THE CHILD (_who has just run up and who now kisses_ TYLTYL _and_ MYTYL _effusively_.) How are you?... All right?... Come, give me a kiss, and you too, Mytyl. It's not surprising that I should know your name, seeing that I shall be your brother.... They have only just told me that you were here.... I was right at the other end of the hall, packing up my ideas.... Tell mummy that I am ready.... TYLTYL What?... Are you coming to us?... THE CHILD Certainly, next year, on Palm Sunday.... Don't tease me too much when I am little.... I am very glad to have kissed you both beforehand.... Tell daddy to mend the cradle.... Is it comfortable in our home?... TYLTYL Not bad.... And mummy is so kind!... THE CHILD And the food?... TYLTYL That depends.... We even have cakes sometimes, don't we, Mytyl?... MYTYL On New Year's Day and the fourteenth of July.... Mummy makes them.... TYLTYL What have you got in that bag?... Are you bringing us something?... THE CHILD I am bringing three illnesses: scarlatina, whooping-cough and measles.... TYLTYL Oh, that's all, is it?... And, after that, what will you do?... THE CHILD After that?... I shall leave you.... TYLTYL It will hardly be worth while coming!... THE CHILD We can't pick and choose!... (_At that moment, a sort of prolonged, powerful, crystalline vibration is heard to rise and swell; it seems to emanate from the columns and the opal doors, which are irradiated by a brighter light than before_.) TYLTYL What is that?... THE CHILD That's Time!... He is going to open the gates!... (_A great change comes over the crowd of_ BLUE CHILDREN, _Most of them leave their machines and their labours, numbers of sleepers awake and all turn their eyes towards the opal doors and go nearer to them_.) LIGHT (_joining_ TYLTYL) Let us try to hide behind the columns.... It will not do for Time to discover us.... TYLTYL Where does that noise come from?... A CHILD It is the Dawn rising.... This is the hour when the children who are to be born to-day go down to earth.... TYLTYL How will they go down?... Are there ladders?... THE CHILD You shall see.... Time is drawing the bolts.... TYLTYL Who is Time?... THE CHILD An old man who comes to call those who are going.... TYLTYL Is he wicked?... THE CHILD No; but he hears nothing.... Beg as they may, if it's not their turn, he pushes back all those who try to go.... TYLTYL Are they glad to go?... THE CHILD We are sorry when we are left behind, but we are sad when we go.... There! There!... He is opening the doors!... (_The great opalescent doors turn slowly on their hinges. The sounds of the earth are heard like a distant music. A red and green light penetrates into the hall_; TIME, _a tall old man with a streaming beard, armed with his scythe and hourglass, appears upon the threshold; and the spectator perceives the extremity of the white and gold sails of a galley moored to a sort of quay, formed by the rosy mists of the Dawn_.)