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Updated: May 3, 2025
The Newly Born here would have played with them; and you would all have laughed and played with them too until you had torn them to pieces; and then you would have laughed more than ever. THE NEWLY BORN. Of course we should. Isnt that funny? THE HE-ANCIENT. When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. STREPHON. Yes; and take all the fun out of it.
I'm not fit to die. I will never bite anyone again. I will tell the truth. I will do good. Is it my fault if I was not made properly? Kill him; but spare me. I have done no harm: she has. Kill her if you like: you have no right to kill me. THE NEWLY BORN. Do you hear that? They want to have one another killed. ARJILLAX. Monstrous! Kill them both. THE HE-ANCIENT. Silence.
But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls. THE HE-ANCIENT. Yet we too have our toys and our dolls. That is the trouble of the ancients. ARJILLAX. What! The ancients have their troubles! It is the first time I ever heard one of them confess it.
You have to keep sane, you know. The two Ancients look at one another; shrug their shoulders; and address themselves to their departure. THE HE-ANCIENT. We are staying too long with you, children. We must go. All the young people rise rather eagerly. ARJILLAX. Dont mention it. THE SHE-ANCIENT. It is tiresome for us, too.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. Yet the more beautiful they become the further they retreat from you. You cannot caress them as you caress the rag doll. You cannot cry for them when they are broken or lost, or when you pretend they have been unkind to you, as you could when you played with rag dolls. THE HE-ANCIENT. At last, like Pygmalion, you demand from your dolls the final perfection of resemblance to life.
The Female Automaton hardly dares to sob. The immortals contemplate them with shame and loathing. The She-Ancient comes from the trees opposite the temple. THE SHE-ANCIENT. Somebody wants me. You must not: they are not only disgusting: they are dangerous. I meant no harm. He hurt me: indeed he did. THE HE-ANCIENT. The creature has killed that poor youth. This clever child, who promised so well!
Arjillax wants to make more of those abominable things, and to destroy even their artistic character by making ancients of them. THE NEWLY BORN. You wont sit for them, will you? Please dont. THE HE-ANCIENT. Children, listen. Even the Ancient wants to make a speech! Give it mouth, O Sage. STREPHON. For heaven's sake don't tell us that the earth was once inhabited by Ozymandiases and Cleopatras.
THE HE-ANCIENT. When we discovered that, we shed our superfluous heads and legs and arms until we had our old shapes again, and no longer startled the children. THE SHE-ANCIENT. But still I am the slave of this slave, my body. How am I to be delivered from it? THE HE-ANCIENT. That, children, is the trouble of the ancients.
You have no sense of art; and you instinctively insult it. THE HE-ANCIENT. Children have been known to make dolls out of rags, and to caress them with the deepest fondness. THE SHE-ANCIENT. Eight centuries ago, when I was a child, I made a rag doll. The rag doll is the dearest of all. Have you got it still? THE SHE-ANCIENT. I kept it a full week.
THE HE-ANCIENT. Not now perhaps. But prehistoric men thought they could not live without tails. I can live without a tail. Why should I not live without a head? THE NEWLY BORN. What is a tail? THE HE-ANCIENT A habit of which your ancestors managed to pure themselves. THE SHE-ANCIENT. None of us now believe that all this machinery of flesh and blood is necessary. It dies.
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