Marat\Sade Page #8

...while dreaming of fairy-tale

heads of state...

...maybe your sickness

would disappear...

Charlotte Corday

would not find you here...

Poor Marat,

stay wide awake...

...and be on your guard

for the people's sake...

Stare through the failing

evening light...

...for this is the evening

before the night...

What is that knocking, Simonne?

Simone!

Fetch Bas,

so I can dictate my call...

...my call to the people of France.

Why all these calls to the nation?

It's too late, Marat, forget

your call, it contains only lies.

What do you still

want from the revolution?

Where is it going?

Look at these lost revolutionaries.

Where will you lead them?

What will you order them to do?

Once you spoke of the authorities who

turned the law into instruments of oppression.

But how would you faire in the new

rearranged France you yearned for?

Do you want someone else to

tell you what you must write?

Tell you what work you must do?

And repeat to you the new laws over and

over until you can recite them in your sleep?

Why is everything so confused?

Everything I wrote or

spoke was considered...

...and true.

Each argument was sound.

And now...

...doubt?

Why does everything

sound false?

Poor old Marat,

you lie prostrate...

...while others are gambling

with France's fate...

Your words have turned into a flood...

...which covers all France

with her people's blood...

Poor old Marat...

...you lie prostrate...

...while others are gambling

with France's fate...

Poor old Marat...

Marat, you lie prostrate...

Marat, you lie prostrate...

Marat, you lie prostrate...

Corday...

...wake up.

Corday!

Corday.

Corday.

Corday, you have an appointment to keep,

and there is no more time for sleep.

Charlotte Corday,

awake and stand.

Take the dagger in your hand.

Come on, Charlotte,

do your deed...

...soon you'll get

all the sleep you need.

Now I know what it is like

when the head is cut off the body.

This moment...

...hands tied behind the back,

feet bound together...

...neck bared, hair cut off,

knees on the boards...

...head already laid

in the metal slot...

...looking down into

the dripping basket.

The sound of the blade rising and from

its slanting edge the blood still drops...

...and then the downward

slide to split us...

...in two!

They say that the head held high

in the executioner's hand...

...still lives...

...that the eyes still see...

...that the tongue still writhes...

...and that down below...

...the arms and legs...

...still...

...shudder.

Charlotte, awaken

from your nightmare.

Wake up, Charlotte,

and look at the trees...

...gaze at the rose-coloured evening sky

in which your lovely bosom heaves.

Forget your worries,

abandon each care...

...and breathe in the warmth

of the summertime air.

What are you hiding?

A dagger? Throw it away!

We should all carry

weapons in self-defence.

No one will attack you,

Charlotte.

Throw it away, go away,

go back to Caen.

In my room in Caen...

...on the table

under the open window...

...lies open the book of Judith.

Dressed in her legendary beauty...

...she entered the tent

of the enemy...

...and with a single blow,

slew him!

Charlotte,

what are you planning?

Look at this city.

Its prisons are crowded

with our friends.

I was with them just now

in my sleep.

They stand huddled together there and hear through

the windows the guards talking about executions.

They talk of people as gardeners

talk of leaves for burning.

Their names are crossed off

the top of a list...

...and as the list grows shorter,

more names are added to the bottom.

I stood with them, and we waited

for our own names to be called.

Let us leave together

this very evening.

What kind of town is this?

What sort of streets

are these?

Who invented this,

who profits by it?

I saw peddlers at every corner...

...they're selling little guillotines

with tiny sharp blades...

...and dolls filled with red liquid which spurts

from the neck when the sentence is carried out.

What kind of children are these...

...who can play with

this toy so efficiently?

And who is judging?

Who is judging?

What do you want at this door?

Do you know who lives here?

The man for whose sake

I have come here.

But what do you want from him?

Turn back, Charlotte.

I have a task which

I must carry out.

Go...

...leave me alone.

Now for the third time you observe

the girl whose job it is to serve...

...as Charlotte Corday stands once more

waiting outside Marat's door.

Duperret you see before her languish...

...prostrated by their parting's anguish.

Even his pain, his pleadings,

chaste but warm...

...cannot divert the act

she must perform.

For what has happened

cannot be undone...

...although that might

be wished by everyone.

We tried restraining her

with peaceful sleep...

...and with the claims of a passion

still more deep.

Simonne as well as best

she could she tried...

...but this girl here

would not be turned aside.

That man is now forgotten

and we can do nothing more...

...Corday is focussed on this man.

No.

I am right...

...and I will say it again.

Simonne, fetch Bas.

It is urgent...

...my call.

Marat...

...what are all your pamphlets

and speeches compared with her?

She stands here and will come to you

to kiss you and embrace you.

Marat...

...an untouched virgin stands before you

and offers herself to you.

See how she smiles,

how her teeth shine...

...how she shakes

her dark hair aside.

Marat, forget the rest...

...there's nothing else

beyond the body.

She stands here...

...her breasts naked

under the thin cloth...

...and perhaps she carries a knife

to intensify the love-play.

Who is at the door, Simone?

A maiden from the rural desert of a convent.

Imagine...

...those pure girls lying there

in rough shifts on hard floor...

...and the heated air from the fields forcing

its way to them through the barred windows.

Imagine...

...them lying there...

...with moist thighs and breasts...

...dreaming of those who

control life in the outside world.

And then she was tired of her isolation

and caught up in the new age...

...and gathered up in the great tide...

...and wished to be

part of the Revolution.

But what's the point of a revolution...

...without general copulation?

And what's the point

of a revolution without general...

...general copulation,

copulation, copulation..?

And what's the point

of a revolution without general...

...general copulation,

copulation, copulation..?

And what's the point

of a revolution without general...

...general copulation,

copulation, copulation..?

Marat...

...when I lay in the Bastille

for thirteen long years...

...I learned that

this is a world of bodies.

Each body pulsing with

a terrible power...

...each body alone and

racked with its own unrest.

In that loneliness

marooned in a stone sea...

...I heard lips whispering continually

and felt all the time...

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