appen, but when they come out of
that state, they remember nothing. I think you said----

MARTIN. That I could not remember.

FATHER JOHN. You remembered something, but not all. Nature is a great
sleep; there are dangerous and evil spirits in her dreams, but God is
above Nature. She is a darkness, but He makes everything clear--He is
light.

MARTIN. All is clear now. I remember all, or all that matters to me. A
poor man brought me a word, and I know what I have to do.

FATHER JOHN. Ah, I understand; words were put into his mouth. I have
read of such things. God sometimes uses some common man as His
messenger.

MARTIN. You may have passed the man who brought it on the road. He left
me but now.

FATHER JOHN. Very likely, very likely, that is the way it happened.
Some plain, unnoticed man has sometimes been sent with a command.

MARTIN. I saw the unicorns trampling in my dream. They were breaking
the world. I am to destroy, that is the word the messenger spoke.

FATHER JOHN. To destroy?

MARTIN. To bring again the old disturbed exalted life, the old
splendour.

FATHER JOHN. You are not the first that dream has come to. [_Gets up
and walks up and down._] It has been wandering here and there, calling
now to this man, now to that other. It is a terrible dream.

MARTIN. Father John, you have had the same thought.

FATHER JOHN. Men were holy then; there were saints everywhere, there
was reverence, but now it is all work, business, how to live a long
time. Ah, if one could change it all in a minute, even by war and
violence.... There is a cell where St. Ciaran used to pray, if one
could bring that time again.

MARTIN. Do not deceive me. You have had the command.

FATHER JOHN. Why are you questioning me? You are asking me things that
I have told to no one but my confessor.

MARTIN. We must gather the crowds together, you and I.

FATHER JOHN. I have dreamed your dream; it was long ago. I had your
vision.

MARTIN. And what happened?

FATHER JOHN [_harshly_]. It was stopped. That was an end. I was sent
to the lonely parish where I am, where there was no one I could lead
astray. They have left me there. We must have patience; the world was
destroyed by water, it has yet to be consumed by fire.

MARTIN. Why should we be patient? To live seventy years, and others to
come after us and live seventy years it may be, and so from age to age,
and all the while the old splendour dying more and more.

[A no