ess in it.

SATAN

Keep you to the shade!
This is the pinnacle, the very noon
Of summer in these lands. One hour of sun
Unshaded--and poor Oldham and poor I
Might have a maniac or a corpse as guest.

OLDHAM

I am not sure that I would help you with him.
I might be elsewhere occupied. Last night
I entertained myself with imaging
A project which, if I adopted it,
Would preengage me.

SATAN

With a single guess,
I'll tell you what it was.

OLDHAM

I give you twenty.

SATAN

You thought perhaps it would be nice to be
The white bull we saw yesterday, and eat
Without reproof from every vender's stall
Throughout the whole bazar; and you intend
Thus to disguise yourself, and try the sport.

OLDHAM

You hit it nearer than I thought you would!
'Twas something like that. I was wondering
If, in this marvellous and lazy clime,
It were not possible for one to take
Twenty young beauties and a hundred slaves--
Retire to some secluded isle of palms--
And live without a thought, a wish, a hope,
Drugged with the warmth, the languor and the light.

FAUST

Possible?--For a rabbit! Not for you.

SATAN

I am afraid you'd find it wearisome.
Some like it; but not your kind.

FAUST

In this heat
Even he grows crazy; and we, Satan, turn
Unsympathetic creatures. Whew, this blaze
Is getting worse! Can't we move on?

SATAN

We go
No farther.

FAUST

Lovely residence!

SATAN

It is here
That our long journey terminates, my friends.
Upon this spot I trust, if all goes well,
To give your long tried patience recompense.

FAUST

Recompense? I am sceptical of it!
But we deserve this. None but idiots
Would have come with you to this boiling land
On a wild-goose chase; on each step of which
One gets a fleeting panoramic view
Of kinds of misery one did not guess
Existed in the world. Those lepers, beggars,
Cripples, fanatics, reptiles--all the swarms
Of loathsome creatures we have passed--will haunt
My dreams forever with new vivid masks
Of nightmare. Recompense? There isn't any!

SATAN

Await the event. You shall have recompense.

OLDHAM

Satan, what is your meaning? What event
Do you await here? You have been to us,
Through our long journey, secretive and close
Of all your purposes--from day to day
Giving no hint of you