University of Virginia Library

Scene I:

—A tea-shop on the Marine Parade, near the harbour of Christianstadt. Several companies, discussing in whispers the event of the day, are seated at marble-top tables. Vibbe, Tommerup, Bisserup, Jelke, and Crawford are near the centre. Crawford writes in a notebook, while the others take tea and bread and butter. Through the open door the parade is seen thronged with passengers, and in the distance the grey hulls of the battleships and the opposite shore, as in Scene I.
Tommerup.
Mammon's our man.

Bisserup.
An anarch on the throne?
The worst that could befall!

Jelke.
We want the worst.

Bisserup.
Yes, for society; but not for us.
The ship of state, a wandering derelict,
Side-slipped upon the ocean as it were,
With shifted cargo, flapping rudder, deck
Aslope, might right itself upon the swell
Of such a wave as anarchy enthroned;
Receive a salvage crew; be harboured, docked;
Refitted for a hundred voyages.

Tommerup.
Ay, but an anarch on the throne invites
A thousand might-bes; and among them just
The Revolution: underdogs on top;
Strait-jackets for the individualists;
Procrustean beds for all.

Jelke.
But why that first?

Tommerup.
Because it's ripest, and our mouths agape
To catch the harvest.

Vibbe.
These indecent jests
Provoke me: we desire the common good.
You bring discredit on our cause and us.

Tommerup.
I wear no blinkers, Vibbe. Good for a few,
Evil for all the rest, is what we have:
Good for the many and evil for the few
Is what we want, and what we mean to make:
There's no best way, only the choice of ills.
Prepare procrustean peace for normal men,
And bloody heads and toes for special folk.

Jelke.
Some needful surgery there will always be.
But to the question:—Mammon on Thule's throne:
What would that mean to us? I say, an end
In our day of our hopes: the moneyed might
Of Thule, recognized for what it is—
The only power efficient in the state—
Released from every semblance of control,
Condensed and centred in a lawless mind,
Will set a foot so heavy on the world
That all reformers must be squelched like slugs.

Vibbe.
Why use these brutal figures? Men are men:
The revolution means a final end
Of such opprobrium.—But our thoughts outrun
Events: Mammon's a prisoner.

Jelke.
That means nothing:
The fond old King will pardon his first-born.

Bisserup.
The plot against him in his presence snaps
Like misty gossamer.

Tommerup.
What plot? These things
Have simply happened.

Bisserup.
No; there is a plot!
The home and foreign press are full of it.

Tommerup.
Invention—every word! Oh, here we catch
The lying muse of history at her trade.
Deed follows deeds, issue from issue springs,
As naive and natural as life and death:
There's no more plot in these affairs of Mammon
Than in the periods of plants or stars.
You might as well denounce that beautiful,
Mechanical occurrence, our solar system,
Calling it treacherous and a nebular
Conspiracy, as seek to find a plot
In modern mysteries of the court of Thule.

Bisserup.
But I know better. Magnus schemed it out,
Young as he is: love gave him craft: the whole
Intrigue in the great daily of the Isles
Appeared with leaded type a week ago.

Tommerup.
Mere history in the making, as close to truth
As ivy to the tree it kills and shrouds.

Bisserup.
Your simile demonstrates nothing: images
Are feverish maladies of speech. I say,
Prince Mammon was betrayed.

Tommerup.
And I say, no!

Crawford.
What? Bisserup and Tommerup again!
How often must I check your nauseous wrangling!

Bisserup.
But he began! He contradicted me!

Tommerup.
He babbled nonsense from the purple press,
And set the news against my insight, damn him!

Crawford.
Hush! both of you! I've drawn this document.
We'll have it placed in Mammon's hands to-night.
Now, comrades, have you finished with your slops?

Tommerup, Bisserup, etc., rise from the table.
Crawford.
Come out of this, then; I want to smoke and drink.

Vibbe.
But, comrade, don't we hear the document?

Crawford.
I'll read it out: Jelke shall copy it;
And every man subscribe it dauntlessly.

Crawford, Tommerup, etc., go out.
A Customer.
Who are these fellows?

A Waitress.
Don't know. Socialists—
Or something else low-down and high-and-mighty:
Not worth a halfpenny in the shilling, sir.