III
The latest of my plays, Cicero: A Tragic Drama in Three Acts, was written in the winter of 1959-60. I had been reading a history of ancient Rome and was impressed by the resemblances between the time of Cicero and the time of Eisenhower: the extremes of contrast between the rich and the poor; the rich exhibiting their glory by fantastic extravagances; the unemployed poor crowding into the cities, existing in slums on doles; the farmers deserting their land and rioting—they were doing it in Oklahoma; the domination of public affairs by big money; and the total blindness of the public to all these manifest evils.
I did not intend to preach a sermon; on the contrary, I determined to leave the resemblances to the discernment of the audience. I was going to show what Cicero faced and what happened to him. He was a rich man himself, a consul, a senator; he had all the honors. A lawyer, he tried criminal cases and made fortunes; a statesman, he was driven into exile, and when his party came into power he came back. In the end his enemies triumphed, and he fled and was captured; his head and hands were cut off and exhibited in the forum. That hasn’t happened as yet to anybody in America—but who knows?
Most terrifying in ancient Rome was—and in our own land is—the sexual corruption. When I was young I wrote a book about love and marriage, Love’s Pilgrimage. It contained a bridal scene and a birth scene that were detailed and without precedent; but every line was clean and true, and every doctor and every married person knew it. I was told there would be trouble, but there wasn’t. I was told there would be trouble in England, and I asked the English publisher to send a copy of the book to every bishop of the Church of England. He did so, and I got some kind letters from these gentlemen; you will find examples in the volume, My Lifetime in Letters. There was no trouble.
But the vileness that is being published today is revolting to every decent-thinking person. It is deliberately advertised and sold as vileness, and one after another the books enter the bestseller list. I have chosen to stay out of that competition; all I say here is that it is exactly what Cicero saw in ancient Rome. He blistered it in his courtroom speeches; he named names—and that was a contributing cause to his murder.
I had the three-act Cicero mimeographed, and one of the persons who I hoped would honor it was Albert Camus. He wrote me cordially, and I quote the first three sentences of his opinion—first in French and then in translation:
J’ai été bien touché par la confiance que vous m’avez faite en m’envoyant votre Ciceron. C’est une tragédie pleine de sens et plus actuelle qu’il n’y paraît. On y comprend mieux un certain classicisme qui finissait dans les rains coupées et l’horreur.
I have been indeed touched by the confidence you have shown me in sending me your Cicero. It is a tragedy full of sense and more real than it would seem. One there understands better a certain classicism which would finish with the kidneys cut and the horror.
I, and others, were puzzled by the rains coupées—“the kidneys cut.” It was explained to me that the phrase approximates “a rabbit punch” in American parlance.
Camus went on to say that he had been “promised a theater” and would be able to deal with the play “with more precision.” Soon thereafter I read in the news that he had been assigned the directorship of the Théâtre Française, perhaps the most famous in the world. My hopes rose high. Then, alas, I read that he had been killed in a motorcar accident.