[Darkness. Then light plays on the wharf. DIEGO enters and hails a boat that he has seen approaching. The male chorus is massed in the background.]
DIEGO: Ahoy there! Ahoy!
A VOICE: Ahoy!
[During the scene that follows the boat is invisible, only the boatman’s head appears above the level of the wharf.]
DIEGO: What are you up to?
THE BOATMAN: Carrying provisions.
DIEGO: For the city?
THE BOATMAN: No, that’s the food controller’s job. He issues the ration cards to the people, and that’s all they get. I supply my customers with bread and milk. You see, there’s some ships at anchor out there, with whole families aboard, people who’ve gone there to escape contagion. I bring their letters ashore and take back their food.
DIEGO: But that’s forbidden by the authorities.
THE BOATMAN: So I’ve heard tell. But I was at sea when the new laws were passed, and I’ve never learned to read. So I can’t be expected to know their precious regulations, can I?
DIEGO: Take me with you.
THE BOATMAN: Where?
DIEGO: To one of those ships you spoke of.
THE BOATMAN: Nothing doing. It’s forbidden.
DIEGO: But just now you said you didn’t know anything about the regulations.
THE BOATMAN: I didn’t mean forbidden by the authorities here; it’s the people on the ships who don’t allow it. You can’t be trusted.
DIEGO: Can’t be trusted? What do you mean?
THE BOATMAN: Why, you might bring ’em with you.
DIEGO: Bring what?
THE BOATMAN: Ssh! [Looks round to make sure no one is listening.] Why, germs, of course. You might bring the germs on board.
DIEGO: Look here! I’ll pay you well.
THE BOATMAN: Don’t tempt me, sir. I don’t like saying No to a gentleman.
DIEGO: As I said, I won’t haggle over the terms.
THE BOATMAN: And you’ll take it on your conscience if it leads to trouble?
DIEGO: Yes.
THE BOATMAN: Then step on board, sir. The sea is like a lake tonight.
[DIEGO is about to step down from the wharf when suddenly the SECRETARY appears behind him.]
THE SECRETARY: No. You’re not to go.
DIEGO: What the devil …?
THE SECRETARY: It’s a contingency that’s not provided for. Also, I know you better, you won’t desert your post.
DIEGO: Nothing will prevent me from going.
THE SECRETARY: That’s where you’re mistaken. If I wish you to stay you will stay. And in fact I do wish you to stay; I’ve some business to transact with you.… You know who I am, don’t you? [She moves back some steps, as if to draw him away from the edge of the wharf. DIEGO follows her.]
DIEGO: To die is nothing. But to die degraded …
THE SECRETARY: I understand. Mind you, I’m a mere executive. But by the same token I have been given a sort of jurisdiction over you. The right of veto, if I may put it so.
[Consults her notebook.]
DIEGO: The men of my blood belong to the earth, and to the earth alone.
THE SECRETARY: That’s what I meant. You belong to me after a fashion. After a fashion only, mind you, perhaps not in the way I’d like you to be mine … when I look at you. (Naïvely) You know, I’m rather taken by you, really. Unfortunately I have my orders.
[Toys with her notebook.]
DIEGO: I prefer your hatred to your smiles. And I despise you!
THE SECRETARY: Have it your own way! In any case this talk we’re having isn’t quite in order. But I find that tiredness often makes me sentimental, and with all this never-ending bookkeeping, I sometimes find myself losing grip a bit—especially on nights like tonight. [She is twiddling the notebook between her fingers. DIEGO tries to snatch it from her.] No, darling, don’t be naughty. What would you see in it, anyhow, if you got it? Just lines and lines of entries. It’s a sort of memorandum book, you see, a cross between a diary and a directory. [Laughs] My little memory-jogger!
[She stretches a hand toward DIEGO as if to fondle him, but he moves hastily back to where the BOATMAN was.]
DIEGO: Ah! He’s gone!
THE SECRETARY: So he has. Another simpleton who thinks he’s out of it, but whose name is in my book, like everybody else’s.
DIEGO: You’re double-tongued, and that, as you should know, is enough to put any man against you. So, let’s be done with it.
THE SECRETARY: I don’t know what you mean by “double-tongued.” Really it’s all quite simple and aboveboard. Every town has its list. This is the Cadiz list. Our organization’s excellent, I can assure you; nobody’s left out.
DIEGO: Nobody’s left out, yet all escape.
THE SECRETARY [indignantly]: How can you talk such nonsense! [Ponders for a moment.] Still, I admit, there are exceptions. Now and then we overlook someone. But he always ends up by giving himself away, sooner or later. When a man reaches the age of a hundred he can’t help bragging about it—fool that he is! Then it gets into the newspapers. It’s only a question of time. When I read the morning papers I note their names—collate them, as we call it. Oh, never fear, we always get them in the end.
DIEGO: But for a hundred years, anyhow, they’ve snapped their fingers at you—just like all the people in this city.
THE SECRETARY: What’s a hundred years? To you no doubt that sounds like a lot of time, because you see these things from too near. But I can take a longer and a broader view. In a list of three hundred and seventy-two thousand names, what does one man matter, I ask you—even if he is a centenarian? In any case, we make up for it by pulling in a certain number of teen-agers; that levels up our average. It only means eliminating a bit quicker. Like this.… [She crosses out an entry in her notebook. There is a cry out at sea and the sound of a body falling into the water.] Oh! That was the boatman you were talking to. I did it without thinking. It was just a fluke.
[DIEGO, who has risen to his feet, is gazing at her with horror and repugnance.]
DIEGO: You disgust me so much that I feel like vomiting.
THE SECRETARY: Oh, I know I have a beastly job. It’s terribly exhausting, and then one has to be so meticulous. At the start I fumbled a bit, but now I’ve a steady hand. [Approaches DIEGO.]
DIEGO: Keep away from me!
THE SECRETARY: Really I shouldn’t tell you; it’s a secret. But soon there won’t be any more mistakes We’ve invented a new system that will run like clockwork, once it gets going. Just wait and see. [While speaking, she has been coming closer and closer, phrase by phrase, to DIEGO. Suddenly, trembling with rage, he grips her by the collar.]
DIEGO: Stop this play acting, damn you! What are you waiting for? Get on with your job and don’t try to play cat-and-mouse with me—I’m bigger than you, if you only knew it. So kill me; that’s the only way of making good that wonderful system of yours, which leaves nothing to chance. But of course only masses count with you; it’s only when you’re dealing with a hundred thousand men or more that you condescend to feel some interest. Then you can compile statistics—and statistics are conveniently dumb. It’s easier working on whole generations, at an office table, in silence and with a restful smell of ink. But a single man, that’s another story; he can upset your applecart. He cries aloud his joys and griefs. And as long as I live I shall go on shattering your beautiful new order with the cries that rise to my lips. Yes, I resist you, I resist you with all the energy that’s in me.
THE SECRETARY: My darling!
DIEGO: Keep silent! I am of a race that used to honor death as much as life. But then your masters came along, and now both living and dying are dishonorable.
THE SECRETARY: Well, it’s true …
DIEGO: It’s true that you are lying and that you will go on lying until the end of time. Yes, I’ve seen through your famous system. You have imposed on men the pangs of hunger and bereavement to keep their minds off any stirrings of revolt. You wear them down, you waste their time and strength so that they’ve neither the leisure nor the energy to vent their anger. So they just mark time—which is what you want, isn’t it? Great as are their numbers, they are quite as much alone as I am. Each of us is alone because of the cowardice of the others. Yet though, like them, I am humiliated, trodden down, I’d have you know that you are nothing, and that this vast authority of yours, darkening the sky, is no more than a passing shadow cast upon the earth, a shadow that will vanish in a twinkling before a great storm wind of revolt. You thought that everything could be expressed in terms of figures, formulas. But when you were compiling your precious registers, you quite forgot the wild roses in the hedges, the signs in the sky, the smiles of summer, the great voice of the sea, the moments when man rises in his wrath and scatters all before him. [She laughs.] Don’t laugh! Don’t laugh, you fool! You’re doomed, I tell you, you and your associates. Even when you are flushed with victory,
