the matter? I can tell you something will make you so glad.

THE MAN. Tell me what it is. I will do everything you wish me to do,

WIFE. Listen! _Your son will be a Poet!_

THE MAN. What are you saying, Mary?

WIFE. The priest, when he baptized him, gave him _first_ the name: Poet;
and then: George Stanislaus.

It is I who have done this; first I blessed him--then I affixed a curse
to the blessing: I know he will be a Poet!

VOICE (_from above_). Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!

WIFE. There is some one above us, suffering from strange and incurable
madness; is it not so?

THE MAN. Very strange.

WIFE. He does not know what he is saying; but I can tell you how it
would all be if God should go mad.

She seizes him by the hand.

All the worlds would go flying about, up and down, and crash against one
another: every worm would cry out: 'I am God!' and then some of them
would die every moment; they would all perish one after the other!

All the comets and suns would go out in the sky! Christ would redeem us
no longer; He would tear His bleeding hands away from the nails, and
pitch the cross into the bottomless abyss. It falls!

Listen! how this cross, the hope of millions, goes crashing and hurtling
against the stars! Hark! it breaks! it flies asunder! the sky grows dark
with the ruined fragments--they fall like hail, deeper, deeper--a wild
storm surges from them--dreadful!

The holy Mother of God alone continues to pray, and the faithful stars,
her servants, which have not yet deserted her:--but she too will plunge
where all created things are storming down, for God is mad--and Christ
has thrown away His Cross!

THE MAN. Mary, will you not come home with me to see our child?

WIFE. I have given wings to our son, and dipped him under the waves of
the sea, that he might take into his soul all that is beautiful,
sublime, and terrible. He will return to you a poet, and you will
rejoice in him.

Ah me! ah me!

THE MAN. Do you suffer, Mary?

WIFE. Some one has hung up a lamp in my brain--and the light sways and
flickers--I cannot bear it!

THE MAN. My beloved Mary, be calm and tranquil, as you were wont to be!

WIFE. Poets never live long.

She faints.

THE MAN. Help! Save her! Help!

Several women rush in.

THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. Pills--powders--no. She can swallow nothing
solid; a fluid potion is the best.

Margaret, run for the apothecary!

Speaking