilight..." Where have I heard this before? (The disembodied voices are heard again, sounding like someone wailing - then a woman's whispers, tender and reassuring) Who is it?! Who's there? Now it came so close, just behind me! Why can't I see anything, what's there?! (He turns around visibly panicked as the noises seem to grow from all directions - there's a sizzling, cracking, bubbling, something sputters and creaks woefully - then, after a while, the sounds become more rare and begin to die down) Oh God, what's happening here? It feels as if something was coming undone, decomposing... And this heat, this crushing heat... Somebody open the window, please! ...I'd open it myself, if I could only see it... (Groping his way blindly) I should have hit at least a chair by now, or the wall... Ah! (He stops and listens, carefully) At least I can hear the surf from here, it means I'm close - oh, definitely, now I can even feel the moist breeze blowing across my face, indeed I think I even hear the seagulls crying... It must be almost dawn if the birds are up. I'll just go to the kitchen, make myself some coffee, maybe even grab a bite for breakfast, get an early start. ...This is rather strange, I should have found the bloody window by now, but I can't see anything at all. In fact... - how eerie - even the waves' rustle is gone now. And the wind... the wind is blowing from behind now, and getting harsher... (After a pause, in a slightly changed voice) It's cold, I think it started to rain... And the fog is so thick, I can barely see where I'm stepping. (The light changes again) ...It's gotten even darker, an impenetrable gloom seems to stretch ahead of me in every direction, and from it keep coming these terrible noises, like lost souls crying for help, and rumblings such as those made by mountains caving in... Once I thought, strangely, that I saw Mother ahead of me - one hand holding her womb and the other - a black urn; she was smiling at me and dancing and signing me to follow her... but when I got close enough and made to grasp her arm, she disappeared into the mist without a trace, and an unbearable sadness came over me then... I started crying out for her, I started calling her name and running, without seeing where, as my eyes were flooded by grief and my heart choked with despair, until I knew not of myself anymore... An immense precipice gaped under my feet then, and I fell through it like a point for a time that lasted a thousand lives or perhaps much more than that - for after a while I became used to it and forgot I was falling... (After a pause) Sometimes, in the wind-swept distance of these dark mists, it seemed to me that I could see trees or deserted huts, and a ray of hope entered my soul at the thought of finding shelter or even, possibly, some lonely inhabitant who could point me in the right direction. But each time, getting closer, their outlines scattered like smoke, and I had no choice but to leave these mirages and continue on my way. (The stage gets increasingly darker, he seems to melt away) ...Another time, an incomprehensible fear rose up inside me, welled up like a poisonous cloud - my body froze, everything suddenly became dark...(A cloudy, green-grayish light appears, and muffled sounds like at the bottom of the ocean) There was a terrible silence, strangling, like that before sounds were invented - before death meant anything... and I was crawling... I was crawling fearfully against the sand - still - still me - still my body, my urges - but I could now feel the goggled, fixed stare of the Other locked upon me, I knew he was there, just behind, swimming slowly above me - the broad mouth now gaping by itself, ready for any opportunity at the end of a hundred million years of evolution, a million revolutions in this spiral of errors and decisions...- the unbroken emptiness of the sand all around me, the endless wall of green, opaque silence into whose insufficient cloak I reach for my escape - how much longer to the end now? - the mouth that's getting closer - it's here - and beyond which I shall be no more... (Pause, the light dies down almost completely; when he speaks, it is with a changed, impersonal, almost chtonic voice) ...Sometimes, something changes inside us. Like a shimmer, like a flicker - then our limits get twisted, as if something is about to tear off. To break away... (A long pause, pitch dark descends upon everything... Then, finally, a whisper - warm, tender and very low - is heard, followed by several more - first a woman's, then a man's. The darkness begins to clear, the back of the stage is flooded by a golden light, then gradually the contour of the window becomes visible) ... What was this? ...And now?! ...Oh, what is this warmth enveloping me, what was that sound I just heard, tearing at my soul like the memory of a godly dream? And the light... The light... How much I thirsted for it!... (The whispers become louder as he crawls toward the window)

IVAN (entering from the Left with an anxious, uneasy expression) - Did you hear it?! A moment ago... (not receiving an answer) What an unearthly howl, it made the blood run cold in my veins... Sounded like it was howling at the moon - but what was it? - half-beast, half-man, if you ask me, that's how gut-wrenching, unrelenting and hopeless it all sounded... Hah - I bet it's that - that same bloody creature I ran into earlier on the beach... (Stumbling into Andrei) What are you doing here?

ANDREI (unable to take his eyes off the window) - The light, the light...

IVAN - What do you want? What are you looking at?

ANDREI (his gaze singed by madness) - Where does this light come from - don't you see, all the shadows are crooked! What is beyond, tell me, what's there (clinging to his arm like a drowning man) where is all this light coming from?!

IVAN (pulling back at his arm) - From the moon, you idiot, where else?! (Measuring him condescendingly) Why don't you get yourself to bed before you crack your head - I think you've had enough to drink for today. ...Ha, what a question! (He tears himself from Andrei with a dismissive gesture, then looks around carefully, with a preoccupied and anxious air, before finally exiting through the Right) ...What could he have in that bag - the fool? Damn it, I must find him before daylight, before he gets to the others!

Andrei, who has been crawling on toward the light, finally manages to reach the door to the terrace - once there, however, something he sees makes him stop. With a transfigured expression, he gets up slowly and remains standing on his feet - straight, calm, suddenly awakened from a dream:

ANDREI - ...The blinding brightness of the midnight sun then shall you know - but monstrous and terrifying...(with a grin) for it is not the Sun you know, this - but altogether something else... (he steps out onto the terrace and disappears; the strange light fades)

Scene 5

Hanna enters, barefoot and in her night gown.

HANNA - How cold it is! A strange wind is blowing through the house, like some long-forgotten language... Could it be its touch that woke me up a moment ago?... I dare not think how late it must be. (With a shiver) It feels as if ages have passed since last night, that's how changed everything seems now... (She looks around, a little frightened) Why... why is it that I can't seem to recognize anything? Why does everything look so unfamiliar... and yet so close, like a shadow following me from a dream? ...Where am I?! (She clasps her hands to her chest, visibly disoriented and distressed, as if crossing in and out of a sleepwalking state, then starts slowly stepping back toward the door, her eyes fixed upon something at the center of the room as if upon a specter.)

IVAN - Where could he be?! I've looked for him everywhere, even out on the beach... He's avoiding me, that's clear. But why? Why is he still here, if he's afraid to face me? He's up to something, I'm certain of it, but what the hell is it?!... (He freezes, as if a thought just flashed across his mind) Could it be possible? ...No, I would have known. I would have seen it... (With an incipient but gnawing doubt) Unless... unless it happened just a few months ago... after the dreams stopped... Why else would he refuse to see me? Why did he call Andrei instead? Oh, this is just maddening! What if he's found it?! All these months, locked up in his studio - what if he's had it all along? What if... (in a strangled, almost horrified whisper) what if it's already there - carved, finished, waiting in a corner, while he's playing all these stupid hide-and-seek games with us?... (He seems to sink into the thought, but then quickly straightens up and runs out the door with renewed determination) I'll find him, by God, before the night is over!

Scene 6

Greg enters from the Right, dead tired, shuffling his slippers and looking at a notebook he carries open in his hand.

GREG -"... the face of what we are is changing as we speak. Take a good look around before the gates close over the millennium, for the man you knew may become an extinct species in a few generations." (He shakes his head, displeased, crosses out the latest paragraph and turns the pages back:) "...All our efforts, our acts of altruism are concentrated in the direction of equality and justice - an admirable goal, but one which has so monopolized our resources that we run the risk of waking up one day to find ourselves in a world-wide kindergarten class, with no history and no goals. But childhood contains within it the potential for self-challenge, courage and imagination. Do we, at this stage? Perhaps a more suitable analogy would then be an Alzheimer ward - the final step in our unrelenting march toward Utopia..." (He poises his pen in the air, as if trying to complete the idea, but after a few moments of futile effort he closes the notebook in sheer despair and collapses on the sofa) Oh, Lord, what a colossal waste of time this day was! And this cursed night... I've been dragging myself for hours around this place, insufficiently tired to sleep, insufficiently awake to understand what I'm doing on my feet. The clocks have stopped, it must be very late... If I at least ran into someone else - I've heard them, they're all up and about, I don't think anyone is sleeping anymore... It's like an ill wind sweeping through the house, the air seems electrified, as if something is about to happen... Oh, and this rustle of the ocean, this ceaseless rustle seeping into one's subconscious more insidiously than a clock's ticking, this perfidious monotony is driving me crazy! How can they go on living in this place, what kind of nerves do they have? ...Oh, if I could just pull myself together a little... if I could just manage to write something, or at least sketch down some ideas, so this time wouldn't be wasted - so I don't feel it crawling through me anymore, tearing my insides apart... But there's no way, God knows I've tried: somehow everything seems meaningless and skewed tonight. (He starts) Who's there?... Strange, I thought I heard someone sneaking in behind the bar... How tense my nerves must be... (Looking out the window) Lord, it's as if time forgot to flow - daybreak should have been here ages ago...

A VOICE - Today I made seashells.

GREG (jumping back, frozen with terror) - Ah?! What was that?

THE VOICE - They were small and pink and made a rustling sound when the water flowed over them...

GREG (trembling uncontrollably and backing slowly toward the door) - Ivan, is that you? No, but this isn't his voice... This is nobody's voice... Sweet Lord in Heaven, I think I've gone mad! What will Vera say? How am I going to face my publisher?! What will happen to my work, oh God, who will see to it that it is brought to a proper conclusion, that it receives its due place in the annals of posterity?!... (Stopping ) Collect yourself, man, this cannot be allowed! You have a duty to yourself, your fellow man - to history! You owe it to them!

THE VOICE (sarcastically) - But not at all, my dear chap - I daresay you owe me nothing! (Greg jumps and tries to run toward the door, but his legs give way and he falls helplessly on his knees. The mask now sneaks out from behind the bar, whispers in his ear, then runs out with a demonic laugh) Anyway, do you have to leave ashes?...

Thomas enters through Left, throwing his jacket on a chair. He walks to the bar with a contented, dreamy expression on his face - then sees Greg's crouching figure and stops, shaking his head.

THOMAS - I'll say - the classic look of indigestion! Have you been eating biscuits all this time?!

GREG (turns with a startled look that is instantly relieved at the sight of Thomas) - Ah, thank God it's you!

THOMAS (ironically) - Thanks, I never knew you felt this way. I would have asked you to join me for a walk on the beach...

GREG (getting up and rushing toward the other, after a split-second of perplexity that he decides to dismiss) - Is that where you've been all night?! ...Anyway, perhaps that was your luck - then you didn't see it?

THOMAS - See what?

GREG - The ghost! It was just here, a moment ago - but I could sense its presence all night long: this house is haunted! Ha! I never thought I'd hear myself saying such things, but it's true... whatever it is, there's something sinister and palpable here, and everybody knows it! They're all awake, you'll see, you can ask them!... I don't know about you, but I'm leaving right now - I'll walk to the hotel if I have to!

THOMAS (smiling, undisturbed) - Are you afraid?

GREG (with an attempt to regain his dignity) - "Afraid"... no - yes... - no, of course not!... But my sleep has been disturbed - and hence my work! I can't afford another night like this - deprived of a proper diet, dragged out of bed, abused by lunatics and insomniacs... - not to mention frozen to death by a door that won't close!

THOMAS (laughing quietly) - Ah, that's just because the vines creep through as soon as you open it...

GREG - Yeah - well just keep it shut, then! ... Are you coming?

THOMAS - No, I think I'll just lie down here for a while... Maybe take a nap.(Greg shrugs and heads toward the left back exit. With him in the doorway, Thomas seems to suddenly remember something) ...By the way - the hotel is always booked solid on Saturday night... Whatever ghost you're running from, I'm afraid you'll have to share your bed with it again, sooner or later.

Greg looks at him with outrage, then turns on his heels and exits through the Left. The slam of a heavy door is heard a moment later. Thomas chuckles, then stretches out and lies down on the couch, falling asleep immediately with a contented smile on his face. A few seconds pass, then Hanna walks in from the Right, in her nightgown, talking to herself and seemingly oblivious to everything as she crosses the living room and exits through the Left.

HANNA -... But then - what I'm feeling now - this surging, this rushing, this rapture of self-affirmation - who is it for?! It's love, it's love - only love such as I've never known before! Where is it coming from? Who is it for? Neither of them alone, both of them... - no, for I can empty my mind of them and it still keeps on streaming out of me like a wild fire... this "thing" that I want to give... this "thing" that I am... (exit Left)

IVAN - Where has he disappeared again?! I almost had him, but he slipped through my fingers when he heard the floor squeak... (Exits Left)

IVAN - At last! Stop, you sneaking, two-faced bastard! You've fooled with me long enough! Do you have any idea of what you've put me through?

DANIEL - What do you mean?

IVAN - "What do you mean"?! Ha! Why did you stop writing?! What happened?

DANIEL - I had nothing left to say.

IVAN - Where did you disappear? I tried to reach you, I even drove up to the village one day, hiked all the way up to your hut - I thought perhaps you had fallen ill. I feared the worst...

DANIEL (narrowly avoiding his clutching plunge) - I was fine, really - thanks for your concern.

IVAN (with another attempt to tackle him) - How was I supposed to know, you ingrate wench?! When I got there, you were missing: your hut was empty, not a trace of someone living in it, not a note of good-bye... When I asked around they told me you had gone over a month ago, and left no word of where you were headed. (Finally catching up with Daniel after one last, desperate effort, and pinning him against the wall. Gasping, hardly able to articulate his words:) So... have you... have you found it?

DANIEL (evasively) - Found what?

IVAN (exploding) - You know what! You know bloody well what! Just answer me - have you found it?!

DANIEL (phlegmatically, almost mockingly) - The face of God? No.

IVAN (skeptical) - "No"... (He stares into the other's eyes intently, for a very long moment, as if trying to force a confession out of him... Gradually, however, his demanding superiority begins to waver under the other's calm, unflinching gaze) Are you sure?

DANIEL (laughing out loud) - Now that's a strange question!

IVAN (grabbing him angrily, exasperated, as the shadow of an impending understanding begins to cross his mind) - Then why are you here?! What right do you have to be here?!

DANIEL (recomposed, staring him calmly in the eyes) - I'm coming back, Ivan.

The last words had the effect of a dagger - Ivan stares into Daniel's face with all the horrified disbelief of a dying man, then his hands let go of their spastic grip and he stumbles back, crushed.

IVAN (with bitter, exhausted irony) - Welcome, then. Join the ranks of the defeated. (He turns to leave)

DANIEL - Wait! Please, Ivan, let me explain...

IVAN - There's nothing to explain - you're tired of looking for something that doesn't exist, right? You've had enough of staring into the mouth of madness, enough of silence... enough of doubting and rejecting every vision, killing every conceivable form for no other reason than the fact that it was conceivable...

DANIEL (trying to interrupt) - But...

IVAN (with increasing bitterness) - We must have been insane to think of it, right? How could I let you do it?! Sacrifice your youth, your most creative years - for the sake of something that isn't even out there!

DANIEL (bursting in) - But something IS out there!

IVAN (arrested) - What? What did you say?

DANIEL - Ivan, that's what I'm trying to tell you... (Quietly) I saw something.

IVAN (turning back and facing him) - You saw something... What?

DANIEL - I don't know if I can explain it to you...

IVAN - Ah.

DANIEL (quickly) - No - no - it's not that!... I just don't know how... how can I make you understand... Oh, Ivan, there's so much beauty there... so much love that way... Throbbing, unbearable passion... and light... It was like hitting a wall of light - and one just couldn't go any further because the brightness, the love that was radiating from it was too strong... It cannot be contained, Ivan, one just cannot swim any further upstream...

IVAN (shaken, yet only half-believing) - Why didn't I see it, then? Why was there no such dream?

DANIEL - It was the most lucid experience I've ever had - no dream, no thought, no emotion has ever felt so real...

IVAN - Then you've got to go back!

DANIEL (continuing) - ...But after that night I found I couldn't do it anymore - I couldn't dream...

IVAN (grabbing him) - You've got to go back! You've got to go further until you see what's at the center, and bring it with you, carve it yourself for all of us to see!

DANIEL (tearing himself away from his frantic grip) - I can't! Aren't you listening to me?!

IVAN - Why?

DANIEL - No more form lies that way, don't you understand?! That's why the dreams stopped! There's nothing you can grasp, nothing you can bring back... (quietly, as if to himself) except, perhaps...

IVAN (with a glimmer of hope) - Except what?

ANDREI - Uh, nothing, you won't understand...

IVAN (threatening) - Except what?

DANIEL (turning to him) - Desire... (He laughs quietly with gentle, childish delight at the other's puzzled expression) Yes, Ivan - unashamed, animal desire for all that's around us. All that love, Ivan - I need to carve it, in flesh, in stone, in wood, in this wretched heart of mine that has been cold and bare for seven years... (Pointing to a graceful Chinese sculpture by the door) Look at that alabaster crane - isn't it exquisite?... What else is there to seek, but the skill and compassion of the man who created such work?

IVAN (dismissively, impatiently) - But these are all accidents, hallucinations, mere shards of the mirror!... Will you still be able to swear by them a year after they're completed? ...Ten years?

DANIEL - I don't know. Possibly not. Probably not... But I am a stone carver, Ivan - that's what I do, that's why I'm here. Look at my hands: seven years have not erased the cuts, the chalk that's seeped into them, the memory of what it's like to touch raw, virgin matter. My hands are hungry, Ivan: I can't deny them anymore!

IVAN (with a desperate plea) - What about the rest of us? Where will our faith, our visions come from, if you return among us? Who's left to keep the gate ajar? ...And you - oh, Daniel, how can you be so blind? How long do you think you'll be able to sustain it - this skill of yours, this thing you call compassion?! You poor fool - a year from now we'll both be carving wooden ducks!...

DANIEL (fixing him with a heavy stare before he turns away) - Then we'll only be back to where we started seven years ago, won't we? The world is soft, Ivan... What good does it do, pretending it is not? What good does it do to dream the impossible?

Hanna, Andrei and Evas, who have all returned, attracted by the commotion of the last few minutes, are now silently witnessing the end of their argument. As the last words are spoken, Ivan turns away in disgust, and they all rush to Daniel, talking to him indistinctly, touching him, hugging him, pulling him in different directions. Suddenly, Daniel appears to lose strength in his legs, he bends over as if in pain and starts sliding down along the wall. Prolonged, visceral moans come out of him as he rolls on his side, his knees pulled up to his chin - he seems to writhe and jerk and struggle with some extreme agony, while short spasmodic breaths alternating with gut-wrenching screams begin to pour out of him uncontrollably. Ivan is the only one who seems to understand what is going on - the self-assurance he's been exhibiting all night is now gone. He becomes very pale, trembling, and suddenly jumps back, pulling away with dread from the squirming figure reaching out to him

IVAN (quietly, lost) - You wretched fool... Why? Why?!... What have you done? (He pulls back slowly as the others gather around Dan, fascinated, forming a tight circle above him, but still too stunned and confused to help him. All of a sudden, Andrei steps back, horrified:)

ANDREI - Oh God - he's giving birth!

With a shout of surprise Hanna and Evas rush down on their knees and start helping Daniel. As the screams and overall agitation reach paroxysmal levels, no one seems to notice Ivan walking over to the edge of the stage, beside the "crack", with Radian's book in his hand. He opens it and tears out a page, then pulls out a cigarette lighter from his pocket, sets fire to the sheet of paper and holds it over the edge - watching with a pale, transfigured expression as the burning pieces begin to break off and fall into the dark void beyond the stage, illuminating it for a brief moment. He seems to waver, overcome by a hideous fear, yet at the same time hypnotized by the vastness of the space he intuits ahead of him. Then, with a frozen, manic expression, his hands visibly trembling, he tears out one more page, lights it up and raises it slowly above his head, like a torch. At this point Evas lifts his eyes and calls out as if trying to stop him; Ivan looks at him for an instant, with a half-defiant, half-hopeless smile, then turns around and plunges into the void - being instantly swallowed by the darkness, together with the rest of the stage...

Scene 7

HANNA (slowly) - It's almost dawn...

EVAS (without taking his eyes away from hers) - Yes. Soon the morning star will disappear.

HANNA (turning to the window) - Do you believe he'll come back?... (With a glimmer of hope) I called out to him... and once I thought he heard it, he seemed to wave back at me...

EVAS (looking down, not wanting to crush her illusions) - He was already too far, Hanna. The current is very strong there...

HANNA - How cold it is...

EVAS (wrapping his jacket around her bare arms) - It's late. We should go back, there's nothing left to do here now.

HANNA - No, you're wrong... I have to call Radian, I have to tell him...

EVAS (gently) - Radian is asleep, remember? The night is just beginning over there.

HANNA - Then... then I'll tell you.

ANDREI (interrupting them) - Look, the first streak of light on the horizon! (Turning and looking at the Wall) And the crack has vanished!... Maybe it was just a shadow...

DANIEL (coming closer, with a piece of bread in his hand; aside, as if continuing an inner dialogue, defensively) - Who said we were meant to find it? I don't remember...

HANNA (looking into Evas' eyes, holding his hands) - ...It was worth it, Ev - as the love I feel for this child makes it all worth it... It is the only thing we can know for sure...- what we have to give, not what we expect to receive; the act of sacrifice, what we become through it, not its reward: for we shall never know what the gods mean by that which they offer us.

DANIEL (same as before) - ...for seven years I've walked as if each step was the one that would take me over the brink... For seven years I've felt the vertigo of revelation gaping a step ahead of me... Perhaps that's all there is - who told us we were ever going to find more?!

ANDREI (with a sudden light on his face) - Oh, yes, now I remember! ...It was sunny, yes, the end of summer...perhaps the one I spent with Grandfather beneath the great walnut tree, at that old wooden table with a pot of coffee and two porcelain cups, watching each other through the filtered light without needing to say a word for hours on end... or perhaps that of the afternoons spent lying in the hammock - the monotonous, reassuring sounds of Mother's sowing machine drifting in from the house... then suddenly waking up to see the leaves above us floating ablaze on a tide of golden light into the sunset... or was it maybe the summer of the wind through the linden trees, when the streets filled with golden dust and sweet-smelling blossoms and the whirlwind of flowers chased people around like spring-crazed fairies, beneath that blue sky stretching endlessly on like the muted solitude of a desert devastated by light... - any summer, don't you understand, it matters so little now....

DANIEL - "Yes," said Grandfather, raising the cup to his lips.

ANDREI - ... the sky is still blue, just as blue as it was then, although so many years have passed... - oh, this deep, blinding blue that drains your heart when you gaze upon it...

DANIEL - "Yes," said Mother, gazing gently upon it.

ANDREI - ... this is how the wind used to blow then, do you remember? Like a promise, like a release, unsettling - in the morning and all through noon it swept across the streets, and the people would wait with their soup ladles suspended in mid-air, ready to cast them aside and come running, laughing with relief, at the first sign... - and then again, in the evening, it came - lingering, even more rustling, more intoxicating, with more certainty it came after us, when everyone went to brush their teeth... That's how it used to blow then, every single day...

DANIEL - "Little one, there should be some scissors on the kitchen table...", Mother smiled "...be good and bring them here!"

ANDREI - ... it had started to glimmer at us even from deep within the leaves, do you remember? The swaying poplars covering the alleys with shimmering yellow showers, as if the August light had been cut out in the shape of hearts and snowed over the earth - the chestnuts dozing heavily over the dying embers of their fruit rolled in the grass, the gossamer floating over houses and trees like sun-catching winks, the white, delicate birches...

DANIEL - ... the young men walking among the statues, the wooden benches with their flaking green paint, the stone fountains filled with dry oak leaves - their bleached old stone shimmering ever so faintly, so mysteriously under the morning sun, in the undisturbed peace of the hour...

ANDREI - The same hour as now - whispered Mother, letting her work drop on the floor.

DANIEL - The same hour as now - whispered the child, staring anxiously at the sky.

ANDREI - Yes.

EVAS (looking out from where Ivan had jumped earlier) - What will happen to the objects? And to all the light of this impossible beauty?

DANIEL (speaking with his mouth full, like one who is eating for years of starvation) - Be careful not to fall over, it's a dangerous place!

EVAS - "...everything getting brighter, warmer..." It will be daylight soon.

HANNA (with a hopeful anticipation) - Yes, Radian will know about it in just a few hours...

EVAS (glancing one last time over the edge of the stage, his face twists with an impossible mixture of pain, mockery and amazement. For one instant he seems to be ready to give up everything, as if something tore up inside him - then, with the same smile on his face, he walks to the window and pulls himself up upon the sill, leaning wistfully against the window frame, one leg dangling carelessly on the outside.)

- Then we shall all wait here.

GREG (knocking and entering timidly from the Right) - The hotel was booked up... Is the game over?

EVAS (laughing quietly, almost melancholically) - I don't know, I haven't read Radian's directions. Perhaps for him this is just the beginning.

GREG (with a helpless, exasperated revolt) - Again?! What kind of place is this, then - what is this cursed joke that rests on us?

EVAS (looking out over the ocean with a smile in which nothing is left but understanding and an indefinite, awed expectation) - ...from one darkness to the next, in unrelenting aspiration - with every new step, every gust of wind - in the same rhythm of space and time flowing past us as we are endlessly falling toward the center and circumference of His sleep...

THOMAS - Perhaps they forgot... Wouldn't that be odd, after twenty-five thousand runs?... (Turning back and starting to pace thoughtfully across the stage) I miss home... I dreamt about home - a little street sunken into night and heavy snowfall, a narrow street with tall fences and silent gates; I dreamt of a horse gallop among wet and balmy trees, on a street that vanishes into the deepest recesses of my childhood... (Looking up again toward the point on the ceiling, then to his watch) Ha! How is one to cross all this time? "...At this hour the dreams metamorphose, the error becomes flesh... "

Am I still here? It would appear so - but as what, then? Things emerge from and return into darkness, sounds crash against me, pour out of me and their memory seems extinguished before it's even born; I do - without understanding what, I crawl through time toward moments, I forget without ever knowing. Where have I disappeared? And if I'm dead - whence do I return on such evenings, to watch the spectacle of my indifferent dissolution? (The ceiling spotlight turns on him suddenly, blindingly, with a startling noise that makes him look up)

...Will I be born again? Who knows... In this life or another - everything is a night and a day... from the story's flesh we are born and into it we all return to lose our trace - on such evenings, on the break of other such dawns...

As he utters the last few words, he unhurriedly steps off the stage and walks along the aisle toward the audience's exit, followed by the spotlight. As he reaches the middle of the audience he stops for a moment to look them in the eyes, smiling - then the spotlight goes off and he continues on his way until he exits the room. The golden light of sunrise can be seen slowly rising through the windows, then all lights go off.