# First Draft for First Scene

LILY:  
It pains me so, my friend,  
To see you wither  
In body and soul,  
And to see wither with you  
The beautiful bond  
That bound us together for ten years.  
I once looked into your eyes,  
And they reflected joy  
In all things and beings  
Intimate connections.  
And your soul captured  
In glorious images,  
What sun and air  
Touching bodies in space  
And revealing the mysteries of existence  
In fleeting moments.  
Your hand was still clumsy,  
In rough colors,  
To embody what, like a flower,  
Floated in your soul.  
But we could both believe  
That the future would bring you  
The art of the hand to the joyful,  
In the ground of events  
Feeling soul.  
And now it is as if extinguished  
The once bubbling power of your inner being;  
How paralyzed the arm  
Which once, fresh with youth,  
Guided the brush.

HUMAN:  
So sad it is.  
I feel as if the earlier fire of the soul  
Has been magically taken away.  
And only dullly do my eyes see  
The splendor of things and beings,  
The sunlight spreads over them.  
My inner self remains almost numb,  
When changing atmospheric conditions  
Revealing the secret of being  
Present themselves before my mind.  
My hand no longer stirs,  
In the desire to hold what it has seen;  
And to force with the brush,  
To make the fleeting present  
Part of a solid existence.  
The urge to sleep no longer stirs  
In my heart,  
And dullness spreads  
Over all my thoughts.

HUMAN:  
It is so.  
When you  
In the dawn of our friendship  
Led me to that revelation of the spirit,  
Which spreads light over those darknesses,  
Which unknowingly  
Every evening enters  
The human soul  
And into which wanders  
Uncertain of human nature,  
When the night of death  
Seems to sensually cover  
The meaning of all life,  
Which, rising again, shows  
In ever-recurring life,  
What seems to have fallen  
To insubstantial destruction:  
Then I thought that  
Giving fire through all my being  
Such thoughts would pour forth their power.  
And I was certain  
That the power of sensual vision  
Could only blossom  
Through such fire.  
And I wanted to sense  
That artfully moving  
This fire would guide  
The dexterity of my hands.  
But what was supposed to carry me  
Towards realities,  
It took from me  
What I had,  
And the power of the highest life  
Became the breath of death within me.  
Whether I should doubt,  
Whether believe in the  
High proclamation—  
Even this I can no longer  
Think with clarity today.  
I see that the world I sensed can live,  
For in you it lives before me,  
But death came to me,  
When I began to warm my soul  
To the being that in you  
Formed the power of the new word.  
And I myself lack the strength  
To love you.  
1. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
I spoke untruths,  
I wanted to deny,  
That such words were comforting  
And often spoke to my soul  
To itself.  
For they justify  
That my thinking is  
Repelled by  
What I nevertheless like.  
And as a man  
Who has let two decades longer  
Of life's stream  
Pass him by  
Than you, he may well  
Attenuate a little  
What you have so confidently put forward.  
Surely there are moments for your soul, too,  
In which it shudders  
When a dark figure senses it,  
Which, as the origin of its being,  
Oppresses it like a nightmare.  
And when all thoughts  
Morphine promising certain effect  
Bounces insubstantially off the dark being  
That brought us into existence:  
Yes, then we feel:  
How meaningless the meaning of certain thinking is,  
It proves to be like useless metal,  
To enforce the flowing sea of life.

LILY:  
I have had to recognize for years,  
That my way of living the word,  
Has a scorching effect on people,  
Who trustingly enter the circles of my life.  
I must see how life-giving  
It penetrates all strata of humanity,  
How differently the paths of existence  
People walk,  
Each of them understanding in their own way  
What speaks fruitfully to their hearts.  
But if some want to live by my side  
What they otherwise so wonderfully cultivate,  
They die of hopes and goals.  
And there must be a highest for them  
No less than what is highest for me.  
In truth, only a terrible counter-image  
Is revealed of this.  
In you, my friend,  
The most terrible is revealed.  
I thought in the warmth of my heart  
To immerse you in what should carry you,  
But my warmth  
Became the opposite in you.

1. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
So one has  
Spent the long, beautiful years of one's life  
Recognizing  
What, as the fruit of a thousand years  
human thought  
knocks at our innermost being.  
In the fresh vigor of youth  
one grasped what  
through the turning of the times  
people had achieved as ideals.  
And what had been conquered on school benches  
and slowly matured through experience  
And what had slowly matured as experience.  
However, upon closer reflection,  
It became apparent  
That what had been achieved  
Barely touched the heart's longings.  
The most powerful thoughts,  
Which originate from searching human minds,  
Seemed to provide answers  
To many questions,  
But when they wanted to approach  
Feelings, they were weak.  
And when they were supposed to be  
Guiding stars for desires,  
Then their powerlessness became fully apparent;  
And the excessive power of old habits,  
The secret power of tradition First image  
Took humans into custody.  
And now the new proclamation steps before the soul,  
Admittedly didactic,  
But as if with the vitality  
It seems to encompass  
The entire network of thought  
And to shape character,  
Attacking the innermost being of man.  
I have learned to think differently through many things;  
To be able to be different seems to me  
Possible only through such revelation.  
It seems right to me that teachings  
Are shadows against life,  
And that the essence of man  
Remains a shadow itself, if it  
Indulges only in ideas, far removed from deeds.  
But here words themselves seem to be life  
And teachings seem to be a weaving force.  
So it seems to me when I consider  
The effect on some,  
Whom I see standing in the light  
Of what is nothing to me  
Like one worldview among many.  
To us, who have matured  
In a different way of thinking,  
Such an effect seemed explainable only  
Where overheated sectarian spirit  
Lulling the souls  
Poured over the people.  
But here one is far removed from all sectarianism.  
One speaks to reason and spirit.  
But through them one finds  
The noble fire of the heart;  
Even the strongest powers of the will.  
And not in overheated verbiage,  
Which with many words  
Always drips the same self-evident,  
Comfortable things into undemanding souls,  
Such an effect is achieved. —  
I must admit that thoughts  
More subtle and comprehensive at the same time,  
Than we ever find in our philosophies,  
Form the foundations here.  
And that nothing places such demands on thinking and feeling  
As what we see growing up  
On our soil.  
But for me, experience  
Cannot be what it is for so many.  
It throws some off track,  
Gives others joyful hope and security in life.  
Gives joyful hope and security to others.  
But I have learned too much  
Not to know  
That somewhere the crack must gape.  
I see the effect;  
But I cannot  
Believe the cause to be true.  
I want to understand,  
Understand with everything I have brought with me  
From hot striving for clear fruit.  
It is as if, no matter how much I want to surrender myself completely to this labyrinth,  
Everywhere - as if my critical mind  
Were being repelled  
As something that this world  
Cannot bear within itself.  
Cannot bear within itself. First image

2. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
I must, in the fullest sense,  
Confess myself  
To what was last said.  
It even seems to me  
As if we must exist more strongly  
On the strictest denial of this way of thinking.  
We should not consider  
Only the value of high ideas and ideals,  
Which the thinking being can give birth to.  
We must examine whether the foundation is solid.  
And the foundation of this edifice  
Is fragile, wherever one grasps it.  
Admittedly, no one knows where the source of thought springs from  
And where the foundation of existence is laid.  
As if from the unknown,  
The nature of things  
And human existence seem to reveal themselves. —  
But we only have certainty in life  
When we trust our senses  
And the reliable revelation of experience.  
Our reason points us in that direction;  
And if we cease  
To follow our reason,  
We sink into uncertainty.  
This teaching denies  
The sure foundation of experience;  
This view confuses  
The firm providence of thought.  
People who, through true support,  
Want to build their way of life,  
Must not allow themselves to be blinded  
By fanciful dreams  
And figments of the imagination.

LILY:  
Little is concealed  
In the circle of serious thinkers  
Of a woman's judgment.  
I have seen,  
Since I have served for ten years  
The lively research,  
Which is to be the source  
Of future human deeds,  
More of bleeding hearts,  
More of longing souls,  
More of broken souls,  
Than in other circumstances  
Is even imagined.  
But it can hardly be formed into concepts,  
As they are now known,  
What my soul sees alive.  
I appreciate the flight of your high ideals  
I appreciate the flight of your high ideals  
And the proud certainty of your knowledge.  
I know that at your feet  
Sits year after year  
An exquisite audience,  
And that your books  
Flow forth for countless souls  
The most beautiful news of wonderful people.  
And I also know  
That if you continue on your path,  
You will bring many gifts  
From your sanctuary  
To suffering humanity.  
But neither of you realize  
That the demands of new times  
Are written in the heavens  
In mysterious signs.  
New life is needed by the aged  
tree of humanity;  
And if you live  
even in the safest of circumstances  
according to old habits  
and find only what the old urges you to do,  
you will care for the bark of the tree,  
but see its living marrow die.

1. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
I have seen refreshment flow from my words  
Into the hearts of many a student.  
Many today struggle in the hard fight of existence,  
Pondering from morning to night  
Over difficult calculations,  
And when they have leisure  
In the rush of a useful life,  
He remembers how long ago  
I opened up the poet's soul to him,  
And this is sunshine for him  
In his difficult life.  
Many students have become my friends;  
In them I could see  
How the goal of my striving  
Continues to prove itself.  
I do not believe my life is lost,  
Even if the nature of the new spirit  
Does not fit into my way of thinking.  
So I may hope  
That for times to come  
A part of human destiny  
May be determined unassumingly  
By my kind of work. First picture

LILY:  
You need not take anything  
From your words,  
Even if the flight of the new spirit  
Seizes your spirit,  
And your part,  
Instead of closing itself off  
In a narrow circle,  
Joined the whole of life,  
The light pours over everything,  
Because it wants to flow out into the universe.

2. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
Uncomfortable seems to me  
The dazzling dream light of your speech.  
In a narrow circle  
Must strive,  
Who wants to strive for the salvation of the whole  
With more certain strength.  
The forces that should add  
The fruit of my labor  
To the whole of humanity's welfare,  
I can leave them untouched.  
The whole has always accepted  
What was useful to the individual.

LILY:  
That is just the old habit of thinking,  
And the world will have to find itself  
In other paths of ideas.

1ST WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
At least to me it seems  
One-sided, the spiritual current  
That you serve.  
I heard a lot about lofty ideas today,  
About spirit beings and soul worlds.  
You gathered us here,  
To be in a world,  
So it seems,  
That could be worlds away  
From the worlds that lie just a few steps  
Out there beyond the windows.  
So little sounds even  
A reflection of it.  
And yet how significant  
It was just this morning  
In the city where we dream here.  
After weeks of stormy speeches,  
After terrible turmoil  
Of endless passions  
A law has been passed today,  
By which the armies of starving people  
Will look forward to Sunday  
With happier hearts in the future.  
It seems to me that more of life's  
Current truly flows  
Than in the halls  
Where even the most luminous ideas  
About ghostly beings and the depths of the soul  
About spiritual beings and the depths of the soul resound.

2. WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
And it seems insubstantial here,  
That one of my teachers  
After years of research  
In a life of renunciation  
Finally found a means  
To alleviate a suffering  
Which has brought certain death  
To thousands so far.  
And finally, if one wants to see  
Where life flourishes and the future shines,  
Then look at the man  
Who dwells here in our midst,  
From whose mouth one hardly hears  
A word during long evenings,  
And who from morning till night  
Stands in the creative space.  
A man of pure will and strength.  
Where others speak, he acts.  
Many spoke over there.  
He remained silent; in his ideas  
The blessed work  
Of tomorrow's day certainly lives on in advance.

1st WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
My young friend  
Has just praised your work.  
It has long been my desire  
To see at your place of work  
What is of such benefit  
To countless people.

KING OF WILL:  
It will be my pleasure  
To see you once at my place.

2nd WILL-O'-THE-WISP:  
May I also join my friend?  
Even though my work follows different paths  
Than those shown at your place of work,  
I will nevertheless be deeply interested  
I will nevertheless be  
deeply interested  
in seeing a technically perfect  
mechanism.

KING OF WILL:  
When may I welcome you gentlemen to my home?

The man with the lamp enters, and Lily takes a few steps toward him.

LILY:  
I have often heard about you.  
And that is why today is important to me,  
This, our first encounter.  
But so far, I have not heard a word  
From your mouth.  
And yet I have been told  
That there is so much to learn from you.

MAN WITH THE LAMP:  
Who told you about me?

LILY:  
A man often comes here,  
Who has known you for many years;  
Only today he is not with us,  
He always assured me,  
That you are his true teacher.

MAN WITH THE LAMP:  
I only know that I myself  
Am a completely uneducated man.

LILY:  
He told me about it,  
How you explained to him  
The essence of plants,  
As if the spirit of the world itself  
Shone from every form.

MAN WITH THE LAMP:  
Then surely this spirit must be hidden within me.  
For I can only say  
What lives in my heart.

LILY:  
But my friend recognized  
The meaning of many deep mysteries  
Only after your heart  
Interpreted them for him.  
LILY:  
The deeper meaning of the law is fulfilled in your fate.  
You still have only to learn  
What your life should be.  
You are deceived by the appearance of error.  
You must recognize  
That there is a higher meaning  
To a human destiny than the everyday.  
If you only recognize the latter,  
Karma is not yet what it should be to you.  
Countless others may judge as you do  
At this moment;  
But you must not.  
If our insights  
Only change our views,  
They would be nothing.  
They are only something  
When life reshapes them.  
When suffering becomes  
A healing essence  
And joys spring forth  
From entirely new sources.

MAN WITH THE LAMP:  
It may be that in his wisdom he sees  
What I dream  
And speak as if I myself did not know.

LILY:  
He told me how he  
Accompanied you on your walks,  
Where you gathered herbs  
And roots,  
Which you procure for the druggists.  
And he told me  
How you led him  
To forbidden places,  
Where on hard rock slabs  
In the ground, barely covered by soil,  
Strange plant forms sprouted;  
And how in wild storms  
Thunder and lightning  
Discharged themselves there,  
But differently than  
People usually see them.  
Like the secret revelation of the elements  
Resounded in distant rocky heights.  
And many other things...  
............

MAN WITH THE LAMP:...  
Oh, it sounded  
So different from what your friend  
Spoke to me of these things,  
When I myself saw them  
Again and again on my quiet wanderings.  
But I hardly speak to myself,  
When what I have seen  
Lives in my soul.  
But I have often found  
That what I have seen  
Gives power to my words,  
To comfort those who are deeply afflicted,  
To solve riddles,  
Which were never riddles to me myself.

KING OF FEELING:  
What you say is so clear to me.  
Many words make some people  
Grasp the meaning of the world's mystery.  
But thinking, they will never grasp it.  
In feeling lies the light  
That shines into the depths.  
The outer world may search  
And penetrate the mind,  
But only deep feeling  
Can sense what lives within.

MAN WITH THE LAMP:  
I have often found people of your kind,  
Who had open hearts and minds  
For my visions,  
But if I wanted to be like them,  
My soul would remain empty.

LILY:  
Through you, a glorious image appears before me.  
The warmth of one feeling  
flows through the other's  
revelation and shines  
in the power of his words.

KING OF WILL:  
It lives in both  
The same primal force of being,  
In things it is creative essence,  
In people clarifying wisdom.  
The light of knowledge  
Is itself a creative force,  
As it has created  
Through the ages  
Being after being,  
So it reflects the reasons of things  
In many ways in human souls.  
The wise man sees it in ideas,  
The artist in colors and forms,  
The worker lets it  
Reign in his limbs  
Creative will,

SNAKE:  
Such speech could never  
spring from my own soul,  
But when I hear it,  
It runs through all my veins.  
I know its power.  
I hardly desire it myself.  
But it gives me strength,  
As I need it,  
When my path leads me  
Through life's heavy misery,  
Which strikes me everywhere  
In my varied profession.

LILY:  
I know your noble soul  
And know how you live only  
For others. Hundreds  
Have you cared for in their hour of suffering,  
To thousands you were an angel of comfort.

SNAKE:  
It would deeply shame me,  
Should I hear such things elsewhere  
From another's mouth.  
For it has always been clear to me,  
I only succeed in what I  
Do not speak of myself,  
What remains unknown to the world.

WIFE OF THE MAN WITH THE LAMP to the lily:  
That one can enter  
At any hour  
And in any presence  
Of my bright friend, I know.  
I seek my husband  
With deepest sorrow in my heart.  
I have experienced many blows of fate.  
But today, the heaviest weighs on me.  
Our son was the light  
that carried our hope into the future.  
He was a golden child from the very first day,  
and even when we tormented ourselves  
with hard, worrisome work  
Through the weary days,  
Our hearts were allowed to beat joyfully,  
As we thought of our child's future.  
And then he came home  
As if paralyzed in all his limbs,  
Broken in body and soul;  
He stood before his stern examiners,  
They had fed him for many years  
From their deceptive source of wisdom  
And when he was supposed to answer,  
His answers seemed to them  
Only madness

LILY:  
My friend, your son is  
Made of different metal  
Than that which melts in the crucibles  
Of those who reject him.  
Dead wisdom killed him;  
He is one of the souls  
That will be warmed  
By the wisdom that appears only as a dream  
Appears today to those  
Who want to proclaim errant wisdom  
To hungry hearts.  
I know the time will come  
When people of the sort  
That your child is  
Will receive the stream of life  
From our fountain.

MAN:  
Stay with me a while longer;  
I am anxious—so anxious.

LILY:  
Such is life.  
There is truly no need to eavesdrop  
On the changing of the day;  
Souls lie open  
In every word,  
And to the bottom of the heart  
One looks when they flow together  
The types, which only repeat themselves  
In the individuals who walk outside.

HUMAN:  
My soul was divided,  
While all this was going on here.  
I grasped only a dull fragment of life.  
In between, images of my own past  
Came to mind.  
I thought of the times  
When I came to you. First image  
Before that, I lived in my parents' house;  
Pride filled my father  
Every time a friend  
Told him what a promising son  
I was growing up to be.  
And when I then  
Came to art school,  
People always waited impatiently For the holidays  
To see how far their darling had come.  
Mother and siblings spoke  
With grandiose words  
In their circles about my talent.  
I myself was full of hope.  
Day after day, I felt my powers growing.  
And the blossoming of artistry  
Lived in my luminous dreams.  
Then, as if by chance, I heard  
Of the lofty teachings,  
Which seemed to me to sound from the depths of the spirit.  
I could no longer escape them.  
I sought their source.  
For a moment, I thought of fertilizing my creative power  
With the life  
That seemed to give me life.  
I found you.  
You lived in my painter's dreams;  
You guided my hand with your words  
Of enthusiasm,  
And my heart beat fast,  
Could I think  
That in my forms, my colors  
Would speak in another way  
The lessons of life that I heard every day.  
I followed the advice of my guide.  
In the silence of my soul  
I sought to awaken  
The source of slumbering powers.  
And as I hoped,  
The power became ever weaker;  
My hand ever more uncertain.  
But I hoped—I was told  
Told—so it must be.  
After three years had passed  
At your side,  
My mother died;  
And I traveled to my homeland.  
I did not recognize my parents' house again;  
What was once familiar to me was now strange;  
The people were foreign  
And their whole existence was foreign.

LILY:  
Why, O friend, do you now burden  
Your soul  
With memories that you often  
Told me about.  
I always told you,  
When the black power of such memories  
Rises in your heart,  
That a point of being  
On our path is still unconquered  
By you  
Despite your beautiful striving.  
Your soul was at the point  
Of its development  
Where it must be completely grasped  
By the luminous forces  
Creative power.  
In your inner center  
Only it may live first.  
And only when it illuminates  
All other members of your being,  
Do they glow with new life.  
Otherwise, they die within you  
More and more each day  
In this life.  
You will have everything again,  
If only that one thing  
Does not become powerless within you.

HUMAN:  
I have often spoken to you  
Of everything that separated me  
From people and things  
That I loved and that loved me.  
But there is one thing I have not told you.  
And it is precisely this that  
Filled my nights with fear,  
That filled my quietest hours with terror.  
I have left my homeland,  
But those who loved me  
Have, after years of heavy sorrow,  
Been reconciled to my path.  
And without sorrow I can think  
Of the place I left behind;  
Of the hopes I disappointed.  
But what I have not yet told you  
Is that I poured my expectations  
Into a second heart,  
Which eagerly awaited the hour  
When I should return.  
It wanted to hold me back  
When I came to my mother's funeral.  
The cause of unspeakable suffering  
Was my new path in life.  
And every tear that I  
Saw shed at that time  
Burned in my soul  
And creeps like an evil demon  
Into the thoughts through which  
I search for the bright heights.  
Often I have said to myself:  
I will bear my own fate with serenity,  
But that this has dragged a second person  
Into the abyss with me,  
Brings horror into my striving,  
It turns everything into a consuming fire;  
It makes my innermost being tremble in terror  
When I am supposed to be calm.

And now go in peace to the one  
Who shall guide you on the path of light.  
Today, he will have important things  
To sink into the depths of your soul.

1st GIRL:  
It seems to me as if my soul  
Has always known what this realm of ideas  
Has shown me as the meaning of the past  
And the goal for the future.  
Doubts never tormented my soul,  
Which lives in others, consuming them;  
But infinitely blissful  
Is the new life,  
That comes to me from these worlds.

2nd GIRL:  
Nor does it seem new to me,  
What is so doubtful to many;  
As if I had always thought it,  
So it seems to me that everything  
lies in the words of this teaching of life.

3rd GIRL:  
I owe my strength  
to the messenger who speaks to me,  
as if other teachings were impossible.  
I would be incapable of anything  
if what flows from  
this life were not true.