AHASUERUS: It is the haste of a man who has lived for thousands of years. Yes, thousands of years. Even men who lived for only a few decades invented a term for that sense of weariness, tedium vitae, which they could never truly have known, not at least in all its vast and unyielding reality, because to acquire such a profound aversion to existence it is necessary to have walked, as I have, through every generation and through every ruin.

PROMETHEUS: Thousands of years?

AHASUERUS: My name is Ahasuerus. I was living in Jerusalem when they took Jesus Christ to be crucified. As he passed by my door, he stumbled under the weight of the cross he was carrying, and I drove him on, shouting at him not to stop, not to rest, but to go on up to the hill where he would be crucified . . . Then a voice from heaven told me that I would be condemned to wander ceaselessly until the end of time. So great was my sin, for I showed no pity for the man who was going to die. I didn’t even know why he must die. The Pharisees said the son of Mary had come to destroy the law, and that he must be killed; poor fool that I was, I wanted to show off my zeal, and that is what provoked my actions on that day. Later, as I made my way through all the ages and all the cities of the earth, how often did I see the same thing happen again and again! Whenever zeal entered a humble soul, it became something cruel or ridiculous. That was my unpardonable sin.

PROMETHEUS: A grievous sin indeed, but the punishment was generous. Other men read only one of life’s chapters; you have read the entire book. What does one chapter know of another chapter? Nothing. But he who has read every chapter connects them all together and draws conclusions. If some pages are melancholy, others are jovial and happy. After bitter tears comes laughter, out of death springs life, storks and swallows change climate without ever abandoning it entirely; thus is everything reconciled and restored. You saw this, not ten times, not a thousand times, but every time; you saw the magnificence of the earth healing the affliction of the soul, and the joy of the soul overcoming the desolation of things. Such is the alternating dance of nature, which gives its left hand to Job and its right hand to Sardanapalus.

AHASUERUS: What do you know about my life? Nothing; you know nothing of human life.

PROMETHEUS: I know nothing of human life? Don’t make me laugh! Come on, then, everlasting man, explain yourself! Tell me everything; you left Jerusalem . . .