Marat\Sade Page #3

...the guillotine saves them

from endless boredom.

Gaily they offer their heads

as if for coronation.

Is not that the pinnacle

of perversion?

The execution of the king!

Conversation concerning

life and death.

I read in your books, de Sade,

in one of your immortal works...

...that the animating force

of nature is destruction...

...and that our only instrument

for measuring life is death.

Correct, Marat.

But man has given

a false importance to death.

Any animal, plant or man that dies

adds to Nature's compost heap...

...becomes the manure without which

nothing could grow, nothing could be created.

Death is simply part of the process.

Every death,

even the cruellest death...

...drowns in the total

indifference of Nature.

Nature would watch unmoved...

...if we destroyed the entire human race.

I hate Nature...

...this passionless spectator, this unbreakable

iceberg-face that can bear everything...

...this goads us to greater

and greater acts.

But though I hate this goddess...

...I see that the greatest acts

in history have followed her laws.

Nature teaches a man to fight

for his own happiness.

And if he must kill

to gain, that happens...

...while then the murder is natural.

Haven't we always crushed down

those weaker than ourselves?

Haven't we torn at their throats

with continuous villainy and lust?

Haven't we experimented in our laboratories

before applying the final solution?

Man is a destroyer.

But if he kills and takes no pleasure

in it, he's a machine.

He should destroy with passion,

like a man.

Let me remind you of

the execution of Damiens...

...after his unsuccessful attempt

to assassinate Louis the Fifteenth.

Remember how Damiens died?

How gentle the guillotine is

compared with his torture?

It lasted four hours

while the crowd goggled...

...and Casanova at an upper window

felt under the skirts of the ladies watching.

His chest, arms, thighs

and calves were slit open.

Molten lead was

poured into each slit...

...boiling oil they poured over him,

burning wax, sulphur.

They burnt off his hands...

...they tied ropes to

his arms and to his legs...

...and harnessed him to four horses

and geed them up.

They pulled at him for an hour...

...but they'd never done it before,

and he wouldn't...

...come apart...

...until they sawed through

his shoulders and hips.

So he lost the first arm,

and then the second arm...

...and he watched

what they did to him...

...and then he turned to us, and he shouted out

so that everyone could understand.

And when he lost the first leg

and then the second leg...

...he still lived.

And in the end, he hung there,

a bloody torso with a nodding head...

...just groaning...

...and staring at the crucifix which

the father confessor held up to him.

That...

...was a festival...

...with which today's

festivals can't compete.

Even our inquisition

has no meaning nowadays.

Now they are all official.

We condemn to death

without emotion...

...and there's no singular,

personal death to be had...

...only an anonymous, cheapened death

which we could dole out to entire nations...

...on a mathematical basis...

...until the time comes for all life

to be extinguished.

Citizen Marquis...

...you may sit as a judge

in our tribunals...

...you may have fought with us last September when we dragged

out of the gaols the aristocrats who were plotting against us...

...but you still talk like a grand seigneur...

...and what you call the indifference of Nature

is your own lack of compassion.

Compassion, Marat, is the property

of the privileged classes.

When the giver bends to the beggar,

he throbs with contempt.

To protect his riches,

he pretends to be moved...

...and his gift to the beggar

is no more than a kick.

No, no, Marat,

no small emotions please.

Your feelings were never petty.

For you, just as for me...

...only the most extreme

actions matter.

If I am extreme, I am not extreme

in the same way as you.

Against Nature's silence,

I use action.

In the vast indifference,

I invent a meaning.

I don't watch unmoved,

I intervene...

...and I say that this

and this are wrong...

...and I work to alter them and

to improve them, because the impo...

The important thing is to pull

yourself up by your own hair...

...to turn yourself inside out...

...and see the whole world

with fresh eyes.

Marat's liturgy.

Remember how it used to be.

The kings were our dear fathers

under whose care we lived in peace...

...and their deeds were glorified

by official poets.

Piously the simpleminded breadwinners

passed on the lesson to their children.

The kings are our dear fathers...

...under whose care we live in peace.

The kings are our dear fathers...

...under whose care we live in peace.

And the children

repeated the lesson.

Suffer!

Suffer as he suffered on the cross

for it is the will of God.

And anyone believes what

they hear over and over again...

...and so the poor, instead of bread, made do with a

picture of the bleeding, scourged and nailed-up Christ...

...and prayed to that image

of their helplessness.

And the priests said:..

..."Raise your hands to heaven,

bend your knees..."

"...bear your suffering without complaint.

Pray for those who torture you..."

"...for prayer and blessing are the only ladder

which you can climb to Paradise!"

And so they chained down

the poor in their ignorance...

...so that they couldn't stand up

and fight their bosses...

...who ruled in the name

of the lie of divine right.

Monsieur de Sade!

I must interrupt this argument.

We agreed to make

some cuts in this passage.

After all, nobody now objects to the church, since

our emperor is surrounded by high-ranking clergy...

...and since it's been proved over and over again

that the poor need the spiritual comfort of the priests.

There's no question

of anyone being oppressed.

Quite on the contrary, everything's

done to relieve suffering with... uh...

...clothing collections... uh... medical aid

and... uh... soup kitchens...

...and in this very clinic, we're dependent on the

goodwill, not only of the temporal government...

...but even more on the goodness

and understanding of the church...

...and particularly of our friend,

Monsieur Laday, eh?

If our performance causes aggravation...

...we hope you'll swallow down

your indignation...

...and please remember that we show

only those things that happened long ago.

Remember things were

very different then...

...of course, today

we're all God-fearing men.

Pray!

Pray!

O pray to him!

Our Satan who art in hell...

...our Lord be thy name.

Thy kingdom come

on earth as it is in hell.

Forgive us our good deeds

and deliver us from holiness.

Lead us...

Lead us into temptation...

...over and over.

Amen.

The regrettable incident

you've just seen was unavoidable...

...indeed foreseen by our playwright...

...who managed to compose these

extra lines in case the need arose.

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