PROMETHEUS. The description of life is not worth the sensation of life; you shall experience it deeply. The bosom of Abraham in your old Scriptures is nothing but this final, perfect world. There you will greet David and the prophets. There will you tell to the astounded listeners, not only the great events of the extinct world, but also the ills they will never know: sickness, old age, grief, egotism, hypocrisy, abhorrent vanity, imbecility, and the rest. The soul, like the earth, will possess an incorruptible tunic. AHASVERUS. I shall gaze ever on the immense blue sky? PROMETHEUS. Behold how beautiful it is. AHASVERUS. As beautiful and serene as eternal justice. Magnificent heaven, more beautiful than the tents of Caesar. I shall behold you forever; you will receive my thoughts, as before; you will grant me clear days, and friendly nights ... PROMETHEUS. Dawn upon dawn. AHASVERUS. Ah, speak on, speak on. Tell me everything. Let me unbind these chains ... PROMETHEUS. Loosen them, new Hercules, last man of the old world, who shall be the first of the new. Such is your destiny; neither you nor I,--nobody can alter it. You go farther than your Moses. From the top of mount Nebo, at the point of death, he beheld the land of Jericho, which was to belong to his descendants and the Lord said unto him: "Thou hast seen with thine eyes, yet shalt not pass beyond." _You_ shall pass beyond, Ahasverus; you shall dwell in Jericho. AHASVERUS. Place your hand upon my head; look well at me; fill me with the reality of your prediction; let me breathe a little of the new, full life ... King, did you say? PROMETHEUS. The chosen king of a chosen people. AHASVERUS. It is not too much in recompense for the deep ignominy in which I have dwelt. Where one life heaped mire, another life will place a halo. Speak, speak on ... speak on ... (_He continues to dream. The two eagles draw near._) FIRST EAGLE. Ay, ay, ay! Alas for this last man; he is dying, yet he dreams of life. SECOND EAGLE. Not so much that he hated it as that he loved it so much. THE VENGEANCE OF FELIX By Jose de Medeiros E Albuquerque (1867- ) Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters