Death and the Maiden: Act 3, Scene 1 Summary & Analysis

Just before evening, Paulina and Gerardo sit on the terrace facing the sea. Gerardo has the cassette recorder on his lap. He asks Paulina to tell him what exactly what happened to her, because he needs to hear it from her lips.

Paulina says she’s already told Gerardo about what happened. He replies that she had started to, fifteen years ago (in reference to the night they were reunited after her release). Annoyed, Paulina says that he can’t have expected her to go on talking when, on the night that she was released, he was sleeping with another woman. He protests that she “already forgave” him for that.

Gerardo says, “we’ll die from so much past, so much pain and resentment,” and wants them to finish “that conversation from years ago.” Paulina makes him tell her how many times he slept with the other woman. He admits it was on more than one occasion, telling her that “people can die from an excessive dose of the truth.”

Gerardo, increasingly exasperated, say to Paulina that he is her hands: “like a baby, I’ve got no defenses, I’m naked in front of you like the day I was born.” Paulina says she wants him: “I want you inside me, alive. I want you making love to me without ghosts in bed and I want you on the Commission defending the truth and I want you in the air I breathe and I want you in my Schubert that I can start listening to again.”

Gerardo asks Paulina never to mention “that bitch of a night again.” If they keep talking about it, he says, it will kill him. Paulina agrees to tell Gerardo “everything” about what happened to her. He turns on the cassette recorder and asks her to speak “just as if you were sitting in front of the Commission.”

On Gerardo’s instruction, Paulina states her name and the date of her kidnapping. She explains how, on that day, three men got out of a car and forced her to come with them at gunpoint. She remembers the “smell of garlic” on the breath of one of her kidnappers. She is annoyed at herself for being to “obedient” and not screaming for help.

The lights go down as Paulina explains how, when she first met “Doctor Miranda” three days later she thought “he would save me.” At first, he was “soft” and “nice.” She recounts how he put on Schubert’s quartet and what effect that had in the darkness after “three days” without food.

Roberto’s voice takes over from Paulina, continuing with her discussion. The second movement from Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” plays. Roberto explains that he would put on music to make the prisoners think he was a “good guy” and thought it would be a way of ‘alleviating their suffering.” The Schubert fades away; as the lights come up, Roberto continues his speech, talking into the cassette recorder.

Roberto explains that he was brought in by the regime to help prevent the regime’s torturers from accidentally killing the prisoners. His brother was in the military secret service and told Roberto that he could help “pay the communists back for what they did to Dad” (who had a heart attack when peasants attacked his land). He says the “real real truth” is that he accepted his role for “humanitarian reasons,” believing that even his enemies deserved medical attention.

Roberto continues that his responsibility was to oversee the amount of electric current administered to prisoners to ensure they did not die. But over time “the mask of virtue” fell away and he began to feel “excitement.” Paulina Salas, he says, came to him when it was already too late.

Roberto says a “brutalization” came over his life. His “curiosity was partly morbid, partly scientific. How much can this woman take? [...] Does her sex dry up when you put the current through her? Can she have an orgasm under those circumstances?” His power allowed him to carry out his fantasies, he adds.

A beam of moonlight shines on the cassette recorder. Roberto continues, talking about how the other torturers tempted him not to “refuse free meat.” One of them was called “Stud,” he says, and Stud would say “all these bitches like it and if you put on that sweet little music of yours, they’ll get even cosier.” Finally, says Roberto, he gave into temptation—but he adds that “not one ever died on me.”

Dawn arrives. Roberto is now untied, transcribing his words from the cassette record onto a sheet of paper. In front of him lie more sheets with his writing on them. Roberto’s recorded voice says that he took part in the “interrogation of ninety-four prisoners, including Paulina Salas”—all he asks for now is “forgiveness.” Gerardo pauses the cassette so Roberto can copy out the words. The tape concludes with Roberto’s hope that his confession will prove his “real repentance” and help the country to find peace. It claims that “there can be no worse punishment than that which is imposed upon me by the voice of my conscience.”

With the confession finished, Roberto asks Paulina if he wants him to sign it. She tells him first to write down that he has made it of his own free will, without “any sort of pressure.” He says that’s not true, but writes it down anyway, showing it Gerardo. Gerardo nods.

Paulina picks up the paper before putting the confession on again from the beginning. Gerardo tells Paulina “it’s over.” She looks out to sea and sighs deeply. She suddenly turns to Gerardo, and says she’d thought, once Roberto had confessed, she’d have to stop Gerardo shooting him. He says he wouldn’t “stain my soul with someone like him.”

Paulina throws Roberto’s car keys to Gerardo and tells him to get his car. Gerardo goes out. Roberto asks to go the bathroom unsupervised, but Paulina says there is one more “matter” to take care of. She looks outside and predicts a “beautiful day.” The only thing missing, she says to Roberto, is to kill him.

Paulina points the gun at Roberto, telling him he has a minute to pray. He stands up, once more claiming to be innocent and that his confession was false.

Roberto claims not to understand why Paulina now wants to kill him: after all, she gave Gerardo her word that she would let him go if he confessed. She explains that, whereas earlier she still had a slight doubt if he was the same doctor who abused her, she figured out a way to check. She planted small errors in the story of her rape and torture when she told it to Gerardo earlier, and Roberto has accidentally corrected those errors in his confession.

Paulina tells Roberto that, when she had told everything to Gerardo earlier, she deliberately switched the name of one of Roberto’s fellow torturers from “Stud” to “Bud.” Roberto said “Stud” in his confession, proving to Paulina that she has the right man. She says she isn’t going to kill Roberto because he’s guilty, but because he hasn’t repented at all.

Roberto pleads with Paulina: “What more do you want?” She insists she wants the truth; if he gives her that she’ll let him go. She starts counting to ten. Roberto stands up, defiant. He says even if he confesses she’ll kill him, and he won’t let “any sick woman treat me like this.” She’ll be killing an innocent man, he says. He mentions his three children.

Paulina asks why it is always people like her “who have to sacrifice, why are we always the ones who have to make concessions?” She says she always has to “bite her tongue”—but not this time. This time, she says, she will “do justice” in one case, at least. “What do we lose by killing one of them?” she asks.

Roberto and Paulina freeze as music by Mozart drifts in. Here, the stage directions give instructions for a giant mirror to descend from the ceiling of the theatre, forcing the “members of the audience to look at themselves.” Spotlights pick out individual members of the audience as the music plays on.