THE MAN: Where can I wipe my hand?
NADA: Where can you wipe your hand? Let’s see. [Flips the pages of a file in front of him.] Nowhere. It’s not provided for in the regulations.
THE MAN: But I can’t stay like this!
NADA: Why not? Anyhow what does a little ink on your fingers matter, seeing that you’re not permitted to touch your wife. What’s more, it’s good for your morals.
THE MAN: Good? In what way?
NADA: It humiliates you; that’s why. But let’s get back to this shop you want to open. Would you rather have the benefits of Article 208 of Chapter 62 of the sixteenth supplement to the fifth issue of the Trading Regulations, or would you rather come under Clause 27 of Article 207, Circular Number 15, concerning special cases?
THE MAN: But I don’t know the first thing about either of them!
NADA: Naturally, my man, you wouldn’t know it. Nor do I, for that matter. Still, as things have to be settled one way or another, we shall let you have the benefits of both articles at once.
THE MAN: That’s really kind of you, Nada. I’m much obliged.
NADA: Don’t mention it! As a matter of fact I rather think that one of these bylaws gives you the right to open your shop, while the other forbids your selling anything in it.
THE MAN: But—what’s the idea, then?
NADA: Discipline, my friend; discipline. [A woman runs up in a state of great agitation.] Well, what is it, my good woman?
THE WOMAN: They’ve requisitioned my house.
NADA: Good.
THE WOMAN: And a government office has been installed in it.
NADA: Naturally.
THE WOMAN: But I haven’t anywhere to live, though they promised to find me a new house.
NADA: Well, doesn’t that show how considerate they are?
THE WOMAN: Yes—but I’ve been told to submit an application through the usual channels. And, meanwhile, my children haven’t a roof over their heads.
NADA: All the more reason to put in your application right away. Fill in this form.
THE WOMAN [taking the form]: But will it go through quickly?
NADA: Yes, provided you claim priority and support your claim with the necessary documents.
THE WOMAN: What exactly is needed?
NADA: A duly authenticated certificate declaring that it’s a matter of urgency for you to be given accommodation.
THE WOMAN: My children haven’t anywhere to sleep. Surely that’s urgent enough for anyone?
NADA: You will not be given accommodation because your children are homeless. You will be given it if you supply a certificate. Which is not the same thing.
THE WOMAN: I never heard such talk! The devil may know what it can mean—I don’t!
NADA: Precisely! That, my good woman, is part of our program. We want to fix things up in such a way that nobody understands a word of what his neighbor says. And, let me tell you, we are steadily nearing that perfect moment when nothing anybody says will rouse the least echo in another’s mind; when the two languages that are fighting it out here will exterminate each other so thoroughly that we shall be well on the way to that ideal consummation—the triumph of death and silence.
THE WOMAN: Justice means that children have enough to eat and are sheltered from the cold. That my little ones can live. When I brought them into the world the good earth was their birthright. And the sea gave the water for their baptism. That’s all the wealth they need. I ask nothing more for them than their daily bread and poor people’s right to sleep nights. Little enough indeed—but you deny it to them. And if you deny the poor their daily bread, no luxury, no fine speeches, no wonderful promises you make can ever earn you our forgiveness.
NADA [speaking at the same time as the woman]: Choose to live on your knees rather than to die standing; thus and thus only will the world acquire that neat, nicely ordered layout whose template is the gibbet, and be shared between well-drilled ants and the placid dead: a puritan paradise without food, fields, or flowers, in which angel police float around on pinions of red tape among beatific citizens nourished on rules and regulations and groveling before this decorated God, whose delight it is to destroy and doggedly to dissipate the dear delusions of a too delicious age.
NADA [speaking alone]: Down with everything! Nobody knows what anybody means—the golden age has come.
[Light on the center of the stage, showing up huts, barbed-wire fences, observation towers, and other forbidding structures. DIEGO enters; he is still wearing the mask and he has the bearing of a hunted man. He gazes at the scene before him, the townsfolk, and the PLAGUE.]
DIEGO [to the CHORUS]: Where is Spain? Where’s Cadiz? This scene does not belong to any known country. We are on another planet, a planet where man is out of place. Why are you silent?
CHORUS: We are afraid. Ah, if only the wind would rise …!
DIEGO: I, too, am afraid. But it does good to cry one’s fear aloud. Cry, and the wind will answer.
CHORUS: Once we were a people and now we are a herd. Once we were invited, now we are summoned. Once we could buy and sell our milk and bread; now we are rationed. We queue up and wait our turns. We toe the line, for no one can do anything for his neighbor, we can only wait in the line, at the place assigned us. What is the use of crying out? No longer have our women those flowerlike faces that set our hearts aflame with desire, and Spain is Spain no longer. Line up! Line up! Keep your places! No joy is left in life. We are stifling, stifling to death, in this prison house that was once a city. Ah, if only the wind would rise …!
THE PLAGUE: They have learned wisdom. Come, Diego, now that you have understood.
[Sounds of “eliminations” in the upper air.]
DIEGO: We are innocent. [The PLAGUE guffaws.] Innocence, you murderer—do you know what’s meant by innocence?
THE PLAGUE: Innocence? That’s a new one on me!
DIEGO: Then let’s have it out, you and I. The stronger of us two will kill the other.
THE PLAGUE: I am the stronger, you poor innocent. Look! [Beckons to his Guards. They step toward DIEGO, who takes to flight.] Run after him! Don’t let him escape. A man who runs away is ours. Put the marks on him!
[The hunt is on. The Guards pursue DIEGO through windows, doors, etc., in and out. Whistles, sirens.]
CHORUS: He is running away. He is afraid, and admits it. He has lost all self-control, he’s crazy. But we know better, we have come to our senses. We are ruled and the state looks after us. And yet—in the dusty silence of their offices sometimes we hear a long, restrained cry, the cry of hearts that are separated, and it tells of sunlit seas at noon, the fragrance of reeds at nightfall, the sweet embraces of our women. Our faces are sealed up, our steps counted, our hours fixed—and yet our hearts reject this silence of the grave. They reject the never-ending forms to be filled out; the miles and miles of walls; barred windows; and daybreaks bristling with guns. They reject these things as does he who is fleeing from this setting of shadows and numbers, seeking a house for refuge. But the only refuge is the sea, and the walls cut us off from it. Let the sea wind but rise, and at last we shall breathe freely. [DIEGO has fled into a house. The Guards halt at the door and post sentries outside.]
THE PLAGUE [shrilly]: Brand them! Brand them all! Even what they do not say makes itself heard. They can no longer raise their voices in protest, but their silence grates on our ears. Smash their mouths, gag them, din our slogans into them, until they, too, are saying the same thing over and over again—until they become good citizens of the kind we need. [A cataract of slogans, raucous as if they issued from loud-speakers, pours down from the flies, growing louder and louder with each reiteration until it drowns the muttering of the CHORUS. Abruptly silence falls.] One plague, one people! Concentrate, execute orders, keep busy! One good plague is worth two freedoms. Deport and torture, there’ll always be something left!
[Lights go on in the Judge’s house.]
VICTORIA: No, father. You can’t hand over our old servant just because they say she’s infected. Have you forgotten how good she was to me when I was a child and how loyally she’s served you all her life?
JUDGE CASADO: I have made my decision and it’s not for you or anyone else to question it.
VICTORIA: You cannot have the last word always; grief, too, should have a hearing.
JUDGE CASADO: My duty is to watch over this house and to see that the disease is not allowed to enter it. [DIEGO enters abruptly.] Who gave you leave to enter?
DIEGO: It’s fear that has driven me to ask shelter here. I am running away from the Plague.
JUDGE CASADO: Running away? No, you have it with you. [He points to the mark on DIEGO’S armpit. A short silence. Then police whistles are heard in the distance.] Leave this house.
DIEGO: Let me stay, I beg you. If you turn me out they’ll get me, and I shall be shut up with all those other wretched people in the death-house.
JUDGE
