Marat\Sade Page #7

In vain you spent your energies...

...for how can a man

cure his own disease.

Marat, Marat,

where is our path?

Or is it not visible

from your bath?

Your enemies are closing in.

Without you,

the people can never win.

Marat, Marat, can you explain...

...how once in the daylight

your thought seemed plain.

Has your affliction left you dumb?

Your thoughts lie in shadows,

now night has come.

Marat's nightmare.

They are coming.

Listen to them...

...and look carefully at

these gathering figures.

Yes, I hear you,

all the voices I ever heard.

Yes, I see you...

...all the old faces.

Woe to the man who is different...

...who tries to break down

all the barriers.

Woe to the man who tries

to stretch the imagination of man.

He shall be mocked,

he shall be scourged...

...by the blinkered

guardians of morality.

You wanted enlightenment

and warmth...

...and so you studied light and heat.

You wondered how forces

can be controlled...

...so you studied electricity.

You wanted to know

what man is for...

...so you asked yourself,

"What is this soul..."

"...this dump for hollow ideals

and mangled morals?"

And you decided that

the soul is in the brain...

...and that it can learn to think.

For to you, the soul is

a practical thing...

...a tool for ruling

and mastering life.

And you came, one day,

to the Revolution...

...because you saw

the most important vision.

That our circumstances must be

changed fundamentally...

...and without these changes...

...everything we try to do

must fail.

Marat, we're poor...

...and the poor stay poor...

Marat, don't make...

...us wait anymore...

We want our rights...

...and we don't care how...

We want our Revolution...

...now...

Now Marat is still

in his bathtub confined...

...but politicians crowd

into his mind.

He speaks to them,

his last polemic fight...

...to say who should be tribune.

It is almost night.

- Down with Marat.

- Don't let him speak.

Listen to him,

he's got the right to speak.

- Long live Marat.

- Long live Robespierre.

Long live Danton.

Fellow citizens,

members of the National Assembly...

...our country is in danger.

From every corner of Europe,

armies invade us...

...led by profiteers who want to strangle us

and already quarrel over the spoils.

And what are we doing?

Our minister of war whose

integrity you never doubted...

...has sold the corn meant for our armies

for his own profit to foreign powers...

...and now it feeds the troops

who are invading us.

- Lies!

- Throw him out!

The chief of our army,

Dumouriez...

- Bravo!

- Long live Dumouriez!

...against whom I've warned you continually and whom you

recently hailed as a hero has gone over to the enemy.

Shame!

- Bravo!

- Liar!

Most of the generals who wear our uniform

are sympathetic with the emigrs...

...and when the emigrs return,

our generals will be out to welcome them.

Execute them!

- Down with Marat!

- Long live Marat!

Our trusted minister of finance,

the celebrated Monsieur Cambon...

...is issuing fake banknotes thus increasing inflation

and diverting a fortune into his own pocket.

Long live free enterprise.

And I am told that Perregeaux,

our most intelligent banker...

...is in league with the English, and in his armoured

vaults is organising a centre of espionage against us.

- That's quite enough!

- The people...

We agreed to make no mention of the guttersnipe

smears which these meant something in the past.

After all, we're living in

eighteen hundred and eight.

And today these men hold position of honour,

each of them was chosen firstly by the Emperor.

- Go on!

- Shut up, Marat!

- Shut his mouth!

- Long live Marat!

Our country is in danger.

We talk about France,

but who is France for?

We talk about freedom,

but who's this freedom for?

Members of the National Assembly...

...you will never shake off the past.

You will never understand the great

upheaval in which you find yourselves.

Why aren't there thousands of public seats in this assembly,

so anyone who wants can hear what's being discussed?

What is he trying to do?

Look who sits on the public benches.

Knitting-women, concierges and washer-women

with no one to employ them any more.

And who has he got on his side?

Pickpockets, layabouts, parasites who loiter

in the boulevards and hang around the cafs.

Wish we could.

Released prisoners,

escaped lunatics!

Does he want to rule

our country with these?

You are liars.

You hate the people.

- Well done, Marat.

- That's true.

You'll never stop talking of the people

as a rough and formless mass.

Why?

Because you live apart from them.

You let yourselves be dragged into the Revolution

knowing nothing about its principles.

Has not our respected Danton himself announced that instead

of banning riches, we should make poverty respectable?

And Robespierre who turns white

when the word force is used...

...doesn't he sit at high-class tables

making cultural conversation by candlelight?

- Down with Robespierre!

- Down with Danton!

Long live Marat!

And still you long to ape them...

...those betrayers of the Revolution,

those powdered chimpanzees.

I denounce them.

I denounce Necker...

...Lafayette, Talleyrand...

That's enough!

These are my friends

and friends of France.

If you use any more of these slanderous

passages we agreed to cut...

...I will stop your play.

...and all the rest of us.

What we need now is

a true deputy of the people...

...one who's incorruptible,

one we can trust.

Things are breaking down,

things are chaotic...

...but that is good,

that's the first step.

Now we must take the next step, and

choose a man who will rule all of you.

- Marat for dictator!

- Marat in his bathtub!

Send him down the sewers!

Dictator of the rats!

Dictator the word

must be abolished.

I hate anything to do

with masters and slaves.

I am talking about a leader

who in this...

He's trying to rouse them again

to new murders!

We do not murder...

...we kill in self-defence.

We are fighting for our lives.

Oh, if only we could have constructive

thought instead of agitation.

If only beauty and concord could once

more replace hysteria and fanaticism.

Look what's happening!

Join together!

Cast down your enemies,

disarm them!

For if they win, they will

spare not one of you...

...and all that you have

won so far will be lost.

Marat!

Marat! Marat! Marat!

A laurel wreath for Marat!

A victory parade for Marat!

Long live the streets!

Long live the lamp-posts!

Long live the bakers' shops!

Long live freedom!

Hit at the rich until they crash.

Throw down their god

and divide their cash.

We wouldn't mind a tasty meal

of pat de foie and filleted eel.

Marat! Marat! Marat!

Marat! Marat! Marat!

Poor Marat in your bathtub seat...

...your life on this planet

is near complete...

Closer and closer

to you death creeps...

...though there on her bench

Charlotte Corday sleeps...

Poor Marat, if she slept too late...

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