Maurice Maeterlinck

“ VERUS: (Clasping her violently.) Have no fear, Mary Magdalene. Nothing can touch you in these arms which close round you. The madness of this land seems more contagious than its pestilence and more tenacious than its leprosy; but Roman reason does not waver, like the rest, at the first foul breath that issues from a tomb. We will cut this matter short. (Turning his head around to face LAZARUS.) You I will not touch with my sword. It shrinks from corpses, even when they walk and drive the trade which you do. It is for the slaves to show you the road back to the sepulcher. ”

“ APPIUS: By Metrodorus, Hermachus and Zeno, there are other things on hand than the too-long-expected happiness of two lovers cutting short their quarrels! . . . Tell them at once what has happened; shout it to them, with all your throat and all your soul: death no longer exists! The graves are about to open, the spirits of the dead to show themselves; the gods are shaken, all the laws of life are overturned! ”

“ VERUS: Fear nothing, Magdalene: this time, I alone will defend you.
APPIUS: They are following, at a distance, a man clad in white, who is entering the court. . . .
VERUS: But what is the janitor of the first courtyard doing? . . . Will he not stop him? . . .
APPIUS: Yes. . . . He is coming now. . . . What is he doing? . . . One would think he was afraid! . . . He suddenly stops and lets him pass without a word. . . . ”

“ He had been four days in the grave! . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: But who? How? Where? . . . And the Nazarene? ... I want to know. . . . Speak for him, Silanus: he has not yet recovered his senses. . . .
SILANUS: Here, in a few words, is what happened. Nevertheless, it is right that I should tell you that I do not entirely share Appius' amazement. It should astonish us no more to see a man return to life than to see a child come to life or an old man leave it. (MARY MAGDALENE makes a movement of impatience.) ”

“ The corpse was there, in the greedy light that devoured the cave, lying like a stiff and shapeless statue, closely bound in grave-clothes, the face covered with a napkin. The crowd, heaped up in a semicircle, irresistibly attracted and repelled, leaned forward, stretched its thousand necks, without daring to approach. The Nazarene stood alone, in front. He raised his hand, spoke a few words which I did not catch and then, addressing the corpse in a voice whose pent-up force I shall never forget, he cried, "Lazarus, come forth!" ”

“ LAZARUS advances slowly from the back of the vestibule. He looks neither to the right nor to the left. The SLAVES of the villa, who have hastened up among the last columns, form a group for a moment as though to block his way. But, at the approach of the man risen from the dead, who seems unaware of their presence, they full back silently, one after the other. LAZARUS enters by the back of the Atrium and stops on the threshold, which is raised by three steps. MARY MAGDALENE moves backwards to one of the columns in the fore ground, against which she crushes herself, motionless. ”

“ At the back, leading one into the other, the Atrium and a long vestibule with marble columns.)
SCENE I: MARY MAGDALENE and LUCIUS VERUS (ENTER LUCIUS VERUS. MARY MAGDALENE runs up to him and throws herself into his arms.) MARY MAGDALENE: You at last, my Verus! . . . For three days I have awaited you, for three days I have called you. Men grant me my beauty when its triumph brings me nothing but regret and disgust. And I ask myself, is that beauty really powerless when, at last, there is a question of the happiness which every woman has the right to expect in her life? ”

“ VERUS: And the others follow him. . . . They are entering the second court. . . . The impudence of those Jews is really incredible! ... In Rome, even during the Saturnalia, we should not allow the crowd to push its way like that. . . . What are the slaves doing? . . . MARY MAGDALENE: Is it he? . . .
SILANUS: Who? . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: The Nazarene. . . .
SILANUS: I think not. ... It is not his walk. ... I believe rather that it is...
APPIUS: There he is, in the plane-tree avenue!
SILANUS: He is coming straight in our direction. . . .
VERUS: He is even taking the shortest way. ”

“ Nothing counts in the presence of our love; and the inglorious errand which they claim the right to impose upon me repels me all the more inasmuch as it was to be accomplished, so to speak, be fore your eyes. ”