please come in.
sit here, near me. i am an old man and can do no one any harm.
yes.
i trust you have been comfortable at shangri-la, since your arrival.
what is it, my son?
sit down, my son.
oh, not of conway the empire-builder and public hero. i wanted to meet the conway who in one of his books, said, "there are moments in every man's life when he glimpses the eternal."
that conway seemed to belong here. in fact, it was suggested that someone be sent to bring him here.
sondra bizet.
yes. she has read your books and has a profound admiration for you, as have we all.
we need men like you here, to be sure that our community will continue to thrive. in return for which, shangri-la has much to give you. you are still, by the world's standards, a youngish man. yet in the normal course of existence, you can expect twenty or thirty years of gradually diminishing activity. here, however, in shangri-la, by our standards your life has just begun, and may go on and on.
we have reason. it is the entire meaning and purpose of shangri-la. it came to me in a vision, long, long, ago. i saw all the nations strengthening, not in wisdom, but in the vulgar passions and the will to destroy. i saw their machine power multiply until a single weaponed man might match a whole army. i foresaw a time when man, exulting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world that every book, every treasure, would be doomed to destruction. this vision was so vivid and so moving that i determined to gather together all the things of beauty and culture that i could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing.
you must come again, my son. good night.
you, my son, will live through the storm. you will preserve the fragrance of our history, and add to it a touch of your own mind. beyond that, my vision weakens.