Androcles and the Lion | Page 8

fear him if he is a Christian, Captain.
THE CAPTAIN (coldly) I shall not fear him in any case, Lavinia.
LAVINIA (her eyes dancing) How brave of you, Captain!
THE CAPTAIN. You are right: it was silly thing to say. (In a lower tone, humane and urgent) Lavinia: do Christians know how to love?
LAVINIA (composedly) Yes, Captain: they love even their enemies.
THE CAPTAIN. Is that easy?
LAVINIA. Very easy, Captain, when their enemies are as handsome as you.
THE CAPTAIN. Lavinia: you are laughing at me.
LAVINIA. At you, Captain! Impossible.
THE CAPTAIN. Then you are flirting with me, which is worse. Don't be foolish.
LAVINIA. But such a very handsome captain.
THE CAPTAIN. Incorrigible! (Urgently) Listen to me. The men in that audience tomorrow will be the vilest of voluptuaries: men in whom the only passion excited by a beautiful woman is a lust to see her tortured and torn shrieking limb from limb. It is a crime to dignify that passion. It is offering yourself for violation by the whole rabble of the streets and the riff-raff of the court at the same time. Why will you not choose rather a kindly love and an honorable alliance?
LAVINIA. They cannot violate my soul. I alone can do that by sacrificing to false gods.
THE CAPTAIN. Sacrifice then to the true God. What does his name matter? We call him Jupiter. The Greeks call him Zeus. Call him what you will as you drop the incense on the altar flame: He will understand.
LAVINIA. No. I couldn't. That is the strange thing, Captain, that a little pinch of incense should make all that difference. Religion is such a great thing that when I meet really religious people we are friends at once, no matter what name we give to the divine will that made us and moves us. Oh, do you think that I, a woman, would quarrel with you for sacrificing to a woman god like Diana, if Diana meant to you what Christ means to me? No: we should kneel side by side before her altar like two children. But when men who believe neither in my god nor in their own--men who do not know the meaning of the word religion--when these men drag me to the foot of an iron statue that has become the symbol of the terror and darkness through which they walk, of their cruelty and greed, of their hatred of God and their oppression of man-- when they ask me to pledge my soul before the people that this hideous idol is God, and that all this wickedness and falsehood is divine truth, I cannot do it, not if they could put a thousand cruel deaths on me. I tell you, it is physically impossible. Listen, Captain: did you ever try to catch a mouse in your hand? Once there was a dear little mouse that used to come out and play on my table as I was reading. I wanted to take him in my hand and caress him; and sometimes he got among my books so that he could not escape me when I stretched out my hand. And I did stretch out my hand; but it always came back in spite of me. I was not afraid of him in my heart; but my hand refused: it is not in the nature of my hand to touch a mouse. Well, Captain, if I took a pinch of incense in my hand and stretched it out over the altar fire, my hand would come back. My body would be true to my faith even if you could corrupt my mind. And all the time I should believe more in Diana than my persecutors have ever believed in anything. Can you understand that?
THE CAPTAIN (simply) Yes: I understand that. But my hand would not come back. The hand that holds the sword has been trained not to come back from anything but victory.
LAVINIA. Not even from death?
THE CAPTAIN. Least of all from death.
LAVINIA. Then I must not come back either. A woman has to be braver than a soldier.
THE CAPTAIN. Prouder, you mean.
LAVINIA (startled) Prouder! You call our courage pride!
THE CAPTAIN. There is no such thing as courage: there is only pride. You Christians are the proudest devils on earth.
LAVINIA (hurt) Pray God then my pride may never become a false pride. (She turns away as if she did not wish to continue the conversation, but softens and says to him with a smile) Thank you for trying to save me from death
THE CAPTAIN. I knew it was no use; but one tries in spite of one's knowledge.
LAVINIA. Something stirs, even in the iron breast of a Roman soldier!
THE CAPTAIN. It will soon be iron again. I have seen many women die, and forgotten them in a week.
LAVINIA. Remember me for a