(ENTER ANNŒUS SILANUS AND LUCIUS VERUS)
SILANUS
Here is the terrace, the glory of my little domain: it reminds me of my terrace at Præneste, which was the crown of my desires. Here are my orange-trees, my cypresses and my oleanders. Here is the fish-pond, the portico with the images of the gods: one of them is a statue of Minerva, discovered at Antioch. (Pointing to the landscape on the left.) And here you have the incomparable view over the valley, where spring already reigns. We hang midway in space. Admire the anemones streaming down the slopes of Bethany. It is as though the earth were ablaze beneath the olive-trees. Here I relish in peace the advantages of old age, which knows how to take pleasure in the past; for youth narrows the enjoyment of good things, by considering only those which are present....
VERUS
At last! Here are trees and water and grass!... I had lost the memory of them since my arrival in this stony desert which men call Judæa.... But how comes it, O my good master, that you have taken up your abode near that dull and barren city, where the soil is abominable, where the men are ugly, churlish, crafty and mischievous, unclean and barbarous?
SILANUS
As you know, I came with the Procurator Valerius Gratus to Cæsarea; then I returned to Rome, where you were for some time my faithful and favourite pupil. But soon I became ashamed of teaching a wisdom whose certainties became more doubtful to my mind as the assurance wherewith I proclaimed them increased. I was brought back here, to this barbarous Judæa, by the strangest curiosity. During my first sojourn, I had begun to study the sacred books of the Jews. They are crude and bloodthirsty; but they also contain beautiful myths and the early efforts of an uncivilized but, at times, singular wisdom. They have not yet wearied me.
VERUS
Yes, our friend Appius, whom I met at Antioch, told me of your studies and of your sudden and inordinate passion for old Jewish books....
SILANUS
He will be here shortly....
VERUS
Who? Appius?... Is he at Jerusalem?
SILANUS
Did you not know?... But how long have you yourself been in this country?... In your letter of two days since, you did not tell me....
VERUS
Nearly a week; and I wished to give my first leisure to you. I left Antioch to go to Jerusalem with the Procurator Pontius Pilate. He fears disturbances and will probably need the help of my old legionaries....
SILANUS
The spacious, ample Appius, whose words are as rambling as his habits and bring together the most distant friends, spoke to me of you, even as he spoke to you of me. He told me that, when he had the good fortune to meet you at Antioch, you seemed a prey to some great unhappy love....
VERUS
Which was that?
SILANUS
What! Can the handsomest of military tribunes, in his magnificent array, know more than one love that is not happy?... It concerned a woman of these regions, a Galilean, if I be not mistaken....
VERUS
Mary of Magdala?... Did he speak to you of her?... Where is she?... I did not see her again; she left Antioch suddenly; and I lost trace of her....
SILANUS
But why did she not listen to you?... Appius declared to me that she sets the men of this country, it is true, at naught, but shows herself not at all inexorable to the Roman knights....
VERUS
It is one of those riddles of womankind which our duties as soldiers hardly leave us time to solve. She did not appear to dislike me; at least, the dislike which she affected was not without a harsh gentleness.... But there was mingled with it a certain incomprehensible dread, which made her timidly avoid me.... Besides, she seemed lately to have suffered a great sorrow, for which she has already, I hear, consoled herself more than once....
SILANUS
I do not know; and all this does not seem to me so very discouraging. After all, why afflict one’s self with what the gods created for pleasure?... Appius, therefore, wished me to cure you, by my wise counsels, of an ill that saddens you needlessly. But, first, do you love her as much as Appius declares? His talk is often extravagant and heedless....
VERUS
I desired her, I still desire her, as I have never desired any woman....
SILANUS
You speak wisely in not separating, from the outset, desire and love. Besides, I understand. She is certainly the loveliest of all the many women whom I have admired in my life.
VERUS
What!... You have seen her?... Is she at Jerusalem then?
SILANUS
She is even nearer to us than Jerusalem, which is fifteen stadia from Bethany.... (Drawing him a little to the right). Come to this portico and look over there, at the bottom of the valley.... What do you see?...
VERUS
I see olive-trees, paths, tombs.... Then I see the pediments of palaces or temples, columns, cypresses.... One might think one’s self in the outskirts of Rome.... But I do not perceive....
SILANUS
It was Herod the Great, a sort of raving lunatic, but given to building, who filled this valley with splendid palaces more Roman than those of Rome herself.... But look half-way down the hill, to the left of those three tall cypresses, three or four stadia from here.... Do you espy one of the most beautiful marble villas?...
VERUS
The villa with the wide white steps leading to a semicircular colonnade adorned with statues?...
SILANUS
That is where she has retired....
VERUS
Mary Magdalene?... In that solitude, so far from the city?...
SILANUS
She told me that she was fleeing from the fanaticism of the Jews, the tumult and the sickening smells, which increase twofold at Jerusalem as the Passover approaches....
VERUS
Then you see her?... You have spoken to her?...
SILANUS
The good Appius, knowing that the sight of a young and beautiful woman delights my eyes without endangering them, did not dissuade her from coming up to the house of a disarmed and harmless old man....
VERUS
What did she say to you?... What impression did she make upon you?...
SILANUS
She was clad in a raiment that seemed woven of pearls and dew, in a cloak of Tyrian purple with sapphire ornaments, and decked with jewels that rendered a little heavier this eastern pomp. As for her hair, surely, unloosed, it would cover the surface of that porphyry vase with an impenetrable veil of gold....
VERUS
I speak of her intelligence, her character.... Do not mistake: she is no vulgar courtezan.... She has other attractions, binding love more firmly....
SILANUS
I minded only her beauty, which is real and contents the eye.... However, we can judge better presently: she will soon be coming....
VERUS
She is coming here?... But does she know that she will find me with you?...
SILANUS
Most certainly. It seemed to me that this meeting would do more to assuage your malady than the wise counsels threatened by Appius....
VERUS
But she?... What did she say when she learnt that....
SILANUS
She smiled with a quivering and pensive grace.... The other guests will be our indispensable Appius and Cœlius, your fellow-pupil at Præneste.... I hope that they will bring our poor friend Longinus, who, three weeks ago, lost a little daughter two years old.... I will try to console him, by good and persuasive arguments, for a sorrow certainly disproportionate to his loss. We shall have, among other dishes—all excellent, I hope,—two fish from the Jordan, new to you, which, dressed by Davus, my old cook.... But I hear the sound of the double flute.... It must be the litter of the queen of Bethany and Jerusalem at the threshold of my house.... Your eyes will soon behold the soft light which they have missed and mine the smile that pleases them ... unless the silver mirrors in the Atrium delay her longer than they should....
VERUS
She is here....
(ENTER, on the right, MARY MAGDALENE. She is followed by some slaves, whom she dismisses with a harsh and imperious gesture.)