LUCIUS VERUS, MARY MAGDALENE
VERUS (sarcastically)
Who are those extraordinary persons?... I have never seen so many cripples, vagrants and evil-smelling sick people gathered together.... What do they want with you?... I was told that you were living in the midst of uncouth creatures, the oldest, the ugliest, the dirtiest and the most pestilential of those Jews whom you mocked so pleasantly in the house of the wise Silanus; but I could not have believed that they were so intimate with you as this.... However, that no longer concerns me. But I told you that we should meet again before long.... Appius informed me that you had been looking for me in the Roman quarter. I left everything to hasten at your first summons. I knew what was happening and I was biding my time....
MARY MAGDALENE
How good and generous you are!... How reassuring and comforting your presence and your smile!... Those others ... if you only knew!... They were trembling like the reeds of which our Master speaks; and I was helpless and dying with shame.... But I knew that you would come back to us; and now this is you, your arms, your breast.... It seems to me that Rome in her entirety is protecting us and that your arms, which can do all things, cannot abandon him....
VERUS
They will not abandon you, Magdalene. The rest depends upon yourself alone.... I am good and generous, perhaps, but in my own manner; and we must understand each other.... So they have arrested him in whom you take so lively an interest, as I told you that they would?...
MARY MAGDALENE
They have not only arrested him: all the menials of the Temple, the grooms, the herds, the meanest scullions in the kitchens rushed at him, insulted, flouted and ill-treated him.... And, as they were afraid, as they were too cowardly to venture it alone, they made the Roman soldiers help them!...
VERUS
I know.... But had we not best be brief and to the point?...
MARY MAGDALENE
Yes, we have no time to lose....
VERUS
Even so. It is not now a question of arrest nor of more or less justifiable ill-usage, but of imminent death. I have seen the Procurator Pontius Pilate.
MARY MAGDALENE
Good. What did he say?...
VERUS
I found him anxious, perplexed, at a loss. He is a mild, irresolute man, an enemy to quarrels and violence. He had to choose between the inevitably bloody revolt of the priests and their sectaries and the sacrifice of an agitator who was unquestionably troublesome and dangerous, but who has not, perhaps, incurred the death penalty in the eyes of Roman law and justice. I spoke according to my duty and conscience. He did not hesitate. He chose the more humane and wiser course. And, as I am the armed guardian responsible for the Roman peace, he gave the fate of your Nazarene into my hands. However, I must admit that, before our interview, I had purposely allowed events to take the course they did....
MARY MAGDALENE
He is saved! I was sure of it! And how right I was to fear nothing and to hope all things in turning to you!...
VERUS
Do not let us go too fast. There are many things to consider....
MARY MAGDALENE
What do you say?...
VERUS
I say that there are many things to consider.... Had I known nothing whatever of your adventure, my choice would not have been in doubt: I should, while more or less pitying him, have sacrificed the wretched man to the public tranquillity; it is the sovereign law of the empire; but now....
MARY MAGDALENE
But now, it is different, you know him, you know everything.... There is no excuse for a moment’s hesitation; it would be monstrous....
VERUS
Indeed, there is no excuse for a moment’s hesitation; it would be monstrous, as you say.... Shall I, to snatch a favoured rival from a well-merited death, for the second time lose the only woman whom I love or can love?... That certainly is impossible....
MARY MAGDALENE
I do not quite understand....
VERUS
Yet it is simple enough: in saving him, I hand you over, without defence, to the fellow who will drag you with him, by fall after fall, to the bottom of none can tell what pit of folly and wretchedness, whence no human and reasoning power will be able to extricate you. Moreover, speaking for myself, I lose you irrevocably by thus giving you, with my own simple, foolish hands, to one who robs me of my happiness by methods against which a man who values the name does not try to struggle. Whereas, if I abandon him to his fate, there remains a chance of seeing you return to the light and for me some prospect of finding you in my path; for our two lives have still, I hope, a long space to cover; and many roads, as you well know, lead to Rome....
MARY MAGDALENE
I understand.... I understand, since I needs must understand.... But I do not yet believe.... No, it is not possible; and you, the man whom I know, have not come to tell me coldly that you wish to destroy him and thus revenge yourself for an injury which he has not done you.... There is, there must be, something else....
VERUS
Yes, there is something else.... There remains to us, if you are absolutely bent upon it, one means of saving him. But, at the point to which we have come and to which I have driven the adventure, saving him probably means ruin to myself. Besides, time presses. The sentence is written, I have seen it. He will be put to death at daybreak; for the hours are numbered because of the Passover....
MARY MAGDALENE
What must I do?... Quick, quick, I will do it....
VERUS
The prisoner is guarded by my men; it is therefore not quite impossible to effect his escape....
MARY MAGDALENE
Why yes, why yes, it is simple; and that, of course, is what we must do!... Once free, he will hide and he will be forgotten.... Let us lose no time.... But I do not understand why you came to say....
VERUS
You will soon understand.... I answer for the prisoner, therefore. Do you know what I am doing, do you know what I risk by restoring him to liberty?...
MARY MAGDALENE
You are only doing your duty in freeing an innocent man....
VERUS
It is not for me to enquire into his innocence; that does not concern me. I am not his judge, but his keeper....
MARY MAGDALENE
Your soldiers will hold their tongues and no one will know that....
VERUS
My soldiers will not be able to hold their tongues. They will have to choose between silence and their lives. It will therefore be known that they acted only on my orders. Now there is no instance of the high-priests’ ever abandoning a prey, a revenge, a hatred. They will go and complain, first, at Antioch, to the Governor of Syria, and, next, to Cæsar himself, whose anger is kindled at the very breath of a suspicion. Do you know what Cæsar is? The greatest, the most powerful men in Rome tremble before his shadow.... For me, it means, if not death, at least exile far from Rome; and death, to us Romans, seems sweet compared with exile.... That is what I give; that is my stake; I am waiting for yours.
MARY MAGDALENE
You are waiting for mine?... What would you have me give?... I have nothing left.... I distributed all to the poor the other evening....
VERUS
I do not ask for what one gives to the poor.... And, besides, I have had enough of those evasions which lead to nothing and of those shuffling phrases.... Ah, much I care for justice and a vagrant more or less in the world and my own fate and my own exile!... Have you not understood that it is you I want, you alone and all of you; that I have wanted you for years; and that this is my hour?... It is not beautiful, I know, and it is not as I dreamt it!... But it is all I have; and a man takes what he can to make his life!... We stand here face to face, with our two madnesses, which are more powerful than ourselves and cannot recede; we must come to an understanding!... The more you love him, the more I love you, the more you wish to save him and the more I wish to destroy him! We must come to an understanding!... You want his life, I want mine; and you shall have his life, but I shall have you, before he escapes his death.... Is it understood?... Are we agreed?... Say no, if you dare, and let his blood be upon her who has brought him to this pass and who is destroying him twice over!...
MARY MAGDALENE
Ah, so that was it!... Yes, yes, I know, I see.... I was not conscious and I no longer thought of it; but it was bound to be.... Ah, so it was that which caused me just now, while you were speaking, to have no confidence despite my confidence!... It is so strange, so monstrous, so remote from us!... One needs a little time to understand.... All one’s thoughts become deranged and one’s soul falls, falls, like a stone in a well.... One grasps the meaning of nothing.... One no longer knows where one stands....
VERUS
You and I know quite well; and there is nothing extraordinary in all this.... A few days ago, you would not have needed so much urging; and I do not understand that to-day, when the price of love is something quite different, to-day, when a life, dear to you among all lives....
MARY MAGDALENE
Ah, you do not understand!... And to think that scarcely any one, not even those who loved him, would understand better!... Am I then the only being that has seen into his soul?... And yet it is not so very difficult!... He has spoken to me only three times in my life, but I know what he thinks. I know all that he wishes, I know all that he is as completely as though I were within him, or as though he were there, near me, fixing upon my brow his glance in which the angels come down from heaven, as on the evening when I kissed his feet and wiped them with my hair....
VERUS
I well knew that I came too late, but I should never have believed that you had gone so far.... If he has spoken to you only three times, he has not wasted the minutes and has told you enough to remove my doubts.... But let us be calm. It is a question other than of love; and your lover himself, were he consulted, would judge that a kiss does not weigh much in the presence of death.... Since you love him so well, is his life not worth a slight displeasure, which but lately would not have inspired you with such horror?... If there were a looking-glass in this room, I would go and gaze at myself with curiosity, to make out what, in a few days, has made me so repulsive that the torture of the one man whom you adore is preferred to the touch of my lips!... But what is the matter?... One would think that I was speaking of unimaginable things!... What have I said? What have I done?... Your face is distorted.... There is no need to look at me like that, with mad and terrified eyes, as though they beheld the fall of the sun or the violation of a tomb!...
MARY MAGDALENE
Let me be.... You cannot know.... I am only beginning to understand....
VERUS
A few days since, you were not so slow in understanding....
MARY MAGDALENE (in a soft and distant voice)
Yes, yes.... For one sees only little by little.... (Staring before her) It is unfolded slowly, like a thing that has no beginning, no end, no name.... There are two deaths here, I hold two deaths in my hand; and that is too heavy a weight for a poor creature born upon this earth....
VERUS
Two deaths?... What do you mean?... You do not intend to follow him, surely?... Your death, since he loves you, would only add a very useless bitterness to his....
MARY MAGDALENE (in the same soft and distant voice)
No.... I am not speaking of mine.... It is two other deaths.... I still have my senses.... I can see clearly in the abyss.... Let me look, where you can see nothing....
VERUS
I should not have thought that, when I came to bring you his safety and the great sacrifice which I am making to love....
MARY MAGDALENE (with a sudden outburst)
The sacrifice which you are making to love!... Ah, if you could see the sacrifice which is being accomplished here and which the very angels dare not look upon!... But you cannot know what has happened on earth since he descended upon it!... It is no longer the same earth; and it is no longer possible!... Before he came, the purest would not have hesitated!... Before he came! Before he came!... And, even then, to-day, I, who have been born again through him, if it were not he, if it were a question of another, I should not have the strength!... I should perhaps sin against all that he loves, to save what I love!... But he gives too much strength to love and to suffer!... I could save him in spite of himself; but no longer in spite of myself!... If I bought his life at the price which you offer, all that he wished, all that he loved would be dead!... I cannot plunge the flame into the mire to save the lamp! I cannot give him the only death that could touch him!... But look at me with clearer eyes and you shall perhaps see all that I perceive without being able to tell you!... Were I to yield but for a moment under the weight of love, all that he has said, all that he has done, all that he has given would sink back into the darkness, the earth would be more deserted than if he had not been born and heaven would be closed to mankind for ever!... I should be destroying him altogether, destroying more than himself, to gain for him days which would destroy everything....
VERUS
It is not so much a question of gaining days for him as of sparing him tortures, the mere thought of which should make you reflect....
MARY MAGDALENE
I know! I know!... Because I love him thus, as none has ever loved upon this earth where heaven had not yet poured forth its love, must I not sacrifice to him what no human soul has possessed before me?... But you come to ask for all that he has given; and what he has given is much more than his life and lives more in our hearts than it lives in himself!... If I destroy him in myself, I destroy him in us!... I know no more, I see no more, I understand no more.... I would do it, perhaps, if my soul were alone; but it is no longer possible and God would not have it!...
VERUS
The gods always will what men will.... Be sure that, if he whom you are about to deliver to the torture could make his voice heard at this moment, he would not hesitate....
MARY MAGDALENE
Ah, I know that he would not hesitate! And that is why I am struggling thus, like a blind beast, between two sacrifices!... It is my past shame that overwhelms me and prevents me from rising to the level of his will!...
VERUS
Man has but one will in the presence of death....
MARY MAGDALENE
My God! My God!... I am nothing, I am defiled with every defilement: what matters this one, which brings thee life?... But am I in question?... Is it not thou alone whom I defile to-day in defiling thy salvation, thou, the very source whence the source of all purity and of every happiness and of every life will spring?... I no longer know where to thrust back my soul!... Nothing remains to me, if I lose it; nothing remains to us, if I save it!...
VERUS
Nothing is lost so long as life endures....
MARY MAGDALENE
Hush, I beseech you!... Leave me alone in his silence and his will.... Let me contemplate, let me listen to other things.... I do not yet love him as he would be loved!... In vain I raise my eyes to his heaven of light: I see only his death, his sorrows, his suffering ... his steadfast face, his eyes that lit up all he looked upon, his mouth that spoke unceasingly of happiness ... his feet which I have kissed, lifeless and icy cold!... Verus, Verus, have pity!... I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! I am falling!... Do with me what you will!...
VERUS (catching her in his arms)
Magdalene, Magdalene!... I knew....
MARY MAGDALENE (springing back at his touch)
No, you did not know! And it is not that!... There is something else!... There is another outlet!... Verus, Verus, come, you are not without feeling, you are not a monster, you will understand also.... It depends on you.... For me it is impossible.... There is a wall there defended by his angels.... I cannot pass it.... I must not think of it.... But you, you can do everything!... To think that you hold there, in that human hand of yours, the life of the God of Gods descended upon earth!... I know, I know, you do not believe it.... But you must at least believe in his innocence; and you know that he has done no evil.... He does not even know what evil is, since he is all goodness.... He has done nothing but heal, console and pray.... He has done nothing but breathe over men’s souls and flood them with happiness.... If only you knew him, if he had spoken to you, were it but once!... Because he is innocent and because you are just, because you have strength and because you are brave, you cannot deliver him defenceless to the executioners.... It would not be Roman, it would not even be manly....
VERUS
Enough of this; and, as everything is useless, let him be treated as you have decided.... It is not I who am leading him to the torture....
MARY MAGDALENE (clinging to the garments of VERUS, who takes a step to the door)
Verus! Verus!... I implore you!... That is not all!... All is not said!... It cannot be decided like this!... But do not ask the one impossible thing.... I will be your slave, I will live at your feet, serve you on my knees for the rest of my days; but give me his life without destroying in my soul and throughout the earth that which is the very life of our new life!...
VERUS
Enough!... Besides, there is no time. My patience in saving a rival whom I hate is as ridiculous as your persistent attempt to save your lover by singing his praises!... When you see him dead, in less than three hours hence, do not weep over him, lest your tears should be flung back in your own face!... (Perceiving JOSEPH OF ARIMATHÆA, who discreetly opens the door, to the left, of the Supper-room.) Who goes there?... Come in, come in, this is the very thing!... We need witnesses. Where are the mountebanks, the monsters, the lepers? I want to tell them....
MARY MAGDALENE
What?...
VERUS
They shall know who has betrayed their god!... We shall then see if you have the heart to despatch him before their eyes and how they will take the news!... Repugnant though they be, I want to see their ugly faces again!... (He reaches the door and throws it open wide.)
MARY MAGDALENE (hurrying to stop his action)
Verus! Verus!... This is not worthy of you!...
VERUS
I know! I know!... I am not worthy of anything, it appears! Not even of you, harlot!... (Calling in a loud voice) Hi! Hi! The rest of you!... Where are you?... Hasten this way, you halt and lame, you club-feet, you cripples, you beggars, vagrants, lepers, paralytics!... I have something of importance to tell you!... (Startled faces appear in the embrasures of the two doors.)