Fourth Act, prose draft

STRADER: It has now been ten years since you became my companion and since I have been allowed to live in the spiritual light that radiates from your soul. I was a broken man when you came into my life. I had devoted myself to science for many years. But its ideals had robbed me of my life. And it was you yourself who had contributed most to its downfall. Through you, I had realized that the spirit in a human being can express itself about things that all science can only oppose powerlessly. I wanted nothing more to do with a science that could offer nothing worth knowing. But through it I had acquired knowledge that I could put to practical use. So I became an engineer. I wanted to drown out all the torments of my heart, which could not live with doubts. So I lived as if mentally paralyzed, but spiritually alert, so that I could elicit fruits from technology that would instill hope in the world. —

THEODORA: It is understandable that on this day the memory of these experiences is foremost in your mind. And it is also a joy to my heart to remember what filled us when we joined together in the bond of marriage ten years ago. I felt the power that brought out the spiritual in me growing steadily at that time. And under Felix Balde's influence, I overcame the shyness that had initially filled me, to share these things with many people. Felix Balde repeatedly hinted that humanity was at a turning point in time and that salvation could come if the revelations of the spiritual world were made available to all who wanted to hear them. Then I once met your friend Capesius at Balde's. He, who once wanted to serve only the most rigorous research, had opened himself to the spiritual world in the way that was possible for him. He then turned his attention to a great extent to the revelations of my soul. He then became the bond between us. You met me at your old friend's.

STRADER: It was at a time when I had almost lost sight of what had once happened to me through you. But the gloomy mood remained with me, as did the urge to occupy myself with things that I had to believe were closed to human research. But when I came into your presence, everything awakened again, and your way of bringing the spirit close to people spoke powerfully to me. All this had such an effect on me that at first I could believe that I was standing before you as a messenger from the spirit world. And then it became increasingly clear to me that the spirit had a powerful helper in our case. While we talked about spiritual matters and I listened eagerly to your revelations, our hearts had long since found each other and they spoke to each other about things that had long remained hidden from us.

THEODORA: They revealed themselves to me in a special way. I felt your urge to draw ever closer to the spirit. And your desire became like a force within me that led me further and further into the spirit world. It was as if your heart were eagerly asking questions of the spirit world, and it wanted to answer them through me.

STRADER: So I always left you with feelings that filled me with the deepest satisfaction. Through you, I had found what I had so painfully long been deprived of. And in these feelings, the thought became ever more vivid that I could no longer do without you. It pushed its way up from the hidden depths of my soul into clear existence only when it had grown powerful within itself.

THEODORA: And then you came to me and confided your feelings to me; it was so strange how you told me all this, as if it were quite natural that you should have to give up our life together. It was like a confession you wanted to make, not like the expression of a wish that you expected to be fulfilled. You wanted my help in suppressing your feelings rather than an answer that I might feel the same way.

STRADER: And then I heard from you that you could fulfill what my heart longed for. An incomparable inner certainty flowed through me... Then came the time when you became the true savior of my tormented soul. Your revelations became increasingly rare. But your entire existence became more and more a revelation of the spiritual world to me. And I gained a deeper understanding of the supernatural. The experience with Thomasius shows me how deep this is. I was able to accept what was so shocking without letting it affect my opinion. Today, I can bear the incomprehensible, for it takes nothing away from what has become certain to me. And only at your side could the experiments mature that turned a question of pure technology into a question of life for humanity...

THEODORA: Yes, the revelations became increasingly rare — — — but — — —

STRADER: You seem to be falling into painful reflection. Surely you feel sorrow at the absence of revelations.

O dear Theodora, this eye — — — you are hiding something from me, which only recently revealed to me the complete change in your nature.

THEODORA: No, certainly not. I could bear it at your side even if they no longer came. But — they have recently returned, and how ... painfully they have come.

STRADER: That was precisely the peculiarity of your revelations, that they led the soul into spiritual worlds that were uplifting and blissful.

THEODORA: But now everything is different. At certain times, just as it was before, I feel my soul being forced to suppress all its own thoughts. Whereas before, after the brief period in which the soul was as if empty, the spirit immediately enveloped me like a gentle light and formed images, now it is a force that announces itself invisibly as a feeling. But it is such that I can know it emanates from a being that is real. And it is terrible. It wants to approach me, but I feel it as abominable; I feel as if it wants to bring something close to me that is alien to my whole being. Oh, when this is near me, I learn to hate, to despise, I feel fear. I learn to sense the spirit of evil, which was previously unknown to me.

STRADER: Theodora, hate, despise...

THEODORA: Yes, you would not recognize her if you knew how strongly she can hate now.

STRADER: How can that affect you? Spiritual wisdom explains such things as emanations from one's own inner self. But Theodora has nothing within her that could appear that way. Those who live by her side and are grateful for their happiness know this.

THEODORA: Because I knew that spiritual wisdom explains it this way, I fervently asked the spiritual beings who had given me the best part of my revelations to reveal to me the reason why these terrible experiences affect me. And... then... the light appeared to me, as I had often seen it before... and a human image formed from it... and this human image was someone... who had never been allowed to show himself to me... It was... Thomasius.

STRADER: Thomasius... the only person I never wanted to doubt — —

— — when I remember how he stood before the brothers of the Mystic Brotherhood — — — I described it to you — — — speaking words that described his covenant with Lucifer and what it meant to him — — — and yet a person — — — you have to believe in — Theodora, — — — where are --- you — — —