SILANUS (GOING UP TO RECEIVE MARY MAGDALENE)
“Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense?... Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners,” as your sacred books sing at the approach of the Shulamite?...
MARY MAGDALENE
Do not speak to me of my sacred books. I loathe them, as I loathe everything that comes from that deceitful and sordid, greedy and mischievous nation....
VERUS (coming forward to greet her in his turn)
I will say then, in the Roman fashion, “Hail to the eldest daughter of Aglaia, youngest and happiest of the Graces!”
MARY MAGDALENE
Pity me, instead of praising me. I was robbed, last night, of my Carthaginian rubies, besides twelve of my finest pearls; and, what I feel even more, my Babylonian peacock and all the murænæ in my fish-pond....
VERUS
Who dared commit such manifest sacrilege?...
MARY MAGDALENE
I do not know.... I have had the slaves in charge of the aviary and the fish-pond beaten with rods and put to the torture: they have confessed nothing and I believe that they know nothing....
VERUS
Have you no clue, no suspicion?
SILANUS
The theft amazes me, for the country is safe.... I have been living here for nigh six years; and no one has ever tried to rob me of an atom of my wisdom, which is never under lock and key and is the only precious thing that I possess.... The Jew is crafty, sly and evil-minded; he practises cheating and usury as well as most of the cringing virtues and vices; but he nearly always avoids frank, straightforward theft, honest theft, if one may say so....
MARY MAGDALENE
I at first suspected some Tyrian workmen who are fitting one of the rooms in my villa with those movable panels which are changed at every course, so that the walls may harmonize with the dishes covering the table....
VERUS
I have seen some like them in the house of our Governor, Pomponius Flaccus, at Antioch; but I did not know that this fashion, so new to Rome herself, had already made its way into this remote country....
MARY MAGDALENE
Nor will you find it, except in my house; and the last palace of the Tetrarch Antipas is still without it.... Therefore I began by suspecting those workmen; but I have proofs that they are innocent. I now feel sure that the thieves must be sought among that band of vagrants and prowlers who have been infesting the country for some time....
SILANUS
The famous band of the Nazarene....
MARY MAGDALENE
Even so. Their leader, I hear, is a sort of unwashed brigand who entices the crowds with a rude kind of sorcery and, on the pretence of preaching some new law or doctrine, lives by plunder and surrounds himself with fellows capable of everything.... Besides, I have other causes to complain of them.... Two days ago, when I was walking in my gardens, under the portico that divides them from the road, a dozen wretches, belonging to that band, insulted me foully and threatened me with stones.... It is becoming intolerable; and it is time that the countryside were rid of them....
VERUS
I have heard about those people.... I know that the authorities have their eyes upon them.... I will have them watched more closely. For that matter, if you wish, it would be easy for me to arrest their leader....
MARY MAGDALENE
Do so, I pray you, and as soon as possible.... I should be especially grateful to you....
SILANUS
I believe that you are misled. The robbers, in my opinion, must not be looked for there. I am in a fairly good position to know the band, seeing that, for five or six days, it has been gathered near my house. I have even had the pleasure—for everything turns to pleasure at my age—I have even had the pleasure of attending one of their meetings. It was near the old road to Jericho. The leader was speaking in the midst of a crowd covered with dust and rags, among whom I observed a large number of rather repulsive cripples and sick. They seem extremely ignorant and exalted. They are poor and dirty, but I believe them to be harmless and incapable of stealing more than a cup of water or an ear of wheat.... They were listening greedily to a more or less silly anecdote, the story of a son who returns to his father after squandering his patrimony.... I did not hear the end, for they looked upon me with a certain suspicion.... But the Galilean, or the Nazarene, as they call him here, is rather curious; and his voice is of a penetrating and peculiar sweetness.... He appears to be the son of a carpenter.... I will tell you more of him, I know many interesting things about him; but permit me first to go to the other side of the house, which commands the road, to see if my belated guests are not in sight....
(He GOES OUT on the left.)