Page:The Makropoulos Secret (1925).pdf/15

 courses before and within the play; beating upon every reaction in those about her.

Matter of fantasy, it is true, but matter that weaves these imaginings into the actualities of human experience. Matter of the theater, it is also true, but matter impregnated with human content and choice, speculation and even philosophy. Matter indeed of substance and vitality for the mind, the imagination and the spirit. And it is these things that Capek sums in the epilogue of debate and decision. For the while Emilia has quit the scene. The lawyer, the clerk, the nobleman, the suitor, youth in the girl, Kristina, senility in doddering Sendorf, hold in their hands the formula of everlasting life. With it they might lengthen, ripen and fill to brimming human days; breed an aristocracy of supermen; alter the whole course and custom of terrestrial existence. Emilia, who was Elena, slips through the door. From mind and heart upon her lips is the tale, the burden, the penalty of this life everlasting, wherein all sensations, emotions, impulses, experiences, numb into an eternal monotony of repetition. She is as mirror to the woman unperturbed by the suicide of the boy, undismayed when the trap closes upon her.