[VICTORIA utters a low groan.]
DIEGO: It’s not too late. Look, she is trying to rise! Yes, Victoria, once again I shall see you standing before me, straight as a torch, with the black flames of your hair rippling in the wind, and that glory of love upon your face, whose radiance was ever with me in my darkest hour. For I had you with me in the thickest of the fight, and my heart saw me through.
VICTORIA: You will forget me, that’s certain. Your heart will not see you through the years of absence. Did it not fail you in the hour of misfortune only a while ago? Ah, how cruel it is to die knowing one will be forgotten! [Turns away.]
DIEGO: I shall not forget you; my remembrance will outlast my life.
CHORUS OF WOMEN: O suffering body, once so desirable; O queenly beauty, once so radiant! A man cries for the impossible, a woman endures all that is possible. Bow your proud head, Diego, and accuse yourself—for the hour of repentance has struck. Deserter! That body was your homeland; without it you are nothing any more; do not count on your remembrance to save you.
[The PLAGUE, who has come up quietly, is facing DIEGO across VICTORIA’S body.]
THE PLAGUE: Well, do you throw in your hand? [DIEGO gazes with despair at VICTORIA’S body.] Your strength has turned to weakness, your eyes are wavering. But I have the steady gaze of power.
DIEGO [after a short silence]: Let her live, and kill me instead.
THE PLAGUE: What’s that you say?
DIEGO: I propose an exchange.
THE PLAGUE: What exchange?
DIEGO: My life for hers.
THE PLAGUE: That’s the sort of romantic notion one has when one is tired. Don’t forget that dying is a far from pleasant process and she is through with the worst of it. So let’s leave well alone.
DIEGO: It’s the sort of notion one has when one’s the stronger.
THE PLAGUE: Look at me! I am strength incarnate.
DIEGO: Take off your uniform.
THE PLAGUE: Are you crazy?
DIEGO: Strip, I tell you! When strong men take off their uniforms they are not pretty sights!
THE PLAGUE: Quite likely. Their strength lies in having invented uniforms.
DIEGO: Mine lies in rejecting them. Well, I stand by my offer.
THE PLAGUE: Don’t be over-hasty in deciding. Life has its good points.
DIEGO: My life is nothing. What count for me are my reasons for living. I’m not a dog.
THE PLAGUE: The first cigarette of the day—will you tell me that is nothing? And the smell of dust at noon on the rambla, rain falling through the dusk, a woman unknown as yet, the second glass of wine—do these mean nothing to you?
DIEGO: They mean something, yes. But this girl will live better than I.
PLAGUE: No—provided you give up troubling yourself about others.
DIEGO: On the road I’ve chosen there is no turning back, even if one wants it. I shall not spare you!
THE PLAGUE [changing his tone]: Now, listen well. If you offer me your life in exchange for that girl’s, I am bound to accept your offer, and she will live. But there’s another arrangement we can make, if you agree to it. I’ll give you that girl’s life and let you both escape, provided you let me make my own terms with this city.
DIEGO: No. I know my power.
THE PLAGUE: In that case I will be frank with you. For me there can be no question of half measures; I must be master of all or I am master of nothing. So, if you escape me, this city escapes me. That’s the law. An ancient law, whose origin I do not know.
DIEGO: But I do. It comes from the abyss of time, it is greater than you, loftier than your gibbets; it is the law of nature. We have won the day.
THE PLAGUE: Not yet. I have this girl’s body as my hostage. And this hostage is the last trump in my hand. If any woman has life written on her face it’s she; she deserves to live, and you wish to have her live. As for me, I am bound to give her back to you—but only in exchange for your life, or for the freedom of this city. Make your choice.
[DIEGO gazes at VICTORIA. In the background a murmuring of voices muted by the gags. He turns toward the CHORUS.]
DIEGO: It is hard to die.
THE PLAGUE: Yes, it’s hard.
DIEGO: But it’s hard for them as well.
THE PLAGUE: You fool! Don’t you realize that ten years of this girl’s love are worth far more than a century of freedom for those men?
DIEGO: This girl’s love is my private property and I can deal with it as I choose. But those men’s freedom belongs to them; I have no rights over it.
THE PLAGUE: No one can be happy without causing harm to others. That is the world’s justice.
DIEGO: A justice that revolts me and to which I refuse to subscribe.
THE PLAGUE: Who asked you to subscribe to it? The scheme of things will not be changed just because you’d like it to be otherwise. But if you really want to change it, abandon idle dreams and face up to reality.
DIEGO: No. I know those stale old arguments. To do away with murder we must kill, and to prevent injustice we must do violence. That’s been dinned into our ears till we took it for granted. For centuries fine gentlemen of your kind have been infecting the world’s wounds on the pretense of healing them, and none the less continuing to boast of their treatment—because no one had the courage to laugh them out of court.
THE PLAGUE: No one laughs, because it’s I who get things done; I am efficient.
DIEGO: Efficient, I don’t deny. And practical. Like the headsman’s ax.
THE PLAGUE: But isn’t it enough to watch the way that men behave? You very soon realize that any kind of justice is good enough for them.
DIEGO: Since the gates of this city were closed I’ve had ample time for watching.
THE PLAGUE: In that case you certainly have learned that they will always fail you; you will always be alone. And the lonely man is doomed.
DIEGO: No, that’s false. If I were alone, everything would be easy. But, whether they want it or not, they are with me.
THE PLAGUE: And what a fine herd they make! For one thing, they stink!
DIEGO: I know they are not pure. Nor am I, for that matter. After all I was born among them, and I live for my city and my age.
THE PLAGUE: An age of slaves.
DIEGO: No, the age of free men.
THE PLAGUE: Free men? You amaze me. I can’t see any here. Where are they?
DIEGO: In your prisons and your charnel houses. The slaves are on the thrones.
THE PLAGUE: Only dress up your free men in my policemen’s uniforms, and see what they become!
DIEGO: I don’t deny that they can be cowardly and cruel at times. That is why they have no better right than you to hold the reins of power. No man is good enough to be entrusted with absolute power—that I grant you. But, by the same token, that is why these men are entitled to compassion, whereas you are not.
THE PLAGUE: The coward’s way of living is to live as they do—mean, antlike lives, never rising above mediocrity.
DIEGO: On that level I can feel at one with them. And if I am not faithful to the humble truth I share with them, how could I keep faith with the greater, lonelier ideal that is mine?
THE PLAGUE: The only fidelity I know of is—scorn. [Points to the CHORUS cowering in the background.] Look! Isn’t that enough?
DIEGO: I reserve my scorn for the oppressors. Whatever you do, these men will be greater than you. When one of them kills, he does it in a gust of passion. But you slaughter people logically, legally, cold-bloodedly. Why scoff at their bowed heads when for so many generations the comets of fear have been roaming the skies above them? Why laugh at their timid airs when for centuries death has been playing havoc with them, tearing their love like wastepaper? The worst of their crimes has always had an excuse. But I find no excuse for the wrong that has been done them since the dawn of time, and which you have legalized in your foul code. [The PLAGUE approaches him.] No, I will not lower my eyes.
THE PLAGUE: Yes, that’s obvious; you will not lower them. So I may as well tell you that you have come through the last ordeal with success. If you had made over this city to me, you would have lost this girl, and you, too, would have been lost. As it is, this city has a good chance of being free. So, as you see, a madman like yourself suffices.… Naturally the madman dies. But, in the end, sooner or later, the rest are saved. [Gloomily] And they don’t deserve to be saved.
DIEGO: The madman dies.…
THE PLAGUE: Ah, on second thought, you’re not so sure. But of course that’s quite in order—a last-minute hesitation. Pride will triumph in the end.
DIEGO: I stood for honor. And today I shall regain my honor only among the dead.
THE PLAGUE: As I was saying, it’s pride that kills them. But all this is very tiring for an old
