A DELEGATE: Lovely old stuff, isn’t it?
ANOTHER: I’ve done this so often I could do it in my sleep.
ANOTHER: If the Door did actually open some of us would get the shock of our lives.
ANOTHER: We take it for granted there is something outside.
ANOTHER: Speak for yourself. I, for my part, am quite sure there is not.
ANOTHER: My attitude is that since we don’t know, we should keep an open mind.
ANOTHER: Then why are you in this Ceremony at all? It is just hypocrisy.
CHAIRMAN: Nonsense, it is part of our ethic. Part of the fabric of our society.
DELEGATE: It does no harm and it may do some good.
SECRETARY: Refusing to take part in the Ceremony creates a disturbance. It is anti-social. It just draws attention to yourself, that’s all.
GUARDIAN: Your reasons for being here are not important. There are many paths to the Door. [to his ASSISTANT] The regalia?
ASSISTANT: Here. [He hands GUARDIAN the regalia, and assists him – a plastic smock with silver lightning flashes, a mitre, a small transistor radio in one hand, a telephone in the other. The latter is a child’s toy, in a bright colour.]
GUARDIAN: I think that’s all. Assistant?
ASSISTANT: Lights. Lights. Turn down the lights.
[A TECHNICIAN vainly clicks switches on the side of the computer.]
TECHNICIAN: Sorry, but they don’t seem to work. I’ve turned off the usual number of lights but it is no darker.
FOURTH PRECEPT: Look at the Door.
A MEDICAL ATTENDANT: It’s much brighter.
DOCTOR: It’s an optical illusion.
[But now there is no doubt that the Door is brighter.]
ONE OF THE NEW GROUP: It’s getting brighter all the time.
GUARDIAN: Well, never mind. I’m sure the technicians will get everything right in time.
ANOTHER OF THE NEW GROUP: ‘Wait and watch for the sudden time,
The song that’s bright, The singing light.’
[ASSISTANT TO THE GUARDIAN tries to push FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS to the back of the procession. They resist. He tries with the THIRD and FOURTH LOW-LEVELLERS.]
FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: You don’t seem to have got the point. Those days are over.
ASSISTANT: Everyone has to go where he is allocated.
FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: No. Take your hands off.
CHAIRMAN: Move up here, behind me. We have got the point, I assure you.
[ASSISTANT pushes FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS up to the head of the procession behind GUARDIAN.]
THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: Very nice.
ASSISTANT: You can’t all four be up at the front.
GUARDIAN: Of course they can. The youth are our most precious possession, the gold of our future. Let them come.
[ASSISTANT pushes THIRD and FOURTH into the procession behind FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS.]
THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: I’m sorry, but our status is just as relevant as their status.
FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: It’s not fair to those we represent.
ASSISTANT [to FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS]: I am sure you are much too mature to mind. [He pushes THIRD and FOURTH in front of them.]
FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: No, I’m sorry. That won’t do.
SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: It’s the principle of the thing.
A DELEGATE: What is that noise?
[All now look at the big Door, now glowing brilliantly. But is it responsible for that soft deep note?]
THE SAME DELEGATE: Remember the old saying:
‘When the Door begins to sing,
That’s a sign of coming spring.’
GUARDIAN: We all know these old tales. But remember, there is no agreement about their origin.
ONE OF THE NEW GROUP: The First People left them for us as a signpost.
A DELEGATE: No. My father, and he was an expert in the field, said they were anonymous. They come spontaneously from the populace.
A DELEGATE: What is spring?
ANOTHER: They say that Outside it is beautiful in spring.
ANOTHER: What is beautiful? We all use the word, but what does it mean?
ANOTHER: Anything gets called beautiful.
ANOTHER: It was flowers and leaves. [holding up some paper flowers] Like this.
GUARDIAN: We have flowers and leaves.
THE DELEGATE WITH THE FATHER: My father said spring was a metaphor.
ANOTHER: My grandfather who was an expert said that flowers and leaves Outside are not like this, they are made of flesh.
THE DELEGATES, VARIOUSLY: Oh how disgusting. Revolting. Horrible. Repulsive. Ugh!
DELEGATE WITH THE GRANDFATHER: My grandfather had the theory that the word spring meant when Outside was covered all over with live tissue in different colours. You know, like our flesh, but different.
A DELEGATE [shuddering]: Like a sort of cancer.
DELEGATE: That would take a lot of getting used to for a start.
ANOTHER: That’s what I’ve always said. I mean, we take it for granted that Outside would be better than here. But, ugh, flowers and leaves made of flesh, living flowers and leaves, I mean to say. [He looks as if he is going to be sick.]
FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: My father spent all his life studying the old sayings. His version of the spring verse is quite different.
SECRETARY: You have scholarship down on the Lower Levels? Yes, yes of course you do …
[SECRETARY exchanges a tolerant grimace with the CHAIRMAN.]
FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: He said it should go:
‘The Door will sing,
Then through it spring.’
THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: I like the other one better.
FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: Here, you two can’t stay there. You can’t be in front of us. I don’t care for myself but it is an insult to the 56th Level.
FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: We aren’t moving back and that’s final.
CHAIRMAN: I do hope you will forgive me intruding, but I have a suggestion. You can’t have been Hereditary Exalted Chairman all your life without learning something of the arts of compromise. [He whispers to ASSISTANT.]
ASSISTANT: You move there … [He pushes FIRST LOW-LEVELLER with FOURTH.] … and you there … [He pushes THIRD with SECOND.]