In a mood of clemency, he invites you politely to suicide or to taste some of his delicious food. May the Gods preserve you from the parties of Tiberius!
EVANDER
Luckily, this place is deserted.
AURELIUS
That’s where Rome is, my good friends! And to say I’m still alive. By Jupiter, it’s cause for despair! I thought aloud, I publicly insulted Tiberius, I trod hi image under my feet, as I do again, the one that I wear on my finger! Well, I’ve never had the luck to be denounced. There are informers for everybody but me. It makes you think that in the end they don’t take you seriously. Still, I can’t yet denounce myself! Nevertheless, I’ve decided, weary of war, since Ihad a good idea. Let’s conspire. I said to myself, it’s the best way to get it over with quickly. And so, here I am! Well, where are we, my good friends? Put me au courant. I’m all ears.
NATALIS
This is dementia.
AURELIUS
Not at all. Let’s consider it a little. Each of you here has a motive for conspiring. I have the right to mine. Porcius conspires from fear. Evander because he is ruined. You, because you want to be Consul again. Seneca because—actually, why is he conspiring?
SENECA
Because I am a philosopher.
AURELIUS
And bilious. Me, I conspire because I am weary of life. It’s a sort of suicide I intend to make fashionable! Opening one’s veins in a bath has become too common. I’ve got a better way. With the lancet, the dagger, poison, asphyxiation, drowning one may miss his mark—which is a bore. You must start all over again and that’s tiresome. While conspiring with you, one is sure of one’s fate.
NATALIS
Why shut up, will you!
PORCIUS
At least speak lower.
AURELIUS
To wake up, to go to sleep, be cold, be hot, hang around with drunks like Porcius, and philosophers like Seneca, go by foot or in a letter, and start all over again every day—is there anything more insipid? I bear one of the greatest names in Rome; I’m one of the Julian house which has on one side, Clodius, the Sabine, and Aeneas, King of Alba on the other. I’ve led the most extravagant and dissipated life; I’ve had mistresses by the hundreds, friends by the thousands, and despite my lunacy, my prodigality, my follies, I’ve never been able to devour my enormous inheritance—which infuriates me; in short, at thirty years of age, I’m disgusted by everything completely bored, radically blasé; I hold in honor the two best things in the world, young love and old wine; I can no longer love or drink—my heart has gastritis like my stomach. You see plainly, the moment has come for me to conspire against old Tiberius.
NATALIS
Well, so be it! We will make room for you if Nerva wants you.
AURELIUS (becoming serious)
Nerva! Noble heart, pure life, old fashioned character—we are a band of ambitious men and good-for-nothings. Nerva alone is a man! Come on, will you, you will see how under such a leader this fool, this debauched Aurelius, Faces Peril and death!
NATALIS
Let’s not all go through the main gate. Let Aeneas and two or three others enter by way of the garden.
AURELIUS (very gaily)
I think that this time, for sure, I don’t have long to live.
(They all leave)
PROCULUS
Yet another conspiracy. More work for the executioners of Tiberius.
(looking toward Nerva’s palace)
May thunder at least spare that house! Here’s your day over, poor artisan. Rest your weary eyes by the chimney of the workshop. Come savor a moment of air passing through these trees. Especially come, motionless, silently, dazzled—admirer of the shining vision which fills your thoughts and burns your heart. Will the young patrician emerge tonight?
(Romulus enters joyfully and strikes him on the shoulder.)
ROMULUS
Good evening, Barbarian!
PROCULUS
Ah!
(getting hold of himself)
Good evening, friend Romulus.
ROMULUS
Your friend. Still, it’s true. To say that I, Romulus, Citizen of Rome, I, who descend directly from Pasiphae, the Mother of the Minotaur, am the friend of a Barbarian—
PROCULUS
You, you stoop—?
ROMULUS
Ah, so much the worse! I am not proud and I give you my hand willingly.
PROCULUS
And I shake it the same way.
ROMULUS
Poor Procula! Truly, you are not humiliated by your condition? Thus, you don’t even know where you were born; you are not sure if you are a Gaul, a German or a Spaniard?
PROCULUS
I don’t know. The secret of my birth belongs to Lord Nerva, who raised me with his slaves.
PROCULUS
And you’ve never asked him this secret?
PROCULUS
Never. He’s been good to me; as a child he let me open his books, admire his paintings, his statues, his mosaics; later he had me taught a trade, he gave me this shop at the gate of his palace. May the Gods reward him for it.
ROMULUS
To be a slave; to know nothing more.
PROCULUS
I know that I have a love, and that’s enough for me.
ROMULUS
To be freed so as to have to work to live!
PROCULUS
Work is a beautiful and holy thing which purifies the heart often and always raises it.
ROMULUS
For goodness sakes! Work degrades man! Is it possible not to be shamed by dirtying one’s hands handling tools? Scorn industry and commerce for those who, like me, have the honor of being citizens of Rome. It’s up to their Caesar to nourish them.
PROCULUS
Not
