And is it thus that I find you! Cold and wet! You that were kind to all, light-hearted, vital! SIMON: Cébès! CÉBÈS: What? You know me? SIMON: What do they call that slate-roofed belfry, Cébès? What place is this? CÉBÈS: Agnel! Simon Agnel! SIMON: Are any of my family still here? CÉBÈS: No. The house has been sold. SIMON: Is my father alive? CÉBÈS: He is dead, and your mother also. The others have gone away. SIMON: Is it so! CÉBÈS: Where have you been, unhappy man? Why did you go? And what of that woman lying there? SIMON: Why? Who knows? A wild and adventurous spirit, shame, A desire to reach the end of the road, to follow the lure of the plain that stretches towards the horizon, And I went out from the house and left the old familiar faces. Dead! CÉBÈS: Where did you go? SIMON: I did not know that she loved me. One day I caught her by the throat, crushing her body against the side of the barn, For I was a violent man. She came to join me. I have wandered, I have dreamed many dreams, I have known Men and the things that at present exist. I have seen strange roads, strange cultures, strange cities. One leaves them behind and they are gone. And the sea that is very far away and further than the sea. And as I was returning, bringing back the branch of a pine... CÉBÈS: It was there that she found you? SIMON: Together By many mountains and rivers we wandered seeking the South and that other ocean. Then we returned to this place. CÉBÈS: Where did you say? SIMON: There, to that hut. I tried to light a fire but it was too wet. --I think it is deep enough now. _(He climbs out of the hole._ CÉBÈS: O that she should be lying there like this! SIMON: O this place! This place! Turning hence my unworthy eyes what have I sought among multitudes of men but the testimony of my own soul! And it was here that, girding up its loins, it came to find me! Standing in the red of the dawn, the warmth of the rising sun on our hair, We had re-united our souls through our lips, and with artless arms she clasped me to her breast! And I brought her here that this place whence I had set out might mock me! There she lies fallen at my feet! My curse on this country! A murrain on the cattle! May the pigs die of plague! Ah! Ah! This place! O soil of sticky clay! I am worthless! What could I do! What was the use! Ah, why should I try to be Different from what I am? And it is here That alone and with my feet in the earth I raise my bitter cry, While the wind masks my face with rain! O woman, ever faithful Who followed me, uncomplaining Like a fairy in thrall, like a queen Who wraps her bleeding feet in tatters of cloth of gold! I cried to her, "Come, down into the mud!" Horror incarnate, shame, infamy teeming with desires, this is the knowledge I have gained at the last! Listen! When she was dying she pressed my hand against her cheek, And kissed me, keeping her eyes on mine, And she said that she could sing me prophecies