The Prisoner

Am I allowed to know on what charge

you're arresting me?

Treason against the state.

Try to remember.

Any confession I may be said to have

made in prison will be a lie...

...or the result of human weakness.

We've got to collect your valuables,

you know. Regulations.

Watch, wrist, one.

- Gunmetal.

- Gunmetal.

Cigarette tin.

Beads, rosary, one.

Ring.

Look at it.

One.

Cross.

Jewelled.

One.

That's where the money goes, eh?

You've no need for larceny,

have you?

Petty larceny, that is.

And if you do rob your own

poor boxes, who's to know?

- Do you really believe that?

- Come on.

Right hand.

- You've been in a fire?

- Of a kind.

Won't spoil your fingerprints,

you know.

Thank you.

Here, if you want it.

I'm sorry about the nonsense

we've had to put you through.

I imagine this is more awkward

for you than it is for me.

- Well, hardly that, I suppose.

- I don't know.

In spite of your political creed,

it's you who are the gentleman.

No titles nowadays, of course,

but yours was a noble line.

You are a prince of the church.

- And you to interrogate me.

- Times have changed.

You were a hero to me in the

Resistance, as you were to all of us.

Do you ever miss those days?

At least one was on the same side

as all one's fellow countrymen.

I make no distinction

between my fellow men.

Their service demands everything,

and, I warn you, permits everything.

Is there a particular plot...

...or counterrevolution

you hope to unmask?

Not unless you know of one.

You believe us harmless,

yet require us discredited.

And the point of arresting me?

- A cigarette?

- No, thank you.

If I may smoke my own,

while they last?

Come, now.

Drugged cigarettes already?

You see, you represent a religion...

...which provides an organization

outside the state.

In your pulpit you are more

dangerous than a politician.

With your war record,

you're a national monument.

You are outside the party,

and that monument must be...

Destroyed?

Defaced.

You see? I show you

my hand from the start.

Do you want to see mine?

I am difficult to trap

and impossible to persuade.

I am tenacious, wary and proud.

- Proud?

- Quite sinfully.

Of my record in dealings

with your predecessors, the Gestapo.

I am tolerably inured to physical pain.

Well, they never caught me.

Your masters are in a hurry,

I fancy.

People who plan to make

heaven on earth usually are...

...so hadn't we better

come to the point?

Steven, bring me the completed

confession, will you?

Already?

It'll give us some sort of agenda

to work from.

You wouldn't care to sign it right away

and save us trouble?

- You know, you might just as well.

- I'd love to read it first, if I may.

Steven, I shall want you

to stand by tonight.

Sit down...

...Your Eminence.

Come on, now. No dozing off.

You can't do that, you know.

Very strict, your interrogator.

No dozing off.

Walk up and down a bit,

I should.

No talking to anyone

but me and him.

Psychology, they call that.

It's very modern.

Still, they say he always gets

what he wants in the end...

...in spite of his fancy ways

of going about it.

Does he indeed?

- You're being difficult, are you?

- I hope so.

Not guilty.

"Not me, I'm not like the others,

officer. I'm not guilty."

- You neither, I suppose?

- That's right.

Yeah.

Whatever they're in for, they've always

got something on their conscience.

Political, that's your line.

Not a very interesting one.

But you've got something

on your conscience too.

Confidence trickster.

That's your line.

- Why do you say that?

- You hide yourself up your sleeve.

Yes, that's your line.

And what are you guilty of?

Don't be silly.

I'm in the prison service.

- Not guilty?

- Of course not.

Come on, now.

Shall I switch on the microphone, sir?

Will you want all this

early stuff recorded?

"All this early stuff" he calls my

fascinating psychological approach.

It is fascinating, sir.

I'm learning all the time.

All that easy manner

and apparent friendliness.

Not just apparent,

you have to be friends.

Which I have been.

Which I am.

Hypnotic nonsense.

I only wish that physical exhaustion

wasn't so essential in the early stages.

All right, Steven, that's all.

Your Eminence, come in.

- Have some coffee.

- No, thanks.

Some coffee, Your Eminence?

Thanks.

My health.

Afraid I shall slip you a truth drug?

Surely it's a confession you're after,

not the truth.

I could drug you into stumbling

out some form of words...

...but the foreign correspondence

wouldn't be at all impressed.

And we shan't be needing any drugs.

Older methods?

Racks and thumbscrews?

Old...

...but not so long outdated.

Who do you think you're dealing with?

Some mad, sadistic moron

in the Gestapo...

...with power to play with flesh

and blood for his own lust?

I was a doctor before ever

I was a lawyer.

Your body is sacred to me.

No drugs, no torture.

- What can you hope for?

- Conversion.

It's your mind we want.

For the first time...

...since I've come into your prison...

...l'm afraid.

We can't talk here.

- You didn't answer my letter.

- It's hopeless.

We can't go on

seeing each other like that.

I love you, but you can't

do this to a man!

Why do we always quarrel?

Yes, he got results in the past,

but his methods take too much time.

Yes, and the people

are getting restless.

Churches are full again.

They're falling back on their old ideas

outside the regime.

He's got to be discredited, and soon.

- We shall be late for the meeting.

- I warned the Ministry of Justice.

God, they know he's not guilty

of anything. Well, you know he isn't.

Well, that's not for me to say.

My husband was right. There's no

freedom here even to think.

So he got out, and you heard

the last of him.

You love me, or you wouldn't

have come here.

I shouldn't have come.

I tried not to come.

Surely it's a confession you're after,

not the truth.

Confession.

He's got another eight-hour session

in half an hour, sir.

Surely it's a confession you're after,

not the truth.

You getting anything you can use

from these recordings?

Just a word here and there

at the moment, sir.

Confession, the truth.

Well, that won't take us very far.

The general is asking for results.

It's bound to be a slow process, sir.

He's looking for a weak spot

in his defences.

He'll find it.

If the church isn't deliberately

obstructing the state...

...are you prepared to say

it supports it?

It renders to the state the things

that are the state's...

...and to God, the things

that are God's.

You know you'll tire yourself out

with this eternal being on your guard.

- On my guard?

- Stop thinking of me as the inquisitor.

How do you wish me

to think of you?

As your doctor.

To me, you're on a couch

in my consulting room.

You're an enemy of society...

...like the schizophrenic

or the paranoiac.

You're dangerous because

you mislead the poor...

...the uneducated and the silly.

But only because

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