 | Armageddon |  |
Scene IV.
Cologne. The chief room in the house of the Burgomaster of Cologne. Elsa, his daughter, and Clothilde, a Belgian girl, are sitting either side of the table, on which a single candle between them is guttering down. The time is midnight. Both girls have an air of suppressed anxiety.Elsa.
Listen! What sound is that?
Clothilde.
I can hear nothing.
[Enter suddenly a German Officer. Both girls start up in terror.
Officer.
Ladies, I have only a moment. I
warn you that the enemy-advance-guard, French,
Belgian and English, may be here at any moment.
This house will probably be entered first.
Elsa!
Elsa.
Sh-sh! No, it is nothing.
Clothilde.
What a friend you have been to me,
to me, a Belgian girl, and you a German. When
your army, retreating fast, dragged me here along
with them across the frontier, starving, half-dead,
you alone had pity on me, hid me away and saved
me.
Elsa.
We are both women.
Clothilde.
Yes, and that is why I tremble now
for you.
Elsa.
For me?
Clothilde.
Yes, as they treated me, these in
their turn will treat you.
Elsa.
What do you mean, Clothilde?
Clothilde.
[Taking Elsa's hand in her own.]
I have not told you all, though something; and
now, when any moment they may come, I must
speak as one woman to another.
Elsa.
Yes, quickly then, what is it?
Clothilde.
It is horrible! It was with us then
entered our town they laid it waste and they shot
us down. Their captain quartered himself in my
father's house. One night they were all drunk;
this captain then seized me and attempted—
Elsa.
Ah, I understand.
Clothilde.
[Hiding her face on Elsa's bosom.]
And afterwards it had to be.
Elsa.
What? That?
Clothilde.
Yes, that; so that you took to your
heart a girl of the people of your foe, who is more
even than she appeared, a victim. Now, do you
see? Do you not fear for yourself? “War,” he
said, “is war.”
Elsa.
And we are part of the toll.
[The candle goes out and the sound of military music is heard approaching.
Clothilde.
They are here! Let me stand by
you!
Elsa.
No. I'll receive them alone. Clothilde,
would find some means to escape it; if it were by
death.
[The sound of marching feet is heard approaching.
Clothilde.
What then of your father upstairs,
who is almost at death's door? And this city,
which you love so—if it rested with you alone to
save them?
Elsa.
[Wildly.]
Oh, then. Oh, I cannot tell!
They are coming; leave me.
[Exit Clothilde. In the darkness the English General Murdoch enters quietly with other Officers.
Murdoch.
No light here!
[Sees Elsa standing
by table.]
A woman!
[To Elsa.]
Bring us
some light!
[She goes out.]
Well, gentlemen, we
have battered down the forts and we are first into
the city, but I hardly think our French and
Belgian friends will be long behind us. Meanwhile,
this is hardly a cheerful reception.
Murdoch.
[Looking at her.]
And you, who
are you? You are too dainty to be—
Elsa.
I, sir, am the daughter of the house.
My father, the burgomaster, is old and at this
moment ill. I am here to do my best.
Murdoch.
[To Officers.]
And a very charming
hostess.
Elsa.
General, you are English?
Murdoch.
I am.
Elsa.
May I make one request of you?
Murdoch.
You may, but I cannot promise to
grant it.
Elsa.
It is that I may speak to you for one
moment alone.
Murdoch.
Oh, very well. Gentlemen, will you
retire?
[Exeunt Officers.
Elsa.
Sir, I want to plead with you for our
city. For me—I have no mother left, and for
mother.
Murdoch.
I quite understand. But this decision
does not rest with me alone; it depends on
my comrades, the French and Belgian commanders,
and they have bitter memories to
avenge.
Elsa.
The Belgians, yes; but, sir, will you at
least do your utmost to save our ancient church?
Murdoch.
[Taking the candle and looking at her.]
Child, you are very beautiful.
Elsa.
Oh? So they tell me.
Murdoch.
That contrast in colour in hair and
eyes is not common, at least in my country.
Elsa.
No? I am glad that I please you so
far, and I will do my utmost to be your hostess.
I will spare no pains, no labour. There is nothing
you can ask of me that I will not do.
Murdoch.
[Approaching her more closely.]
Nothing?
Elsa.
Nothing you may ask.
[Touching her hand.]
Even—
Elsa.
[Recoiling.]
But spare the city!
Murdoch.
[Recoiling too.]
Oh, but this is a
bargain! God help me! What am I doing?
I should be no better than they! The cause is
too great; this is the devil's lure. Child, I
give you my promise to do my utmost for your
city, but not on conditions, believe me, not on
terms!
[The Marseillaise is heard without. Enter Officer.
Officer.
The French, sir, and the Belgians.
I thought they would not be far behind us.
Murdoch.
Yes, they are too eager.
[To Elsa.]
Well then, I will do my best for you, and you
will do your best for—us.
[Enter the French General Larrier and the Belgian General Leblanc.
Larrier.
Ah, my dear comrade, we are not,
I think, far behind you?
[The three Generals greet one another.
No indeed.
Larrier.
At last then we are in the German
city. How good it is to tread this ground
underfoot! Ah, but we have waited, how long!
And the hour is come; the dream is realized!
Here begins the Revenge!
[He kisses his sword-hilt.
Leblanc.
And for us too. Our debt is the
briefer, but the bitterer.
Murdoch.
Well, sir, is it decided what we do
now?
Larrier.
For the moment I have no fresh
instructions; but surely there can be little doubt.
Murdoch.
Of what? How do you direct us?
Larrier.
Gentlemen, I do not presume to
direct, but—
Murdoch.
What then?
Larrier.
Can one ask? As I entered these
walls, I glanced up at that cathedral, and I said
to myself: “Cologne for Rheims!”
Leblanc.
Or Louvain, or Malines! Let this
to the dregs.
Larrier.
And from here onward, onward to
Berlin!
Murdoch.
Gentlemen, I understand well enough
how hard it must be for you to restrain a fury so
provoked and so long pent up, but—is it wise?
Larrier.
Put it this way, sir: If you yourself
had for many years been first wellnigh ruined,
then continually sneered at and spat on by some
personal enemy—well then—at last you have
him by the throat, who has done all this to you;
do you now relax your grip of him and say to
yourself: “Ah, is it wise?”
Leblanc.
And for us, you may say our memories
are not so long, but think of what kind those
memories are!
Murdoch.
And still I do not like it, gentlemen.
Larrier.
But we, need I say, cannot move
without you, sir. Once let some whisper of
discord arise, and who shall say where it will end?
Gentlemen, you do not quite understand
my position. I see—Oh, of course, not so
strongly as you see—how shall I explain it?—
some altogether larger issue at stake behind this
very natural emotion. This makes me hesitate.
Larrier.
[With restrained emotion.]
Remember, sir, that France for forty years,
France from her highest to her humblest son,
With all her women, mother, wife and child,
All France from head to heel, from top to toe,
Not every soldier; every citizen,
Poet, mechanic, merchant, labourer, priest;
That many now who toiled for it are dead,
But left to us their industry of wrath.
We have been stung beyond all softer salve,
Struck, but were helpless to give back the blow,
Jeered at, but never might resent a jeer.
At last the hour for which we yearned and ached!
At last the spring for which we coiled and crouched!
At last the cup for which our lips are parched!
This passion cannot sleep till it is purged.
France through this war has fought a sullen fight;
Burrowing to victory on through warrens of war.
Ah, but 'tis not her way; her splendid habit
Is in the rush, the onset and assault;
Here she has bided in a dreadful patience,
In still tenacity her trenches held;
If she withdrew, she wrathfully withdrew,
And a strange silence and a quiet kept,
Putting an alien disposition on;
But in retreat, in silence was a fury,
Deliberate rage, with eyes upon the hour;
Now who shall stay her? Who shall stay a nation?
All the accumulated avalanche?
France makes no politician's counterstroke,
No military whitewash of her lilies.
This vengeance is the vengeance of a people!
Leblanc.
He speaks for France, now I for Belgium,
Sir, she is not—she was not, rather say—
A country that provokes the rage of war,
Of irritant ambition or swelling dream;
A pastoral folk, content on its own plains,
With towns in peaceful buzz of industry,
Pictures unmatched, churches unparalleled
She had, her halls were symphonies of stone;
A young king ruled her, worthy of her love.
Sudden the thunder of a trampling host
Burst on her; yet might she have stood aside,
Letting the war-lord's legions thunder through.
Secure she might have stood, damnably safe;
She chose. Right in his path she flung herself,
Unsure of succour, splendidly alone!
A pigmy stayed the intolerable swarm,
Till giants could collect their tardy might.
We gave you breathing-space—at what a price!
Our towns are ashes, and our pastures rot;
Our halls and our cathedrals thundered down,
Lie strewn like lilies after hailing rage.
Our Belgium is dead, unless one say,
That so afflicted heart is beating still.
We three have seen—it is our lot to see—
The laid-out body of some friend we loved,
Yet from that sight a comfort we could draw,
So still the brow, so utterly at peace.
But on this corse—this country now a corse—
What signs of rage! What slurs of violence!
Ere she gave up the ghost, how was she marred!
I stand for Belgium; she asks vengeance here,
And not here only, but where'er we pass;
With such a cry as may not be denied
For troops of young men, slaughtered in their strength,
For the old man shot down at his own door.
The girl polluted and the woman raped,
For children that implore us without hands,
And figures like disfeatured statues left.
She asks it in the name of ruined beauty,
And rolling curse of the remembering dead!
And still I do not like it, gentlemen.
Ah, do not think that I too cannot feel;
It needs not to be Belgian or French
To have a horror on one's very flesh
At that which has been done. But as you speak
For France, and he for Belgium, so I
Will state the case for England, as I see it:
She feels, I take it, that she stands at war,
Not for a frontier-line in a dim land,
No, nor to punish some rebellious tribe,
That troubles her reared Empire momently,
Yet for a frontier that itself is Freedom;
A grapple of the Earth, this way or that;
I am no saint, but this I will say out:
We are in arms for nothing but a cause.
Therefore could England bring into the field
The hardy brood of her sea-parted sons,
Each man an athlete, clean of limb and life,
Youth of the open-air, and stung with sun.
Hence the still vigil of the Northern sea,
But—look to this—not those alone she brings;
Her princes prodigal of pearl and gold.
Why?—Not for France and not for Belgium,
Not even for England, but a deeper faith;
Darkly they grapple to their souls this cause,
Dimly they know that this, our cause is just.
Of such a heritage then, gentlemen,
We three, I take it, are advanced trustees.
Then let the tower of that cathedral fall,
And with it comes to ground a towering Thought!
The issue is too large for your revenge;
Which of us would betray his country? Here
Let us beware lest we betray the world.
Larrier.
Sir, I admit the largeness of the issue.
But England can more calmly measure it;
The salt wave gives her leisure for ideas.
Your land is not a waste, your churches stand,
And still the business of an island hums.
All day the spidery tradesman waits his fly,
Then with his family to the cellar hies;
And the nice patriot patrols the street;
Thus the wide view more easily you take.
Leblanc.
And you—you—if to you it had been told,
How your own boy was butchered in his brightness,
That stood between his sister and her shame;
Or if, returning, you had seen, as I,
Your young wife haggard gone and muttering,
Insane through very seeing of her eyes;
If this came home to you, home to your heart,
How would you answer then—as you stand there?
Murdoch.
God help me, gentlemen, you drive me hard!
Then I would answer as I answer now.
Enter an Officer with dispatches.
Officer.
The English general, General Murdoch?
I am he.
Officer.
I am from head-quarters.
[Presents papers.
Murdoch.
[Hastily perusing papers.]
Well, this
is all good—yes, I see. This is clear enough.
You will report that I understand my instructions,
perfectly. Well? Is there anything amiss that
I should know?
Officer.
General, I am charged—I wish I were
not—with a personal message to you, so perhaps
these gentlemen—
Murdoch.
Oh no, there can be nothing personal
to me that they may not hear.
Officer.
General, your son—
Murdoch.
Wounded?
Officer.
Yes, General.
Murdoch.
Well, we must all risk that. But
badly?
Officer.
Mortally, sir.
Murdoch.
Dead?
Officer.
Yes, sir. We found him in the
charge, somewhat rashly.
Murdoch.
Then Harry is dead? A moment,
gentlemen, and we will resume. You will understand
that the boy was more to me than just a son.
We had grown to be friends; we read, we shot
and fished together.—Now I am at your service.
[To Officer.]
It was kind of you to bring me this
news straight; thank you.
[Officer still stands.]
Is there anything more?
Officer.
There is something more, General.
Murdoch.
What can be worse than death?
Officer.
When we found the body it had been
mutilated.
[Officer retires overcome with emotion.
Murdoch.
[Staggering back.]
The fiends, the
fiends!
Larrier.
Now by your son?
Leblanc.
The body of your son!
Murdoch.
[Wildly.]
Now lay Cologne in
ashes!
[Recovering himself.]
Pardon me a
I cannot trust myself. Give me an hour, an
hour of silence and solitude, and I will finally
say yes or no.
Larrier.
But of course; and accept our deepest
sympathies.
[Exit Murdoch.
Leblanc.
[To Larrier.]
An hour then.
[Exit Leblanc. Larrier is left alone. A bugle call is heard outside. Larrier then throws his cloak round him and sinks on a couch; he sleeps. There is a pause; then the glittering vision of the spirit of Joan of Arc in armour appears at back. For a moment she watches the sleeping soldier.
Larrier.
[Slowly rising and awaking.]
What fragrance stealing in upon my sleep
Disturbs me? Is an angel in the house?
[He rises dreamily; perceiving the armed figure falls on one knee.
In childhood long ago?—I know thee not,
Yet are thy face and form familiar.
Art thou a spirit come to me all-bright?
Thou art in arms, and yet a maiden seemest.
I dread thy strangeness, yet I fear thee not.
Spirit of Joan.
O, wearied son of France!
That waking fragrance
So sweet thine eyes did open, came to thee
From roses in the rain of paradise,
A far-off home. Though there we are in bliss,
And quite uplifted above any tear,
At times Earth touches us, however far,
And brings a ruffle on the sea of glass.
I see France suffer, though I may not weep.
Know'st thou me not? Soldier, look on me well;
I am that Joan that died in fire for France.
See on this arm the brand of Rouen-flame;
Behold the signs of burning and believe!
Larrier.
Oh, armed maid, at last I know thee well.
I feel with pain the sharp contact with Earth,
Where so I suffered, and I would be brief.
Yet of my coming is the need so deep,
That I endure a while the mortal touch.
I come to say to thee: “Forego Revenge!”
[Larrier starts.
Looked for so long, so easy now to take.
Let not my land in victory lose her soul!
How barren is revenge! What doth she show,
When to her dismal harvest she is come?
She sows the wilderness and reaps the waste.
She hath in her no quality of dew.
Who hath more motive for revenge than I,
After the ruin of beloved Rheims,
Where singing boys did warble, pure as birds,
Where in this armour I did crown a king?
And yet I come to tell thee: “Spare Cologne!”
Larrier.
Yet they, who so have wasted us and burned,
Shall we not call them to some dire account?
Listen! The Powers of Darkness loosed this war;
These hurl cathedrals down, women profane.
Fear then, lest these shall tempt you to repay
Till you at last they whelm in their own darkness.
Nations at times, as men, may nobler stand,
And finer in refusal than in act.
Have I not seen the very stars in Heaven
Flash altogether at some splendid “No”?
And what is all the injury they have wrought?
What flame of body, or what woman's cry,
To the injury they do to their own souls?
Because they ruined Rheims, spare ye Cologne!
I can no more endure the touch of Earth;
And the cold strangeness of familiar things;
I grow half mortal in the mortal dawn.
[She begins to fade.
Go onward, onward, but forget revenge,
For so forgetting you remember me!
[She fades.
[Rising and kissing the hilt of his sword.]
And so forgetting, so will I remember.
If this be dream, then it is well to dream.
The fury under which I hastened here
Is out of me. Thee, maiden, I obey.
For if I fight for thee, I fight for France.
Then stand secure Cologne! I harm thee not!
[The cathedral clock chimes one.
| Armageddon | |