by Jean Cocteau
THE INFERNAL
MACHINE AND
OTHER PLAYS BY
JEAN COCTEAU
A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Infernal Machine
TRANSLATED BY ALBERT BERMEL
Orpheus
TRANSLATED BY JOHN SAVACOOL
The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party
TRANSLATED BY DUDLEY FITTS
The Knights of the Round Table
TRANSLATED BY W. H. AUDEN
Bacchus
TRANSLATED BY MARY HOECK
The Speaker’s Text of Oedipus Rex
TRANSLATED BY E. E. CUMMINGS
THE
INFERNAL
MACHINE
translated by
ALBERT BERMEL
“…at that point where I can scarcely conceive (could my brain be an enchanted mirror?) a kind of beauty in which there is no misfortune.”
“Like all my friends, I have tried more than once to enclose myself in a system and preach there at my ease. But a system is a sort of damnation… I have come back to seek shelter in impeccable naïveté. It is there that my philosophical conscience finds rest.”
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
“The gods exist; that’s the devil of it.”
JEAN COCTEAU
CHARACTERS
THE VOICE
THE YOUNG SOLDIER
THE SOLDIER
THE OFFICER
JOCASTA, The Queen
TIRESIAS, The High Priest
GHOST OF KING LAIUS
THE SPHINX, The Goddess of Vengeance
ANUBIS, The Egyptian God of the Dead
A THEBAN MOTHER
HER SON
HER DAUGHTER
OEDIPUS
THE DRUNK
THE MESSENGER FROM CORINTH
CREON, Jocasta’s Brother
THE OLD SHEPHERD
ANTIGONE, Daughter of Jocasta and Oedipus
La Machine Infernale was first performed in French at the Théâtre Louis Jouvet in Paris on April 10, 1934, directed by Jouvet with costumes and décor by Christian Bérard.
The Infernal Machine was first played in this version at the Phoenix Theatre, New York, on February 3, 1958, under the direction of Herbert Berghof, with scenery by Ming Cho Lee, costumes by Alvin Colt, and lighting by Tharon Musser.
THE VOICE
He shall slay his father. He shall marry his mother.
To counter this prophecy of Apollo, Jocasta, the Queen of Thebes, abandons her baby on a mountainside, with his feet pierced and tied. A shepherd discovers the boy and takes him to Polybus, King of Corinth. Polybus and his queen, Merope, have been lamenting their childless marriage. The baby, Oedipus, or Pierced-feet, spared by the bear and the wolf, comes like a gift from heaven. And they adopt him.
When he is grown to a young man, Oedipus questions the Oracle of Delphi. The god proclaims: You shall murder your father and marry your mother. At this, Oedipus makes up his mind to leave Polybus and Merope. But the fear of parricide and incest which drives him away brings him closer to his fate.
One evening, at the spot where the roads from Delphi and Daulia cross, one of the horses of a passing coach brushes against him; an argument flares up; a footman threatens him; he answers with his stick. The blow misses the servant and fells his master. The slain man is Laius, King of Thebes. This is the parricide.
The servants think they are being attacked and run for their lives, while Oedipus guesses nothing and goes on his way. He is young and restless; he soon forgets about this accident.
Shortly afterward, he hears about the Sphinx. This scourge, known as “The winged virgin” and “The bitch that sings,” is slaughtering the young men of Thebes. It asks a riddle and kills those who cannot solve it. Queen Jocasta, the widow of Laius, is offering her hand and her crown to the man who conquers the Sphinx.
Like the young Siegfried to come, Oedipus hurries onward. Curiosity and ambition feed on him.
Then the encounter takes place. What is the nature of this encounter? Mystery. All that is known is: young Oedipus enters Thebes as a conqueror and marries the queen. That is the incest.
For the gods to be royally entertained their victim has to fall from very high. The years pass, prosperous years. Two daughters and two sons complicate the unnatural marriage. The people love their king. But a plague breaks out. The gods accuse a criminal, whose name they will not reveal, of polluting the city, and demand that he be hounded out. Reeling from one monstrous discovery to another, drunk with his own misfortune, Oedipus is finally caught. The trap closes on him. Everything is now clear. With her red scarf Jocasta hangs herself. With her gold brooch Oedipus tears out his eyes.
Watch now, spectator. Before you is a fully wound machine. Slowly its spring will unwind the entire span of a human life. It is one of the most perfect machines devised by the infernal gods for the mathematical annihilation of a mortal.
ACT ONE: THE GHOST
A patrol path around the ramparts of Thebes. High walls. A stormy night. Summer lightning. Raucous noise and band music heard, coming from the slum quarter.
YOUNG SOLDIER. They’re laughing.
SOLDIER. They’re trying.
YOUNG SOLDIER. They dance all night.
SOLDIER. They can’t sleep, so they dance.
YOUNG SOLDIER. They get drunk and make love and spend the night in bistros, while I parade up and down here with you. Well, I’m sick of it! Understand? I’m sick of it!
SOLDIER. So desert.
YOUNG SOLDIER. No. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to put my name down to challenge the Sphinx.
SOLDIER. The Sphinx? Why?
YOUNG SOLDIER. To have something to do. To put an end to this waiting around.
SOLDIER. You’d be frightened.
YOUNG SOLDIER. Me? Frightened?
SOLDIER. Yes, frightened. I’ve seen smarter and tougher ones than you, and they were frightened. But you think you can slaughter the Sphinx and win the big prize?
YOUNG SOLDIER. Why not? The only man who got away from the Sphinx alive — all right, I know he’s crazy — but maybe it’s true, what he says. Maybe it does ask a riddle. And maybe I’ll solve that riddle. Maybe …
SOLDIER. You poor green bastard, you know that hundreds and hundreds of men, athletes and scholars, have been skinned alive by the Sphinx. And now you, a raw little recruit like you, wants to …
YOUNG SOLDIER. I’m going!
SOLDIER. Good for you. Be a hero!
YOUNG SOLDIER. I’m sick of the stones in this wall…
SOLDIER. That’s right — explode!
YOUNG SOLDIER …. And that music …
SOLDIER. Get it out of your system!
YOUNG SOLDIER. And your ugly face! And …
He breaks down.
SOLDIER. Here, what’s this? Not crying, are we? There, there … let’s keep calm, now!
YOUNG SOLDIER. Go to hell!
The Soldier bangs his spear on the wall behind the Young Soldier, who stiffens.
SOLDIER. What’s up?
YOUNG SOLDIER. Didn’t you hear anything?
SOLDIER. No … Where?
YOUNG SOLDIER. It sounded to me as if … I mean, I thought…
SOLDIER. You’re pale … What’s wrong with you? Feel weak?
YOUNG SOLDIER. It’s funny … I thought I heard a noise. I thought it was him.
SOLDIER. The Sphinx?
YOUNG SOLDIER. No , the ghost.
SOLDIER. He doesn’t frighten us. Not our old ghost, Laius. He doesn’t still make your guts quiver, does he? Perhaps the first time … But not afterward. He’s not a bad ghost, he’s a friend. Ah, the trouble is we�
��re all jumpy in Thebes: you, me, the rich people, and the poor people; everybody except the few who always come out on top. We’re tired of fighting an enemy we don’t know, and we’re tired of oracles and heroic victims and brave mothers. If we weren’t on edge … all of us … instead of dancing and drinking over there, they’d be tucked up in bed. And instead of making fun of you, while we wait for your old friend the ghost to turn up — I’d be beating you at dice.
YOUNG SOLDIER. What do you think the Sphinx is like?
SOLDIER. Forget about the Sphinx.
YOUNG SOLDIER. Some people say it’s no bigger than a rabbit, and just as timid, and that it’s got a tiny head. But I say it has the head and breasts of a woman and sleeps with any man over eighteen.
SOLDIER. Don’t think about it any more.
YOUNG SOLDIER. Perhaps it doesn’t ask you anything. You meet it; you look at it; it winks at you; then you die of love.
SOLDIER. Go ahead! Fall in love with the Sphinx. Have a happy death. Know what I think? It’s an old vampire, an everyday vampire, hiding out from the police.
YOUNG SOLDIER. With a woman’s head?
SOLDIER. No , with a beard, a mustache, and a pot belly. It sucks your blood and then they bring you home with a wound in the same place as all the others: on the neck.
YOUNG SOLDIER. You think … ?
SOLDIER. Yes, I think … Watch it! The Captain.
They stand at attention. The Captain enters and folds his arms.
OFFICER. Stand at ease … easy! So this is where you see the ghosts?
SOLDIER. Sir —
OFFICER. Quiet! Speak when I ask you to. Which one of you dared to —
YOUNG SOLDIER. I did, sir.
OFFICER. Will you keep quiet? Who’s doing the talking? Now, which one of you dared to send in a service report over my head, without following standard procedure? Well?
SOLDIER. Sir, it wasn’t his fault. He thought…
OFFICER. Answer me — you or him?
YOUNG SOLDIER. Both of us, but it was me —
OFFICER. Silence! How does his excellency, the high priest, receive information from this post before I hear about it?
YOUNG SOLDIER. It’s all my fault, sir. He didn’t want to say a thing. But I felt I had to speak up, and as this wasn’t a service matter, I told his uncle who works in the temple, and …
SOLDIER. My uncle! That’s why I said it was my fault, sir.
OFFICER. That’s enough. So this is not a service matter! It’s a ghost matter, is that it?
YOUNG SOLDIER. That’s right, sir.
OFFICER. A ghost who pops up while you’re on patrol and says to you — well, what did he say?
YOUNG SOLDIER. He told us he was the ghost of King Laius, sir, and that he’d tried to appear several times since he was murdered. He begged us to find some way of warning Queen Jocasta and Tiresias.
OFFICER. And you didn’t ask him why he wasn’t appearing directly before the Queen or Tiresias?
SOLDIER. Oh, yes, sir. I asked him that. He said he wasn’t free to reveal himself just anywhere. This is the most popular place, he said, for people to appear when they’ve been murdered. It’s because of the sewers.
OFFICER. Sewers?
SOLDIER. Yes, sir, he was talking about the special stinks you get around here.
OFFICER. Ah! We’re dealing with a ghost who has a sensitive nose. Tell me more about him. What did he look like? What sort of face did he have? How was he dressed? Were you frightened of him? Where exactly did you see him? What language did he speak? Did he ever stay for long? This isn’t a service matter, of course, but I’d like to know what ghosts do with their time.
YOUNG SOLDIER. The first night we were pretty scared, sir. You see, he appeared very quickly, like a lamp coming on, right there in the middle of the wall.
SOLDIER. We both saw him the same time.
YOUNG SOLDIER. We couldn’t make out his face or body properly. We could see his mouth when it was open, and he had a little white beard, and a red blotch near his right ear. He had trouble putting his words together — even saying them.
SOLDIER. That’s because it took all his energy just to appear. Whenever he was speaking a little more clearly, he started to fade and we could see the wall right through him.
YOUNG SOLDIER. When you could see him, you couldn’t hear him … and when you could hear him, you couldn’t see him. He kept saying the same thing: “Queen Jocasta, … warn Queen Jocasta, warn her … please, I beg of you, warn the Queen, warn the Queen.” Just like that.
SOLDIER. You could see he was afraid of fading out before he finished his message.
YOUNG SOLDIER. And then, remember how he faded out, the same way every time? The red blotch was the last thing to go.
SOLDIER. The whole thing only lasted about a minute.
YOUNG SOLDIER. We’ve seen him in the same place, five times, just before dawn.
SOLDIER. But last night was different. After what happened he thought we’d better let them know in the palace.
OFFICER. How d’you mean: “after what happened”?
SOLDIER. Well, sir, you know how being on patrol isn’t exactly honey and roses.
YOUNG SOLDIER. We were sort of looking forward to the ghost last night.
SOLDIER. For entertainment. We had a bet on it. I said he wouldn’t turn up.
YOUNG SOLDIER. I said he would.
SOLDIER. I said …
YOUNG SOLDIER. What’s that moving?
SOLDIER. Where?
YOUNG SOLDIER. Straight ahead! Look — the wall’s lighting up. Can’t you see it?
SOLDIER. No!
YOUNG SOLDIER. It is, I tell you! The wall’s changing! Look! Look!
SOLDIER. That’s how it was, sir.
YOUNG SOLDIER. In the end we were glad when he did come.
SOLDIER. We’d been watching and staring till our eyes nearly jumped out of our faces. Then he appeared… uneasy … not fast like the other times. He said he had stolen into the Palace of the Gods and listened to a terrible secret. He said:
Acting it out.
“If they catch me, I shall die my last death, and that will be the end … the end. There isn’t a moment to lose. Run! Warn the Queen! Find Tiresias! Please! I beg of you! They must be told!” And as he was pleading, the day was breaking.
YOUNG SOLDIER. But there he was …
SOLDIER. Fixed …
YOUNG SOLDIER. Frozen …
SOLDIER. Stuck …
YOUNG SOLDIER. Couldn’t disappear!
SOLDIER. He tried — God how he tried! But he just couldn’t. We thought he’d go mad. Then he asked us to swear at him, because he said that’s the way to make a ghost disappear. But we couldn’t — he’s our friend. And the more he begged us, the more stupid we looked.
YOUNG SOLDIER. We tried, but we still looked stupid.
SOLDIER. It wasn’t because we’re not used to cursing the higher echelons.
OFFICER. Thank you, on behalf of the higher echelons.
SOLDIER. I didn’t mean you, sir. I was referring to princes, crowned heads, the government and so on — the real high echelons. But the King was such a decent ghost, we didn’t have the heart to use foul words. All we could think of was: “Go up in smoke, you poxy, whore-bent old crap-heap!”
YOUNG SOLDIER. Float off, you slime-filled, gut-stinking, son of a buzzard!
SOLDIER. Tame stuff like that. We might as well have handed him a bunch of flowers.
YOUNG SOLDIER. Then, as he hung between life and death, dreading the sound of the cocks and the sight of the sun, I thought of a good one. I said: “Go and stuff your crowing … ”
SOLDIER. No ! Don’t say it. You’ll embarrass the captain.
YOUNG SOLDIER. But it worked; the wall was only a wall again and the red blotch had faded away.
SOLDIER. We were tired out!
YOUNG SOLDIER. After that night, I made up my mind, if he wouldn’t speak to his uncle, I would.
OFFICER. Your ghost i
sn’t very punctual tonight.
YOUNG SOLDIER. He may never show up again.
OFFICER. Because I’m here?
YOUNG SOLDIER. No, sir, I mean, after what he told us last night…
OFFICER. If he’s as proper as you make out, I’m sure he’ll come back. Proper kings are punctual kings, aren’t they?
SOLDIER. It’s possible, sir, but it’s also possible that even punctual kings, when they happen to be ghosts, can mistake a minute for a century. So if the ghost appears in a thousand years’ time, instead of this evening, we’ll be up there with him.
OFFICER. Of course he’ll be here this evening. I’m keeping him away. As soon as I disappear — he’ll appear.
Moving off.
Remember, no one except the patrol is allowed to use this path.
SOLDIER. Very good, sir.
OFFICER, shouting. And no one is allowed through without the password, man or ghost. Is that understood?
SOLDIER. Yes, sir.
OFFICER. Patrol! Carry on!
They stand at ease and break off. The Officer reappears unexpectedly.
Don’t try anything. I’m keeping an eye on you.
He leaves.
YOUNG SOLDIER, after a pause. He thought we were trying to make a fool of him.
SOLDIER. No , he thought somebody else was making a fool of us. From now on, keep quiet about the ghost. We believe in him, but they don’t.
YOUNG SOLDIER. Why?
SOLDIER. Listen, son. I get to know a lot of things through my uncle. You take the Queen, she’s nice enough but people don’t really like her. They think she’s a bit —
He taps his head.
They say she’s strange, and she has a foreign accent and she’s under the thumb of Tiresias. She tells him her dreams; she asks him if she ought to get out of bed with her right foot or left foot first. And whatever he tells her to do turns out badly. He leads her by the nose, licks the boots of her brother, Creon, and plots with Creon against her. Keep out of their way. They’re rotten, all of them. I bet the captain thinks the ghost is like the Sphinx — a trick by the priests to make Jocasta believe whatever they want.
