THE SAME, MARY MAGDALENE, JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA, JAMES, ANDREW AND SIMON ZELOTES
MARY MAGDALENE (beside herself, dishevelled, barefoot, with torn garments)
How many are you?... Are you ready?... What have you been doing while waiting for me?... I have come from the Antonia Tower.... The military tribune was not in the Roman quarter.... But I have seen his friend Appius.... He will send him to us as soon as he returns.... Verus said that it might be possible to save him.... I do not know how.... He will explain it to us.... But, if he does not save him, we must.... James and Simon have swords under their cloaks. Where is Peter? Where is John?...
MARTHA
I saw them in the hall of the high-priest’s house....
MARY MAGDALENE
They ought to be here.... We must be many.... He is to pass through this street, under that window, on his way to Pilate....
NICODEMUS
When?...
MARY MAGDALENE
To-night, before the second watch.... Which of you has arms? Where are they hidden?...
NICODEMUS
What do you wish to do?...
MARY MAGDALENE
To deliver him, if Verus does not deliver him.... It is easy, you shall see.... They will let us do as we please, I know they will.... The Romans do not want to judge him.... Appius told me so, they are perplexed.... When they took him to Caiaphas, there were only two soldiers to guard him and two sergeants from the Temple, armed with sticks.... If only there had been five or six men with me!... We would have hidden him, I know where; and he would have been saved!... But I was all alone!...
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
It is not so easy as you think, Magdalene.... All the populace was there, ready to stone him....
MARY MAGDALENE
But the populace is on his side and the crowd adores him!... You have forgotten his triumphal entry!...
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
It is different now.... They were all shouting for his death outside Caiaphas’ palace....
MARY MAGDALENE
It was a few servants of the Pharisees and Sadducees....
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
A few servants would not have been enough to cover a public place to the very roofs.... It was indeed the same crowd as on the day of the triumph.... No, believe me, Magdalene, he knows what he wishes.... He is determined to be destroyed.... He has confessed everything....
MARY MAGDALENE
What can he have confessed, when he has done no wrong?...
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
He admitted that he was the Son of God and the King of the Jews.
MARY MAGDALENE
Is it not the truth?...
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
No doubt, but it would have been better not to proclaim it to-night. In the eyes of the priests and Romans, it is a crime punishable by law....
AN INFIRM MAN
He must be guilty, or they would not have arrested him....
NICODEMUS
We cannot do more than he wishes and commands; and he renounces his defence.
MARY MAGDALENE
But you do not see that he does that to try your faith, your strength, your love!...
NICODEMUS
He foretold all this many times....
MARY MAGDALENE
That was because he knew the cowardice of those who pretended to love him!... Ah, men are great and heroic and proud!... The only men who have not fled, those who tremble least, the best of you discuss and argue as though they had to do with a measure of wheat; and the women are silent and weep!... Well, what do you say, my sisters?... Is not this the moment to show your love?... And those whom he has healed, where are they, what are they doing?... You there, who want to flee, blind Bartimæus, the other one from Jericho, the other from Siloam: those eyes, which he has opened, you turn from me, because I have the courage to speak to you of him!... You, Simon the Leper, you, the other from Samaria, have you forgotten that, before he came, you were more hideous than death?... I see nothing around me but miracles in hiding!... The man whose hand was withered, the man who was healed of a dropsy on the Sabbath and the man of Gerasa possessed by a devil, who dares not lift up his head!... And, among the palsied, he of Bethesda who is running to the door, using his legs only to forsake the God who healed him!... Even those whom he raised from the dead are afraid!... Why, look at Lazarus: he is more pale than any of you!... And yet you saw death, you; you lay touching it for four long days.... Is it more terrible than men thought?... You do not answer?...
(A long pause.)
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
Listen, Magdalene.... I lack neither courage nor loyalty.... Notwithstanding the power of the priests, I have thrown open my house to those who followed him. I know the price which I shall have to pay.... I am prepared to sacrifice everything and life itself to him. But I know his will and I cannot disobey him.... Peter wished to defend him and drew his sword.... He made him put it up into the sheath.... I was at Gethsemane....
MARY MAGDALENE
Since you were there, why did you not help Peter?... We save those whom we love; we listen to them afterwards!... But what will you do when you have destroyed him?... Oh, I am delaying too long with those who are afraid!... What am I doing here, among men who will do nothing?... I am wasting his last chances and his last minutes.... I will go to meet Verus; after him, we shall see.... (She turns to the door. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA and NICODEMUS block her way.)
NICODEMUS
Do not go out, Magdalene: it means destroying him and destroying us with him....
MARY MAGDALENE
Ah, destroying you with him, that is the trouble!... Wait! (She takes another step towards the door. NICODEMUS stops her resolutely.)
NICODEMUS
You shall not go out.
MARY MAGDALENE
I shall not go out?... True, you dare fight against a woman. I had not foreseen this great courage born of terror. You all shake your heads like empty cornspikes; and the women rejoice in at last discovering the cowardice of the men, showing itself suddenly more signal than their own!...
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA
Take counsel, Magdalene; think of him and reflect that, if he heard you....
MARY MAGDALENE
Well, if he heard me, it would be as on the day when that one among you whom you all resemble reproached me with anointing his feet with too costly an ointment!... Have you forgotten what he said?... Whom did he declare to be right?... You have understood nothing!... For months and years, you have lived in his light; and not one of you has the least idea of what I saw because I loved him, I who did not come until the eleventh hour, I whom he drew from lower than the lowest slave of the lowest among you all!...
NICODEMUS (listening to the sounds outside)
Hush!... Listen!... Some one is walking outside the house.... (To BARTIMÆUS.) Go see who it is....
BARTIMÆUS (at the window)
It is a man wrapped in a cloak.... A Roman.... He has stopped.... He knocks at the door.... He is coming in.... The door was not closed....
MARY MAGDALENE (running to the door of the Supper-room)
It is he, it is Lucius Verus!... Open the door to him! Open quickly!... I hear him!...
(They open the door of the Supper-room. LUCIUS VERUS appears in the embrasure. At the sight of the strange assembly of PERSONS CURED BY MIRACLES, CRIPPLES, BEGGARS and SICK, he stops and stands dumbfoundered on the threshold.)