Maurice Maeterlinck

“ Silanus
I will conform mine to it, Appius, if what he teaches is better than what I have learned. By awaking a dead man, in the depth of his grave, he shows us that he possesses a power greater than that of our masters, but not a greater wisdom. Let us await everything with an even mind. It is not difficult, even for a child, to discern that which, in men’s words, augments or decreases the love of virtue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Silanus
Here is the terrace, the glory of my little [Pg 4] 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. ”

“ Verus
It is well, stand up.... I do not keep you by force. But I could not have believed that you had come to this.... I have fallen into one of your Jewish traps. Do you see the crowd posted there, under the portico, spying upon its hostages?... I will not have Roman property defiled.... I bear you no grudge, Magdalene. Love, in me, is not extinguished in a moment; and I possess more constancy than woman.... ”

“ Silanus
Why does he not remember it, when misfortune strikes him? But why did I forget it myself, when I needed it most?... “I assure you,” he added, “that of those whom we have loved, much remains to us after death has removed them. The time that is past is ours; and I see nothing of which we are more certain than of that which has been. The hope of the future makes us ungrateful for the benefits which we have received, as though the favours which we expect were not bound soon to be ranked among things past. Death has deprived you of a son so young that he could be of no promise to you yet ”

“ 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.... ”

“ At that moment, cries, at first scattered, rise among the invisible crowd behind the hedge. A few words are distinguishable: “It Is the Roman woman! The Roman woman!... The adulteress!... Shame!... Shame! Shame!... Magdalene!... The strumpet!... Drive her away, drive her away!...” Immediately afterwards, these cries are lost in a violent and formidable shout of reprobation, in which only [Pg 52] a few resounding words are, with difficulty, perceived: “Shame! Shame!... Stone her! Stone her!... Death! Death!... Stone her!” ”

“ Mary Magdalene
What were the words? It is well to know anything that can relieve sorrow....
Silanus
“You expect consolation,” he said; “you shall receive only reproaches. If you bear the death of a child with so little patience, what would you do if you had lost a friend? You ought to bring yourself to this frame of mind, that you were more pleased at having had him than grieved that you had him no longer. But most men reckon past advantages and pleasures as of no account. They bury friendship with their friend....”
Appius
I recognize and hail the mighty wisdom of our venerable master. ”

“ 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!... ”

“ 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 [Pg 160] 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.... ”

“ Verus
Come, I know these tears that well at the same moment from our two hearts in our one joy.... But here, between the columns of the vestibule, come the greatest [Pg 74] ornaments of that beautiful Rome which we shall soon astonish with our love.... I am right: it is our good Silanus, accompanied by the faithful Appius; led by the immortal gods, they descend the marble steps to hallow with their fraternal presence the first smiles of a happiness born under their eyes.... ”

“ Verus (in a hectoring voice)
Who are you?... (Lazarus does not reply.) You do not answer?... It is indeed easier to cover with silence what one dare not confess. But, if you have nothing to say, you have no business here. It is well for you that my pity is stronger than my indignation. Go!
(A new and profound silence.)
Lazarus (in a voice that does not seem yet to have recovered its human note, to Magdalene)
Come. The Master calls you.
[Pg 101]
(Magdalene leaves the column against which she is leaning and takes four or five steps towards Lazarus, as though walking in her sleep.) ”

“ We nearly fell from our rock!... 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 [Pg 87] shall never forget, he cried, “Lazarus, come forth!” ”

“ 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!... ”

“ Appius
Yes, imagine, when we approached the last cross-road down there, we found the whole country in a stir and the way blocked by a shouting, gesticulating throng, which was crowding round a blind man who saw!...
Verus
Yes, that is one of those phenomena which one meets with nowhere except in Judæa....
Cœlius
It was extraordinary!... The poor man, crushed against an old wall, rolled two drunk and virgin eyes, crying, “He [Pg 30] is a prophet! He is a prophet! I see men as trees, walking!” And the crowd stamped all around for joy. ”

“ The Voice
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!... Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted!... Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth!... ”

“ There are instances without end of fathers losing infant children without shedding a single tear and returning to the senate after [Pg 40] laying them in the grave. This is not unreasonable; for, in the first place, it is idle to give way to grief when grief can serve no purpose. And then it is unjust to complain of a misfortune that has befallen one person and still threatens all the others. Moreover, it is madness to complain, when there is so little distance between the one who is dead and the one who mourns him. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Mary Magdalene
His hours are numbered?... What do you mean?...
Verus
No matter: that does not interest us now and soon we shall know nothing of aught that does not touch our love; for it is wonderful to see how the thoughts of those who love each other meet and unite in spite of the distance and of the ill-natured speeches that come between them. Is it not astonishing that, after leaving you at Silanus’, where I had heard words that should have deprived me of all hope, I for the first time felt our young happiness swell and blossom in all its [Pg 68] strength and all its certainty?... ”

“ Verus
My soldiers will not be able to hold their tongues. They will have to choose between silence and their lives. It will [Pg 148] 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 ”

“ To complain that the friend or the child is dead is to complain that he was ever born. We are all linked to the same fate. He who has come into the world must also leave it. [Pg 41] His stay may be longer, but the end is always alike. The time that elapses between the first day and the last is uncertain and variable. If you consider the wretchedness of life, it is long, even for a child; if you regard the duration, it is short, even for an old man.”
Mary Magdalene
That would not have consoled me....
Silanus
To console, lady, is not to do away with sorrow, but to teach one how to overcome it. ”

“ Consider that all mankind, destined to one and the same end, is divided only by little intervals, even when they appear very great. He whom you think lost has only gone before. Since we must all travel the same road, is it not unworthy of a wise man to weep for one who has set out earlier than ourselves? ”

“ Their orchard is filled incessantly with a multitude of sick, of vagrants, of cripples, issuing from all the rocks in Judæa to beseech him whom, with loud cries, they call the Saviour of the World, the Son of David and King of the Jews. There are sometimes so many of them that they overflow into my garden. The hedge, as you [Pg 34] see, has been trampled, crushed and even torn in certain places. Fortunately, the Nazarene’s appearances are few and brief. ”

“ 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 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 fall 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 [Pg 100] Magdalene moves backwards to one of the columns in the foreground, against which she crushes herself, motionless. But Verus, breaking the silence, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, goes up to Lazarus. ”

“ 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?
[Pg 11]
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.... ”

“ At this moment, an inconceivable and dangerous exaltation still prevails in all the region [Pg 91] round about the tombs; and, by Hercules, though we have escaped unscathed, I would not advise my worst enemy to risk the Roman toga and arms there!
Verus
Is that all?...
Appius
What more would you have?...
Verus
I should like to know what all this proves.
Appius
It proves that this man who has conquered death, which hitherto had conquered the world, is greater than we and our gods. It therefore behoves us to hear what he has to tell us and to conform our lives to it. ”

“ At the back, leading one into the other, the Atrium and a long vestibule with marble columns.)
SCENE I
Mary Magdalene, 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 [Pg 60] 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
Where is she going....
Appius
What is she doing?... She is mad!... She is trying to pass through the hedge!...
[Pg 50]
The Voice
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you!... Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven!...
Verus
She has opened the gate of the garden!... She is in the orchard!...
Silanus
Women sometimes have thoughts which wise men do not understand.... ”