The scene suddenly changes to La Place de Grève. The balcony turns into a scaffold, and the desk into a guillotine. Beside it stands Lucifer as a public executioner. Adam, now as Danton, harangues a noisy crowd from the edge of the scaffold. To the beating of drums a detachment of recruits clad in rags marches in and forms a line in front of the scaffold. Bright sunshine.
ADAM
[as if continuing Kepler’s speech]
Equality, brotherhood, liberty!
CROWD
And let them die who don’t agree with us!
ADAM
That is my point. To guard these lofty precepts
threatened by enemies on every side
we say to all our comrades, “France in danger!” -
and see their thousands rising to our call;
then this to our opponents, “Down with traitors!” -
and see them crushed in an upsurge of anger.
Kings have conspired against us, but we flung
before their feet the King of France’s head;
priests have conspired against us, but we snatched
their thunder and restored the reign of Reason,
once exiled by religion, persecuted.
Our call to arms still echoes through the country,
France’s appeal to her deserving children.
Eleven armies guard our frontiers, fighting,
yet still our valiant youth incessantly
clamour to take the place of fallen heroes!
You call that bloodshed, sheer fanaticism,
afraid that it might decimate the nation?
You heat the molten ore and make it boil
to have the precious metal freed from dross!
Let us therefore be ruthless, resolute!
What if they call us monsters, steeped in blood!
I’ll be myself the first to be accursed,
if only that can make France great and free.
RECRUITS
Give us some weapons! Weapons and a leader!
ADAM
How right you are! Weapons it is your want,
though you’re in need of most necessities:
but let you march on barefoot, clad in rags,
your bayonets shall win you all you need.
To victory! We are invincible!
This general has been condemned to death,
for in command of our battalions
he lost a battle.
CROWD
Traitor! Renegade!
ADAM
Traitor, indeed. - It is our dearest treasure,
the people’s blood, a lavish sacrifice,
that’s being shed upon the battlefields,
and he who cannot fight against the odds,
entrusted with this treasure as he is,
must be a traitor.
[An officer steps forward from among the recruits.]
OFFICER
Let me put it right!
Appoint me, citizen, to make amends!
ADAM
Your confidence, my friend, is very well,
but first you bring me from the battlefield
some evidence that you can keep your word.
OFFICER
The evidence is here, within my soul.
I offer you my head for surety.
Worth more perhaps than that one in the basket.
ADAM
Who pledges that you bring it on demand?
OFFICER
You find no better guarantor than this one
who does not set his life at any cost.
ADAM
That’s not the way youth thinks about this matter.
OFFICER
Citizen, I request you once again…
ADAM
Patience, young man! You’ll get there in the end.
OFFICER
I take it, citizen, you do not trust me.
Then learn to think more highly of me. Here!
[He shoots himself through the head.]
ADAM
What a waste! This man was worthy of a bullet
in action in the field. Take up the corpse!
Farewell, my friends, until the victory!
[The recruits march away.]
I’d march with you myself and share your glory,
but that is not for me. Mine is the struggle,
no, not to fall in battle, honourably,
but ambushed by that inner enemy
which weaves intrigue around both France and me.
CROWD
You point a finger at him and he’s dead.
ADAM
Those whom I’ve pointed our are dead already.
CROWD
What of the suspects? If they are suspected.
they must be guilty. Branded by the people.
You know the people’s justice can’t be wrong.
Exterminate the aristocracy!
We’ll find them in the prisons. Come along!
We’ll be the judges now! We know what’s right!
[The crowd makes for the prisons.]
ADAM
No danger there! The lock is strong enough.
The putrid air shall waste their mind and body:
it does the work for you. Leave those alone!
Treason openly laughs you in the face
and whets its knife on the Convention’s benches.
CROWD
To the Convention then! It hasn’t been
purged well enough. Come on, we’ll do that later.
For practice first let’s kill the prisoners.
Meantime you, Danton, go and list the names
of all the traitors.
In a menacing mood the crowd moves away. Meanwhile some sans-culottes drag a young Marquis and his sister, Eve, to the scaffold.
SANS-CULOTTES
Two more for the scaffold!
Just look at these young aristocrats, Danton,
this haughty face and these expensive garments:
it’s proof that they are guilty - both of them.
ADAM
A noble pair indeed. You come up here!
SANS-CULOTTES
Let’s find our comrades. There’s a lot to do yet,
and many a traitor to be brought to justice.
The sans-culottes leave with the rest of the crowd. The young aristocrat and his sister join Danton on the scaffold. Guards are standing by below.
ADAM
I’m puzzled by the sympathy which prompts it,
but even at my peril I must save you.
MARQUIS
You must condemn us, Danton, if we’re guilty,
seeing you’d be a traitor not to do so,
but if not guilty, we don’t want your pardon.
ADAM
Who are you, talking with disdain to Danton?
MARQUIS
I am a Marquis.
ADAM
What? You know the ruling
that everyone’s addressed as “citizen”?
MARQUIS
I’m not aware my sovereign has abolished
our proper titles.
ADAM
Quiet, foolhardy man!
The very guillotine might overhear you.
Join us and your career is guaranteed.
MARQUIS
I need royal approval, citizen,
to hold commission in an alien army.
ADAM
Then you must die.
MARQUIS
This life won’t be the first one
my family has given for the king.
ADAM
Why must you hasten death by tempting fate?
MARQUIS
You think this excellent prerogative
should be restricted to you, commoners?
ADAM
Will you defy me? Well, I take the challenge.
I’ll save you nonetheless, against your will.
Posterity, when partisan resentments
are long forgotten, shall applaud the gesture
and thank me for the deed. Guards, take this man,
conduct him to my house. You answer for him.
The Marquis is escorted away by some of the guards.
EVE
Be strong, brother!
MARQUIS
May God protect you, sister!
EVE
Here, take this head as well, no worse than Roland’s.
ADAM
These harsh words ill-become your gentle lips.
EVE
This scaffold is no place for gentle words.
ADAM
This is my universe, this dismal scaffold.
When you set foot on it, a ray of Heaven
lighted on it and claimed it for its own.
EVE
No sacrificial beast was so derided
while taken to be slaughtered by the priest.
ADAM
I am the one that’s being sacrificed here.
Though some regard my power with envious eyes,
this - throne of mine has no pleasure to offer:
joyless I look on life and death alike,
while others fall beside me day by day
and I await my turn amidst the bloodshed,
tormented by the pangs of loneliness,
trying to apprehend the bliss of love.
If you should teach me that celestial art
but for one day - the day after the lesson
I’d rest my head upon that block contented.
EVE
You dream of love amidst this world of terror?
The pangs of conscience must torment you, surely.
ADAM
Conscience, madam? It is the privilege
of ordinary folk, the circumspection
unsuited to the man of destiny.
When was the tempest known to hold its fury
because the rose might flutter in the blast?
Who dare pass judgement on great personages
of public life; who can discern the chords
which guide a Brutus or Catiline
performing in the puppet-show of life?
Yet have men of distinction ceased to be
in essence human beings altogether?
Are they become a super-human force,
indifferent to the hundred trifling matters
of which mundane existence is composed?
O, no! The man of power still has his heart.
When Caesar took a lover, she embraced
a loving boy who would be loved in turn,
and no Colossus held in awe by others.
This being so, why shouldn’t you love me yet?
Aren’t you a woman? Am I not a man?
They say we’re destined from our very birth
to love or hate on sight another person,
and I can feel my heart go out for you.
How is it then you aren’t aware of it?
EVE
What if I am? You worship at the shrine
of some god alien to my sphere of life.
We’ll never come to terms with one another.
ADAM
Forget the past, its idols and ideals:
why worship at the shrine of exiled gods?
For woman’s most ingenuous place of worship
is called the heart, a heart forever young.
EVE
Deserted shrines still have their martyrs, Danton.
It’s seemly to attend with reverence
the sanctuaries of the past in ruin,
more suited to the woman’s frame of mind
than adulation of rebellious power.
ADAM
No man has ever thought me soft of feeling,
but friends or foes, if they should see me now,
see Danton now, whom destiny has chosen
to scourge the world, as tempests lash the seas,
should see him languish for a woman’s love
upon his scaffold, tears flooding his eyes,
they could predict that Danton’s days are numbered
and scoff: “Whoever stood in fear of this?”
Madam, I beg of you a ray of hope.
EVE
Cleansed from abominations of this age
and with your soul at peace beyond the grave,
perhaps…
ADAM
No! No! I can’t accept that answer.
I don’t believe in life beyond the grave.
O, pointless strife, my cruel destiny!
The crowd returns in a savage mood with bloodstained weapons and severed heads on pikes. Some climb on the scaffold.
CROWD
Justice! We’ve killed them all! The snooty bastards!
SANS-CULOTTES
[handing a ring over to Danton]
Look at this ring. A present to the nation.
This fellow took it off-and gave me it
seeing I was about to cut his throat.
They must have thought that we were thieves or something.
You’re still alive? Don’t keep your brother waiting.
He stabs Eve who falls behind the scaffold. Adam covers his eyes.
ADAM
It’s done. My cruel fate, you’ve won again!
CROWD
To the Convention! Lead us, citizen!
You’ve got the names of all the traitors, have you?
The crowd clears off the scaffold. Eve, now a demented woman in rags, emerges from among the people and rushes to Danton. In one hand she holds a dagger, in the other a severed head still dripping with blood.
EVE
Here’s one conspirator! Look at him, Danton!
He meant to murder you, he did. I killed him.
ADAM
If he could have performed my duty better,
you have done wrong, if not, you’ve done the right thing.
EVE
Suppose I have, I want to be rewarded.
Great man! I want you. Spend the night with me.
ADAM
Is there affection in a heart like this?
How tender is the love the tigress nurses?
EVE
Upon my word, you talk as if you was
a blue-blooded aristocrat yourself
You talk of love, citizen? Stuff for stories.
Have it like this: I’m young and I’m a woman;
I fancy you’re a great man, so - I want you.
ADAM
[to the audience]
A shattering sight! I must avert my eyes.
How can I bear this most unnerving likeness?
I can’t believe it. He who saw the angels
before the Fall in Heaven, then saw them after,
he might have known an equal transformation.
The self same features, shape, voice, everything,
except for something indescribable,
intangible yet vital - gone amiss,
which nonetheless makes all the difference.
A radiant halo kept me from the other,
but I’m put off this by the stench of hell.
EVE
What’s that you say?
ADAM
I’m reckoning my chances.
I won’t live long enough to spare a night
to celebrate the death of every traitor.
CROWD
Their names! To the Convention! Give their names!
Meantime Robespierre, Saint-Just and other members of the Convention appear, followed by another crowd. The former stand on an improvised platform.
SAINT-JUST
Why should he give their names? He is their leader.
[The crowd is heard murmuring, baffled.]
ADAM
You dare accuse me, Saint Just? Don’t you know
I have the power to…
SAINT-JUST
Had the power, you mean,
while people trusted you. They’re wiser now.
They’ve sanctioned the Convention’s resolution.
ADAM
I recognise no higher governance
above the people here. These are my friends.
[repeated murmurings among the crowd]
SAINT-JUST
Your friends support the enemies of France.
The sovereign people come to judge you, Danton,
for treason, and before this court I charge you:
you’ve used the public fund to your advantage,
you’ve sided with the aristocracy,
and finally, you’ve sought to be a tyrant.
ADAM
Beware, Saint Just, my words will shatter you.
These charges are contrived…
ROBESPIERRE
Don’t let him speak!
He has a smooth tongue like a snake, you know.
Arrest him in the name of liberty!
CROWD
Don’t listen to the tyrant! Let him perish!
[The crowd surrounds Danton and he is arrested.]
ADAM
Don’t hear me then, but no false charges either.
No use trying to fight a war of words.
You haven’t beaten me in action either,
only forestalled me, Robespierre. That is all.
Nothing to boast about, for I surrender
out of my own free will. I’ve had enough.
I call upon you - that you follow me
in three months’ time. Come, executioner,
be skilful with your work! Thus falls a giant!
[He puts his head under the guillotine.]