i. know. him.

  And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour... And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. 

Skat: You might at least answer. Who are you?

Death: I'm felling your tree. Your time is up.

Skat: You can't. I haven't time.

Death: Huh. You haven't time?

Skat: No. I have my performance!

Death: Cancelled, owing to Death.

Skat: My contract?

Death: Annulled.

Skat: My family…

Death: For shame, Skat!

Skat: Yes, I'm ashamed, I'm ashamed. [pauses] Is there no exemption for actors?

Death: Not in your case.

Skat: No loopholes?

Jöns: Why all this daubing?

Painter: To remind people of death.

Jöns: That won't make them any happier.

Painter: Why make them happy? Why not scare them?

Jöns: Then they won't look at your picture.

Painter: Yes, they will. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.

Jöns: If you scare them—

Painter: They think—

Jöns: Then they think.

Painter: And are still more scared.

Jöns: And fall into the arms of the priests.

. . .

Jöns: What's that rubbish there?

Painter: People think the plague is a punishment from God. Crowds wander the land lashing each other to please the Lord.

Jöns: Lashing each other?

Painter: Yes, it's a horrible sight. You feel like hiding when they pass.

Jöns: Give me a gin. I've had nothing but water. I feel as thirsty as a desert camel.

Painter: Scared after all?

Block: I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.

Priest: Yet you do not want to die.

Block: Yes, I do.

Priest/Death: What are you waiting for?

Block: Knowledge.

Priest/Death: You want a guarantee.

Block: Call it what you will.

Block: Is it so hard to conceive God with one's senses? Why must He hide in a midst of vague promises and invisible miracles? How are we to believe the believers when we don't believe ourselves? What will become of us who want to believe but cannot? And what of those who neither will nor can believe? Why can I not kill God within me? Why does He go on living in a painful, humiliating way? I want to tear Him out of my heart, but He remains a mocking reality which I cannot get rid of. Do you hear me?

Priest/Death: I hear you.

Block: I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge. I want God to put out His hand, show His face, speak to me.

Priest/Death: But He is silent.

Block: I cry to Him in the dark, but there seems to be no one there.

Priest/Death: Perhaps there is no one there.

Block: Then life is a senseless terror. No man can live with Death and know that everything is nothing.

Priest/Death: Most people think neither of Death nor nothingness.

Block: Until they stand on the edge of life and see the Darkness.

Priest/Death: Ah, that day.

Block: [laughs bitterly] I see. We must make an idol of our fear, and call it God.

Priest/Death: You are uneasy.

Block: Death visited me this morning. We are playing chess. This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.

Priest/Death: What errand?

Block: My whole life has been a meaningless search. I say it without bitterness or self-reproach. I know it is the same for all. But I want to use my respite for one significant action.

Priest/Death: So you play chess with Death?

Block: He is a skillful tactician, [smiling] but I have not yet lost one piece.

Priest/Death: How can you outwit Death?

Block: [smiling] By a combination of bishop and knight. I will break his flank.

Priest/Death: I shall remember that.

Block: Traitor! You have tricked me! But I'll find a way out.

Block: Is Mikael going to be an acrobat?

Mia: Jof wants him to be.

Block: But not you?

Mia: No. [smiling] Perhaps he will be a knight!

Block: That's not such fun, either.

Mia: No, you don't look happy.

Block: No.

Mia: Are you tired?

Block: Yes.

Mia: Why?

Block: I'm in boring company.

Mia: You mean your squire?

Block: No, not him.

Mia: Who, then?

Block: Myself.

______________________

like. i. know. myself.