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Cassilda:
(speaking to herself)
We strain our ears for the sound of love, but must all mothers bear the horror of seeing their Children grow from wonderful possibility to grim reality?
Stranger:
(Stands mutely in the shadows, his hands folding across his chest)
Cassilda: If only we could stay a moment behind the veil of time, and live in that moment of indecision.
Stranger:
(Whispers so Cassilda cannot hear)
Existence is decision.
(...)
[Te Child appears before the closed curtain]
1
Te Child: I am not the Prologue, nor the Afterword; call me the Prototaph. My role is this: to tell you it is now too late to close the book or quit the theatre. You already thought you should have done so earlier, but you stayed. How harmless it all is! No definite principles are involved, no doctrines promulgated in these pristine pages, no convictions outraged…but the blow has fallen, and now it is too late. And shall I tell you where the sin lies? It is yours. You listened to us; and all the say you stay to see the Sign. Now you are ours, or, since the runes also run backwards, we are yours…forever.
(...)
Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.
(...)
[As the gong continues to strike, everyone begins to unmask. There are murmurs and gestures of surprise, real or polite, as identities are recognized or revealed. Ten there is a wave of laugher. The music becomes louder and increases in tempo.]
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Camilla: Indeed, it’s time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger: I wear no mask.
Camilla: No mask? No mask!
Stranger: I, I am the Pallid Mask itself. I, I am the Phantom of Truth. I came from Alar. My star is Aldebaran. Truth is our invention; it is our weapon of war. And see–by this sign we have conquered, and the siege of good and evil is ended…
§ [On the horizon, the towers of Carcosa begin to glow]
Noatalba: (Pointing) Look, look! Carcosa, Carcosa is on fire!
(...)
The King: Te Phantom of ruth shall be laid. Te scalloped tattersof Te King must hide Haita forever. As for thee, Yhtill–
All: No! No, no!
Te King: And as for thee, we tell you this; it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god.
(...)
Te Stranger falls, and everyone else sinks slowly to the ground after him. Te King can now be seen, although only faintly. He stands in state upon the balcony. He has no face, and is twice as tall as a man. He wears painted shows under his tattered, fantastically colored robes, and a streamer of silk appears to fall from the pointed tip of his hood. Behind his back he holds inverted a torch with a turned and jeweled shaft, which emits smoke, but no light. At times he appears to be winged; at others, haloed. These details are for the costumier;
at no point should Te King be sufficiently visible to make themall out. Behind him, Carcosa and the Lake of Hali have vanished. Instead, there appears at his back a huge sculptured shield, in shape suggesting a labrys of onyx, upon which the Yellow Sign is chased in gold. Te rest of the stage darkens gradually, until, at the end, it is lit only by the decomposed body of the Stranger, phosphorescing bluely.]
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