ANDREA: Good evening. I am sorry to call so late, I am on my way to Holland. I was asked to look him up.  Can I go in?

SAGREDO: Good evening.

VIRGINIA: I don’t know whether he will see you. You never came.

ANDREA: Ask him.

SAGREDO: Please ask him.

 GALILEO recognizes the voice. He sits motionless

 VIRGINIA comes in to GALILEO.

GALILEO: Is that Andrea?

VIRGINIA: Yes it is him, and he is accompanied by Sagredo.  Should I send them away?

GALILEO: Show them in.

VIRGINIA shows ANDREA and SAGREDO in. VIRGINIA sits, ANDREA and SAGREDO remain standing.

ANDREA: Have you been keeping well, Mr. Galilei?

SAGREDO: We were worried about you, sir.

GALILEO: Sit down. What are you doing these days, what are you working on? I heard you were working something about hydraulics in Milan.

ANDREA: As he knew we were passing through, Fabricius of Amsterdam asked us to visit you and inquire about your health.
  Pause

GALILEO: I am very well.

ANDREA: I am glad I can report you are in good health.

GALILEO: Fabricius will be glad to hear it. And you might inform him that on the account of the depth of my repentance, I live in comparative comfort.

SAGREDO: That is good to hear.

ANDREA: Yes, we understand that the church is more than pleased with you. Your complete acceptance has had its effect.

SAGREDO: Not one paper expounding a new thesis has made its appearance in Italy since your submission.
 Pause

GALILEO: Unfortunately there are countries not under the wing of the church. Would you not say the erroneous, condemned theories are still taught there?

ANDREA: Things are almost at a standstill.

GALILEO: Are they? Nothing from Descartes in Paris?

ANDREA: Yes.

SAGREDO: On receiving the news of your recantation, he shelved his treatise on the nature of light.

GALILEO: I sometimes worry about my assistants, who I lead into error.  Have they benefited by my example?

SAGREDO: In order to work we have to go to Holland.

GALILEO: Yes.

ANDREA: Federzoni is grinding lenses again, back in some shop.

GALILEO: He can’t read the books.

SAGREDO: Fulganzio, our little monk, has abandoned research and is resting in peace in the church.

GALILEO: So my superiors are looking forward to my spiritual recovery. I am progressing as well as can be expected.

VIRGINIA: You are doing well, father.

GALILEO: Virginia, leave the room.

 VIRGINIA rises uncertainly and goes out.

VIRGINIA (to the official): He was his pupil, so now he is his enemy. Help me in the kitchen.
 She leaves the anteroom with official.

ANDREA: May we go now sir?

GALILEO: I do not know why you came, to unsettle me? I have to be prudent.

SAGREDO: We will be on our way, sir.

GALILEO: As it is, I have relapses. I completed “Discorsi.”

ANDREA: You completed what?

GALIELO: My “Discorsi.”

SAGREDO: How?

GALILEO: I am allowed pen and paper. My superiors are intelligent men. They know the habits of a lifetime can not be broken abruptly. But they protect me from any unpleasant consequences. They lock my pages away as I dictate them. And I should know better than to risk my comfort. I wrote the “Discorsi” out again during the night. The manuscript is in the globe. My vanity has up to now prevented me from destroying it. I had considered giving it to you, and letting you shoulder the risk, but after contemplating it for a long while, I have decided that I am too old to risk my comfort. And you are too young to take the burden upon your shoulders.

SAGREDO: But why?

ANDREA: Your “Discorsi” should be revealed to the world!

GALILEO: I am not ready to give you that burden, nor is it my place to give it to you. I did not want to suffer, and I do not want you to suffer either.

SAGREDO: I once saw you in my mind burning at the stake, but now I see you rotting away in a comfortable cell.

ANDREA: I should have known all along. Your recantation all of those years ago was part of your plan!

GALILEO: My plan?

ANDREA: You gave your self time to study, to write the book that only you could have wrote! You finished your “Discorsi” right under the nose of the church!

SAGREDO: Brilliant!

ANDREA: Galileo, father of modern science! You have been my teacher for so many years, and now I have finally realized how little I have come to know you.

 GALILEO reaches into the globe and pulls out a manuscript.

SAGREDO: You truly have finished it!

ANDREA: Now the world will see your true genius!

SAGREDO: We shall take it to the finest publishers in all of Italy!

ANDREA: I am glad we came. We will usher in a new era, an era of reason, logic, and science!

 GALILEO takes a lit candle and puts it to the corner of the manuscript.

ANDREA: No!

GALILEO: It is for the best; the world is not ready for the age of science.

SAGREDO: But so many lives would be changed, to be made for the better!

GALILEO: I have realized that not every advancement is for the better. Fulganzio taught me that long ago.

ANDREA: I once said that June 22nd, 1663 was the day that science died. I was wrong; it has taken its last breath in this very room.

SAGREDO: I once had hope for a better tomorrow, because of you. Good day, sir.

ANDREA: I thought more of you, but now I see that you listen to the council of your belly and not reason. I was wrong in thinking that your recantation was part of a plan for the advancement of science, that you were working for the betterment of mankind. Good day.

 ANDREA and SAGREDO leave.