DR. NEWMAN: The whole thing will pass from your mind quickly. In a few months it will be merely a bad dream, or something about which you smile. Perhaps I should have broken the true story to you differently, in gradual stages.
MRS. BERGEN [going over to her husband, who holds his face in his hands]: This has separated us for a long time. It is probably for the best that this should have happened. It may be that her death has saved us from unending hatred for one another.
DR. BERGEN: No, I was sure. It was no illusion.
ANTHONY:
What of myself and my illusion,
Who loved her very much in perfect blindness?
I loved a phantom which my infatuation
Engendered. She was, it seems, a dream
Foisted upon me by my fatuous mind,
While in my sleep I walked near an abyss
Upon the 57th story window ledge,
Teetering on tiptoe.
Belief contrives
A curious house, peculiar pyramid
Which narrows as it must to nothingness.
And on that tiny top we stand until
The actual sand shifts as it must, betrays
The desert of our lives, our broken sleep.
All right, let it be so. The worst has come.
I to the common world must pass
Who lived long privately. O worst of all,
I was not insufficient, but I was
Merely irrelevant to her being and her pain.
DR. BERGEN [as if decided]: That does not apply to me. I did not deceive, I was not deceived, except by one poor miserable distraught girl. One example proves nothing. She deceived me. But I was not deceived in all, only in her.
[He steps quickly from the long table on the terrace to the parapet, lifting himself upon it clumsily and standing up to full height before them, as all move toward him in a ring, uttering their dismay variously.]
Now I am going to kill myself! If you come closer, it will serve no purpose, except to make me jump sooner. I wish to make several idle remarks before I depart. If you wish to hear them, you will keep your distance. I am decided. There is nothing you can do to prevent me.
MARTHA: Father! Father!
MRS. BERGEN [hysterical]: For God’s sake, for our sake, don’t kill yourself. Wait! Wait! You said that one example proves nothing. You said so. You have no reason for killing yourself.
DR. BERGEN: Every reason. I wish to be sure once and for all. I cannot endure the long experience of doubt once more. Will you listen to me and hear what I have to say?
DR. NEWMAN: Wait! Do not increase the tragedy in this house. Time takes away both good and bad. In three months all will seem different to you. It will always be possible for you to die.
VARIOUS DISCIPLES [successively]: We need you! We depend on you! We are lost without you! We believe in you! You taught us!
DR. BERGEN: It is too late, there is only one act left for me. The horror of doubt crowds my mind and I cannot endure it. [Turning and looking down.] Will you listen to me? On the tiny street fifteen stories below the tiny figures of human beings and of cars move with sharp, short motions, quickly, neatly, and wholly without meaning. I am going the shortest distance past them, which will at least convince you of my sincerity.
MARTHA: Father, wait!
DR. BERGEN: This is what terrorizes you, a human being about to die of his own will.
DR. NEWMAN: If you kill yourself now, they will say that you are insane.
DR. BERGEN: I am not concerned about what will be said any longer. I am going to perfect certainty. I am going to find out for myself. Let me say what I have to say. [To MRS. BERGEN] Elsa, I am sorry. You do not understand, but I do not blame you. You were good to me for a long time, not lately; but my gratitude remains. [To MARTHA] Martha, be a good girl, be satisfied with what life itself provides, although it is insufficient. Do not imitate your father. [To the DISCIPLES] I can no longer help you, but you will know that I am sincere, and you will surely know once and for all at some time if I was right. I can not tolerate the mere possibility that I have suffered from some dream or hallucination.
I knew long ago that I would come to this pass, when death alone would be left for me, as a means of satisfying my mind and my heart. For a long time, I lived from one satisfaction to another — my profession, my wife, my family, my increasing success as a doctor. Then one day I became wholly aware of what all deliberately forget — that life is not a self-contained sphere, which exists unendingly. I knew to my fingertips that I must die, as I had seen so many die. This me must die, this body must rot; I would see, hear, feel, taste, touch, think, no more. For a year I was a prey to the worst despondency. Nothing had meaning for me. Then I was visited by the first of repeated special experiences and all was changed until now. Do you understand me? I cannot return to my old unrest and uncertainty. What does one have, having lived long? What is the virtue and fruit of old age? A bedpan, a failing memory, a drooling mouth, the sense of one’s own inadequacy at last. But I am going to find out for myself once and for all. There is only one means of knowing.
DR. NEWMAN: I believe that you were right! I accept your belief! One example proves nothing.
DR. BERGEN: No! You are insincere! I hear the duplicity in your voice. I am faced by my own doubt. I have the will to know and nothing else. Death is the only satisfaction left to me. The stench of this life offends me too much at last. I am done. Whereas the consequence is final and the exodus is irreparable; whereas the notion is unanalyzed, the dream unexhausted, the procedure without rationale, the belief a verbalism, there remains the complete conclusion of utter light or at least a little unnervous peace. I will feel the parts of my body one last time, for my own patience is intolerable to me; I can no longer endure my own thoughts, I have much to say, but my own speech appalls me. There is a fine abyss which waits to receive me and please me and satisfy me as never before.
MARTHA [moving towards him]: Father! Father!
DR. BERGEN: Stand back, Martha. I am faced with my own ignorance. But I am going to find out for myself once and for all!
[He jumps to his death as several scream. MARTHA, running from among them, jumps up and also leaps from the parapet.]
DR. NEWMAN: Nothing is left to say, everything to do, question my own heart, justify myself, if I can. Belief and knowledge consume the heart of man.
RAKOVSKY [as if in echo]: Knowledge and belief devour the mind of man.
ANTHONY: Belief, knowledge, and desire — desire most of all.
DR. NEWMAN: Man destroys his own heart.
CURTAIN
1. believed to be God by thousands: Allusion to Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), leader of the first important U.S. black nationalist movement, based in New York City’s Harlem.
TITLE PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL
NEW DIRECTIONS EDITION, 1941.
SHENDANDOAH
(To Francis Ferguson)
It is the historic nature of all particulars to try to prove that they are universal by nature—
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA
Wer sass nicht bang vor seines Herzens vorhang?
Der schlug sich auf: die Szenerie war Abschied….