First draft: Third, Second, First Scene

JOHANNES:
O Mary, I owe you
What I am, you were my guide
Through the bright and the dark hours of my life
And you also led me there,
Where I received the first degree of consecration,
Where I was allowed to receive
The first stage of consecration,
Which gave me creative power.
Now that I stand before my friend, more mature than I was years ago,
May I also ask a question
That I used to modestly suppress?
I have seen you for a long time
Transformed in your whole being;
Your whole being seems transformed;
Your soul suffers under the heaviest pressure
And forces that hinder you
On your spiritual path
Seem to lie before you.
I know that many things are going on in your soul
For which I must still lack understanding.
But perhaps it is possible
That you may trust me,
Whether there is reason for my concern,
Or whether I am deceiving myself.

MARIA:
Comrade of so many meaningful hours,
The state of mind you have achieved
Must give you understanding of my pain. To speak a serious word,
To speak to you,
Is a sacred duty imposed upon me.
I have long felt this duty approaching,
But only now does my heart seem strong enough
To fulfill it,
And the strength you yourself
Have gained in your soul's struggles
Will keep you upright,
When you hear what the powers of fate
Have decreed for our lives.
We have lived through joy and sorrow
Together for a long time.
But today, the will of fate speaks
That our souls' paths
Must part from each other.

JOHANNES:
Oh — — this — — —
Oh, take back this word.
Destroy its sound.
It is the destruction of everything
That was given to me.
It is the destruction of my very being.

MARIA:
Reflect, O my Johannes.
It is not my will
That tears my soul from yours,
It is the sacrifice we must make.
It is the same will of fate
That has bound us together
And that we must follow,
Even if it seems cruel
To take what it itself has given.

JOHANNES:
Oh no — it cannot, it must not
Be the will of fate at this moment
Speaking from the mouth of my beloved.
I never doubted the certainty of your knowledge,
But it must be a mistake,
What you harbor in this hour
That kills me in my heart.

MARY:
It is so terrible
That I did not want to believe
in the certainty of my own being,
As it dawned on me as a premonition.
Not trusting myself,
I turned to Benedictus's certain knowledge.
His words were weighty:
“For the salvation of you both
And also for the completion of that work
Which is imposed on you in the fabric of the spirit,
You must loosen the bonds
That have bound you until now.”
So he spoke with a stern mind.
So he spoke with stern intent.

JOHANNES:
He too — — — — — — — —
He may say it,
You may believe it,
But my soul finds no echo. — — — — — — — —
For even the faintest glimpse
Of paths I should take without you
He sees
In dark desolation, which pours
Confusingly before my eyes
And my strength wanes
— — — — — — — —
I cannot.
(stammering)
O Maria — — —
Benedictus must also be allowed to err.

MARIA:
How closely connected he was to me,
I feel it now,
Since I must loosen the bonds
That connect me to him.
Yes, I feel it deeply,
A part of myself
I separate from him.
Oh, the view seems almost lost
In the bright heights of my mind's eye,
Since he must be missing from my circle.
But I want to keep my courageous spirit...

Benedictus Maria

MARIA:
In the most difficult struggles of the soul
Your daughter begs for your advice.
Dark premonitions rise
From within me, which I tried in vain
To fight against.
But no sooner has the strongest resistance
Banished them for a short time,
Than they rise again, terrifying.
They must be delusions,
For if they could be true,
They would be the destruction of another human being.

BENEDICTUS:
It is so often the case that people
Consider the truth to be a delusion,
Because it must be born of pain.

MARIA:
But in my case, it seems
That the truth is killing itself.
It has forged with strong bonds
Another person's soul
To my soul —
And now it wants to undo
What it itself has bound.
Johannes, my companion,
To turn away from me,
Commands me the dark premonition
That errs in pursuing me.

BENEDICTUS:
You must see in the right light The truth's serious instruction,
Which seems to you only error,
Because you imagine it to be painful.
Through spiritual reasons
John's soul has been transformed.
It was necessary for him
That the alliance of your souls
Became the bridge to new worlds,
Spiritual powers
Have allowed this alliance,
Because otherwise he could not have reached
That level
On which he stands today.
The feelings
On his further path through life
Would be fatal,
Bind him to you.

MARIA:
You yourself were present,
When in the heights of the spiritual realm
Johannes, pure of heart,
Was given to me as a spiritual companion.
Taken from him at that time
Seemed the humanly weak drives,
Which disturb the bonds of love,
If they are to serve the work of the spirit.

BENEDICTUS:
It was shown in the spiritual realm
To the souls who were allowed to behold
The light of the heights,
What lay in the womb of the future.
You must achieve
What is destined for you by the powers of fate.
Whether it is delusion or truth,
What you see in the light of the heights,
It has not yet been decided.
What he sees as the whole truth,
Sinks into the darkness of delusion,
If human power does not
Want to transform it into truth through the testing of souls.

JOHANNES:
I do not know how to interpret it,
That Mary still does not appear.
She was satisfied with the work,
When she last saw her.
So now I may surrender myself to faith,
That I am coming closer to the goal.
I wait anxiously for my friend to come,
For I need her advice more than ever.
— — — — — — — —
I often sat disconsolate before the picture,
It seemed presumptuous to me for many an hour,
To reproduce in colors and forms,
What my soul was allowed to see.
When I forget my own being
And feel myself transported into bliss
By the creative powers of the universe,
My creative energy awakens within me. I learned to live with the light
And to recognize action in the color of light.
Trusting in that higher truth
Which gave my spirit freedom,
I acquired the ability
To feel how, in the flooding sea of light,
The awakening powers of the vastness weave creatively.
And when I thus detach my own soul
From the peculiarity of my being,
Then I may also cherish the hope
That spiritual being speaks from my image.
And even if I can achieve nothing else,
Perhaps through this image one will recognize
How spiritual knowledge can awaken spiritual artistry.

(Maria enters):

O friend, you kept me waiting a long time.

MARIA: ...

First CAPESIUS alone:
(finishes reading a book:)

"To guess the secret of life,
Is dangerous for the guesser,
To reveal it to the unauthorized,
brings about the destruction of existence."

There was a time when I would have passed over such a statement without paying any attention to it. I would have considered it a mere phrase. For I had knowledge—at least I believed I had it—that was my own lifeline, and by sharing it with others, I imagined I had a mission. And mysticism, secret science, seemed to me to be the ravings of overheated minds. That has now changed. I have observed the wonderful development of this Johannes Thomasius. He has received knowledge in a way that is inexplicable to me. It can only be the knowledge that is attributed to the so-called initiates in the secret teachings. And this knowledge of his has nothing to do with gray theory: it is a seed power of the soul. It is a potion of life. It has made a new man out of him.

And with my brooding soul forces focused on this event, I learned to perceive the ancient traditions and the latest revelations of the mystics in a different way. I suspect that purely spiritual powers can flow into the human soul, whose force represents a higher reality than all external experiences and human deeds. Physical fate may elevate or shatter a person; it knows no catastrophes comparable to those that befall the soul from supernatural worlds.

I only sense this much, and I recognize in sensing it that knowledge of the true continuity of the soul can be one of the greatest catastrophes if it is not accompanied by the real power to fill that which continues with essential substance, so that it can also work and develop in worlds of which the senses know nothing. Knowledge destroys if it does not create. My insight is sufficient to recognize that within me there rests a core of the soul that returns in ever new lives. Nothing can be more terrible than to truly recognize this with all its consequences and to feel the powerlessness to build on this core of being at the same time. Knowing this powerlessness wears me down, so that I feel the powers of my physical body becoming dull. My brain seems to me like a dying instrument. It does not want to grasp the truths it is supposed to deliver to the soul. Not only does it wear me down, it makes me lonely, oh, so terribly lonely. I feel as if all the threads connecting me to the big wide world have been torn apart. And it kills my feelings and sensations, my creativity and suffering, my hopes and loves. I stand uprooted on the earth; and terror surrounds me from an abyss of worlds.