Fear of De Sade

BARON: But didn’t they say, in the refectory? . . .

VOICE: That now she was a long way off.

BARON: Ah! . . .

VOICE: On the same night, after you’d swallowed the pastilles, they put her on board a ship going where no one would have any more news of her.

BARON: But of course! They made her disappear to incriminate me, and as the body hasn’t yet been found, there are no proofs, and the court decided to keep them in the asylum. We’re all saved!

VOICE: You’re an optimist, baron.

BARON: What you’ve just said is reason for a celebration.

VOICE: Is it?

BARON: Martine is alive and all we have to do is prove it for them to free me and get on a ship too and find her, wherever she is.

VOICE: No one gets out of here.

BARON: But there’s been no crime! There’s been no murder!

VOICE: No one’s said there hasn’t been.

BARON: It’s because they don’t know she’s alive. Because the count and the baroness did everything on purpose to incriminate me. They set up the whole imposture. They left me unconscious in the château and accused me, all the more with the count’s contacts and so many people wanting to get their revenge on a provincial nobleman like me. What they didn’t think was they’d be taken as suspects as well. And now they’re down a cul-de-sac. To save their own skin, they’ll have to confess they’ve hidden their daughter. And that way, without wanting to, they’ll free me too. It’s all a matter of time, the time they’ll manage to put up with being imprisoned here without saying anything. That’s it! That’s it! Just the time they manage to put up with it without saying anything.

VOICE: It’s incredible how you still refuse to see. The only problem, my dear man, is that there has in fact been a murder.

BARON: (silence) Master? . . . I must be going mad. Help me. I’m certain I’ve seen you, but I don’t want to believe.

VOICE: What in?

BARON: No. It must be a hallucination. It can only be a hallucination.

VOICE: Everyone sees what they want to – or what they can.

BARON: Why isn’t there even a chink of light anywhere?

VOICE: It’s better for you.

BARON: (shrinking back) When all’s said and done, who are you? Who’s there?! (silence) If it’s not the Marquis de Sade, then who is it? What do you want of me? (silence) Why since they arrested me have they been talking a language I don’t understand? Why are they calling me by another name? Why do I only understand what you say? What do you mean when you say there was a murder? Why can’t I get out if I didn’t kill anyone? (silence) I’m pouring with sweat. Look! My shirt’s soaking. Why is it so hot? And even so, I’m still shaking. Why am I having these hallucinations? I’m afraid. Why don’t you tell me who you are? What do you want to spare me from? (silence) If Martine wasn’t murdered, then . . . who was? (silence) Why don’t you answer? (silence) Master? Who died? Who’s the dead one? What is this place? Why isn’t there a chink of light anywhere?

A blinding white light. Two men dressed in white, a black man and a white man, are walking along a white-tiled corridor. They hear shouts at the far end, in another language. Someone, it seems, desperately wants to get out of there.