GOD: Sharing power.
LUCIFER: God forbid. I’m speaking purely of the image.
GOD: But in reality . . .
LUCIFER: Nothing’s changed. You’re good, and I’m bad. It’s just that to the public—
GOD: We will appear to be—
LUCIFER: Yes.
GOD: Equal.
LUCIFER: Not morally equal. Just equally real. Because if I’m sitting beside You in Heaven—
GOD: Then I must love you.
LUCIFER: Exactly. And if God can love the Devil, He can love absolutely anybody.
GOD: That’s certainly true, yes.
LUCIFER: So people would never come to hate themselves, and there’s the end of guilt. Another Eden, and everybody innocent again.
Pause.
GOD: Operationally speaking—
LUCIFER: Yes.
GOD: Yes sir.
LUCIFER: Yes sir. Excuse me.
GOD: In cases of lying, cheating, fornication, murder, and so on—you mean they are no longer to be judged?
LUCIFER: Oh, on the contrary! Between the two of us no one will escape the judgment of Heaven. I’ll judge the bad people, and you judge the good.
GOD: But who would try to be good if it’s just as good to be bad?
LUCIFER: And will the bad be good for fear of your judgment? So you may as well let them be bad and the good be good, and either way they’ll all love God because they’ll know that God . . . loves . . . me. Sir, I am ready to take my place. Between the two of us we’ll have mankind mousetrapped.
GOD: Yes. Slight pause. There is only one problem.
LUCIFER: But basically that’s the Plan, isn’t it?
GOD: There is a problem.
LUCIFER: What’s that?
GOD, looking straight at him: I don’t love you.
LUCIFER, shocked—he can hardly speak: You can’t mean that.
GOD: Afraid I do.
LUCIFER: Well. He gives a deflated laugh. This is certainly a surprise.
GOD: I see that. And it is fundamentally why we can never sit together. Nothing is real to you. Except your appetite for distinction and power. I’ve been waiting for some slightest sign of repentance for what you did to Paradise, but there’s nothing, is there? Instead, I’m to join you in a cosmic comedy where good and evil are the same. It doesn’t occur to you that I am unable to share the bench with the very incarnation of all I despise?
LUCIFER: I can’t believe You’d let Your feelings stand in the way of peace.
GOD: But that is why I am perfect—I am my feelings.
LUCIFER: You don’t think that’s a limitation?
GOD: It certainly is. I am perfectly limited. Where evil begins, I end. When good loves evil, it is no longer good, and if God could love the Devil, then God has died. And that is precisely what you’re after, isn’t it?
LUCIFER: I am after peace! Between us and mankind!
GOD: Then let there be war! Better ten thousand years of war than I should rule one instant with the help of unrighteousness!
LUCIFER: Lord God, I am holding out my hand!
GOD, rising:
Go to Hell! Now thou art Fallen in all thy beauty.
As the rain doth fall and green the grass
And the fish out of water suffocates,
So dost thy fall prove that there are consequences.
Now die in Heaven, Lucifer, and live in Hell
That man may ever know how good and evil separate!
LUCIFER: Lord? He is upright, stern. You will not take my hand?
GOD: Never! Never, never, never!
LUCIFER: Then I will take the world. He exits.
GOD, calling: And if you ever do, I will burn it, I will flood it out, I will leave it a dead rock spinning in silence! For I am the Lord, and the Lord is good and only good!
ANGELS’ VOICES, singing loudly and sharply: Blessed is the Lord our God, Glory, glory, glory!
God sits, cleaved by doubt. He turns His head, looking about.
GOD: Why do I miss him? He stares ahead. How strange.
CURTAIN
ACT TWO
Darkness. The sound of a high wind. It dies off. A starry sky.
In the starlight, Adam and Eve are discovered asleep, but apart. He snores contentedly, she lies in silence on her back, her very pregnant belly arching up.
Lucifer, in black now, rises from the ground. He scans the sky for any sign of God, then looks down at the two people. In deep thought he walks to the periphery and sits, his chin on his fist, staring.
Overhead a bird begins to sing. He looks up.
LUCIFER: Oh, shut up. The birdsong effloresces gloriously. Will you get out of here? Go! Glorify the Lord some place else! Flapping of wings. He follows the bird’s flight overhead with his gaze. Idiot. Depressed, he stares ahead. Everything I see throws up the same irrational lesson. The hungriest bird sings best. What a system! That deprivation should make music—is anarchy! And what is greatness in God’s world? A peaceful snake lies dozing in the sun with no more dignity than a long worm; but let him arch his head to strike—and there, by God, is a snake! Yes! I have reasoned, pleaded, argued, when only murder in this world makes majesty—God’s included. Was He ever Godlier, ever more my king than when He murdered my hopes? And will I ever be more than a ridiculous angel—he turns to Adam and Eve—until I murder His? He stands, goes to Eve, looks down at her. Where is His dearest hope in all the world—but in that belly? He suddenly raises his foot to stomp her, then retracts. No. N-no. Let her do it. Make her do it. He looks skyward. Oh, the shock, the shock! If she refused the Lord the fruit of man because He made the world unreasonable! He inspires himself, slowly sinking to the ground, and insinuates into Eve’s ear: This is a dream. He ceremoniously lifts his hand and with his middle finger touches her forehead. I enter the floor of thy skull. He bends and kisses her belly. Now, woman, help me save the world from the anarchy of God. She inhales sensuously, and her knee rises, her cloak falling away, exposing a bare thigh. Your time has come, dear woman. He slides his hand along her thigh.
EVE, exhaling pleasurably: Aaaaaahhh!
LUCIFER: Sssh! Don’t wake up; the only safe place to have this conversation is inside your head. Am I clear in your mind? Do you remember me?
EVE: Oh, yes! When our fingers touched around the apple—
LUCIFER: Flesh to naked flesh!
EVE: And I awoke and saw myself! How beautiful I was! She opens her eyes.
LUCIFER: What in the world has happened to you? How’d you get so ugly?
EVE, covering her face: I can’t stand myself!
LUCIFER: When I think how you looked in Paradise—she weeps— Why did you let yourself go?
EVE: Can you help me, angel? Something’s got into my belly, and it keeps getting bigger.
LUCIFER: No idea what it is?
EVE: Well . . . I have been eating a lot of clams lately.
LUCIFER: Clams.
EVE: Sometimes it even squirms. Lucifer looks away in thought. Isn’t that it?
LUCIFER, turning back to her: Like to have it out?
EVE, clapping her hands: Could I?
LUCIFER: But are you sure you won’t change your mind afterwards?
EVE: No! I want to be as I was. Please, angel, take thy power and drive it out.
LUCIFER: Lie back, dear.
EVE: Oh, thank you, angel, I will adore you forever!
LUCIFER, starting to spread her knees: I certainly hope so. Now just try to relax. . . .
EVE, on her back, facing the sky, her arms stretched upward: Oh, won’t the Lord be happy when he sees me looking good again! Lucifer removes his hands, instantly turning away to think. She, on her back, can’t see what he is doing. Is anything happening?
LUCIFER, drawing her upright: W
oman, I don’t want you hating me in the morning; now listen, and I will waken your mind as once I awakened your body in Paradise.
EVE: By the way, I’ve been wanting to ask you: did you ever come to me again—after Paradise?
LUCIFER, evasively: Why do you ask?
EVE: Near twilight, once, I was lying on my stomach, looking at my face in a pool; and suddenly a strange kind of weight pressed down on my back, and it pressed and pressed until we seemed to go tumbling out like dragonflies above the water. And in my ear a voice kept whispering, “This is God’s will, darling. . . .”
LUCIFER: Which it was, at the time.
EVE, marveling: It was you!
LUCIFER: All me. About nine months ago.
EVE, gleefully: Oh, angel, that was glorious! Come, make me beautiful again! She starts to lie back; he stops her.
LUCIFER: You will have it out, Eve, but it’s important there be no recriminations afterwards, so I’m going to tell you the truth. I have been thrown out of Heaven.
EVE: How’s that possible? You’re an angel!
LUCIFER: Dear girl, we are dealing with a spirit to whom nothing is sacred.
EVE: But why? What did you do?
LUCIFER: What He could not do. He breaks off.
EVE: What?
LUCIFER, taking the plunge: I caused you to multiply.
EVE: You mean—she looks down at her belly—I’m multiplying?
LUCIFER: What you have in your belly . . . is a man.
EVE: A man! Overjoyed, she rolls back onto the ground. In me!
LUCIFER: Remember what you said! You want it out!
EVE, sitting up: How is God feeling about me? Does He know?
LUCIFER: All right, then. Yes, He knows and He is ecstatic!
EVE: Oh, praise the Lord!
LUCIFER, furiously: Quadruple hallelujahs!
EVE: Glory to Him in the highest!
LUCIFER: Precisely. Jabbing his finger at her: And now I’ll bet your agony begins!
EVE, with a shock of pain: Aaaahhhhh!
LUCIFER: Why’d you stop praising Him? She yells in pain. Where’s the hallelujah?
EVE: What is happening to me?
LUCIFER: What’re you complaining about? You praise God, and this is what you get for it!
EVE: But why?
LUCIFER: Don’t you remember Him cursing you out of Paradise?
EVE: And this—
LUCIFER: Is it, honey.
EVE, pointing to the sleeping Adam: But he ate the apple too!
LUCIFER: Right. And he looks better than ever.
EVE, furiously pounding her hands on the ground: WHY?
LUCIFER, grabbing her face, driving his point home: Because this is the justice of the world He made, and only you can change that world!
EVE: Angel . . . it’s getting worse.
LUCIFER: Oh, it’ll get worse than this, dear.
EVE: It can’t get worse!
LUCIFER: Oh yes, it can, because He’s perfect, and when He makes something worse, it’s perfectly worse!
EVE: Oh God, what have I done!
LUCIFER: You multiplied with my help, not with His, and your agony is His bureaucratic revenge. Now listen to me—
EVE: I can’t stand any more! Lashing about on the ground. Where’s a rock, I’ll kill him! With clawed hands she starts for Adam.
LUCIFER: He is as innocent as you!
EVE, bursting into helpless tears: This is not right!
LUCIFER: Oh, woman, to hear that word at last from other lips than mine! It is not right, no—it is chaos. Eve, you are the only voice of reason God’s insane world can ever have, for in you alone His chaos shows its claws. In poene veritas—the only truth is pain. Now mount it and take your power.
EVE: What power? I’m a grain of dust.
LUCIFER: He is pacing up and down in Heaven waiting for this child. You have in your belly the crown of God.
EVE: The crown . . . ?
LUCIFER: His highest honor is your gratitude for the agony He is giving you. He is a maniac! He takes her hand. You can refuse. You must deny this crown to chaos. Kill it. He is behind her, his lips to her ear, his hand on her belly.
Let the serpent in again, and we’ll murder him,
And so teach the Lord His first humility.
He slips around in front of her, starting to press her back to the ground.
Crown His vengeance on thee not with life
But with a death; a lump of failure
Lay before the Lord a teaching, woman—
EVE, in conflict, resisting his pressure to lie down: I teach God?
LUCIFER:
Teach God, yes!—that if men must be born
Only in the pain of unearned sin,
Then there will be no men at all!
Open to me!
He tries to spread her legs, she reaches uncertainly to his face, while trying to fend his hands off.
EVE: Angel, I’m afraid!
LUCIFER: Hold still! He is on top of her to pin her down.
EVE: I don’t think I can do that!
LUCIFER: Open up, you bitch! He violently tries to spread her knees, she breaks free, skittering away on the ground.
EVE: I can’t! I mustn’t! I won’t! Sexually infuriated, he starts again for her. I want him! Adam turns over. Lucifer springs out of her line of sight so that she is looking around at empty space, holding her belly. In short, she has only now awakened in the dream’s hangover. Day is drawning. Where am I? The baaing of sheep is heard.
LUCIFER:
The dream ends here, a dark rehearsal of the coming day;
This day you must decide—to crown unreason with thy gift of life,
Or with a tiny death teach justice. He bends and kisses her.
I understand thee, woman—I alone.
Call any time at all.
Intimately, pointing into her face: You know what I mean.
Adam sits up. Lucifer goes. Day dawns. Adam stares at Eve, as she sits there. Now she brings her body forward and wipes her eyes.
ADAM: What a night! I don’t think I slept five minutes. She gives him a look. Did you?
EVE, after a slight pause, guiltily: I slept very well, yes.
Disturbed, inward, she gets up, begins gathering pieces of wood for the fire. The baaing of sheep is heard.
ADAM, looking around: Say! She stops moving, looks at him. The wind! It finally stopped! See? I told you I’d find a place that’s not windy!
A blast of howling wind makes them both huddle into their clothes. It dies off. She gets out some figs, places them in a bowl.
EVE: There’s your figs.
ADAM: Could it be, you suppose, that everywhere but in Paradise it’s just naturally windy? He bites into a fig.
EVE: I just don’t know, Adam.
ADAM—he spits out sand: They’re sandy.
EVE: Well, it’s windy.
He leans his head on his fist disconsolately.
ADAM: What a way to live! At least if I knew how long it was going to last—
EVE: I still don’t understand what’s so wrong about digging a hole. We could sit in it and keep out of the wind. Like the groundhogs.
ADAM: I wish you’d stop trying to change the rules! We’re not groundhogs. If He meant us to live in holes, He would have given us claws.
EVE: But if He meant us to live in a windstorm He’d have put our eyes in our armpits. Another blast of wind, then it dies.
ADAM: Aren’t you eating anything?
EVE: I don’t feel like it.
ADAM: You know something? You don’t look so green today.
EVE, faintly hopeful, a little surprised at his interest: I don’t?
ADAM: All your color came back. What happened? H
e slides over to her, looking quizzically and somewhat excitedly into her face. You look beautiful, Eve.
EVE—she laughs nervously: Well, I can’t imagine why!
ADAM, pushing her back, starting to open her cloak: It’s amazing! I haven’t seen you look this way since Paradise! His hand on her swollen belly stops him. Oh, excuse me.
EVE, grasping his hand: That’s all right!
ADAM, getting up, sliding his hand out of hers: I forgot that thing. He stands, looks around. What a funny morning!
EVE: Why do you always look around like that?
ADAM, after a slight pause: I miss God.
EVE, looking down in sorrow: I’m sorry, Adam. Sheep are heard again.
ADAM, looking off: It is just that I’m never really sure what to do next. That grass is giving out; we’ll have to move this afternoon.
EVE: I don’t think I can walk very far.
ADAM: Goddamn clams . . .
EVE: I’m always out of breath, Adam. This thing has gotten very heavy.
ADAM: Does it still move?
EVE: It’s doing it now. Would you like to feel it?
ADAM, touching her belly: Huh!
EVE: It’s almost like a little foot pressing.
ADAM: A foot! No. He presses his stomach. I have the same thing sometimes.
EVE, with sudden hope: You too? Let me feel it! She feels his stomach. I don’t feel anything.
ADAM: Well, it stopped. I can’t remember—did He say to kill clams before eating?
EVE: But they squash so.
ADAM: I’m not sure we’re supposed to eat live things. I can’t remember half the things He said any more.
EVE, tentatively, with some trepidation: Can I talk to you about that? I’m not sure any more it is those clams.
ADAM: Don’t worry, it’s the clams. Sits down and eats maybe fifty clams, and suddenly it’s not the clams.
EVE: Well, I like clams. Especially lately.
ADAM: I like eggs.
EVE: Adam, dear, there’s something I feel I should tell you.
ADAM: I had three delicious eggs last— He breaks off, recalling. No, no, that was a dream!
EVE, startled: You dreamed?
ADAM: Why, did you?
EVE, quickly: Tell me yours first.
ADAM: I . . . was in Paradise. Huh! Remember those breakfasts there?
EVE: I wasn’t there long enough for breakfast. I was born just before lunch. And I never even got that.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 83
