Le temps viendra, trois actes
FOURTEENTH CAHIER OF THE FOURTH SERIES
THE TIME WILL COME THREE ACTS BY ROMAIN ROLLAND
EDITIONS OF THE CAHIERS
PARIS
8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor
This drama implicates not one European people, but Europe. I dedicate it --- to civilization.
Romain Rolland
February 1902
The drama that follows was written at the same time as the Dingley of Jerome and Jean Tharaud, thirteenth cahier of the third series. Romain Rolland and the Tharauds worked separately.
CHARACTERS
LORD CLIFFORD, field marshal, 60 years old. SIR THOMAS MILES, surgeon-major, 65 years old. GRAHAM, general, 55 years old. SIMPSON, colonel, 55 years old. SIR LEWIS-BROWN, 50 years old. RICHARD CARNBY, 35 years old. THE PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN REPUBLIC, 70 years old. LAWRENCE, aide-de-camp to Lord Clifford, 25 to 30 years old. CLODDS, aide-de-camp to Lord Clifford, 25 to 30 years old. OWEN, soldier, 20 years old. ALAN, soldier, 20 years old. DEBORA ERASMUS DE WITT, 35 years old. NOEMI DE WITT, 65 years old. MRS. ISABEL SIMPSON, 45 years old. DAVID, son of Debora, 6 years old. ENGLISH SOLDIERS, PRISONERS, WOMEN, BOER CHILDREN
The scene, in 1902, at Christburg, in Africa.
ACT I
A large room with broad windows. Stout furniture: a massive table and chairs, a walnut bed. The walls, bare. The window-panes, veiled with thick curtains, through which a dozen women peer anxiously, pressed against one another. Debora Erasmus de Witt is surrounded by her servants. One of them carries little David. Old Noemi, seated with her back to the window, holds the open Bible on her knees. They speak in low voices, with sudden outbursts in which one senses terror, hatred, religious exaltation. --- Outside, fifes and drums play a military march.
THE WOMEN, looking out the window
There is Sennacherib!
--- There are the pagans, the Babylonians!
--- Listen to their diabolical music!
--- God has abandoned us! God has withdrawn from us!
DEBORA
No, no! It is a trial. The Lord of hosts visits our city amidst thunderbolts and earthquakes. But the enemy multitude shall vanish like a vision of the night.
ONE OF THE WOMEN
God has made us the target of his arrows. I fear his wrath.
OLD NOEMI
“Fear not, O Jacob my servant, be not afraid, O Israel. For I am with you.” The miracle will come.
A moment of silence.
THE WOMEN, looking
Look at these conquerors! They look like beggars, gaunt and ragged. They can barely stand.
--- And that one, yellow, fat, and trembling, like Agag, king of Amalek! He leans on his rifle. He shivers with fever.
--- Another who will never see his country again.
--- Die, dog, may the plague devour you!
LITTLE DAVID
I want to see.
DEBORA, seizing her son from the servant’s arms and pressing his face against the window-pane
Look at those who killed your father!
THE SERVANT
Say: may they die!
DAVID
Die!
OLD NOEMI
“They shall be eaten by worms like a garment; they shall be consumed by rot, like wool.”
A WOMAN
Death already holds them.
DEBORA
And it is before this hospital, these dragging corpses, that our people have fled! Why did they abandon the city without defending it?
NOEMI
They have not fled. They are letting them pile into the ditch. Afterward, they will surround them. They will light fires at the four corners of the city, and everything will be burned!
DAVID
And us?
DEBORA
Us too, if need be. Are you afraid?
DAVID, striking the window with his fist
No! They pull him from the window. He struggles. I want to be burned!
DEBORA
Let me die like Samson with the Philistines!
THE WOMEN
Let me die too!
Roll of drums.
THE WOMEN
What are they doing?
--- They are forming a circle around the square.
--- They are lowering our flag! They are going to hoist theirs.
DEBORA
That shall not be. God, let it not be!
NOEMI, standing
The miracle! I feel it.
DEBORA
Let us pray. They all kneel. We await you, Lord! My soul calls to you in the night!
A WOMAN
The poor man shall not be cheated of his hope!
ANOTHER WOMAN
It is the Lord who wounds, and it is he who heals!
DEBORA
Crush your enemies! Wipe them from the earth! Strike!
They fall silent, trembling --- some with hands clasped and raised, others prostrate with their whole bodies on the ground. Debora, arms crossed tight against her chest, standing straight, eyes fixed straight ahead, gazing at God. In the middle of the silence, God Save the King rises from outside. They look at one another --- some with despair, others with dejection, the child with stupefaction. Old Noemi’s face trembles. Debora has closed her eyes; tears run down her cheeks.
ONE OF THE WOMEN approaches the window timidly and looks
The flag is flying!
OLD NOEMI, whom her servants help to rise
It will be for later.
They rise with discouragement.
What are you waiting for, O God?
DEBORA
For us to act for him!
She rises, indomitable.
A SERVANT, entering, frightened
Their general! He is coming into the courtyard.
DEBORA
Let me not see him!
NOEMI
Take me away!
They disappear in silence. Lord Clifford enters, followed by Doctor Sir Thomas Miles and the soldier Owen.
MILES, casting a glance around the room from the threshold
No one.
CLIFFORD
The door closes. They have just disappeared.
MILES
Crossing the courtyard, I saw their silhouettes at this window. They were spying on us.
CLIFFORD
They are always spying on us. Even now, behind the walls, the doors… He sits. To Owen: Ask Madam Erasmus de Witt to come. Tell her that Lord Clifford wishes the honor of speaking with her.
Owen exits.
MILES, sitting
Well, here we are at last in this famous capital!
CLIFFORD
Fine capital! Farms, sheds. No one in the streets but snarling dogs, scrawny chickens, a few rogues, Jews who cry “Long live England!” in order to have the right to rob us; and behind the windows, those pale women’s faces, and those hateful stares. No one resists. Not a suspicion of defense. An elusive enemy who always withdraws.
MILES
Quarrelsome! You dream only of bruises and blows. Lacking enemies, we have enough to deal with in this murderous nature, and these spaces that seem to recede as fast as one advances.
CLIFFORD
Fortunately! If there were not the pleasure of difficulty overcome!…
MILES
You do not look enthusiastic about your conquest.
CLIFFORD
I am ashamed, my dear fellow. All this gigantic force, to dispossess a few farmers of their fields! There is no honor in being the strongest. The pleasure is in conquering an adversary of one’s own rank and temper. When will this be over?
MILES
Bah! It is always thus. If the strong did not eat the weak, there would be no civilization.
CLIFFORD
That is quite possible.
He yawns.
MILES
This great empty house is dreary. Let us invite our comrades to come and warm the hearth. Shall I go tell them?
CLIFFORD
Do so, Miles, do so. It will be more proper.
Miles exits.
OWEN, returning
Marshal, Madam de Witt will come.
CLIFFORD
What a face you have, Owen!
OWEN
Ah, marshal, they were there, all the women, standing in the kitchen, pressed against the walls all around, and in the middle Madam de Witt, with the old lady, sitting in the hearth without a fire. They did not move, they did not speak, and they stared at me.
CLIFFORD
Well, Owen, do women frighten you now?
OWEN
It is not fear; but it hurts to see how much one is hated.
CLIFFORD
You are not used to that yet?
OWEN
No, marshal, I cannot get used to it.
CLIFFORD
You will get used to it, my boy. You will see much worse.
OWEN
When people disagree, I understand them boxing; but why bear grudges afterward? --- If they think we are here for our pleasure!
The door opens. Debora appears, with her child. She stops, motionless.
CLIFFORD, presenting himself gravely
Lord Clifford, commander-in-chief of His Britannic Majesty. He bows. Debora does not move. I wished, madam, to excuse myself for the necessity I am under of taking lodging in your house. Painful as my presence must be to you, I wanted to assure you myself of my respect for the widow of the gentleman who was my chivalrous adversary. It is in consideration of him that I chose your house, to show that I hold it an honor to be received here, and also to better preserve it from the risks that war always threatens. But I wish to diminish, as much as possible, the inconvenience of my presence. This large room and the adjoining antechamber will serve for my personal use and that of my staff’s offices. All the rest is reserved for you.
DEBORA
You dispose of what does not belong to you. This house is mine; force makes you its master, but it gives you no right. I accept nothing from it.
CLIFFORD
You are mistaken. I do not ask you to accept from me what is your own property; I ask you to grant me hospitality here.
DEBORA
You know very well that I cannot refuse. Do without my permission.
CLIFFORD
Madam, even if I had all the force in the world at my disposal, it would not dispense me from courtesy. Your city belongs to me; but here I shall never regard myself as anything but your guest.
DEBORA
I despise words. I judge actions. I hate you.
CLIFFORD
I do not ask you to distinguish, in me, the man from the task he performs. My dignity forbids me to disclaim responsibility for my actions. I accept your hatred. The mourning you wear gives you only too many reasons to detest me. I bow before your grief, with a profound compassion for the misfortunes I have brought despite myself.
DEBORA
What do I care for your compassion? If it were to be done again, you would do it again.
CLIFFORD
Yes. Since the beginning of the scene he has been watching little David attentively. Your child? Debora nods. Clifford leans toward the child, who hides. Stay, little one, do not run away.
DAVID, showing his face from his mother’s skirts
I am not running away.
CLIFFORD looks at him attentively
He looks like my little boy.
He passes his hand over his forehead.
DEBORA
You have a child? May God take him from you!
CLIFFORD
Madam!… After a brief silence. He has listened to you only too well.
DEBORA
Forgive me. --- How old was he?
CLIFFORD
Eight. --- And this one?
DEBORA
Six.
CLIFFORD
He is sturdier than mine was.
DEBORA
When did you lose him?
CLIFFORD
Three weeks ago.
DEBORA
Here? Clifford nods. Does his mother still live?
CLIFFORD
She died with him.
DEBORA moves her lips, seems full of pity and ready to express it; then she catches herself
God is just. God is just.
CLIFFORD
You are more cruel than we are, madam.
She is silent. Have you other sons?
DEBORA
Two others, older, twelve and fourteen.
CLIFFORD
Where are they?
DEBORA
They are fighting against you.
DAVID
I will fight too!
CLIFFORD
You still have some happiness.
DEBORA
Or mourning for the future. --- I do not complain. I have made the sacrifice of their lives and my own. But we will have yours.
CLIFFORD
Since you hate us so, why did you stay? Why did you not follow the men?
DEBORA
We would have hindered them. We would have had to eat their bread. Here, it is yours we eat. It is for you that we are a burden.
CLIFFORD
And if we mistreated you?
DEBORA
So much the better! We shall make you act against humanity. We shall dishonor you. Persecute us!
She exits.
Clifford remains with his eyes fixed on the door that has just closed, shrugs his shoulders, and sighs. Miles returns.
MILES
It is agreed; they are following me. --- Well, have you seen the lady? Is she beautiful, as they say? Did she play the tragedy for you? --- What is the matter?
CLIFFORD
Nothing.
MILES
Cheer up, my friend, put on a less worried face. Our friends are coming. You know what influence a chief’s features have on all those around him.
CLIFFORD, curtly
I know my duty, thank you.
MILES
What has happened since I left you?
CLIFFORD
You see, doctor, I have never deceived myself about the lie of this civilization, which arrogates the right to strip so-called inferior races of their homelands. But never has this lie been displayed more grossly than in this campaign, where the adversary is an old European race, equal or superior to its conqueror.
MILES
Oh! Superior --- you like to joke?
CLIFFORD
I am not joking. What moral grandeur in this woman I have just seen! And what sadness to think that we are driving to despair beings whom, better than anyone, we are made to appreciate! Owen said it just now: there are moments when the hatred of others is unbearable.
MILES
The others! If one had to concern oneself with what others think! You never used to care; you followed your own idea, and you were right.
CLIFFORD
I loved war, yes, I loved it greatly; it was a great happiness for me, when I was younger. But in our time, Miles, and at our age, a thinking man cannot help feeling how archaic war is; and one is a little ashamed to take part in it.
MILES, who, while he speaks, has taken his hand and feels his pulse
Yes, all that, I know: it is the sentimentalism of the age. Of course, it would be better to live as brothers. --- You know well what to think of it. As many men, as many enemies. The law of nature is extermination. I am no more taken in than you by the word progress, and I do not like the lies of those Bible-readers who try to delude themselves about the work we are accomplishing. But that is how it is: what is the use of arguing? --- You know it as well as I do, my old friend. In ordinary times, you are no more sentimental than I am. The individual or the people that manifests these tendencies toward sentimentality is simply an individual or a people showing symptoms of physical and moral weakening: fever, consumption, senility, diminished vitality. --- And to speak frankly, at bottom, shall I tell you what is the matter with you: you are tired, that is all.
CLIFFORD
That is true, I am exhausted in body and soul.
MILES
That enteritis last month gnawed you to the marrow. You still have a bit of fever right now.
CLIFFORD
I have always had fever since… since those events…
MILES
Yes, yes, do not think about it. --- Ah, it is a terrible climate, and you were badly hit. A less robust constitution would not have withstood it. But we have pulled through; it is now only a matter of days.
CLIFFORD
I am quite worn out. I no longer take interest in what I am doing. Sometimes I feel like leaving.
MILES
Leaving? Where?
CLIFFORD
For England.
MILES
You cannot be serious.
CLIFFORD
On the contrary, I think of it a great deal.
MILES
What folly! --- Think…
CLIFFORD
Let us not argue. I am not telling you I will do it; but if I wanted to, your arguments would be useless. I decide alone, by myself.
MILES
Very well. --- You would resign?
CLIFFORD
Perhaps.
MILES
Who would replace you? --- Ah! Graham, naturally.
CLIFFORD
Graham? He is incapable of leading an army.
MILES
He has just won a rather handsome battle at Bethlehem.
CLIFFORD
A cavalry charge. He is a slasher; he is not an army commander.
MILES
He has a strong party behind him.
CLIFFORD
I know. He would be very glad to supplant me. But that, never, never, Miles! --- He never stops criticizing the moderation I try to bring to the necessities of war. With him, it would be an implacable policy. I will not yield my place to him. I cannot, I must not.
MILES
Bravo! One must never leave one’s post, even if one thinks it a bad one. One can always do some good there, and one prevents in any case another from doing more harm.
CLIFFORD
Graham! I would have worked for Graham! And it is you, Miles, my best friend, it is you who come to speak to me of this! There is a knock at the door. Come in!
Two young officers enter. Clodds, Lawrence, good day. Well, have you toured the city?
LAWRENCE
Marshal, we have seen the main quarters. One meets no one. Everything is closed; the doors are bolted; the shutters are shut. It is as if everything were dead. When one breaks down a door, one finds inside women, old men, children, sitting in the dark, without speaking.
CLODDS
This silence is crushing. One wants to make them cry out.
CLIFFORD
You did not expect them to celebrate us?
LAWRENCE
No, marshal; but they could understand that we are not their enemies, that we come for their good.
CLIFFORD looks at them, shrugs his shoulders, and says with cold irony
What can you expect? One must accept that good intentions are never understood. --- Let us continue despite everything to do what we mean to do, and let us try to reassure them. --- Clodds, have you drafted that proclamation I dictated to you?
CLODDS
Yes, marshal.
CLIFFORD
Let me see.
CLODDS, reading
“Proclamation to the inhabitants of the Republic of S. A. --- Whereas the forces of His Majesty the King under my command have entered the territory of the Republic of S. A., and whereas false and malicious rumors are being spread abroad concerning the treatment the inhabitants may expect from His Majesty, I, George Lindsey, Baron Clifford of Heraet, K.P., G.C.B., G.S.I., G.N.O.P.E.R., V.C., commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s forces in the Republic of S. A., hereby make known the following:
“I. --- Personal safety and immunity from all vexation are guaranteed to the non-combatant population…”
General Graham enters without knocking.
MILES, turning
Graham.
GRAHAM
Forgive me for interrupting. Grave news. I hear the last words of your reading. Indulgence is not in order. --- Communications are interrupted with the coast; the telegraph wires are cut, the railways stopped. If we do not take care, it will not be we who have taken the city, but the city that has taken us. We shall be blockaded here. The enemy is in the vicinity and informed of all our movements. --- That is not all: the 5th company of Irish Fusiliers, installed at the Town Hall, has found in the cellars barrels of powder placed there with the obvious intention of blowing up the building. --- That is not all.
CLIFFORD
I do not know how you do it, Graham: bad news springs up wherever you tread.
GRAHAM
No doubt because I reap what others have sown. --- I continue: A scoundrel has just insulted the flag and attempted to assassinate a soldier. I have every reason to believe it was he whom the enemy had charged with blowing up the Town Hall. See him, judge him. If the city is not bowed under terror, revolt will break out on all sides.
CLIFFORD
You are very eager, sir, to make martyrs? He shrugs his shoulder. Have the man brought in.
Enter Sir Lewis-Brown.
LEWIS-BROWN
Hurrah, marshal! Hurrah, gentlemen!…
MILES
What is it, Sir Lewis? Have you no bad news to bring us, you?
LEWIS-BROWN
Bad news? Excellent, on the contrary. --- Allow me to sit down. I am exhausted! --- Everything is going splendidly.
MILES
The general was just telling us of a conspiracy…
LEWIS-BROWN
They can do whatever they like now. We arrived just in time.
CLODDS
Where?
LEWIS-BROWN
At the mines. Ah, it was a close thing! When I arrived at the Guld-Fontein shafts with the detachment you had entrusted to me, we found everything ready for the mine’s destruction. But thank God, the bandits had not dared. They were still hesitating. Everything is intact; not a machine is damaged. It is an unhoped-for result of the army’s magnificent march. I did not dare dream of it. I have placed a cordon of sentries all around the entrance, and I rush to telegraph the news to our shareholders. What joy for the nation! What pride for us! --- Where is the telegraph?
CLODDS
The telegraph is cut.
LEWIS-BROWN
By God! --- An express must be sent. --- Marshal!…
CLIFFORD, turning his back to Lewis-Brown
See to that, Clodds.
LEWIS-BROWN, distributing effusive handshakes right and left, which the others accept without warmth
Thank you, gentlemen, thank you!
He exits with Clodds, who returns at once. They fall silent and avoid looking at each other. Clifford chews his moustache; Miles gives a little ironic laugh; and Graham suppresses a violent gesture, looking at the door through which Lewis has left. They remain for a moment thus, humiliated and ashamed.
CLIFFORD, irritated
Well, this prisoner?
LAWRENCE
Here he is.
Soldiers bring in a peasant, dirty and ragged, with torn clothes and an idiotic look. Lord Clifford considers him for a few moments. Richard Carnby enters, after knocking.
RICHARD CARNBY
It seems you are going to have this fellow shot? I ask permission to attend the interrogation and take some notes.
CLIFFORD
Write, sir, write, if your heart is in it. He goes toward the prisoner. Is it you who tried to kill one of my soldiers? The man sways his head heavily, looking at him, snickers and trembles. What is wrong with him? --- Who are you? Your name? Same response. Does he not understand? The man says unintelligible words. What language does he speak? It is not Dutch.
MILES
It is a patois, mixed with Kaffir and Hottentot; I cannot make anything out of it.
GRAHAM
He is pretending not to answer. What need have we of what he says? He was caught in the act.
CLIFFORD, to the soldiers
Tell what you saw.
A SERGEANT
We were arriving at the Town Hall; he was lying in front of the door, on the steps. Seeing us, he got up and came toward us; he waved a stick and was chanting a psalm. He went straight to Fusilier Ralph and grabbed the flag. Then Ralph struck him a furious blow with the flagpole in the belly, and we all threw ourselves on him. The wretch clung on: we had to beat him down with rifle butts to tear the flag from him; but he tore it to pieces.
GRAHAM
It is clear.
CLIFFORD, shrugging his shoulders
A stupid fanatic.
GRAHAM
What more do you need?
CLIFFORD
They left here only the infirm and the idiots.
GRAHAM
This one stayed to blow up the Town Hall: there is no doubt about it. The peasant continues to sway, following the officers’ gestures and lip movements with his eyes; he seems to approve Graham. See, he agrees, the bandit.
CLIFFORD
He does not understand. He is mad.
GRAHAM
It would be too easy to get off with that excuse.
CLIFFORD, questioning Miles with a glance
Doctor.
MILES, examining the man carelessly
Pah! He is as fit as you or I. He is an enthusiast. At that rate, we would all be mad. And we know well, to be sure, that everyone is more or less mad. This one is normal. Good for whatever you want to do with him.
CLIFFORD
It is ridiculous. Sentences of this kind feed fanaticism.
GRAHAM
So much the better! I prefer an open fire to one that smolders.
CLIFFORD
Fine policy, and humane!
GRAHAM
The best policy, and the most humane way to wage war, is to wage it pitilessly: one finishes sooner.
CLIFFORD, to the other officers
Is that your opinion?
MILES
That is my opinion.
The others approve.
CLIFFORD
So be it. --- Shoot him.
The soldiers take the prisoner away. He, who has not stopped following with his eyes the gestures and lip movements of those speaking, trying to guess their words, snickering nervously and trembling, looks at the soldiers who take his arm to make him leave. He then seems to understand; he thrusts his face, its features suddenly decomposed, toward Clifford. They drag him away backward. He does not resist, he does not speak, he utters a few inarticulate sounds; he trembles and does not take his eyes off Clifford until the door closes on him.
RICHARD CARNBY
Damned brute! Nothing to be gotten out of him. --- Did you notice that sheep too, when their throats are about to be cut, tremble as if they suspected the thing?
LEWIS-BROWN, returning
That is done. They will have the news tomorrow for the opening of the Exchange. There will be illuminations in the City. --- And you have sentenced a man, I hear? Is it that fellow I passed?
CLODDS, to Clifford
Marshal, shall I continue reading the proclamation?
CLIFFORD
It no longer has any meaning. It spoke of amnesty. Events already belie it.
LEWIS-BROWN
All the more reason to publish it! --- You will pardon me, marshal, for putting in my humble word in passing? --- We must palliate through speeches the impression produced by the acts of severity to which we are obliged. To Graham. Do you not think so, general?
GRAHAM
We always show too much consideration for these rebels. One can only deal with them by breaking them. But I do not deny the usefulness of persuasion, when force precedes it; and I see no objection to speaking of indulgence, provided it is not applied.
CLIFFORD
Are you mocking me, sir? Do you think I would pledge my name to promises I was resolved not to keep?
GRAHAM
You make promises to the enemy only under certain conditions. If he violates those conditions --- and we are sure in advance that those conditions will be violated --- you are released from your promises.
LEWIS-BROWN
It is obvious. One need only introduce into the text a few simple formulas that leave us free to act as we see fit. --- Let us see the proclamation. You permit, marshal? He takes it from Clodds’s hands and reads. Very good. It makes the best impression. ”… guarantee personal safety, immunity from all vexation.” That is worthy of His Majesty’s army and its illustrious chief. --- It only seems to me… (It is perfect. I present my modest observations… You will make whatever use of them you please.)… It seems to me that we should bring out more clearly the nobility of our conduct. For we are victorious; it would be open to us to use our victory without any consideration. We do not do so; at least it must be known. If we do not boast of ourselves, no one will do it for us. They are all there in Europe slandering our deeds jealously, when our deeds are a model for all. “I do not believe that in the history of the world a war has been conducted with as much humanity.” (1) Is there anything finer than the sacrifices we make to open to civilization these lands that were closed to it by the stupidity of their possessors, to force upon them commerce, industry, and religion, to put to good use at last the inestimable riches that God had placed there in trust, and which it is a kind of impiety not to make fruitful!
RICHARD CARNBY
That is a fine conception, Lewis! England, God’s banker!
LEWIS-BROWN
She is indeed his soldier. Iron and gold go together. --- Moreover, I do not insist on my expressions. But do you not agree that there is reason to emphasize, at the outset of this taking of possession, our humanitarian intentions?
(1) Speech of Mr. Balfour, June 20, 1901.
MILES
That seems legitimate to me.
GRAHAM
It is politic.
LAWRENCE
And it is the truth itself.
RICHARD CARNBY, making a face
For my part, I will have none of it.
LEWIS-BROWN
Marshal, what do you think?
CLIFFORD
Go ahead, gentlemen, go ahead. I shall be curious to see your draft. I shall answer you then.
LEWIS-BROWN
Write then, Clodds: “Whereas… civilization… humanity…” in short, the most eloquent you can manage. You will arrange that in your own way.
CLODDS, writing
I know, I have already written that twenty times. --- ”… that we have come to defend the rights of humanity and violated justice.”
LEWIS-BROWN
Perfect. He scans the proclamation. The rest is excellent. ”… guarantee safety and immunity from all vexation… respect all private property…”
GRAHAM
Careful! “Insofar as this is compatible with the operations of war.”
LEWIS-BROWN
Naturally. Write, Clodds.
GRAHAM
“And provided that the inhabitants, for their part, refrain from all malicious damage to property.”
MILES, ironic
What property? Theirs?
LEWIS-BROWN
Ours. That is, the State’s. You understand.
GRAHAM
This article targets the destruction of railways, telegraphs, anything of a nature to impede public service and the movement of troops.
MILES, similarly
It is only a matter of understanding. In short, we forbid them to defend themselves.
LEWIS-BROWN
Of course. And this is where we must inspire a salutary fear in them.
GRAHAM, dictating
“If, however, malicious damage is caused to property, the immediate perpetrators of these acts, and every individual implicated therein…”
LEWIS-BROWN
”… directly or indirectly…”
GRAHAM
”… directly or indirectly, shall be liable to the severest penalties, in their persons and in their property.”
LEWIS-BROWN
This only applies to those who can be convicted of more or less direct complicity in these acts of vandalism. It is sometimes difficult to establish this complicity. In reality, the entire population is complicit; they know, and they let it happen. They must be given an interest in the suppression of crimes.
GRAHAM
That was my intention. Put down, Clodds: “Not only the immediate perpetrators of these acts, etc., etc., but also all persons, whether possessing authority or not, who shall have permitted…”
LEWIS-BROWN
”… or who shall not have done their utmost to prevent these malicious damages…”
GRAHAM
”… shall be liable to the confiscation or destruction of all their property.”
CLODDS
We should also be armed against this population of women who stay in the towns to harm us. There is a whole system of organized espionage, of which we have proof.
LEWIS-BROWN
Careful, gentlemen, careful! Here we need delicacy; delicacy, I beg you! As soon as women are involved, one risks turning all public opinion against oneself.
RICHARD CARNBY
Women, come now! Females.
LEWIS-BROWN, with dignity
A woman is always a woman. King Louis XIV, it is said, removed his hat even before a servant girl. --- Moreover, gentlemen, understand me: it is not a question of being duped by our gallantry; one must never be duped. It is a question of tact. With tact, one can do anything.
CLODDS
We do not want to do them harm. We want them to do no harm.
GRAHAM
It suffices to confine them in such places where surveillance is easy. We have already discussed this often. The marshal was reluctant. After the further proofs we have of the information incessantly transmitted to the enemy by female espionage, it is impossible not to adopt these necessary measures. The interest of the army demands it.
LEWIS-BROWN
The very interest of these women and their children. Will they not be much better off in our camps than in their houses? Come, doctor.
MILES
Much better off? One must not exaggerate. Not much worse off, perhaps. Left in their houses, they will die of hunger in less than a month. In these towns so close to the enemy, which may at any moment be attacked, provisions are constantly intercepted. It is very difficult to feed them.
GRAHAM
Absolutely impossible.
MILES
It is true that these concentrations in camps cannot fail to produce severe epidemics.
LEWIS-BROWN
That depends on God: that does not depend on us. And we can at least give them more effective aid, having them near us, than scattered far away in the countryside. Is that not so, doctor? Miles shakes his head doubtfully. In any case, everything commands us, does it not, our interest as well as theirs, to put them in a safe place?
MILES, indifferent
If you like.
LEWIS-BROWN
That is precisely what must be said: “In view of the irregular manner, contrary to the laws of war, in which the enemy is conducting hostilities by intercepting provisions destined for peaceful inhabitants, we have no other recourse and are obliged to take, reluctantly, the measure of sending women and children to protected camps, far from the theater of war. We have the most sincere sympathy for the sufferings of these poor people, the responsibility for which falls upon the rebels and their unspeakable conduct, and we shall do our best to alleviate these misfortunes.” (1)
LAWRENCE
Bravo, Sir Lewis! That is just, vigorous, and full of heart.
MILES
One would think you had waged war all your life. You have the style of these proclamations.
LEWIS-BROWN
Nothing easier to pick up. I learned it in the strikes we have to fight. --- The first thing in such cases is to turn public opinion against the strikers, in the name of the interest of the strikers themselves and of humanity. It is child’s play.
GRAHAM
With that, I think they will understand.
(1) Lord Kitchener to Botha, April 16, 1901.
LEWIS-BROWN
Thus the whole human import of our work is brought into full light, without our being victims, however, of an exaggerated sentimentalism.
MILES, slightly ironic
Certainly. The first part of the proclamation is designed to win us sympathy, and the second to not allow them to take it back.
LEWIS-BROWN
You see, one can say anything in a half-word; it is a matter of nuance. In everything, one needs finesse. --- And now, what do you think, marshal?
CLIFFORD, rising and going to Clodds
What I think? --- You permit, gentlemen? He takes the proclamation from Clodds’s hands and tears it up. To Clodds: Write:
“1. All those who cause any damage to telegraphs and railways, all those who by any means whatsoever, direct or indirect, attempt to interfere with communications, with supplies, with the march of the army, shall be shot, and their property confiscated.
“2. Villages and farms within a radius of five leagues of the place where the aforesaid attacks shall have been committed shall be held responsible; the notables shall be taken prisoner, their houses burned, their property confiscated.
“3. The families, women, and children remaining in the towns, villages, and farms of rebels who shall not have made their submission within a period of ten days, shall be interned in camps under military surveillance until the end of hostilities.
“God save the King.
“Under my signature and seal, at Christburg in Africa, this 31st day of May.
“CLIFFORD,
“Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief.”
Lewis-Brown and the officers look at each other and at Lord Clifford with stupefaction, but they do not reply.
LEWIS-BROWN, quietly to Miles
He is terrible.
MILES
He goes from one extreme to the other.
LEWIS-BROWN, quietly to Lawrence
And he is the one who usually supports measures of leniency!
LAWRENCE, quietly to Lewis-Brown
At bottom, he is more pitiless than anyone.
GRAHAM, aside
He goes too far, but I like it better.
RICHARD CARNBY, going to Clifford and shaking his hand
Now that is virile language. It is high time! It seems that today one is ashamed to be strong and to bend the weak under one’s strength. Why not blush then at being more handsome and better? No false modesty. War is good, and victory better. (1) It is the law of progress, and the ornament of the world. All the sounds of nature, from the buzzing of the insect to the crash of thunder, celebrate victories or defeats in the superb combat of life. Your words, marshal, ring like a fanfare in this heroic concert. I congratulate you. That is beautiful.
The officers shrug their shoulders slightly.
(1) “War is the lightning of God,” preaches a military chaplain in Toronto in 1899. “It is God saying: Sit thou at my right hand, until I have made thine enemies thy footstool.” --- “War is necessary to the spirit of God,” says Carmichael, an Irish Protestant, and he proves it thus: “Jesus never said a word against war. John the Baptist gives advice to soldiers; Saint Paul often employs military phrases with enjoyment.” --- The Archbishop of Armagh sings of war in verse: “Nations are nobly formed under the red rain of war. He who made the earthquake and the hurricane also made battles. Just as the blaze of the setting sun is colored dust, the dust of battles is the halo of God.” --- Charles Kingsley had said more precisely: “Jesus is the prince of war.” (For a study of this sanguinary Christianity, see the courageous book by J. A. Hobson: The Psychology of Jingoism, 1901.)
CLIFFORD, disdainful
You find that beautiful, sir? No doubt you are a connoisseur. For my part, I am not artist enough to find beauty in what I am doing. I find it ignoble, on the contrary. I am forced to do it: I do it. Duty sometimes obliges us to repugnant tasks. They must be carried out; it is useless to admire them. As for those who, without performing them, admire them, and who, without being forced, take part in them for pleasure, they talk a great deal about beauty: but that is what they know least.
LAWRENCE, looking out the window
Here come the colonel and Mrs. Simpson.
CLIFFORD
Good. Let us leave business. Enough for today. I am tired.
Enter Simpson and Mrs. Simpson.
MRS. SIMPSON
Ah, marshal, we are mortified at our lateness. It had been so long since one had found a comfortable installation. --- Ah, how delightful it is here!
CLIFFORD, to Owen
Make tea.
MRS. SIMPSON
Leave it, please, I will prepare it myself.
LAWRENCE
Well, Mrs. Simpson, how do you find the country?
MRS. SIMPSON
Delightful, oh! truly delightful! We are charmed, Georgie and I. These little houses, these gardens, these flowers, these chickens!… But how pretty it is at your place, marshal! I have a passion for these great windows. At home, we have wisteria climbing around the windows, and in the garden, a darling little well wreathed in bellflowers. Georgie, you know, tomorrow I want to paint a picture of it.
SIMPSON
Do that, my dear, it is a magnificent idea.
CLODDS
And the local people, how do you find them?
MRS. SIMPSON
Oh, they are so nice!
LEWIS-BROWN
Your hosts received you well?
MRS. SIMPSON
Admirably.
LEWIS-BROWN
What did they say to you?
MRS. SIMPSON
Oh, they said nothing; they are not very talkative. But they withdrew as soon as we arrived, so as not to inconvenience us. They are very proper.
MILES
And in the street, did you meet anyone?
MRS. SIMPSON
Yes. They all seem such good people; they seem pleased to see us.
MILES
Really?
LEWIS-BROWN
You spoke to them?
MRS. SIMPSON
No. --- That is to say, I tried to speak to a young woman who was at her door. She had eyes like flowers. I asked her if she would allow me to paint her portrait. But she did not understand me. She went in and closed the door. They are a little wild. I like them very much.
LAWRENCE
And Miss Simpson, shall we not have the pleasure of seeing her?
MRS. SIMPSON
Oh, she went to the hospital as soon as she arrived. She loves so much to tend to these poor people! It is her passion. I believe she would wish us all ill, so she could nurse us.
As she speaks, she serves the tea, helped by Lawrence.
RICHARD CARNBY
Ugh! What an idea, tending the wounded!
MRS. SIMPSON
Fie, what a horrible thing to say!
GRAHAM
Well, if you are speaking of enemy wounded, you are not far wrong. That is one of those niceties that perpetuate war. As soon as the enemy is down, the only concern is to heal him, so he can start again. I understand sparing a wounded adversary; but it is ridiculous to treat him like a brother. The best of the army’s resources is absorbed by them. They get the best milk, good beds, comfortable shelters, and the ladies’ caresses to boot. It is making fools of us.
RICHARD CARNBY
In the old days, people were logical: they exterminated everything. You protest? Are you waging war, or not? I accept the Doukhobors, the Quakers, the enemies of all war. They are mad, but logical. But when one believes in war, why shrink from its consequences? Do you imagine that you will beat a people, take their country, and that they will then be your friends? They will think only of revenge. The only lasting conquest is one where one race entirely replaces another, erases it from the earth. No wounded! --- And let us be frank: we waste too much time and money caring for our own sick. We encumber ourselves with hospitals and ambulances. The momentum of war is broken; and it is not even a service you render these wretches: a maimed man is no longer a man; it would be better for him to be dead.
MRS. SIMPSON
Ah, what a horrid contrarian you always are! Here, drink, to keep you from talking.
The door has opened a crack. Little David has appeared on the threshold, finger in mouth, looking at the company. Only Clifford, sitting apart from the others and indifferent to the conversation, has noticed him; he beckons to him, calls him, lures him by showing him a lump of sugar. The child, hesitant, comes slowly, without losing his wild air or taking his finger from his mouth. Clifford takes him between his knees, gives him sugar, caresses him, looks at him.
LEWIS-BROWN
Well, look at that, Mrs. Simpson.
MRS. SIMPSON
Ah, the darling, how pretty he is! What beautiful hair! Give him to me.
They all crowd around the child, who struggles.
DAVID
No! --- not you!
SIMPSON, to Clifford
You are his favorite.
MILES
Of course! He gives him sweets.
LEWIS-BROWN
Ah, the little schemer!
MRS. SIMPSON
Here, my little angel.
They stuff the child with cakes.
SIMPSON
What is your name?
DAVID
David.
MRS. SIMPSON
Ah, that is a fine name, a fine name. Do you know who David was? The child nods yes. Yes? --- That is good, you are a fine child. --- Tell us who David was. No? You will not? --- I think you do not know who David was.
DAVID
Yes, I do.
MRS. SIMPSON
Then recite.
DAVID
”… David said to the Philistine: Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied this day. The Lord shall deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”
The child recites in a droning, convinced tone, with malicious eyes; and at the end, he strikes with his fist. Silence has fallen. Clifford has loosened his knees and let the child go. The others frown. Only Mrs. Simpson, still beatific, cries: “Bravo!” and applauds; but she notices the others’ silence, falls quiet, vaguely understands, but does not want to understand.
CLIFFORD
Go away!
The child backs away, then runs off.
GRAHAM
Vermin!
MRS. SIMPSON
He is charming, that little one. She finds no echo. Changing the subject. Oh, I am so glad to have come here. We are going to do so much good!
SIMPSON
We are doing good already.
MRS. SIMPSON
We have so many things to teach them!
LAWRENCE
It is not choice that is lacking. They are devilishly ignorant.
MRS. SIMPSON
So much the better. It is delightful to bring culture, morality, the word of God to poor backward peoples.
MILES
Oh, I think as for the Bible, they know it well enough.
MRS. SIMPSON
Yes, but they do not understand it.
LEWIS-BROWN
We shall explain it to them.
MRS. SIMPSON
We shall teach them to regard all men as brothers. Is it not disgraceful to see how they treat the poor Negroes? The officers seem to have reservations about the accuracy of this criticism. Do you not share my view? Sir Lewis?
LEWIS-BROWN
Of course, of course. That is what we have come for.
CARNBY
Teach them cleanliness first; they need it badly.
MILES
We even more.
SIMPSON
And comfort.
MRS. SIMPSON
And beauty! --- We shall open schools. We shall spread light everywhere in floods. Oh, I am intoxicated with all the good we are going to do. --- How happy one is to feel oneself in the service of a great cause! Is it not so? How one feels that “England is the modern Israel, charged with a special mission by the Lord!” (1)
LEWIS-BROWN
It is true that “no nation has as many occasions to teach the truth to other countries.” (2)
SIMPSON
They are often very ungrateful to us.
CLODDS
One runs up against their stupid fanaticism.
MRS. SIMPSON
No matter. One must do one’s duty. We have with us the conscience of Christ.
LEWIS-BROWN, rising, his liqueur glass in hand
To his victory!
CARNBY
To ours!
They raise their glasses.
MRS. SIMPSON
Oh, look! A piano! --- Lawrence, you who play so ravishingly, play us something, will you, to celebrate this great day?
LAWRENCE
With pleasure. But you will sing.
MRS. SIMPSON
Oh, no, not today. I am dreadfully hoarse.
Lawrence sits at the piano and begins.
MRS. SIMPSON, clapping her hands
Handel! --- Oh, it is so moving! --- Handel here! It is like… like the pillar of fire that marched before the people of Israel and lit their way through the desert.
SIMPSON
To the triumph of light!
LEWIS-BROWN
To civilization!
In the distance, a platoon fires. The condemned man is being shot.
MRS. SIMPSON
What is that noise?
CLIFFORD
It is the echo.
(1) Speech by Doctor Watson, of the Scottish Evangelical Church. (2) Speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
ACT II
At the outposts. --- In the distance, the immense sandy plain, dotted with stunted bushes, which swells and hollows in great waves of earth and tall grass, like the Roman Campagna. The scene is set on the crest of one of these waves, a kopje, formed by piled-up blocks of iron ore among which grow scattered ferns and silver thistles. From there, sentries overlook, in the background, a depression invisible to the audience, where the camp for the women and prisoners is located. --- On the horizon, hills undulating like dunes. --- A soldiers’ post at right. Owen and the young soldier Alan, downstage, talk while eating their bread. Officers and reporters come to the top of the kopje to look through their field glasses. Soldiers push a group of prisoners down the path leading from the kopje to the camp.
SOLDIERS, pushing the prisoners
Come on, hurry up! Nothing can make these stupid beasts walk faster.
OWEN
More prisoners. Where are you taking them, comrades?
SOLDIERS
To the camp of famine, naturally.
OWEN
It is more than full.
SOLDIERS
As many vacancies occur each day as entries.
ALAN
Where do these come from?
SOLDIERS
From the farms north of the town. The neighborhood has been cleaned out. These harpies kept the enemy informed of everything; they provisioned him. Not to mention that one always found the railway tracks unbolted nearby. Down to this brat, whom I caught up on a telegraph pole, sawing a wire. The farms were burned. They will keep quiet now.
ALAN
Is that what we see burning over there?
A POST SOLDIER
Why doesn’t one shoot them? It would be quicker.
SOLDIERS, pushing the women prisoners
Move!
A WOMAN, holding a child and showing it the soldiers
Remember!
A CHILD OF TEN
A rifle, and I will shoot you down!
ALAN, seized by a sudden surge of compassion, goes to a woman and puts into her hand the bread he was eating
If you please, will you take this, madam?
THE WOMAN, throwing the piece of bread hatefully to the ground
I do not want your bread!
A SOLDIER, to Alan
Are you mad? Giving your bread to those wretches!
OWEN
It is not forbidden. What if he is not hungry?
THE SOLDIER
If he has no appetite, let him give it to me, I will eat it. You have to be an imbecile to give your bread to the enemy, instead of thinking of your comrades. We tighten our belts enough already. Half the food goes to the prisoners. Good Lord, if it were up to me, I would take care of feeding them!
ALAN, to Owen
I thought, seeing her, of my poor old mum. Maybe she does not have anything to eat either, today.
OWEN
How furious they are against us!
ALAN
I was not even doing her any harm.
THE SOLDIER, who has picked up the bread
You’re not eating it?
ALAN
No.
THE SOLDIER
Thanks.
He wipes it and eats it ravenously.
Lawrence and Clodds have come to look from the top of the kopje.
LAWRENCE
They are beside themselves. The whole country has risen since the proclamations.
CLODDS, pointing down to the camp
They will calm down in there.
LAWRENCE
What silence! What are they doing?
CLODDS
They pray, they sleep, they die.
LAWRENCE
They die in great numbers?
CLODDS
Ask the doctor.
MILES, arriving
Hmm! --- The food is insufficient, the sanitation deplorable, the shelters rudimentary; the icy rain streams in and collects in this hollow. How could it not be a breeding ground for epidemics?
LAWRENCE
Had no one thought of all that?
MILES
It was supposed to be temporary. The prisoners were to stay here only a day or two before being transported to a town further from the center of operations. But we have been informed that the prisons and hospitals are overflowing. Then, the roads are not safe; they are swept by the enemy cavalry. We must wait.
LAWRENCE
They could have been left a few more days in their homes.
CLODDS
As soon as one turns one’s back, they communicate with the enemy.
LAWRENCE
I know; but by watching them?
CLODDS
One would have to watch the entire country. With the distances between their farms, the army would be dispersed over a sector of several leagues. The enemy would have an easy time surprising us.
LAWRENCE
That is true.
MILES
I do my best. I have just spent my afternoon there. They are fed as best one can, and tended as if they were our own. --- Only, we lack everything.
SIMPSON, arriving
Come now. They are much better off than at home. (1) Do you realize, Lawrence, that each of these rogues costs us 10 shillings a week? In six months, we have spent 480,000 pounds for 40,000 women and children, distributed among the various camps, provided with everything: food, lodging, clothing, blankets, doctors. Even schools! Mrs. Simpson has already begun, this morning, giving them an English lesson. --- And they complain! --- They are miserable liars. We exhaust ourselves helping them. We spend more for the women and children of our enemies than for the good loyal English. These rogues live at our expense.
CLODDS
The fact is that England is the first people ever to have fed the women and children of its enemies. That has never been seen in history.
SIMPSON
“We are too moderate. Everyone finds us too moderate. Our kindness makes us ridiculous.” (1)
LAWRENCE
You are right. And yet, they die by the hundreds.
SIMPSON
Oh, you exaggerate!… --- Besides, the mortality has always been very high among them. They are so dirty! The beggars of our European slums are gentlemen compared to them. The children rot in filth. One would have to bathe them by force like dogs.
MILES
Hygiene at cannon-point.
CLODDS
It is war after all. If they are not happy, they have only to make peace: we ask nothing better. It is the way to end it.
(1) Chamberlain. Speech of August 24, 1899. (1) Miss Phelps, nurse. Reply to Miss Hobhouse (Times, September 27, 1901).
MILES, seeing Carnby coming
Unless we resort to the principle of our friend Carnby: mass extermination.
RICHARD CARNBY, arriving with another reporter
Certainly; it is very biblical: kill the men, violate the women.
MILES
Well, for the next war, we might organize a regiment of poets. There are only they left today to renew the exploits of Attila.
RICHARD CARNBY
I have just spent two hours in the camp. It is like Dante’s Inferno. Have a look. With Flag, we have taken some snapshots.
FLAG
You are sending that to your newspaper?
FLAG
I should say so! It is a fortune. Looking and comparing the plates. That one is superb.
LAWRENCE, disgusted
Let us go, Clodds. I do not know how they manage to find pleasure in this filth. They give me the impression of crows landing on carrion.
CLODDS
That little bald, rickety, stooped, myopic, neurotic fellow, who talks of rapes and massacres!
LAWRENCE
It would be monstrous, if it were not ridiculous.
CLODDS
I say, Lawrence, to shake ourselves up, what about a gallop across the veld?
LAWRENCE
Forbidden.
CLODDS
I know. No matter. You know, we should organize a paper chase.
LAWRENCE
Our horses can no longer stand on their legs.
CLODDS
Bah! Will you bet…?
LAWRENCE
All right. Let us arrange it with the ladies.
CLODDS
By the way. You know poor Parker will not recover from his wound.
LAWRENCE
You have seen him?
CLODDS
No, I have not had time. But Miles told me he is done for.
LAWRENCE
Who will be appointed in his place?
CLODDS
I do not know. --- Ah, if only we could fight at last!
SIMPSON, mysteriously
Patience, young men. You will soon be satisfied.
CLODDS
Something new, colonel?
SIMPSON, in the same manner
The marshal is preparing a dish of his own for them, a nice little trap.
LAWRENCE
May one know?
SIMPSON
You will see, you will see.
CLODDS
Now that is good news!
They shake hands, all three of them. Cries outside.
LAWRENCE, looking at the camp
Look, Clodds. All those dead come back to life, those ghosts rising. What are they looking at?
CLODDS, coming near Lawrence and looking
It is the marshal who is coming. He is crossing the camp.
Storm of voices outside.
VOICES FROM THE CAMP
Herod! Herod!…
LAWRENCE
They are abusing him.
SIMPSON, displeased
He should not have shown himself there.
CLODDS
He walks with small steps amid the threatening hands and the howling.
LAWRENCE
He is impervious to pity.
SIMPSON, displeased
It is not proper. That was not his place.
MILES
They will tear him apart.
RICHARD CARNBY
Ah, the wretch! Did you see? She threw mud at him!
SOLDIERS
Hussy!
One of the soldiers takes aim.
RICHARD CARNBY
Shoot!
Amid the shouting, Clifford appears at the back of the stage, climbing the slope of the kopje. He raises the barrel of the aimed rifle with his cane. Impassive, he wipes his face and arms smeared with mud. The soldiers present arms. He salutes.
CLIFFORD, going to Miles
You have visited the camp, doctor. What is to be done?
MILES
There would be too much to do.
CLIFFORD
The most urgent.
MILES
Everything is urgent.
CLIFFORD, to Lawrence
Have ditches dug to channel the water that enters under the tents. You will requisition all able-bodied prisoners.
SIMPSON
They will never consent to work, even for their own good. They make it a point of honor to suffer.
CLIFFORD
In that case, you will take a squad of soldiers. Do you hear? Signs of discontent among the soldiers. As for rations, they are insufficient; I have already told you to buy with my own money whatever you can find.
SOLDIERS, discontented
Everything for them.
MILES
The worst thing is the crowding of this multitude.
CLIFFORD
Always the absurdly excessive application of the orders I give. --- Who had this new convoy of women and children brought in?
SIMPSON
General Graham.
CLIFFORD makes a gesture of anger, which he represses
I said to confine only those who have openly acted against us.
SIMPSON
All are hostile to us. They do not even try to hide it anymore. They go out of their way to provoke us, since the proclamation.
CLIFFORD
Yes, they all sacrifice themselves to make me odious. The wretches! I foresaw it. --- So be it. What do I care? A new group of prisoners passes across the stage. More still. He shrugs his shoulders and watches the prisoners who stare at him insolently. These are not from this region. To a young man, very dark, with fine, beardless features, and intelligent, ardent eyes. Who are you?
THE PRISONER
Italian. From Ricciotti’s legion.
CLIFFORD
What are you doing here? Why do you not stay home?
THE PRISONER, impertinent
And you?
CLIFFORD
What business is it of yours? Italy is not at war with England.
THE PRISONER
Everything that is unjust is my enemy.
CLIFFORD
You have enough to do at home.
THE PRISONER
I have fought at home too. Exiled by my country, I serve it by defending the oppressed on its behalf. My homeland is wherever liberty is violated.
CLIFFORD
Where are you from?
THE PRISONER
Sicilian. From Caltanisetta.
CLIFFORD
I know your country. --- I was there, many years ago, with your Garibaldi.
THE PRISONER
You? --- You were one of us? --- And now!
CLIFFORD
Those times have passed. It was a mad hope in the regeneration of the world. The world does not change and never will. You are half a century behind. Now nations fight over the universe. Woe to whoever disarms and yields for an instant to sentimentalism!
THE PRISONER
What do I care about your nations! I am a citizen of the world. War on your bloody, decrepit Europe! And death to civilization, rather than endure its crimes!
CLIFFORD
One does not stop so heavy a machine by throwing oneself under its wheels.
THE PRISONER
Let it crush me! But I shall not be seen, a renegade like you, to one day bear arms against my faith.
CLIFFORD
Speak more calmly. You are a child. Your task is easy. You have no bonds, you recognize no law. You do not trouble yourself to know the consequences of your acts, nor whether your adventures are of any use to the cause you serve. I was like you once. One day you will be like me.
THE PRISONER
Never!
CLIFFORD
Time levels all. Time bends, wears down, erases all. --- Give me your word that you will not escape. You are free.
THE PRISONER
I give you my word that I will seek every means to escape.
CLIFFORD
Then you will be taken to the Cape, where they will dispose of you. He salutes him.
The prisoner is led away.
SIMPSON
What are these foreigners doing in Africa? It is incredible, this mania for meddling in other people’s business!
CLIFFORD, to Miles
He is happy. I was like that, Miles. It mattered little to me whether I agreed with the interest of the country or with reason. I listened only to my instinct. It is very easy to obey one’s heart. But the difficult thing is to act without any passion. How to hate without youth? And how to fight without hatred?
MILES
It is a trade.
CLIFFORD
One must be born a bureaucrat.
Debora and her child appear before the marshal.
CLIFFORD
What are you doing here, madam?
DEBORA
I come to take my place among my people; I ask to be confined in the camp, with the others.
CLIFFORD
I have no reason to grant your wish.
DEBORA
I have a right to be treated like the others.
CLIFFORD
God forbid! I am your guest. I will protect you, as far as possible, from the injuries of war.
DEBORA
I do not want any privilege. It is a dishonor to be sheltered while others suffer.
CLIFFORD
It would be a dishonor for me to consent to your request. You do not know what you are asking. Are you eager to expose the life of your child?
DEBORA
Then you admit that you have sent these innocents to certain death?
CLIFFORD
I do not have to explain my conduct to you. Favor or disfavor, I will it; that suffices. The will of the conqueror is the law of the conquered.
DEBORA
May this iron law one day be turned against you!
CLIFFORD
We are always prepared to endure the vicissitudes of fortune. Since you cannot change destiny, resign yourself.
DEBORA
We shall never endure the odious force that destroys our rights.
CLIFFORD
Have you never yourselves abused force? Is this land yours? When you came here, did it not belong to others? Were you more respectful of the rights of its possessors?
DEBORA
What possessors?
CLIFFORD
Those Negroes whom you have enslaved or crushed.
DEBORA
And what do I care about those slaves? What connection is there between them and us?
CLIFFORD
They too are human beings.
DEBORA, shrugging her shoulders
What nonsense!
CLIFFORD
They too have suffered.
DEBORA
It is not about what others suffer. It is about what we suffer.
CLIFFORD
Everything comes from God. Bow your head.
DEBORA
It is in God that I hope; it is he who will avenge us.
CLIFFORD
It is he who has struck you.
DEBORA
Never! God is with us.
CLIFFORD
He is with us too. His name is inscribed on our banners.
DEBORA
He is not our God. Yours is not God. God is persecuted by you. But he will be the strongest; he will crush you beneath him, like straw beneath a cart wheel.
CLIFFORD
And if your faith is wrong? If God has abandoned you?
DEBORA
That cannot be. There would be no God.
CLIFFORD
Who knows?
DEBORA
Then there would still be us. Bombard our cities, ravage our land, exterminate, if you can, all the males of our race, violate the women and girls. Their children, your children, will execute vengeance against you. (1)
CLIFFORD
Madam, please do not mix into our hatred these innocent beings. Keep their hearts sheltered from our ills: they will know them only too soon.
He bends toward the child, who, having grown familiar with him, looks at him and plays with the sword-knot of his saber.
(1) “You may bombard our cities and destroy our villages, massacre the young, the old, and the children. You will pacify Africa as three centuries ago Cromwell pacified Ireland. It will be silence, but it will not be peace. Exterminate, if you can, the entire male population. Provided there remain five thousand pregnant African women, they will reconstitute a people like the one you think you have destroyed.” --- OLIVE SCHREINER.
DEBORA
Do not touch him. You killed his father.
CLIFFORD
Do not be so harsh: it is one unhappy soul embracing another.
He has sat on a bank of earth and takes the child on his knees. The conversation takes place apart from the others.
DEBORA, after a silence, in a lower voice
What did your child die of?
CLIFFORD
Diphtheria.
DEBORA
Your wife too? Clifford nods. She died before him?
CLIFFORD
She lived after.
DEBORA
Poor woman! Clifford kisses the child. Sir, you have known suffering; how can you have the cruelty to cause it around you?
CLIFFORD
We do not do what we wish. Our actions are attributed to us because we are the chiefs. The higher we are in command, the more we must serve.
DEBORA
I do not accept these sorry excuses. Each person is responsible for what he does. You said so yourself. I prefer to hate you than to despise you.
CLIFFORD
I accept responsibility for my actions; but the order does not come from me, it comes from the fatherland. I am a soldier, I obey.
DEBORA
Have you renounced your human rights in becoming a soldier? I was told: such are your armies. The will of the chief is their only law. Should it please him to have their brothers massacred, the soldiers of Europe do not hesitate, it is said. And you claim to bring us civilization? We are freer than you. We recognize only one master: our conscience.
CLIFFORD
The world is less simple than you think. Your view is bounded by these desert spaces, where the individual reigns without anything controlling his action but God. You do not know those human anthills, those great states of Europe, where man disappears among men. Above the laws of the individual, there are the laws of the nation; and it is in vain that he would try to resist. He would be crushed, and others would assume his task. If I were not here, another would have my place, and might use it perhaps more pitilessly than I.
DEBORA
One excuses all cowardice under the pretext that one prevents a little evil, does a little good. This mediocre goodness is the worst of vices; for it corrupts the weak. All or nothing! Enemies or friends! There are degrees in crime; but the least is still crime.
CLIFFORD
Good-bye, madam.
He dismisses her coldly.
DEBORA
No, it cannot be. You are better than your actions. You force yourself to be harsh. In God’s name! You will not carry out this abominable task, you will not destroy a just people. Think that it depends on you to silence the last voices crying for justice, to kill the last free army.
CLIFFORD
Do you think it is I who animate these masses in motion? I direct them, but they carry me along. Even if I had the madness to think as you do, there would only be one soldier changed in my army.
DEBORA
At least, if you cannot prevent this crime, do not execute it, you!
CLIFFORD
Enough, madam, we cannot understand each other.
DEBORA
Yes, you understand, you understand… She takes his hand. They look at each other in silence. In the name of your dead!
Clifford turns away without speaking.
DEBORA, seizing her child and pressing his face close to Clifford’s
Look at him, look at the murderer of your people! Look at him well, so you will remember him when you are dead, and cry out against him and against his child before the Lord, with the thousands of innocents exterminated like you!
CLIFFORD, to Clodds
Take them back.
DEBORA
Let me go with my brethren.
Clifford, seated, silent, signals to Clodds.
DEBORA
Beware: it would be better for you if I were a prisoner in that camp. Lock me up!
Clifford looks away. Soldiers approach Debora.
DEBORA
God’s will be done!
She is led away with the child. A silence.
LEWIS-BROWN, arriving in a hurry
Where is the marshal? I must speak to him. --- Ah! He sees Clifford and goes to him. Marshal…
CLIFFORD, rising abruptly and looking at Lewis-Brown with cold anger
Ah, there you are! What do you want?
LEWIS-BROWN, paying no attention to Clifford’s tone
Marshal, it is urgent. Water is flooding the shafts. Guld-Fontein is threatened. I need a hundred men to fight the flooding. Please give the orders.
CLIFFORD, lips tight
I will give no orders.
LEWIS-BROWN, stupefied
I think you have not understood me.
CLIFFORD
I think you have understood me. I will give no orders.
LEWIS-BROWN, dismayed
But why?
CLIFFORD
Because my soldiers are exhausted, and I am reserving their strength for other tasks.
LEWIS-BROWN, irritated
Marshal! I see I have expressed myself badly. I am not asking, I am demanding.
CLIFFORD, exploding
You are demanding!… Are you the master? Is it you the army obeys? Do you think it is for love of you and your gold that my soldiers get killed, that I compromise my honor --- I do not speak of my life? It is quite enough that the world believes it. It is quite enough that you have engaged the country in this disastrous war by deceiving it with your lies, that you have deliberately confused the fatherland with your speculations, that you have knowingly sent thousands of beings to their death by ordering victories on fixed dates. It is quite enough that you are to exploit the earth fertilized by our blood. Let the earth and the gold belong to you: our blood does not belong to you. We die to efface the stain stamped on the nation’s honor by the clique of stock-market speculators.
LEWIS-BROWN
Marshal… these words… I will not tolerate…
CLIFFORD
You will tolerate. What is said is said.
LEWIS-BROWN
But it is ruin!… Consider, I beg you… calmly… do not be angry. The mines flooded… If one does not act at once, it will take a year before work can be resumed… How do you expect me to manage?
CLIFFORD
What do I care?
LEWIS-BROWN
This is inadmissible! You forget that the interests of the Company I represent are not separate from those of the government… Gold too is a part of the country’s greatness… This is acting seditiously… Beware. I shall complain…
CLIFFORD
The telegraph is there. Write to the government. Repeat my words. Say that as long as I command here, I shall command alone, and that the first time a general of the Exchange presumes to give me orders, I shall have him escorted to the coast; --- and if they are not satisfied, here is my resignation!
LEWIS-BROWN, crushed
Marshal…
The bystanders listen, stupefied. The doctor signals to Lewis-Brown to be silent, and to the others to stand back. --- Crushing silence. --- Lewis-Brown, to whom the doctor speaks in a low voice, moves away, furious and troubled.
MILES, approaching Clifford, whose excitement drops at once after Lewis-Brown’s departure
I can see that the trouble is worsening, my poor friend. What has happened? I have never seen you like this. You, so self-controlled! We have lived together for many years, and we have been through difficult moments. In India, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, we had bad days. Yet nothing touched your impassibility. And it is this poor Lewis who has the privilege of putting you beside yourself! What has this imbecile done to you? Be careful, my friend.
CLIFFORD
Yes, I feel it, it is ridiculous. One should not do these scoundrels the honor of being moved by their words. But I was choking; I cannot restrain myself any longer. Enough, Miles, enough.
MILES
What is new? Nothing has changed. Everything today is as it was yesterday.
CLIFFORD
Yes, that is precisely it.
MILES
You see, Clifford, the trouble comes in good part from your habit lately of wanting to analyze yourself, analyze everything you do, understand people and things. I was watching you just now. You go and interrogate a prisoner, a woman, you discuss with them. It is bad for action, bad for the health of the mind. One should never try to enter the thoughts of others. Good for a literary man, who talks forever and does nothing, like poor Carnby. But we who have work to do, what good is it to us? We waste our time; and when one’s head is not very steady, as yours is not at present --- you will forgive me, Clifford? --- it is dangerous. Is there any sense in seeking the reasons for one’s adversary’s actions? Of course! One knows well that everything has reasons. If one tried to take them all into account, one would end by not being able to move a finger. I know only one remedy for you: do not think.
CLIFFORD
Not think --- that is easy for you to say! --- But no, my dear fellow, you are mistaken; it is not their reasons that trouble me. All reasons are equal, ours and theirs: they are not worth much. It is something else I cannot bear. The rest, as you have seen, I can pass over --- unpleasant as it is to wage a war one does not believe in. But that is too much.
MILES
What is it, then, my friend?
CLIFFORD
Nothing. It is something that happened just now.
MILES
Just now? --- Could it be?… --- Let me see, --- I had a suspicion the other day; I did not think, however… Is it possible that this woman has turned your head?
CLIFFORD
What woman?
MILES
A fine question. The one who was here.
CLIFFORD, after reflecting a moment
You are stupid, Miles. --- No, no, all that is over. God forbid that I should forget my poor Maud, sleeping in this earth! Shame, how could you think it?
MILES
Pah! Neither death, nor piety, nor any reason has ever been an obstacle to that kind of folly. What is impossible about it? She has feelings for you, she does.
CLIFFORD
You are mad. She whose husband I killed, she who assails me with her hateful threats!
MILES
Yes, yes, those are their ways. A woman’s words mean nothing. Believe me, I know about these things. I watched her closely. She puts too much passion into her hatred.
CLIFFORD, curtly
So much the worse for her. And what do I care? --- No, I pity her, that is all, I pity her; and it is not even for her.
MILES
For whom, then?
CLIFFORD
You have seen this child?
MILES
That little one she drags everywhere with her?
CLIFFORD
Did you notice?…
MILES
Notice what?
CLIFFORD
Enough of this! I cannot bear it.
MILES
What? This child? I do not understand.
CLIFFORD
All the rest, you see, all the rest, but not that! --- Enough on the subject. I have struggled too long against myself. I stop at last.
MILES
That is to say, you want to…?
CLIFFORD
Resign my command, yes.
MILES
Wait a while longer.
CLIFFORD
Wait, always wait. Day by day, I am carried along by that word. I have spent my life putting off until tomorrow, in order to live.
MILES
We are on the eve of the outcome.
CLIFFORD
No, I see better than you how much suffering and blood this war will still demand. And even if this were the end, I yield the honor to others.
MILES
You must be very much out of your normal state, not to go to the end of the road where you agreed to enter.
CLIFFORD
Well, yes, I am ill, Miles, truly. You know it well. Let another take my place. Am I indispensable to the army? Can I not be replaced?
MILES
Certainly. The successor is all but designated: Graham.
CLIFFORD
He or another. England does not lack good officers.
MILES
Pending the choice, it is he who will finish your work.
CLIFFORD
Then let him have the sad glory of attaching his name to it!
AN AIDE-DE-CAMP, bringing a message
Marshal.
CLIFFORD reads. Triumphant
I have them! --- Simpson! Lawrence! --- Well, I had wagered it. They are running onto the blade themselves.
MILES
What have you concocted now?
CLIFFORD, exultant
You see, it is no use, when one wants to win, trying to impose one’s plans on the enemy. One must pretend to enter into his, serve him the bait he uses on you, and turn his own weapons against him. Well, doctor, it is sometimes good, whatever you say, to have the habit of trying to read the minds of others.
He writes orders on his knee and gives them to Lawrence.
GRAHAM, arriving
The enemy is coming.
CLIFFORD, very cold
I know.
GRAHAM
He has suddenly turned about and is marching on Harcourt’s division. I well thought that was the weak point, and that it was dangerous to strip it by launching the cavalry in pursuit of the fugitives.
CLIFFORD
Very well. Let them come.
GRAHAM
Harcourt asks for reinforcements.
CLIFFORD
Let him fall back.
GRAHAM
They will be masters of the pass.
CLIFFORD
Let them pass.
GRAHAM
They must have spies everywhere. Who could have alerted them so quickly that the route was clear?
CLIFFORD
I did.
GRAHAM
You? --- Ah, that is different.
CLIFFORD
They want to force the pass. As they please. I want it too. --- Let them enter. But they will stay there.
GRAHAM
Their retreat?
CLIFFORD
Is cut off. I knew they would be here tonight. Harcourt’s cavalry, after a feigned pursuit, has orders to fall back behind them in forced marches. You yourself, Graham, you will now, via Utrecht and Nazareth, wheel back onto the pass, where you will enter on their heels. The crests of the hills are occupied. As for us, we have only to wait, in ambush. The game comes of its own accord.
THE OFFICERS
Hurrah! --- They will not escape this time.
--- The president, they say, is with them.
LAWRENCE
It is the death blow for this wretched little people.
CLODDS
They will never surrender.
SIMPSON
It is extermination.
GRAHAM, vexed
I am pleased to see that you know, when necessary, how to use extreme measures. --- My compliments.
CLIFFORD
To work!
He shivers.
MILES
Your teeth are chattering. Put on a coat. The rain is freezing. This accursed country blows death.
GRAHAM
You seem unwell. Do you not fear aggravating your illness?
CLIFFORD
I am fine, sir, I am fine. --- Come!
They exit.
MILES, following them
Resign? --- Drunkard’s oath or hunter’s oath. He who has drunk will drink. He who has killed will kill. One pities the quarry; but it fares no better.
He exits.
The soldiers of the post remain alone. Night falls. Owen and Alan are sitting near a fire. A silence.
ALAN
When will this be over?
OWEN
I can see they are going to play another dirty trick tonight on those poor devils.
ALAN
If only it could be over quickly! Since they must be killed, let us get on with it.
OWEN
Of course. When one kills an animal, one should not make it suffer.
A silence.
ALAN
How angry the marshal was!
OWEN
Since we lost the mistress and the little boy, he is quite changed. In the daytime, one does not notice too much; he keeps busy, he does not think. But in the evening, alone at home, he sits absorbed for hours, without moving; or he talks to himself. He does not sleep. He who is usually so polite and gentle, he loses his temper with me over the slightest thing. I listened to him the other night. He was talking about his little one.
ALAN
Poor man! Why does the good Lord allow us to have children, if it is only to take them back at once?
OWEN
Ah, it is always good to have had them to oneself for a few years, those little beings.
ALAN
It causes too much grief afterward, when they go.
OWEN
One knows well that everything ends in grief. One must take the world as it is.
ALAN
If it were only one’s own grief! But one makes them suffer, too.
OWEN
It is better to have suffered and been, is it not?
ALAN
Perhaps so. But I do not know why.
OWEN
Nor do I. But I feel it.
ALAN
How difficult everything is to understand, everything!
He vaguely gestures toward the sky and the plain. A silence.
OWEN
We must not let the fire go out. He stirs the embers. One is drenched by the rain, all day long. And when the sun has just set, an icy chill falls on your shoulders.
ALAN
Look over there, Owen.
OWEN
Fires on the hills. That is the enemy.
ALAN
Fires like ours. They used to signal to each other, from mountain to mountain. And the bagpipes answered in the night.
ALAN
And the cowbells, do you remember, Owen?
OWEN
One thought one heard them passing around one. They came out of the lakes and the grass of the meadow.
ALAN
The lakes! The stars swarmed in them. It was like fish.
OWEN
How far away we are, Alan! --- And why did we come?
ALAN
Why?
A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER, calling
Alan! Alan rises without answering.
OWEN
You are leaving?
ALAN
It is my turn on watch.
OWEN
Come! --- Fortunately, the rain has stopped.
ALAN
I do not know what is the matter with me. I am sad.
OWEN
So am I. It is not cheerful.
ALAN
Well then!
He moves away.
OWEN
Keep your eyes open. The enemy is far. But one is never sure.
Alan joins a patrol that moves off. Other soldiers return from watch and approach the fire. They warm themselves, eat, and smoke.
SOLDIERS
--- I am frozen to the bone. --- Damned weather!
--- Look at this. He shows his shoes. Soles with holes. Nothing holds together.
--- And in the evening, to recover, here is what we have to eat! Just enough not to drop dead!
--- And afterward, we will go lie down in the mud and water!
--- Misery! It would be better to be dead.
--- You are very dainty. You have been spoiled. If you had gotten used, as I have, since childhood, to making your bed in the mud of London, you would find that this mud here smells good. Not enough to eat? We have something all the same. We can keep warm; and we have nothing to worry about. We have nothing to think about. I do not find it so bad. Whether it is fine or foul, whether we do this or that, I do not care. At the end of the day, we are always heroes.
--- Fine heroes! If only we were fighting! But there is no way. As soon as we arrive, they decamp. One goes forward, they pass behind. One goes behind, they pass in front. One never sees them, even when they are there; one walks along peacefully, one gets a bullet; impossible to tell where it came from. They slide through the grass like serpents. They are not men. They are ghosts.
--- It seems they have them this time.
--- Yes, yes, I know the tune. That makes the twentieth time.
--- This might be the right one.
EBENEZZER. --- Ah, if only! Ah, the swine! Haven’t they made us suffer enough! Good Lord! If we have them this time, it will feel good to get revenge, to break their backs, to pound their brains. Camels!
--- Pah! I do not hate them that much, myself.
--- Yes, I know you, you will not spare a single one.
--- Of course. But without malice.
--- Yes, like the cook who does not hate the chicken but wrings its neck.
EBENEZZER. --- Well, for me, it is with malice, and I do not hide it, God help me! --- Do not let the fire go out! --- If I could roast them alive, drive the spit through their arse! Scoundrels, who dare to drag out the war with their diabolical stubbornness! --- You have to be mad, stark raving mad, worse than rabid dogs! To resist, resist England! Villains!
--- I say, it is rather natural, what they are doing there.
EBENEZZER. --- What! What! It is natural?
--- Well! A people that is attacked!
EBENEZZER. --- They are not a people. They are rebels. To be a people, you have to be numerous. But a handful, bands in rags! --- They do not even have uniforms. They are not an army.
--- They are savage cannibals. Do you not know that one day that old monster Paul Kruger had a young lady stripped naked and placed between two planks, and sawed alive, because she would not reveal a secret?
--- Come off it!
--- It is the Reverend Alsopp who said it. (1)
--- Ah, the scoundrel! If I had him!
--- Bah! He has fled, the rogue, with all his loot.
--- What revolts me most is the hypocrisy of all those sanctimonious prigs, who hold their Bible in one hand and their Mauser in the other.
--- Blast!
--- What are you looking for?
--- I have lost my New Testament!
--- I will lend you mine.
--- No, it is mine that I want.
--- You only have to ask Mrs. Simpson for another. They have stacks of them.
--- I will go tomorrow.
--- It is jolly fine reading, those stories.
--- Indeed, it is well written.
--- For my part, what I like best is the preface by Lord Wolseley.
--- And the Union Jack engraved on it. (2)
(1) Rev. John Alsopp. (J. A. Hobson: The Psychology of Jingoism.) (2) The English soldiers, leaving for Africa, each received a copy of the New Testament, decorated with the Union Jack, and preceded by a preface by Lord Wolseley (Hobson: ibidem).
EBENEZZER, stuck on his idea. --- By what right do they defend themselves? It is outrageous. They must be killed with as little pity as plague-infected rats!
OWEN
Listen a moment though, if someone came to our place too…
EBENEZZER. --- I will not listen. You have to be a damned scoundrel to resist the soldiers of the King. When England asks a country to submit, it should be only too honored to have been chosen to be part of the most glorious empire in the world.
--- All the same, it may not quite understand. One should explain.
EBENEZZER. --- We kill ourselves explaining. They pretend not to understand. They are stubborn as donkeys. --- And besides, one does not need so many explanations. England has the right to the empire of the earth. If she allows a few other nations to exist, it is out of pure moderation. But I can see it will be necessary to take everything, for the glory of God, and because the strongest must command the weakest: that is morality.
A great silence.
A SOLDIER, in a low voice, indicating the space around them. --- How vast it all is! One is lost.
Silence.
OWEN, gravely
The strongest, comrade? Who is the strongest? One must not say that. One is always weaker in something.
Silence. They all fall silent, staring at the fire. In the distance, the sentry cries “Who goes there?” twice. A pursuit is heard. Then a double gunshot. A voice calls for help. At the first cry, the men have seized their rifles and run, without speaking, with oaths. Outside, a voice cries: “This way, comrades!” They return, carrying Alan, wounded.
SOLDIERS
Ah, God damn!
ALAN, faintly
He is wounded too. I saw him fall.
Some soldiers retrace their steps and return with the young Italian prisoner, wounded.
--- He is still alive.
EBENEZZER
Bastard!
He tries to bash him with a rifle butt.
ALAN
No!
OWEN
Leave him!…
He stops Ebenezzer’s arm. They place the two wounded men near the fire.
THE YOUNG ITALIAN, insolent
A little patience, now. I am going. Just time to take my leave. I am not taking French leave.
--- It is that little Italian who was talking with the marshal.
--- He was trying to escape.
The soldiers tend only to Alan.
ALAN, to Owen
You see, you see, I had a premonition! Ah, my God!
SOLDIERS
Where is he wounded?
--- Let us carry him to the field hospital.
ALAN
Ah, do not move me, in the name of Christ!
A SOLDIER
We cannot. He would die on the way.
OWEN, to the soldier who has just spoken
Be quiet! Not so loud!
ALAN
No, not to the hospital! Do not abandon me!
OWEN
Yes, you will stay. Do not worry. It is nothing.
ALAN
No, I can feel it is over.
OWEN
Nonsense.
ALAN weeps. After a moment
And him?
THE ITALIAN
Me too. Wait for me, we will travel together.
ALAN
Where is he wounded?
THE ITALIAN
Ah, it is the worst of all. In the back. It is fate. This bad luck insists on playing tricks on me. But this is the dirtiest of all. No luck! Oh well, it is over. --- I do not care. When destiny persecutes us, one must laugh at it; that vexes it. One may be defeated, but one is still superior to it. Alan groans. Are you in pain?
ALAN
Yes. --- And you?
THE ITALIAN
Naturally.
ALAN
Why did you kill me?
THE ITALIAN
That is a good one. Why did you fire first? I only defended myself. I was trying to escape. Could you not have let me live?
ALAN
I do not know why I did it. They forced me! --- I am cold! --- Owen, where is the country? Turn my face toward where it is. --- Ah, this sky, these stars, I recognize nothing. Nothing. It is not my sky. I am lost. You are going to leave, you are going to leave me alone, in this earth.
THE ITALIAN
We will keep each other company. I too am from the old Europe. Come, we will not be the only ones. Thousands of comrades will stay with us. Maybe you too, eh? For years more, we will hear the footsteps of our European brothers on this earth.
ALAN
How did you live back there? Do you have parents who are waiting for you?
THE ITALIAN
I have an old mama in Caltanisetta; but she is not waiting for me. I also have a swarm of brothers and sisters, little ones and big ones; they run about, God knows where. It was not easy to live. Mama told us: “My children, fend for yourselves if you can; live as long as you can: life is a good thing, despite everything. When you can no longer live, try to choose your death; death is not bad either, when you can no longer do otherwise.” I did as she said. I could not live happily; I chose to die in the best way: I am not displeased. It feels good to die when you are in the right.
ALAN
Ah, why did I come? What for? What for?
THE ITALIAN
That is true; it is not fine, what you did, comrades, coming to take other people’s country.
THE SOLDIERS, joining the conversation little by little
It is not our fault. It is fate.
THE ITALIAN
Nonsense. There is no such thing as fate. There is only us. You are children. You believe in a master? There is no master. There is nothing, nothing but us. Let us do what we must, and all will be well.
OWEN
No, the world is evil, everything is evil.
THE ITALIAN
If the world is evil, it is because we make it evil.
OWEN
Ah, everything is too hard to understand!
THE ITALIAN
What is hard about it? --- If you had seen us in our camp, how simple everything was! There are hundreds there like me, from everywhere: some from France, Germany, Austria, America; some who have fought against each other; we do not share the same race or the same religion; there are rich and poor, beggars and aristocrats; to tell the truth, we do not get along very well, and those we have come to defend have nothing very attractive about them; they treat us more as enemies than as friends. But they are wrong, that is all: and that does not prove that we are not right to defend them, when they suffer for justice. --- It feels so good! One feels that we are all brothers, and that there are no races, no religions, no color of skin or thought, that there are only people who help and love each other: and that is paradise on earth.
OWEN
But, brother, you too do harm: you kill us.
THE ITALIAN
One does not manage to reform the world on the first try. Our little Europe is forced to defend itself. Patience. Everything will work out.
ALAN
Ah, I have done evil, I have done evil!
EBENEZZER, exploding
Ah, the swine, the swine of bankers, ministers, generals, bastards, who get poor folk killed and damned for their ambition and their gold!
ALAN
Ah, my God! Will God forgive me?
THE ITALIAN
Leave God alone, and forgive yourself. It is not your fault, old fellow. Poor devil, you did your best, of course, while doing the worst.
Alan weeps silently.
OWEN
Are you in pain? Alan does not answer.
ALAN, in a near whisper
Craigie, would you play one last time: “Auld Lang Syne”?
Without a word, one of the Scottish soldiers takes his bagpipe and begins to play a plaintive tune. All begin to sing, little by little, the slow, melancholic air in subdued voices, the sound spreading from one to the next. They sit around the fires and smoke, motionless, their eyes fixed on the flame. Alan struggles to raise himself.
OWEN, bending toward him and supporting him
What do you want?
Alan, without answering, painfully reaches out his hand toward the Italian. The Italian, moved, rises without speaking, in a sudden effort, leans toward him, and embraces him. They die.
A drum roll beats the retreat in the distance. The voices stop abruptly in the middle of the song; the bagpipe moans on a note, without finishing its phrase.
EBENEZZER, looking at the two dead
Done.
He tries to separate them.
OWEN
Leave them together.
The soldiers remain seated in silence, pensive, with their lit pipes. The moon shines on the plain. A non-commissioned officer arrives.
THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
Fall in!
They all rise passively, except Owen.
A SOLDIER
Something new, sergeant?
THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
The enemy is coming.
The soldiers prepare without haste, without a word. Owen remains seated, reflecting. A comrade touches his shoulder.
OWEN
Where are we going?
A SOLDIER
Who knows where? Where they want, those devils. To fight, probably.
OWEN
Again?
THE SOLDIER
What can be done? We must obey.
Owen rises.
The soldiers take their places in the ranks. At the moment of departure, in the general silence, Ebenezzer furiously shakes his fist at no one knows whom and cries:
EBENEZZER
Scoundrels! Scoundrels!
A VOICE
Who are you shouting at? --- Silence. March!
They begin to march. Owen stops abruptly, leaves the ranks, retraces his steps, calmly sets down his rifle, and sits again near the two dead men, by the fire.
THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
Well, you, are you sick?
Owen shakes his head negatively.
THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
Then, on your feet!
OWEN
I will kill no more.
ACT III
Night. Bright moonlight. --- In the courtyard of a farm, before Debora’s house. A cistern in the middle. Tall eucalyptus trees form a screen at the back, above the high walls. To the right, a carriage gate; officers enter and exit constantly. To the left, the house; one climbs several steps to a broad veranda, where Lord Clifford stands near a small table, lit by a lantern, and laden with papers, maps, glasses, and liqueur bottles. Lawrence and Clodds, seated on folding chairs, write. In the courtyard, below the veranda, another small table and garden chairs. Soldiers are on guard at the entrance of the great gate. A few young aides-de-camp talk among themselves, standing in the courtyard at the foot of the stairs, waiting for the marshal to send them orders.
THE YOUNG OFFICERS
They are in for it this time. They have taken the bait.
--- They have entered the trap.
--- Graham holds one exit, we the other. Simpson and the artillery hold the heights. With one sweep of the net, we scoop them all up.
--- Pointing to Clifford. What is he waiting for to finish them off?
--- I do not know. Rest easy. He will act at the right moment.
An officer descends the stairs and gives a written order to one of the young aides-de-camp, who departs at once.
--- Is it the order at last?
Clifford descends into the courtyard. Two or three senior officers surround him and congratulate him noisily. He has a hard, closed expression; but his gestures are jerky and violent --- now he laughs loudly, now he abruptly cuts the conversation short with curt orders --- by turns familiar and brusque.
THE OFFICERS, among themselves
It is a masterstroke. The marshal is crowning his career.
CLIFFORD
Come, gentlemen, do not bury me so quickly! This is not my last word.
THE OFFICER who has just spoken
Oh, I never meant to say… But if it is not your last word, it is at any rate theirs, those brigands. The war is over.
CLIFFORD
“And the combat ceased for want of combatants…”? Is that what troubles you? Rest easy. War never ends. When it stops on one side, it begins again on another. There is no shortage of work in our trade. He has come near the small table at the foot of the veranda, and, without sitting, has liqueurs brought, pours drinks for the others, and drinks himself. A trade that speculates on hatred, on bestiality, on all the evil passions, is sure to last as long as humanity! They began by laughing, then continue in a forced way, and fall silent, somewhat ill at ease.
AN OFFICER
When do we finish them off?
CLIFFORD
Patience.
ANOTHER
Everything is ready?
CLIFFORD
Everything is ready.
ANOTHER
What are we waiting for?
CLIFFORD, curtly
For it to please me.
AN OFFICER
The curious thing is that the enemy also knows it is trapped, and waits. If one listened carefully, one could hear the heartbeat of both armies.
CLIFFORD laughs, then curtly
To your posts, gentlemen.
THE OFFICERS, among themselves
He is like a cat playing with a mouse.
--- What silence! Who would think we were so close to a battle?
They exit.
CLIFFORD, to himself
Silence. Silence. Beauty of the night, the rain subsided, the birds in the trees… And in a few minutes, war will be barking!…
AN OFFICER, approaching
Marshal, Fusilier Owen refuses to obey. He has been making speeches against the war. He has been arrested.
CLIFFORD, striking the table angrily
The wretch! --- As if it were not enough to have to fight these fanatics! One must also shoot one’s own soldiers! --- He permits himself to question the orders of the fatherland! It is quite enough that the chiefs do! If the soldiers start as well! --- Bring him to me!
The officer exits. Clifford drinks. The sound of passing troops is heard behind the wall of the house. The doctor arrives.
CLIFFORD, somewhat excited
Ah, there you are, doctor! You are waiting for your hour, to finish what we will have begun?
MILES
When do you begin?
CLIFFORD
You are all in a great hurry.
MILES
One would think you take pleasure in prolonging the wait.
CLIFFORD
I confess, there is a pleasure in feeling destruction suspended in the air, in thinking that a single gesture suffices to unleash it.
MILES
The old man of war awakens.
CLIFFORD
It is the best moment of battle, when the battle is won before it is fought.
MILES
So, they are truly caught this time?
CLIFFORD
They are in my hand. I need only will it. --- He laughs. It is curious, you know, Miles, that I could choose not to will it… Have a drink.
He pours for Miles and for himself.
MILES, gently placing his hand on Clifford’s arm
No, my friend, enough. Leave it. You are already a bit more nervous than need be.
CLIFFORD, putting down his glass and continuing his train of thought
I could… No, I can do nothing. They are caught. But so am I. I am no longer free.
MILES
So much the better. It is a great blessing not to be too free.
An aide-de-camp brings a message. Clifford reads it. Miles makes to leave.
CLIFFORD
Wait, Miles, I want to tell you something.
He finishes reading, writes a few words on the back of the paper, and returns it to the aide-de-camp, who leaves.
CLIFFORD
Listen, Miles. You are my friend, my old and faithful friend. You reminded me today that we had been through many difficult moments together. You remember? In a fight against the Afghans, we had to push through at all costs without picking up our wounded; we knew what tortures awaited them. We had promised each other, if one of us fell, the other would finish him off. You remember?
MILES
And by God, I would have done it.
CLIFFORD
I am sure of it. I too. We had promised. --- Well, Miles, it is roughly the same thing today. That is, it is not the enemy I fear; it is much worse; --- well, --- in a word… take this.
He hands him a revolver.
MILES
What?
CLIFFORD
You care about my honor, do you not?
MILES
As about my own.
CLIFFORD
Well, if it were necessary to preserve it, use this, and do not miss me.
MILES
My poor friend, has it really come to that?
CLIFFORD, in a state of abnormal excitement that grows as he speaks, with abrupt alternations of agitation and collapse
Fear nothing. I will perform my duty, my duty as a soldier. But it is a shameful thing, shameful, Miles. You know it well. We dare not say it to each other. --- Then you will ask me why I do it? That is the most terrible part. Beside my conscience, I hear another voice that cries: “March! What does it matter what you think?” I am a battlefield between two enemy wills. In my normal state, I would have made and executed my choice, whatever it was, without permitting my thought to question it. But I am weakened in a ridiculous way; I am ashamed of myself. You were wrong to prevent me from retiring, Miles. A month ago, I could have. Now it is too late. To turn back, or simply to stop, would be not only the loss of this country, but of English supremacy, of the entire Empire. --- Kill myself? --- That resolves nothing. I need not tell you I have not paused for an instant at that cowardice. --- Obey my conscience? I cannot without betraying. --- Obey my country? I must. But my being rebels. --- I will do what I said, and I will go to the end. Am I wrong? I do not want to think about it. But I think about it in spite of myself, and my head is so strangely ill that I never quite know what will happen to me the next minute. That is why, Miles, I have asked you; you must promise. Watch over me; and if my will should waver for an instant, do me that service, blow my brains out. You understand?
MILES
Yes.
CLIFFORD
You promise?
MILES, after a brief silence
Absolutely.
They shake hands.
We shall not come to that.
CLIFFORD
I certainly hope not. But I want to show this hussy of a thought that she will not dominate me, that I will crush her. Ah, what a grotesque thing reason is, once one has let it oversee duty. One must keep it bridled… --- I feel so weary, Miles. You cannot know what fatigue. I do not sleep. And I have disturbances. I think, you know, of my little one. Last night, I dreamed he reproached me for making him die again.
MILES
Let us not speak of that any more, Clifford.
CLIFFORD
Yes. --- What a ridiculous brute I am! What an absurd machine is ours! It hangs by a thread. --- Tell me, Miles, I fully expect not to give you that trouble. But in any case, should this foolishness occur, I want to write you a paper, so that you may attest it was by my will that you acted.
MILES
Yes, I think that would be more proper.
CLIFFORD
Thank you, old comrade. --- Handshake. --- I already feel calmer.
MILES
You will be entirely so when the battle is joined and you no longer have time to reconsider your decisions.
CLIFFORD
Yes, it is good to no longer have to will. Let things will for us. I envy those who never think, like that rascal. He points to the soldiers on guard at the gate. Two soldiers bring Owen. Miles withdraws. Clifford pours himself a drink mechanically. There you are, imbecile! What has gotten into you? Playing the rebel? Do you think I have the leisure to concern myself with you? Are you drunk, mad, sick, or what? He drinks.
OWEN
No, marshal, I beg your pardon. I am in my right mind, and I no longer want to fight.
CLIFFORD
You no longer want to? You are afraid?
OWEN
If I were afraid, I would risk less by fighting than by doing what I am doing.
CLIFFORD
Then what?
OWEN
One suffers too much, one causes too much suffering. I cannot go on.
CLIFFORD
What do you want to do about it? Kill, or be killed.
OWEN
I would rather be killed. If I am killed, I will suffer no more. If I kill, I cause suffering, and I suffer.
CLIFFORD
Where did you fish that up? You have been fighting for three months without protesting. Did you receive an inspiration from heaven?
OWEN
One need only think. It would take a different intelligence than mine to understand what we are doing now. I cannot manage it.
CLIFFORD
You do not need to understand. Obey. Your officers are there to think in your place.
OWEN
I know well that you think much better than I do. If only you said what you think!
CLIFFORD
What! Scoundrel! What I think! I am trying to save you, and you are being insolent!
OWEN
No, I did not mean to say… but I have seen, at times, that you are not very happy either… Forgive me.
CLIFFORD, abruptly calmed
What do you want, my poor boy? Life is not cheerful. It is useless to rebel. It is not we who made the world. It is not worth much.
OWEN
You are good; my comrades are decent men; I am not a bad fellow either. And yet we do so much harm.
CLIFFORD
If the best withdrew like you, the world would belong to the worst.
OWEN
If the best do evil, they are worse than the wicked; for they know what they do.
CLIFFORD
Are you going to argue much longer? I do not argue with you. --- You refuse to obey: it is death. --- My boy, you cannot mean it. You are from my county, from my household. We are bound together. You are not going to disgrace us? They will say you are a coward.
OWEN
You will not say it, marshal.
CLIFFORD
Yes, by God.
OWEN
No.
CLIFFORD
I tell you I consider you a wretch, if you…
OWEN
You do not think so.
CLIFFORD
Stubborn mule! --- You are not going to force me to have you shot, come now, Owen, my godson!
OWEN
Do not hold it against me, my lord. I cannot do otherwise.
Clifford stamps his foot, turns his back, hesitates. Gunfire breaks out outside.
AN OFFICER, running in
Marshal, they are attacking at last. They are trying to force the pass.
CLIFFORD mounts his horse. To Owen:
You will be shot.
He gallops off with his officers. Owen remains with the two soldiers guarding him.
ONE OF THE SOLDIERS, after they have whispered together, approaches Owen and says in a low voice
Owen… No one is paying attention to you. Run.
OWEN, shaken
You think I can?
THE SOLDIER, without looking at him, without seeming to speak to him
We are closing our eyes. Hurry.
Owen makes a move toward the garden fence. Then he comes back.
OWEN
No. It is better that I stay.
THE SOLDIER
But, you wretch, you will not escape it.
OWEN
I know. But if I fled, they would say I did it out of cowardice, as the marshal said.
THE SOLDIER
What do you care? Do you not want to live?
OWEN
Yes, very much, especially now.
THE SOLDIER
What would it cost you to fire a shot or two at those savages?
THE OTHER SOLDIER
You do not even need to aim. Fire in the air.
Owen shakes his head.
THE FIRST SOLDIER
Damned donkey! --- So we will have to shoot you! Have you no shame?
The noise of battle grows louder.
THE OTHER SOLDIER
Do you hear?
THE FIRST SOLDIER
Good God! To be stuck here, just when the dance begins!
THE OTHER SOLDIER
They have them. They will go down to the last man. --- To have been through all the hardship and not be there for the pleasure: that is just my luck.
THE FIRST SOLDIER
I cannot stand it. I am going.
OWEN
William, what are you going to do? You are going to go kill, you too?
THE FIRST SOLDIER
And why should I deprive myself? --- The only chance one has in one’s life to enjoy this sport! And it is glorious, to boot!
He runs off.
OWEN, to the other soldier
Jamie, you are a family man, you will not go, come now?
THE OTHER SOLDIER
Just to have a look.
He runs off.
OWEN, alone
The smell of blood: it makes you drunk. Two good fellows, though. There is no way to hold them anymore. They are like dogs at the kill.
He sits in a dark corner, on one of the steps of the staircase. At the noise of combat, the windows of the house open. Women’s faces appear. Debora, Noemi, the child, the servants, crowd onto the veranda, listen anxiously, come down the stairs, enter the courtyard. Mrs. Simpson then appears. She remains on the veranda while the other women have descended into the garden.
THE WOMEN
My God! --- It is near here! They are fighting at the Utrecht gate!
ONE OF THEM, looking at Owen, whom she has bumped into coming down the steps
What is that one doing there?
ANOTHER
He is a coward who refuses to fight.
MRS. SIMPSON, chatting with an officer
Ah, how thrilling, these cries in the distance, this moonlight! It is so poetic!
DEBORA
Each of those shots kills one of ours. God! Why did you let them be surrounded by the enemy?
NOEMI
Do not doubt! He knows what he wills. Let us pray, let us oblige him by our prayers to save us! If you doubt for an instant, all is lost. You must will it.
DEBORA and the women
Yes, yes, I will it! I will that you make us victorious, that you crush these bandits!
MRS. SIMPSON, from the top of the veranda, addressing Debora and Noemi irritably in the courtyard
Be quiet, if you please, madam. Do not weary God with your blasphemous prayers. It is he who strikes you. Try to be humble and profit from the lesson.
DEBORA
It is not God who strikes, it is the demon who is with you!
MRS. SIMPSON, outraged
How dare you speak thus, wretched sinners? It is a falsehood. Remember what is written: “Why do you say: we are wise, and we are the depositories of the law of the Lord? The pen of the doctors of the law is truly a pen of error, and it has written nothing but lies.”
NOEMI
It is you who lie, bitch! Do not speak of God, you have no right.
MRS. SIMPSON
God is with strength and with virtue.
DEBORA
God is with those who suffer for justice.
MRS. SIMPSON
God is with us.
NOEMI
God is ours!
MRS. SIMPSON
My God! --- to me, to me!
DEBORA AND THE WOMEN
To me, to me --- my God!
MRS. SIMPSON
Crush them! Crush their pride!
DEBORA
Avenge us! Burn them in your eternal flame!
NOEMI, inspired
“Let them be as strong and as many as they will, they shall fall like hair before the razor, and they shall disappear! --- I already hear the whips cracking in the distance, the wheels rushing, the horses neighing!… The sword shall exterminate you, the fire shall consume you, like a swarm of beetles!…”
MRS. SIMPSON, inspired, beside herself
God has said, God has said: “Go against Amalek, destroy all that belongs to him, do not spare him. Kill everyone, from man to woman, to the little children, to those still at the breast, to the oxen, to the sheep, to the camels, and to the donkeys!”
DEBORA
Work the miracle!
MRS. SIMPSON
The miracle!
DEBORA
You can do all things. Even if you had to overturn the universe, can you not make your chosen ones triumph?
THE WOMEN, Debora, Noemi, Mrs. Simpson, stretching their hands toward the sky
To us! To us!
Lawrence rushes in, surrounded by other officers.
LAWRENCE
They are caught! The president is caught! All their leaders! They are caught!
The women collapse, crying out and wringing their hands. Mrs. Simpson exults and declaims a “Te Deum.”
THE OFFICERS, in joyful confusion
They tried to force the pass. The president’s horse fell. The old man rolled in the mud. He was picked up stunned, with a dislocated shoulder. His men wanted to take him back. They fought around him, like warriors of Homer. At last, we snatched the prize. We have him, and some of his band.
--- And the others?
--- They are still fighting. But the grapeshot sweeps them. They fall like flies. --- Where is the marshal? --- Here they are, being brought in.
All bloody and covered with mud, torn, filthy, the president --- a great, bearded old man with an ape-like face, in a frock coat, bareheaded --- and several other prisoners, from sixteen to sixty years old --- in frock coats, in unbuttoned jackets, in shirtsleeves --- bareheaded or with soft hats or battered bowler hats --- are pushed forward. The officers burst out laughing.
THE OFFICERS
Ah, good Lord! Let us see! --- Ha, ha! What a sight they are! --- That is some uniform! --- And that is what held us at bay! Is it not humiliating to force gentlemen to fight this lot! How filthy they are! --- And the old man, he is a monkey! --- Ah, old rogue, you wanted to resist England! --- He should be put in a cage!
The women, prostrate, have risen with cries of despair on seeing the prisoners. They stretch their arms toward them: “Father, father! --- my man! --- my poor boy!” The English soldiers push them back. The prisoners, very cold, are silent, with an indifferent air.
MRS. SIMPSON, exulting, showing the prisoners to the women
Well, there it is, the miracle! Are you satisfied?
NOEMI, striking her head against the ground
“I looked upon the earth, and found only nothingness. I beheld the heavens, and they were without light.”
DEBORA, rising and shaking her fist at the sky
Ah, it is too much at last! It is too much! You are deaf then? You betray us! You do not exist! You do nothing! You can do nothing! Fool! Brigand! We pray to you stupidly! There is only us, only us to count on. This miracle, it can come only from ourselves! David! David! When will you rise? When will you strike Goliath?
Little David, standing beside his mother, starts, looks around him with a dark, stubborn air.
Amid the jeers of the English officers, who laugh in the prisoners’ faces, the marshal appears. A great silence falls. The marshal uncovers his head, goes to the president, and offers him his hand.
CLIFFORD
Sir, your heroism has delayed, as far as was possible, an outcome that the inequality of forces made inevitable. I wish you welcome and I am glad to receive so noble an adversary.
The president looks with his dull, large eyes at the marshal and the hand he offers him; he shoves his hands into his pockets and turns his back.
CLIFFORD, stung, frowns, then after a moment, with a haughty and somewhat vexed air, addresses Clodds
Clodds, ask him, if you please, whether he would not care to set aside his resentments for a moment and converse with me.
Clodds approaches the president, who continues to turn his back.
THE PRESIDENT, between his teeth, as if speaking to someone else
I do not know him.
CLIFFORD
I am Lord George Lindsey, Baron Clifford, commander-in-chief of His Britannic Majesty’s army.
THE PRESIDENT, speaking sideways, barely turning his head
Well, what are you doing here? Go away.
CLIFFORD
Sir, it is useless to deny the facts. You are our prisoners. Your cause is defeated. Your defeat honors you, but it would be vain not to acknowledge it. For my part, I have but one wish, and that is to diminish its sadness for you. I am sorry to prolong a fight that can only widen the grave into which your people is falling. Put an end to this unequal struggle. Order them to surrender: I am prepared to grant you a capitulation as honorable as the instructions of my government permit.
THE PRESIDENT
Who do you think I am, to give that order to these boys? Do you think they fight for me, like your domesticated troops of Europe? They fight for their conscience, and they will fight as long as they please, as long as it pleases God, until they die or have beaten you.
CLIFFORD
Will you let them be massacred?
THE PRESIDENT
I no longer have any part in the action. I wait.
CLIFFORD
For what?
THE PRESIDENT
The victory of God.
CLIFFORD
You have not two thousand men left.
THE PRESIDENT
“The Lord said unto Gideon: The people are yet too many. By the three hundred men that lapped the water with their tongue, without kneeling, will I deliver you.”
CLIFFORD, shrugging his shoulder
Your generals are captured. Your people has no more leaders.
THE PRESIDENT
The leader cannot be captured. The leader is God.
CLIFFORD
God has spoken.
THE PRESIDENT
“After he has afflicted us six times, the evil shall not touch us a seventh.”
CLIFFORD
The seventh time, your people will exist no more.
THE PRESIDENT
One cannot kill a people that does not want to die.
CLIFFORD
You know very well that England never yields.
THE PRESIDENT
You can do nothing.
CLIFFORD
You want to push me to the limit?
THE PRESIDENT
You can do nothing. If it pleases God, you will kill us. If it does not please him, you struggle in vain. We are in his hand. Perhaps he has already disposed of you. I wait.
CLIFFORD, beside himself, to his officers
Let us be done with it! Enough patience! Sound the charge! Crush these madmen! Let their blood fall on their own heads! I am victorious. I am… A gunshot. Clifford, surprised, puts his hand to his chest. I am dead… He falls.
During the conversation between the marshal and the president, little David, unnoticed by all, has approached the table where the doctor left the revolver that Clifford gave him. He has taken it furtively; he handles it as if aimlessly --- then, abruptly, before anyone could expect it, he fires at the marshal. He remains, the weapon fallen at his feet, stupefied and terrified at what he has done. General stupor, followed by confused clamor. All eyes turn to the marshal. Only Debora looks at the child, frozen with terror, unable to speak or move.
THE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS
Someone fired!
--- The marshal is wounded!
THE PRESIDENT, crying out
“The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”
THE PRISONERS, uncovering their heads and repeating
The sword of the Lord!
THE OFFICERS
Damnation! Who fired?
--- Look at that child!
--- Viper!
The officers turn on the child, shouting. A great brute, saber raised, throws himself at the boy. A comrade stops his arm.
--- No, Dick, not that!
--- Let me! By thunder! Let me smash his skull!
--- Ah, I said we should crush this brood under our boot!
DEBORA, throwing herself before the child, who has remained as if petrified
You shall not touch him!
THE OFFICERS, beside themselves
There is the murderer! It is she who drove him to kill! Let me go! There are no more women, no children. The beast and its young must be killed.
CLIFFORD, raising himself with effort
I forbid… They stop. He continues in a weaker voice. I forbid anyone to touch this woman and this child.
The officers fall back, trembling. The tumult changes to a violent murmur. Debora, stiffened and clenched like an animal defending its young, suddenly relaxes, and looks at the child with horror.
DEBORA
What have you done!
DAVID, terrified, looking at his hands
I do not know.
MRS. SIMPSON
Ah, infamous woman, it is you, with your provocations, it is you who have made an assassin of this innocent!
DEBORA
An assassin! O my little David!
She embraces him, weeping.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRISONERS
“Bel has been broken. Nebo has been shattered.”
CLODDS
Wretches, be silent! Do you dare boast of this cowardly assassination?
THE PRESIDENT
Murder is contemptible when murder comes from men. But this one comes from God. This creature without reason was merely his instrument.
The doctor, Mrs. Simpson, and several others tend to Clifford.
DEBORA
I have killed! My child has killed. Crime has entered, through me, into the heart of my child!
THE OFFICERS
How was he allowed to approach? --- The marshal had given orders to let him come at any hour.
Debora rises abruptly and wants to approach the wounded Clifford.
MRS. SIMPSON, pushing her back
Go away! Have you no shame?
DEBORA, clasping her hands
Oh, I beg you, I wanted to… I would like to tend him.
MILES
It is a fine time!
CLIFFORD
Let her.
MILES
Bandages.
DEBORA
I will fetch some.
She runs into the house.
CLIFFORD
Bring me the child.
They bring little David, who is frightened, struggles, and cries.
DAVID
No!
CLIFFORD
Do not cry: it is not your fault. --- Doctor, I commend him to you. You will watch over him. I insist, do you hear. --- My little boy! Look at me… You have avenged yourself. I have killed you. Poor martyr of our ambitions and our hatreds, you came here to suffer and die.
THE OFFICERS, among themselves
He is delirious…
CLIFFORD
I have made you suffer in all the little children of this people, whom I have persecuted. I wanted to prevent it. I did not have the strength. Forgive me, innocent victims! We are all victims. One had to be greater than we to resist. I was not a hero. Debora has returned and dresses Clifford’s wound. Thank you. You no longer hate me, then? Debora fiercely indicates that she does. Do not hate anymore. Those who do evil are wretched enough.
DEBORA
What would remain to us, if we no longer had the strength to hate our oppressors?
MILES, to Debora
Fool! --- You have struck the one who protected you.
CLIFFORD
She did well. The guiltiest of all is he who does evil out of weakness, knowing that he does it, and regretting it.
Owen has knelt before Clifford and kisses his hand. Clifford gives him a friendly pat on the head.
AN OFFICER, running in
They surrender! --- Victory!
CLIFFORD
There are no victors, there are only the vanquished.
He dies. They crowd around him. Debora rises, looks about her with an expression of desperate madness, then runs toward the cistern, pushing aside those in her path.
THE OFFICERS
What is wrong with her?
DEBORA, with despair
I can no longer… I can no longer hate!
She throws herself into the cistern.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRISONERS, impassive amid the tumult
“Cry and howl, ye ships of the sea! She shall be destroyed, Tyre, queen of cities, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the shining lords of the earth! Cry and howl, ye ships of the sea, for all your strength shall be destroyed!”
GRAHAM arrives with a group of officers, covered with dust and blood. He goes straight to the dead Clifford, uncovers his head, looks at him for a very brief instant, turns to the other officers, and points to the prisoners.
In a line. The prisoners are lined up --- except the president. Graham counts them, designates one in five. To the officers: Shoot them.
ONE OF THE DESIGNATED PRISONERS throws himself on the ground and kisses it
My land! I will not be separated from you!
GRAHAM
Arrest these women, these children. All are accomplices. Burn the farms. This rabble will depart tomorrow under escort for the coast. This people wants to be exterminated. It shall be.
The crowd of prisoners is led away.
THE PRESIDENT, calm
“All will come right.” (1)
GRAHAM, looking at Owen
And that one, who is he?
(1) Alles zal rech kom! (President Kruger)
CLODDS
He refuses to fight.
GRAHAM, indicating the group of condemned men
With the others!
He climbs the stairs of the house, followed by his officers. Clifford’s body is carried away. The prisoners move off, singing a psalm. Owen follows them, pushed by two soldiers. He is calm and serene.
OWEN
“The time will come, when all men shall know the truth, when they shall beat their spears into scythes, their swords into harrows, and the lion shall lie down beside the lamb. --- The time will come.”
Paris, 1902
Romain ROLLAND
Finished printing two thousand copies of this fourteenth cahier on Thursday, March 12, 1903, at the Printing Works of Suresnes (E. PAYEN, manager), 9, rue du Pont.
We gave the press approval after corrections for two thousand copies of this fourteenth cahier on Tuesday, March 10, 1903.
Manager: CHARLES PEGUY
This cahier was set and printed at the rates of unionized workers.