Verus monologue (Act 2) — Mary Magdalene: A Play in Three Acts

You are right: a joy so long awaited must not be born among these sinister rocks, where floats an odour of death and madness.... And yet, even here, our thoughts came to an understanding long before our words.... Like you, I have resolved to leave this hated city, where really my obedience is abused.... I am at the orders of the Procurator, but not at the venomous service of the Jewish priests, nor of the clamorous and perfidious nation whom my old legionaries have conquered. I have had enough of this ambiguous life. Before to-night, I shall find a pretext for evading an order which I was to execute this very day, an order of which I but too well know the origin.... If the pretext appear insufficient, let Caiaphas and Annas go and complain to Cæsar.... Nothing counts in the presence of our love; and the inglorious errand which they claim the right to impose upon me repels me all the more inasmuch as it was to be accomplished, so to speak, before your eyes....