AMIR
And then that phrase by Pascal (him again!) that you repeated so often: “The last act is bloody…”
SYLVIE (completes the phrase)
“…however pleasant the rest of the play is. A little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.”
AMIR
“A little earth is thrown at last upon our head…” That depressed me for life…
SYLVIE
You’re exaggerating!
AMIR (stares at her intensely then shrugs his shoulders)
It was like a veil, a gray cover that fell over me, that fell over the world. That gray cover went with me everywhere. When I went to France to do my studies, it was there. When I returned, it was waiting for me, even under the sun.
As if I had drunk a poison…
SYLVIE
A poison?
AMIR
Yes. The poison of philosophy…
SYLVIE (interrupting him)
Stop right there! You’re talking like they do in the countries where philosophy is banned…Because it makes you reflect and reflection is dangerous. Dangerous for the power…It’s better that people don’t reflect, that they remain naive, attached to dogmas that call for obedience above all. That the slave obeys without asking questions, that’s the master’s dream. But philosophy comes to throw a wrench in the gears…
AMIR (interrupting her in turn)
But it’s not about that! You were talking about death all the time. That was the ultimate truth. “Life is nothing but a dream,” you said…
SYLVIE (she interrupts him again)
That’s Calderón de la Barca: “What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction…All of life is nothing but a dream, and dreams are nothing but dreams.”
AMIR
I thought: “Might as well die then.” But if everything was just going to start over, eternally, thanks Nietzsche, what a nightmare! I was stuck. And Pascal, with his “last bloody act”…I had some difficult months because of you.
SYLVIE (taken aback)
Because of me?
AMIR
Yes!
SYLVIE
And that’s why you insisted on coming back here yesterday when you recognized me in that little café on the coast? That’s why you asked me to meet you here at the high school? (A pause.) This score to settle, it was…it is with me, then?
AMIR
Yes.
SYLVIE (laughs nervously)
If we were in an Agatha Christie book…Should I be worried? (She looks toward the door.) Is a constable or a moghazni coming to arrest me? For causing you distress when you were fifteen years old?
AMIR
No, no…That said, there’s some truth to what you said. (He stares at her.)
SYLVIE (uneasy)
Alright, let’s go, you’ve had your fun, let’s go now.
AMIR
No!
(He leaps toward the door, blocks it with a chair and stands before it, arms crossed.)
SYLVIE
I don’t find this funny. (She walks toward the door.) Let me through!
AMIR
No!
(They stare each other down.)
SYLVIE (right up against him)
Let me through!
AMIR
Not a chance!
(He rummages in his jacket pocket and takes out a black revolver that he holds against Sylvie’s head.)
SYLVIE (she jumps back and screams)
You’re crazy!
AMIR
Yeah, I’m crazy! Crazy, fou, loco, h’meq…But whose fault is that? I was at peace, I asked nothing of anybody…and then philosophy…that obsession with absurdity…with death, that obsession you stuck me with! (He threatens her with the revolver.) Sit down!
(Sylvie goes to sit down on a bench.)
AMIR
No! Over there! (He points to the teacher’s desk. She sits down.) And now, to work! You’re going to bring me back to how I was before I met you…Carefree! Simple. “Stupid,” if you will. Like all the people who don’t worry themselves about philosophy, who peacefully believe in God or in Providence, who aren’t obsessed with death, nor by what comes after! (She remains silent.) Go on! Speak! Now we’re going to finish the class. We’re going to unravel it all. Make me stupid again! I want to be stupid!
SYLVIE (sarcastic)
You’re already crazy, that’s a start.
AMIR
Ha ha, very funny. But what is madness, anyway? Here we have a subject for philosophy. Come on, let’s begin. (He threatens her with the revolver.) Go on! Make me stupid again! Rid me of this obsession with death. (He shouts.) Go on!
SYLVIE (frightened)
Alright. (Hesitant) But you’re wrong about everything. Certainly, “Philosophy is learning how to die…”
AMIR (interrupts her, irritated)
No, that I already know. I don’t want to learn how to die, I want to become a child again. Or an idiot. Or both. I want to go back to the time before philosophy. My parents, my family, everyone in this country — they do a few prayers every day, they fast when necessary, give a small coin to a passing beggar — and as a result, they’re serene and at peace. They’ll go to Paradise, they’re sure of it. As for me, I am in Hell. Every day! Because of philosophy.
SYLVIE (furious)
But that’s idiotic! It’s exactly the opposite. Philosophy teaches you how to live by teaching you how to die: the two go together. “We who perhaps one day shall die, proclaim man as immortal at the flaming heart of the instant.” It’s clear, isn’t it? (Amir shakes his head.) “We who perhaps one day shall die, proclaim man as immortal at the flaming heart of the instant.” It’s Saint-John Perse…
AMIR
Continue.
SYLVIE
Epicurus said it well. Something like: “I cannot fear death for as long as I am here, it is not here. And when it will be here, I will no longer be here. Thus, I will never meet death. Thus, I do not need to be afraid of it…”
AMIR
Continue.
SYLVIE
But what more is there to say, after that? Must I keep quoting? “Don’t aspire, oh my soul, to immortal life. But exhaust the field of the possible.” Pindar said that in 5 B.C. Or else Valéry: “The day is rising, we must try to live!” Or else must I explain yet again the myth of Sisyphus? We must have gone over it in class, no? In any case you know the last words of Camus’s essay: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
AMIR (vehemently)
Yes, but all that, that comes after! After the doubt instilled by philosophy, after the anxiety of death. After the absurd has taken hold in the heart…in the heart of my life, of my existence. I want to return to the innocence of before…before your philosophy class!