The Prisoner

Pater et filius et spiritus sanctus.

Amen.

Am I allowed to know on what charge you're arresting me?

Treason against the state.

Try to remember:

any confession I am said to have made while in prison will be a lie,

or the result of human weakness.

We've got to collect your valuables, you know.

Regulations.

Watch, wrist, one.

- (Cardinal) Gunmetal. - (Warder) Gunmetal.

Cigarette tin.

Beads, rosary, one.

Ring.

Look at it.

One.

Cross.

Jeweled, one.

That's where the money goes, eh?

You've no need for larceny, have you?

Petty larceny, that is.

And if you do rob your own poor boxes, who's to know?

- Do you really believe that? - Come on.

Right hand.

- You've been in a fire? - Of a kind.

Won't spoil your fingerprints, you know.

Thank you.

Here, if you want it.

I'm sorry about that nonsense we've had to put you through.

I imagine this is more awkward for you than it is for me.

- Well, hardly that, I suppose. - Oh, I don't know.

In spite of your political creed, it's you who are the gentleman.

No titles nowadays, of course, but yours was a noble line.

You are a prince of the Church.

- And you to interrogate me. - Times have changed.

You were a hero to me in the Resistance,

as you were to all of us.

Tell me, do you ever miss those days?

At least one was on the same side as all one's fellow countrymen.

I make no distinction between my fellow men.

Their service demands everything, and, I warn you, permits everything.

Is there any particular plot or counterrevolution

you hope to unmask?

Not unless you know of one.

You believe us harmless yet require us discredited.

- And the point of arresting me? - A cigarette?

No, thank you. If I may smoke my own?

While they last.

Come, now. Drugged cigarettes already?

You see, you represent a religion

which provides an organization outside the state.

In your pulpit you are more dangerous than a politician.

With your war record you're a national monument.

You are outside the party and that monument must be...

Destroyed?

Defaced.

You see? I show you my hand from the start.

Do you want to see mine?

I am difficult to trap and impossible to persuade.

I am tenacious, wary and proud.

- Proud? - Quite sinfully.

Of my record in dealings with your predecessors, the Gestapo.

I am tolerably inured to physical pain.

Well, they never caught me.

Look, your masters are in a hurry, I fancy.

People who are going to make heaven on earth usually are.

So, hadn't we better come to the point?

Steven, bring me the completed confession, will you?

Already?

It'll give us some sort of agenda to work from.

You wouldn't care to sign it right away and save us trouble?

- You know, you might just as well. - I'd love to read it first, if I may.

Steven, I shall want you to stand by tonight.

Sit down,

Your Eminence.

Come on, now.

No dozing off. You can't do that, you know.

Very strict, your interrogator.

No dozing off.

Walk up and down a bit, I should.

No talking to anyone but me and him.

Psychology, they call that.

It's very modern.

Still, they say he always gets what he wants in the end,

in spite of his fancy ways of going about it.

Does he indeed?

Being difficult, are you?

I hope so.

Not guilty.

"Not me. I'm not like the others, officer.

"I'm not guilty."

- You neither, I suppose? - That's right.

Yeah.

Whatever they're in for, they've always got something on their conscience.

Political, that's your line.

Not a very interesting one.

But you've got something on your conscience too.

Ah.

Confidence trickster. That's your line.

- Why do you say that? - You hide yourself up your sleeve.

Yes, that's your line.

And what are you guilty of?

Don't be silly. I'm in the prison service.

- Not guilty? - Of course not.

Come on, now.

Shall I switch on the microphone, sir?

Are you going to want all this early stuff recorded?

"All this early stuff" he calls my fascinating psychological approach.

It is fascinating, sir.

I'm learning all the time.

All that easy manner and apparent friendliness.

Not just apparent. You have to be friends.

Which I have been.

Which I am.

Hypnotic nonsense.

I only wish that physical exhaustion wasn't so essential in the early stages.

All right, Steven, that's all.

Ah. Your Eminence.

Come in.

- Have some coffee. - No, thanks.

Some coffee, Your Eminence?

Oh, thanks.

My health.

Afraid I shall slip you a truth drug?

Surely it's a confession you're after, not the truth.

Oh, I could drug you into stumbling out some form of words

but the foreign correspondents in the press gallery

wouldn't be at all impressed.

And we shan't be needing any drugs.

Older methods?

Racks and thumbscrews?

Old...

but not so long outdated.

Who do you think you're dealing with?

Some mad, sadistic moron in the Gestapo

with power to play with flesh and blood for his own lust?

I was a doctor before ever I was a lawyer.

Your body is sacred to me.

No drugs, no torture?

What can you hope for?

Conversion.

It's your mind we want.

For the first time...

since I've come into your prison...

...I'm afraid.

We can't talk here.

- You didn't answer my letter. - I told you, it's hopeless.

We can't go on seeing each other like that.

I love you but you can't do this to a man!

- Why do we always quarrel? - (Footsteps approaching)

He's certainly got results in the past but his methods take too much time.

Yes, and the people are getting restless.

The churches are full again.

They're falling back on their old ideas outside the regime.

He's got to be discredited, and soon.

- We shall be late for the meeting. - I did warn the Ministry of Justice.

God, they know he's not guilty of anything.

- You know he isn't. - Well, that's not for me to say.

My husband was right. There's no freedom here even to think.

So he got out and you heard the last of him.

You love me or you wouldn't have come here.

I shouldn't have come. I tried not to come.

'Surely it's a confession you're after, not the truth.'

'Confession.'

He's got another eight-hour session in half an hour, sir.

'Surely it's a confession you're after, not the truth.'

You getting anything you can use from these recordings?

Just a word here and there at the moment, sir.

'Confession. The truth.'

Well, that won't take us very far. The General is asking for results.

It's bound to be a slow process, sir.

He's looking for a weak spot in his defenses.

He'll find it.

If the Church isn't deliberately obstructing the state,

are you prepared to say it supports it?

It renders to the state the things that are the state's

and to God the things that are God's.

You know you'll tire yourself out with this eternal being on your guard.

- On my guard? - Stop thinking of me as the Inquisitor.

How do you wish me to think of you?

As your doctor.

To me, you're on a couch in my consulting room.

You're an enemy of society,

like the schizophrenic or the paranoiac.

You're dangerous because you mislead the poor,

the uneducated and the silly.

But only because you're wrong-headed.

In time we'll get to the root of the trouble

and you can be cured.

- You believe it? - Yes.

I do believe it.

God give me cunning...

against your skill.

God keep my watch.

Medical examination.

- (Cardinal) Good morning. - (Warder) And no talking to the doctor.

The pulse, fairly regular.