Chapter 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.