JOHN: My disciples have recognized him. They had only to see him and they followed him.

ANTIPAS: But at least the works of the Messiah must publish his arrival. The Tetrarchy is calm; no emotion in Judea is discernible.

JOHN: Authorize those who wish to see me to enter your fort and even my cell.

Before entering I charged two of my disciples to observe and report the deeds of Christ and his actions. You will be able to hear them enumerated; acts that will make Caesar blanch!

ANTIPAS: You haven't been prisoner for a day. No one yet has presented himself to see you. And I repeat to you that Judea is calm, so also is Galilee. The ploughman at his harvest, the drover with his flock, the artisan in his shop, the doctor in his Synagogue, the Priest in the Temple. Not a soul that exists from Damas to Hebron suspects the existence of the prophesized King. I want to believe in your sincerity. But truly, you are prey to an illusion. What's his name? The one you think you saw.

JOHN: Does one ask the name of Jehovah's Christ?

ANTIPAS: But where's he come from?

JOHN: From Galilee.

ANTIPAS: But the Messiah must come from Judah. Are you unaware of the scriptures?

JOHN: I didn't ask him the place of his birth.

ANTIPAS: But then?

JOHN: I saw his face and I trembled. And I recognized the Son of David.

ANTIPAS: And what did he say?

JOHN: Nothing.

ANTIPAS: And what was he going to do at the Jordan? Is it you he was seeking?

JOHN: Me, and the baptism of repentance.

ANTIPAS: Baptism? The Messiah asked you for baptism? And you, you baptised the Messiah?

JOHN: I baptised him.

ANTIPAS: Mockery.

JOHN: I am not one of those who dispute the command of G.o.d.

ANTIPAS: And you believe?

JOHN: Yes, I believe, I believe! Get behind me, Satan! Go ask your s.l.u.ts, oracles who you cannot doubt. Question your Pharisees. In a thousand years they will tell you that the Messiah is yet to come? They only believe in a Messiah who is a scholar like themselves, ignorant like themselves, quarrelsome like themselves, and who will allow himself to be taken in by their humbug piety. One who will shut his eyes to their domestic debauches and who will crown their pride. And you can only believe in a Christ who's friends with Caesar and who will allow you to remain in Machaerus and be merry at your pleasure.

ANTIPAS: And you ?

JOHN: I believe in a Christ who demands a rigorous account from me; who incarnates the Law, who rewards and punishes according to justice, who sees the heart and tests the depths, and who contains in himself and transfigures in himself the virtue of Abraham, of Joseph, of Samuel, and of David and all of ancient Israel.

ANTIPAS: And that one won't demand baptism of you, and he won't come from Galilee, and he won't allow you to rot in the bottom of a pit?

JOHN: He will do his will. But I have faith in his justice; he won't forget me in this darkness, and he won't let me die without having seen his glory.

ANTIPAS: What must I do to see him, me too, and be spared?

JOHN: Return me to the desert, to your brother, his wife, and comprehend the enormity of your crime and the scandal.

ANTIPAS: Too many crimes flourish in Israel for it to be scandalized by mine.

Phillip? He lives in Rome and he cares for his wife the way I do for his mistresses or freedmen. Why should I return to him what he doesn't ask for or want? And you speak easily of freeing you, who never possessed anything and might envy a poor man his dog. Flesh, love, sensuality, what are these to you except words, words and cadavers of flowers! You don't know what the sweetness of the bosom or the heat of a shared bed is, of embracing , in swooning between two fragile and beautiful female flanks. You've never done anything but look in the stars, slept on a stone, known other kisses than the sting of a mosquito.

Have you ever laughed? You are only a primitive man, so simplified that you cannot understand the needs, the thoughts, the sorrows of men. You shrug your shoulders? Companion of tigresses, you advise me very easily to send away the woman who crossed the sea and desert to rejoin me, and who brings me all that the savage, the taciturn daughter of Arabia can never give me.

JOHN: Lucky still to have only such a feeble duty. To have only to cut yourself away from a vice!

ANTIPAS: But my vice belongs to me! Can I repent of being who I am and coming from a luxurious blood? Rather repent being born. Are we responsible for paternal sins? Go, you know nothing of man and you are only a wild beast. You are creating the Messiah in your own image. But as for me, I say to you the Messiah will be a man or he won't speak unintelligible language, eat gra.s.shoppers, become crazy because of his solitude. If you had known ambition or drunk wine, or caressed the least prost.i.tute, you would know how to speak to human weakness.

JOHN: Antipas, you make me feel pity. Your chains are heavier than mine. Come, return me to the desert, so I don't die and the people won't cry out against you.

ANTIPAS: She doesn't wish it.

JOHN: Tell her I will no longer open my mouth against her or against you.

ANTIPAS: She wants you dead.

JOHN: What's it to her if I live or die?

ANTIPAS: But you will continue to announce the King?

JOHN: It's necessary! It's necessary. What's holding you back? Release me! Do you know what you are doing by opposing Jehovah? Let me go or my word will bring ruin on you and all Machaerus. Do you think whatever may be the art of your mason it prevents these stones from being disjoined? I say to you it is G.o.d. Let him extend his arm and your dwelling is only a ruin. Your Herodias wants me to die? The same Jehovah who laughed seeing Machaerus grow, this heap of stones, made my body and he made the knot which links my body and my soul, and to disjoin them it takes another will than that of your wench and another axe than that of your executioner. I tell you this. I cannot die before having seen the glory of Christ and the fulfillment of his word that I have prophesized. Let me then go, from fear that Jehovah, to loosen my chain, may not be constrained to loosen all Machaerus! And do you think you can prevent him?

ANTIPAS: You've seen the son of David?

JOHN: I've seen him! I've seen him!

ANTIPAS: You won't call out outside?

JOHN: It's necessary I see his glory and that I purify his people.

ANTIPAS: I will authorize your messengers to bring you news. And your disciples will end by purifying the people.

JOHN: Begone! I am weary of speaking to a sepulchre. (lies down) ANTIPAS: In a sepulchre, you mean. (Jailor enters) What is it?

JAILOR: Master, a man has just been arrested, who succeeded, no one knows how, in sneaking into the fortress; questioned, he said his name is Jonathan and only came to see the prisoner.

JOHN: Antipas, make him come! Ah, ah! Curious to hear news of Christ, bring this Jonathan down if you dare! He's one of those I sent.

ANTIPAS: Bring this man. (the Jailor exits) JOHN: Herod Antipas, here is my deliverance and your death. If you have ears, hear! And if you are afraid, you must indeed have dungeons deeper than these?

The time has come for you to descend into it. Ask the entrails of rock to open.

I fear now that Jehovah won't remove you from your nest yet. He has a sharp eye and an astute ear. He knows better than I how to shock your heart against your sides, and he sees the worm attack the heap of your vertebrae. With senses less acute, I only hear the chattering of your teeth as they clash. Repent, man, repent, simplify yourself. Here's news of the one who simplifies in the extreme, the most complicated life, the best dressed, the best disguised. (enter Jonathan with the Jailor) Speak, Jonathan, speak. And don't be upset by the presence of this Tetrarch. Don't make him languish.

JONATHAN: Rabbi, I haven't been able to join the man of Galilee. And, after having discussed with Simon and Andrew who followed him I no longer care to approach him; I was anxious about your fate, more than seeing or hearing about this Jesus!

ANTIPAS: Ah!

JOHN: What do you know about him?

JONATHAN: He said that the kingdom is not of this world and that no one, if not reborn from water and from spirit can enter the kingdom, and he boasted if the Temple were to be destroyed to rebuild it in three days.

ANTIPAS: John is no longer listening to you. Answer me if you wish to live. Who is this man?

JONATHAN: His name's Jesus; he's the son of a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee.

ANTIPAS: Fine. You don't think he can be the Messiah?

JONATHAN: The Messiah! Certainly not! Would the Messiah speak of a kingdom not of this world? It's fine for Simon and Andrew to think that a Galilean like themselves could be the Messiah.

ANTIPAS: But as for you? Who do you think he is? A prophet?

JONATHAN: There's only one prophet: John. I beg you to set him free.

ANTIPAS: We shall see. Come with me. You will eat your fill. You have pleased me, and I will give the order to let you communicate with your master if you wish. Come. Goodbye, John. You make me pity, man.

(Jonathan, Antipas and the Jailor leave.) JOHN: (prostrated) A a ah! Ao ah! Jehovah, why have you abandoned me? O divine treason and more than human mockery! It's really you, I recognized you! Pouncing on me like a vulture you've torn my flesh, you've planted me in the sand and commanded me to bellow his coming! He's coming! You haven't released me. You've dried my eyes and desiccated my heart, and you filled me with great power to shout ceaselessly, like a beast with burning entrails. You've driven me from life, you've given me the desert to live in and you've said to me, "Parade about like a cloud between heaven and earth to shock men by your horrible appearance and your thunderous spittings, ruminate without end the bitter gra.s.s of my word!

And when Israel will come and you have indeed despaired of it, you will depict to it the source of the oasis and the face of the Messiah and they will be deceived like a caravan by a mirage; and I will laugh with you and at them, as I laughed having driven Adam from the garden, saying, 'Behold, Adam has become one of us through knowledge of good and evil.'" And you placed at the garden of Eden the Cherubins and the flaming sword whirling so that the man, dressed by you in the garb of animals, would never approach the Tree of Life. O misery of created man, immense, incurable, eternal! And this Jesus, naive like me, full like me of a great dream; to what cell, to what gibbet, to what bitter disillusionment have you reserved for him, this child who only wanted to do your will? O lamentable Israel, it was useless to tell you in a sweeter and more fraternal voice. O millions of my brothers in distress, blind suffering mult.i.tude that I didn't love enough and to whom I was announcing a tyrant worse than Herod! What are we, O my people, ploughers of arid soil, workers from birth, only a lost flock under the storm cloud trumpeting Messiah! In the dark of an eternal shadow! O message of a reign of glory, phantom child of solitary ardor and the laughter of G.o.d!

Carnal dream of a stunning Christ, of a new David and of a terrestrial Jerusalem that I wanted to prefigure, and I intended to suggest the att.i.tude of your immutable will toward it, Jehovah! But your light is our shadow and your Christ will not establish his domination according to the fashion of our imaginations.

Wouldn't it have been better for me to have divined this; this Galilean saying, "The Kingdom is not of this world."? Pride of man that boasts of having no pride. It's necessary that I diminish! As if I were higher than my brothers. And by what right then do I have this arrogant, chiding tone? Equal in ignorance, O our misery! To love, to love! Is that what you want, obscure Master Jehovah?

Yes, that's it. And you've pulled me out of it, put me in the dock because I didn't give you satisfaction! Give me life, Eternal one, give me life, even for a short while! Bad luck to whoever doesn't love! Bad luck to the hard heart that doesn't open to the thundering voice of love! O G.o.d! You compel it at the point of the sword, you shut it in the p.r.i.c.kly haircloth, on all sides, b.l.o.o.d.ying it.

(Jonathan returns.) JONATHAN: Master! Master!

JOHN: Free, Jonathan? You are weeping? Herod? I summon you to speak. Is it the tears of wine already? What have you to tell me that's so funereal?

JONATHAN: Herodias' daughter danced JOHN: Salome? I know she dances. Otherwise than the women of your village, otherwise than the angels.

JONATHAN: May the Eternal curse her!

JOHN: Shut up! The Eternal is not at your orders. Perhaps she danced for my well being.

JONATHAN: For your ruin.

JOHN: Speak then. Are you a prophet, too?

JONATHAN: Antipas shouted, "Ask half my kingdom, I swear to grant it to you."

JOHN: Jehovah, I recognize your hand.

JONATHAN: The daughter ran to her mother and she came back saying, "O Master" .

JOHN: O G.o.d!

JONATHAN: "I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist."

JOHN: Ah!

JONATHAN: Shocked, I came in horror to hear Herod's reply. Oh! Salome! I will see her dance until my death; I will die of having seen her. She is beautiful!

And all the looks that possessed her under her veils. Oh, Master! The patience of Jehovah! They are coming. She! He consented.

JOHN: Salome? Salome, here?

(Enter Salome with a basin, the Jailor and the Executioner with a naked blade.) JAILOR: Don't come in, Mistress. This is not a sight for your eyes.

SALOME: I want to see him.

JOHN: It's G.o.d who sends you, Salome, to hear me. Obedient to the maternal order you asked for my head, obedient to the order of Jehovah, Salome, you will demand my life. You are Jewish, right? Jewish like Esther, Jewish like Judith and your G.o.d, like the G.o.d of Esther and Judith is Jehovah. Daughter of Israel, it's up to you to save Israel one more time. O Salome, your dance, it is our G.o.d who taught it to you to save his prophet. Israel dies if I die. I who know the words of life. You will dance once more before Herod, and for reward you will demand the salvation of Israel, that I, and I alone, can save. What happiness would you gain from my death, right? And Jehovah himself, recalling your dance, if you don't turn it to the salvation of his prophet. You know that I must announce the Messiah and prepare all the people for his reign. Otherwise, Israel will be entirely lost, overthrown and with Israel, you, Salome, your mother, and Antipas if the last prophet were to die without having spoken. Life is nothing to me, Salome. If the Messiah had appeared, I would give myself up to the knife without a word. But Jehovah's getting impatient with my silence, and it is he who presses me to do his work. In his name, I adjure you, Salome, more beautiful than Esther, stronger than Judith, by dancing, nothing but dancing, and not by the lengthy prost.i.tution of Esther, nor by handling of the sword for which your childish hands would be too delicate, by dancing before a new Asahareus, what glory will fall to you, Serving Girl of the Eternal, and with what honor you are going to surround the Messiah-King, the one who is coming, the Son of David! Go back, Salome, dance once more, and revoke the order of death that G.o.d will avenge on your posterity if his rage wills you to have posterity!

SALOME: I am much too weary to dance. I don't know Jehovah, nor Esther, nor Judith.

JAILOR: Strike, Mana.s.sah. The Master's going to get impatient.

JOHN: Stand back! Salome, go tell Antipas that he has nothing to fear from me.

Let him live! Let him jubilate! What does his lechery matter to me! May my tongue dry up if I speak against him again! It has other words to say! Don't approach, brute, or I will crush you with my chains. Take a step, I command h.e.l.l to open beneath his feet! Salome, go back or I will curse you! Obtain my life!

Go, prost.i.tute yourself, practice Sodom and Gomorrah, but don't soil yourself with human blood! Jehovah! Jehovah! Make known your will. Well, go on, brute! Go on little girl VOICE (From outside) Get back! Let me pa.s.s!

JOHN: Eleazer!

(Enter Eleazer.) ELEAZER: Master, I've seen the Messiah! I've spoken to him.

JOHN: Jesus of Nazareth?

ELEAZER: That's him! On your behalf, I asked him, "Are you the one who must come or must we wait for another?" And at that moment he had cured the ill and the possessed. And he said to me, "Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind can see, the crippled are walking, the lepers are purified, the deaf can hear, the dead revive, the poor are evangelized." Oh, John and then he said JOHN: (to the Executioner) Hold on a minute, brother. Sister, tell him to be patient for a moment.

ELEAZER: "The one who believes in the Son has eternal life and the one who doesn't won't have life, and those baptised by John have justified G.o.d, for whom John is a prophet, the greatest of the sons of woman."

JOHN: It's him! It's him! I saw him. For him to be believed it's necessary for me to be diminished, for me to disappear. The hope of the earth is accomplished!

The scream of my bowels is exhausted.

ELEAZER: And he said, "He who loses his life on account of me will be saved."