The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Directions of The Marquis de Sade
Marat:
[speaking to Sade across the empty arena]
I read in your books de Sade
in one of your immortal works
that the basis of all of life is death
Sade:
Correct Marat
But man has given a false importance to death
Any animal plant or man who dies
adds to Nature's compost heap
becomes the manure without which
nothing could grow nothing could be created
Death is simply part of the process
Every death even the cruelest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature
Nature herself would watch unmoved
if we destroyed the entire human race
[rising]
I hate Nature
this passionless spectator this unbreakable iceberg-face
that can bear everything
this goads us to greater and greater acts
[breathing heavily]
Haven't we always beaten down those weaker
than ourselves
Haven't we torn at their throats
with continuous villainy and lust
Haven't we experimented in our laboratories
before applying the final solution
Let me remind you of the execution of Damiens
...
...
...
That
was a festival with which today's festivals can't compete
Even our inquisition gives us no pleasure
nowadays
Although we've only just started
there's no passion in our post-revolutionary
murders
Now they are all official
We condemn to death without emotion
and there's no singular personal death to be
had
only an anonymous cheapened death
which we could dole out to entire nations
on a mathematical basis
until the time comes for all life
to be extinguished
Marat:
Citizen Marquis
you may have fought for us last September
when we dragged out of the gaols
the aristocrats who plotted against us
but you still talk like a grand seigneur
and what you call the indifference of Nature
is your own lack of compassion
Sade:
Compassion
Now Marat you are talking like an aristocrat
Compassion is the property of the privileged
classes
When the pitier lowers himself
to give to a beggar
he throbs with contempt
To protect his riches he pretends to be moved
and his gift to the beggar amounts to no more
than a kick [lute chord]
No Marat
no small emotions please
your feelings were never petty
For you just as for me
only the most extreme actions matter
Marat:
If I am extreme I am not extreme in the same
way as you
Against Nature's silence I use action
In the vast indifference I invent a meaning
I don't watch unmoved I intervene
and say that this and this are wrong
and I work to alter them and improve them
The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes
