SECOND SOLDIER. How can a man help questioning himself, how can he be other than uneasy, at such an hour? Do I know where I am and how long I have still to stand on guard?... How can I fail, while I live, to question the meaning of life?... Maybe death is already within me; perchance the questioner is no longer life, but death. FIRST SOLDIER. You are only tormenting yourself about nothings. SECOND SOLDIER. God has given us a heart precisely that it may torment us. Jeremiah and Baruch appear on the ramparts. Jeremiah leans over the parapet and gazes down. All that he is now looking at, these fires, these myriad tents, this first night of the siege, are things with which he is already familiar from his visions. There is not a star in heaven which he has not seen in this place. He can no longer deny that God has chosen him. He must give his message to the king, for he knows the end; he sees it; he describes it in prophetic verses. King Zedekiah, full of fear, making his rounds with Abimelech, hears the voice of Jeremiah, and recognises it as the voice of the one who wished to hold him back on the threshold of the declaration of war. He would pay heed now, could the decision be made over again. Jeremiah assures him that it is never too late to ask peace. Zedekiah is unwilling to be the first to move. What if his proposals were rejected? JEREMIAH. Happy are they who are rejected for justice' sake. But what if people laugh at him? asks Zedekiah. JEREMIAH. It is better to be followed by the laughter of fools than by the tears of widows. Zedekiah refuses. He would rather die than humble himself. Jeremiah curses him and calls him the murderer of his people. The soldiers wish to throw him from the wall. Zedekiah restrains them. His calm, his forbearance, perplex Jeremiah, who lets the king depart without making any further effort to save him. The decisive moment has been lost. Jeremiah accuses himself of weakness; he feels himself impotent, and he despairs; he knows only how to cry aloud and to utter curses. He does not know how to do good. Baruch consoles him. At Jeremiah's suggestion, Baruch decides to climb down the walls into the Chaldean camp, that he may parley with Nebuchadnezzar. SCENE FIVE THE PROPHET'S ORDEAL.